“I’m saying you shouldn’t try.” Caleb shook his head. “If you’re so worried, just ask your father to see it.” His stomach tightened, and he did his best to hide his eagerness. “He trusts you, Francesca. You wouldn’t even have to do anything else, really. Just knowing where it is, that it’s safe, should put your mind at rest.” And allow Caleb to steal it. “Leave the rest to the professionals.”
“I guess.” She bit her lip.
“Talk to him. Tell him you’re trying to help.”
“And risk that he’ll rip my heart out with derision. If this whole dying business hasn’t softened my father’s heart toward me, I don’t think anything will.” As she sat back in the chair, a paper stuck to her forearm. Peeking at it, her eyes glazed over as she fell into deep thought. “Scrivener? Why is that name familiar?”
Caleb stopped breathing and wasted precious moments schooling his features. He held out his hand. “Let me see.”
Bartleby Scrivener had a nickname, “Keeper of Secrets,” and his niche among the criminal class was other people’s secrets. Less extortion, though if bills weren’t paid, it wasn’t unheard of. He was a professional hider of things, a vital service if you found yourself in need of a near impenetrable vault in secret locations. Caleb found just such a location in South Boston, and knew it was near impenetrable, because he and his best friend Marnie broke in ten years ago. From all accounts, they were still the only people to have done so…and live.
Francesca continued to ignore his outstretched hand as she silently read from the letter. “It’s addressed to my father.” She finished, then handed it to him. “A past due notice.”
Dated more than a month ago, Caleb noted with relief. So old news, already dealt with, otherwise Hamilton would be dead. Scrivener was without scruples. He was a guy you trusted with things…stolen museum painting waiting on a bidder, a will you didn’t want revealed until you gutted the inheritance. He was not the guy you trusted with your life, or ledger. Even the fact that the ledger was encrypted would be of little consequence. Scrivener would find a way to use it to bleed Hamilton’s company dry. And Hamilton had to know that. He’d be a fool to hide it with Scrivener.
Caleb set the letter back on the desk, doing his best to chill. “You recognize the name?”
Her expression made him think she didn’t. “It will come to me, but I’m drawing a blank. Maybe he attended the party? Was he here?”
No. Caleb shrugged, as if he had no idea. But he would have known. He’d had Scrivener under surveillance since power and money became chess pieces, rather than a living. Scrivener thought he and Marnie died years ago, like the others on Caleb’s crew. It took a change of identity, but they did it. Marnie was living happily-ever-after right now, a newly pregnant newlywed in New Hampshire.
“Are we done here?” Her father’s oppo research was everywhere, and the more she saw their pictures, the more likely she’d stumble upon the truth. These pictures were murder victims, and her father was responsible for their deaths.
Francesca looked around the room. “I guess. Why are you here?”
“I saw the open door, and technically, this is my office now.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “Sorry.” Standing, she offered him her chair behind the desk, and laughed again when he refused with a shake of his head. “Then technically, I guess the one person I didn’t want catching me was you.” She stepped to his side, towering over him as he remained seated, his legs propped on the desk. “What, oh what, could I ever do to make it up to you, kind sir?” Then she dropped onto his lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his.
When she deepened the kiss, he swept his tongue in her mouth, responding with a well of hunger even a night’s worth of lovemaking had yet to fill. When her shoes clunked to the floor and she straddled his hips, wiggling on his lap as she positioned herself above him, he told himself to stop kissing her. Make a pithy remark and bail.
But his hands steadied her to aid her movements, and then slipped under the hem of her dress. No panties. His arousal grew heavier, more insistent…his jeans uncomfortably tight, and Francesca continued to move on him, rhythmically.
The door was locked, but… “Not a good idea. You have to be sore.”
“Caleb.” She undid his belt with frantic intent. “Please?”
