Club Prive: Book II

  Club Privé

  Book II

  By M.S. Parker

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 M.S. Parker

  Published by M.S. Parker Romance.

  Club Privé - Release schedule:

  Book 1: April 11th

  Book 2: April 25th

  Book 3: May 9th

  Book 4: May 23rd

  Book 5: June 6th

  Once complete the Club Privé series will consist of 5 books in total, each book will be about 25,000 words or 100 pages – A total of 500 pages.

  Connect with me on Facebook: http://Facebook.com/MsParkerAuthor

  Newsletter: – Click here to get an email as soon as the next book in the series is available.

  Contents

  Club Privé - Release schedule:

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Acknowledgement

  About The Author

  Book Description

  I fell hard for his lies, and now he wants my forgiveness. I can't give it to him, can I?

  After discovering that the man she'd slept with wasn't who he claimed to be, Carrie Summers must decide if she's willing to forgive him for his lies. Sure, the sex had been mind-blowing, but was that really a good reason to look past the deceit? And how can she be sure he doesn't have more hidden beneath the surface?

  Gavin Manning could be an angel or devil, with a body and face forged in heaven and a lust from hell. It's a dangerous combination and Carrie knows she shouldn't trust him with her heart. That doesn't mean she can stop craving his touch.

  Book two in M.S. Parker's steamy erotic romance series will turn the heat to the max and leave you panting for more.

  Chapter 1

  I tightened my grip on my phone, Gavin’s words echoing in my ears as he waited for me to respond.

  “I missed you and just had to hear your voice, so I did my detective thing and found your number.”

  What was I supposed to say to that after what I’d just learned?

  The list went rapid-fire through my mind. Gavin pretending to have been just a member of Club Privé when we’d met him there last night, when, in fact, he owned the place. Even worse than that, he had hired Jeff to follow Krissy, to get to know her while pretending to be a rich investor; all so he could get the two of us to the club’s opening. And I still didn’t know who had been the target. Krissy... or me.

  Krissy stared at me with wide eyes. She mouthed his name and I nodded. Her eyes narrowed. “Hang up on the bastard.”

  I was seriously considering it.

  “Carrie?”

  Apparently my near full minute of silence had made Gavin realize that something was wrong.

  “Are you okay?”

  The sincerity in his tone as he asked the question was what set me off. The temper I usually had no problem keeping under control flared.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I didn’t shout the words, but Krissy actually sat back as if I had. My tone was flat and I struggled to keep it that way. “You lie to me, fuck me, and then call me like everything’s just fine?”

  Krissy stood up, the expression on her face saying that she didn’t want to be here for this. I was too pissed at the moment to be grateful for the privacy. I would’ve had it out with Gavin even if we’d been in the middle of a public place. Like I’d said before: I didn’t get truly angry often, but when I did, it was bad.

  “Whoa, wait. What are you talking about?”

  I could hear the shock in his voice, but I didn’t believe it for a moment. It all made sense now. Him knowing where I worked. Showing up at the club. Having access to that room and saying it didn’t matter how long we were there. He’d been playing me. I wouldn’t even put it past him to have arranged our first meeting at Huggins. I wanted answers, and I could feel the cool logic that made me good at my job breaking through my anger. One fueled the other and my focus sharpened.

  “Let’s start with the easy one.” Studying to be a lawyer had taught me to think in steps. Some lawyers came out with the big guns first, but I always did it the other way, building my case from the weakest link to the strongest, wanting to leave the jury with the most damning piece of evidence when they went to deliberation. “You aren’t a member of Club Privé. You own it.”

  Silence.

  At least he didn’t come back with a quick denial. That would’ve pissed me off more.

  “You’re half-right,” he said finally. “I’m only part owner. I have several silent partners.”

  “Part owner,” I echoed his words back to him. He still sounded like he was hedging, and I needed to know how open he was going to be. If he balked at this, I’d never get the truth out of him about the stalking.

  “Club Privé was my idea but a club this elaborate, of this magnitude, requires a lot of capital,” he explained. “I could never have built this on my own. There are nine other investors. Technically, they each own a part of the club, but since I’m the creator and day-to-day manager, I guess you could say I’m the owner.” His tone had shifted from confused concern to something more cautious.

  “You told me you were a member. You never said anything about being a part owner.” I stuck with the accusatory method rather than asking questions. I wasn’t in the courtroom, so I could get away with it. Besides, I was still pissed.

  “I like you, Carrie, but I don’t know you that well,” he said. “I wanted to see if you liked me for who I was, not because I had money. I’ve had enough women offer to sleep with me to get to my bank account.”

  I scowled. That was a good reason. I didn’t want him to have a good reason. I wanted to trap him in this lie without an excuse so that it would be easy to believe he was just a fake, a bastard pretending to be a good guy.

