A Collateral Attraction

by Liz Madrid

  And as I kiss Heath hungrily, my tongue slipping between his teeth to taste him boldly, I rip the buttons off his shirt, my fingers seeking to touch his heated skin. And when my first orgasm hits me, I shudder against him, crying out and no longer caring who can hear me. Heath buries his face in the crook of my neck, driving into me as he nears his own release, his gasps echoing in my ear as it claims him, sending me back to the edge and keeping me there till another orgasm shatters through me.

  It’s all I want now, just Heath and this, being held in his arms and being made love to. It’s a high I can’t let go of, and I don’t want to.

  25

  Illkay Oyjay

  “I’m giving you till today to convince Blythe to leave with you,” Heath says when I emerge from the bathroom, wrapped in a thick bathrobe and my face devoid of make-up.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then you’re leaving — tonight,” he says. “You’ll fly back to Nevada City. I’ll have the rest of your things in New York shipped to you.”

  My throat tightens. “And you?”

  “I have to be in New York in the morning. Harris has called an emergency meeting, and I can only assume it’s because of the embezzlement. So I need to be there to defend my decision to withhold information from the board pending more thorough evidence.”

  “Why can’t I come with you?”

  “Because I can’t remain objective, Billie, not with you involved,” he says. “I know it’s difficult to get through to Blythe, but she’s not the only one I need to protect. There’s also Ethan. Stealing from his own family’s company does not make sense and right now, everything points to Jackson and Charlene.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He stands up and walks towards me, his hand touching my face. “I’m sorry, too,” he says. “I thought we were in this together, Billie. I asked you to wait for me-”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Next time, I will do as you say. I promise.”

  “There is no next time,” he says, studying my face as I look away. “We also need to talk about us-”

  “There is no us,” I say quickly, glaring at him. “That should make things easier, Heath — there is no us, alright? That way, you can do what you need to do without having to worry about me, or worry about not being objective.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say, Billie.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you were going to say. You’ve said enough as it is,” I tell him, stepping away from him. “I made a huge mistake, and now I’ve put Blythe in danger, too. That’s why I’m really here — for her. I didn’t come here to have a good time, because that’s all it’s been between you and me — a good time. And the sooner we get that through our heads, the better this will all go for all of us.”

  Heath doesn’t answer but I see his expression darken, his gray-blue eyes narrowing.

  “I’ll get her out, I promise,” I continue. “I know it won’t stop the feds from charging her but if what you say is right — that this is a grab for power, then they might as well come for her back home, rather than here. After all, just like you said, we’re the most expendable ones.”

  “I will do whatever I can-”

  “No, Heath. You’ve done enough as it is and you don’t have to do anymore. Even Ethan has done enough,” I say, sighing. “He invested money into Blythe’s upcoming fashion line, a million dollars. Charlene said she should have gone for three, or four million, which is how much one needs to launch a fashion line. But somehow, Blythe only settled for one million.”

  “A fashion line?”

  “I saw her sketches-” I walk past Heath towards the living room where I find the sketch I’d wrapped the stack of letters in still on the floor. I pick it up and hand it to Heath. “I may not know much about fashion, but I think she’s amazingly talented.”

  “She is,” Heath says, glancing at the sketch before looking back at me, his expression turning serious. “You’ve got only today, Billie. And from now on, you’re not going to be alone.”

  My phone beeps then, as if on cue, and it’s a message from Blythe.

  Halibut. An hour. Alone.

  Heath sees the message and before I can say anything, he repeats through gritted teeth. “Not alone. Not anymore.”

  “You have to trust me-”

  “I did,” he says angrily, “and look what happened. I don’t care what you plan to tell her, but you’re not speaking to her alone. If she refuses to believe you no matter what you say or show her, then as far as I’m concerned, she deserves whatever happens to her. If it’s jail time, then it’s jail time.”

  Heath is all hard now, any softness he’d shown me earlier gone.

