Falling Hard (Billionaires in Disguise: Lizzy, #1) (16 page)

“Oh, yeah.” Georgie’s vague tone suggested a
drunken blackout. Staging an intervention right before finals was
tough on everyone, often worst on the drunk, so Lizzy would just
keep an eye on her for now.

The coffee pot growled, spraying its last bit
of coffee into the carafe.

Georgie asked, “Did your adult ever show
up?”

That,
Georgie remembered,
damn
it.
“Nope.”

“Too bad. You get any?”

“Nope.”

“I think you should call your adult
today.”

Georgie tended to get all obsessed with
Lizzy’s love life like a ferret with OCD because Georgie didn’t
engage in relationships. “Not going to happen. Hey, Rae’s been
avoiding us like we’ve got monkey herpes. Wanna go drag her butt
out of bed and grill her?”

“Yeah!”

Sometimes, you just have to know when to
metaphorically shake your keys and chant,
Oooo! Look! Shiny
object!

Rae was grumpy at being rousted out of bed
but shook it off when Lizzy shoved some hot black coffee in her
hands. She plopped herself between their twin beds, sucked on the
coffee like it was sweet heroin, and tried to dodge their
questions, the scamp.

Georgie peered down at Rae from where she sat
on her bed. “So you’re official? Lock, stock, and W-Two forms?”

Rae said, “Dropped off the medical release
yesterday. Signed all the paperwork. I’m officially a Domme.”

“That’s awesome,” Lizzy countered. “Domming
is so much better than being a blowjob artist. Sometimes, I can’t
get the taste of latex out of my throat for hours.” Even though she
sometimes went weeks between actual BJs, everyone complained about
it because it was gross and therefore hysterically funny.

“Vodka,” Georgie told Lizzy.

“Vodka gives me a headache,” Lizzy said. She
just felt contrary.

Rae asked, “Iced tea?”

Lizzy laughed at her. God, iced tea. Where
did Rae-Rae come up with that stuff?

Georgie said, “Long Island Iced Tea might do
the trick.”

“Yep,” Lizzy said, “Long Island Iced Tea will
knock the taste of just about anything out of your mouth.”

“Or your brain. Did it work?” Georgie
asked.

Lizzy stared at the rough carpet near Rae’s
feet. Theo was a jackass for shoveling that shit. She didn’t want
to discuss that, not at all, so she went with the whole
still-lovesick-for-The-Dom thing. It was the truth, too. “Not
really.”

Georgie turned to Rae. “Lizzy’s still mooning
after The Dom. We went out last night to get her laid, but it
didn’t take.”

“I know I’m being stupid,” Lizzy said,
sipping her coffee from a Golden Devil mug. When she thought about
The Dom, something tugged at her chest, like she wanted,
desperately, to go sit in his office or watch the corridors of The
Devilhouse for a glimpse of him. “His Dom-Dates are always one
night stands. It was never meant to be more than that. I’m just
being stupid.”

“You’re still wearing those after-date
earrings he gave you,” Georgie said.

“Yeah,” Lizzy sighed. She had worn them last
night because the diamond studs were spectacular and compensated in
cachet for not drinking the glowing, top shelf drinks. Besides, if
The Dom crooked his little finger at her, Lizzy would probably flip
a back handspring into his arms.

If only.

Okay, she was kind of mooning after him, damn
it.

She didn’t just have
man
problems.
Lizzy had
men
problems.

“But those aren’t real diamonds or anything,”
Rae said.

“Oh yeah, they are. Certificates and
everything.” Lizzy craned her neck so Rae could see the glittering
stones.

Georgie said, “Some less-scrupulous girls
might go on a first date just for the jewelry, but everyone goes on
the second date for the
date
.”

Yeah, they would. Lizzy’s heart clenched, and
she drank a deep draught of her coffee to cover the hurt on her
face.

Georgie regarded Lizzy with sorrow in her
brown eyes. “We can go out again tonight.”

“We’re supposed to go to The Devilhouse
tonight.” She tried to make it come out all casual, but damn if her
throat hadn’t snapped closed.

This sucked. Lizzy’s battered heart ached
when it beat. Theo had sort of distracted her from pining for The
Dom for a while, but now that she was pissed at him—and she
so
was—all that emptiness came roaring back.

Even since she had broken up with Gio a
couple months ago, everything sucked.

