The Dom Identity

Reloaded, Book 2, Masters and Mercenaries, Book 23

Hardback: Amazon

About the book

A man with everything

Michael Malone seems to have it all. A wealthy, loving family. A job that fulfills him. Friends he can count on. But something is missing. He’s spent years watching his brother and close friends get married and start families, but it hasn’t happened for him. When an assignment comes up to investigate fallen Hollywood star Vanessa Hale, he jumps at the chance. She’s gorgeous and potentially deadly. Playing the spy game with her might be just the thing to take his mind off his troubles.

A woman with nothing left to lose

Vanessa Hale had big dreams that ended in scandal. She returned home with nothing but heartache and the desire to find her sister’s killer. The trail points to someone at Lodge Corp, so taking a job with Julian Lodge’s mysterious company is her best option for finding the truth. While she hunts for a killer during the day, she hopes to find some solace at night in The Club. Meeting the gorgeous, sexy and seemingly kind Michael Malone, their chemistry sparks in a way she’s never felt before, and Vanessa thinks maybe her luck has finally changed.

A love that might save them both

When Michael’s true motives are revealed, she will have to find a way to forgive his betrayal. The killer has made Vanessa their next target. Working together and stopping this monster is the only chance for them to have the real love they both deserve.

Excerpt

Chapter One

Between the elegant buffet set in the conference room and the sense of hushed anticipation that hung over the office, it was obvious something big was happening this morning.

Michael Malone just wished it wasn’t happening to him. He’d been somewhat excited about the idea of a new assignment when it had first been floated by him, but now he wondered if life wouldn’t be easier if he avoided this particular job.

“He doesn’t even eat carbs,” a deep voice argued. “These babies will be wasted on him.”

“He eats carbs,” a feminine voice replied.

“No, he doesn’t. Julian Lodge lives off the blood of his enemies, baby. That’s it. That’s how he stays all lean and predatory. Also, should we be having this meeting in the light of day?” Yep. That was his boss. Ian Taggart.

Michael had been working for McKay-Taggart Security for…had it really been the majority of his adult life? He’d started out—like most MT employees—in the military. The Navy had led to the SEALS and the SEALs to the CIA. The CIA had turned into a clusterfuck of a job, and so he’d landed here and stayed.

He liked his job, enjoyed his team. So why the fuck had he started to think about quitting?

“He’s not a vampire.” Despite the fact that he couldn’t see Charlotte Taggart, he heard the smile in her voice. She always seemed genuinely amused by her husband’s antics. Which was a good thing because there were a lot of them.

“Think about it.” The man most people called Big Tag chuckled. “Have you ever seen him in the light of day?”

“Yes. Many times,” Charlotte insisted.

“Never even once.” Big Tag continued like his wife had replied in the way he wanted her to. But that was his boss. He plowed through life like a steamroller.

That wasn’t fair. A steamroller flattened things, and the truth of the matter was Big Tag tended to make life better for the people he met. The Taggarts were responsible for most of the good marriages around him. He’d recently been to one of the weddings Charlotte and Ian had a direct hand in.

How the hell had Hutch gotten married before him?

And when had he started to feel like a wallflower at some Regency ball? It wasn’t like he was on the shelf or something. He was a man in the prime of his life, and he wasn’t unattractive. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had some good shots. So why hadn’t they worked out? After a while a guy started to wonder.

He should never have agreed to watch movies with his mother after her surgery. She’d suffered a hard fall while riding around the ranch she and his dad lived on. Shoulder surgery had followed, and he’d taken his turn making sure she wasn’t alone. She’d made him sit through rom coms and a weird amount of Regency romantic drama, and now he was a Jane Austen character worried about his marital prospects.

“Is the big guy here yet?”

Michael turned, and Kyle Hawthorne was standing there. Kyle was a reminder that everyone was moving forward, including Michael’s ex-fiancée. She was marrying Kyle’s brother.

“No, he’s still fifteen minutes out.” And now his morning was complete because there she was. Tessa Santiago, soon-to-be Hawthorne. Never to be Malone because he’d been the dumbass who couldn’t love her the way she needed to be loved.

He was starting to wonder if he could love anyone. Maybe his twin had gotten all those genes. It was weird. All of his life he and JT had basically been in the same place, but the last several years had changed all of that. His identical twin had gotten married and now had two kids.

Michael was still drifting through life.

“I don’t get it. It’s like we’re entertaining the president or something.” Kyle glanced into the conference room. “Charlotte threatened unholy hell on anyone who ate the pastries before the client gets here. I saw Li taking Boomer out of the office because he doesn’t think he can stay away from a buffet. Is he a freak of nature or something? How the hell does he eat the way he does and not weigh a thousand pounds?”

“Boomer works out hard, and he’s got a freaky metabolism. And we didn’t do all this for the actual president,” Tessa pointed out. “All he got was some drive-through. But this is Julian Lodge. For Big Tag, he’s way more important than any president.”

