The Hook: The End Game Series (Book 4) Read online

  Milo refused to see that happen to her.

  Still, what kind of asshole would he be if he didn’t regret being the one to show up here and prick her luxurious bubble?

  “Waiter,” he said, “I need a whiskey sour sent to the hostess.”

  ***

  When had the house become so jam-packed? During the crunk song Izzie had danced to in a circle of expensive-suited men whose keys she’d politely rejected? She’d broken away to resume her quest for the man whose Lenny Kravitz look had caught her interest earlier, but where was he?

  She stopped to regroup. A gray-haired, sun-darkened waiter penetrated the crowd, greeting her as madame and proffering a glass.

  Was he psychic? The fabulous concierge at the island’s resort hotel had highly recommended him and the other servers for this special occasion, but Professor X mind-reading was a skill the woman hadn’t mentioned.

  Mesmerized, Izzie accepted the drink. Admiring the flawlessly sliced orange wheel and plump cherry, she recognized bourbon whiskey and lemon juice as if they were BFFs. “Merci! You read my mind.”

  “Ce n’était pas mon idée. It was his request.” He gestured to a man standing near the buffet.

  A man straight out of the world she thought she’d escaped.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  “C’est vrai.”

  Izzie could avoid him—dive into the waiter’s shadow, duck past the couple gyrating perilously close to a curio cabinet stocked with valuable Cora Island knickknacks, shimmy out to the east wing of the veranda and slink her way to the estate’s private, lush tropical garden.

  Except her ex-fiancé’s eldest son shared his single-minded, addictive personality, and if Milo Tarantino was bent on destroying her party, avoidance wouldn’t dissuade him.

  Besides that, she had every right to this Seychelles holiday and he was the trespasser.

  When she’d become engaged to Luca, neither of his sons had welcomed her into the Tarantino circle. Okay, she could understand their reluctance to accept her as stepmommy number three. And yes, it might’ve seemed unconventional, since she was several years younger than both Milo and his brother, Jeremiah. But from the get-go their harsh resentment had haunted whatever seedlings of hope she’d had of a legit relationship with their father.

  Jeremiah had once been an ally, but generally he’d kept his distance. With Milo, there’d never been any give or compromise or chance of more existing between them than untainted disdain.

  For months they’d lived under the same roof, intertwined their lives, and yet his eyes always held mistrust when they touched her. Every degrading thing he left unspoken surfaced in that hard, uncompromising gaze.

  “Shall I give him your thanks?”

  Izzie bussed the waiter’s cheeks. “No, I’ll do it.” Plucking the cherry from the glass, rolling it around in her mouth and relishing its sweetness, she considered her next move.

  Somewhere in the silence of Milo’s humorless face, hidden beneath his well-cut clothes, and resting behind his steel-muscled frame was the man’s compassion.

  Of that she had no doubt.

  As she approached, she felt something coast over her like an invisible stroke. She thought she’d felt it before, in the past, but hadn’t tried to place it then.

  Was it interest?

  “Izzie. You were blonde in Las Vegas.”

  “My father’s a quarter Native American, a quarter African American, and half Polish. My mother was born a half Armenian, half German Jew. I’m not a natural blonde.”

  Rather than frown and swagger away, or ask “How did those people meet?” and “Where’d you get the blue eyes?” Milo just nodded—and she appreciated that.

  Luca Tarantino was an Italian Catholic, and his first wife, Anne, a WASP. Their sons had experienced a blended heritage.

  Izzie hadn’t.

  On paper, she was the Other checkbox. The unexplained. It diminished the beauty of her patchwork heritage, but so did plenty of her parents’ deliberate choices. Focus on tomorrow, not yesterday, was Roscoe and his wife, Daphne’s, mantra. Assimilation, civil wars, and debates about anything from places of worship to racial slurs didn’t matter when there were political opportunities to secure their present and future comforts.

  “Sending me this drink. Is this some sort of passive-aggressive gesture—”

  Milo stripped the drink from her grasp and took a swallow. “Damn, that’s some good whiskey.”

