by KB Winters
“Do you think we could start over? I’d like to get to know you.”
Talia’s words came back to me and an uneasy feeling turned in the pit of my stomach. In hindsight, I’d been somewhat of an ass, and although I was still angry with her for her role in the O’Keefe scheme, I knew she wasn’t really the one I should be taking issue with. After all, without her warning, I would’ve walked into that meeting blindly. Even though I knew I wouldn’t have taken the deal, it was a big help to have the upper hand from the get-go.
She wasn’t the real villain.
No, that honor lay with the pompous asshole Henry O’Keefe and his little band of spoiled cronies who wouldn’t take no for an answer and were more than willing to bend the rules until they broke—in their pursuit of whoever or whatever they had their eyes on.
In this case, my father’s museum.
My museum.
“They have some paperwork that needs to be signed,” Lana continued, her tone starting to grate on me.
“I’ll be out in the hangar in five,” I told her, cutting in before she could rattle off the rest of my to-do list for the day. I wasn’t ready for it all to be dumped on me just yet. I had just barely taken a sip of my first cup of coffee. “I need to go back to the house and get my phone.”
She sputtered a rebuttal, but I set my cup down and took off at an easy jog, out the front doors and back across the gravel drive that separated my house from the museum. The property overlooked the Pacific Ocean from a bluff high above the coast, and down the steep ravine lay Holiday Cove. This sleepy little beach town had become my home since the day my father passed away and left me in charge of the big ass estate.
I ran inside the bungalow style house, took the stairs two at a time, and searched my bedroom. I tore through the sheets and rummaged through the drawer of my bedside table. No phone. With a growl of frustration, I ran back through the memories of the night before. With a laugh, I remembered that my antics with Kimberly hadn’t started in the bedroom…
I raced back down the stairs and found my discarded pile of clothes littering the living room floor where Kimberly had stripped them off. We’d crashed through the front door, ready to rock and roll, and ended up on the couch before making our way upstairs, both of us already naked as fuck.
A rush of sensations crashed over me like high tidal waves when I remembered the sounds she’d made when I’d plowed into her against the wall next to the fireplace. Her thighs had gripped my hips tighter with each thrust and she’d torn my back up with her long fingernails.
With a shake of my head, I pulled myself from the steamy memories and found my jeans on the floor. My wallet and phone were still in their respective pockets, and I transferred them both to my fresh pair before tossing the worn jeans back to the couch. I’d deal with it later.
I had more important things to do today than laundry.
12
“Ready for the finishing touch?” Lana asked, smiling up at me.
It took me a moment to figure out what she was referring to, but it came back as she produced a flat box. “The plaque,” I said, taking the package from her, my voice was thick with emotion, and suddenly, I wished she wasn’t standing so close. “Thanks.”
She’d already unsealed the tape around the end, so I could easily slip it open. I dumped out the bubble-wrapped contents and unfolded a cherry wood plaque with a bronze plate on the front.
* * *
IN MEMORY OF JAMES M. ROSEN
THIS ONE’S FOR YOU DAD
* * *
I swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in my throat before it choked me. There had been a time in my life when I wouldn’t have been able to recall the last time I’d cried. However, since my dad’s passing, it was easy to pinpoint the last time I’d lost complete control.
It had cost me a lot more than just a few tears.
My last meltdown had cost me my Navy career.
I turned the plaque, letting the sunlight from the large windows shine across the polished, unblemished surface.
I cleared my throat. “All right, looks good. Once those guys are finished and the plane is put back together, I’ll order a fancy stand and set it right in front. Probably over there,” I pointed at the place in front of where the F-4 was now being set up in a prominent space. They’d taken the wings off for transport, and the moving crew was busy putting everything back in place. They had roped off the space and were busily humming along with their tasks.
It wasn’t the first thing visitors would see when they came in. I wanted it to be more of a show stopper, and I had it positioned along the back row, in the center, with smaller, less flashy planes flanking each side.
Lana took the plaque from my hand and the rest of the employees that had gathered around all hustled back into action, going back to whatever they’d abandoned when Lana had called everyone together for the unveiling.
“Let’s get ready for a full day,” I called out behind me as I hurried back to my office. I could feel pressure welling up inside me and if I was going to break, I wanted to be alone.
Thankfully, Lana had the good sense to leave me alone. After a few deep breaths, alone in my office, the tense knot in my stomach loosened and I could breathe without a sharp stabbing in my gut.
Back on the floor, the doors had been opened, and a steady stream of tourists and visitors were flowing through them and checking in at the front counter. None of them had any idea who I was—they probably wouldn’t suspect a guy with tattoo sleeves, dark shades, clutching a black leather jacket was the owner of such an establishment.
It was the stereotype.
I didn’t care.
If anything, I appreciated people’s bias as it allowed me more mobility and freedom. I wasn’t like O’Keefe, the type of business owner that had to see and be seen everywhere he went. I could move in the shadows if I wanted, and on the occasions that called for it, I was pretty damn good at making a splash.
