Deception: The Deception Trilogy, Book 1 Read online

  I hobbled up the stairs to the club and realized the two security guards outside weren’t the same ones from last night. The tallest of the two (and they were both pretty tall) held up a hand to stop my entrance.

  “The Patrician is members-only, madam.”

  Unable to bear the pain any longer, I slipped off my shoes and made a face. “I’m Melanie. Jennings. The boss’s girlfriend.”

  A spark of recognition lit his eyes. “Of course. We’ll just need to see some I.D.”

  Huffing, I took my wallet out. Octavius had given me Melanie’s driver license.

  The security guard took it and nodded. “Sorry, Miss Jennings. We just have to make sure.”

  “That’s alright.”

  The other guard nodded to my feet. “Can we be of assistance?”

  I smiled weakly. “Thank you but no. Just new shoes.” They opened the door to let me in. “What are your names?”

  “Williams,” the one who had asked for my I.D. responded.

  “Hyde,” the other offered.

  “Williams, Hyde, nice to meet you.”

  They grinned at me and I smiled back, walking into the club shoeless. The cool marble felt great on my sore, hot feet.

  Xavier, who seemed to be everywhere at once, strode across the marble entrance, frowning at my bare feet. “Are you alright, Miss Jennings?”

  I gestured with the shoes. “New shoes.”

  “There is a first aid kit in the kitchen of the penthouse. It has antiseptic and band aids in it.”

  The man anticipated my every need. I hoped Griff was paying him well. “Thanks, Xavier. But first, where is Griff? I need to talk to him.”

  “He’s in his office but he is just about to leave for a business meeting.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  I got in the elevator and used my keycard to access the penthouse. Once inside I wandered left down the massive entrance hall of the apartments, passed the sitting room, the movie room and then the drawing room. Griff’s office was up and across the hall, in what I’d guessed that morning to be the beginning of his own private suite of rooms in the west wing of the penthouse.

  I knocked on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Striding inside at the curt welcome, I tried not to glower at the impatient scowl he gave me. “What is it?” he snapped. “I’m leaving for a meeting.”

  I didn’t know what had crawled up his ass from this morning in the library to now but I was going to try to ignore it. “I think I was just approached by a reporter.”

  His brows drew together. “You think?”

  “I was reading in The Garden when she sat down and started asking me questions. She tried to make it seem like polite chit-chat but she acted like she knew you and said that she’d seen me with you at the Ruby Room last night. Alicia Young.”

  “I’ve never heard of her so I definitely don’t know her. Our photos showed up on an online society magazine this morning. I didn’t expect other gossip rags to act so quickly on this.”

  “Well apparently you’ve underestimated your appeal.”

  Griff studied me thoughtfully. “I don’t think it’s just my appeal. One photo in particular was… interesting.”

  My heart started to pound for some inexplicable reason. “Show me.”

  “I don’t have time.” He strode toward me and stopped inches from my body, forcing me to tilt my head back to look up at him. “Just google my name if you’re interested. You’ll find the article.”

  I tried not to react to his nearness but my body didn’t oblige me. Every part of me longed to lean into him. It was ridiculous.

  Griff frowned. “I need to leave.”

  “Oh, right.” Flushing, I spun around and wrenched open his office door, hurrying out into the hallway.

  “Where are your shoes?” he asked as he caught up with me.

  “By the elevator. They were hurting. New shoes.”

  “There’s a first aid kit in the kitchen if you need it.”

  “Xavier said, thank you.”

  We reached the elevator and I grabbed up the shoes. Griffin pressed the button and the elevator door opened but before he stepped inside he turned to me. “You didn’t speak to the reporter then?”

  “No, I evaded her questions, pretended I needed to be somewhere, and came straight here.”

  “You did the right thing. Don’t speak directly to them.”

  “I won’t.”

  He gave me a nod and stepped into the elevator. “Dinner. Tonight. Here. Seven o’clock.”

