Unwrapped Hearts

by Linzi Basset

  The confines of the truck’s cab started closing in on Kayla and she jumped out, pulled on her coat and ran towards the water’s edge. She paced back and forth, unaware of the chill of the icy wind stinging her cheeks. Worry etched a deep line between her brows.

  “Oh god, oh fucking hell, Jade. Just how much damage have you caused?”

  Her excuse that there was no money for a Christmas party, combined with Steele Blake’s claim of being the new owner of the company Kayla and Jade had worked their asses off to build, was too much to bear. Everything started swirling through her mind. If Jade had gone as far as giving up her shares, it meant she had run out of cash.

  “Fuck! Don’t tell me you stole from me too. Oh, hell no!”

  Kayla stumbled back to the truck. If Jade had cleared out the bank account and, god forbid, managed one way or the other to have the investments paid out, it literally meant that Decadence Galore could be bankrupt.

  “I would be too. There’s no way I'd be able to save the company,” she said sotto voce, feeling defeated.

  “Are you insane, woman? Do you have any idea what speed you were driving?”

  Kayla’s head snapped up at the sudden growl in front of her. The man’s anger was palpable, like a demon struggling to escape from hell. She scoffed at it.

  “You’re like an unwanted toothache, Steele Blake. Why don’t you just go away?” She heard her teeth clattering, and for the first time, the coldness penetrated her frayed mind.

  “Good lord, you’re freezing. Where is your common sense, Ms. Silver? First you speed like a maniac on icy roads and now—”

  “What I do is none of your concern. I’m going back to the office. I suggest you drive in a different direction, Mr. Blake because if you come within fifty yards of me again, I’m calling the cops.”

  “Running away isn’t going to solve the issue.” His voice was quiet. Kayla could swear she heard a sympathetic cadence in it.

  It did nothing but spark her anger, and with it, details of the partnership agreement flashed through her memory.

  “There is no issue. I’m afraid Jade misled you, Mr. Blake. Neither the company nor I am under any obligation to stand firm for her gambling debts. In case she omitted to inform you, I’m the majority shareholder of Decadence Galore. Jade had no right to put the company or her shares up for collateral. There’s a clause in our partnership agreement that stipulates neither party may offer their shares for sale to outside buyers unless the other party had been given first choice, and secondly, employees of Decadence Galore have the option to purchase prior to considering any outside offers.”

  She tipped her chin an inch higher and snatched the brown envelope from his hand. With no regard for his wrath, she tore it in two. She slapped the pieces back into his hands.

  “As I said … there is no issue.”

  “It’s not as cut and dried as that.” Steele’s voice clipped as his hands fisted around the torn envelope. His irritation was as clear as crystal as he caught her gaze. “Your partner made a commitment to settle her debt using her shares. Quite frankly, I don’t care what your partnership agreement stipulates. She owes a great deal of money and the man she owed it too … let’s just say, he had no intention of waiting.”

  “I thought you said she gambled in your casino.”

  “She did … in a private poker game with extremely high stakes.”

  “And that’s the only debt she has? From that one game?”

  Steele shrugged. “The rest of her debt was settled before the game started. It’s a house rule. You can’t enter high stake games if you owe the casino money.”

  Kayla felt her stomach rolling in unease. “Tell me one thing. If she was already giving problems as a customer in the casino, why did you even approach her for an interior decorating project?”

  A line slashed between his brows. “For what? The hotel and casino were redone a year ago. I never met with her, except in regard to her debts.”

  Kayla’s heart sank. Another lie. She felt beaten. “How much?”

  “Does she owe?”

  “No. How much did she have to pay to clear her debts?”

  “One point two million dollars.”

  “WHAT? Fucking hell! How do you even allow anyone to build up such an astronomical debt?” Kayla ran her hand through her hair. “I suppose there was a buy-in for the high-stakes game as well?”

  “Two million dollars.”

