by Shady Grace
She pictured his soft, kissable lips on a face with a hint of stubble to scratch and excite. She imagined his smooth, low voice whispering sensual words against the soft spot below her ear, before he trailed those hot lips down her body.
Naturally, she parted her robe and slid her middle finger between wet lips and softly stroked her sensitive clit, wishing a bad boy was giving the attention.
God she was pathetic.
Her finger moved faster, more forcefully.
She wanted more. Wanted it all. Needed to be touched and loved and spoiled.
What she really needed was to let go.
With a heavy sigh, she let her head fall back as she slid her bum closer to the edge of the seat, while her finger brought her closer to the edge of release.
What have you done to me, Terry McCoy?
Chapter 3
Terry pulled onto the teardrop driveway at the family estate near Saanich Inlet. He bounded up the massive stone steps, velvet box in hand, and walked right in. The house was silent as he entered the parlor and made his way into the great room, where his father liked to read the paper by the windows.
“Dad? Wanda?”
He strolled over to the round table. The paper lay untouched, his reading glasses sitting atop. No Colton. Terry stared out the big picture window as a sailboat drifted along the waterway. With his mind in chaos, he stared out over the water, wishing he could disappear in those clear blue depths.
Too many windows. Too exposed.
The McCoy estate, designed by a wealthy old coal baron, had sweeping ocean views from every waiting room, and all seven bedrooms. Even two of the four bathrooms had a lovely view of a natural waterfall with its immaculate surrounding gardens. The property even had a creek and a small beach to add to its list of perfections.
The imperfections consisted of the people inside.
To Terry this place held no more meaning than a pretty decoy, like the hotel in Victoria. A convenient lie covering the nasty bones of this business his father worked hard to build. A business that would be his one day—whether he liked it or not.
This is only the beginning.
Adolfo had him all worked up wondering what the hell those words were supposed to mean. Should he be scouring the house for a bomb? Was there a hit man on the property ready to put a bullet through the window right where he stood? Fuck, I hate living like this.
He scowled at the happy couple on the sailboat, drifting at a languid pace only a few hundred yards from the house on the shore. They embraced each other by the wheel. No worries. No end in sight. Champagne and strawberries. Maybe they weren’t even married. Maybe she was his mistress or perhaps an expensive escort. Hell, she could be his best friend’s daughter.
They may not be able to see him through the window, but he saw everything.
He saw too much and knew too much. Felt too much. Emotions always got the best of Terry, and Colton was quick to remind him: “If you’re going to survive in this business you have to shut yourself off.”
Not Terry.
He honestly believed he’d never be able to flip off the switch and continue to live like a puppet. This life his father had thrown him into was seriously getting to him. It all came down to being accepted. Would he ever be good enough? It seemed like his life revolved around pleasing his father no matter the cost.
He’d almost got Gabe killed—the one man he’d promised to protect all those years ago when they were kids, after Gabe’s dad died in a plane crash up north.
The guilt bore a massive hole in his soul.
The sailboat disappeared. Just like the innocence of his youth.
He stared at the wake from the boat. A long time ago he was a boy living the life of a regular kid at this estate. He didn’t know then what he knew now, that when his father told him to go outside and play, somebody was getting their throat slit in the library.
Even his mother didn’t know the real man to whom she’d given her heart. She saw only the best in her husband. When men came to visit, Eliza believed they were business associates, married with children, living in their perfect glass houses. Everyone else knew better.
Eliza loved Colton McCoy beyond the moon and believed the man who swept her off her feet was simply born of a family with old money—not a man who earned his wealth from drug smuggling.
How naïve and beautiful she was. He was her spitting image—reminded of her every time he looked in the mirror. He missed her every day. Missed her long golden hair, blue eyes, and warm, genuine smile. She was a child born of nature, loving her gardens and every bird perched high in this dark place. A place bloodied by death.
Life wasn’t fair, and an innocent woman lost her life because of what she saw that day. The day Terry’s life had changed.
Doc said the heart attack killed her instantly. If only that was true.
He hung his head, accepting the great weight upon his shoulders. A weight his father held even more than him, for Colton worshipped the ground Eliza had walked on. Even though Terry knew he couldn’t be to blame for his mother’s tragic death, in some small way he wished he’d been old enough to know better. To have had the opportunity to take her away from this place before the business sunk its claws into him.
But she never would’ve left her husband. If her heart would’ve held fast, Terry knew, deep down, she would’ve stuck by Colton’s side no matter what.
There was too much pain and heartache in his life. All the jokes and jabs were a mask to cover the lonely beast he’d become.
A beast who deserved to be alone. Just like Gabe had been, before Mima pulled him out of his mangled plane.
He pressed his palm to the glass. A dark vision filled his eyes of that night he’d reached out and grabbed Gabriel’s hand through the bars of the cell a Columbian cartel had trapped him in. They’d ripped away his clothes and his pride. Stabbed him. Thrown the wreck of the man he already was into a watery pit to be slowly eaten alive by the bugs. Terry and his team arrived in the nick of time. One more day and Gabe would’ve been dead.