  I nodded and waited until the doors had closed to let out the breath I’d been holding.

  Why the hell, out of all the men I’d ever met in my life, did Griffin Mandeville have to be the one to make me react this way?

  “I don’t even like him,” I muttered to myself as I strode toward my bedroom. As soon as I caught sight of my bed which had been made by some invisible maid service, I felt a familiar tension coil tight in my belly. I remembered my fantasy from last night.

  I’d learned something new about myself. Apparently, I didn’t need to like a man to want him.

  ◆◆◆

  Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as I sat at the dining table waiting for Griff to appear. It was past seven o’ clock that evening and he still hadn’t shown up.

  After Griff left that afternoon, I’d googled him on my phone and found the article on Elite, a Boston society online magazine. There was an article about Griffin Mandeville’s mystery woman. They referred to Griff as one of Boston’s most eligible and evasive bachelors, talking about his aristocratic blood and status among the wealthiest members of East Coast society. They also talked about The Patrician, and how even though its members were in the thousands, no one outside of the club were really sure what went on behind closed doors— only that its members seemed to revere the club owner. And then there was the first photograph of us heading into The Meritage. Griff had has his hand on my lower back in that proprietary way of his and I was looking at my shoes as we walked inside.

  I barely recognized myself in my designer gear with my hair blowing back in long beachy waves as we strolled inside. I wasn’t short but I wasn’t tall either, and even with my ample curves, Griff managed to make me look small and feminine beside him.

  The article referred to me as ‘an unnamed mystery redhead’. They speculated whether I was just another in a long line of ‘beautiful women the notorious Englishman has dated’ but couldn’t remember Griff ever displaying his passion for his date quite as frankly as he had with me. I’d know what they meant when I scrolled down and saw the second photo they’d posted. It was one of Griff and I kissing outside the Ruby Room.

  While he held my face tenderly in his hands, the kiss looked hungry and the way my fingers curled into his sweater, pulling him into me, looked hungrier.

  The photo was extremely disconcerting.

  We looked like a genuine couple, forgetting ourselves on the sidewalk, going at each other like teenagers. To be honest it had felt like that in the moment, too.

  It took me a while to shake the image (and the memory) out of my head.

  The rest of the day I’d familiarized myself with the huge penthouse. Although we had a fully-stocked kitchen I’d learned from Xavier that if Griff decided to dine at the club Chef Depardieu sent up a tray. Tonight the charismatic chef was catering our meal too. There were three more guest rooms in the penthouse but none quite so gargantuan as mine. There was a cozier one, a little closer to Griff’s rooms, that struck my fancy. It’s style was less Louis XIV and more traditional New England in its aesthetic. It was airy, decorated in whites and blues, with shaker furniture and beautiful abstract artwork in soft colors entirely from the blue family. I reminded myself to ask Griff about who the artist was. However, I didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask to be transferred to the room just yet but once I got to know Griff better I’d ask him if it was a possibility.

  I also met Shandra, Gillian, Mikayla and Kenny. T
hey were the club cleaners and they also cleaned the penthouse every couple of days. Xavier informed me they cleaned Griff’s rooms every day and now they would clean mine every day too. I wanted to tell him that it wasn’t necessary—that I was quite capable of cleaning my own rooms—but Melanie Jennings The Wannabe Socialite would definitely not clean her own toilet.

  At around three o’ clock club members started to appear and I darted down the back staircase Xavier had shown me and came out of the access door on the third floor. From there I peered down over the balcony and people-watched for a while. Some wandered upstairs for treatments and smiled curiously at me as they passed.

  By five o’ clock the noise in the hazard room on the second floor was growing steadily louder and I marveled at how many club members were showing up on a week day.

