Fatal Beauty Read online

  It had been a hard and fast fall for both of them, all anyone talked of that summer. When, after a year of college, Tre moved to Charleston full time, no one had been particularly surprised.

  And despite his good looks and easy smiles, EJ had never been able to trust him. She tried, the few time she was forced into associating with him—but it was always stilted and cool. Even now that she was with Charlie two or three time a week, the aversion to Tre hadn’t abated. If anything, it was stronger.

  But she had never imagined this.

  Never imagined he would hurt Charlie.

  It makes the next decision almost easy.

  When Charlie finally emerges from the bathroom, EJ is pleased—and more relieved than she cares to admit—to see that she’s dressed in black yoga pants and a silky tank top. Her blonde hair is water dark and secured at the back of her neck. Even with the makeup scrubbed off her face she looks gorgeous.

  “What happened?” she asks, her voice going a little shrill.

  EJ hooks her hair behind her ear and sits back on her heels.

  “Cleaning up the evidence.”

  Charlie stares and EJ goes back to mopping up the blood. “No one is going to believe you. This was Tre, and you just celebrated, very publically, your engagement to him. Everyone knows about how you fell in love and everyone has been watching you for years. That perfect picture you built? It won’t vanish because he’s dead and you’re beat the hell up. You know it and I know it.”

  “He was an abusive, controlling asshole,” Charlie snarls.

  “Which I totally get. But we need to be smart about this. Because those bruises are the last way he gets to hurt you—you aren’t going to prison for murder.”

  Charlie stares at her for a moment, and EJ crouches on the floor next to the blood, her hands pink from the water she’s rinsed the sponge in.

  “Fine,” Charlie says softly. Quietly. “What do we do now?”

  Chapter 3

  She’s sitting on her couch when EJ’s phone rings. The ground is shiny clean again, but she can see exactly where he had been sprawled. When Tre went down, it was in an ungraceful crumple that had his arms and legs splayed out in an undignified mess. When she first stared down at him, before the blood started to spread and she realized he was dead, there had been an insane desire to giggle.

  But the slow spread of scarlet, deepening to rusty red, killed that desire and replaced it with cold panic.

  She can’t quit seeing Tre crumple.

  “Charlie, you with me?” EJ says.

  She blinks, the stress and the long night pulling her toward sleep. “Charlie,” EJ calls again, her voice the sound of a whip.

  “Shut up,” she says, her voice slurring.

  EJ gives a quiet laugh. She murmurs something too low for Charlie to hear.

  A soft tap on the front door startles Charlie back into the moment. She comes almost off the couch, her body tense, and EJ shifts.

  “It’s ok. I called him.” She says.

  Fear slithers down Charlie’s spine, but she’s silent as EJ goes and opens the door.

  Anthony Jacob is a tall, slender man with dark nut-brown skin, closely trimmed black hair and cold eyes. He’s handsome, and as he steps into her living room, surveying it with those dispassionate eyes, Charlie has to suppress a shiver. Because he is also terrifying.

  A blank slate waiting to dispense judgment. She’s only met Jacobs once before, about a month after Charlie caught EJ selling blow at the Burningtree. They’d met at a strip club Jacobs owned, and Charlie had expected something dirty and disgusting. Low, tacky lighting and desperate women dancing for lonely men.

  She had been stunned by the sleek, clean club, the music pounding as gorgeous girls writhed and men who reminded her too much of Tre eyed them and talked about playing with fortunes.

  Jacobs had been one of those captains of industry, and his gaze had been chillingly amused, but when he saw EJ stalking through his club, Charlie trailing behind her, it had gone still and predatory.

  She’d been scared then, but having him here—this was infinitely worse.

  *

  EJ is acutely aware of Charlie and how very vulnerable she looks sitting on the couch. Tre is sprawled on the floor and Charlie looks like a strong wind will blow her over, and Anthony Jacobs stands too still at her shoulder, observing.

  Calling him may have been a mistake. And when he is involved, mistakes aren't small things easily forgotten. They change everything, a fucking earthquake rearranging life.

