and that, at least, would help her make a clean break with him.
Wanting to avoid any morning-after awkwardness, she knew she had to slip out in the dark of night while he was sleeping. Quietly and carefully, she edged off the bed. She stepped into her underwear, picked up her shoes from the floor, and gave him one last look to tuck away for future dreams and fantasies.
He was snoring softly, the endearing sound making her smile. The sheet was tangled around his waist, and she memorized what she could see of his hard, muscular body, the stubble on his jaw, and the roguishly long hair that had felt like silk between her fingers. Undoubtedly, he was a gorgeous, masculine work of art she was going to miss more than she cared to admit.
Swallowing the regrets rising within her before they threatened to overwhelm her, she tiptoed out of the bedroom and made her way down the hall to the living room. She was grateful the lamp next to the couch was still on, which kept her fumbling-around to a minimum. Finding her dress in a heap on the floor, she quickly put it on, then made her way to the table in the foyer where she’d left her purse.
She absolutely hated leaving like a thief in the night, without a good-bye or an explanation, and that thought had her reaching into her handbag for a pen and the small notepad she kept with her. Tearing off a clean sheet of paper, she wrote,
She grabbed the strap of her purse, but just as she turned away, the bottom of the bag brushed across a file folder on the edge of the table and knocked it to the floor. The contents spilled out, and she whispered a curse beneath her breath at her clumsiness as she knelt down to retrieve the papers and photographs now strewn across the ground.
She picked up a picture of a pretty, young blond girl and what appeared to be an investigative report. At first, she gave the summary an indifferent glance, but a familiar name caught her attention and made her pause and take a second, more careful look.
She knew she ought to stuff the items back into the folder without another glance, but as a journalist she had a curiosity streak a mile wide. What she’d discovered made her question Nathan’s connection to a man surrounded by controversy when it came to his private life.
Unable to ignore what she’d inadvertently found, her reporter instincts kicked in, overriding the twinge of guilt pricking her conscience. She didn’t have time to sit there and read through all the notes and reports at her leisure without the risk of him catching her, so she did the next best thing. Pushing aside the little voice in her head telling her she was straddling a fine ethical line, she pulled her BlackBerry from her purse and took close-up pictures of the contents of the file to peruse later. Within minutes she had everything back in its place and was quietly slipping out the front door.
On the drive home, she mulled over what she’d discovered, her mind spinning with her own thoughts on Preston Sloane. Once she arrived at her apartment, she headed straight for her bedroom, closed the door, and began uploading the pictures she’d taken to her laptop. She changed into her favorite pair of short PJs, crawled into bed, and began reading the information she’d copied from Nathan’s file.
In her opinion, and from what she knew and had heard as a reporter, Preston Sloane was as sleazy as they came. He reminded her way too much of her own experience in college, when her English professor, nearly twenty years her senior, had taken advantage of her youth.
She was barely eighteen, a freshman, and Mark Reeves’s flirtation and attention had made her feel special and attractive. All the girls in his class had a crush on him, and Nicole was no different-except she was the one he wanted out of all those other girls, and in a matter of weeks she was dating him, then sleeping with him.
But what began as an exciting relationship with an older, experienced man gradually turned into something much uglier-including the use of drugs (to relax her, he’d told her), then on to kinkier sexual demands. She’d been so convinced that he loved her, so caught up in pleasing him, that she hadn’t realized just how degrading and dysfunctional the relationship actually was.
Mark had been a master at seducing her body and manipulating her emotions, only to shatter her heart and self-esteem when someone younger, prettier, and more innocent came along to replace her in his affections. With Nicole well used, he’d cut her out of his life completely and without remorse, leaving her ashamed and humiliated.
At the time, she’d hadn’t been able to see the silver lining in his cruel and abrupt breakup. Devastated and unable to focus on what was most important to her-her degree in journalism-she’d nearly lost everything that mattered to her.
She’d learned her lesson well and had thankfully recovered from the ordeal, but the emotional scars and inability to trust a man completely ran much deeper.
Now, as she scanned through the investigative report and the Internet articles on Preston Sloane and the supposed darker side to his personality, her stomach roiled in response. Then came the detailed information on a teenage girl named Angela Ramsey, a runaway who’d last been seen at Sloane’s estate and had been missing for the past three weeks.
Nicole had no idea what Nathan’s involvement was with Sloane and the teenage girl, or why he had a portfolio filled with so much personal data on each. He’d told her he worked in surveillance for The Onyx, so why was he interested in something that had nothing to do with casino security?
By the time she finished reading everything, she’d connected to Angela Ramsey’s story on a personal level and felt compelled to do something to alter the course the young girl was currently on. Her journalistic side saw a breakout story. And the eighteen-year-old she’d once been wanted desperately to save other girls from enduring the humiliation and degradation of getting involved with a man like Preston Sloane.
She tried to get some sleep, but instead spent the rest of the night and early-morning hours tossing and turning fitfully. Her mind churned with her own foolish past, the choices she’d made, and how those choices had nearly destroyed her. Nicole wondered how many young girls like Angela had seen Preston Sloane as their own Prince Charming. A man reputed to use girls for his pleasure, at the cost of their own self-worth and sanity.
Oh, yeah, she’d been there, done that, and she couldn’t deny the information struck a personal chord. By morning, she was determined to do what she hadn’t done all those years ago with her professor: find a way to expose Preston Sloane for the creep he was.
Here was the substantial story she’d been looking for, just begging for her to research and write. Unable to resist such a challenge, or the chance to expose an unscrupulous man like Sloane, she saw this as an opportunity to make amends for past mistakes and hopefully save other girls from falling victim to the kind of emotional manipulation that could scar them for life.
Nicole knew her editor at
As for Nathan, she could only hope she didn’t run into him again. But if their paths did cross during her investigation of Sloane, she’d just deal with the situation when, and if, it happened.
If waking up to find Nicole had snuck out on him sometime in the early-morning hours wasn’t enough to bruise Nathan’s male ego, then finding her brief message thanking him for a great time only added insult to injury.
After rocking his world last night, more than once, she was gone-and had left him the equivalent of a Dear John note. There was no explanation for her hasty departure, and while he knew every inch of her body intimately, he realized he had no information on how to contact her. No phone number, no e-mail, no home address,
Hell, he didn’t even know her last name.