  I’ll be there, I text back, my heart racing as I brush past Heath to get back to the bedroom so I can get dressed. Even if she ends up still refusing to believe me, I just want to see her. She’s still my twin sister, no matter her choices in life, not like mine are shaping up to be any better.

  * * *

  As we head to Stearns Wharf, the place Father taught Blythe and I how to fish for halibut, I’ve resolved to make the right choices this time, even though having Heath next to me doesn’t help me at all. All I can think of is the way he made love to me, gently during the night and roughly an hour earlier. He’s a study of contradictions that make my belly clench even as I steal a glance at him as he sits next to me in the car, only to catch him watching me.

  “Are you okay?” Heath asks as he brings his hand on my thigh but I push it away. I can see Wally’s gaze flicker towards us on the rear-view mirror.

  “I’m fine,” I whisper as Heath rests his hand on his lap.

  At least Heath has agreed to let me have some privacy with Blythe, though he told me he won’t be too far away. It’s not like we have anywhere to go once we’re on the pier. It’s either the same way we entered, or jumping into the ocean – something I’m sure Blythe and I don’t plan to do.

  “I won’t be too far away,” he says.

  “Why do I feel like a prisoner, Heath?” I ask, glancing at Wally again, before my gaze lands on the empty front passenger seat where Fred would have sat.

  “Let’s just say my life is back to normal,” Heath says as he pulls out his buzzing phone from his jeans pocket and checks his new messages.

  Normal is an understatement, at least for me. For if Heath had been low-key about his wealth since I first met him, his trip to Saint Lucia being, as he said, off the calendar, it’s no longer the case now. Gone is the Escalade that took us to Hope Ranch, or the more laid-back security that accompanied him. Even Wally is flanked by more stern-looking men who make him seem like a teddy bear.

  If I had wanted to arrive at Stearns Wharf unnoticed, forget that thought. The drive to the wharf is in a Rolls-Royce with lambswool floor mats and seat-back TVs, even tons of leg room. It’s one of two cars Kheiron Industries keeps in LA for their executives, driven to Santa Barbara by the two scowling men who make up his security detail, though Fred is nowhere in sight.

  “Did you really fire Fred?” I ask. “It wasn’t his fault, Heath. I wish you’d reconsider?”

  “It’s done, Billie,” Heath says softly. “But don’t worry about Fred. Babysitting young women was never part of his job description, not when he was ready to retire anyway.”

  When I look away from him, unable to hide how distraught I am, Heath continues. “Before he started his private security company, Fred served in Vietnam. My father hired him after he returned. He was father’s right hand man and considering that my father wasn’t a very likable man, Fred did an amazing job all those years. He’s what you’d call the old guard – he’d never dream of calling his bosses by their first name.”

  “And now he’s watching you, or was, before you fired him because of me,” I say. “He should have just retired before he had to deal with the likes of me.”

  “He did retire, about two years ago, though it’s still his company that handles my company’s security,” Heath replie
s. “But old habits die hard. He got bored and asked to get back on the field, if only for light duty. And this time, he ended up working for me and I had him assigned to my mother. After all, dad had him assigned to watch her a long time ago, and she remembers him still.”

  “He didn’t mind that?”

  Heath shakes his head. “Boring job sometimes, but with so many visitors going in and out of the house, it kept him busy enough.”

  “So he was there when Ethan stole the letters.”

  Heath shakes his head. “No, Fred was actually with me. I had to fly to Argentina for business and I needed a bodyguard who was more fluent in Spanish than I was.”

  “Oh, Heath,” I groan. “I got him fired-”

  “He got himself fired, Billie, not you,” Heath says, “and I don’t want to hear any more about Fred. I have enough security coming out of my ears, both from my own company and Kheiron Industries as it is.”

