SLOANE'S POV
The VIP lounge was supposed to be locked.
I knew this because I'd tried the door twice already during my previous reconnaissance missions—once while searching for a bathroom that wasn't swarming with Tinsley clones, once while hunting for an electrical outlet to charge my dying phone. Both times, the heavy oak door had been sealed tighter than a nun's habit.
Tonight it swung open at the lightest touch.
I should have recognized the trap. I should have smelled the bait. But fury had stripped away every survival instinct I possessed, leaving only the pure, incandescent rage of a woman who'd just realized she'd been played for a fool.
"Dane!"
He was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan glittering behind him like a ransom note written in diamonds. Still in that stupid security uniform. Still with the sleeves rolled up. He turned at the sound of my voice, and his expression was the worst thing I'd ever seen—calm. Expectant. Like he'd been waiting for me.
Like he'd left the door open on purpose.
"You son of a bitch." I crossed the room in six strides, my scuffed flats slapping against the marble. "You lying, scheming, five-hundred-dollar—"
I grabbed his collar.
Fisted both hands in the cheap polyester of his uniform shirt and yanked him toward me. He didn't resist.
Didn't flinch. His body followed my momentum with a fluid ease that made my stomach drop, and suddenly we were chest to chest, his face inches from mine, his breath warm against my lips.
"The flat shoes." I shook him. "The sass. The cinnamon coffee. You told me he hated those things. You told me I'd be eliminated."
"I told you Declan Vance hated them." His voice was infuriatingly level. "Turns out he doesn't."
"Bullshit. You're a security guard. You don't know what the CEO likes."
"Maybe I pay attention."
"Maybe you're a fucking liar."
His hands found my waist. Just rested there, palms flat against my hipbones, fingers curving around the swell of my ass like they belonged there. Like they'd never left. The heat of him bled through my blazer, through my blouse, branding my skin.
"I didn't lie," he murmured. "The CEO genuinely loves your coffee. And the flats. And the attitude." His mouth curved—that infuriating half-smile, the one that used to make me weak in the knees before I knew what a garbage human he was. "Turns out Declan Vance has a thing for feral women who insult him in broom closets."
My hand came up to slap him.
His caught my wrist mid-air.
The motion was liquid, practiced, his fingers wrapping around the delicate bones of my forearm and squeezing—not hard, but firm. A warning. A promise. He used the grip to pull me closer, and suddenly my back was against the leather sofa and he was looming over me, one knee pressed between my thighs, his body a wall of heat and muscle and barely contained tension.
"Let go of me."
"No."
"Dane—"
"You want to know why I gave you that information?" His voice dropped, the playfulness evaporating.
Something darker moved behind his eyes. Something hungry. "You want the truth?"
"I want my hand back."
"You stormed into a supply closet and offered me five hundred dollars to betray my employer." His grip tightened on my wrist. "Five hundred dollars. Like I was a waiter you were tipping. Like I was some stranger you could bribe into doing your dirty work."
"You are a stranger. You're a stranger who spent two years lying to me, who kissed another woman in broad daylight, who—"
"She was my sister."
The words hit me like a freight train.
My mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. No sound came out.
"Camille. My half-sister. She tracked me down in Brooklyn to tell me our father was dying." His jaw was steel. His eyes were a storm. "I didn't chase after you because I was standing in the rain, Sloane, trying to process the fact that the man who abandoned my mother before I was born was suddenly relevant to my life.
By the time I looked up, you were gone. You blocked my number. You blocked my email. You vanished."
"You—" My voice cracked. "The Chanel woman. The town car. She was so... rich."
"She is rich. She's a Vance."
"And you—"
"I am too."
The room tilted.
"Declan Vance," he said, slowly, like he was explaining gravity to a toddler, "is not some faceless billionaire.
It's me. It's always been me. The questionnaire. The checklist. The Mario Kart scores and the vanilla syrup and the goddamn strawberry allergy." His free hand came up, cupping my jaw, his thumb dragging across my lower lip. "I wrote every question. I designed every test. I've been searching for you since the day you disappeared."
