The Deal

Nicholas Rothsmore was fun, but that’s over now.

I pull my phone from my clutch and load up The Billionaires’ Club app that runs the forums. Miss Anonymous has a profile with a picture of a stiletto—I have a predilection for heels. She’s served her purpose now. I’m done with Miss Anonymous, done with the future Lord Rothsmore.

I click into the brief bio and scroll to the bottom, where a red button invites me to ‘delete profile’.

I click and she’s gone. Miss Anonymous has had her fun and now it’s time to get on with my life.

If cities were animals, New York would be a gazelle. Fast, nimble, elegant, stunning. I stare down at this adopted city of mine, contemplating the first solo Saturday night I’ve had in…for ever.

It’s been a week since Sydney, and I’ve been flat out closing the Hewitson merger, but that’s done now. Usually, I mark my business triumphs with the kind of partying that would make my grandparents roll over in their graves.

Champagne, women, music.

I frown, surveying the empty penthouse. Only the kitchen lights are on, so it looks somehow more cavernous than normal.

I won.

This deal has been in the works for three years. Three years of meetings, negotiations, hard slog and now it’s with the lawyers and I can relax. And celebrate.

Out of nowhere, I close my eyes and remember what I was doing this time last week. I remember her pale body splayed against the dark sheets of the Intimate Rooms in the Sydney base of The Billionaires’ Club and my body is tighter than granite, aching, not just for sex but for her.

Miss Anonymous.

I was right that not knowing her name was part of the appeal, but now the not knowing is driving me crazy. Because I want to see her again.

I want to fuck her again.

A smile lifts my lips, because I don’t just want to fuck her, I want to have her every which way until she’s incoherent with pleasure.

In one month, I turn thirty and England beckons. Lord Rothsmore awaits. In one month, I’ll become the man my parents want me to be—or something more like him, anyway. But for the next four weeks I’m still a free agent, and I know just how I want to spend it.

Determination fires my step. I stride indoors, the temperature change marked. My cell phone is across the room. I lift it, loading up the app and selecting our private message conversation.

Except it’s no longer a conversation with an exchange of words. My comments remain but hers are gone. Italics proclaim These messages have been deleted.

I hadn’t expected that. Why?

Okay, that’s weird. But it doesn’t change how I feel and what I want.

‘Fancy round two, Miss Anonymous?’

I figure her American accent makes it likely she lives here in the States. I can get my helicopter to my jet and travel anywhere. The minute I think it, I realise how desperate I am to see her again.

Even though I’ve spent the last five years fucking my way around the world, I freely admit last weekend was the best sex I’ve ever had. There was something so illicit and hot about it.

Her mask, her hair, her body…

I groan into the night air, looking back at the screen.

Message undeliverable

What?

With a frown, I click out of our message chat and surf to her profile instead. It doesn’t come up when I type ‘Miss Anonymous’. Adrenalin shifts in my gut.

I go to the list of members using the app and scroll through it slowly, my eyes looking for the stiletto she used as a profile picture. Which makes me think of the sky-high shoes she wore as I ran my hands over her clit, feeling her pulsing beneath me as she exploded with pleasure, and I’m so close to coming at just that memory.

I have to find her.

But where the hell is she?

She can’t have left the club. It’s not like that. The entry process is gruelling and elaborate. No one signs up and leaves.

So?

Her profile might have been anonymous but it must have been created by a legitimate member of the club. Even the online avatars are vetted. So who the hell is she? And where did she go?

CHAPTER THREE (#u54e04f05-4aaf-5d30-9c2a-0fa81b274696)

‘IMOGEN? THERE’S A Mr Rothsmore here to see you.’

Oh, my God. In the midst of studying the floor plans for a new school Chance will be funding in a couple of years, I jump so hard I bang my knee against the edge of my desk. Pain radiates through me. I ignore it, scrambling for the receiver of my desk phone.

‘What did you say?’ My voice comes out completely different.

‘A Mr Nicholas Rothsmore,’ says my loyal assistant—a woman to whom I offered a job after we met in a shelter for battered women that Chance was involved in supporting; she speaks slowly, as if I might have misunderstood. ‘He has a membership enquiry.’

Oh, my God.

‘I’m in the middle of something,’ I demur, wincing, because The Billionaires’ Club is founded on three tenets: exclusivity, privacy and exceptional customer service. My door is always open to members. ‘I only have a few minutes.’

‘I’ll send him in.’ She disconnects the call and I stand up quickly, my mind spinning. I have about ten seconds to get my thoughts in order.

I’m wearing a cream suit made up of a pencil skirt and a fitted blazer, with a lemon-yellow silk camisole beneath. No bra and my traitorous nipples are already straining against the soft fabric in anticipation of the fact he’s about to be here in my office, my sanctuary. I look around quickly for anything that could give me away.

I’ve had a manicure since the ball—the nails that were bright pink are now a muted beige. I took great care that night to remove any identifying jewellery. My lips were painted bright red whereas now they bear just a hint of gloss, and my long hair tumbles in waves over one shoulder. I pull on it and then remember my eyes…that he remarked on.

Crapola.

I swing around behind my desk and grab my handbag, lifting my oversized Jackie O–style black sunglasses out and pushing them onto my face right as Emily opens the door.

‘Mr Rothsmore,’ she announces, a slightly bemused look crossing her face as she sees me in my disguise.

My voice! Oh, crap. He’s heard me talk. No, he’s heard me scream, over and over. Argh!

‘Thank you, Emily.’ I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, just outside St Louis, so the southern drawl isn’t much of a stretch.

Her bemusement increases. ‘Would you like anything to drink?’ she prompts.