  Still, if the men are guarding Heath, it doesn’t look like it. Though they seem to blend seamlessly through the crowd on the wharf, I can feel their eyes watching me as I leave Heath at the bait and tackle shop and hurry to the end of the pier where Blythe is already waiting for me. She’s alone and she’s wearing jeans and a plain pink t-shirt. Surprisingly, she’s also without make-up, wearing her prescription glasses instead of her contact lenses, and her hair tied in a pony tail. Her face half-hidden in the baseball cap that she’s wearing. And with me wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, the fact that we’re identical twins don’t escape some of the people around us. Only our clothes differentiate one twin from the other.

  My heart is hammering inside my chest and my pulse thunders between my temples the moment I see her. Breathe, Billie. In through the nose, and out through the mouth repeats Blythe’s own mantra inside my head. How will she ever know that it’s always her voice that calms me?

  “You didn’t come alone,” she says angrily as I reach for her. “I told you to come alone.”

  “I’m alone now. It’s just us,” I say as I ignore her moving away from me and pull her into my arms in a deep embrace. I don’t care. I need to feel her and hold her and know that she’s real – that she’s really here. It may only have been five days since I last saw her at that bar in New York, but it feels like a lifetime.

  “I don’t care what’s happened between us, Blythe. Right now, I’m just happy to see you again. I’m so proud of you – your fashion line-”

  A sob escapes her lips then as I hold her tighter, fighting back my own tears.

  “It was supposed to be a surprise, Bee,” she says, and I’m grateful that she doesn’t push me away. “I still can’t believe you did that – pretend to be me and break into our suite. That must have taken a lot for you to do. I mean, you couldn’t even pass as me when I used to sneak out of the house. You always broke down right away the moment mom would take one look at you and say, You’re Billie, aren’t you?”

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures, Blythe, and I was desperate,” I say, feeling her pull away.

  “I had to hide in the restroom at the country club the entire time after I got your text till I was able to take a cab home,” she says. “Charlene was pissed, and so was Jackson. At least that’s what Ethan said – till he got to the suite and-”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I hope he didn’t take it out on you.”

  “Why would he do that?” Blythe asks, surprised. “But why did you take them when you asked me to trade them for my driver’s license and passport?”

  I pull away. “Because it would mean that you’d go to Geneva.”

  She sighs, her shoulder drooping. “You and Geneva, Bee. I don’t get it. I have no idea what lies Heath fed you-”

  “Ethan’s going to be charged with fraud, Blythe, for embezzling company funds to pay for personal expenses – from your monthly allowance to whatever you purchased on that Gold card, and even the use of the penthouse. And I’m sure, even that loan that he granted you that Charlene told me you should have asked for four million instead of just one,” I say as Blythe’s face turns pale. “And that’s just part of it. You’re going to be charged, too, for four million dollars that’s sitting in Swiss bank accounts bearing your name and signatures.”

  I pull a slip of paper, folded so many times it’s now an eighth of its size, and hand it to her. It’s one of the pages from the file that Heath had me review on the plane, the one that had all of the activity related to Blythe and the money that’s waiting for her in Geneva.

  “I’ve only been trying to tell you this since Saint Lucia, Blythe – if only you’d listen to me, instead of everything that’s happened to us since,” I say as we both face the water and I watch her unfold the sheet, smooth it and then stare at the figures, the photocopied signature – her signature – on the account in question. She’s shaking her head as she studies the paper, turning it over to check if there are any writings at the back, too. Except for Heath’s notes about the dates and a breakdown of the amounts, there’s nothing else.

  “And I can’t believe you sign things without reading them, Blythe,” I mutter under my breath.

  “I know I should have-”

  “If Charlene and Jackson are embezzling money, it was easy for them to have you as the signatory to the accounts. I don’t even understand how they intend to get the money from you once you withdrew it – unless you really are involved and you three are splitting it somehow.”

  “I couldn’t even steal twenty bucks from the shop, Bee,” she says, frowning. “But this is crazy. Even if the accounts are mine, I wouldn’t be able to withdraw any money from them, not with all the new restrictions for American-held accounts.”

