Landon (Swanson Court Book 4) Page 3

  She shrugs. “I assumed Evans would take the money and go back to living his frat boy life. The hotel bored him. I thought…” She sighs. “He can’t get over the fact that it’s you, you know. He’s always hated you.”

  I’d never paid much attention to the sullen, resentful teenager who followed Ava around when we first dated, and I couldn’t care less how he feels about me now.

  “If after this, he keeps trying to spread unfounded rumors about me or my company, we will sue, and he won’t like how it turns out.”

  She grimaces. “He’s my brother, Landon. That should mean something. Be gentle with him—for my sake.”

  I don’t reply, and she reaches for my hand across the table. Her palm is soft, and in her eyes, there’s a plea, and something else, an invitation to shared intimacy.

  There was a time in my early twenties when I was attracted to her, when it seemed like we could join our scars and somehow become whole.

  That didn’t last long. The Swanson Court hotels were too important to me, and without the constant attention she needed from me, Ava spent the next few years in high-profile relationships, marriages, and divorces from South America to Europe.

  We sometimes got back together between her relationships, but it’s been years since there’s been anything remotely romantic between us.

  I pull my hand from hers, and she considers me for a moment, one eyebrow raised.

  “Let’s have dinner at my place after your meeting,” she suggests.

  I shake my head. “I’m leaving for New York this afternoon.”

  “Oh.” She looks surprised. “Work?”

  An image of red-gold hair flashes in front of my eyes. It’s been three days since that night at my apartment. Rachel. Even thinking her name transports me back to that unbelievable night. I still don’t know what to think about the money she abandoned on the nightstand, or the number she didn’t bother to leave.

  Rachel.

  I can’t stop thinking about her.

  “Not particularly.” I ignore Ava’s curious expression and rise from the table. She follows me and I kiss her on her soft, perfumed cheek. “It was great to see you.”

  “It’s always great to see you, Landon.” She smiles. “Take care.”

  A few hours later, I’m sitting across a table from her brother in his lawyer’s office. Evans Sinclair is no longer the sullen boy he used to be, but the Sinclair family looks can’t mask the petulant sulk on his face.

  He signs the papers which restrict him from making any public allusions to the circumstances surrounding the sale of the Gold Dust. As soon as he’s out of here, he’ll go back to his life of exotic cars, fast women, and the never-ending party that is his life. He’s spent the years since his father died paying lip service to his position as the president of the management board of the Gold Dust Hotel, but as soon as the other board members forced him to sell rather than watch the hotel die a painful death, I became the villain, at least to him.

  “Mr. Court.” His lawyer rises and extends a hand to me as soon as the signatures are on paper.

  I rise from my seat, leaving my lawyer, Alex Haven, to retrieve the papers. I shake Sinclair’s lawyer’s hand. “Thank you,” I tell him, then turn to Evans.

  He stands and takes my hand in a soft, indecisive grip. “Fuck you, Landon,” he says resentfully.

  I shrug and redo the button on my jacket, turning away from the table. Before I get to the glass doors, I spy the Gold Dust, soon to be Gold Dust, A Swanson Court Hotel, through the windows. The retention of the old name was the condition of the board members, all members of the extended Sinclair family. I was to take total control but keep the original name of the hotel. I agreed. Before Evans, the Gold Dust name was one to be reckoned with.

  Already, my team is working, refurbishing the old hotel and transforming it into an establishment worthy of the Swanson Court name. In a few weeks, we’ll open for business.

  Downstairs, the hired car is waiting outside the main doors, my chauffeur, Joe, in the driver seat. With graying hair in a crew cut and an ordinary black suit, he looks nondescript, but he’s a security expert, deadly with a firearm and a skilled martial artist. With him around, I don’t need any other bodyguards.

  Not that I can’t take care of myself. On good days, I can outshoot Joe, and I still do mixed martial arts, but his job is to make sure I never need to use those skills.

  Alex catches up to me before I get into the car. He’s a few years older than I am and is a partner at Fincher and Haven. The name of the law firm has changed since they were my grandfather’s lawyers back in the day. I’ve known Alex since he started working there as an associate, and he’s one of the people I trust with my business.

  “I have a meeting with the interior designer’s firm,” he tells me, “so I’ll be in New York later tonight.”

  “Fine.” I already met with most of the people working on the refurbishment before my meeting with Sinclair, but there are still a few legalities for Alex to resolve. “I want a full report.”

  “Of course.” He nods. “Are you returning right away? You’re not staying at least a night?”

  I almost smile. Of course he would expect me to have a date ready for my short visit. We’ve spent the last decade working hard and playing very hard.

  “I have some business to attend to in New York,” I tell him, as the now constant image of gold-red hair and deep green eyes flashes through my mind.

  He laughs. “That’s a first. I’ll let you know when I arrive.”

  In the car, and Joe starts the engine. “Airport?” he asks, looking at me through the rearview.

  I nod.

  As we navigate the street, heading for my plane, my mind goes back to Rachel.

  It’s not that she’s so much more beautiful than other women I’ve been with. She’s gorgeous, but it’s not just that. In my memory, everything about her feels perfect in every way.