“He’s intimidating.” Kyle frowned. “You know how Big Tag explodes at least twice a day? Julian is the guy who never explodes. He’s kept all that rage and hate inside for years, and one day it’s going to come out. You do not want to be standing in front of him then.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. “He’s a sweetheart. I think you’re projecting because you kind of defined yourself there, buddy.”

Kyle sighed. “That’s probably fair. But I still say Julian Lodge is scarier than Big Tag.”

“How do you know Julian?” Michael was surprised Tessa was talking like she’d made a study of the man. Tessa had only been with McKay-Taggart for two years, and in all that time Julian had never once come to the office. She wouldn’t have worked with him. Tessa was in the bodyguard unit. Lodge had his own full-time bodyguards.

Julian Lodge ran Lodge Corp, a multibillion-dollar company that he’d inherited from his parents. More importantly to Big Tag, he ran an investment group called the Masters Fund. It was also worth several billion dollars and was the very reason Big Tag was loaded. That was where a lot of people got it wrong. They thought Tag’s money came from the company, and some of it did, but the big bucks came from shrewd investments and making the money he had work for him.

Julian Lodge had taught Tag that. He’d been the first investor in McKay-Taggart and now was treated like royalty.

But he wasn’t sure how Tessa knew that since she hadn’t come to the yearly football games Big Tag and Julian threw that sometimes included one of them putting an actual athlete on the payroll in order to win. Those “family” picnics were vicious at times, with Big Tag and Julian going at each other like two T-Rexes fighting for territory.

“Oh, I had to meet with him when I started going to The Club.” Tessa’s tone had gone soft.

“It’s so gross. She calls my brother Professor, and they run some hard-core scenes about her not turning in her homework.” Kyle made a vomiting sound. “I joined The Club to get away from my family.”

She was going to The Club with David Hawthorne. Well, of course she was. David was her Dom, her top in a way Michael had never been. Their sex life had been one of the many ways he’d failed her. There had been a spark in the beginning, but no magic need had come to life beyond a mutually pleasurable experience.

There was supposed to be more. He was almost certain of it. He saw it all around him. Never once had he called Tessa up to his office and fucked her over his desk. He wouldn’t have disturbed her workday. It seemed rude, and yet he knew damn well not to walk into Big Tag’s office without making sure it was safe. Because even after five kids and years of marriage, those two went at it hard sometimes.

He’d topped Tessa when they’d been engaged, but it had been play. And toward the end of their relationship, they’d stopped going to Sanctum altogether.

“Why The Club?” He hoped she wasn’t avoiding him. Tessa needed Sanctum. She’d needed more than he could give her.

“Kyle and David both go to The Club instead of Sanctum,” Tessa said. “It’s weird for them at Sanctum.”

“Because of my mom and stepdad,” Kyle explained. “It’s horrifying. I’m still traumatized from when I came home from college for the weekend and walked in on my mom tied to a chair. I thought it was a home invasion and maybe the attackers had forced her to put on that corset and butt floss. I’m still in therapy over it, so no, with the exception of my training class, I don’t go to Sanctum.”

“Kyle and David both have rights at The Club,” Tessa continued. “It’s a courtesy Julian’s offering to anyone attached to McKay-Taggart who doesn’t want to see their mom’s boobs. I don’t know. I’ve seen Grace and Sean scene, and they’re hot.”

Kyle gagged. “Dude, they are about to be your inlaws.”

Tessa shrugged. “They’re the coolest inlaws in the world because I get to eat at Top all I want. All I have to do is head into the kitchen and beg for food, and suddenly I have a burger in my hand. Getting to eat in the kitchen is the best part.”

Tessa had never been comfortable in his wealthy world. His family moved in the same circles as Julian Lodge. He’d actually met Lodge long before Ian Taggart had. He’d met him as a child, and the man was definitely intimidating.

“Well, they should keep their clothes on around tender young eyes. Like mine.” Kyle sighed. “I’m going to grab my tablet. I’ll be back before Lodge gets here.”

Tessa turned her dark eyes Michael’s way, an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry about the inlaw comment. I wasn’t saying anything about your mom and dad. You know I think they’re lovely.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t take it that way.” Not entirely. There had been a momentary hurt, but she simply hadn’t enjoyed the protocols and rules old money followed. She hadn’t liked the fact that everyone watched her in that world, waited for her to fuck up. The truth of the matter was he didn’t enjoy it either. “They still ask about you. Did you invite them?”

Her eyes went wide. “To my wedding? The one that isn’t to their son? No. I thought it might be weird.”

“You invited me.” He’d gotten that invitation and had to sit for a moment. Not because he wasn’t happy for her. He genuinely was, but it was another way the world seemed to be moving on. One more way he was left behind.

“I didn’t want you to think you weren’t welcome.” She leaned against the wall. “I decided to invite everyone at the office, and it would have been wrong to leave you out. Besides, I hope you would invite me to yours. I would want to be there for you.”