  Protesting, “I didn’t say I didn’t want it,” she reclaimed the glass.

  Yum. There weren’t many things she and Milo Tarantino agreed on, but the whiskey was good.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I remembered,” he said after an uncomfortable stretch of silence during which he simply stared at her. “Dad asked you to plan this trip a while ago. You were happy.”

  “Enamored, really,” she said. No part of being a man’s doll, of swapping her self-respect for money and gifts, had ever made her happy.

  Toe-to-toe now, she raised her chin to rest her gaze against his. Would he raid the estate, send her guests scrambling off the premises like ants brushed off a cube of sugar? “It’s Valentine’s. Poisoning my guests against me will bring down my V-Day buzz.” Jokingly said, when she spoke next, there was nothing to buffer her sincerity. “I don’t know why you’re here, Milo, but these people have nothing to do with you and me. They’re having a good time. Please don’t ruin this for them.”

  “I’m not here to ruin your party.”

  “Why are you here?”

  People scooted past, wormed around them in search of refreshments. Nudging, jostling, they created chaos—yet Milo didn’t budge. Until he leaned close to Izzie. “If we were alone, I’d tell you why. Can I do that? Get you alone?”

  Absolutely not. “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “Later.”

  “And that’d give you a head start? Your mind got busy figuring out an escape route the second you realized I was here.”

  “I—”

  “Dare you to lie.”

  Damn you, Tarantino. “I won’t take off,” she decided. “Eat. Drink. See this?” Izzie ensnared his key pendant, tangling her fingers in the chain. “Go find a few locks to put this in. That’s how the game works. You want a connection? Time with someone tonight? Unlock her first.”

  “Including you?”

  “Including me.” Izzie let the key drop, because it suddenly felt hot against her skin. Or had the heat only transferred from his chest to her fingers?

  “Izzie.”

  Walk away, she commanded her feet. But they were working against her. In fact, her entire body was. Whiskey in hand, she froze right there in front of the man she didn’t want on her island or anywhere in her temporary dream world.

  Milo said her name again, but she felt it more than heard it. The word was an abrasive vibration in her ear, because he was close…

  Too close, yet, somehow, not close enough.

  Tanned, large-knuckled fingers brushed her as they sought her necklace. A tug on the silver lock jerked her out of her stupor, but it brought her forward, into his heat.

  Had he always been so…hot? Not just a wicked heat source on a February island night, but darkly sexy?

  Dressed as though he’d purposely stopped short of polished, he wore designer clothes but the shirt’s open collar and rolled sleeves offered teasing peeks at crisp chest hair and tattooed, vein-crisscrossed arms. His silver-at-the-temples dark hair was tamed into a short ponytail that she ached to work loose.

  The low set of his brow and that crooked nose? She couldn’t imagine him without them. Framing his narrow, dangerous mouth was a beard that loitered at the midway point between five o’clock shadow and deliberate scruff—just enough whiskers to leave behind a rosy sting on her throat, breasts, pussy….

  Don’t go there. Izzie abandoned that train of thought before her mind began drawing eroti
c pictures of what his strong hands might be capable of. But his key was already nestled tight in her lock.

  Twist.

  Click.

  And she was his. Sort of. It was only a game, and in her reality, fair gameplay didn’t exist.

  Disentangling their necklaces, she whispered, “This is the master lock, you could say. Every key unlocks this lock.”

  “Who unlocked you?”

  As if she’d divulge that he’d been the only man she allowed close enough to try? “You’re here to discuss Luca. Your father. My ex-fiancé.” That man had burst all of Izzie’s illusions and had almost taken Milo’s life. He’d brought them together but would always stand between them.

  “Izzie, he’s gone.”

  Luca had disappeared from Nevada over two weeks ago, something she’d found out when investigators had approached her for questioning. Every time someone attached her to his wrongdoings she’d more firmly regretted that she’d let herself fall for his money.

