My thoughts swirl, like I’m having a flashback. Instantly, I’m sucked back to that room with my hands on her body and my lips on hers. I stiffen, my muscles clenching as the memory breathes fire into me. But I take a breath and push it away. I glance back up at my personal assistant.
“Could you make sure she has all the documents tomorrow morning? I’ll need her as prepped as she can be for the meeting.”
Nina stares at me, barely hiding her frown.
“Yes?”
“You’re bringing her to the meeting with Joey?”
“She wouldn’t be a very good land contracts lawyer to me if I didn’t, would she?”
Nina purses her lips, but just nods. “I’ll have everything brought up tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything else, Viktor?”
I shake my head. “No, thank you. Go punch out, Nina.”
She nods and turns for the door. But then she pauses to glance back at me. “I almost forgot. Her phone is all wired up through the security system. Calls, text, internet, email, the whole thing.”
I frown. “Who’s monitoring?”
“Bogdan.”
I shake my head. “No. No one else monitors her. Have the feed wired through my personal laptop.”
“Viktor—”
“My decision is final, Nina.”
She purses her lips and sighs. “Very well.” She pulls out her phone and brings it to her ear. “Bogdan. Yes, it’s Nina. Have Ms. Murray’s phone wired through Mr. Komarov’s personal laptop. Yes, only there. No, he doesn’t want it going through the security office. Wonderful.”
She hangs up and smiles thinly. “It’s done. The feed is all yours now.”
“Thank you.”
“You really think this Grover Street project is going to work out?”
“I do.”
She smiles, genuinely. “Well, I’m glad. Goodnight, Viktor.”
“Night.”
When Nina closes the door behind her, I breathe deeply. I sit back in my chair, drumming my fingers as my thoughts settle on Fiona. I replay the kiss, again and again, until my pulse is thumping in my ears and my cock is straining against my pants.
I growl to myself, shaking my head as I open my laptop. I bring up the security system, and sure enough, there’s Fiona’s phone data, for my eyes only. I let my eyes linger on it, telling myself to close the laptop and go to bed. But I can’t resist. I open the program, and I start snooping.
I look at her text messages first. I scan her past messages. I smile wolfishly when I notice a lack of texts to or from any boys at all. None—not a single exchange. There’s no dating apps either. I shake my head; Thomas really did have her locked in a gilded cage.
Her most recent texts are few—a couple to her father letting him know she’s okay. There’s not a single text back from him though. I shake my head in disgust. What a piece of shit.
The other recent text exchange is with someone named Zoey—from the looks of their past conversations, a friend of hers. I glance over that one. But Fiona has been good—she’s been lying to her friend, telling her she’s in New York for a job thing.
Good girl, I think to myself. I say it again, and my cock throbs at the idea of whispering it into her ear.
My restraint begins to crumble. I snoop deeper, looking into her photo albums. I’m like a teenaged boy, horny and looking for something to satiate my hunger. But there’s nothing. No bathroom mirror selfies, no nudes, nothing.
I frown and pull the notes from Lev towards me. I scan over the bits about her schooling and grades again. Yes, she’s very smart. Gifted, even. But my brow furrows as I look over more of it and start reading between the lines.
She’s really barely ever been out of that townhouse. All of her schooling was remote. She has only the remotest presence on social media, and this Zoey girl it would seem is her only close friend. But more of a picture comes to me as I dig: not just no friends. No boyfriends. There’s nothing. No texts, no contacts in her phone. Nothing like Tinder or anything like that.
Christ, with her having been cooped up in that townhouse her whole life, I almost wonder if she’s somehow a…
My jaw clenches, my cock suddenly surging with desire. I frown at the thought. Could it be that this girl has never been with a boy? Is the innocent little prize I’ve got locked away upstairs really so untouched by any other man?
The thought of being the very first to touch her—to taste her, to make her scream and to spread her gorgeous legs wide apart and be the first to sink my cock into her sweet little heaven, is almost too much. I groan, feeling my balls swell and my cock lurch in my pants.
I steady myself though, taking a breath. I glance back at the laptop and check her internet history next. When I glance at her recent searches though, I smile broadly.
She’s been googling me.
There are news articles about my “alleged” involvement in dozens of crimes they’d never be able to pin on me. There’s tabloid stuff too, since those shitty magazines seem to love blabbing about me as if I’m some in-demand male celebrity. I keep scanning the searches, until I stop. My smile widens even more, smugly.
She’s found the picture of me on the yacht. It was taken a year ago by some paparazzi with a good zoom lens, when I was trying to find a moment’s vacation in the Mediterranean. I’m not posing, I’m just standing on the bow, shirtless. But the tabloids ran wild with it. All of a sudden, I was on the ridiculous “most in-demand celebrity bachelors” list.
I’m not vain, but I do keep in impeccable shape. I won’t deny that the picture was flattering, either. But just the same, it’s nothing I wanted. There’s a saying in America that there’s “no such thing as bad press.” In my line of work though, it’s bullshit. With what I do, any press is bad press.
But again, I