He wished she could have been the one. She was a genuinely nice person, and they’d gotten along well. They worked on paper. But paper hadn’t been enough. “I’m glad to be there for you, too. Send my parents an invite and put something phenomenally expensive on your registry. They like to show off.”

She breathed a sigh of obvious relief. “Good. I will.” She glanced back to the conference room. “Are you okay with this? With me as your backup?”

“I didn’t realize you were,” he admitted. “I thought I was going in with Kyle. Like I said, I didn’t know you played at The Club. Big Tag had mentioned you would have something to do with it, but he didn’t say we would be working closely.”

“I’m strictly there if you need me,” she agreed. “I can watch the target in places you can’t. Kyle’s your physical backup while you’re at The Club, and MaeBe’s on call for all your hacking needs. She’s got a big work-up on the target.”

The target. Vanessa Hale. There was a “big” work-up on her for the simple fact that there was so very much information concerning her. Vanessa was one of Hollywood’s favorite gossip targets. The blonde had pin-up girl looks and a thirst for money and fame that had led her to marry a man three times her age and get involved in one of the nastiest inheritance fights Michael had ever seen.

He could remember his mother shaking her head as she read one of the tabloid stories about the woman. His parents were both from old money, and they’d made plenty of new money with Malone Oil and Energy. Vanessa Hale was one of his mother’s worst nightmares—the gold digger getting her hooks into a member of the family. So far his mother had been happy with the next generation’s choice of spouses. She loved his twin’s wife, Nina, and she’d adored Tessa. But then Tessa had never been interested in his money.

“I look forward to it, though I’ve done my own research,” he admitted. He was sure MaeBe Vaughn had done a deep dive into the woman, so he was ready to find out what she’d learned. And to find out why Julian considered her such a threat.

“Are you okay doing this?”

“The undercover? It’s not my first rodeo.” He’d been undercover many times. It was more boring than the movies made it look. It mostly consisted of blending into the background and not getting caught. Though this time it would be a little different.

“Michael, you’re probably going to have sex with her.”

Yes, that was why it would be different. Although he wasn’t going in planning to fuck her. “I’m going to be her training Dom. That doesn’t mean I have to sleep with the woman.”

A brow rose over Tessa’s eyes. “You’re going to top one of the sexiest women in the world and not sleep with her?”

“First of all, she’s not my type.” The woman was sexy, but he found her past distasteful. He was certain he could have sex with her and enjoy it on a base level, but he wasn’t sure how he would feel about it afterward.

Yep, too many romantic movies.

“She’s every man’s type, but you need to remember that there’s always a person under the makeup and push-up bras,” Tessa pointed out.

“I doubt she needs a push-up bra. I’m pretty sure those aren’t real.”

“They’re real. They might not be natural, but they’re real breasts, and there’s a real woman underneath all the scandal.”

“You sound like you disapprove.”

“I just…”

“Spit it out, Tessa.”

Her arms crossed over her chest. “Honestly, you’re not who I would put on this op. I understand why Tag picked you, and I worry it’s going to bug you to be used as bait. And it bugs me that every single one of you is treating her like she’s some craven gold digger.”

Had Tessa not done her homework? “She married an eighty-year-old billionaire when she was twenty-seven, so yeah, I don’t think she married him for love.”

“Because no one could possibly love an old man?”

He stared at her for a moment.

Her hands came up in obvious frustration. “All I’m asking is that you go into this with even the tiniest bit of an open mind. You’re already judging her because she got her breasts done, and that shouldn’t be anyone’s business but hers. She was barely nineteen when she started her career, and I’ve heard Hollywood is rough on a girl.”

He sighed because he was being a dick. “I’m sorry. You’re right. What a woman does with her body is her business. I’m playing into stereotypes, but you’ve got to admit the press around this woman is bad. Julian’s got to have his reasons for wanting to investigate her.”

Tessa pulled her cell phone out, glancing down at the screen. “I think he’s seeing exactly what the rest of the world sees.”

He trusted her, but she was a bodyguard. She’d never done the kind of intelligence work he’d done. “Have you met her?”

Tessa shook her head. “Not exactly. David is helping Lodge’s daughter with her Spanish. He’s got a group together, and they meet at Lodge’s penthouse. Vanessa was there with Lodge’s wife, and she seemed…sad, a little lost. I don’t know, but she’s not the same person you see on TV.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised. “And don’t worry about me. I’m not walking into this with my shields down. Trust me. They’re completely up. It won’t be the first time I’ve dealt with a woman who’s interested in my family money.”

She frowned and slid her phone back into her pocket. “And that’s precisely why I’m worried you’re wrong for this op. You made the first mistake in thinking I’m worried about your safety. I’m worried for hers. She’s been through a lot, including losing her sister a few months ago.”

He didn’t like the way the words made him feel, but she was ignoring some realities. “We’re not here to do the best thing for her. We’re here to do what our client needs.”

