Two Can Play (Celeste and Dominic) novel Chapter 291

Chapter 291

Tasha was standing by the window, dressed in the gown I had ordered for Jasmine.

She turned when she heard the door, her blonde hair catching the light in a way that made it look like spun gold, her face painted with the kind of subtle, devastating makeup that transformed her from a pretty girl into something that could stop a man’s heart at fifty paces. The extremely revealing dress clung to every curve she had, and she had more of them than I remembered, the fabric hugging her hips and cupping her breasts like it had been designed specifically to make me lose my mind.

“What the hell is going on here?” The words came out harder than I intended, but I didn’t soften them.

Scarlett stepped forward from the corner of the room, her hands already raised in that placating gesture she used when she knew trouble was coming. “Julian, listen to me before you get upset. Jasmine cannot go tonight. She started her period.”

“What do you mean she started her period?”

“The stress of last night, the way you were with her, it was too much for her body. Her menstruation came two days early. She is lying down right now with cramps so bad she can barely stand, and even if she could stand, she would not be able to perform the way Dominic expects.” Scarlett’s voice was calm, measured, the voice of a woman who had rehearsed this speech in the mirror a dozen times. “Tasha is ready. Tasha is more than ready. She knows exactly what to do.”

My jaw tightened until I could feel the tendons straining against my skin. “I told you to prepare Jasmine. Not Tasha.”

“Jasmine is unavailable. What would you have me do, Julian? Knock on Dominic Ford’s door and explain that our third participant is menstruating and would he mind rescheduling?” Scarlett’s eyes met mine without flinching. The plan is too important to let something like this derail it. Tasha is good at this. She knows how to please a man, she knows how to keep him distracted, and more importantly, she is standing here dressed and ready while we have less than thirty minutes to get to the hotel.”

I stared at Tasha, and Tasha stared back at me with beautiful smoky eyes that seemed to contain an innocence I knew for a fact she didn’t possess. She was beautiful. That was the problem. She was too beautiful, too untouched by me, too much the exact thing Dominic Ford would want to sink his teeth into, and the thought of him touching her before I had even had a taste made my stomach turn rancid.

“Take Maya,” I said, my voice flat and final.

Scarlett shook her head, and I could see the frustration bleeding through her carefully maintained composure.” Maya hates sex. You know this. If I take Maya to Dominic Ford, she will freeze up the moment he touches her, and he will know something is wrong, and he will kick us both out of his penthouse before I have a chance to retrieve the cameras.

Is that what you want? After everything you have invested, after all the money and all the planning, you want to flush it down the drain for no good reason?”

The bluntness of her words hit me like a slap, and I felt my hands curl into fists at my sides. “Watch your mouth, Scarlett.”

“I am trying to help you succeed.” She stepped closer, her red hair catching the light, her own dress hugging her body in ways that made it difficult to concentrate on being angry.

“Dominic Ford is expecting a woman who matches the description you gave him last night.” I pointed out. “You described Jasmine: dark hair, curves that do not quit and so on. Now you want to show up with a blonde?”

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“Do you think I have not thought about how to handle that?” Scarlett shot back. “I spent an hour on Tasha’s makeup. I spent another hour on her hair. When Dominic Ford opens that door and sees her, he is not going to be thinking about the description I gave him. He is going to be thinking about how fast he can get her out of that dress.”

I looked at Tasha again. The girl was breathtaking in a way that transcended mere physical attractiveness and entered the realm of weaponized beauty. Her skin had a luminescent quality under the soft lighting, her lips were glossed to a wet, inviting shine, and her breasts were straining against the bodice of that dress like they were trying to break free and introduce themselves personally.

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