Catching Fire: New Rules (Billionaire Romance Series Book 2) Read online

  He stepped back and she stumbled a little.

  He reached out to steady her, and his body grew rigid from her announcement. “I’ll let go, but only for now.” He released her and she rushed away to the back of the room, opening a door and closing it behind her.

  He looked down at himself and knew he’d better make the same trip before he went back to the deck.

  A pounding sounded on the door. “Hey!”

  Rex stilled as Ava opened the bathroom door.

  “Who’s in there?” Another voice asked from the deck hall. There was some scuffling from the hallway and the knob was turning as someone was trying to get in.

  Ava put her hands over her mouth her face paling.

  Rex sighed. “Wait a minute!” he yelled at the door. Turning to Ava, he motioned his head to the bathroom.

  She went through the doorway and shut it.

  Rex flipped the light on and looked around. A set of small barbells sat on the floor. He easily picked one up and opened the door.

  A steward and another man he recognized stood in the hall while staring at him.

  “What?” Rex asked as he strode over to the weight bench and sat down, using the weight and curling it.

  The two men looked around. “Oh, we’re sorry, we just—“

  “I like to work out, alone. I hope you guys don’t mind?” He did several curls with the barbell.

  “Sure,” the steward answered. “Sorry about that, sir.” He shut the rec-room door.

  Rex waited a moment and stood up, walking over to the bathroom. He gave a soft knock and swung the door open.

  Ava stood by the sink, looking terrified.

  “It’s okay, they’re gone now.”

  She raised her shaky hands to her mouth. “Rex, we can’t do this anymore.”

  He grabbed her arms. “You’re right and that is why you need to tell—”

  “No!” She shook her head. “You don’t understand!”

  He shook her. “No, I don’t. Do you love him?”

  Her eyes rounded. “I used to.”

  Pulling her close, he got hard immediately. He set her away from him. “Dammit!” He was frustrated at his body’s continued response to her. “Listen, we will just—”

  “No, I said, there is no we.” Tears formed in her eyes again. “Rex, Tino is a bad man. Don’t be fooled by his nice guy act.”

  “I’m sure I can take him if—“

  “No!” she seethed at him. “He will have you killed.” She turned from him. “By my need for you, I have doomed you. Oh, God…” She began to cry.

  Rex smoothed a gentle hand across her back.

  “These people are fucking deadly, Rex.”

  He released a breath. “Then what do we do?”

  She grabbed some tissue paper from the roll and wiped her eyes. “Nothing. We won’t do this again.” Her voice had become firm.

  Rex shook his head. “No. I have tasted you again and I can’t—”

  “Nothing, Rex. I will not be responsible for your death.” She balled her hands into fists.

  “Mimi brought me here to ruin your marriage and she has succeeded.” He glared at her.

  “Oh, no. She hasn’t.”

  Rex felt hurt and bewildered by the statement.

  “You just don’t understand.” She went by him and cracked the bathroom door. “I have to go, but Rex please try to understand?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t.”

  Ava looked over at him. “He lets me have a lover if I want. That was why I sought you out years ago. He can’t—he…” She squared her shoulders. “But the minute he ever suspects that I loved you? He would kill you.”

  Rex found that his entire body stiffened at her words. “You do love me.”

  Ava bit at her lip. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me.” He felt so conflicted, here he was begging to be with a married woman like some mistress would do, if a man wouldn’t leave his wife.

  “Just leave it alone. I mean it!” She rushed from the room.

  He stayed put and realized that he’d never felt like this before. She did love him, though and he wanted to cheer to the heavens while at the same time? She’d dumped him cold.

  Rex narrowed his eyes as he grabbed some towels to clean himself up. The game is not over. In fact, it had just begun. His eyes glittered as he thought of his supposed girlfriend in her deck room. Mimi would have known that he would be killed if her point was proven to Tino. He was now going to use everything he had to win this game.

  Sex, Video Tapes and Lies

  Rex threw the adjoining door open.

  Mimi sat up in her bed, dropping a magazine. “What the hell?” she shouted.

  “It won’t work!” he yelled at her.

  Mimi batted her eyes at him.

  “I caught her in that weigh room.”

  Mimi sat up straighter, her expression curious.

  “I pulled out all the stops.”

  “Yeah?”

  He shook his head. “She accused me of being here to blackmail her and she won’t go for it.”

  Mimi looked startled.

  “I’m afraid you might have overestimated my charm.” He sighed.

  “We will just have to turn up the heat.”

  Rex shook his head. “She sees exactly what you’re trying to do.”

  Mimi looked thoughtful. “We will just have to fix it.”

  Now Rex batted his eyes at her. “Fix?”

  She nodded her head.

  “Just how do you mean that?”

  “You are the great seducer, are you not?”

  Rex glared at her. “I don’t perform rapes, if that’s what you mean.” He almost flinched with the memory of just thirty minutes ago, asking Ava about who was raping whom.

  “We will just have to arrange it better and maybe slip her something.”

  He had to use every acting lesson in his arsenal to keep from jumping across the space between them and strangling the smugness from that swollen face. He made no reply while he decided to allow her all the rope she would need.

