The Last Girl (Sand & Fog #7)
The Last Girl
Sand & Fog Series
Book 7
Susan Ward
Copyright © 2018 Susan Ward
All rights reserved.
All Rights Reserved. In Accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher or author constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The use of actors, artists and song titles, and lyrics throughout this book is done for storytelling purposes and should in no way be seen as an advertisement. Trademark names are used in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
About The Book
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Dedication
Author’s Note
Quote
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Part Two
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Epilogue
EXCERPT
EXCERPT
EXCERPT
About The Author
About The Book
WE WERE A SCANDAL WAITING to happen. But I didn’t care.
For years my life had already been an unending downward spiral. Then my grandfather, Jack, gave me an apartment no one knew about. A secret bequest after his death, and the brief note that accompanied the gift sent me running to Italy.
I’d gone to Venice to find peace, knowing I was weak, and instead I found him.
Damon Saxe was magnificent, brilliant, jaded, and white-hot danger. I was consumed by him as I’ve never been by anything or anyone. Vibrant and unrelenting wakefulness burned inside me when he was near.
And he became everything I craved and all I lived for.
Khloe Manzone wasn’t the right kind of girl for me. In fact, she was the type that could cost me everything. The bonds on me weren’t shackles a man could break free from. Having her as my lover was allowed. Wanting her was foolish. Loving her—agony. And we would become each other’s most private big little lie, filled with us and desire.
Letting go of us was inevitable, even as it tormented me to tear us apart.
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Dedication
FOR MY WONDERFUL READERS who started the journey with Chrissie and Alan in 2014 with the release of my first Parker book, Lost In Him. Without your encouragement and kind notes the past four years, I could have never gotten this far through my saga. You’ve filled my days with your generous emails and touching comments, and you will never know what it means to me that so many of you love my beautiful mess of a family. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Author’s Note
SINCE KHLOE MANZONE is the last child of Chrissie and Alan, it seemed right her story should be a modern fairy tale with a hint of dark, a touch of over-the-top, a dash of the impossible, a sprinkle of twists à la me, and a heartwarming full dose of the magic of love. And like all good fairy tales, there will be happy for now here and there, and you will never know where it’s going until the end of Khloe and Damon’s story. I hope you love it as much as I have writing it!
Quote
“IF A LITTLE DREAMING is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, to dream all the time.” – Marcel Proust
Chapter One
Khloe Manzone
“WE SHOULD HEAD TO SAINT-Tropez instead of California tomorrow.”
I wasn’t surprised by Cia Wingate’s too loud pronouncement. She was drunk and my best friend found excuses to delay returning home at all costs. September was over and it signaled the time of year our wandering mob would disband and return to the lives we pretended didn’t exist whenever we were together.
It was our fourth year traveling as a group through Europe from spring through summer. Cia and Gretchen hailed from Pacific Palisades like me. We’d grown up together. Cia’s dad was in the hotel business in a big way and Gretchen’s family was old money.
The three guys accompanying us we’d stumbled across at a party in Manhattan two seasons ago. I’d left that night with Zane. He was amusing enough both in and out of the bedroom that, on a lark, we’d headed out together from New York to Rome, a blend of old friends and new friends. As these things usually worked, by the time we’d landed at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport we were paired off in Noah’s Ark type couples. Though we as couples had changed by the time we reached Florence four weeks later.
“What do you say, Khloe? I’m up for Saint-Tropez if you are,” Zane asked, leaning back in his chair, his tiger eyes sizing me up as though I were prey. The smile on his face warned I should ignore them both. Cia was just being Cia—she’d be happy once we reached home—but Zane was angry over something. I supposed he thought he had a right to pressure me into extending our months together and was angry that I wouldn’t.
Curling my legs beneath me on the chair, I reached for my sparkling flute of Krug Vintage Brut and pretended I was considering the change of itinerary. But Zane was the only question turning in my head.
Running my lower lip against the rim of my glass, a gesture I knew to be sexy, I settled my wide blue eyes on him. Zane was a man who never looked anything less than gorgeous. Right clothes for every occasion, right mood in all circumstances, charming manner outside the bedroom and no manners within it.
His color combination, amber eyes and chestnut brown hair, were far more appealing than I’d ever let on. He was tall, strongly built, and had in his arsenal of seduction tools a winning smile that
packed a punch when he flashed it.
