Squirming beneath the heat of his lips, Izzy, tried to remind herself this was fake. The blaze in his eyes was fake, his gentle reverent touch was fake.  It was all for the camera.

“You taste like bubble gum,” he said, licking around her belly button ring.  “I just want to eat you up.”

“I want you, too,” she moaned, fighting her body’s impulse to undulate.

He grinned.  “Soon, Wild Style, just as soon as we kick things up a notch.”  He picked up the vial and opened it. “Don’t move, baby.”  Then, expertly, he drew a line of what appeared to be cocaine along the top swell of her right breast.  “I don’t know what looks sexier, you or the coke.”

He reached back into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and slid out a bill.  With his shield in plain view, he set it down next to her cell phone.  Rolling the bill up, he leaned over her, put it to his nostril and then snorted the line.  He jerked his head back like he had done it one hundred times before.

Rubbing his nostril, he looked down at her and drew a line on the inside of his left forearm.  Handing her the bill, he said, “Your turn.”

Taking the bill, she looked up at him and said, “I’ve never done coke before.”

“There’s a first time for everything, sweet cheeks.  That’s primo powder right there, doesn’t get any better.” He raised his forearm to her.  “Go ahead, I have plenty more where that came from.”

She did.  When she was done, he took the bill and tossed it to the floor, then pulled her hard into his arms, and said, “Now, real slow, take everything off, except the heels.”

Izzy hid her surprise.  Surely he wasn’t going to take it that far.  Was he? Without blinking, Flynn said, “Do it now.”

Nodding, she reached behind her neck to unhook the bikini top just as Flynn moved back against the nightstand, knocking it and everything on it over.

Putting his finger to his lips he shook his head, then said, “Now take the bottoms off.” Quickly he tossed the pillows off the bed onto the floor where the cell phone lay screen down.

Izzy looked at Flynn.  “Is it covered?” she whispered.

“Yes.  Get dressed.”

“But Boris is going to want to listen.”

“We’ll leave it running where it is. If he jacks you up about it, tell him you tried to get to the phone, but I wouldn’t let you off the bed.  When you could get to it, I was gone.  He won’t care once he sees what’s on it.  He’ll think he hit the jackpot at Caesar’s.”

“Okay,” she said feeling oddly out of place in her own bedroom. More odd, she felt let down.  She had really wanted to go there with Flynn, even if they were being recorded.  She knew then she had to backpedal fast and far.

Flynn picked up his torn shirt and tie.

“I’d offer you one of Charlie’s shirts, but you’re too big,” she said lamely, knowing she should just exit the room.

He shrugged the shirt on.  “It’s not a big deal.”

Once he was dressed, Flynn stood immobile for a long minute staring at her.

The heavy silence and his penetrating gaze made her more uncomfortable.  “Okay, well, I guess I’ll change, I don’t want Justin or Maddox to see me like this.”

“It’s nothing they haven’t seen before.”

Her head jerked back and tears stung her eyes.  “You’re not a very nice man, Flynn.”

Jamming his fingers through his hair, he shook his head, and clamped his jaw shut.  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“You’re right, you shouldn’t have.  I’m sorry that you have such a nasty side to you. I thought you were better than that.”  She moved to walk past him into the bathroom, but he caught her arm and pulled her back around to him.

“Look, Pi—Isadora, I’ve never—damn it, I’ve never been in this situation before. I don’t know how to handle it.  Obviously.”

“What situation are you talking about, Flynn?”

“This,” he said, motioning between them.  “Thing between us.”

“What thing?”

“The 'I can’t stop thinking about you’ thing.”

She straightened and pulled her arm from his hand.  “This thing,” she motioned between him just as he had, “between us, was over for me the minute you drove away from my house last night.”

Marching into the bathroom, Izzy shut the door firmly behind her, and locked it.  Not because she was afraid he’d come in while she showered, but because she was afraid if he asked her to come out, she would.  And she couldn’t.  Not to him, a man in so many ways like her father.  She was good enough to fuck, but not good enough to go public with.  All he saw was a cocktail server with big tits who happened to tickle his fancy at the moment.

No, as much as she was drawn to Flynn, she wasn’t going to sacrifice her self-worth only to be objectified by him.

She didn’t know who she was more disappointed in—him for being so much like her father or herself for falling for him, knowing he was cut from the same cloth.

Leaning up against the door, she exhaled loudly.

“I’m not like him, Pink,” Flynn said from the other side of the door.

“Yes you are.”

“Open the door.”

“No.”

“Are you afraid of me?”

“I’m afraid of my weakness for you.”

“I’m just as weak for you.”

Izzy squeezed her eyes shut.  God help her, but she wanted to open the door and let him in.  All of the way.  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Will you give me another chance not to be such a dick?”

Izzy smiled, but her heart ached because she knew the answer.  “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are who you are and I am who I am.  I know how you truly feel.”

She turned and opened the door. He stood there so big and strong and…vulnerable.  Her heart broke; she wanted him so much at that moment.  But she was already one man’s dirty secret; she wasn’t going to be another’s.

“I don’t want to be your dirty little secret, Flynn.”

“You wouldn’t be.”

“I don’t believe you. Besides, it doesn’t matter if you took an ad out in the Chronicle telling the world you’re my guy, because it would be a lie. We both know it.”  When he didn’t argue, her heart fluttered.  She had challenged him to fight for her.  And he hadn’t. “I want you to stay away from me.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Find a way.”  She reached past him, grabbed her robe from the coatrack, and slid it on, quickly tying the sash. It was the same sash she had used to tie Flynn’s hands to her headboard.

Heat shot through her at the memory.  God, that had been a glorious night.  Moving to the pile of pillows on the floor by her bed, she knelt down, and slipping her hands beneath the pillows she found her iPhone.  Feeling for the On/Off button, she pressed it.  After a few seconds she withdrew the phone and handed it to Flynn.

“I can tell Boris it ran out of battery, and that he’s going to have to be happy with what we gave him.”

She walked past him and opened her bedroom door, then strode out to the living room where Justine and Maddox were seated. They stood in unison when she entered.

“I think we did a good job,” she said brightly as if she made fake videos every day.

“Take a look,” Flynn said handing it to Justin.  Justin tapped the video icon and it opened.

Justin nodded when Flynn looked like he was snorting the coke.  “Very believable,” he said.

“Shouldn’t Flynn have acted drugged?” Izzy asked Justin, suddenly remembering that detail.

Justin shook his head.  “It’s more damaging this way.  If you’re questioned, shrug it off and say you tried but he didn’t drink the drink. Then push the fact that he was stone cold sober snorting coke off your body.”

Once the video ended, Justin looked at them and said, “Great job.”

“With your permission, Miss Fuentes, I’m going to e-mail the video to myself.  Once I verify receipt and quality, I would like to delete it from your cell phone. Once back at the office I’ll make copies and edit your copy to make it look authentic.  I’ll download it to a thumb drive, which you will give to Sorlov.”