Terry was the one who’d pulled him out, but Gabe always had Terry’s back. He was so full of regret it made his stomach turn. Even the memory of Ben hurting Mary haunted his dreams at night.
What could he possibly do with a good woman like Mary? How did Gabe win the heart of Mima? How did anyone fall in love and stay there?
Maybe I should try calling her again, or will she tell me to fuck off?
Everything was his fault, and his alone.
Mary deserved better than him, but he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and listened to her last voicemail for the hundredth time. “If I don’t hear from you in a couple days I’ll assume I’ll never see you again. It’s okay, you know. I’m a big girl.”
God her voice sounded so sad; so beautiful. But how could he see her without his father sending a tail? How could he possibly be alone with her to explain himself?
Everything tortured him. He was sick and tired of this life. If he really had his way this business wouldn’t exist. He’d gladly run a proper hotel and leave all this torture behind. If only he could step up to the plate, be a man and walk away, without guilt making him turn around and run right back.
“Are you all right, sweetheart? You look ill.”
He blinked, realizing how pathetic he must look standing there touching the window like a blubbering fool. Maybe there were tears in his eyes—he couldn’t be sure. He turned to face Wanda, his father’s second wife, and forced a smile for her benefit. After all, if it wasn’t for her his father probably would’ve killed himself in his grief.
He stepped away from the window and slipped the velvet box into his jacket pocket.
“I want to see it,” she said, and lifted her hand.
Terry cleared his throat and stared at her in disbelief. “What? Why?”
“Because I want to see. Don’t argue with me.” Palm up, she fluttered her fingers impatien
tly.
Against his better judgment he reluctantly handed her the velvet box.
He watched her in confused silence as she held the box in delicate fingers and opened the lid. She didn’t cry, didn’t bat a lash, didn’t even make a sound, but to Terry it seemed as if seeing Adolfo’s finger hurt her soul. He didn’t want her to suffer as his mother did. The dirty bowels of this business should never be seen by innocent eyes.
He may be a monster, but he’d never intentionally break another’s innocence.
Wanda sighed deeply. “Some people never learn.” She closed the lid and handed him the box, her smile tight. “Nobody messes with my family.”
“I know.” He led her toward the plush sectional couch—a white and grossly modern monstrosity—in the middle of the parlor, before making his way to the liquor cabinet. “Drink?” He held up a crystal tumbler.
Everything in his family home was original, right down to the floral wallpaper and fainting couches. But Wanda insisted on “pops of modern and contemporary furnishings,” as she’d told Colton. Terry thought the mixture to be highly unusual and in very bad taste. But he’d never tell her the bitter truth.
Wanda shook her head and frowned. “Terry, darling, what is going on with you? You have me worried with your drinking lately.”
Ignoring her pleading eyes, he focused on pouring a healthy measure of vodka, clean. “I’m an adult and I’m fine.”
With her thin eyebrows arched high, the wrinkles in Wanda’s forehead deepened. “What would your father say if he knew you drank a forty a day?”
He blinked. “How do you know how much I drink?” He shook his head. “Never mind.” She probably knew everything. She was a smart cookie and kept tabs on them all.
“Where’s Dad?”
She sighed again, her expression full of worry. “He hasn’t been feeling well lately. I don’t think he’ll be joining us for lunch. You’ll have to entertain our business guests, sweetheart.”
Wanda clasped her hands together as she always did when deep in thought. Terry stared at the beautiful woman who devoted her life to his father. She was a raven-haired beauty with mocha skin and dark eyes that whispered scandal. Tall and thin, she was a rare gem who commanded attention and made many women jealous. No wonder Colton fell for her quickly. She epitomized grace and charm and brass balls.
“I wish you would open up to me, my boy. I only want you to be happy. Don’t be like your father, Terry.”
More guilt weighed on his shoulders. “I know. You’re the total opposite of the wicked stepmother in every other book.”
She slowly eyed him up. “Is there a woman in your life? Someone to make you happy?”
He swept his hand out in a gesture of indifference. “There’s many of them. They’re only good for one thing.”
“Terry!” Wanda’s eyes widened in surprise, then she chuckled softly. “One day you will learn the power of a woman. One woman. And if you’re lucky you might survive what she does to your heart.”
The power of a woman.
Terry grinned as an idea sprung to mind. “What do you think of the mountains?”
Wanda appeared confused. “What about them?”
“I read an article recently about mountain women who trap animals and rely on dogs to get around in the winter. Totally self-sufficient. Impressive, don’t you think?”
Wanda shook her head, eyes wide in disbelief. Her massive diamond earrings twinkled in the light. They probably cost his father no small fortune. “Why would you read a silly article like that?”
Coming from the finest, wine infused circles in Los Angeles, she wouldn’t understand Mary if her life depended on it.
Terry shrugged. “I was just curious.”
“Who could possibly tolerate a bunch of filthy mutts in the wilderness anyway?” Wanda leaned forward, staring hard. “Do these . . . females . . . go to town to bathe?”
Terry’s head filled with a gorgeous vision of Mary rubbing a bar of soap along her soft flesh in the middle of a river, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the wilderness in the background.
