by Erika Wilde
Arriving at the company, he parked his car next to hers, which she pointed out for him—not that there were that many vehicles in the lot so early on a Saturday morning. She unbuckled her seat belt, grabbed her purse and the crystal shoe he’d given back to her, then looked at him, a forced smile on her face, which he fucking hated. He now understood her reasons for being so reluctant about them, but this distance she was attempting to put between them was killing him.
“Take care, Hunter,” she said, the words sounding so . . . final.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel to keep from hauling her over to his side of the car and kissing her senseless. There was a time and place for him to be a possessive caveman, but he knew this wasn’t it. Instead, he calmly stated his intentions, despite her trying to brush him off or make what she felt was a clean break.
“This isn’t goodbye, sweetheart. Right now, I’m just letting you do what you feel you need to get done on a Saturday, but I will talk to you later, and I will see you again, okay?”
“Sure,” she said, clearly saying what she thought he wanted to hear.
She slid out of his car and he let her go to give her space. He made sure she was safely locked into her own vehicle and watched as she pulled out of the parking lot to head home for her own shower and a change of clothes before returning to work for the day.
Hunter exhaled a deep breath as he drove back to his place, mulling over the conversation he’d had with Elle this morning about the business, the house, and Helena. Bits and pieces of what she’d told him hadn’t set well with Hunter; it was a niggling feeling he couldn’t fully pinpoint, nor was he willing to ignore his gut instinct, either. Something about the predicament with Helena just felt . . . off. While Elle was far too trusting, being a shrewd businessman had taught Hunter that if a situation didn’t feel right, it usually wasn’t, and Hunter wanted and needed reassurance that Elle’s issues with Helena weren’t more complicated than she naively believed.
As soon as he parked his car in the underground structure of the building where he, Maddux, and Tempest lived above the offices of MadX-Tech, he reached for his cell phone and typed out a text to his brother, who’d employed some of the best, most ruthless investigators over the years to give him regular updates on Theodore’s every move. Their practices might have been a bit unethical in unearthing information, but Hunter wasn’t looking for a basic background check on Helena Darian. He wanted the nitty-gritty dirt on the woman.
Are you around and free to discuss something I need your help with? Hunter asked Maddux, then sent the message. The last thing he wanted was to barge in on his brother and Arabella doing anything he couldn’t unsee.
Maddux’s reply came back quickly. Of course. I’m in my penthouse office. Come on up.
Five minutes later, Hunter stepped off the elevator into his brother’s apartment. The living room and kitchen area were quiet and empty when he’d expected to see Arabella, so he headed directly to Maddux’s office. The door was open, and he walked inside. His brother was by himself, sitting behind his desk and typing on his laptop, looking surprisingly well despite being shot in the shoulder over a week ago. Then again, there wasn’t much that could keep his big, strapping brother out of commission.
As soon as he heard Hunter enter, he stopped working, closed his computer, and glanced up at him. “Hey,” Maddux said in greeting, though his features expressed his concern over what Hunter might need his help with.
“Where’s Arabella?” Hunter asked curiously as he settled into one of the leather seats in front of his brother’s desk. “I didn’t see her when I came in.”
“She just left to go shopping with Tempest for the day since I needed to get some work done for a few hours this morning,” he said, then smirked. “Arabella is too damned distracting, so having her out of the apartment for a while means I can actually concentrate on a few new contracts I need to review and sign off on this weekend.”
Hunter laughed. Yeah, his brother was totally and completely besotted with Arabella, and while on one hand Hunter found it extremely amusing, on the other he could totally relate since that’s precisely how he felt about Elle. But until things with Helena, the house, and the business were settled, he knew he had to keep his feelings for her to himself. He didn’t want to give Elle any more of a reason to panic and try and push him away.
“By the way, Tempest found out this morning that the seller of the building in Williamsburg accepted her offer,” Maddux said, cutting into his thoughts with the good news. “The place is hers.”
“That’s fantastic.” Hunter smiled. “I’m really happy for her.”