  If she could hazard a guess, she’d suggest he was holed up in a safe house on some Mediterranean island, sleeping soundly through heavenly sunrises and toasting the sunsets with wine and fluffy Italian pastries.

  “Where is he?”

  Casting a sharp glance about them, she growled, “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe I don’t believe you.”

  “Feel free to not believe me all the way back to Mahé and back to the US.” She turned.

  “Izzie.”

  She stopped when he said her name as though it were a plea or a prayer. The word was ironically firm yet gentle, his voice completely broken down.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yeah. My temper and yours are meant for each other.”

  But she wasn’t meant for him, or any man. She was too much trouble, had too many— What was it her mother frequently said? Issues. She had too many issues.

  Desperate to settle her focus on anything but Milo, Izzie started to cross the room but then saw the man she’d been drawn to earlier tonight—before crunk music and Milo Tarantino had turned her ’round and ’round.

  She put down the whiskey, followed his Afro to the veranda. A temperate breeze and dozens of twinkling tea lights embraced her. “Are you leaving?”

  Pausing, the man started to smile—

  “I unlocked her.”

  Izzie whipped around. Milo!

  The stranger gave a lackluster bow and mumbled a polite good-night, then hauled ass off the veranda.

  “Why did you interfere, Milo?” she demanded.

  “I unlocked you,” he said slowly. “If we’re playing your game, that means you’re mine tonight. You owe me time.”

  “We’ll discuss Luca after the party reaches its natural conclusion.”

  “When is that?”

  “Usually parties fizzle when either the food or liquor is gone,” she said, selecting a pillar to drop against.

  The tea lights teased the shadows as he entered her space.

  Countering, “Would it conclude early if I were to walk back in that house and start telling your new friends why I’m here?” he waited for a reaction.

  If he wanted fear, he wouldn’t get it. No man would wield that power over her again. “You’re not going to do that,” she said. “You already said you wouldn’t.”

  “How can you trust that I didn’t lie?”

  “Lying isn’t in your repertoire.” Lying was an art her parents and their assistants—nannies and political aides—had taught her, but recently she’d decided to start telling the truth. Though she reported to tabloid bloggers, she presented perceptions of the truth that were difficult to discredit. She didn’t invent scandal where there was none. Often, there was enough legitimate scandalous material in Nevada and California to make fabrication a wasted effort. “I always liked you for that—your honesty.”

  “There are things I always liked about you, too, Izzie.”

  “I won’t ask you to list them.”

  “Great, because I’m going to, and I don’t want you to think it’s because you asked.”

  A former NFL superstar who’d kept himself closed off the entire time she’d known him was going to say what he liked about her?

  “I like that you’re still standing after being hurt.”

  She had a lot of experience in that department. “I’m resilient. Most people are.”

  “You buy novelty shit.”

  “I’m a junk hoarder. According to my mother.”

  Chuckling, he almost turned her legs into wet noodles. Big Bad Strong and Silent could smile like that?

  It dazzled her, like one of those rare cosmic events. A meteor shower or solar eclipse.

  “‘Junk hoarder.’ We can go with that. When you moved out of the house, you left some of your things behind. Key chains, pen sleeves, old-fashioned toys—that kind of shit.”

  “Then you have my wooden tic-tac-toe game?” She hesitated to smile, because that was easier than suppression.

  “Last time I saw it, the staff were boxing it all up for you. And that was a couple of months ago. Only Nadia is there now. Everybody else cleared out.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Vegas.”

  “I didn’t keep tabs.” She broke away from his gaze, busied herself appreciating the flickering of the candlelight against the villa’s pearl-white exterior. “I decided to stay away from that environment—the gold-digging and celebrity lifestyle. In measured steps, I’m changing. Change, you can’t absorb it all at once. Bit by bit’s the best way.”

  “If you wanted distance that environment, why are you here, Izzie? My father paid for this vacation.”

  She almost hadn’t come, had debated for hours. But the trip had already been paid for, with the equivalent of two million US dollars deposited in a Seychelles bank under her name. Cora Island was supposed to give her the chance to get to know herself again, figure out how she’d survive on her feet instead of her back with her legs spread. “I came here to be alone, Milo.”