“And he’s here.” Tessa started for the door. “Please tell Tag I’m bringing him up now.”

“Make sure the sunlight doesn’t hit him,” Tag called out from the doorway.

“I will be sure to tell him you care,” Tessa replied without looking back.

“That’ll put the old guy in a good mood,” Tag said.

“He’s not that much older than you.” Michael walked into the conference room, and sure enough, the place had been set up for royalty.

“So he says, but have we seen a birth certificate?” Tag was in a suit for today’s meeting. It made Michael wonder what miracles Charlotte had worked to get that tie around his neck. Tag was a little more laid back when it came to work. He only suited up when the client was important or he was playing out some mobster fantasy with his wife. “Vampires don’t age. Like Lodge.”

“Ian.” Charlotte sent her husband a death stare he was pretty sure she’d patented and sold to the US government as a weapon.

Ian shot his wife a grin. “We’re rivals, baby. Trust me. He’s going to say some nasty shit when he walks in here. You just haven’t seen him in a while. Hey, in office gossip, I have news.”

Charlotte poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe beside a lovely assortment of Danishes. “What?”

Ian leaned in. “Tessa thinks Michael can’t handle this assignment.”

“I’m right here.” Michael hoped his own death stare was at least half as awful as Charlotte’s.

“Why?” Charlotte completely ignored him.

“I think she thinks he’s going in having already made certain assumptions about the target’s background because of his class,” Tag said.

“Hey, I’m not some snob.” How long had Tag been listening? “And if Lodge is a vampire, then you are a gossipy old lady.”

“A vampire? Heavens no. A demon perhaps, but then I’m known for making deals. Ian, it’s good to see you.”

Fuck. Michael turned and sure enough, there was Julian Lodge standing right there and looking every bit like a mafia don about to put out a hit on someone. Probably him since he’d called the man a vampire.

“Charlotte, what a pleasure to see you again,” Julian said, holding out a hand. “You get more lovely every day. I still don’t understand how a woman of your obvious intelligence ended up with Ian.”

“I got her pregnant and trapped her.” Ian didn’t seem at all affected by the ribbing. “Every time she thinks she can get away, I put another baby up in her.”

Charlotte laughed. “I think we’re done with having kids. Five is more than enough. How are yours, Julian? Please come in. Can I offer you anything?”

“Some coffee would be lovely.” Julian glanced back at Tessa. “Thank you for the escort, Tessa. You do your Master proud.”

Julian also took the whole D/s thing way more seriously than anyone he knew. He was fairly certain Tessa and her professor kept the Dom/sub thing strictly to the bedroom.

Tessa simply nodded. “Thanks, Master Julian. I’m happy to help with this job, but you should know I’m going to be forthright and honest about how I feel about this assignment, and I hope it doesn’t offend you.”

“Not at all. You’ll find I employ many people who submit in the dungeon and tell me what a moron I can be out of it. I married two of them,” Julian admitted with a smile. “My Finn never misses a chance to tell me I’m wrong about some point of law, and my Danielle now challenges my every business decision. I consider that a point of pride. Charlotte, my children are doing well. Chloe is on the newspaper staff at her school. I’m surviving the boys, but only barely. I’m glad Danielle drew the line at three. I think Finn would have kept going until he could field his own baseball team.”

“Don’t I know it.” Ian gestured for Julian to have a seat. “Why don’t we get started now that Kyle and MaeBe are here.”

Kyle strode in with his tablet in hand. He held the door opened and allowed MaeBe Vaughn to enter. MaeBe was the resident goth tech goddess. She’d recently changed her hair color to a bright pink in honor of spring. She was in her mid-twenties and looked so youthful and bouncy she made him feel old.

“Hello, Mr. Lodge. I’m Mae Beatrice Vaughn, and I will be running tech today.” She held her hand out and Lodge politely shook it. “Everyone calls me MaeBe.”

“Then I shall as well,” Lodge said with genuine warmth in his tone. “Kyle, it’s good to see you.” He turned Ian’s way. “When did they all get so young?”

Ian sat down, a lemon muffin in front of him. “I have to get them young. My old guys are all boring and married and whiney. I tried to get Theo on this one, but he was all My wife will kick my ass if I top another woman. But the good news is Michael there hasn’t given in to the old ball and chain yet.”

Charlotte’s eyes were back to lasers. “I’m telling Erin you called her that.”

“I wasn’t talking about Erin. Theo’s got old balls, and Erin wrapped a chain around them,” Ian quipped. “They have pictures and everything.”

“They absolutely do not,” Charlotte began.

But Julian was already laughing.

The door opened again, and a large, muscular man walked through. Wolf Meyer. He’d handled Julian’s personal security for more than a decade.

He nodded as he took a seat beside Julian. “The car is secure. Everything looks good.”

That got Big Tag’s brows rising. “You had Wolf do a walk-through of my building? You know I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

“And so has Wolf,” Julian replied. “I believe you’ll find this was at his insistence, not mine.”