  But there are few people she can call and say, I need to move a body.

  Both are in this room.

  He doesn't say anything for a long moment, observing the dead body and the shivering young woman. With an almost inaudible sigh, he steps over the body and to the bar. EJ watches while he pours three shots and takes two, thrusting one at Charlie. She catches it with the muscle memory of taking brusquely offered glasses a thousand times, and sips it with the same kind of distant awareness.

  "Ella, a word." He says. When Jacobs speaks, it's like sex, all decedent naughty shit that went straight to her cunt and rubbed it in the most delicious and demanding way. Before him, she would never have said a voice could sound like sex and orgasms.

  She ignores the rush of desire and follows Jacobs out of the living room, into the study that was Tre's home office.

  The door clicks shut behind her and Jacobs explodes into motion, yanking her into him and spinning, pinning her against Tre's oversized desk. She can feel his dick digging into her hip, and his fingertips digging into her throat as he pushes her down.

  For some, sex is all about attraction. A hot body and a good set of tits can win over anyone. It took Ella about five seconds, a lifetime ago, to realize that for Jacobs, power was the only turn-on--and right now, she had handed him the best kind of foreplay. The power over her life--and Charlie's. The only thing that really surprised her was that he wasn't fucking her. Yet.

  His lips find hers and there is no pretense that it is anything but a battle of wills, a clash of power and the undeniable pull between them. His tongue fucks into her mouth and she shudders, hating that she's on the verge of climax, just from the press of his body and skillful thrust of his tongue. She's wet, all creamy heat and he hasn't even slid those clever fingers between her legs. She arches against him, a silent plea and he pulls back, nipping her lower lip as he does. Stares down at her with eyes that glitter and gleam. Amused.

  The bastard is fucking amused.

  "Tell me what you want." He orders, adjusting his still hard dick and stepping away.

  Her cheeks burning, she drags herself off the desk and affects a cool facade to match his own.

  What does she want?

  "Make it go away, Jacobs. I want her free of this shit, with no blow back on either of us. Tre didn't deserve her and he needs to vanish, and let her starting putting her life back together."

  His head tilts as he examines EJ. She doesn't flinch.

  She's never flinched. Maybe that's why he can't resist her.

  His finger comes up and snags a lock of midnight black hair. Curls it around his finger. When he tugs, it's hard enough that any other girl would whimper.

  She just stares at him, not giving an inch.

  He smiles and releases her. He doesn't need an inch.

  "If you do this--nothing will be the same. You understand?"

  Fear flickers in those lovely cool eyes and then she smirks. And he nods. "Fine. Get Charlie."

  EJ's breath rushes from her and her shoulders sag just a little with relief. He hides his smile and reaches out, catching her arm in a vise grip as he murmurs, "I will fuck you tonight, Ella."

  Swallowing her whimper and the urge to rub her thighs together, she rips free of him and slips out of the study to the sound of his erotic laugh.

  "Charlie?"

  Charlie blinks at her slowly and she drops to her knees next to the couch. Shakes her friend's knee. "Jacobs is going to help us," she
says clearly.

  Charlie blinks again and Jacobs produces another shot of scotch. "This is what we're going to do."

  Chapter 4

  The city is awash in whispers. Police arrived at Charlie's expensive, too clean mansion, taking pictures and asking questions. She makes a few appearances, at her father's firm and in her own office, and once at the club with EJ.

  She avoids her friends and the reporters who scream their questions, as if oblivious to the fact that she's a shattered wreck.

  Tre is missing. That is the story that everyone is repeating. That the brilliant bachelor who won Charleston's reigning queen B has vanished. The smiles and sympathetic platitudes come pouring in, and so many people call she eventually silences her phone and turns off her computer. When Jacobs swept into her living room, he brought with him two burner phones and instructed them to call him using that phone only.

  It’s the only thing she’ll answer, and only because EJ is the other end of the line.

  She can’t quite fathom that Ella Jane Munro has become her lifeline.