He dropped his boots to the floor, and stood, lifting her by the waist and sitting her on the paper-strewn desk. She pulled down his zipper and tugged his jeans and briefs to his thighs, stopping for a moment to glance at his holstered gun strapped to his belt. Caleb dragged her by the hips toward him, her bare ass displacing papers. He slid inside her warmth…a shock of pleasure sent a shudder through his frame. Francesca wiggled, wrapped her arms around his neck, her legs around his hips, and then sighed as if she’d found a home.
Caleb couldn’t join in her moment of kumbaya. Standing in Levine’s office, he knew it was the final fuck you to a dead man. Caleb had his job, his office, and Francesca. If that didn’t warrant a level of hell, his treatment of Francesca did. But none of that was going to stop this…his need for her had grown past reason. He was weak enough to take her any way he could get her.
So he wallowed in his weakness and rocked his hips, his grip holding her in place, and then buried himself deep. He’d never experienced anything like Francesca. It wasn’t just pleasure; it was pleasure wrapped in a wretched hunger…luring him to sin. He couldn’t get enough.
She cried out, surprising him with her climax, her ass hanging over the lip of the desk…and then things got out of control. Sprawled among the paperwork, he took his release, burying himself over and over, hard, fast, and when his motions stilled and sanity returned, he found her smiling up at him, lids at half-mast, arms flung to her sides. The moment felt surreal…her tawny waves strewn on the photos.
He closed his eyes, finding it gut wrenching to see her lying on the pictures of her father’s kills. Levine wasn’t the only one being fucked right now. Every time he touched Francesca, Caleb’s stain rubbed off on her. That realization forced his eyes open, forced him to look at what he’d done to her. The sight shook him, because it made clear that his true sin was his inability to keep his hands off her.
A text notification had him glancing at his pants pocket, down by his knees. To get it he’d have to pull out, and he didn’t want to, because his conscience told him to stop with the sex, that this should be the last time he made love to her—because he’d never get enough, and their intimacy was too real.
“Aren’t you going to see who’s texting you?” She smiled, drawing her foot up his arm, to his chest, as if she were about to kick him away from her. When it got near his face, Caleb pretended to nip it. She giggled, dropping her foot. “Or we could continue.”
Caleb leaned over her, resting his forearms on both sides of her shoulders, dropping a lingering kiss onto her lips. He moved once, twice, still hard enough to make her gasp, and then he pulled out, because continuing sounded like a great idea, and it was tempting him. His decision earned him a pout, but it felt like the right thing to do. Also, he had someplace to be.
Caleb pulled up his pants and then helped her off the desk. “It’s probably my techs looking for me.” She ran her fingers through her hair, setting it to rights as she stepped into her heels.
When she was ready, he unlocked the door and opened it, pulling his phone from his pocket. He’d been right. It was his people seeking help to enter the mansion’s front gate security. It reminded him that Francesca got into a locked room.
“How’d you get in the office?” he said. He knew it had been locked, because he’d stopped here before his morning meeting with her father and found it so, immediately frustrated because he’d left his lock picks in his leather jacket.
She stepped into the hall. “It was open when I got here.” Taking his hand, she waited as he closed the door behind them. “I’m liking this whole engagement thing.”
“Yeah? Decided to make an honest man out
of me?”
“No.” She laughed again, in his face. “And if I change my mind, I’m positive you’d run for the hills. Am I right?”
He tugged her close, kissed her, and then led her down the hall. “Is that a dare?”
She blushed and bit her upper lip. She was adorable. “Well, I’m off to the shelter.”
Caleb frowned, hating the idea of her going there, but knowing a man had to choose his battles. “You trust your bodyguards?” He remembered how they stood by and allowed Levine to be murdered.
She frowned. “Why wouldn’t I? They’ve kept me safe up until now, haven’t they?” Releasing his hand, she hesitated, as if wanting to say something else, but instead hurried down the hall and out of sight.
Caleb palmed his phone and dialed his associate. When the line connected, he turned his back to the nearest security camera. “She’s leaving now,” he whispered, and then hung up, confident of her safety now that his people where there to keep her safe, too. They’d stay out of sight unless there was a problem, but between Hamilton’s guys and his, Caleb felt confident that Francesca was as safe as he could make her.