“Me, too. She’s excited to get started on her new project.” Maddux leaned back in his chair, his expression turning more direct and serious as he addressed the reason for Hunter’s visit. “So, what do you need my help with?”
Hunter got right to the point. “I need to hire the private investigator you used to expose all of Theodore’s illegal and criminal activities over the past fourteen years.”
Maddux raised a brow in surprise. “Okay . . . can I ask what for? Because we both know that Noah Reeves is not a by-the-book kind of PI. In fact, there aren’t a whole lot of ethical lines he won’t cross to find out the deep, dark shit on people.”
“That’s exactly why I want to hire him,” Hunter said in a grim tone, and went on to tell his brother the reason. “The woman I met the night of the fairy-tale ball—”
“Elaina Darian, with Darian Commercial Realty, a.k.a. Cinderella?” Maddux cut in, a smug look on his face. “The one who ran out on you the morning after and left her crystal shoe behind?”
With everything going on, Hunter hadn’t had a chance to discuss Elle with his brother, but clearly their sister had already taken it upon herself to share her romanticized fairy-tale version of what she knew about his relationship with Elle.
“Tempest?” he guessed in a wry tone.
Maddux chuckled. “Of course. Who else? You sure as shit didn’t bother to tell me.”
Hunter scrubbed a hand along the stubble he hadn’t shaved this morning. “Yeah, well, you were a little busy with the whole Theodore and Arabella kidnapping and getting shot and recovering and being blissfully happy with your Belle.”
“True.” Maddux grinned unapologetically, now the polar opposite of the bitter man he’d once been. “Especially the latter.”
“Spare me the details, please,” Hunter said, putting up a hand to keep his brother from giving him information he didn’t want or need to hear. “As for Elle and me . . . we’ve been kind of seeing each other.”
“Kind of?” Maddux drawled. “That’s vague.”
“It’s complicated,” Hunter grumbled, wishing he could give his brother a more definitive answer about him and Elle, but for right now, he was stuck in limbo with her, which he hated. “I want to pursue things with her, and right now she’s dealing with a lot of issues with her stepmother, Helena, who owns half of the house they live in together and the realty business that her father left to the both of them when he passed away. From what Elle tells me, Helena’s spending habits are excessive compared to what the company is currently bringing in, to the point that the business is suffering financially. Yet her stepmother isn’t willing to take out a home equity loan against the four hundred thousand dollars that’s available to draw from—for the company or even herself. Something isn’t adding up, and I want to find out why.”
Maddux nodded in understanding. “Does Elle know that you’re going to put together a dossier on her stepmother?”
“No.” He honest-to-God didn’t like going behind her back, but every protective instinct inside of him was clawing at him that something was wrong, and he needed proof to back up his gut feeling. “I don’t want to tell her unless there’s a reason I need to, or until I have something concrete to show her that will give credence to Helena’s odd decisions and behavior.”
“I get it.” Maddux opened the middle drawer of his desk and pu
lled out a notepad and a pen and pushed both across the wooden surface to Hunter. “Write down Helena’s name and either her home or work address, or both if you know them.”
That sounded too simple and Hunter frowned at his brother. “That’s all Noah needs to start on a full background report, including finding out anything in Helena’s past?”
“Trust me,” Maddux said confidently. “You don’t want to know how Reeves finds out what he does, but bottom line, he’s that fucking good. In two or three days, you’ll have a full report on Helena Darian, past and present, including her personal finances and banking records.”
“Okay, let’s do it,” Hunter said, reaching for the pen and paper to jot down the information Reeves needed to start the investigation, while Maddux picked up his cell phone to retrieve the PI’s private phone number to give him a call.
In a few days, Hunter, and Elle, would hopefully have answers as to why Helena wasn’t budging on the equity that was available in the house they co-owned.
Never in Elle’s life had she been in the position to make the walk of shame, but as she entered her house and headed into the kitchen to make herself a cup of hot tea to drink while she got ready for work, the three women sitting at the dining table eating breakfast definitely looked at her with different levels of judgment. Helena’s stare was filled with disgust and disapproval, Gwen did nothing to disguise her narrow-eyed animosity and envy, and Claire, who wasn’t quite as malevolent as her stepmother or sister, watched her more curiously. Even Lucifer, Helena’s devil cat, hissed at her as Elle walked past the feline.
