Chapter Thirty-One

Frankie

I shower, trying to wash the memory of Hunter Stone from me, but to no avail. I exit the shower, squeaky clean, still wanting him as much as ever.

Nothing that a few hours of work can’t erase from my head. Right? I fire up the laptop to get some research done.

And—

On my work email…

Frankie,

I’m sorry about today. I was so out of line, and I hope you can forgive me. You probably won’t get this until Monday, but on the off chance that you do, I’m going to be there tonight at the bar at eight o’clock. I hope you’ll be there, too. I do want to know you better.

Hunter

I can’t help the ridiculous squishy feeling that consumes me. He’s right. He was an ass this morning, but this email is good news. I smile as I continue to work. What shall I wear this evening? I don’t have any sex clothes, and frankly, those aren’t really me anyway.

So what if I run into Penn?

Except…I’d rather not.

I could wear the blue mask again—the one that I wore to the masquerade.

If Hunter can use a mask for fantasy, so can I. Even if I am using it so Penn won’t see me if he’s there. But I’m being ridiculous. He and I were together for five years. Of course he’d recognize me. Fuck.

I’m ready by seven o’clock in the black dress and mask from Chinatown and my platform pumps. I need to go shoe shopping. I’ve already called an Uber to take me to the bar. The ride should be here in five minutes.

But then a knock on the door. I peer through my peephole—

It’s Hunter. Masked and caped and luscious.

I open the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I sent you an email.”

“I know. I got it.” I smile.

“You did?” He widens his eyes. “I wasn’t sure you’d get it until Monday, and…”

“And what?”

“I didn’t want to wait until Monday to apologize to you. I’m sorry, Frankie.”

I warm all over. “Thank you for that.”

“If you got my email, why didn’t you respond?”

“Is it such a bad thing to keep you guessing a little bit?”

“It’s not a bad thing,” he says in his deep voice. “But I feared you wouldn’t come, which is why I came here.”

“Right, because you know where I live.”

“Yes.”

I hold the door open. “Won’t you come in?”

“Thank you.” He enters.

My phone dings. “My Uber is here.”

“So you were going to go to the club.”

I gesture to my outfit. “Uh…yeah. Do you think I dress this way for my health?”

He smiles then, and I desperately want him to remove his mask. I already know who he is. But I can’t ask him to do it. I feel like he needs to do it of his own accord.

And I’m surprised when he does just that, removing it along with his cape and hanging them on my coat rack by the door.

“Should I cancel the ride?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “For now, anyway.”

I cancel the Uber and then turn to Hunter. “Can I get you anything? I’m afraid I don’t have the ingredients to make one of your famous martinis, but I have white wine. And some red.”

“Red would be nice,” he says.

“I’ll get it for you. I don’t have much to eat in the house. I usually do my shopping on Sunday afternoons, but I can probably scare something up.”

“No, I’m fine. I had dinner.”

I nod and head to my small kitchen, pull a bottle of Pinot Noir off my rack, and uncork it. I pour two glasses and bring them to the couch where he’s sitting. I hand one glass to him. “It’s Pinot Noir from Washington state. I hope you like it.”

“I usually like anything red, as long as it’s not sweet.”

I smile. “So do I.” I take a sip.

He does the same, and then he takes another.

“So why did you come here?” I ask.

“I wanted to see you.”

“I was planning to meet you at the bar, as you know.”

“I had no reason to believe you would, especially after my behavior today.”

I say nothing. What is there to say? He did behave badly.

“Would it be so bad to get to know each other?” I finally ask.

“No,” he says. “It’s just that…I haven’t had a relationship with a woman in over five years.”

I’m not overly surprised, considering he’s already told me he only plays at the club. “Why?”

“It seems easier to just keep things…professional, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. Having sex with someone isn’t professional.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Not like I’m having sex for money or anything. I guess a more apt term would be impersonal.”

“But how can anything that intimate be impersonal?”

“It’s a transaction. Scenes at the club for me are a way to live out my needs and help another live out hers, with nothing else between us.”

“And your partners are always okay with that?”

“Yes. We lay out our expectations beforehand.”

“What about the people like me, who you meet at the bar and then take to the club?”