  Kayla cringed. Three-point-two-million dollars! Jade didn’t have that kind of money. She could only pray she hadn’t been desperate enough to steal the company’s cash or withdraw any from the investment funds. She stared at him with furious eyes. “And you never questioned how a woman like her could afford it?”

  “I had no reason to doubt her. She had been a regular player for the past six months and always settled her debts. At first, she was on a winning streak but then she started to lose. Small in the beginning and eventually bigger. She kept upping her stakes with the hope to win big. She never did. The last game was the clincher.”

  “And you just sat back and watched her. Only too happy to cash in.”

  “It’s a casino, Ms. Silver, not a nursery school. She’d been cautioned numerous times when she requested an advance. Some had been denied. I personally counseled her on being a responsible gambler when it was brought to my attention. She seemed to take it to heart and stopped at the time. Unfortunately, I had been out of the country the past two months. Upon my return last week, it was to this dilemma.”

  “If she owes the money to someone else, why are you staking a claim to DG?”

  “I offered to pay her debt but only if she had collateral as reimbursement.”

  “Are you saying you already paid it off?”

  “I did.”

  “After she offered her shares?”

  “No, Ms. Silver, not her shares, the company as a whole.”

  Kayla laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” Her smile slipped as he stared at her unflinchingly. “Just how big was her debt?” She cleared her throat as her voice came out in a croak. They had to do a re-evaluation of the company’s worth mid-year for insurance purposes. Kayla shuddered to think that Jade would have gambled away so much money. Decadence Galore had been valued at sixty million dollars, including all the company assets, property, and investments. Both Jade and Kayla only drew a monthly salary and a profit percentage bonus once a year, the rest they reinvested into the company.

  “And her house.”

  Kayla struggled to breathe. “Are you telling me she played a poker match and lost ...” she heaved in a breath, struggling to do the math, “over sixty-two-million dollars?”

  Steele sighed. “Compulsive gamblers always believe they have the winning hand. Apparently, she had been winning on and off throughout the night. She believed she had hit the jackpot with the last hand. She offered all the money she had at that point but couldn’t match what her opponent put on the table. She insisted on double or nothing.”

  “And she lost.”

  Kayla closed her eyes and lowered her chin. She couldn’t believe that Jade had gambled away the company with no regard for what it would do to Kayla or to the employees; it broke her heart.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  She heaved in a breath and looked at him. “I’m afraid your issue is with Jade. I have been her best friend for fifteen years and a business partner for eight. It was a condition that she had to stop gambling at the time, which she’d honored all these years. I’m sorry she fell off the bus and that you’re the one grasping on the short end of the straw but it’s not my problem. I’m not the one owing you money and—”

  “Can you afford to buy her shares, Ms. Silver? Because whether you want to accept it or not, Jade has signed over her shares to me. You say there’s a clause in your partnership agreement and there may very well be but I’m not going to carry her debt. I'll go to court to make the offer stand. Either that or you pay me what her shares are worth. Can you afford to fight
me? As it is, with only half of the company, there’s still a substantial amount outstanding.”

  “Which, once again, isn’t my problem or responsibility. As far as I’m concerned, this discussion is over, Mr. Blake. You’ll find that I’m not easily intimidated. I’ll consult with my lawyers on this matter but don’t hold your breath. I have no interest in having you as a partner.”

  “Partner?” He barked a cynical laugh. “I’m an entrepreneur, and although you’ve made a good couple of million over the years, it’s small change compared to the kind of business I thrive on. I have no interest in keeping Decadence Galore.”

  “You’re a fucking lowlife bastard,” she sneered. “The slimiest slug on earth; the kind that makes my skin crawl in disgust.” She shoved him out of the way and jumped into the truck. His hand on the door prevented her from slamming it shut.

  “You should never issue such a challenge to a man like me.” The smile on his lips was one of anticipation. “You, sweetheart, are going to eat your words.”

  Kayla cranked the engine and pressed her face close to his and spat furiously, “Fuck you.”