  There’s a familiar straining in my pants. It’s become the norm whenever I think about her or remember that night. Even now, I can still hear her moans, like an aural memory that won’t go away.

  Get a hold of yourself, Landon. She’s a hooker. She’s probably been with five more men between then and now.

  “Sir?”

  I realize I’ve spoken aloud. “Nothing, Joe,” I say. “I’m just thinking.”

  He turns back to the road.

  She didn’t leave her card. Why? I retrieve my phone from my jacket pocket and dial Aidan’s number. It’s time to do something about this…about her. Aidan will tell me how to find her again, and this time, I’ll pay for as much of her time as I need to get my fill of her body.

  Aidan doesn’t pick up at first. I keep trying until he finally does.

  “Landon.” He sounds exhausted. “Sup.”

  “I take it you’re in rehearsals.”

  “You have no idea,” he sighs. “I have to work with this nineteen-year-old Broadway princess whose dad is producing the show. If she weren’t so talented, I’d fire her and tell her dad to go to hell.”

  I chuckle. “If she’s talented, what’s the problem?”

  “Where do I start!” His groan is dramatic. “Anyway, forget about all that. What’s up?”

  “Nothing. I’m in San Francisco.”

  “Sinclair taken care of?”

  “Yes.”

  “And work on the new hotel is going smoothly?”

  The questions make me smile, mainly because Aidan has no real interest in hotels or anything that doesn’t have to do with performing arts. “Yes, everything went fine.”

  “Well, congratulations.”

  “Thanks, but that’s not why I called. I need to know more about the girl you sent over to my apartment.”

  There’s a pause. “What girl?”

  What girl indeed. “On my birthday,” I clarify. “The hooker.”

  “Umm…I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I snort impatiently. “Aidan, the hooker y
ou sent to my apartment as a birthday present.”

  “Landon, you told me you weren’t interested, remember?”

  “Since when have you ever listened to me? Stop playing around, Aidan. I need her number.”

  “I’m not playing around,” he insists.

  He sounds sincere, and I got enough practice when he was a teenager to know for sure when he’s lying. “So…you didn’t send a hooker to my apartment.”

  “No!”

  Then who did?

  “Let me see if I’m getting this,” Aidan says. “Some girl showed up at your apartment, and you had sex with her because you thought she was the hooker I promised?”

  “Yes.” I grind out the word.

  “Woohoo!” he crows, making me want to pull his ears. “I don’t even know if that’s funny or scary. Was she cute? Did you use protection?”

  “Oh, shut up,” I growl.

  “She could have been a thief…or an assassin.” He laughs, his imagination on overdrive, as usual. “This is precious.” He laughs some more. “Why do you want to find her, anyway?”

  Because I can’t stop thinking about her. I catch myself before I say the words. “I have no idea,” I grumble. “Why don’t you go back to your Broadway princess and show her who’s the director?”

  He’s still laughing when I cut the connection, but I’m not. If Aidan didn’t send her, who is she, and why the fuck was she at my apartment?

  It’s late in the evening when I get back to New York. I spent most of the five-hour flight trying to work while constantly distracted by thoughts of Rachel. Who is she? Why was she in the elevator? Why didn’t she take the money, and why didn’t she leave her number?

  My mind is churning with possibilities. Was she a thief? Unlikely. Apart from a few paintings and accessories, there aren’t many items of immense value in the apartment that can be moved by a single person, and since I didn’t notice any pieces missing, I can rule that out.

  A corporate spy sent by a competitor to steal information about my business? It’s possible, but then her effort would have been in vain. I don’t keep sensitive information lying around, and the level of protection on my computer ensures that nobody else can log in.

  Now that I think about it, I realize how careless I was. If Aidan had sent her, someone would have called from the front desk to confirm that I was expecting a guest, but I was too intent on fucking her to consider things like that.

  Could she have been lost? If she was, why she didn’t tell me instead of…instead of letting me think she was a whore and…

  The images of that night fill my head. Her full breasts spilling out of her bra, the soft cloud of gold and red hair, how wet and tight she was around my cock, her response to my touch, her soft moans… As annoyed as I am by all the unexplained questions, my body reacts to the memories. My fingers clench, aching to touch her again, to relive the images in my head. I want to know who she is. I want to know why she was at my apartment, and yes, I want to fuck her again.

  As Joe navigates the streets, I wrestle with my impatience to get back to the hotel and find out what really happened on Friday night. I’ve already called Jed Fray, my head of security, to review the footage from the elevators. I resist the urge to call him again. He’ll inform me as soon as he has something.

  Almost as if I’ve communicated my thoughts telepathically, my phone vibrates. It’s him.

  I take the call. “Yes.”

  “We reviewed the footage,” he informs me. “The subject came into the lobby at a few minutes past eight and attended a birthday party for a photographer named Chadwick Black at the Oyster Restaurant.”

  The subject.

  Rachel.

  “And?”

  “She seems to have had a heated discussion with a man outside the restaurant. After that, she took the elevator to the ground floor.” He pauses. “Then when the elevator opened, she entered the button for the penthouse. We have the footage of her leaving your apartment early in the morning, but she went straight outside and took a taxi.”