Wolf Meyer sat back. “I check out everyone, Tag. Especially dirty cheaters. You paid that ref. I did not fumble that ball.”

Ian’s eyes flared, and Michael knew if he didn’t take control of the situation, they would relitigate the last flag football game. It had turned into all the guys punching each other.

“MaeBe, why don’t you start? If I’m meeting Ms. Hale this evening, I would like to know a little something about her,” Michael said. This was his op, and he was going to run it without a throwdown between Julian’s mentees.

“Yes, if you two want to fight it out, I can call down and Alex will be more than happy to set up a vat of Jell-O,” Charlotte offered. “But after the meeting.”

“Jell-O?” Wolf asked.

“The women like a good Jell-O wrestling session,” Tessa replied. “Or you can lube up and go at it.”

Wolf frowned. “I feel vaguely offended.”

“You’ll feel vaguely…” Tag began.

“So the subject of our investigation is one Vanessa Hale Benedict.” MaeBe completely cut tag off and started her presentation. “Benedict is her married name. She goes by it.”

“Hale was her stage name, if I’m correct.” Julian seemed ready to get down to business.

“You are, sir.” MaeBe hit a key on her laptop, and the image of a young woman with dark hair and stunning eyes came on the screen. She wore a green dress, and her hair was long and draped over one shoulder. She looked utterly unlike the woman he’d seen on magazine covers, with the exception of that fuck-me mouth of hers. Her lips formed a perfect pink bow that any man of the right persuasion would want to try out.

But not on this woman. This woman looked…innocent. Excited. Ready to take on the world.

God, was Tessa right and he was going into this whole op judging her because of the way she looked now? Because of stories he’d heard?

“She was born Vanessa Jones, but that was considered too boring for Hollywood. She was born here in Dallas. She won a teen modeling contest, and that was how she ended up going to Hollywood. She dropped out of high school to do her first movie,” MaeBe continued, and the slide changed. Now it was a movie poster that showed a younger, but more recognizable Vanessa Hale. She was blonde and busty. “The classic Terror in Walton Woods. She played the flirt who gets chopped up by the crazy former summer camp owner. They liked her so much that she came back as a ghost in the second movie, and as her own evil twin who turned out to be the killer in the third.”

“They’re fun in a totally awful way,” Kyle commented and then frowned. “MaeBe made me watch them.”

“They’re supposed to be tongue in cheek,” MaeBe argued. “But that’s beside the point. From there Vanessa Hale actually became something of an ‘It Girl’ in Hollywood for a couple of years. She did several romantic comedies, and even a drama she got positive reviews for. But then she got a reputation for being difficult.”

“So she was hard to work with?” Ian asked. “Because I got a whole building of difficult here, and they’re still working for me.”

“I remember seeing something about her losing a part because she had crazy demands,” Charlotte began.

MaeBe’s slide show clicked through many of the numerous tabloids to feature Ms. Hale. In each photo she looked sexier and oddly more craven. The photographers caught her frowning and yelling. The headlines questioned everything from whether or not she slept with her married costars, to if she was eating enough, to if she was pregnant or simply letting herself go.

What they all had in common was criticism.

“That’s one rumor, but I couldn’t verify it,” MaeBe replied. “She had an assistant she was close to. Ashton Banks. After she was hired, she moved in, and they lived together for a long time until it came out that Ashton was the one selling the stories to the tabloids. That was kind of where it all spiraled. She got fired from a movie for what they called unrealistic demands. She wanted to be paid what the male lead got. He had way less experience than she did, but he was the producer’s nephew, so she was replaced.”

“So you would say she had fallen on hard times when she met George Benedict?” Julian was carefully studying each picture.

MaeBe turned his way. “He was the producer on the last couple of films she made. He was a billionaire from Houston. He made his money in retail stores and real estate. One of his daughters was a director, and he produced her films. Vanessa starred in the last one, a kind of experimental piece. It did well on some of the festival circuits, but it never found an audience.”

“I believe I remember hearing something about the daughter dying,” Julian mused.

“She did. She was working on a film with Vanessa in France. Lara Benedict was found dead of a drug overdose in the house she’d rented while working there.” MaeBe clicked, and the news headline came up. “Vanessa found her. By this point Vanessa was actually living with the Benedicts. She married George about six weeks after the funeral.”

“That seems fast.” Michael glanced through the folder Charlotte had placed in front of every seat. It was basic information, and he knew most of it.

“Grief can make you do odd things,” Ian murmured.

“It can also make you vulnerable,” Michael countered. He couldn’t reconcile that sweet-faced young woman with the bleach blonde who wore five-inch heels to pick up her dry cleaning.

“While she was married to George, she seemed to try to stay out of the spotlight as much as she could.” MaeBe turned on the lights. “But naturally there were stories. According to the press, she used George cruelly for cash and separated him from his remaining child, George Jr., who was not pleased with the marriage and tried to have his father declared non compos mentis. George died while they were in the middle of that battle, and then the real one began.”