Chapter Eight
Four days later, Francesca woke to find a teal Tiffany’s ring box on the pillow next to hers, balanced in the slight depression where Caleb’s head had been. She would have preferred to find him.
Every morning he left her bed before her alarm clock sounded, and when she awoke, the sheets on his side were cool. Only his scent lingered. She knew he was in meetings with her father, bonding. Yes, she was jealous Caleb had seamlessly fit into her father’s world, but Francesca blamed her father. She came home from the shelter every night to be with him, and found herself sharing a near-silent dinner. He frustrated the hell out of her. Her move to Boston was supposed to be about developing a relationship with him, not to be married off. But he was so damned pleased she was bowing to the arranged marriage, that she hesitated to disabuse him of his assumption. To tell him she was in fact…not bowing. So every dinner she’d think, now is the time I’ll tell my father, and then she’d remember he was dying and stay silent and dinner would be over. She’d rush upstairs, kicking herself, and finding consolation that Caleb would be home soon. Then Caleb would walk into her room around ten and they’d start the night indulging in wild, hedonistic sex…and end it making love. The big guy had wormed his way past her defenses and into her heart.
But leaving the ring on his pillow? It wasn’t to be tolerated, and she’d spent most of her day wondering how to challenge him over it.
The limousine was stuck in traffic for most of her trip into work this morning, annoying her more than usual, and her impatience to see Caleb again was like a weight on her chest. Every day it got worse. Every day she wished the hours away, longing for nighttime. There was no hiding from the fact that she was inconveniently crushing on the man her father was forcing her to marry. She was an idiot…and Susan B. Anthony was rolling in her grave.
It was nearing lunchtime at the Child and Family Services offices, where she saw patients from the shelter, and Francesca was hungry. But she had one more session before she could eat. Stepping out of her tiny office, she smiled at those sitting, waiting for their appointments to start, and saw Stephanie Jansen and her mother, Pati, in the group.
“Pati.” Francesca was glad to see the mother wasn’t as frazzled as last time. “Come in. How are you, Stephanie?” The teen ignored her overture and stomped from the waiting room into the tiny office Francesca shared with other volunteer counselors.
As was her habit, Stephanie sneered at the woefully inadequate accommodations. It wasn’t much, just a file cabinet, two plastic chairs in front of a metal desk, and Francesca’s folding chair behind it. There was a large window, and a perky African violet on its ledge. Both went a long way to dispel the room’s dreariness, especially when the conversations invariably turned grim.
In torn jeans, stained white T-shirt, and oversize flannel, Stephanie stomped next to the window and threw herself down onto the flimsy chair, her long blond hair hung in her face, obscuring her cornflower blue eyes and upturned nose. She propped her scuffed Doc Martens on the sill and pouted prettily. Pati, her mother, was dressed upscale casual for her hostess position. Her schedule was tight, so she was always glancing at her watch. Thirteen-year-old Stephanie wanted nothing to do with counseling and was only here because it was the lesser of two evils: participate or she’d be processed into juvenile detention.
Francesca closed the door and steeled herself for a difficult hour. Pati’s ex-husband was in town and Stephanie was dealing with feelings of abandonment. As different as she and Stephanie were socio-economically, they’d both experienced parental abandonment, so it was easy to empathize and harder to keep a professional distance. Francesca prepared herself to be triggered. Sitting behind her desk, she opened Stephanie’s file, and noted the date and time of the session per court-ordered protocols.
“That’s new.” Pati’s eyes widened, impressed, as she indicated Francesca’s sparkling square-cut diamond engagement ring. Francesca’s thumb immediately wiggled the still-not-familiar white-gold band. It caused a sunbeam to hit the stone and send fractals of light to all corners of the office. She wondered if she’d ever get used to wearing it and then reminded herself it was just a prop. “When did that happen?” Pati nudged a bleached-blond curl behind her ear.
“Three days ago.”
“How romantic.” Pati sighed.