Clearly, the three women were aware that she hadn’t come home last night, and most likely recognized that Elle was still in the same clothes she’d worn to the office the day before, which were now noticeably wrinkled from being tossed onto Hunter’s floor in a heap. Her makeup was worn off, and while she’d attempted to finger comb her thick, tousled hair since she hadn’t brought a brush with her, there was no denying that it still looked like disheveled bedhead.
She could have escaped right into her room—which was located just beyond the kitchen and had originally been built as a maid’s quarters—and avoided Helena’s and Gwen’s condescending looks, but Elle decided that she didn’t care what any of them thought of her. They’d always believed the worst, had always made her feel inferior and less than, and she refused to let them have the satisfaction of seeing her embarrassed. She had nothing to be ashamed of, so she set her purse, keys, and crystal-encrusted shoe down, then walked over to the pretty hand-painted porcelain jar that had been her mother’s at one time and now held Elle’s loose tea leaves.
With the trio still blatantly staring at her, Elle nonchalantly brought a mug down from the cupboard, retrieved her tea leaf strainer from the drawer, and put the chai vanilla-flavored tea into the ball strainer. She set it in her cup, added boiling water from the instant hot water dispenser, and waited for the flavors in the leaves to steep.
“Where were you last night?” Helena finally asked, breaking the awkward silence that had descended over the room when Elle had walked in.
Elle reached for the small jar of sugar from the cupboard, not bothering to glance her stepmother’s way. “That’s none of your business.”
Helena exhaled on an annoyed huff before she spoke again. “I heard that you met Hunter Wilder and his sister to show them the building in Williamsburg, and I’m assuming you spent the night with him again?” Her voice dripped with disdain.
Elle exhaled a deep, calming breath, telling herself not to engage. It didn’t matter that the three of them knew—or rather, assumed—that she’d slept with Hunter the night of the fairy-tale ball since she’d spent the evening with him and then had come home in the early-morning hours. Or that Helena was making the same assumption now. She wasn’t about to confirm or deny their suspicions.
With her tea properly steeped, she removed the ball strainer, set it in the sink, and added a small amount of sugar to the light brown liquid. “Again, I’m a grown woman, and where I spend my evenings is none of your concern.”
“A man like Hunter Wilder is way out of your league, Elaina, and it’s just a matter of time before he gets tired of you,” Helena said bitterly. “You do realize that, don’t you?”
Elle brought her cup up to her lips, blew on the steaming liquid, then took a small sip of the vanilla chai brew. “He can’t get tired of me, because I’m not dating him.”
“Just sleeping with him?” Gwen jumped in with her snide comment, though there was an undercurrent of jealousy in her tone. “When did you become such a slut?”
It took effort not to wince at the slur, and her stepmother was quick to add insult to injury. “I know you met him at the fairy-tale ball, but he’s not your Prince Charming, Elaina. Men like Hunter Wilder want a beautiful, sophisticated woman on their arm. Not a haggard-looking one.”
The words were always painful, but Elle was confident in how beautiful she was to Hunter. Not only did he use words to tell her, but every touch, every kiss, every caress reaffirmed that he found her sexy and desirable. Her stepmother could never take that away from her.
Done being the focus of their derogatory comments, Elle turned toward the table and finally glanced at the three of them . . . Helena looking down her nose at her even though she was sitting lower than Elle was standing, Gwen with a bitchy smirk curving her lips, and Claire . . . who hadn’t said a word and had what looked to be an oddly concerned look on her face.
Every once in a while, Elle sensed that Claire felt bad about the horrible way Helena and Gwen treated her, like now. Oh, there had been times that the younger of her two stepsisters had gotten her digs in with Gwen urging her on, but over the past year, she’d grown quieter and not as quick to pile insults on top of the ones her mother and sister heaped on Elle.