"You're a mechanic," I whispered. "You're a broke mechanic with a mustard stain on your jacket."
"I'm a billionaire who spent two years pretending to be broke because I wanted someone to love me for something other than my bank account." His mouth was at my ear now, his breath hot and ragged. "And you did. You loved me when I was nothing. And then you left."
"Because you cheated."
"Because you saw what you expected to see." His teeth grazed my earlobe. "Because you've always been so sure that you're disposable, Sloane. So ready to believe that anyone would trade you in for a better model."
"Fuck you."
"Is that what you want?"
His hips pressed forward. The ridge of his cock, already hard, ground against my belly through the thin fabric of his uniform pants. My traitorous body arched into him before my brain could intervene—muscle memory, two years of muscle memory, every nerve ending lighting up because this is Dane, this is his body, this is the way he smells and the way he groans and the way he fits.
"Tell me to stop," he said. "Tell me you don't want this, and I'll let you walk out that door. I'll let you go. I'll withdraw your application myself. No penalty. No lawsuit. You can have the fifty thousand and your freedom and you never have to see me again."
I should have said it.
The word was right there. Stop. Leave. No.
"What do you want, Sloane?"
His hand slid from my jaw to my throat. Not choking. Just resting there, his palm against my pulse, feeling the hammer of my heartbeat, the truth my mouth wouldn't speak.
My hips rolled forward. Involuntary. Desperate. Fucking pathetic.
He felt it. Of course he felt it.
"That's what I thought."
The kiss was not gentle.
It was teeth and tongue and fury, two years of absence and one month of betrayal and the raw, animal need to reclaim something that had been torn away. He bit my lower lip. I bit his back. His hands fisted in my blazer and ripped—buttons scattering, silk tearing, the sound obscene in the quiet room.
"My blazer—"
"I'll buy you a hundred blazers."
"That's not the—"
"Shut up, Sloane." His mouth moved to my throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. "Just shut up and let me fuck you."
The word hit me low in the belly. He'd never talked like that before. The old Dane was sweet, playful, murmuring compliments and stupid jokes even when he was inside me. This Dane was something else. This
Dane was a man who'd spent a month thinking he'd lost me forever and wasn't going to waste a single second now that he had me back.
My blouse joined the blazer on the floor.
My bra went next, his fingers fumbling with the clasp for exactly half a second before he gave up and yanked it down, baring my breasts to the cool air. His mouth found my nipple, hot and wet and demanding, and I arched off the sofa with a sound that was half-moan, half-curse.
"You're still so responsive," he muttered against my skin. "Still so fucking wet for me. I can smell you."
"Asshole."
"Tell me you didn't think about this. Every night for a month. Your hand between your legs, pretending it was mine."
I hated him. I hated that he was right.
His fingers found the button of my pants. Popped it. Dragged the zipper down. His hand slid inside, cupping me through the soaked cotton of my underwear, his middle finger pressing against my clit with the exact pressure he knew I needed.
"God—"
"Say my name."
"Dane—"
"Again."
He pushed the underwear aside and sank two fingers into me, curling them forward, hitting that spot inside me that made my vision white out. My back bowed. My nails raked down his chest, catching on the cheap polyester, probably leaving scratches on the skin beneath.
"Look at you." His thumb circled my clit while his fingers pumped. "So tight. So ready. You've been walking around this building for days, passing me in hallways, pretending you didn't want to climb me like a tree."
"I didn't—"
"You dragged me into a supply closet." His fingers curled again, and I sobbed. "You touched my chest. You smelled my cologne. You think I didn't notice the way your pupils dilated every time you looked at me?"
"Fuck you."
"We're getting there."
He withdrew his fingers, and the emptiness was a physical ache. I watched him bring them to his mouth, watched his tongue slide between them, tasting me with an expression of pure, male satisfaction.