He didn’t come from serious money, I wasn’t even sure how he could afford our opulent summers together in Europe, and it was interesting he was the first one after Cia to suggest we stay longer in France.
He was the male equivalent of arm candy, though he maintained a flawless pretense he was more. He was intelligent, unpredictable, brooding, fun, a great fuck, and lovely to look at afterward. But masculine beauty and a dynamic personality were the limits of what Zane had to offer a girl.
“I’m not talking about a long detour,” he added. “Another week. You can handle another week, can’t you, Khloe?”
Now I was grinning back at him, because there wasn’t a person at the table who couldn’t read between the lines of that comment. I cast a quick sideways glance at Cade and found his features taut with poorly subdued anticipation.
“The question isn’t if, it’s do I want to.” Both Cade and Zane were now alert and staring at me. I set down my drink with a heavy air of boredom. “I don’t think so. I’m ready for California. Unlike the rest of you, I actually like home. I’m flying out as planned tomorrow.”
“You are never flexible, Khloe.” Cia groaned and her posture collapsed into dramatic annoyance. “Run home to Pacific Palisades. I’m going on to Saint-Tropez with whoever cares to join me.”
“There. Then it’s settled. You don’t need me for you all to keep traveling. If you want to go to Saint-Tropez you should do it, Cia.”
That earned me a glare from both my gal pal, since if I left so would the guys, putting the proverbial damper on the party. I innocently stared back as if I hadn’t a clue why Cia was unhappy with my decision.
Tired of talking and ready to move on to something less crowded, my gaze fixed on Cade as I began to gather my wrap and purse. Everyone at the table stared. I was sure none of them expected me to be so direct, considering my romance triangle had been cruising on smooth road and Zane could be volatile. I was always direct and honest with both men but never blatant about what we were around the others. I wasn’t sure what prompted me to give Cade the signal so overtly. It switched Zane from languid and amused to present and angry faster than it was safe to.
But the sensory input from two men who both slept with you battling to be the one you decided upon for the night was astonishing. The frenetic flow of unending sexual tension created by being three in a relationship instead of two. My romance triangle was the only part of my affinity to travel Europe with my friends I didn’t tell my parents. A big little lie that I expertly kept hidden, thanks to Zane always showing up on my doorstep a few weeks after we’d part, eager to settle back into a couple until Europe again.
I had to really work at playing it cool as I made my way around the table, kissing everyone good night and telling them I’d see them in the morning. Zane was furious, and while it didn’t stop me from doing what I wanted to do, it was never far from my mind that it wasn’t a smart move to dismiss his brooding.
I headed out of the sidewalk café and toward my hotel.
Chapter Two
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL night in Paris, the air still pleasantly warm if not a touch breezy as I strode briskly down the crowded pavement along the right bank of the Seine.
I was in the fourth arrondissement, an area of the city abounding with tourists drawn to the famous historical sites. An influx of tourists turned any area of a city, even if it were in Paris, into one with a slightly commercial amusement-park ambiance. They milled about, distracted, wide-eyed, staring at the ancient buildings, and I moved directly, fighting to avoid any eye contact with them.
Where I insisted we stay our final week before heading to the US wasn’t considered chic among my sophisticated monied set. They mocked everything while we were here, from the landmarks to the Disneyland-esque tour boats on the water doing short loops to the Eiffel Tower, to the type of people who flooded here. But it was pretty at night, filled with orangey-yellow light I’ve only ever seen here. I liked the unrelenting banality of regular people in contrast with the lavish intensity of Paris and the other posh European cities we flocked to to amuse ourselves.
We were staying at a boutique hotel one block off the Seine that catered to Brits and Americans. The rooms were tiny in that European way even if the cost wasn’t, the décor a bit over-the-top lavish, the terrace off my room no wider than three feet that somehow had been made usable with a scaled-down iron outdoor table and chair set.
I sat there in the mornings with my coffee and smoke, though it wouldn’t accommodate anything more, but the view was lovely. It was on a short street that went nowhere lined by trees with turning-orange leaves, and for some reason it appealed to me.
One block from my turn, I began to hear footsteps behind me. Hurried feet hitting pavement, sharp and loud like a man’s. My initial thought was to wonder what had kept Cade so long at the table with our friends that he was just catching me one block from his room.
