Honor Bound

by Samantha Chase

  Then I realized what my unconscious mind had been putting together during the conversation. My father hadn’t been straight with me—I could see that now. I felt like I’d been set up. Like this wasn’t the job I was told it was and, as usual, my father was trying to control what I did.

  Or didn’t do.

  Fucking awesome.

  “Okay, okay, calm down,” Declan chimed in. “I’m sure it sucks right now, but it is a means to an end. You’ll just have to suck it up for the time being, and we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that it pays off in the end.”

  I gave my phone the finger. It made me feel better, but accomplished nothing else.

  “But seriously,” Declan said, “do you need anything? Donuts? Maybe one of those Segways to get around on or a scooter?”

  “Do you get to wear a badge like a real cop?” Cole joked.

  “Fuck all of you,” I muttered. “I gotta go.”

  “Wait,” Levi called out. “Don’t go getting all pissy. You have to admit that it’s kind of funny.”

  “Do I?”

  “If you lightened up a little you would.”

  “Well I don’t particularly feel like being light.” I parked the car in the executive lot and turned it off. “I have to go. I’ve got another appointment.”

  “With who?” Declan asked. “I thought we were supposed to tell each other when we were scheduling shit.”

  “My dad.” I hung up before anyone could say anything else to me. They had worked me up pretty damn good and settled in my mind exactly what had happened—how my father had twisted things around to manipulate me—and now I had a full head of steam and was ready to let it loose.

  ****

  I found my father exactly where I thought I would—sitting behind his ridiculously large mahogany desk in his corner office with its award-winning view of the city. If a photographer walked in right now, they’d get a million-dollar shot of the world of John Maxwell. Or of John Maxwell looking down on the world.

  I’d go with the second description.

  I cleared my throat after standing there for a solid three minutes without an acknowledgment. When he barely glanced up, I felt the resentment that I had already been feeling kick up a notch.

  “Sebastian,” he said as he went back to reading his financial reports. “This is an unexpected surprise. What brings you here?” There was very little emotion in his voice—no warmth, no pleasure in seeing me. Why was I even surprised?

  “This job that you referred me to for Ken Gentry is a joke.” He simply shrugged, so I stepped closer and placed my palms down on his desk and leaned in. “We talked about this, and you said it would be a real, legit job. Something that was going to help put my company name on the map. This is glorified babysitting.”

  He turned the page.

  I didn’t think, I just reacted. Reaching out, I yanked the report from his hands. “I’m talking to you, damn it!”

  He let out an agitated sigh and leaned back in his chair. “Yes, you’re talking, Sebastian. You’re always talking. And it’s usually about how disappointed you are in something that I’ve done. Well, I’m sorry that we’re all not as perfect as you are, but some of us actually have to work for a living.”

  I saw red.

  “I work for a living, too, and you damn well know it. I worked here with you until I enlisted and then I worked for years serving my country. And since I’ve come back, I’ve started a company of my own. I would have thought you’d be proud of that. I would have thought that you’d be impressed that I’m not willing to ride your coattails and that I’m trying to make a name for myself. But does that impress you? No. You act like you want to help me, when in fact you’re doing nothing but setting me up with bullshit assignments in hopes that I’ll just give up and fall in line with what you want. Well, news flash, Dad, it’s not gonna happen!”

  “You wanted connections. I gave you one,” he said blandly.

  “No, you told me that there was a threat to Ken. You said that he was afraid for his life. Since I’ve been there, there’s been no indication of that ever being an issue. Ken himself told me that he didn’t see the need for me to be worried about his well-being, but he liked the idea of showing the world that he had a bodyguard.”

  “Well? Isn’t that what you’re pretending to be? A…bodyguard?” He said the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

  “I’m not pretending to be anything. This is who I am, and this is what I want to do. You lied to me. There was never any threat to Gentry’s life, and now I’m stuck there.”

  “And out of harm’s way. Let the other boys handle the messy stuff. It wouldn’t look good if the head of the company had to get dirty.”

  I could literally feel my blood boiling. “We’ve been over this before—I’m not the boss. I’m not the head of the company. There are four of us—four partners. We’re equals, and they’re all on assignments where people actually need them. You set me up to look like a god-damned show dog—being led around by fucking Ken Gentry.”

  He yawned. He actually sat there with his eyes on me and simply yawned.

  I said, “I work to protect people. It’s not glamorous and it’s not pretty, but it’s what I do and you need to deal with it. I don’t want to wear a suit every damn day.” I held up my hands in front of his face. There were scars, and they were roughened from manual work—unlike his perfectly manicured ones. “My job can be dirty, and sometimes there’s pain involved—the people that hire me pay me to get dirty and sometimes to even risk my life, but it’s what I do.”

  My dad stood, took off his wire-rimmed glasses, and carefully placed them down on his desk before walking around it to face me. “Maxwells don’t do grunt work,” he said carefully, almost through clenched teeth. “Maxwells don’t work for other people. Other people work for us. You’re dishonoring the Maxwell name by doing what you’re doing.”