I hope not.
One of the housekeepers entered the room. “Lunch is served.”
Thank God. “See? It’s officially noon.” Terry lifted his drink in a salute to his stepmother, took it back in three swallows, welcoming the burn down his throat. He was thankful to have such a large stash of Finlandia Vodka nobody else seemed to like.
After lunch and a brief meeting with new and old business associates, Terry headed back to the Sea Scape and tried to forget what Adolfo Montesano said before he shot him in the forehead.
* * * *
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Terry whipped his legs over the bed and grabbed his robe off the floor. With his heartbeat in his throat he stumbled to the en suite. Every step became forced, as if his feet held the weight of the hotel. Sweat trickled from his forehead into his eyes. A disgusting bile filled his mouth. He could hardly swallow and his vision blurred.
He stared at his pale skin in the mirror, his entire body trembling with weakness, before splashing cold water onto his face. His pupils were so dilated he could hardly see the blue, while red veins spanned across most of the white. This wasn’t the flu or some nasty hangover, there was something seriously wrong with him.
Maybe it was only a nightmare. Maybe a drink would settle him. No. It was more than that. He tightened the sash on his robe and made his way to the study. A wave of nausea hit him like the force of Gabe’s hatchet. He stumbled against the hallway wall and tried to keep his head straight. The door at the end of the hall expanded and shrunk like in a cartoon. He leaned against the hallway wall. Bile scorched his throat more forcefully. He shook his head and fought the rush of dizziness, his hazy vision trained on the study door.
Determined to make it there before losing it in the hallway, he pushed forward, gripped the doorknob and shoved the door open. He groaned and wiped the sweat beading into his eyes. Somebody had moved the furniture. He shook his head, trying to navigate the unfamiliar floor. The objects in the study molded together, danced in a sea of blurring white. His knee hit something and he crumbled to a state of submission as a streak of lightning spread across his stomach. He whimpered as pain unlike anything he’d ever felt before gripped him hard.
Somehow he managed to pull himself off the floor and stumble to the desk, where he picked up the phone. With a shaky hand he pressed the button for the front desk.
“Help me,” he groaned, his strength completely sapped.
He heard the click on the other end before the receiver fell from his shaky hand and banged onto the desk. His knees buckled, the lights went out, and he hit the floor.
Sometime later he blinked and rolled to his side, just in time to hurl into a mop bucket. How it got there was a mystery, but he was glad for it. He wouldn’t want to ruin his favorite Navajo rug. He puked so hard he thought his eyes would pop out and fall into the bucket.
After long, agonizing minutes, he finally lifted his head and breathed as if he’d completed the longest marathon in existence. Two blurry bodies filled his vision.
“What happened?” He spit into the bucket, not daring to look up too fast and feel that hot sickness again. He already knew who occupied the room with him, and only one of them had a key.
“You’re drinking too much, dickhead,” Gabe blurted.
“No. He was most likely poisoned, shitstick,” said the other man.
“What?” Of all the ways to try and kill him in this day and age, being poisoned would be his last guess. And he didn’t drink that much.
He lifted his heavy head to find Gabe and Sammy Hayes sitting opposite him. If not for Sam—who knew pretty much every way to kill a person—Terry might not be alive right now. Barely alive, but still breathing at least.
“Hey, Sam,” he mumbled, completely baffled and ill to the bone. He wanted to die and get it over with. “What are you doing here?” Every word he uttered sounded like drunken g
ibberish.
Sam chuckled. “What, no thank you?”
“Thanks,” Terry muttered. “How did this happen? How did you know?” Saying the words took great difficulty.
“Well, you were disoriented, mumbling shit that didn’t make sense. You were burning up, and drooling and twitching. Top signs for poisoning, and most likely arsenic.”
“Why the hell—”
“You just lie there and be quiet, boy.”
Terry tensed at the sound of his father’s voice through the speakerphone. Of all the people he wanted to chat with, Colton would be the last. He sighed and shook his head, prepared to have his ass handed to him, even though this wasn’t his fault. “Hello, Father. Nice of you to check in.”
“Shut up and do as you’re told. You’re not invincible, you know. Time to watch your ass and quit fucking around. Now, what are we looking at here?”
Gabe sat forward in his chair and spoke loud enough to be clear to Colton. “Good thing Sam knows his stuff, sir.” He directed his attention to Terry. “Once you finish puking you’ll need to eat something and drink lots of water. You’ll be sitting on the toilet more than puking. I truly feel sorry for you.” Yet his grin totally belied that, the snarky bastard.
Ugh. Eating was seriously the last thing on Terry’s mind. I just want some fucking vodka.
“Well, it’s obvious this person didn’t know what they were doing. This is not the work of a professional.”
Terry watched in silence as Gabe closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Hard to say, Boss. Could be this person was interrupted and had to compromise, or poison isn’t their usual method. There’s no easy answer. Terry took your place at the meeting today. There were several new faces in the mix. They should all be questioned.”
“Well, it’s clear to me my son needs a little vacation and we’ll figure this out, quietly, without him. God knows he needs to sober up anyway. You know what to do.”