  “I will be better very soon and when I am? I will spend some time with my dear brother.”

  Rex shrugged.

  “By then, I will have something for you to slip into her drink.”

  “Look, you have forced me into this and now you are crossing lines. “ He took a step closer toward the bed. “Lines, I won’t cross.”

  Mimi got up from the bed. “I suppose the money didn’t matter.”

  “I don’t want the money. I want the hell off this boat!” he shouted.

  Mimi looked alarmed. “Don’t shout at me! Tino will think—“

  He stepped over and grabbed her arms, raising her from the floor. “I don’t give a fuck what Tino thinks or what you want. I want my life back!”

  Mimi glared down at him. “You would rather go to jail?”

  He lowered her to the floor, and as her feet touched the rug, her smug expression became complete again.

  “Yes, I’m done. I’m tired of your threats and blackmail.”

  Mimi batted her eyes at him now. “Oh, really?”

  “I will do a little time at Club whatever, and then I will go back to my own life.”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re bluffing!”

  Rex released her arms. “I am going straight to your brother.”

  Mimi paled two shades. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “I will tell him the entire truth!”

  Mimi started to laugh.

  The woman is crazy.

  She kept chuckling. “And you will claim what?”

  “I will claim nothing. I was forced into this by you. I barely knew Ava three years ago. She was a fucking trick!”

  “And you think he won’t care about that?”

  Shrugging, Rex decided to play out the bluff to its conclusion. “She told me at the time that her husband allowed her to take lovers.”

  Mimi’s expression did not show
any shock. “Yes, that is true.”

  At her cold expression, Rex began to feel like the deck beneath him might just be quicksand.

  “But she can’t get involved with them.”

  He tried to look nonchalant. “That leaves me in the clear.”

  Mimi walked around to the end of her bed and opened the sea trunk. “I was saving this, just in case you got wet feet.”

  His stomach tightened as the quicksand took hold.

  She produced a CD and raised it up for him to see.

  “What?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh, I suppose you got me now, with a song or something?”

  She went over to the desk where her PC sat and she opened the drive, slipping the CD in. “This is a song to make you weep, Rexxy boy.” She clicked the mouse and opened the media player.

  He watched the screen and his focus shifted to her face as she pressed play with a flourish of drama.

  Ava was lying on the floor at the base of a leather couch with her feet up on the couch.

  Rex dropped his arms and stared at those luscious bare thighs as she wore just her bra and panties. Again, he grew immediately hard, despite the situation. He shook himself. Her laughter sounded as she tipped back a drink. She was with another woman that Rex didn’t recognize.

  “Her supposed best friend,” Mimi whispered up at him.

  Entranced while Ava’s voice filled the speakers, he simply stared.

  “Love?” She sighed as she almost spilled her drink. “Yes, I believe in it.”

  “Really?” her friend asked and released a hiccup.

  His chest joined his stomach as a squeezing began there too.

  “I left a man once.” She took a wobbly sip from her glass.

  “And that was love?” her friend spoke again.

  “Yep.”

  “Oh, my God, Ava. You’re serious?”

  Ava dropped her glass to the carpet and stared up at the ceiling. “The most gorgeous creature to ever be called a man, and I had to have him at all costs.”

  Rex shook his head in disbelief at the small screen.

  “I picked him up off Rodeo Drive.”

  Her girlfriend made a gasping sound. “No!”

  Ava laughed. “Oh, yes!”

  For a full minute, both women released drunken laughter.

  Rex swung his gaze down to Mimi. “It proves nothing, it was just—“

  “Shh, she isn’t done, Rexxy!” Mimi cut him off.

  His gaze swung back to the monitor.

  “I suppose it was sex at first sight.” Ava released a small chuckle. “But…”

  The other woman sat up on the couch with total interest now. “But?”

  Ava sighed again. “I stayed with him for a month!”

  Again, her friend gasped.

  “Yeah, a one night stand that I couldn’t seem to walk away from.”

  Rex thought his heart had stopped beating and he couldn’t breathe.

  “I was just supposed to finally get some good sex.” Ava seemed to lower her voice.

  “Yeah and it must have been.”

  “No!” Ava answered. “It was the best fucking sex on the face of this earth!”

  The other woman broke into laughter.

  Ava did not laugh, as tears rolled down her flushed cheeks.

  Rex peered closely at her face on the monitor and he clenched his fists at his sides.

  “I left him, but I fell in love with him. I left so much money on the table it would make you weep.” Her voice broke as she covered her face with her hands. “Underneath? Where I sure he never saw it—was my heart, broken. I wanted to die for a long time afterward.” Her weeping grew loud in the room.

  “Oh, Ava. I’m so sorry!”

  “No, don’t be!” She kept swiping at her tears. “I never took another lover. It was the only way to pay for what I did to him. It could never be that great anyways.” She sniffled. “He was my one true love, for always…”

  Mimi clicked the mouse and the screen went black.

  Rex stood like a statue in front of the desk. He felt like he was being covered in hot melting wax and he might go up if he were near a flame. He knew Mimi watched him closely. So many emotions cascaded through him all at once. She had loved him and he never knew it. He wanted to run to her, grab her up and—

  “Still gonna tell ?” Mimi sneered.

