Michael answered the door, in a pair of black slacks, a black silk shirt, and a sultry grin that soon turned down to confusion. He looked around the tiny hallway, then turned back to face me.
“Can I help you?”
“Hi, yes. I’m Nicolette. You don’t know me, but… well, we’ve been texting each other for a few weeks now.”
His frown deepened as he continued to stare at me. “I beg your pardon?”
His voice was as silky and sultry as I knew it would be. Fuck, he was so gorgeous! Please don’t fuck this up, Nicolette, I told myself.
“You were expecting Amanda, I think. I can explain if you’ll give me a chance?” I looked at him with hope in my eyes and a plea on my lips. I just needed a few minutes to explain.
“I think you have the wrong floor,” he said and started to shut the door.
What? It couldn’t be! That was Michael, I knew it was from the many pictures I’d seen of him.
“Please! Just give me a minute!” I moved to step through the doorway and he paused. “Please?”
He stared at me coldly; anger a new, darker note in those turbulent gray eyes.
Please let me in, I begged in my head.Chapter Eleven“Explain.” He’d looked me up and down only to sigh with annoyance. His voice was tinged with that same flare of aggravation
“May I come in?” I looked around the hallway, even though I knew we were the only people that could be in the hallway. Security ensured that.
“Why? I think you’ve got a story to tell but it would seem that… hmm,” he paused to tap at the doorframe with a thick index finger. “It would appear there was a lie somewhere along the way and I hate liars.”
“I know, and it wasn’t meant to be this way, but I didn’t know how to fix it, once it all started.”
“Right.” He stroked his smooth, bare chin with that same index finger and let his eyes wander from my lips to my cleavage. I held my breath and waited. “Come in, explain to us what exactly ‘it’ is and how it happened.”
“Thank you.” I’d hoped I’d get this chance and now that I had, relief flooded through every muscle in my body. “I really appreciate it.”
“Mmhmm, follow me.” He walked me through a white hallway and into a room decorated with whites and grays, I’m certain I even saw what looked like two sharks in a very narrow tank, but none of that held my attention. The view of the city beyond the window stole my breath away, and I could see a small recessed pool just on the balcony. That must be awesome to relax in, I thought as he led me into the kitchen area.
It was done up in the same whites and grays, but the bar that separated it from the living room was varnished pine. I looked around but I didn’t see his three brothers, but they might have been behind the closed doors I saw from the seat I took. There were four closed doors and one open door. The open door was a bathroom so the others must be the bedrooms.
“Can you tell me your name again?” He stood on the other side of the bar, leaning against a marble counter on the side where the sink and the stove had been installed.
I could see from the look he gave me that he knew exactly what my name was, he just wanted to play dominant a little more.
“Nicolette Howell,” I told him as I looked right into his eyes. “You’ve probably heard about me from Amanda. She loves to talk about me.”
I’m not sure what made me say the rest of it, but I stared back at him with defiance as I spoke, my lips pursed so that I wouldn’t stick my tongue out at him in a display of childish pique.
“Ah, Nikki can’t get fucked. That’s you isn’t it?” He crossed his arms over a very broad chest and a smile stretched across his handsome face.
It was a beautiful face, full of rugged charm and the promise of playfulness when it was appropriate. His dark brown hair was CEO-ready and gleamed under the bright recessed lights in the ceiling. In all, he was more handsome in person than he was in pictures. Then there was the faint scent of his cologne, something expensive and enticing.
And he’d just asked me if I was the girl that couldn’t get fucked. It was my own fault but knew it was something that I couldn’t hide from any of them. The whole idea here was revenge, and in order to get them to let me stay, I knew I had to give them all the details.
As I was nodding my head in agreement, his three brothers walked in. They were all fit; each with the body of a swimmer and many similar features. Despite that, I noted the few differences. Michael was the perfect specimen, all that a man should be. Each of his brothers were beautiful specimens as well, but each had slight differences. Adam had a thin scar over his right brow that went up into his hairline. Tristan’s nose was smaller than his brothers’, while Daniel was a little bit leaner than the others. They looked almost exactly the same, but if you looked closely, you could see the differences.