“Actually…”

“Don’t tell me I’m the first. You said—”

He covers my lips with his fingers. “I know what I said. You’re not the first person I met at the bar as Phantom. And you’re not the first person I took downstairs. But you’re the first person I’ve wanted to reveal myself to.”

“I see. What made you change your mind for me?”

“I don’t know, Frankie. I wish I did. Something about you…”

“You’re attracted to me.” I give him the words.

“I think that’s pretty obvious.”

“But I assume you’re attracted to the other people you play with.”

“Of course I am. Physically.”

“So it’s more than physical for you with me?” I warm inside.

“It is, and what I can’t understand is why.”

“Here’s a thought, Hunter.” I playfully elbow him in his ribs. “Maybe you like me.”

“I do like you. I like everyone I play with. But with you, it’s…”

“It’s more. You want to get to know me.”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly is wrong with that?”

“It’s not something I do.”

“All right.” I take a drink of my wine. “Let’s lay it on the line, Hunter. Who burned you in the past?”

He goes quiet, then.

Yep. I nailed it.

“You heard my story,” I say.

“Yes, left at the altar.”

“Not quite. We didn’t make it to the altar. I can at least thank him for saving me that humiliation.”

Hunter shakes his head and swallows another sip of wine. “That’s looking at the glass half full.”

I chuckle. “That’s what Mandy, my sister, would say. She’s a glass-half-empty kind of person. I’m the opposite.” I sigh. “At least I was.”

“You still are. One bad experience doesn’t change who you are.”

I lift my eyebrows. “Oh? It doesn’t?”

Hunter doesn’t take my bait—not that I’m surprised.

“Do you think Penn would have left you at the altar if it had gone that far?” he asks.

Great. We’re still talking about Penn. “I don’t know. He said he’d been cheating on me for a year, so why did he stay with me? Why did he continue the charade of being with me? Why did he finally set a wedding date? He was obviously already cheating on me at that point.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he got cold feet.”

“No. Penn only does things if there’s something in it for him. I would have made the right kind of wife for him. Young, professional, you know.”

“And, of course, gorgeous.”

My cheeks warm. “If you say so.”

“I say so.” He takes another sip. “There must be some reason why he decided to level with you before the wedding.”

I shrug. “Maybe he fell in love with somebody else? One of his partners at the club?”

“Or maybe… Maybe someone saw him… Told him he’d better tell you.”

“Who could’ve seen him? It would have to be someone who knew him and who knew me.”

“And you don’t know anyone who goes to the club.”

“Besides you? I sure don’t.”

“Why do you think you don’t?”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying someone must have seen him there. Someone who knows you. Given what you’ve told me, it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

My curiosity is piqued. Who do I know who goes to the club? Only Isabella, and I don’t know if she was at that particular club. Besides, if she were the one, she’d have leveled with me when she admitted to being in the lifestyle.

Doesn’t really matter.

I already know what Hunter’s doing. He’s deflected the conversation to me when we were supposed to be talking about him. How he got burned, not how I got burned.

“Nice try,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“Getting me to talk about Penn instead of you talking about who burned you.”

Another sip of wine. “I don’t talk about that.”

“You just said you wanted to get to know me.”

“I do. And damn, that bugs the hell out of me.”

I can’t help chuckling. “You know what? I think you got burned badly. Really badly.”

He says nothing.

“You know what else? I bet it happened more than once.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I did an article a year or so ago for the magazine, all about the psychology of people who get burned by someone they care about. I recognize the signs. You could be the poster child.”

He raises his eyebrows. “So now you’re a psychologist.”

“No. I’m a magazine writer and editor who did a lot of research on this particular subject. That’s what I am, Hunter.”

“I see.”

“And you’re a professor. A learned man. A teacher. A scholar. A student of language. A student of love.”

He sets his glass down on my coffee table. “A student of love?”

“You teach literature, Hunter. What is the greatest theme in all of literature?”

He smiles, then—a big, beautiful smile.

My God, he’s handsome.

“I suppose you’re right,” he says.

I smirk. “You suppose?”

“You’re absolutely right, Frankie.”

“So you understand love, and you’ve been burned.”

“As have you.”

“We have that in common. And I still say you’ve been burned more than once.”

“All right. I’ll bite. You’re correct. I have been burned more than once. But the first one wasn’t her fault.”

“What happened?”

He clears his throat. “She died, Frankie. She died.”