“Hmm.” He didn’t even leave a note. Just a box…like on a list, to be checked. This morning, her pique had tempted her to leave it untouched, but then she thought of the questions not wearing it would raise. If she was so adamant that this engagement was a farce, why insist the offering of a ring be real?
“I’m never getting married.” Stephanie stared out of the window, scowling.
Francesca couldn’t hear those words without filtering them through Stephanie’s experiences. Pati hadn’t chosen well when it came to the men in her life. Ever. Stephanie was paying the price. “People usually marry when they fall in love.”
Stephanie scowled at her. “So?”
“So are you saying you never want to fall in love?”
The teen glared. “You fall in love, and suddenly we’re all supposed to want to be in love?”
Her aggression was like a sonic wave, buffeting Francesca. Her first thought was denial. She wasn’t in love with Caleb. That would be incredibly stupid and self-destructive. She’d known him for under two weeks.
Francesca pulled herself up short.
Stephanie was deflecting, and Francesca needed to focus. Stephanie didn’t want to love, and that was a totally justified reaction to feeling rejected by a father…who was supposed to love her.
Something Caleb said came to mind. Give them food, a safe place to stay, and an education. Was that the most Stephanie should expect from the world? Coming from Francesca’s upbringing of financial, educational, and social privilege, it seemed thin gruel…and thirteen seemed such a young age to give up on love.
“Stephanie, if you could ask for anything in the world, and I could wave a magic wand and deliver it to you, what would you ask for?” Francesca knew what she’d ask. Her father’s love, or a father who could love her. Subtle difference, but important.
“Oh,” Pati said, “I always wanted a pony. Well, when I was a child. Now, ugh, it would just be too much work. But, oh, I really thought if I asked Santa enough, I’d get it.” She beamed at her daughter, who ignored her.
A screech of brakes came from outside. Stephanie dropped her boots to the floor and peered out the window. “Shit, will you look at him?” She pressed her forehead and splayed hands against the window as she struggled to see.
“Stephanie!” Pati said. “See what I mean? The girl can’t seem to hold a thought—”
“Mom, he’s huge. And his car…how does he even fit in it?”
Francesca’s back straightened. Caleb. She made a fist, feeling the ring bite into her s
kin.
Pati joined her daughter at the window. “You weren’t kidding. Hey, he can’t double-park like that. He’ll get a ticket.”
“Towed,” Francesca said. Not that Caleb would care. He seemed to make his own rules.
“He opened the door to this building!” Stephanie frowned, tucking a blond lock behind her ear. “Shit. Maybe he’s a gangster. Did you see him? Black leather, all that hair. He’s got a gun, I’m sure of it.”
“Oh, he has guns,” Francesca mumbled. And they were magnificent.
Pati glared at her daughter. “Stephanie has been having problems controlling her language this week.” She resettled on her chair. “I don’t swear. I don’t know where she gets it.”
“You swear all the time.” Stephanie sat, propping her feet back on the sill.
With Caleb coming for her, it was hard focusing on Stephanie, but they were here for a reason and it was best to get to the crux of things before Stephanie and Pati began their ritual of accosting each other with accusations. “Your father asked for weekend visitations,” Francesca said, “but you told your CASA rep you didn’t want to see him.”
Stephanie’s face scrunched up. “He’s a stranger.” She stared out the window, looking at the sky.
“He’s your father,” Pati said. “No matter what he’s done, or what he’ll do—you never know what he’ll do next—” She glanced at Francesca before turning back to her daughter. “He’s still your father.”
“You say that like it means anything to me,” Stephanie said. “To me, a father is the guy who’s never there. Or something other girls have. Maybe if you were…” She waved her hand at her mother. “More…” She released a breath, as if giving up. “Or maybe less.”
Pati’s reaction was painful to watch. “Stephanie,” she said. “That’s not fair, honey.”
“Please.” Francesca put her hands out, hoping to keep them on topic. “It’s time to separate what you know and what you fear, Stephanie. You fear that your father left because of something you or your mother did. But has he said why he left?”
Seduced by Sin (Unlikely Hero) Page 9