  “The man outside the restaurant—do you know who he is?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Find out everything you can. I want to know who she is. Check the guest list for the party then do a social media check.”

  “Already on it.”

  “Let me know when you have something.”

  Later, when I’m in my study reviewing the videos the security department sent to me, I watch her argue with a dark-haired man outside the restaurant. When she walks away from him, she enters the elevator, and the footage shows her wiping tears from her cheeks. She didn’t even look at the panel when she hit the button for the penthouse, and at my floor, she seems genuinely confused as she vainly taps the buttons on the elevator panel, obviously trying to make it go back to the ground floor.

  My desk phone rings. It’s Jed.

  “I’m coming up.”

  “Fine.”

  He lets himself into the apartment and comes to meet me in the study, knocking discreetly before opening the door.

  “So?” I barely look at him. I just want answers.

  “We’ve been checking the names on the guest list and hoping to find her from there. We identified the man she spoke to outside the restaurant. He’s Jack Weyland, a senior editor at Gilt Traveler magazine.”

  Jed looks at me then continues.

  “He’s listed on the site as a contributor, along with a headshot.” He hands me a printout. “Farther down the page, we have another headshot, which seems to be the subject.”

  I find it almost immediately. The gleaming hair stands out, as well as the sweet half-smile and the solo dimple. I read the text beside it: Rachel Foster, Features Associate.

  I tear my eyes away from her face. “Anything else?”

  Jed nods and hands me an envelope. “That’s all we found on her.”

  I study the envelope for a moment before I reach for it.

  “Thank you.” I dismiss him. As he leaves, I have a short moment of sanity when I ask myself why I’m bothering. So what if I slept with some girl whose last name I never bothered to ask? Why can’t I let it go and forget about her?

  I extract the contents of the envelope, and I have my answer. The first sheet is a picture of her, in color, wearing a t-shirt with her hair in a ponytail. Her arm is around someone, but that part of the image has been cropped out. She’s laughing. Carefree and beautiful.

  I study the picture for a long time before I go to the next page, where all her information is neatly printed.

  Rachel Foster, twenty-four years old, Columbia graduate with a degree in English Literature, features associate at Gilt Traveler.

  Jed has included her home and work addresses, family information, and printouts of articles she has written for Gilt. I stare at the contents of the envelope, confusion slowly giving way to anger.

  Rachel Foster is going to have a lot of explaining to do.

  Chapter 5

  “I know it seems packed now, but you should come on a Friday night. We have lines around the block.”

  I swirl my drink around my glass, watching the amber liquid catch the colors from a thousand strobe lights before turning my gaze back down to the club below. I’m at Insomnia, a club I own in Midtown Manhattan.

  Duane Wilson, the manager, watches me as I study the dance floor below us. From his glass-walled circular office right at the top of the club, everything is visible. It’s like being on the deck of a large spaceship.

  “I can imagine,” I say, in response to his earlier comment.

  He walks back to his desk, leaving me alone at the glass. “Do you need anything else,” he asks. “A drink? Someone to keep you company?”

  I turn around, eyebrow raised, and he shrugs.

  “I’m just saying. I know a lot of beautiful women here tonight would love to meet the Landon Court.”

  Chuckling, I shake my head. The Landon Court. “Not tonight.”

  “Whatever you want,
boss,” he declares. “I’m going down to the VIP for a little meet and greet. Stay as long as you want.”

  When he leaves, I go back to looking down at the club. Insomnia is one of my many good investments. In the few weeks since the club opened, it has become one of the hottest spots in the city.

  Which is profitable, and very convenient now that I need to see Rachel Foster up close and decide…

  Decide what exactly? I’m not sure. I’m curious, and slightly confused. I’m not accustomed to being confused. I want to know without a doubt what she was doing in my apartment that night.

  I also want to see if the passage of time has dampened my desire for her. I need to see if the madness that drove me to arrange this interview and request her specifically will be dulled when she shows up.

  I see her almost as soon as she walks into the club. A hostess leads her and two others to the VIP area. Her companions are obviously together, a slender girl with wavy black hair and a tall guy with a mass of unruly black curls. I know the girl is her cousin and roommate, Laurie, and the guy is Brett, Laurie’s long-term boyfriend. Jed’s notes were extremely thorough.

  They order drinks, and soon, Laurie and Brett go to the dance floor.

  Rachel stays seated, sipping her drink. Her beautiful hair falls around her shoulders in soft waves. She is wearing a short black dress, and I can’t look at her without remembering what she looks like without her clothes.

  Her face lights up when the publicity manager, Marjorie, approaches her. They talk for a while then Marjorie leaves, and she’s alone again.

  Idly, she looks around, and I have to fight the urge to go straight to her and demand the answers I want then drag her out of the club and back into my bed.

  A guy approaches her, and I feel something like jealousy clench in my insides, only releasing when she sends him on his way. It makes no sense—the way I feel about this girl who lied to me, deceived me, and left me feeling like a fool.

  Her cousin returns and pulls her to the dance floor.

  Watching the soft sway of her hips as she walks, I suppress a groan. I must be crazy. I have better things to do than obsess over a girl after one night of sex.