Rae said, “Maybe you should tell The Dom how
you feel.”

“Oh no, she shouldn’t,” Georgie said
quickly.

“No way,” Lizzy said. “No fucking way.”

Rae asked, “Why not?” as if anything could be
overcome with enough gumption.

But it couldn’t. Not this. Lizzy knew
better.

She sighed. “Because he’ll think I’m an
idiot, even if he would never say anything so uncultured. He might
not ask me out for another date, and I don’t even want to think
about that.”

Georgie told Rae, “Look, I like the guy.
There are lots of benefits to hanging out with The Dom, and he’s
generous with them. His dates are nights to remember. He helps all
us girls get into top-tier graduate programs or get amazing jobs
after graduation, international jobs, if you want them. Lizzy, you
don’t know what he’ll do if you spill the beans because you don’t
really know a damn thing about him. Not where he grew up. Not where
he lives
now
. Not who his
friends
are. Not his even
his
name
. He hides so much that it has to be calculated. We
don’t even know what he did with that poor cat that was hanging
around The Devilhouse.”

Lizzy had seen him put it in his car. A chill
crept down her back.

Rae asked, “Lizzy? If you didn’t go back to
his place on your date, where did you guys end up?”

“Oh, back at The Devilhouse, on the main
stage, though the ballroom was empty. It was actually kind of
creepy at first. It echoed.”

“Oh. Okay.” Rae sounded weird.

Georgie said, “Getting involved with The Dom
wouldn’t be healthy. Even thinking about it isn’t healthy. You
don’t know any of that stuff about him.”

People should be able to keep stuff about
themselves private without other people prying and fucking up
everything.
Damn it, Theo.
Why did he have to stick that
particular knife in and twist?

“
I don’t care,
” Lizzy said. “I don’t
want to know all that if he doesn’t want me to know. I’m content to
just call him The Dom or Sir,” she sighed, “or Master.”

She would let him hide away that part of
himself if it would hurt him to rip it open because she knew how
that felt.

Theo had pried and then thrown everything in
her face, lording all his stalkery knowledge over her.

The Dom knew everything, but he hadn’t hurt
her with it for no reason.

He had hurt her with it for an excellent
reason.

“Lizzy, this isn’t healthy,” Georgie
said.

Georgie had to shut up. Lizzy didn’t want to
answer the inevitable, invasive questions, so Lizzy insisted, “I
like
it when he ties me up and makes me beg.”

“You’re thinking with your pussy, Lizzy.”

She pushed the BDSM talk farther, hoping
Georgie would shut the fuck up. “I
want
to sit at his feet
wearing nothing but his collar. I just want him to fuck me again.”
Even though he technically hadn’t. “I want to feel helpless like
that.”

No, Lizzy wanted to feel
strong
like
that, like she could take the pain and not shatter. Everything else
in her life made her feel
weak,
and she hated weakness.

Pain was weakness leaving the body.

Lizzy touched her chest. Her heart sprinted
under her ribs.

Pain was weakness leaving the body.

Damn it.
Every time she thought she
had a handle on her goddamn feelings, something stupid like this
happened.

Rae said, “You should listen to your
heart.”

Lizzy’s heart wanted to jump into the golden
furnace that was The Dom until all the weakness was burned out of
her.

Georgie snapped, “You shouldn’t listen to
your heart or your pussy, Lizzy. Think with your
head
.
Falling for him is a bad idea.”

“I just want to do what he tells me to.”
Lizzy wanted him to whisper pain in her ear until she was strong
again.

Georgie shook her head. “Lizzy, he’s not the
type to take a sub or a slave. He likes women, in the plural,
craves
women, in the plural. He’d never commit.”

Lizzy didn’t care.

“Lizzy, you should tell him,” Rae said.

Lizzy looked up, shocked. Rae, sweet little
Rae, unassuming non-confrontational not-from-Jersey Rae was telling
her to go for it?

Lizzy didn’t think anyone would ever have to
lecture her that she should be strong, but she hadn’t had any real,
white-hot pain to force the weakness out of her body for years.

“Tonight,” Rae said. “You should go to The
Devilhouse early, so there’s no time pressure, and you should tell
him how you feel.”

“I couldn’t,” Lizzy said.
Go ahead. Argue
with me. Tell me why.

“And she shouldn’t,” Georgie said.