Now, I was content to stay in the shadows and made my way out of the building without anyone chasing after me. I hopped into my truck and went down the steep and winding road that dropped me down into Holiday Cove and made my way through the small town to my favorite coffee shop.
“Hey, handsome,” a familiar voice called as soon as I stepped through the front door of the quaint shop.
Carly, the source of the greeting, popped her head over the glass case and smiled in my direction. “Hey, gorgeous,” I drawled.
“Little early for you, isn’t it?” She wiped her hands on her apron before side stepping to the old school cash register.
“Yeah, but I needed a little break.” It was as much of a confession as I was willing to make.
“Your usual?” she asked, already crossing to the espresso machine.
I gave a nod and she went to work. “Everything okay?”
I raked my hands through my hair. The small shop was empty except for an elderly man sitting with a newspaper at one of the tables off to the right of the counter and pastry case. “Just a long couple of weeks, that’s all.”
She nodded and turned her attention back to the silver pitcher in her hand as she steamed the milk for my latte. After another half a minute, she topped off the drink with a light dusting of cinnamon and brought the paper cup over to me. She set it on the counter with a sweet smile. “Hey, I meant to ask you, did you ever find out anything more about that land development thing we were talking about last time you came by?”
My heart flipped at her question. Carly and I had known each other for a long time. I knew she’d keep my confidence—even in a small town overrun with gossips—but I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about everything with Talia and O’Keefe. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about what had happened and telling Carly about it would require me to have thoughts or conclusions about it. I wasn’t quite ready for that conversation yet.
“As far as I know, the permits to build still haven’t gone through,” I said, offering the only piece of factual inf
ormation I had.
“Hmm.” She nodded, but her eyes wandered to some point behind me, and I could see the mix of emotions at the news.
“It’s probably for the best,” she concluded, returning her bright eyes to mine. She smiled and reached across the counter to pat my upper arm. “You look stressed, Player. You ever think about taking a weekend off?”
I chuckled and gave her my best smoldering look. “Only if you go with me, gorgeous.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. Carly and I had long ago come to an unspoken agreement that we wouldn’t be crossing any lines. We’d never even seen each other outside the coffee shop or the occasional run-in at the grocery store.
“Thanks for this,” I said, holding up the cup. I fished a five out of my wallet and handed it over.
“Anytime,” she said, smiling as she rang up the drink and put the money in the till. I dropped the change into her tip jar and started back toward the front door. “Take care of yourself, Player!”
I turned back and gave a mock salute. “I always do.”
13
“I don’t mean to nag—”
“—Then don’t,” I answered, cutting into Lana’s sentence. She’d been hovering over me ever since I got back from my coffee run, and I knew she was worried about me. Her anxiety for me rolled off her and only pissed me off. “Lana, listen, I’m fine. You’re fine. Go home. I’m just gonna look over these numbers once more and then I promise I’ll lock up and call it a night. Okay?”
She wrung her hands on the outside of the clipboard she always carried with her. I’d offered to buy her a fancy, techy tablet a million times, but she insisted that she was a “paper person.”
“Seriously,” I added, turning in my office chair to focus back on my computer screen where I had the monthly budget projections pulled up.
“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I just…”
“Lana.”
“Goodnight, Aaron.”
“Goodnight.”
I waited until I could no longer hear the sound of her clunky shoes on the cement floor and released the breath I’d been holding all day. I muttered under my breath about finally getting some peace and quiet when a new sound pricked my ears.
Footsteps.
But not the chunky, rubber-soled variety.
No, if my fine-tuned ears were to be trusted, those were stiletto heels walking across my floor.
My heart plummeted into the pit of my stomach as I stood up to see who it was. There was only one person who walked like that, and not a second later—after her face appeared in my mind—her curvy body was draped across the frame of my open office door.
“Talia,” I said, my tone a mix of surprise and irritation.
Irritated or not, I couldn’t stop my eyes from taking a tour of every lush curve, reacquainting myself with what was arguably one of the sexiest women I’d ever had the pleasure of…pleasing.
She was wrapped tight in a black skirt that stretched across her hips in a way that made me want to moan. Her pink top was tucked into the skirt and pulled snug across her perfect breasts. The top two buttons had been left open to reveal just enough to get me uncomfortable in my jeans. Her long, dark hair was down, falling over her shoulders in loose waves and her even darker eyes were trained on me with an intensity that both unnerved me—and turned me on.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, barely keeping the husky desire out of my tone.
Talia was the type of woman who knew exactly how fuckin’ sexy she was. Every move, glance, and inflection was a tool she could use to bend men to her will—or, in the case of our meeting—to the will of her master.
“I know I’m the last person you want to see, but Aaron, I need your help.”
I folded my arms and leaned up against my desk. “Actually, you’re the second to last person I want to see. Your boyfriend—oh, I’m sorry,” I sneered, “—your ex-boyfriend, would be the last, last person I’d want to see.”
She took a beat and then pushed back her long waves, tossing them over her shoulders. “Okay, I deserved that.”