  “I’ll give you that,” I had to concede before I moved on to the big issue. “But you also said it was a coincidence that we ended up at the club at the same time.”

  I paused, waiting to see if he’d incriminate himself or lie again. He did neither.

  “You knew I’d be there.” My voice grew tight as the betrayal cut through me again. “You knew because your employee, Jeff, told you that I would be. He told you because you hired him to stalk my roommate and use her to get to me.”

  “Carrie, that’s not–”

  I interrupted, my temper overcoming my logic as my hurt strengthened my anger. “It’s bad enough you kept tabs on me, but to have someone follow my friend and pretend to like her? They slept together, you know. You paid your employee to fuck my friend. Do you know what that makes you?”

  “Hold on!” Gavin raised his voice, cutting off my tirade. “That’s not what happened.”

  “So you’re calling Krissy a liar? Or was it just Jeff who’s lying?”

  “No,” Gavin said. “That’s not – I mean...” He sighed. “I did have Jeff get to know Krissy and invite her to the Club. I asked him to suggest she bring you, but I never told him to sleep with her. In fact, I told him just the opposite. He could flirt, but he wasn’t supposed to have sex with her.”

  “Excuse me if I don’t believe a word you say.” I pulled my legs up underneath me. Part of me wanted to curl up in a ball here on the couch and cry, but I cou
ldn’t do that. Not until I knew the truth.

  “Look, from the moment I met you at Huggins, I was drawn to you.” Gavin’s voice took on an almost desperate note. “I kept waiting for your call, and when you didn’t make one, I thought maybe I’d done something wrong. I got curious. I had to know more about you, find you so I could figure out what happened. I did go back to the bar to ask about you. It’s the truth. It wasn’t until after we went to lunch that I realized I had to be a bit more creative if I wanted to learn more about you. Getting Jeff to invite you both to the club seemed like a good idea at the time. It was stupid, I know, but I was desperate. I needed to know more.”

  “So you hired someone to stalk my best friend?” I ignored the way my stomach squirmed when he talked about needing me.

  “What better way to get to know someone than to talk to the person who knows them best?”

  That was actually pretty smart, I thought.

  “I’m so sorry, Carrie. And please tell Krissy that I never meant for her to get caught in this. It was just supposed to be a few drinks. I didn’t know Jeff was going to sleep with her.”

  That wasn’t going to happen. “You’re going to have to make right with her on your own. I’m not playing your go-between.”

  “Fair enough,” Gavin said. His voice softened. “Please believe me, Carrie. I just wanted to see you, to get to know you. I was an idiot who went way too far, but I get...obsessive when there’s something I want. And I want you.”

  I swallowed hard as my body responded to his words. I wanted him too. Badly. But could I trust him? Trust wasn’t really an issue for a fling, but if it was ever going to be anything more than that one time – okay, technically two times – I had to know that he was being honest with me.

  “You lied.”

  He was silent for a moment. “No more lies. I swear. Please, forgive me. Let me see you again. I promise to make it up to you.” He sounded more insecure than I’d have thought possible. “Forgive me.”

  I wanted to, and the words were on the tip of my tongue to say. Just a few little words and I could be with him. But my heart still stung with his betrayal, and no matter how good he was in bed, or how enamored with him I was, it wasn’t enough to soothe the pain.

  “I don’t think I can.”

  I hung up before he could plead his case any further.

  Chapter 2

  I’d had some bad weekends in my life, but this past one was definitely near the top of my list. Krissy hadn’t asked me for an explanation, but she deserved one, so I told her everything, leaving nothing out. She was a smart woman. She could decide for herself what Jeff’s intentions had been. In true Krissy fashion, she’d declared the need for shopping therapy. I’d declined the invitation and spent the rest of the day moping around in my robe and eating half a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I’d retreated into my room by the time Krissy returned with three bags, two of which were full of shoes. She was also smiling and in a great mood. Apparently there was something to be said for shopping therapy.

  Then it was Monday morning and time to head back to work. I’d turned my phone off after Gavin had called twice, and now, as I headed for my desk, I turned it back on. We weren’t allowed to take personal calls at work, but we could leave our phones on if clients had our numbers. A good lawyer can be reached any time of day or night. I stopped halfway to my desk, staring at my phone.

  Four more missed calls. A total of six voicemails – I hadn’t bothered listening to or deleting the first two – and twelve text messages.

  I shook my head as I started walking again. I sat down and placed my phone on my desk. I was torn. Did I want to just erase everything without listening or reading, or did I at least want to hear what he had to say? Even as I tapped voicemail, I asked myself if I only wanted to listen to the voicemails to hear the sound of his voice. I didn’t answer.

  Each one was the same. He apologized. Said that he never meant for anyone to get hurt. Begged me to forgive him.

  I erased them all and then looked at the text messages. They would probably just be more of the same, but I couldn’t help myself. I began to go through them one at a time.

