Page 7 of Reckless Devotion

The woman who sits at a small table is nothing like I imagined her to be and against all odds my first thought is…wow. Silvery pink hair flows to her waistline in poker-straight slashes and the stark contrast against rich ochre skin astonishes me. The neon strip light above glances off a slim silver nose ring as the woman sighs. She tightens a cream teddy coat around herself with crossed arms and throws her big brown eyes at the ceiling. One glossy black nail taps impatiently on her arm.

I absorb her with intense curiosity, the visual image I had created of my adversary eaten up by the glow around her. Call me crazy, but I had somehow sensed she was female through her taunting messages, perhaps tapping into some sixth sense I don’t fully understand. However, I had pictured someone less…well, there is no denying it, lessattractive.

So this stunning woman is the one who shopped me to the media… The thought brings me back into the room with a thunderous clatter, pulling my brows together into a frown. My eyes jump to the door beside the one-way window, and I steel myself. My brain has been whirring with every eventuality on the way over here and I keep coming back to one conclusion.

Someway, or somehow, this striking woman is about to blackmail me into helping her. I can’t think of any other reason she would reveal herself and summon me here to the police station.

Resigning to get this over with, I reach for the handle and open the door.

Chapter 4

Rosie:Has anyone heard from Pepper?

Kathy:Negative.

Maura:No, are we worried?

Kathy:It’s entirely possible that she’s balls deep into a LOTR marathon with Sunny again.

Maura:There is that.

PEPPER

The man who walks into the room is bigger than I anticipated. So huge in fact, that I almost cartoonishly rub my eyes to check that I’m not seeing things.

He halts as the door swings shut behind him, the striker clunking into place with a dull rattle. Nerves revolt in my gut, an internal voice meekly wondering if it was a colossal mistake to bring him here.

He straightens his spine, capturing me in a crossfire of burnt whiskey-colored eyes. I swallow, tightening my arms around myself against the air of austerity and power he overcrowds the room with. The whiff of old money dragsme kicking and screaming into the memory of cool porcelain pressed against my cheek and my dying pleas for mercy. I can see a ghost of the family crest engraved on a pinky ring beside my face, hands gripping the sink—caging me in.

Shame coats my skin, leaking into my pores like festering rot. I should have been stronger, better…less naive.

A sharp pain carves through my chest, anchoring me in the present. I realize I’ve not taken breath since he entered and carefully draw in a lungful through my nose so as not to give away my emotion. I will not be cowed by a man like this. Not now. Not ever again.

“You called?” Chase Walker has a voice as deep as gravel, affected with a healthy dose of entitlement. It’s all the reinforcement I need to allow my hate for men like him to take the reins. I mentally zip through everything I know about him while he unbuttons his black three-piece suit, making a big show of sliding off the jacket and draping it over the grey plastic chair on the opposite side of the table. As if he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Dressed from head to toe in GQ, with a flash of a watch that probably cost more than I earn in a year—maybe two—arrogance drips off of every sleek movement as he gives each of his crisply pressed shirt cuffs a swift tug and lowers himself into the chair with more grace than I expect from a man his size.

The suave, thirty-six-year-old tech tycoon with a billion-dollar smile and usually a glamorous woman hanging off his arm. Dark hair so deep it’s almost black holds the appearance of being effortlessly ruffled, and I’ll bet it is too. Men like him don’t spend hours preening, they just get up and go. Blessed with genes from a lineage of good-looking men and women, who have good-looking children that inevitably find each other and make good-looking babies of their own. A Russian doll of breeding, if you will, with imperfections being slowly chiseled away overgenerations until we’re left with polished nepo babies like the one now surveying my face with quiet scrutiny.

Women fawn at his feet and I can use that to my advantage. Anything else should be a shock to the system, or an irritant at the very least.

“What a good little wolf-boy you are to come to heel.” I plaster a lazy smile across my lips and lean back, arching one brow to goad him.

If this degradation affects him, he shows no outward sign. He simply holds my gaze and flicks open the collar of his pressed white shirt, running a broad finger around the rim to loosen it. The faintest scent of expensive scotch reaches me across the table.

“Hog roast is my favorite—I simply couldn’t resist.” He smoothes the steel grey tie down to his fitted black waistcoat and arches an eyebrow right back. My intrusive and wildly inappropriate humor leaps right to something witty and crude about him not getting to stick a spit up this particular pig’s ass, but this would crack the nonchalant veneer I’m wearing like a protective bubble.

“From what the detective said, your hide is pretty much crackling.” His sharp gaze leaves me for the first time since he entered the room, quickly taking in the bare, cracked walls and the camera in one corner behind me sporting a small red light. “Apparently it’s not just me that you’ve been targeting. What a naughty little space piglet you are, Pepper Quinn.” He tuts mockingly, and heat lances my cheeks.

I swallow roughly, recounting the six hours of interrogation about various targets of mine from the last six months. Detective Moustache has taken great pains to be vague as to the granular detail of his evidence against me. He’s said enough for me to know I’m in serious hot water, but not enough for me to glean if he understands just how deep this thing goes.Which tells me one thing: He’s fishing for whatever information he can get. Information I would sacrifice everything to keep secret if it came to it.

My life with Sunny is paramount, but sometimes things are bigger and more important than any one person, or family. I’ll do everything in my power to prevent that unthinkable scenario from happening, which brings me back to the mountain of a man sitting across from me. How did he commandeer the conversation and get into my head so quickly? I need to regain control, and fast.

“I called you here so that you could post my bail and hire me the best lawyer in town.” I unfold my arms and place laced hands together on the table. It rocks slightly on uneven legs, the sound drawing his attention back to me.

“And why the hell would I do that?” he drawls blandly, laying one loosely fisted hand on the table with a soft clip of his watch strap.

“The goodness of your heart?” I tease, flashing a brief smile I don’t feel. In fact, I feel downright sick. This plan is really all I have left before my whole life crashes down around me. The only chance I have left to stay with Sunny. The stakes are terrifyingly tall.