“She recently had to move out of the mansion, didn’t she?” Charlotte asked.

“The judge awarded almost everything to Junior in the last go-round,” MaeBe agreed. “She should have been able to stay in it through the appeals process, but George Jr. played hardball, and when she went to visit her sister here in Dallas, he moved in and changed the locks. She can fight it, but I don’t like her odds.”

“Did George Sr. have a will?” Lodge asked.

“Yep, and he left a huge amount to Vanessa.” Michael knew this part. He’d studied up on her finances. It always came down to money, and George Benedict had a ton of it. Money that probably should have gone to his son and not the twenty-something he’d married on a lark.

“They’ve been fighting over it for the last two years,” MaeBe continued. “The last judgment was against her. The judge ruled that there was enough evidence to believe that George Sr. was under undue influence at the time he wrote the will.”

That told him everything he needed to know. Vanessa wasn’t the same girl in that picture. She’d lost herself somewhere along the way and tried to take the easy route to money. She’d tried to steal it from a frail old man and gotten caught. “How did she come to be in your employ, Julian? She doesn’t seem like the type of person you normally hire.”

“My wife hired her,” Lodge replied. “Technically, Vanessa works for Danielle’s company.”

“How does Dani know her?” Charlotte asked.

“Vanessa had a sister. Nicki. She worked for Danielle for ten years. She was one of the first employees Dani hired, and they were close. Nicki was in a car accident four months ago. They met at her funeral,” Julian explained.

“She seems to go to a lot of funerals.” He didn’t like the way death seemed to be all around her. “So your wife decided it was a good idea to hire her friend’s down-on-her-luck sister. Did she understand Vanessa’s background?”

“My wife is one of the kindest people I know,” Julian said. “She can look at all the information MaeBe laid out and see something totally different from me. She’s grown close to this woman, and I worry about that. I’ve tried to make her see Vanessa could be dangerous, but she isn’t interested in my opinion. I’ve got people watching her in the office. That was how I found her trying to look through reports she had no business with.”

“So you think she’s trying to steal from you?” Michael could see that possibility. “Why not use in-house investigators and surveil her online? I’m sure you have plenty of cameras around the office.”

“I’ve tried that. We haven’t caught anything, but I can tell you that someone managed to move more than fifty thousand dollars to an account I can’t identify.” Julian sat forward, his voice going soft.

It was suspicious. “So you want me to find a way to get into her house, to find out any secrets she might have.”

“She’s interested in D/s. She asked specifically about The Club. I think she’s looking for a new wealthy lover,” Julian replied.

“I suppose that would be me.” There it was. There was that nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach Tessa had warned him about, the one that made him wonder who the hell he was.

“All I’m asking you to do is to top her, Mr. Malone,” Julian explained. “If you happen to find her attractive and the two of you allow sexual relations in your contract, then that would simply be what happens when a Dom and sub connect. Otherwise, you can decide how far you choose to go.”

It wasn’t like she would be some innocent thing. She would be playing him, too.

“Michael, you don’t have to take this assignment,” Charlotte said. “We can find another way.”

Despite the feeling in his gut, he was also interested in playing the game with an expert. It wasn’t like he was in a relationship, and her heart wouldn’t come close to getting involved. “I’ll do it.”

So tonight, the games would begin.

* * * *

Vanessa Jones was sick of games.

She hung up the phone and took a deep breath.

“You okay?”

She looked up from the big desk her sister had once used. Danielle Lodge-Taylor stood in the doorway of her office, looking flawless in her designer suit and heels, blonde hair in an elegant bun at the back of her neck. The woman had been her sister’s boss for years, and now she was proving to be Vanessa’s savior.

Would Dani regret that when she discovered the real reason Vanessa had taken her up on her offer to slip into Nicki’s old job?

She gave Dani a weary smile. “I’m great. I’ve got those contracts ready for you, and I spoke with the caterer for the reception. She said it’s not going to be a problem to add an additional salad.”

Dani stepped inside, relief on her face. “Excellent. I didn’t realize the salad I chose wasn’t vegan, and given the crowd we’ll have for that one, it would be a huge mistake. That was a good catch.”

Vanessa knew that crowd well. It was one of the reasons she felt slightly better about taking Dani up on her offer of employment. Dani was currently working on a big project that included attracting a celebrity spokesperson. Her line of resort spas focused on wellness, and getting the right celebrity endorsement was important. Vanessa knew how to handle a celebrity. After all, she’d been one once. “Alicia Kingman’s been a vegan for a couple of years now, but she’s not going to be upset that there are nonvegan options. I worked with the caterer, so her favorites will all be available. She won’t actually eat the dessert, but it looks good to have it there.”

Dani sank down to the seat in front of Vanessa’s desk. “You are a godsend. I have no idea how I would have managed this without you.”