  Clearly there was something addictive about the old world charm of Griff’s club that appealed to them. Although there was a wi-fi service so businessmen and women could take calls if they needed to, there were no televisions, laptops or tablets anywhere in the club. When Pete was showing me around that morning he’d said that Griff wanted the place to be an escape from the trials and stresses of modern life and for the most part that included technology. If they wished to bring their work with them to the club they could and many did do business from the study downstairs, but it was entirely up to them. Griff was happy to offer them an escape from outside connections in here.

  Apparently the modern man and woman found that very appealing if the number of members was anything to go by.

  Soon I was pulled from my people watching when I realized the time. Not sure how I was supposed to dress for dinner at home, I decided on a pencil dress in forest green that looked great with my copper-red hair.

  Hungry and about to give up on my husband-to-be, I felt a flash of irritation as he finally walked into the dining room at seven-thirty.

  “Sorry I’m late.” He pulled out the chair at the end of the long table.

  Staring down the length of it, I felt annoyed and somewhat ridiculous—like a character out of a Disney movie—as I had to raise my voice for him to hear me he was so far away. “You could have called me.”

  “I don’t have your number.”

  “Then I guess I better give you it,” I said in my normal voice.

  “Pardon?”

  “Oh for Christ sake.” I stood up, picking up my plate and cutlery and wandered down the generous sixteen seater table to his end. The plate clattered on the table as I took the seat on his right.

  Griff raised an eyebrow and I caught the amusement glimmering in his eyes.

  “What?” I shrugged. “I’m not sitting at the other end of the table like some freaking Victorian housewife.”

  He grinned, a wickedly crooked smile that made my butterflies riot. “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

  “So you didn’t ask for that seating arrangement?”

  “No.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking suddenly tired. “The whole point of eating together is to become familiar with one another so we can con my father’s lawyers into thinking our connection is real. I’d rather not have to use a phone to call you at the table in order to do that.”

  I smiled. “I’m glad we’re in agreement.”

  “They’re coming up with the food now,” he said. “I’m starved.”

  “What made you late?”

  “Business,” he said curtly.

  “What business?”

  Griff cut me an imperious look that was supposed to intimidate me into minding my own business.

  Okay, so it intimidated me a little but I’d realized from the first moment we met that I needed Griff to know he might be ‘paying’ me to be his wife but he didn’t own me or my thoughts and actions. I had to speak my mind to assert myself. “We’re supposed to be getting to know each other. It was a fairly innocuous question.”

  He studied me a moment, his expression blank. “I’m building luxury apartments down by the harbor. I had a progress meeting with my architect and builder.”

  “And how is it progressing?”

  “My builder is budget savvy, my architect is not.”

  I smiled at what he didn’t say. “So you’re playing intermediary?”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes I agree with my builder, sometimes my architect.”

  “When will the apartments be ready?”

  “Not for another nine months. At least that’s the plan.”

  “What other pies do you have your fingers in?”

  Griff looked at me sharply, his eyes darkening and I forced back the blush I felt rising to my cheeks.

  “Business pies,” I clarified.

  His lips twitched. “All kinds. Construction. Real Estate. Investments. Those are varied.”

  “Here’s what I don’t get: you’re accomplished, successful and wealthy. Why would your father put such a ludicrous codicil in his will. It’s not like you were some wayward son he was trying to bring to heel.”

  Griff narrowed his eyes, and his whole expression grew taut with some unnamed emotion. “But that’s exactly what I was to him. Everything I have? It has nothing to do with him.”

  Confused I shook my head. “Surely that should have made him even more proud of you.”

  “Quite the contrary.” Griff suddenly relaxed, as if he’d forced himself to, slouching against his chair with an insouciance I didn’t believe. “All you need to know, Miss Jennings, is that my father was a controlling bastard. I told him numerous times I would never marry so he did the one thing that he knew would make me miserable. He found a way to force me into a situation of his making in order to receive my inheritance. If it weren’t for the fact that the inheritance is quite substantial and I’d rather rot than see my uncle Sebastian piss it away in the wind, I wouldn’t bother.”

  “Your father wanted you to be miserable?”