  I pause. “What do you mean?”

  “Simple, Bee,” Blythe says, shrugging. “Taxes. I’d have to pay taxes on that amount – any amount for that matter that’s been hidden away in some account I don’t know anything about. And even if I just withdraw a hundred grand, I’d have to pay taxes on that and I doubt they’d even let me walk away with that much money, not without signing a stack of papers telling me that the IRS owns half of that amount, simply for having it outside the US.”

  I stare at her, surprised that she knows these things. I should know them, too, if I wasn’t too distracted with thoughts of Heath.

  “If these accounts are really mine,” Blythe continues, “then the IRS is bound to wonder why no taxes are being paid on them – and why I claim I haven’t made any money in the past year, which I haven’t. I’ve only just quit my merchandising job four months ago to concentrate on my fashion line. Withdrawing the money from Geneva would just-”

  “-alert the authorities even faster, just in time for the news about Ethan’s embezzlement,” says a voice behind us and we both turn to see Heath standing behind us.

  “Heath,” I whisper angrily, “I thought we agreed-”

  “I know and I’m sorry for interrupting,” he says, turning to look at Blythe, and then back at me, before turning to address Blythe. “Where’s your security?”

  “I…I snuck out,” Blythe mutters. “Ethan thinks I’m taking a nap at the hotel.”

  “How’d you get here then?” he asks.

  “I took a cab,” Blythe replies, perplexed. “I mean, how hard is it to walk out of the hotel looking like this? Without my make-up, I’m just plain Jane,” she says, pausing to look at me. “Well, we are plain Jane.”

  Heath shakes his head angrily. “You never leave without your security detail, Blythe, alright?”

  “But why not? She’s not a Kheiron like you,” I say, glancing at Wally who is scowling a few feet away. “What’s the big deal?”

  Heath takes Blythe’s left hand, her engagement ring glistening in the afternoon sun. “This is the big deal.”

  “The ring?” Blythe scoffs. “It’s just a ring.”

  “It’s my grandmother’s ring, and while you may not be an official Kheiron yet, Blythe, with your engagement to Ethan, you’re as good as one,” Heath says ang
rily as he lets go of her hand. “And that means you don’t travel without a security detail. Do you understand?”

  Blythe stares at him before turning to look at me, her eyebrow raised. “Isay ehay alyaywayyay isthay erioussay?” she asks in pig-Latin. Is he always this serious?

  “Ouyay avehay onay ideaway,” I reply, nodding. You have no idea.

  “I understood that, Billie,” Heath says drily.

  “Illkay oyjay,” Blythe mutters.

  “And I’m not a killjoy,” Heath counters as Blythe and I stifle a laugh, whatever tension that had been in the air between the three of us now gone.

  Suddenly Blythe reaches towards my neck and slides the neckline of my shirt down, revealing Heath’s mark on my skin. My face burns with embarrassment as I pull away.

  “I can’t believe it,” she murmur, staring at me and then at Heath. “You two really are a couple.”

  “No, we’re not,” Heath and I both say at the same time.

  “We’re not,” I repeat, wishing I’d stop blushing. “Really, we are so not.”

  “Gee, talk about denial,” Blythe chuckles. “It’s a river in Egypt, you know — and you guys are swimming laps in it.”

  26

  Walls

  It’s difficult to ignore Blythe’s security detail arriving at the wharf five minutes later, and with them, a scowling Ethan, whose scowl only turns deeper when he sees who Blythe is with. It’s definitely one feature the brothers have in common although with Heath’s dark hair and thick lashes, he wins it hands down — but then I’m also biased.

  Yet despite the animosity between them, being in public means that the brothers have to be on their best behavior, and they are, even as Ethan’s gaze sweeps over to Heath coldly.

  “You could have told me she was here before you got here,” Ethan says. “I thought she was at the hotel.”

  “Does it matter now?” Heath replies. “You’re here.”