All Chapters of Married For The Show: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

RAINAI almost kissed Sylvester Brian.Three days later and that was still the only thought in my head. Not Castor. Not Teddy. Not Bogdan in the cage or the warehouse on the south side or anything else that should have mattered more than the feeling of his breath on my mouth and the half inch of air that was the only thing that had kept his lips from mine.On the fourth day, Castor left for an afternoon meeting with Felix.The house went still. Teddy was in his room. Maria was in the kitchen. The security detail was at the front gate. I had about twenty of uninterrupted silence.I took the USB drive from behind the panel in my closet and slipped it into my cardigan pocket. Then I went upstairs.Castor's study door was locked. I'd expected that. But the lock was simple. The kind the compact pick Sylvester had given me was made for. I knelt in front of the door, worked the pick the way he'd taught me. Click once. Feel for the pin. Turn slow.The lock gave.I pushed the door open and st

RAINAI woke up with his mouth still on mine.Not literally. But the feeling was there. Pressed into my lips like a fingerprint. The softness of it first, then the depth, then the way he'd pulled back and rested his forehead against mine and said not tonight.I lay in bed for a long time before I moved.The south wing was still. Grey morning light pushed through the curtains. The house was doing its usual thing. Pipes somewhere in the walls. A door opening and closing upstairs. Maria's footsteps in the kitchen, steady and familiar.Everything was the same.But for me it felt different.I sat up slowly, my body felt strange. Not tired. Not sore. Just aware. Like every nerve was still switched on from the night before. My skin remembered where his hands had been. The back of my head. The small of my back. My face between his palms.I got up. Showered. Dressed. Did my hair the way I always did. Put on the earrings Castor liked me to wear at breakfast because it kept him from asking quest

RAINALater that night after I got back from Syvelster's house.I sat in bed trying to read myself to sleep.An hour had passed with the book open on my chest. The same page. The same paragraph. I'd read it five times and couldn't tell you a single word on it.My mind was still in his living room.~Did you like it?~The question kept playing on a loop. His voice. His calm. The way he'd stood there with his hands in his pockets and waited for an answer he already knew I couldn't give.~That's what I thought.~I closed the book. Set it on the nightstand. Pulled the covers up to my chin and stared at the dark.As usual, at this hour the house was silent.Castor was probably asleep upstairs. The entire mansion had settled into its nighttime stillness, the kind that filled your ears and made every small sound feel loud.I closed my eyes.I was almost there. Almost at the edge of sleep. My body was starting to let go, my breathing slowing, my thoughts softening into something shapeless.The

RAINAThe Next Day.After Syvelster's daring texts last night, I worked up the courage to tell him I wasn't coming to his apartment anymore.He'd suggested the cafe without missing a beat. A small place at the back of an old bookstore on the east side. The kind of place where people came to read, not to be seen. He said he'd been there before. Back table. No foot traffic. No cameras.I told myself this was better. Public. Safe. Professional.I walked in at two o'clock in the afternoon carrying a folder of notes Maria had helped me put together. Names. Dates. Staff rotation schedules not at the mansion alone, even up to the Rowland holdings. Everything organized. Everything in order.Speaking of which, Maria seemed to know a lot about the Rowland family and their enterprise. I guess fourteen years was enough time to really know a family in and out.But what suprised me more was her willingness to help without asking questions as to why I needed this information and what I wanted to use

RAINAI woke up slowly.For the first time in weeks, my body didn't jolt awake with that familiar knot of dread in my chest. I came to the surface gently. Like rising from deep water. The sheets were cool against my skin. The morning light was soft through the curtains. My limbs felt loose and heavy in a good way.I lay there for a moment, not moving, not thinking.Then the memory of last night came back.The bath. The hot water. My hand between my legs. His name in my head while my body came apart.Heat flooded my face.I pressed my hands over my cheeks and lay there like a teenager who'd just done something she couldn't take back. My skin was warm under my palms. My stomach was doing something fluttery and stupid that I was too old to be feeling.But I felt it anyway.I lay there for another minute. Letting it stew. The embarrassment, the warmth and the strange, reckless excitement that came with both.Then I reached for the burner phone.I pulled it from behind the panel in my clo