  She didn’t bother to close the door but released the clutch and pulled off with screeching tires, slamming the door closed as she went.

  “Ha! Take that you, bastard,” she jeered as she noticed in the rearview mirror how he angrily shook off the mud that the skidding tires had splattered all over his coat.

  Steele irritably shook off the mud from his coat as he stared after the speeding truck. The vision of the fuming woman with luxurious auburn hair that tumbled in thick waves down her back refused to disappear along with it. His fingers had itched to trace her aquiline nose, not to mention he had suppressed the desire to taste the swollen succulence of her pouty lips.

  It was a taste he had been yearning for over the past two years. Longer if he was honest with himself, but once he did on that night she surprised him in L.A. with a shy proposal, he was lost to her.

  He was helplessly enchanted by her natural sultry seductiveness that was belied by a fresh, innocent look. He felt his loins tightening as he recalled how her forest green eyes had shimmered with passion above delectable, high cheekbones. It was undeniable, the untenable attraction he had to Kayla Silver needed to be fed.

  “I guess the meeting didn’t go as planned?”

  He glanced at Thomas, his chauffeur, butler, and chef; in Steele’s case, the best friend any man could have ever asked for.

  “Not quite.” His lips twitched. “At the same time, it came with an entirely unexpected challenge.”

  “I know that look,” Thomas said with a shake of his head. “The beast is on the prowl again.” He studied him intently. It wasn’t like Steele to be distracted when it came to a business deal or losing money for that matter. Especially not by a woman. “Kayla Silver intrigues you.”

  “Intrigue might be the wrong word, my friend.” He smiled wolfishly. “To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I had an instant hard on watching a woman's eyes flash and listening to her talk.”

  Thomas took the torn document Steele clutched in his one hand. He waved it in front of his face. “Is satisfying your prick worth losing millions of dollars?”

  Steele didn’t even wince. Even if he obtained full ownership of Decadence Galore, he’d suffer a loss of twenty million. More if he didn’t get a seller for what the company was currently worth.

  Jade Palmer had bitten off more than she could chew when she entered into a high stakes game that she had lost before the first card had been played. Cullen Moore was a professional card player who always played to win and knew how to set up his opponents to lose. There were rumors that he was involved with the mafia but no one had been able to prove anything. Steele had been livid to learn that Moore had been allowed to set up the card game at the Casino in his absence. It was the one thing his grandfather had drilled into him from the day he took over the hotel business before his death—to work hard with integrity and honor. He strived to do just that his entire life. He drove business and profits hard but always honestly and above board.

  Steele considered Thomas’ question before he responded. There had always been something about the delightful and gorgeous Kayla Silver that intrigued him, ever since college, but she had always been aloof towards him. For one, she was completely blasé about his wealth or the power he had. It was refreshing to face off against a woman who didn’t try her best to seduce him or placate him with her sensuality and seduction, except when she felt safe hidden behind a mask. That night with Kayla had been carved into his memory and it was one he had been treasuring ever since … patiently waiting and planning. He might just have hit the jackpot when he offered to save her friend from ending up dead in an alley for not paying her debts.

  “In this instance … money is secondary. For that matter, my prick might get a thrill to dip into the fiery Ms. Silver’s honeypot but more than that, my friend, I see this as an investment in my future.” His smile broadened as he warmed up to the idea. “My happy ever after.”

  Thomas’ eyebrows did a shocked rise to his hairline. “You’re not serious.”

  Steele shot a sideward glance at him. “Come now, Thomas. Have you ever heard me joke about marriage?”

  “Exactly. You never speak about it. Period.”

  “I suppose now is as good a time as any to start.”

  “You, the billionaire Casanova who could have any woman he wants and have to fight them off there are so many, are stating—emphatically, I might add—that you have found the one woman you’d marry? You’re shitting me, right?”

  Steele got into the passenger seat and waited until Thomas pulled away before he responded.