  The door swings open as she finishes folding her clothes, tucking them into her Michael Kors luggage that Tre had given her for their honeymoon. Her stomach pitches unpleasantly, and she puts a hand on the handle of the leather duffle bag, steadying herself before she turns, a practiced smile on her face.

  Her father stands in the doorway, a scowl furrowing his brow, her older brother at his side.

  Fuck. They weren’t supposed to be home for another hour. She licks her lip and glances at her watch.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Charlotte?”

  Travis Brooks is the best defense attorney in the state. She’d grown up taught by him and surrounded by the bastards he kept from rotting in jail. He was reviled—when she was twelve and her Mama got sick, the task of going through the mail to remove death threats fell on her little shoulders—and so did the pleasant task of hiding it from her father and her brother.

  It was the first time she had to lie to the man who lied for a living, and she loved it.

  “I’m going home, Daddy.”

  His gaze hardens, and she tightens her grip on the bag. This wasn’t her father, the one who spoiled and indulged her. This was the pitbull who cowed judges and secured freedom for his clients even when they had blood on their hands. She forces her shiver down and lifts her chin.

  “I don’t need to stay here. The police cleared the house. There was no evidence of violence. I want to be there if—when—Tre comes home.”

  “I’ll go with her, Dad,” Hayes says. “She won’t be alone.”

  Charlie gives her brother a scornful glare but he ignores her as Travis twists to look at his son. His gaze sweeps back to Charlie and she lets her expression melt into the pouting, hopeful smile she perfected in high school, and he sighs. “Fine. But I want you with her all night.”

  He turns to Charlie and his eagle-eye sharp glare melts into concern. He hugs her briefly. “We’ll do coffee on Friday, ok, Pumpkin?”

  She wrinkles her nose at the endearment, but nods against his chest.

  Continue living like nothing has changed.

  Jacobs had promised to fix everything. Tre would vanish and nothing would blowback on her or EJ.

  How fucking stupid had she been, to call EJ?

  The phone in her back pocket buzzes to life and she steps away from Travis. “I’m going to go to the ladies room, before we go,” she says and Hayes steps forward to gather her bags.

  In the bathroom, with the phone silenced and the door locked, she glances at the waiting message.

  EJ: Eleven. He said dress warm. Did you get to the house yet?

  Her fingers shake a little as she types back quickly, and then tucks the phone away. Washes her hands and slip out of the restroom.

  Hayes and her father have retreated. She gives the bedroom—twilight blue and cream lace with black accents—a quick look. Then she goes downstairs and joins her brother in his BMW.

  It takes less than she anticipated to drug Hayes. He was attentive and smothering for the first hour, but ignored her while she crawled into a big bath. When she emerged, he was on the phone with someone—probably the pretty paralegal she saw him fucking in the conference room last week.

  It was too easy to slip a sleeping pill into his wine, and wait for him to come to her, looking a little too flushed and distracted while he swallowed the wine and ate the penne with a garlic sauce, sautéed peppers and blackened chicken.

  And from there, she simply had to wait.

  While he lay snoring on the couch, she painted her toenails and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.

  EJ is right on time, and her eyes are wide and searching as she stands on the porch. “Ready?”

  Charlie glances at Hayes, asleep on the couch, the wine forgotten. Her bags, still sitting in the foyer. She grabs one, and drops the note with her cellphone on the side table. EJ motions and a slender black man appears from the darkness. Charlie tenses at the sight of him, and EJ makes a quieting noise in her throat. “Jacobs sent him. He works at the Ivy.”

  Charlie is skittish but she doesn’t stop him as he grabs the two suitcases, and puts them in the waiting car. She glances once at EJ. “This is smart? Trusting him?”

  EJ shrugs. “We don’t have a choice, sugar.”

  They had one. The best defense attorney in the state.

  But no way in hell would she ever allow her father to know she had been a victim. That killing Tre had been desperate self-defense.

  And with that—she grits her teeth and quietly pulls the door closed.

