The CEO’s Revenge Bargain

FREYA

I was standing in that poorly lit hallway of the five-star Protea Hotel, fingers shaking a little on the handle of the room service cart. The silver tray on top felt heavier than it had any right to be. There was a bottle of expensive red wine on it and two crystal glasses that kept catching the weak overhead lights. The hotel uniform I borrowed was a size too big. I had pinned it in a few places and just decided it would have to do.

Room 1507. This was the one. The presidential suite. Steve Hayes was in there.

I pulled in a long breath and tried to get my heart to slow down. Everything from that morning kept running through my head again. The text from a number I did not know. The picture that popped up on my phone. That sick drop in my stomach when I saw Mark, my boyfriend, twisted up in the sheets with my stepsister Lila. Both of them are naked. Both of them looked way too comfortable with each other.

“Breathe, Freya,” I whispered. “Just breathe.”

This was not the first time Mark Bennett had stabbed me in the back. How many times had I run after that man? The heir to Bennett Industry Group had been sitting in my head for longer than I wanted to admit. I chased him all through college. I told myself the nights he spent in bars and clubs with other women did not mean anything. I told myself the way he brushed me off in public was only him trying to keep his private life private.

Then one memory came back sharp. Last summer. His family’s beach house. I had gone to the bathroom during a party and was walking back when I heard Mark talking around the corner, laughing.

“You don’t get it, man,” he said, all smug. “Even if she’s as gorgeous as Freya Newton, she still has to chase after me.”

His friends laughed. That sound stuck. I just stood there. My champagne glass almost slipped. I turned around and went back to the bathroom so I could pull myself together.

And I still stayed with him after that. I really thought I could make him love me the way I loved him.

I had been such an idiot.

Now I was outside Steve Hayes’s suite and I felt something different. Cold. Planned. If I was going to get back at Mark, I needed someone bigger than him. More powerful. More famous. More of everything.

Steve Hayes was that person.

He was the heir to Hayes Tech and he was worth billions. His company made Bennett Industry Group look small in every way that counted. One picture of me with Steve would send Mark into a jealous spiral. Just thinking about that made me smile.

Getting this far had not been simple. I called my old college roommate Jessica. She was an assistant manager at the hotel now. She told me Steve was in the city for a business dinner and had chosen to stay the night instead of going back to his penthouse. Then she told me something she was not supposed to tell anyone. He had asked for special arrangements because of bad insomnia. I took a uniform and a key card, rode up to his floor, and practiced what I was going to say the whole way.

I took one last breath and knocked.

“Room service,” I said, trying to sound like I did this every night even though my stomach was doing flips.

A few seconds later the door opened. Steve Hayes filled the doorway. All of him.

He was almost six foot three. Even in heels I had to look up. His shoulders were wide under a plain white shirt with the top buttons open, enough to show a strip of tanned skin. His jaw looked like it could cut something. His eyes were this hard slate gray and they went straight through me.

What I noticed most were the dark circles under his eyes. The insomnia rumors were probably true. They did not make him less good-looking. If anything they made him look a little more human under all that intimidation.

Recognition crossed his face. “Ms. Freya Newton? When did you start working as hotel staff?”

“Since today,” I said, and I smiled like I belonged there. I did not wait for him to invite me in. I pushed the cart forward so he had to step back, and I rolled it into the suite.

The presidential suite looked exactly like it should. Big. Fancy. Floor-to-ceiling windows and the whole Manhattan skyline lit up outside. A laptop was open on a glass desk with papers all around it. The king bed had not been touched. The covers were still tight. He had not even tried to sleep.

Steve shut the door but stayed by it, watching me. Curious and suspicious at the same time. “I don’t recall ordering room service. Especially not from the daughter of Roman Newton.”

I picked up the wine bottle and held it out like I was presenting something important. “Château Margaux, 2005. I figured we could both use a drink.”

“Bold move,” Steve said. He crossed his arms. “Aren’t you worried your boyfriend Mark Bennett might find out you’re visiting my hotel room in the middle of the night?”

I opened the bottle like I had done it a hundred times and poured the dark red wine into both glasses. When I leaned in I made sure he saw the beauty mark on my collarbone. A lot of men stared at that.

“That man is not my problem anymore,” I said, keeping my voice light. I handed him a glass and let my fingers brush his.

The contact was short but it went through me anyway. “Why bring him up when there is a more grown, more interesting man standing right here?”

He took the glass and did not drink. The emerald family ring on his finger caught the light while he turned the wine around in the glass, looking at it instead of at me. When he finally lifted his eyes they were darker, but his face stayed unreadable.

“What are you really doing here, Ms. Newton?”

“Freya,” I said. I took a sip. The wine hit my tongue hard and gave me a second to find some nerve.

My heart was slamming against my ribs when I put the glass down. I had never come on this strong to anyone. Not even Mark.

Steve took up the whole room. Power. Control. It sat on my skin. My fingers shook a little when I reached for the buttons on the uniform.

I undid them one at a time. Underneath I had on a black lace slip that barely made it past my thighs. Thin straps on my shoulders. The neckline sat low enough that the curve of my breasts showed. I let the uniform drop. Then I was standing there in the slip and my heels.

His face did not move, but his eyes went darker as they went down my body and back up. He did not react right away and that made me second-guess myself. Did I get this wrong? Was he not interested?

I shoved that thought away and walked closer. I made myself hold his eyes even though looking at him like that was a lot. My heart was going so fast I could hardly breathe, but I was not turning around now.

“You look like you cannot sleep,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself even though I was not. “How about we do some exercise together?”