  He gestured toward the villa’s entrance, indicating the obvious contradiction.

  “I didn’t want to be alone on Valentine’s.”

  “I get it.”

  “Ask Nadia to help herself to what’s in the box or donate it to charity with my thanks. I won’t be making the drive out to Henderson to get it. I can’t go back to Luca’s house.” It held memories of what she thought she’d wanted, in a past life. Once upon a scheme, she’d wanted to marry a wealthy older man, because wealthy older men were all she’d experienced in her young life. She would’ve earned her own fame, starring in a reality TV show based on her life as an NFL team owner’s wife, had Luca not sold the team and fed her lies.

  But even if she had obtained that life, she’d still cry herself to sleep sometimes. Life was lonely when family closed their doors and friends turned their backs.

  “Keep ’em coming—the things you like about me,” she said lightly, but the seriousness in his eyes had her heart thudding.

  “You’re generous.”

  Had he meant generous? Gold-diggers didn’t have a rep for being altruistic, but often the nuances of a person, her struggles and sacrifices and reasons why didn’t come to light, and labels defeated everything.

  “There are a lot of things you could’ve done tonight, instead of hosting a party and opening your villa to strangers, Izzie. You told me you don’t want this ruined for them.”

  “I don’t want it ruined for me, either,” she clarified, not exactly sure why she couldn’t just accept his words or think nothing of them. “There was a lot of effort. The regular villa staff helped me organize and decorate. They’re gone tonight, but I’m proud of their hard work and don’t want to see it wasted.”

  “Gone? Why?”

  “I gave them the night off for Valentine’s. Hopefully they’re all getting blitzed in Victoria.”

  “Izzie?”

/>   “Yes?”

  “Generous.”

  So he liked her perceived resilience, supposed generosity, and that she hoarded novelty knickknacks.

  He hadn’t called her hot or pretty or gorgeous.

  He’d cited qualities that had nothing to do with her appearance, and she slammed into joy the way somebody might walk into a door.

  Throat tight, she said, “I-I’m sorry, but … I’m not used to this, Milo. What are we supposed to do with all of this? When I was with…him…you and I—we didn’t have civil conversations or freely say what we like about each other.” He’d been too guarded, and she too focused on rescuing herself using someone else’s fortune. “I came here for clarity, but you show up and…”

  “And what?”

  “And confuse me. Sorry.”

  “Hey,” he said, and the single gentle syllable was so strange from one of the harshest men she’d ever come across. “Be sorry. That’s your right. But I can’t take it back. I’m not going to do that.”

  “Then there’s that,” she whispered, so quietly. The confession hurt, yet it felt as rich as liberty. “I don’t want you to take it back.”

  Izzie made the mistake of meeting him head-on. Key necklace to lock necklace. Eye to eye. Body to body as he used his granite-solid form—shoulders, hands, crotch, thighs—to pin her to the pillar.

  “Who unlocked you?”

  “You, Milo.”

  “And? Tell me who else unlocked you. Give me the fuckers’ names.”

  “No one else. Just you.”

  And then they collided mouth to mouth, with the urgency of heat and demand of sharp whiskey flavoring the taste. Grace and precision weren’t welcome in this kiss. It wasn’t about intellect or the melding of spirits. Just hard, ruthless want and the craving to commit the dirtiest of deeds.

  Izzie wrapped herself around him: hands fisting in his long hair, legs parting to invite him deeper. Fingertips sank into flesh. Wet tongues invaded.

  A mistake was one thing. But this? This was bad in every naughty, delicious, unforgivably fucked-up way.

  Chapter Three

  Milo needed salvation. Kissing Izzie as though he was thirsty for her, pressing against her as though she was meant for him, felt so good it couldn’t be anything but wrong. The weak, almost voiceless part of him that clung to decent judgment begged for something to wrest control from whatever urge demanded that he fuck this woman against a pillar.