Her lack of arguing riled me further. If she didn’t argue and snipe back, it just made me feel like an asshole.
I sighed. “What do you need?”
“I need to escape. I need to go somewhere.” She licked her lips. “Somewhere far…away from here.”
“What’s going on? Why?” I could feel myself getting pulled back into her web, but I was powerless to stop it. Regardless of what had happened between us, and the way she’d used me, I still wanted her.
“Henry’s having me followed.”
“Followed?” My eyebrows shot up. “What for?”
“Like I told you at the bar last night, I left him a couple of weeks ago. Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t go over so well with him. At first, he threatened me with taking me to court, accusing me of breaching our contract.” She stopped and sucked in a deep breath. “He called me last night, screaming and yelling at me to get back over to his office where I, quote, unquote, belong. I told him, no, and that’s when he really lost it.”
She crossed my office and sat on the couch along the opposite wall. Only when she was sitting, did I realize that her hands were shaking. She braced them on her knees and continued, “I told him that if he dragged me to court, that I’d testify against him.”
“Oh shit…” I didn’t know everything O’Keefe had his hands in but threatening a power player like him wasn’t a smart move. Sure, I’d told him to go fuck himself, but I had the proper leverage. Talia—without help—would be a sitting duck. A problem. The kind of problem that usually ended up on the six o’clock news as a missing person case.
She nodded and sucked in another long breath, steeling herself. “I don’t know everything, but I know enough to be dangerous. But, God, I don’t know what I was thinking…it was stupid.”
“Ya think?”
She shot me a dirty look.
I held up my hands. “Sorry, but Talia, you, of all people, know who he is and what he’s capable of. He’s not the kind of guy you fuck with.”
“I know.” She nodded frantically. Her beautiful face crumpled under the strain of keeping it together for so long and she folded forward, burying her face in her hands. “It was stupid. I know that. Aaron…he’s going to kill me. There’s been a dark town car following me around ever since last night. I’ve been keeping to public places all day, but now…I have nowhere to go where he won’t be able to find me.”
“So you came here?” I jumped up and looked out the blinds that hung over the large window over my desk. I dropped the slats closed again and turned to face Talia again. It was hard to hold on to my grudge when she was so obviously broken over it. “Talia, do they know you’re here? Did they follow you here?”
She shook her head. “No. I lost them. But…”
I waited, holding my breath.
“He knows about us, so it’s not a stretch to think he’ll send someone to come looking. That’s why you have to get me out of here. Tonight.”
“Why me? And why do you think I’d take you somewhere?”
“Because you can fly me somewhere. If I go through an airport, he’ll find me. He’s probably got his private dicks checking local train stations too. I don’t know. It’s like he’s everywhere!”
“Okay, okay. Hold on.” I paced across the office, stirring through a pot of ideas in my head. I snapped my fingers when the right idea cycled through. “I know what to do. I know a guy who takes charters down to Mexico. He’ll keep you off the record. Not to get into it, but he’s…got experience with that.”
If she was scandalized, she didn’t show it.
“I can take you up to him, he’s outside San Francisco, and first thing tomorrow, he can take you down to Mexico. I trust that from there you can disappear?”
She nodded. “I have cash, and I had a friend make me a new ID. Henry won’t be able to track me there, and I can get on a plane to Europe. I have family in Italy.”
> “Good. Good. Don’t tell me anything else.”
I didn’t want to know any details in case O’Keefe’s men came sniffing around. I didn’t know the lengths they would go to get information. And I didn’t want to find out.
“Thank you, Aaron,” Talia’s voice cracked. I went to the couch and sat down beside her. She leaned against me and I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Once she was in my arms, she released the tears she’d been holding onto and cried into my chest. “I know I don’t have any right to ask you for help. After what I’ve done. But…somehow I knew you would…you’re a good person, Aaron.”
I chuckled into her hair. “I don’t know if I’d go that far.”
After a few minutes, Talia managed to pull herself together long enough to go retrieve her bag that she’d dropped in the foyer of the museum while I made a call to my buddy Fitz who ran the…questionable…charter service to Mexico.
“You ready?” I asked, sliding my eyes over to Talia as she adjusted herself in the co-pilot seat. It was impossible not to let my thoughts drift back to the last time I’d taken her up for a flight. Granted, it had been a helluva lot more fun than the trip we were about to embark on.
She offered me a small smile and I saw a glimmer of her former self—the unstoppable powerhouse I’d initially met—shining back at me. “Ready.”
We pushed off and began our trip down the runway, lifting off the ground at the exact moment, and took to the sky. It had been a while since my last nighttime flight. All of the tours at the museum were day tours, the sole purpose revolving around the spectacular views of the ocean and shoreline along the Californian coast. Flying at night brought me back to some of my memories from the missions I’d flown overseas, most of which had been carried out in the dead of night.
“I’m really sorry I got you tangled up in this, Aaron,” Talia said, using both of her hands to push her hair back as she leaned her head against the seat. “But I do appreciate it, you know.”