  “That’s absurd,” I said, my own teeth clenched so tight that my jaw hurt.

  “It’s the way that it is, Sebastian. Deal with it.”

  I shook my head. “Maybe that’s the way it is in your world, but not in mine. I don’t get off on sitting at a desk while I dictate to others. I enjoy working with people, helping people, and getting my hands dirty when need be. There’s real honor in that. Not sitting back in my big comfortable chair while other people do the work.” My father just gave me a bland look. “This is what I’m going to do with my life so you’d better get used to it.”

  Now he sat down on the corner of his desk with his arms crossed. “Look, your mother has informed me that I need to humor you right now. You were hurt while you were deployed, and some soldiers have a hard time adjusting to life back in the real world. I get it.”

  I knew that he didn’t, but I wanted to hear the rest of his little observation.

  “I’m going to let this go on for only so long, Sebastian. You’re a Maxwell. And this,” he gestured to the office at large, “is where we work. It’s where we’ve worked for three generations, and I’ll be damned if you’re going to go off and play at being some sort of servant, while I have to wait for you to come to your senses.”

  “I’m not playing at anything. Security is what I do now. Not this.” My words were curt and to the point, but I could see that the old man wasn’t the least bit intimidated or impressed.

  “I tolerated your enlisting and becoming a Marine. I was angry at first but then it seemed to impress people when I told them, so it was a good PR move. I lost count of how many times people told me that what you were doing was honorable. But now that you’re home, you can play hero while doing the job that you were born to do. You don’t need to prove anything else. You survived serving in the war, and it’s enough now. You belong here.”

  He just didn’t get it. He never had. And I realized right then and there that I could talk until I was blue in the face, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference. I was going to have to actually show him.

  “No. You
belong here.” I turned to walk out of the office but turned back when he called out my name.

  “You have this commitment to Gentry, and I’ll let you have it. But if you walk out that door now without apologizing and committing to a schedule here at the company, you’ll never get another referral from me for your business. If anything, I’ll make sure that no one in this city ever uses your services.”

  He stood there, looking smug, and I wanted to run over and choke him until he saw things my way for once. He thought he won. He thought he had me over a barrel. I took a step toward him. And then another.

  “If all of your referrals are going to be for babysitting services, then I don’t want your help.” His eyes widened for the merest of seconds—I almost thought I’d imagined it—and then they were merely slits.

  Oh, shit.

  “I can see that you’re not ready to be reasonable on this just yet. So I guess it’s up to me—yet again.” He walked back around his desk and sat down, reached for his glasses, then his report before looking up at me. “Finish this business with Gentry. And then we’ll talk.”

  I wanted to argue. I really did. But I knew that I needed to talk to the guys first. I didn’t want to be the reason for us getting blacklisted even before we had the chance to get our business off the ground.

  What the old man was doing was what he did best.

  Blackmail. Plain and simple.

  When John Maxwell didn’t get his way, he threatened and used intimidation tactics to get his way.

  I just never thought he’d stoop so low as to use them on his own son.

  I’d know better from now on.

  Three

  Ali

  It was Friday before I could get back to the Gentry house again.

  Cheryl had a dozen other events in the works at the moment, and half of them were happening sooner than Gentry’s charity gala. But fortunately there was a ton of work to do on-site to prepare for the gala, and I was the drudge who got to do things like taking measurements and drawing the layout of the event spaces. On Friday, I convinced Cheryl that this needed to be done as my top priority, so I got to go back to the house—this time, by myself.

  Gentry wasn’t at home today, which meant his normal entourage wasn’t either. So the only people I needed to avoid were the regular domestic staff, which seemed to consist of a couple of people. A housekeeper let me in and just pointed me in the direction of the ballroom.

  This was going to be perfect. I’d have my run of the house without anyone getting in the way or getting suspicious.

  Sebastian Maxwell wouldn’t be here either today, which I told myself firmly was a good thing.

  I definitely couldn’t think about him any more than I already had, not if I wanted to complete my mission and get justice for my family.

  I had to start in the ballroom—which would be the main event space—or it would look strange, even just to the housekeeper. So I rushed through the layout and measurements of that large room and then the terrace and pool area before I could finally let myself explore the rest of the house.

  I started in the east wing, where I found a formal dining room, which got just a cursory investigation. Then I entered the library.

  The library was one of old-fashioned kind with wood paneling, built-in bookshelves, and big, antique furniture. It looked like it belonged in an English mystery, in which there would naturally be hidden safes or secret tunnels.

  It was obviously a public room, though, which meant there was almost no chance of Gentry hiding any incriminating work information in it.

  Even so, it would be stupid not to look around, since I was here. I checked the desk drawers and then the historic trunk against the wall. All of them were empty, so evidently this whole room was just for show.

  Gentry probably never even bothered to read all the classic books that lined the shelves.

  He was no doubt too busy cheating and swindling and destroying people’s lives to sit down and read a book.

  I walked over to the shelves and felt a strange sense of yearning as I scanned the titles. I hadn’t read very many of them. I’d always assumed I would read more classics in college and graduate school, but I’d never gotten that far.