“Why not?” Rae retorted.

Lizzy said, “I told you. He’ll think I’m an
idiot. I won’t ever have even another date with him.”
Tell me
why I should.

“Risk it. Tell him. Make the leap of faith,”
Rae insisted.

A leap of faith.

Lizzy’s head clanged like a gong.

Theo had pried instead of making that leap of
faith. He had dug into her background with a fucking steam shovel
instead of letting her be who she was now.

Maybe The Dom had a damned good reason for
being so fucking mysterious and she shouldn’t dredge up a bunch of
shit about him that he didn’t want people to know about himself.
Maybe he had reinvented himself and liked himself a hell of a lot
better than the old guy.

Maybe something terrible had happened that he
was trying to forget.

Yes, The Dom evidently knew all about Lizzy,
but he had hadn’t thrown it at her. She didn’t even know how long
he had known. He had treated her fine, not like an invalid, not
like damaged goods, not like the weakest link in the chain, not an
object of ridicule or scorn like anyone else would have.

And he had known what she needed.

Lizzy’s breath caught in her chest.

Georgie insisted, “You don’t know what he’ll
do.”

Rae asked, “Why don’t you guys know anything
about The Dom? Why don’t you just do an internet search on
him?”

“How can we?” Georgie asked. “We don’t know
his
name
. One of the girls, Sonya, is a journalism major,
and she tried to dig up something on him. The Devilhouse is owned
by a private corporation, the shares of which are owned by other
offshore corporations, which is run by a trust set up in
Switzerland, and it was all this endless spiral of legal walls. I
think he’s in the Mafia.”

“He’s kind of blond to be in the Mafia,”
Lizzy said. Or to be a Mexican narcotics smuggler. Evidently, they
were all over the place.

“Northern Italians are blond,” Georgie
said.

Lizzy shook her head while thoughts of
pain
and
weakness
and
leaps of faith
buffeted
her brain. “He doesn’t have an Italian accent.” Growing up in New
Jersey had given her a fine appreciation for the many varieties of
Italian accents.

“Okay, what kind of accent is that,
then?”

“English,” Lizzy said, stating the obvious
and wishing that they would stop talking so she could
think
.

“It’s not just British. There’s other stuff
in there, too.” Georgie would not let it drop and kept dissecting
everything that The Dom had ever said for a shred of evidence about
where he was from.

Lizzy didn’t know where he was from, other
than that he spoke fluent, nuanced Russian with almost no accent,
but even then, his Russian was upper-class with a hint of the Tsar
about it.

Rae pulled her phone out of her bra strap.
Lizzy ignored her.

“So what if he is Italian or British or
whatever?” Lizzy argued with Georgie. “Why can’t he just be who he
is now? What does it matter?”

“It does matter,” Georgie said. “It’s weird
that he’s not forthcoming.”

“You’re going to make a great lawyer someday.
You’ll dig and dig until you build a solid case, won’t you?”

“Isn’t The Dom’s fifteen minutes seriously
over
yet? You never glom onto guys like this. Come on, be
Whizzy Lizzy and breeze on over to the next guy. How about your
adult? When are you going to see him again?”

Rae’s harsh gasp echoed in the tiny room.

Lizzy and Georgie whipped around. Rae’s
horror-struck eyes were huge like she was watching the towers fall
all over again.

Lizzy asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Rae tapped the home key on the
phone screen and pressed her phone to her chest.

“Bullshit,” Georgie said, always one to call
it like she saw it.

Lizzy nodded.

“Really. Nothing.” Rae’s attempt at lying was
obvious in her teary eyes.

Georgie said, “I call bullshit. You jumped
and gasped like you stuck your finger in a light socket. Give it
up.”

Lizzy grabbed her own phone and checked a
news page, but nothing terrible seemed to have happened. No
terrorist attacks. No acts of God. She hit refresh, but all the
news stories were still the same as last night and boring, thank
the stars. When Lizzy was nine, they had been able to see and smell
the acrid smoke from nine-eleven and the twin towers drifting over
New Jersey.

On her phone, the message icon strobed next
to a hateful six-oh-nine New Jersey phone number.

Rae said, “Just remembered that I have
homework due tomorrow morning in Abby Psych. I’ve got to get on it
or I’m toast. Can’t fail two classes.” She sucked air through her
teeth.