Elle met Helena’s narrowed gaze. After talking to Hunter this morning about the situation with the house and business, she finally felt like she had a plan of action to offer Helena what she wanted and seemed to never get enough of—money—and in return, Elle would take the realty company, which her stepmother wasn’t interested in, anyway. Except for the money she could squeeze out of it. At least Elle would have one thing all to herself that had belonged to her parents.
Elle set her mug of tea on the counter. “Helena, we need to have a serious conversation about selling this house,” she said, and could have sworn she saw something akin to fear flash through her stepmother’s gaze at the suggestion. “There is over four hundred thousand dollars in equity, which gives me enough to buy out your half of the business, and you’d have a lot of money to start over somewhere else. Once the house is sold, we can go our separate ways instead of living together when none of us are happy with that arrangement, anyway.”
Helena shook her head, her chin tipping up adamantly. “I’m not selling this house.”
Elle forcibly tamped down her frustration, and despite the fact that she’d expected her stepmother to be difficult, she didn’t let Helena’s attitude deter her. “Why not?”
“Because . . . because it’s finally the way I want it to be after all the money I’ve spent on redesigning and redecorating every single room in this house!”
Helena’s heated response took Elle aback. Her reasoning didn’t make sense, and if she said what she really wanted to say, she didn’t think her stepmother would appreciate her mentioning that she’d redecorated every room in the house . . . except for Elle’s maid quarters. Helena had systematically erased every trace of her mother’s warm touch in the house in what had to be a costly six-figure expense.
“Okay, then we refinance,” Elle suggested reasonably. “I’ll take half the equity less what it takes to buy out your part of the company, and you can keep the house.”
Helena abruptly stood up, her demeanor so rattled that even her daughters glanced at her curiously. “There isn’t enough equity for you to buy out my half of the business, so it looks like we’re stuck at an impasse.”
> Elle disagreed. Now that Hunter had planted the seed, she was determined to see this through. It made the most sense, and it would finally give Elle her life back. And once she straightened things out in her personal life and business affairs with Helena, maybe then she could think about pursuing a relationship with Hunter.
“Come on, girls,” Helena said in a sharp tone. “We have hair and nail appointments and shopping to do today.”
“Not with the company credit card,” Elle said boldly, not caring that her comment earned her a scathing look from her stepmother.
“Don’t worry, Elaina,” she sneered. “I do have my own bank account and money.”
With Helena so agitated, Gwen and Claire scurried from their seats at the table, put their dirty dishes in the sink, then disappeared from the kitchen, which gave Elle the opportunity to make sure that her stepmother knew how serious she was and that she wasn’t going to let Helena walk all over her any longer.
“We’re not done with this conversation,” Elle said, embracing a newfound strength and confidence inside of her while holding her stepmother’s livid gaze. “Even if I have to get a lawyer involved.”
“You don’t want to cross me, Elle.”
Ignoring that threatening parting remark, Elle picked up her tea and went into her bedroom. She shut the door and deliberately locked it behind her because there was such a murderous look in Helena’s eyes that it chilled Elle to the bone. A few minutes later, she heard the three of them leave, and when the house was finally quiet, Elle stripped off her clothes and got into the shower.
She washed her body and shampooed and conditioned her hair, rinsed off, and enjoyed her cup of hot tea while she applied a light amount of makeup. She dried her hair, changed into a casual, comfortable dress and sandals, and headed back to work for the day, despite the start of a headache that she was sure had been brought on by the confrontation with Helena.
By the time she reached her office and settled in to do some computer and paperwork, an occasional wave of nausea rolled through her, and as the day went on, it got progressively worse. Her stomach cramped, and God, she had so much she needed to get done she was determined to work through the queasy feeling. She tried drinking another cup of hot tea to settle whatever was going on inside her. When that didn’t help, by early afternoon, she popped a few ibuprofen, then pushed back her computer keyboard, folded her arms on her desk, and laid her head down to rest for a few minutes until the pounding in her temples and the urge to throw up finally passed.