Would Dani think she was a godsend a few weeks from now? Or would she be one more person who looked on Vanessa with contempt? It would be awful because she’d come to genuinely care for Dani and her family.

“You would have done fine,” Vanessa replied in all honesty. “You’re the single most capable woman I’ve ever met. You would have done a ton of research and landed her all on your own.”

“I’m going to teach you one of the secrets I’ve learned over the years.” Dani crossed one leg over the other. “Do not take credit away from yourself. There will be too many other people who do that. Don’t do it to yourself.”

She had to blink a couple of times to clear the tears that threatened to form. “That’s very true.”

No one gave her credit for anything but causing pain she hadn’t meant to cause.

“So tell me why you look like you lost your last friend,” Dani prompted.

Vanessa took a moment to compose herself. There were about twenty reasons to be sad and depressed. She picked the one most relevant to Dani. “The homeowner’s association has asked me to vacate my sister’s house as soon as possible. I recently got word that they are going to bring legal action against me if I don’t move within the next month.”

“What?” Dani’s eyes had gone wide. “Why?”

“Why do you think?” It wasn’t like it was the first time they’d had this conversation.

“Reporters? I thought changing your hair and how you dress fixed things.”

She’d gone back to brunette when she’d moved to Dallas. Honestly, the only reason she’d stayed a blonde was that George had loved the long blonde extensions she’d worn, and she would have done anything to make him happy in those last days. Between that, gaining a little weight, and changing how she dressed, she looked different enough that she’d managed to avoid the press. She’d moved into the house her sister had left her, and for a while things had calmed down. The lawsuit over her late husband’s estate was in limbo while waiting for an appeal, and no one seemed to care now.

Then a national magazine had published a tell-all story from her used-to-be best friend about how vanity and greed had ruined Vanessa’s promising career. It was all bullshit, but it had made her ache because Ashton had been as close as a sister to her. Closer than her own sister since they’d lived in completely different worlds for the last decade and a half.

“It was only a matter of time before they found me again,” Vanessa admitted. “There have already been a few incidents. One news van broke the gate trying to get in, and some of the photographers are jumping fences. They’re going to send me a bill for the gate.”

“That’s not your fault,” Dani insisted.

Fault in this case didn’t matter. “The easiest way for them to solve the problem is to get rid of me. And honestly, I can’t afford another lawsuit. Everything I have is tied up in legal fees over George’s estate.”

“Maybe if you told the press what you intend to do with the money, they would let up,” Dani offered.

For all her money and power, Danielle Lodge-Taylor was still naïve about some things. Of course that’s probably what happened when one found oneself married to not one, but two overly protective men. She knew some people would find Dani’s personal life objectionable, but Vanessa was fascinated by how the trio worked. Julian, Dani, and their partner, Finn, had been married almost twenty years and had three lovable kiddos. Julian’s fierce reputation and ties to every powerful person in Dallas had kept them off the press’s radar. But that could change.

“They would never believe me. It would be just one more of my manipulations,” Vanessa replied.

“You are not manipulative.”

That was where Dani was wrong, and guilt wrenched through Vanessa. She had to give this woman an out. “I need you to think about what could happen…what will happen when the press eventually connects me to your business. They’ll look into you.”

Dani shrugged off that worry. “Let them. I don’t care.”

“What about Chloe? What about the boys? They’ll get dragged into it.”

“Chloe loves her family, and so do the boys. Do you think we haven’t had to have this conversation about a million times?” Dani’s voice had gone soft. “When you don’t conform to what the world considers normal, you’ll have trouble. And when you do conform there’s different trouble. I don’t care what the world thinks of us. I have the enormous privilege of my husbands’ money and power, and that makes it infinitely easier to not care. But Chloe goes to a private school, and she’s absolutely been teased about it. I sat her down once and asked her which dad she wanted to get rid of so we could be normal. She cried for a long time, and I cried with her, and the next day she explained to her friends and teachers that if they had a problem with her family, they could fuck themselves. And then we all got called into the office because she was thirteen.”

“I hope you didn’t punish her because they should go fuck themselves.” She hated the thought of that little girl having to defend herself.

Everyone has to go through it. Why should you be different? Suck it up or lose your place.

The words of her ex-agent ran through her head. The woman had previously been an actress and thought anyone who didn’t have to go through what she had didn’t deserve a career. Unfortunately, what she’d been through was harassment and borderline assault. A pretty nineteen-year-old was fair game in Hollywood.

Don’t get bitter, sweetheart. I’m an old man, and I’ve learned bitterness does nothing but make the world a colder place. You’ve been through bad things, so work to make sure the ones who come after you don’t have to go through the same.

She felt a tear hit her cheek. She often heard George’s words shortly after one of those negative voices hit her brain. Like he was still here, still telling her she was worthy. Telling her just because she’d been foolish for a while didn’t mean she couldn’t make a difference. Mistakes were how a person learned, and the person who never made mistakes would be hollow indeed because they would never learn empathy.