He was watching me, perhaps wondering why I didn’t stop and wait for him. The gaze was intense. A man in pursuit of a woman always is. It grew in strength. He was getting nearer, his current of raw, primal want a line between us that settled in my flesh as I continued to move and he continued to chase after.
I was irritated with myself for feeling so excited, the thrill of anticipation and sexual tension were an addictive commodity that I guzzled the way alcoholics did booze. Each step brought us closer to being in bed together. Cade trying to catch up to me while Zane remained back at the café pretending he was unconcerned or unaware, that on our final night I’d picked his friend over him.
Zane and I always ended our summers as we started them: a couple. This was a change in our relationship dynamic and I couldn’t ascribe a reason for why I did it. Maybe there was no reason beyond that Zane, in a way he would never admit, received his own sensory stimulation knowing I was fucking his friend.
Zane’s two buddies who were always with him, Cade and Trent, were both handsome men, but in the drop-your-panties competition it was Cade who was the clear winner.
Cade always smelled sinfully male. His voice was cultured and smooth, with a hint of arrogance richly deserved because he’d been born with everything. Dazzling dark looks and searing blue eyes, tall and muscled exactly the right amount that his physique never detracted from the impeccable way he wore his vulgarly expensive clothes. He was vacuous enough that there was never any excess emotion for a woman to be bothered by or confused over what he really was: a purely carnal man and not the least bit ashamed of it.
Cade—dazzlingly handsome Cade—offered things in the bedroom I couldn’t get any other way. Outside of bed, there was little between us except our hunt and chase.
Relying on instinct, I wasn’t concerned hearing the man behind close in on me, though I didn’t check over my shoulder to confirm it was Cade. Instead I focused on the near-dark street and the line of buildings I headed toward.
There were hardly any cars parked along the curb as I cut across the road. The entrance of our hotel was subtly tucked into the gray stone building, a small overhang of concrete, dark, before the main door that wasn’t equipped with even a valet.
By the time I reached the entrance, I was in ready-to-fuck status, my face flushed and a delicious tingle running jagged on the surface of my body. As my fingers seized the handle to pull back the heavy wood door I was flooded with edgy, restless energy. I could feel the inexplicable cable between Cade and me tighten.
Chapter Three
I WAS NEARLY INSIDE the hotel when an arm came around me and the door was slammed shut in front of me.
Having my forward motion halted that way should have alarmed me, but it didn’t. A blindfold—a man’s tie, I assumed—was swiftly tied around my eyes. Then a hard torso pushed me up against the sweating aged stone of the wall. I could feel the throbbing energy of arousal, and my nerves answered, twitchy and alert.
We suspended for a moment as we were, our breathing a ragged melody of lust, and my
mouth went dry as I waited for Cade’s next move.
Did he mean to have me there in the dark alcove in front of our hotel?
It was late, the street beyond us empty, and it wasn’t a variation to our affair I found shocking, but in my mind the warning rose sharply that it wasn’t a wise thing to do. Just because I couldn’t see or sense anyone watching us didn’t mean it was safe to assume there wasn’t someone lurking near us.
Warm fingers brushed my long black hair over my shoulder, exposing my neck. Scorching hot lips wandered my nape, kissing and teasing me with his teeth. His hands that had been too harsh on my wrists moved to my hips. Their pressure turned to a pattern I savored: near-painful pressure from palms crushing in, then light movement of fingers, alternating as his caress roved my body. My pulse vibrated in my veins.
His lips moved to the side of my neck, causing my head to tilt before he traveled to my shoulder. “Cade,” I moaned, shuddering. “You have to stop. Let’s go into the hotel.”
That got me his swollen erection pressed into my supple ass and one hand beneath my hem, his nimble fingers taunting my clit.
His seduction intensified, and I permitted myself a few moments to surrender to the fiery sensations he flooded me with. My arousal always rose so quickly with Cade, in a way it never did with Zane. But when he was being aggressive and inappropriate, it was as if I were a moth and he the flame and I raced into the fire to be incinerated.
The hand pinning me to the wall ascended to my breast, but he kept me flush against the building with the pressure of his length rolling into mine as he stroked both my nipple and clit.
It was dizzyingly stirring, and for a brief second I considered seeing where this would lead. Something that night had gotten Cade more intense and demanding than usual, and I suspected it was more than that we’d be apart for months starting the next day.