"Still the best thing I've ever tasted," he said.
Then he was shoving his pants down, and his cock sprang free—thick and flushed and already leaking at the tip. He didn't bother with his shirt. Didn't bother with foreplay. He just grabbed my hips, positioned himself at my entrance, and pushed.
One hard, merciless thrust.
I screamed.
Not from pain—from fullness, from recognition, from the overwhelming rightness of his body inside mine after so long. My inner walls clenched around him, and he groaned, his forehead dropping to my shoulder, his breath hot and ragged against my collarbone.
"Fuck," he hissed. "Fuck, Sloane, you feel—"
He didn't finish the sentence. He started moving instead.
Hard. Fast. Punishing. Each thrust drove me deeper into the leather cushions, my legs wrapped around his waist, my heels digging into his lower back. The sofa creaked beneath us. The windows rattled. Somewhere in the building, I was supposed to be preparing for a final gala, competing for the hand of a mysterious billionaire, and instead I was getting railed by my ex-boyfriend in a VIP lounge while the city watched through floor-to-ceiling glass.
"Say you're mine." His hand fisted in my hair, yanking my head back. "Say it."
"I hate you."
"Say it anyway."
His cock hit deep, grinding against my cervix, and the pleasure-pain ripped another scream from my throat.
He was everywhere—his scent in my nostrils, his sweat on my skin, his voice in my ear chanting my name like a prayer or a curse.
"I'm—Dane, I'm close—"
"I know." His rhythm stuttered. "I can feel you. You're squeezing me so fucking tight. Come for me. Come on my cock, Sloane. Now."
The orgasm hit like an earthquake.
My vision went white. My hearing went static. Every muscle in my body clenched and released and clenched again, waves of pleasure radiating outward from my core until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began. He followed me over the edge with a guttural roar, spilling inside me, his hips jerking with the force of his release.
We lay there for a long moment. Panting. Sweating. Tangled together on a leather sofa that probably cost more than my entire childhood home.
Then reality crashed back in.
I shoved him off me. He rolled onto his back, chest heaving, eyes half-lidded with satisfaction. The asshole looked smug.
"That was—" he started.
"Mistake." I scrambled upright, hunting for my clothes. "A huge mistake. A catastrophic, possibly alcohol- induced—I wasn't even drinking, what the fuck is wrong with me—"
"Sloane."
"No. No talking. We're not doing the post-coital cuddle. We're not doing the 'let's talk about our feelings' thing." I found my blazer—torn. My blouse—missing three buttons. My underwear—god, where was my underwear? "You lied to me. For years. About everything. And I just—" I gestured at the sofa, at his naked body, at the evidence of our mutual stupidity smeared across my thighs. "This doesn't change anything."
"It changes everything."
"It changes nothing." I yanked my pants on. No underwear. Fine. Whatever. "I'm going to that final gala. I'm going to win this thing. And I'm going to do it without you."
"Sloane, the gala is—"
I checked my phone.
Twenty-three minutes.
Twenty-three minutes until the Final Gala began. Twenty-three minutes to get from this lounge to the penthouse ballroom, to find a new outfit, to fix my hair, to scrub the smell of sex off my skin. If I was late, if I missed the event, the penalty clause kicked in.
Fifty thousand dollars.
I grabbed my shoes and ran.
---
DECLAN'S POV
The door slammed shut behind her.
Declan lay motionless on the leather sofa, listening to her footsteps retreat down the corridor, the frantic slap of her bare feet against marble because she'd forgotten to put her shoes on. The sound faded. The silence rushed in.
He smiled.
His phone was already in his hand. Hayes answered on the first ring.
"Sir?"
"Have my tuxedo sent to the dressing room. The Tom Ford. And alert Ms. Kruger that the selection ceremony will proceed as scheduled."
"Of course, sir. And Ms. Beckett?"
Declan's smile widened. He could still taste her on his lips.
"Leave her to me."