Using George’s logic, she should be the most empathetic person in the world.

“We all have our challenges to face, and her unique family is one of my daughter’s,” Dani admitted. “Luckily she’s got a lot of support on every level. I worry you think you don’t.”

She was alone in the world, and she couldn’t admit to Dani what she was really doing. She actually thought Dani would help her, but Dani would also talk to her husband—the ruthless one—and she couldn’t risk that. “Everyone’s gone. I have a couple of cousins, but they don’t want to have anything to do with me now that I don’t have access to tons of money.”

Her extended family had been perfectly happy to take her help but not to reciprocate. They didn’t answer her calls or invite her to visit.

“You have me. I was close to your sister. I know you reached out to her in the last year of her life. I also know that the house you’re living in was purchased by you,” Dani pointed out.

She and Nicki had never stopped talking. They might have gone months without calling, but they always got in touch in the end. Her sister hadn’t approved of her lifestyle, had thought she made poor choices, but Nicki had still loved her.

Which was why she had to do what she had to do.

“I did that years ago when my career was viable,” Vanessa admitted. “And I put the house in Nicki’s name, so until her will is through probate, they’ve got the right to ask me to leave. I think they’re hoping if I leave I’ll forget to pay the association fees and they can put a lien on the place. I won’t. I’ll have everything forwarded to wherever I end up next.”

“Why not stay at The Club?” Dani asked.

She needed to be inside that secret domain of the wealthy and powerful and kinky. It was the whole reason she’d taken the job in the first place. The Club was part dungeon and part luxury hotel and apartments. Several of the high-level members of The Club lived in the building that also housed the offices she was currently working in. Dani’s company had a big suite of offices attached to Lodge Corp. There was a secretive way down to the dungeon level. Anyone walking into the building would see nothing more than a private multi-use, elegant high-rise.

She needed to get into the dungeon.

“I don’t want to cause you any more trouble than I need to. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this job not only for the fact that it allows me to eat and put gas in my car, but because it makes me feel close to Nicki. She adored you. But if I move here, they will follow me. I’m surprised they haven’t shown up here yet, though I’ve been taking precautions. I’ve been parking in a lot down the street and going into that building before I sneak out the back and come here.” It was the stupidest thing, but she had to do it. She actually went into a bathroom on the lower level and changed clothes and put on a wig that she ditched when she made it to the building that Lodge owned.

“That’s ridiculous. I’ll send someone to pick you up,” Dani insisted.

She shook her head. “It’s fine. I’ll lay low for a couple of weeks at a motel, and they’ll lose interest again. Ashton probably got enough off the interview to last her for six months or so. If she’s quiet, I might get lucky.”

“Laying low here would be perfect,” Dani pointed out. “You don’t even have to go out for groceries. You can have them delivered or eat with us.”

“Dani, Julian doesn’t like me.” She needed to put things plainly. “It’s best I stay off his radar.”

Dani’s head tilted slightly, and an amused expression crossed her face. “He hasn’t spent time with you, and he can be a suspicious bastard. I know that. It’s part of his charm, but I understand that he can be intimidating. You know going to The Club isn’t going to change that perception. If you think Julian is overwhelming in a suit, you should see him in leathers.”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate him being okay with me going into training.” She wasn’t sure about this part. The idea of bondage and submission and all the other kinky things… She wasn’t sure, but this lifestyle had called to her sister.

There’s a new Dom, and I see the way he looks at me. I think he’s following me.

I think he wants to kill me.

Sometimes she wished she’d never found her sister’s notebook, never read the last few months of entries. Then she could have simply mourned her and tried to move on.

She could have believed the police reports about the accident.

She would never have known that her sister had been murdered.

“Of course.” Dani stood up and straightened out her skirt. “Julian is a sweetheart once you get to know him. I wish you would let me put you up here, but I’m willing to be patient. What I’m not willing to do is throw that reception without you. We need to find the perfect dress.”

She wanted to argue. God, the last thing she wanted was to be in a room with Hollywood hotshots. The reception was still weeks away. Maybe she would find her sister’s killer and potentially cause an even bigger scandal than she had before and get her ass fired. Julian Lodge might find out she was trying to prove one of his powerful club members killed her sister, and he would bury her. Problem solved.

It was the way her world seemed to go.

She gave Dani what she hoped was a conciliatory smile. “All right. I’ll consider it a work expense.”

“No, you won’t. It’s a uniform. I’m paying.” Dani started for the door. “Let’s have lunch tomorrow. I want to hear all about the training Dom Julian found for you. He’s being all secretive about it. I’m kind of excited.”

Vanessa nodded. “Absolutely. I’m excited, too.”

“I can tell.” Dani gave her a wave and was gone.

And they called her a bad actress.

Vanessa sat back with a sigh. She had a couple of hours before she had to meet the man who would walk her through the world her sister had occupied.

The world that had cost Nicki everything—including her life.

It was a world she would take down if it was the last thing she did.