  “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 5

  The house he tucks them away in is a gorgeous gothic thing. Curling black metal and dark lacquered wood, and the feel of something very old.

  EJ lifts an eyebrow behind her aviators, but her expression doesn’t change. The opulent beauty of the southern mansion might impress her if she weren’t exhausted and more than a little drunk. Charlie is languid at her side and not for the first time, she wonders if that third bottle of wine on the private jet had been a good idea.

  There is a single housekeeper, a young, model-pretty young woman with dark skin and darker eyes, and a disapproving set to her lips.

  Charlie gives the girl a half glance, “We’ll want coffee and then I don’t want to be disturbed until two.”

  The girl bristles, but Charlie doesn’t even see it. She’s already halfway to the stairs, a wide curving Gone With the Wind thing that girls like Charlie—and Ella—were born to descend, preferably in a white dress with an eligible heir on her arm.

  Ella makes a face and Charlie starts up the stairs. “Are you coming?”

  EJ gives the housekeeper a chilly smile and stalks to the staircase to follow Charlie up.

  The confidence had reappeared as soon as they hit the airfield. Like everything that had happened in the past week vanished.

  Maybe Jacobs had been right, to order them out of the city. Part of her wanted to be furious with him. Another—the larger—part was only too happy to escape the pressures of Charleston, if only for a time.

  “Why do you think he chose here?” Charlie says, and EJ shrugs. Follows her into a bedroom done in wicker furniture, black and pale blue. An irritated spark wonders who the hell Jacobs has doing his interior design, before she remembers that it doesn’t matter.

  He’s a tool. A knife that will cut her just as quickly as she uses it against someone else.

  “Jacobs came from New Orleans, originally. It’s not that surprising, that he still has his hands in things.”

  Charlie makes a soft noise of assent in the back of her throat, and drops to the bed to pull off her boots. Her skinny jeans hit the floor next and then the oversized sweater that hangs off one shoulder, until she’s standing in front of EJ in a black, lace trimmed cami and matching panties and skin that still shows Tre’s bruises.

  Anger flares, hot and familiar, in her belly and she takes a step back. Charlie
’s eyes shutter, and drop. Her hands clench at her side. “Sorry. Um—“

  “Why did you call me?” EJ blurts out the question before she can really think about it, before she can hide behind the icy façade she’s so good at. Her gaze snags on Charlie’s, on the surprise that washes over her like a wave, before her features smooth out into a familiar barely there hook of her lips.

  “Never mind,” EJ says, before Charlie can respond. She backs up, “I’m going to bed.”

  She leaves quickly, and can feel Charlie’s eyes follow her down the hall, until she ducks into one of the empty bedrooms. It’s dark, with polished cherry wood and scarlet bedding. It’s gorgeous and opulent, and as she strips down and crawls into the middle of the spacious bed, she tries not to feel lonely.

  *

  For a moment, when the sunlight hits her eyes, Charlie forgets.

  For just a moment, she goes still and tense, waiting for the footfall that tells her where he is, or the soft rumble of his snore and the heat of his body.

  Once, early in their relationship, before it became the thing that it was at the end, she welcomed that heat. It was comforting and familiar.

  By the end of things—she shivers, and pushes the thought down. She doesn’t want to think about him, and how awful things became with Tre. She shifts, rolling to sit up and pushing her hair out of her eyes as she does. It’s early. EJ will still be in bed—they didn’t stumble in until so late, it’ll be a wonder if she sees her at all before five.

  But her nerves are rattling, the fear a familiar jangle, and she stands, padding silently to where her purse is sitting. Half a joint and four Xanax are in her Tiffany makeup compact, and she takes one of the Xanax with a grimace. For a moment, she considers hitting the joint, but she doesn’t.

  The hallway is quiet and empty. The big picture windows at the end of the hall overlooks the wide lawn. Live oaks and magnolias dripping kudzu and Spanish moss crowd the edges of the estate, and she can’t see anything past the curving drive. A man is standing there, smoking as he watches the curve. She shivers and twitches the curtain.