CAITLIN CREWS – The Billionaire's Innocent - Part 1 (страница 3)

Nora agreed with a vigorous nod and then smoothed her hands down the front of her too-short dress, steeling herself to look around. But not to look too closely when she did, because she didn’t want to see which lissome girls had caught Zair’s attention now. She didn’t want to know anything further about him or his proclivities—

So there was no reason she should have felt something like disappointment, if far sharper, when she couldn’t spot him. Had he already made his choice? Selected a girl as if she were a shiny bit of produce and headed off to get his kicks—whatever those were?

Nora refused to let herself wonder. You’re not here for Zair. You’re here for Harlow.

She had to order herself to focus. She didn’t want to focus.

There were too many people crowding the vast and tastefully decorated room, none of them Harlow, and it was obvious at a glance which people were displaying themselves as the merchandise tonight and which ones were doing the shopping. It wasn’t like a run-of-the-mill, meat-markety Manhattan bar scene at all, no matter how many times Nora tried to tell herself otherwise. There was a different sort of energy in the room, taut and gritty and spiked, that she could feel along the length of her spine every time one of the men looked at her.

Because each man was deciding whether or not he wanted to fuck her, which wasn’t the same thing as hitting on a girl in a bar and hoping for the best. This was a room filled with grim certainties, not any bright or drink-fueled optimism.

Nora had to fight not to shudder, or to break for her freedom and swim back to shore. She had to scream at herself until she managed to smile prettily. To act as though she was happy to be here and having the best time. She had to force herself to look as cheerful as she did available.

And as she looked around she realized that Zair—wherever he was, and she shouldn’t care, she shouldn’t let herself speculate, she couldn’t deal with how awful that was just yet—wasn’t the only person she recognized.

There was a famous director widely lauded for his incisive, intellectual, even feminist films with his arm around a giggling brunette who was letting him fondle her between her legs where she stood. There was an actor best known for his much-celebrated television role as a wise and generous old father figure surrounded by three laughing young girls on one of the sofas, none of them fully clothed. She saw a well-known financier she’d never met personally but had last seen with his wife and daughters at a Manhattan gala to benefit victims of domestic violence, smiling down at a woman Nora recognized as a former runway model in a manner that could only be described as smug.

But Harlow was nowhere to be seen.

Nora felt a rush of something—and she couldn’t tell if it was relief that her friend wasn’t subjecting herself to this horror or a keen disappointment that she was still missing. Both, perhaps. It meant that Nora would have to find out if any of the girls had seen Harlow around, which could take more than this single night—and she knew what that meant. What it would entail. Where this course of action had always been leading her.

Keep smiling, you idiot, she ordered herself. So what if you have to do this more than once? No one here looks anything but happy. You can do it. You’ll be fine.

But it was hard to keep her smile on her face. If that awful woman hadn’t still been right beside her, she doubted she’d have managed it—

“Bonsoir, Laurette.”

Nora recognized Zair’s voice instantly. Worse, she felt it.

It rolled through her like low, ominous thunder and she had to fight to keep herself from flinching. Laurette, who still sat there on the sofa arm studying Nora as if looking for visible cracks, brightened and extended her hands.

And then it was impossible for Nora to pretend this wasn’t happening. That it wasn’t him. Zair was right there, kissing this hard, dangerous woman on one smooth cheek and then the next.

As if they were dear old friends on the best of terms. As if he attended sex slave auctions every night of the week.

Maybe he did.

Nora didn’t know if she wanted to be sick or maybe collapse into tears, but she knew she absolutely could not do either.

This is who he is, she snapped at herself. Deal with it—and deal with it right now. You can’t fall apart here.

But the truth was, Zair was right there beside her, she didn’t want to believe that he could be as evil as he clearly was, and she didn’t think she’d survive the next few moments.

And Harlow was still missing somewhere. Nora didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with any of it.

“This one will do,” she heard him say to Laurette, and she could feel his eyes on her. Intense. Too much. Even worse than usual. “I’ve always had a thing for blondes.”

Laurette’s laugh was horrible. It slid inside Nora and broke something in her into jagged little pieces. “This I know.”

Later, Nora thought, sick and not numb enough and torn apart in a thousand ways she knew she couldn’t let show on her face, she would look back at this moment. Zair’s comment and Laurette’s awful laugh that told her so many things she didn’t want to know.

Later, she could grieve.

But here, now, she had to think about Harlow.

There was a flurry of the French she’d had no idea Zair spoke so fluently, another silvery little laugh from Laurette that left ice shards lodged into her heart, and then Nora and Zair were left standing there alone.

“Look at me,” he said.

It was that same voice that she knew so well. The same voice that had slapped her down so calmly, so ruthlessly, six years ago. The same voice that he’d used only a few weeks ago when she’d been forced to spend an evening with him at an art gala, all smiles and surface and lies, apparently.

It was also an order.

Her heart didn’t stop this time. It beat so hard it made the edges of everything seem to flicker, to fade in and out, and she had to force herself to breathe through it. To stay standing, no matter what.

Because if Zair was a part of this thing the way Harlow’s old faculty adviser Louise had suggested outright back in New York, if all signs pointed to the involvement of a high-ranking member of the Ruyian government and Zair was the only person fitting that description at this party, then Nora had to convince him that she was exactly who she was pretending to be: a bored trust-fund princess having “adventures” on the far side of acceptable behavior—a description that was a touch too close to home. Because he might be her only chance of finding Harlow.

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