Darker the Release

Read Online Darker the Release by Claire Kent - Free Book Online

Book: Darker the Release by Claire Kent Read Free Book Online
Authors: Claire Kent
Tags: Suspense, Romance, Contemporary, romantic suspense, New Adult & College, Mystery & Suspense
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faces, the color of their eyes.
    And couldn’t.
    He tried to remember the name of the last woman he’d fucked before Kelly. Only a couple of months ago, before Kelly had entered his life. She had been brunette—that one-night stand. Her name had been one of those silly diminutives, but he couldn’t even remember what it was.
    Caleb wondered what she’d been like—for real, beyond the sex they’d had—what she might have really wanted. He wondered if she’d cried like Kelly had after he’d fucked her.
    And the woman before her had been a call girl, a woman with a full history that had brought her to that place. And the one before that…he didn’t know.
    An endless stretch of empty experiences.
    Every one of the women Caleb had ever fucked had chosen it, had consciously agreed to it. They’d seduced him, asked him, begged him, accepted the money he’d offered them.
    But Caleb wondered, as he lay beside Kelly that night and didn’t sleep at all, about every one of them—all of the women over all of the years who had somehow ended up in his bed.
    They’d said yes. Every one.
    But Caleb wondered how many of them had been silently saying no.

Chapter 4
    Kelly woke up alone.
    She felt strange and heavy before she was fully conscious, before she could fully open her eyes. Then she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, remembering the long night before.
    She felt different this morning—like she was a different person, like Caleb was a different person too.
    But when she turned her head to look over at his side of the bed, she realized it was empty.
    He was gone. It was Saturday, but that never stopped him from working. He was probably in his office even now, burying himself in work, remembering the man he’d always been.
    He’d been vulnerable last night. Uncertain. Almost broken.
    He wasn’t the kind of man who would allow that to continue.
    It was good. It was just as well. It was hard enough for Kelly to do what needed to be done as it was. If Caleb became even softer, more human, then she might never be able to accomplish it.
    The distance he needed this morning would serve her well too, and the twisting feeling in her gut—like she felt let down, betrayed, because he’d left without talking to her after what had happened last night—didn’t matter at all.
    She rolled over and reached into her purse, which was on the floor next to the bed, for her phone.
    It was habit, really. She wasn’t expecting there to be any messages—not coming in between two and seven on a Saturday morning.
    But there was a message—from the unlisted phone number that Jack Martin, her private investigator, always used to contact her.
    She glanced at the closed door of the bedroom, assuring herself that Caleb wasn’t around, and listened to the message.
    “Hey,” Jack’s pleasant, lazy voice said in the message. “Call me when you get a chance. Progress.”
    She stared down at her phone for a minute, her heartbeat picking up.
    He wouldn’t have said there was a lead like that if he hadn’t found more evidence. And the evidence they were really waiting for was going to point them either toward Sean Moore’s guilt in her father’s death…or toward Caleb’s.
    She never called Jack from Caleb’s house. He had all kinds of security measures set up, and it felt too dangerous to risk a call where she might be overheard or observed.
    But she wouldn’t be able to get out of the house until the middle of the day—not without it looking suspicious—and she really wanted to know what Jack knew.
    It would change things. It might change everything.
    She couldn’t imagine the tender, uncertain man from last night actually killing her father. Caleb was cold and ambitious, but he wasn’t heartless, and her father had been innocent.
    Surely—surely—she wouldn’t be feeling like this toward Caleb if he were actually that kind of monster. What she’d overheard last night could have meant something else. Kelly

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