  “What did you do today?” he abruptly changed the subject.

  Even if Xavier hadn’t appeared at that moment, pushing a cart into the room with our dinner on it, I would have dropped the subject. I knew a little something about not wanting to talk about dead parents. However, I got the distinct impression my reason was a different reason than Griff’s.

  “Xavier, do you ever take the day off?” I asked as he served us, perturbed by his continued presence at the club.

  “I work four days on and four days off, Miss Jennings.”

  “There’s another butler?”

  “His name is Wells,” Griff replied. “He’s Xavier’s protégé.”

  “And doing rather well, isn’t he, Mr. Mandeville?” Xavier said proudly.

  “There will never be another Xavier,” Griff replied.

  His response was genuine but casual, like he didn’t realize how much it meant to his employee. But I watched the way Xavier turned a little red with flushed pleasure as he told us to enjoy our meal.

  “This place is like something out of a time capsule,” I said as Xavier exited the room. “You may have rescinded the title, Griff, but you’re lord of the manor here.”

  “And don’t forget it.”

  “Well if you’re lord, I’m lady,” I reminded him as I started to dig into the steak Xavier had put in front of me. My knife cut through it like butter and I almost salivated.

  “Yes, but the kind of lady I want you to be. Since I’m paying you and all.”

  I laughed at his outrageous arrogance. “True enough.”

  “Why do I get the feeling then that you’re going to do whatever the hell you want while you’re here?”

  My heart raced a little faster at the teasing in his tone. I didn’t dare look at him, afraid my insane attraction to him would beam out of my eyes for the whole world to see. “Maybe because you’re smarter than you look.”

  “Melanie.”

  At the sudden change in his tone, I looked up.

  His expression was hard. “All joking aside, you’re my employee and you’ll act as I want you to.”

  “To a
n extent yes. But I’ll repeat what I said last night. While we’re alone I won’t temper my responses or simper under your perpetual glower. I’m going to spend the next five years pretending to be someone I’m not so I don’t think it’s too much to ask to be allowed to be myself with you. And honestly, I’m not asking Griffin. You’re the one person who will know who I really am.” I almost winced at the lie. “I won’t stifle my real self around you.”

  We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity as I tried to work out what he was thinking.

  Finally, he said, “You deliberately misled me in our first meeting.”

  The mention of our first meeting made me want to squirm in my seat. It bothered me not knowing exactly what happened in that meeting with him and my sister.

  “How so?” I hedged.

  “You suggested you would act in any manner I wished for the right money. You were trying to be coquettish and alluring. I found it mercenary. Which actually appealed to the businessman in me. I thought you were perfect for the job because of it. But you haven’t acted like that since. In fact you’re very different.”

  I struggled to find a reason and finally lowered my gaze to my plate as I replied, “I said and did what I thought I needed to in order to secure the job.”

  “Why did you want it so badly?”

  I couldn’t tell him it was to pay off Octavius’s debt so I thought about why I, Scarlett, would do it if I’d been forced to become an escort for money. Unable to meet his gaze, I said, “Being an escort doesn’t always mean sex.” According to Mel and Octavius, sometimes my sister was just a paid companion, “But of course there are times that’s exactly what it means. So…someone offers that kind of money for a job that will mean not having to let strange men touch you ever again, you’ll do just about anything to make sure you get it.”

  Griff was silent a long time.

  Finally, I looked over at him.

  He gave nothing away.

  Finally he asked, his voice softer than I’d heard it before, “Why did you become an escort in the first place?”

  Why had my sister become an escort?

  I took a guess. “I don’t have a degree, and I have nothing to qualify me but a string of shitty jobs. Then there’s my criminal record which makes it almost impossible to get a crappy job. I could barely make enough money to survive, living in crappy neighborhoods, in crappy apartments. I wanted better. Octavius offered me better. At least with him I’m protected, it’s not always about sex, and it’s better pay, better situations than the average prostitute deals with on the street.”