  “No, I’m not,” he said seriously. “It’s not that farfetched. I’ll be thirty-eight in a couple of months. I’ve been talking about how badly I want children for years. That alone should’ve told you I’m ready to move on.” He turned pensive. “It’s partly why I never committed to any of the women I dated, Thomas. I couldn’t envision any of them sitting with me in front of a fire, content and happy, with a couple of kids playing around us.”

  “But you do with Kayla Silver?”

  Steele stared out over the passing lake as they drove. He had been planning a future with the elusive redhead for two years. He had begun to despair that there would ever be an opportunity to get close to her, but the moment Kayla spat at him fuck you it had sparked a driving need to be the one to tame her wildness. Correction, not to tame it, to embrace it and be the one—the only one—she unleashed it upon. That had clinched the deal. He’d given her more than enough time to find another man, one that didn’t have his sexual tendencies. She hadn’t, and now he was ready to pounce and conquer. Kayla Silver’s life as a single woman was over.

  “Yeah, you bet I do.”

  Chapter Three

  The morning broke like the sweet melody of a blackbird, full of promise, freshness, and newness to come. Kayla stretched lazily as she opened her eyes and soaked up the rays of the sun shining through the large bay windows of her bedroom overlooking the ocean. She huddled under the thick down duvet and watched the morning fog dissipate in the distance. Memories of the previous day soured her awakening, the beauty dimmed and sat like a cold cup of coffee waiting to be drained away.

  “Damnation,” she mumbled as she was overcome by sadness. It clashed violently with the disappointment and the anger that had been bubbling and threatening to boil over inside her since Steele Blake had rudely awakened her to her best friend’s feet of clay.

  She was annoyed at the tears that burned her eyes. Empathy and sympathy wasn’t something she should be feeling for Jade at this point. Not after what she’d done. Kayla still reeled from the fact that she had emptied the company’s bank account and even managed to withdraw five million dollars from one of their moving investment accounts the day before.

  The bank manager had profusely apologized but excused not acquiring Kayla’s signature for such an astronomical
cash withdrawal to the fact that Jade was the one who had been the contact person. Thankfully, in that, the law was on her side and Kayla had instructed her attorney to start legal proceedings against the bank to at least recover that loss.

  She cringed as she recalled Luke Collier’s blunt reminder and her response the evening before.

  “You do know that if we proceed with this, Jade will end up in jail? The bank will charge her with fraud and theft—”

  “And you think I won’t be charging her with the same? Luke, the cash is only part of it, she took five million dollars from our investment account as well. She didn’t only steal from me, she put the company and every employee who depends on an income at risk. It’s not just about her or me anymore. She handed her shares over to Steele Blake to cover her ass and then stole the money so she could disappear and start over. All without one thought of the consequences to others. She opened this can of worms the first time she laid a bid on a fucking gambling table.”

  “The hell with this. I’m not going to let this slide. I want to face her. I want her to look me in the eye and tell me how she could be that selfish and ruthless to abuse our friendship the way she did.”

  Her mind made up, Kayla took a quick, hot shower and dressed in comfortable jeans, a thick dove gray sweater, and ankle boots. Armed with a steaming cup of coffee in her dependable, double insulated stainless-steel coffee mug, she was soon on the way to Jade who had a luxury beach cottage in Bay View. It was a couple of miles from Kayla’s waterfront house on Village Harbor in Bay Harbor. She loved the house because it was where she’d spent her high school years. She inherited it after her father passed away. The house was too big for Kayla but she couldn’t find it in her heart to sell it.

  Kayla had no way of knowing whether Jade was still in Michigan but it was worth the time to check. All the windows at the cottage were barred and her car wasn't in its usual spot. Kayla sat staring around for a couple of minutes before she reached into the cubbyhole and took out the set of keys she had for Jade’s cottage. She’d given them to her as a security back-up when she’d bought the place a couple of years ago.