  On a silly whim, I pulled a leather-bound copy of Darwin’s Descent of Man partway off the shelf at my eye-level. If this really were an English mystery, a hidden door would pop open to reveal a tunnel or secret room.

  Nothing happened. Of course.

  I walked past the fireplace and pulled out another book—this one a copy of Villette, which I had to reach up for. Bronte was no more successful than Darwin at revealing secrets.

  Unable to try one more time before I moved on, I leaned over to grab a copy of Seven Dials Mystery. If anything levered the hidden door, then Agatha Christie would.

  She didn’t. I hadn’t really expected her too, but it was still a little disappointing.

  “Sadly, Agatha Christie doesn’t open a secret door.”

  The male voice was familiar but so startling that I gasped and straightened up with a jerk.

  Naturally, I hit my head on the edge of a shelf, since I popped up so quickly.

  “Ouch,” I said, rubbing my head and turning around, knowing exactly who I would see.

  And there he was, looking just as handsome and having just as warm a smile on his lips, in his eyes, as he had the other day.

  I was uncomfortably aware of the fact that this was twice that he’d caught me with my butt prominently displayed.

  “I wasn’t looking for a secret door,” I said, knowing even as I said it that he’d never believe me. What else could I have been doing pulling out three random books in a row for no reason?

  His smile broadened, and it was like sunshine breaking from the clouds, transforming his face in a way that took my breath away. “Of course, you weren’t. But, if you were, I’d check Dickens on the right side of the mantle.”

  I slanted him a questioning look, but his smile had lessened into a look of encouragement. He didn’t appear to be teasing me, so I walked over to look at the row of beautifully bound Dickens novels. “Which one?”

  “Old Curiosity Shop.”

  I reached up and tilted out the book, feeling a silly sort of thrill that this library did house some sort of secret compartment, room, or tunnel.

  Old Curiosity Shop is a large volume, if you’ve never actually picked it up before. I pulled it out by the top, which was the way hidden doors were always opened in books and movies. Instead of catching some sort of mechanism, the book fell all the way off the shelf and fell with a loud bang to the floor.

  I stared down in surprise at the book on the polished wood floor.

  After a few seconds, I heard Sebastian chuckling softly behind me, and I realized what happened.

  The bastard was teasing me. He thought it was hilarious that I’d fallen for it. He was just having fun with me.

  I was such a little idiot.

  I whirled around and glared at him, which just made him laugh even more. He walked over so he was standing right next to me, his eyes soft like they’d been the other day.

  It was really hard to be mad at a guy who was looking at you like that, but I did my best.

  “It’s not funny,” I said, although it was maybe just a little funny. “I thought you were serious.”

  “I know you did.” He leaned over and picked up the Dickens novel from the floor and slid it back into the shelf. “It does look like a library that should have secret tunnels—or at least a hidden bar—but no such luck. Gentry doesn’t have that much imagination.”

  “Oh.” Something about the way he said it gave me a shiver of hope, since it didn’t sound like he even liked Ken Gentry.

  Maybe he wasn’t like his father and grandfather and uncle and all the other Maxwells, who used people for what they needed until they’d used them up.

  “What are you doing in here anyway?” he asked, standing just a little closer than polite personal space would call for
. He seemed inordinately big and hard, and I was tempted to reach out to touch his shoulder or chest.

  Fortunately, I resisted the silly impulse.

  “I need to get the layout and measurements so we can finalize our plans. People might wander into this room, and Cheryl is really big on making sure all areas are ready for guests.”

  I thought that was a very good excuse and sounded perfectly plausible. I even showed him the sketch pad and measuring tape I held. I was quite pleased with myself, since espionage clearly wasn’t a natural gift of mine.

  “I would have thought you’d have a laser measurer,” he said, sounding casual as he glanced down at my paraphernalia. “Cheryl seemed like she’d have top-of-the-line everything.”

  He’d taken the right measure of Cheryl in about two minutes. I suddenly wondered what his conclusions had been about me.

  “She does have one of those,” I said. “But it’s on the fritz, so I had to use mine. I’m more old-fashioned than she is.”

  “Yeah,” he murmured, leaning in a little closer to me until he was definitely in my space. “I kind of figured that.”

  His eyes were suddenly hotter than warm, and I held my breath as I gazed up at him. It looked like he was going to kiss me, and I desperately wanted him to.

  Then I ducked my head and tried to get my mind to work again. I’d just met this guy. Guys didn’t up and kiss you after talking to you for less than fifteen minutes. And, even if they did, I could definitely not kiss this guy. He was a Maxwell, and he’d had his life handed to him on a silver platter, while his family took everything away from my family.

  “So were you going to measure the books?” he asked, his voice a little huskier than before.

  “What?”

  “You said you were here to take measurements, so I was wondering if you were going to measure the books.”

  “Oh. No.” I stared down at the tape measure in my hand. “I just got distracted, since it looked so much like one of those old libraries.”

  He chuckled again, softer this time. “So you were looking for secret doors?”