Page 107 of Double or Nothing

It’s Alice. I’ve had a truly spectacular evening of Parker family bullshit, and I’m in the mood for some fun and games. If you’re available, I want another taste of the forbidden. The dirty, filthy cock of yours that came all over my canvases. So show me, please. Whatever you’ll give a naughty Soul Girl, I’m happy to take for you.

I resist the urge to add a winking emoji.

My pulse races when I hit send. For three seconds, I feel nothing but terror. Then the terror catches fire when the green ticks show.

Shit. I did it. I messaged Jack Reid. But fuck it, I’m glad I did.

I look back at the paintings, and for the first time since dinner, I smile. Fuck you, Daddy.

My hands are trembling when a message pings back through. I breathe through my nose as I click to open it, hoping it isn’t a standard blow off.

Soul Girl! How lovely to hear from you. My dirty, filthy cock is all set for plenty more action, actually. The taste of the forbidden is rife on my tongue. But how about we have a different type of playtime first? Fancy a taste of casino life with me?

Casino life?

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a casino in my life.

Your casino? In Mayfair?

I watch the typing icon with eager eyes.

Nah, not mine. Not that close to home. I want unfiltered. Unsupervised. Free to play big and push hard.

I picture Jack in a casino tux. It makes my clit tingle. Champagne, roulette wheels and poker tables with his lethal jester smirk as he holds his aces.

I’m down for that, I say.

He’s the one who sends the winking emoji.

Stockings and stilettos, Soul Girl. I’ll send a cab to pick you up at nine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

BRYCE

The hallway lights have already switched to their dim evening setting by the time I get home.

It’s not all that late by my normal standards. There have been hundreds of evenings where I’m still in the office at way gone 9 p.m.

Call it a Canary Wharf par for the course, but tonight I’m exhausted by it. Both emotionally and physically.

Plenty of people drag themselves through London with their laptop straps biting into their shoulders at the end of a long, hard day. Plenty of people get home to silent apartments and pretend that silence is peace. What’s the harm in it?

Except tonight, I hear the silence for what it truly is.

Loneliness.

And it’s waiting for me with open jaws on the top floor.

I climb the stairs slowly, because I’m too emotionally drained. By the time I reach my landing, I’m convinced I can feel every bone in my body. My head aches behind my eyes and my jaw is practically locked in place from a day of fake smiling. I don’t know how many times I nodded along to Bill’s words in the boardroom this afternoon, but my neck feels like it needs a professional masseuse.

And, right at the core of all this pressure and fakery is something far more dangerous.

Christopher Otley.

The man I wish I was born prestigious enough to be.

I’m so tired, I don’t notice the envelope taped to my front door until I nearly walk straight into it.