  “Please, baby, forgive me. I’m so sorry.”

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  “I just want to see you again.”

  He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said he was obsessive. I knew it should have freaked me out, but it didn’t. There was something about his persistence that was flattering and sweet rather than creepy. I’d never had anyone pursue me even a fraction as passionately. He may have lied about the details of who he was, but I’d connected with him more deeply than on the surface. The parts of him that were intense and attentive, those were genuine. He was strong and had a fierceness to him, but I hadn’t detected a hint of violence in him. I didn’t need to be scared of him. I knew that. What I didn’t know was if I could ever trust him.

  As I was deleting the last of his messages, a delivery man walked down the aisle next to my desk, a bouquet of red roses in his arms. It didn’t really surprise me when he stopped in front of me.

  “Carrie Summers?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said with a sigh.

  “Here.” He handed me the flowers, gave me a smile, and walked away.

  I didn’t have to look at the card to know who they were from, but I did anyway.

  “I’m so sorry – G.”

  I threw the flowers into the trash and pushed thoughts of Gavin out of my mind. I had work to do.

  There was one little problem with my plan to use work as a distraction. The only case I was supposed to be working on at the moment was the Howard Weiss divorce. I hadn’t considered how much Gavin was going to show up in my research.

  Mimi had assigned me to find out as much as possible about Howard’s personal habits, before and after his marriage, as well as since his separation. The best place to start for anything that could be considered dirt was in the very place that did the mud-slinging: gossip magazines and tabloids. While the latter were notorious for making up stories, occasionally they did stumble across a little bit of truth. Besides, if Howard’s wife’s attorney was any good at his or her job at all, these rumors were going to be ammunition.

  I went back nearly twenty-five years, to when Princeton graduate Howard Weiss had taken the business world by storm. He’d been one of the city’s most eligible bachelors by age twenty-two and, from the looks of things, had made the most of it. Nearly every picture I found had at least one woman on his arm, usually some new up-and-coming actress or model. Going through Howard’s dating history was like looking at a list of the country’s future stars. Most of them were names that were still big now. Cassandra Maltese had won a Golden Globe last year for her portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt, and Neesa Kole was considered one of the hottest lingerie models over thirty. I’d seen Tony Award-winning Iris Sanderson on Broadway two months ago when Mimi had given me one of her extra tickets.

  As of fifteen years ago, the pictures shifted to Howard with one woman: heiress Meredith Decker-Weiss. Her family had invested in Howard’s companies at the beginning, helping him go from handsome, wealthy businessman to richer than they were. He and she had dated for just eight months before getting married in a huge, lavish wedding. For the first year, everything had seemed perfect. I found hundreds of articles and photographs where they were together, arms around each other, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. I sincerely hoped that this was going to continue. We could deal with a reformed ladies’ man.

  Then, other pictures started to creep in. According to what I read, Meredith had begun to spend more time doing charity work and less time pandering to the cameras with Howard. They both claimed that she preferred privacy, and he had no problem being the public face of the companies he ran. In the years that followed, pictures of Howard generally included pretty, petite blonds hanging on his every word.

  I sighed. Once a dog... I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I couldn’t judge my clien
t. Even if he had been cheating on his wife with every one of these women, the only way it was relevant was in regard to how it affected the case – who could prove what. Pictures at public events where the most intimate contact was his hand resting on a hip didn’t mean infidelity. Or so I told myself as I turned my attention back to the photographs.

  At first, the women were dressed a little too... “party girl” for his formal events, but starting about six years ago, there was a subtle change. The women he was with in the newer photos looked more sophisticated and less like co-eds. Their hair, while probably still not natural blond for the majority of them, didn’t have the brassy, fried look of a cheap dye job. They too wore make-up, but less of it. Gone were the blood-red lips, changed out for something a little more subtle. Their dresses were still fitted and revealing, but looked more like something from the red carpet than from a frat party.

  I wasn’t sure if that meant Howard had gone from girls he could flirt with while they went with him to events to women who could hold a decent conversation, or just that he’d finally realized that he’d started looking like someone having a mid-life crisis.

  I was still pondering the reason for the change when a familiar face caught my eye. My heart skipped a beat as I saw Gavin standing off to the side at a charity ball. He was dressed in a tux and looking good enough to eat. I swallowed hard, then glanced at the date. Over a year ago. I didn’t know how long Gavin had worked for Howard, but this suggested at least fourteen or fifteen months.

  I kept looking through the pictures, but instead of paying attention to the three or four repeating female faces that showed up next to Howard, I found myself scanning the background, looking for that handsome profile. The next time I spotted him, he was right next to Howard in the center of the photograph. I read the caption, hoping for some insight as to what Gavin did for his boss, but there was nothing there. Not just no information about Gavin’s relationship to Howard, but nothing about Gavin at all. It was like he didn’t exist.