  He turned to face her.” If you had this, why did you need to bring me here?”

  Mimi shook her head. “Man, you really are all beauty and no brains.”

  Her insults couldn’t get to him anymore. His head was spinning from what he just saw and heard.

  “It was three years ago and she could convince Tino that she was drunk when she said all that, coupled with the fact that she never saw you again.”

  He knew now that the minute he stepped on board, he had doomed Ava for a certainty.

  “But once she saw you again…?” Mimi turned away. “Oh and by the way, I have copies, so never mind the disk.”

  Ignoring the remark, he stared at her back. “Does your brother love Ava?”

  Mimi froze for a second, and then turned around to face him. “What?”

  Rex made his way to his door. “Just wondering. I mean if you cared about him at all, you wouldn’t have done this to him.” Rex slammed the door behind him.

  He stood waiting for a few seconds until he heard some object crash against the door. He wanted to smile but again, he couldn’t, he had no reason to—yet.

  * * * *

  Dinner on the deck….

  Rex knew he didn’t want to even show up at dinner, but he had to. Mimi would be there, she had yelled through their adjoining doors that she wanted him there. At this point, he didn’t give a shit what she wanted, but he did need to try to bring this whole supposed pleasure cruise to an end—one way or another.

  He’d guessed that Ava was unaware of the drunken confession tape and he wondered when and how Mimi would use it. How had his fun ride through life turn into a rollercoaster of pain and possible death? He knew how and who. His gut clenched with rage again. He now knew how someone could be driven to murder. He had contemplated it for the first time in his life. Lying in bed all afternoon, imagining ways to be rid of the Mimi bitch.

  His luck wouldn’t hold though, and she probably made some kind of arrangement to expose him as a suspect after the crime.

  He took a look at himself in the tall mirror. Casual dress pants, black shirt. He looked good. He peered closely. I have shadows beneath my eyes. The shock was stunning to him. He looked worse for wear.

  A knock sounded on his door and before he could respond, the door opened to reveal Tino. “Hello,” he greeted and stepped in.

  Rex hid his surprise.

  Tino walked over and stood next to him at the mirror. “I need to know how much.” He smiled and put a friendly arm around Rex’s shoulder.

  Blinking his eyes at the odd question, Rex tried to seem relaxed. “What?”

  “I had my men look into your background.”

  Rex looked Tino’s mirrored image in the eyes. “Yeah?”

  Tino shook his head. “I can see you have no real interest in my sister.”

  Wondering where this was going, he decided to keep his mouth shut until he found out.

  “You have an interesting job.” Tino laughed.

  Rex nodded. “Acting doesn’t pay the bills.” Good answer!

  Tino nodded and patted his shoulder. “I would love to have your career. I bet most men envy you.”

  Keeping his smile at bay, he nodded.

  “Unfortunately, I had an illness as a child and…” He met Rex’s gaze in the mirror. “I love my wife, but I cannot make love to her.”

  Rex held his breath.

  “I know that Mimi hired you.”

  His stomach rolled over with each word the man uttered. “Yes?” He just kept up with follow the leader game.

  “Yeah, I know she’s a lesbian and this whole couple thing is just for
my benefit.”

  Fighting panic, he held the sigh of relief in his chest.

  “But, I need to explain something to you.”

  Oh, fuck yes, please do! Rex shouted in his mind.

  “I want to see my wife happy.”

  Rex knew his face was paling and his palms were slick with sweat. No way is he saying that—

  “I want you to sleep with Ava.”

  The man of the night opted to continue playing mute as he found he couldn’t swallow.

  “I mean like more than once.”

  It could have been his imagination, but Rex thought the room might be spinning on its own. “Does she know about this?”

  Tino shook his head.

  “How do you know that she’ll even want it?”Rex remembered the words she said to him just hours ago.

  Tino sighed and stepped away from the mirror. “I know that she has been celibate for at least…”

  Three years, Rex knew already. But in reality? Three whole hours.

  “…Several years. She is a devoted wife, always there, always caring for me. Selfless as hell.” Tino sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “I want to see her smile again. I want her satisfied, happy.”

  “And you think I could do that?”

  Tino laughed. “I saw your entire file, Mister Harris. You have some glowing recommendations.”

  Rex kept his face blank. “I made it a study to find out what women wanted and I give it to them.”

  Tino laughed outright.”Awesome! Just fabulous.” He came back over and stuck his hand out. “Name your price.”

  Oh, wow. Rex shrugged his shoulders. Quote a price to the husband for sleeping with the only woman who ever really mattered? “I have no idea,” he answered honestly.

  “Well, if it wouldn’t be too forward, I could match my sister’s price?”

  Rex smiled for the first time during this dangerous little meeting. No, I am a good fuck, but you couldn’t match that. Just answer him, go along with it. He nodded his head and shook Tino’s hand.

  “One thing, though?”

  Rex looked him in the eye.

  “Do not allow it to get—romantic in any way.”

  He decided to continue playing dumb. “Romantic? You mean I can’t like…woo her?”