Reveal (Wicked Ways #2)(2)

“And yet the check was written and cashed after I approached you about representation.”

“We were in negotiations.”

“I guess so long as one of us gets you.” His snort of a chuckle resonates through the space, and the sarcasm in it contradicts his words. “Too bad now I’ll have to find another attorney who will rip you to shreds.” Satisfaction blankets his expression.

Call it a hunch, call it a gut instinct, but there’s something else going on here. Something else I can’t put my finger on that has to do with so much more than my representing his wife, Bianca.

“I’m sure we’ll be able to figure things out without anyone being ripped to shreds.”

His laugh is rich and even, and in a matter of seconds it goes from reverberating off the walls of the small space to silent. “What? No Roxanne?”

His comment about the relationship I had with a married woman is like whiplash to my brain, the implied threat behind it even more so, but I try to hide it with a knowing chuckle. “Roxanne?”

“Ah, come on, Lockhart. Chuck was running his mouth at The Club again. Everyone knows you were fucking her.”

Goddamn Chuck.

“That was over before it began.”

Carter runs the length of his unlit Cuban cigar beneath his nose and inhales its rich scent. “That’s not exactly how the rumor mill is spinning it. She was at your place not too long ago.”

“In the lobby, but no farther.” How the hell does he know this?

“I have eyes everywhere, my friend,” he says, answering my unspoken question and loving every moment of my reaction.

“Then your eyes should know she was begging and I was walking the other way.” The questions is, Did his eyes see Vaughn there too? Did they see us go into the bathroom where we argued and then she left alone?

“Could you imagine if it got out that you were sleeping with your client’s wife? Representing a man who thinks you have his best interests in mind when in reality you’re betraying his trust? Your word is everything in this business, isn’t it?”

There goes the warning shot over the bow. The man is known for toying with his prey before he goes in for the kill.

“Your point, Senator?”

“You want to explain to me why I see a high-dollar madam here? Why I’ve seen you with her before?”

I fight every immediate reaction I have. The What the fuck are you talking about? The What do you mean there is a high-dollar madam here? All of them, because he just made the connection that Vee is Vaughn, and what the hell am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to play this other than to act like it’s no big deal when he’s staring at me, wanting a reaction?

I refuse to give him the fight he’s looking for.

“What’s it to you?”

“I believe paying for sex is illegal, Counselor.” His scoff fills the small room and drowns out the sounds of my guests outside.

“Says a man who has no problem breaking the law himself,” I say to neutralize his thinly veiled threat and to let him know I’ve heard the rumors about his dealings. About lobbyists and greased palms. About him using an escort service and paying for sex himself.

Something’s off, though. He’s on edge beneath the designer threads and practiced politician’s smile, regardless of how relaxed he pretends to be.

Bianca’s words from our conversation earlier this week ghost through my mind. My husband is struggling right now. It’s difficult for a man who’s always in control to feel that he’s losing it when it comes to me. I think of her tight smile and the unforgiving look in her eyes. I will take so much pleasure in being the one to prove to him that he can never have control over me again. Find out whatever you can on him—the women he cheats on me with, the bribes he takes, the hookers he pays—and I want you to use every single one of them to win me more. But be warned, once he knows you’re a threat to him and his endgame, he’ll do whatever it takes to bury you. Morality isn’t exactly his strong suit.

“Sometimes a man has to do what he has to do.” Carter’s unabashed shrug is followed by the flash of a smile. “Especially when it comes to getting the upper hand.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Hasn’t your practice had some troubling incidents as of late?” He walks toward the bar and selects a bottle of Jameson off the shelf without asking. The neck clinks as it touches his glass when he helps himself to more. “In addition to Roxanne, of course.”

My mind scrambles to figure out what he’s referring to but draws a blank.

“Is this you pretending to have some bogus upper hand on me?” I ask through a laugh. I don’t care who the fuck he is—vice president or senator or a goddamn errand boy, he’s full of crap.

His laugh reverberates around the room. “Nah, we’re just two guys shooting the shit here. Sharing stories. Trading favors. Looking out for one another.”

That’s how he wants to play this? Ask to see me, confront me over Bianca, then Vaughn, threaten me, and now act like we’re buddies?

Keep it casual, Ryk. The less you say, the better, until you figure out what it is that he’s after. Because he is after something.

“Is that so?”

“You tell me. Is it?”

“You said you wanted something from me,” I reiterate in this verbal game of cat and mouse, sick of the chase. “Care to tell me what that is so I can get back to my guests?”