Relentless (Fractured Farrells: A Damaged Billionaire Series Book 5)

by Mallory Crowe

  He pulled off the road and Katy realized where they were going. “Are you taking me to the beach?”

  “Another fact of life that binds all humans. Everyone thinks long walks on the beach are romantic. They’re not, just so you know, but people think they are.”

  “So for our first official date you’re taking me to an unromantic beach? You’re a hard man to understand.”

  “Wait for it.” He put the car in park and jumped out. Before he was around to open her door for her, Katy was already stepping out. The car was low enough that she didn’t think she could manage it in any dignified way.

  Once she was out of the car, Nathan took her hand and led her toward the beach. “Walking on a beach seems nice, but you have to have the temperature just right. If it’s too warm, the sun is annoying, and if it’s too cold, the wind is unbearable. Trust me, too cold is never good for a date. You want clothes coming off, not on.”

  Katy chuckled as they turned onto a paved path along the beach. “It’s a little chilly today. Was that part of your plan?”

  “This is a drive-by visit. So we go, enjoy the views, and then get right back in the warm car after we are cold. And, because we’ve had such a great time in this romantic, ideal setting, the idea of going to a restaurant where we’ll be surrounded by people just won’t seem right. But I’ll still recommend it.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  She raised a brow. “And you’re a gentleman?”

  He held up a finger. “That’s the catch. It’s all a lie. I’ve manipulated everything here to get me back to your place and make it seem like it’s your idea.”

  Katy stopped and faced him. “This plan would be so much better if you didn’t tell me your endgame.”

  “That’s the gamble. I could tell you all this and you’ll be so impressed that your panties will magically fall off.”

  “Or I’ll slap you in the face.”

  “Like I said, it’s a gamble.” He seemed to think the odds were in his favor, because he reached out for her, but Katy didn’t keep him in suspense. She went into his arms and they both faced the gentle waves washing ashore. They were a good fifty yards from the edge, but it was close enough to hear the sounds and smell the salt.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, breaking the silence.

  “I take great joy in doing things I’m not supposed to do.”

  “You’re going to have to go back to the city at some point.”

  “You’d be surprised how much I don’t work.”

  She rested her forehead against the top of his chest. “You go from bragging to self-deprecating so fast.”

  “Oh, trust me. I was bragging about not working.”

  “But to actually have a relationship—”

  “We’ll figure it out. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and I’m another one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. I think we can let our instincts guide us here.”

  Let their instincts guide them? Katy couldn’t remember the last time she’d let her instincts guide her in anything. No, that wasn’t true. Yesterday, her instincts had definitely been leading her body.

  And that hadn’t turned out so bad, she supposed. “Okay,” she breathed as she smiled up at him. “My instincts are telling me that this beach is too cold and we should probably warm up at my house.”

  Nathan slowly smiled in victory. “Why, what a great, original idea. I’m so happy you came up with it.”

  “Stop gloating or I’ll change my mind.” As soon as they reached the car, her cell phone rang. “Damn,” she muttered as she bent to pick it up and saw that it was the inn. “I need to take this.” She hit the green Answer icon.

  Nathan nodded in understanding but didn’t back away from the door.

  That should be fine. There wasn’t a lot of confidential information she dealt with over the phone.

  “Is everything okay?” she answered with.

  “I think you should come back here,” said Sean.

  “Oh no. What happened?”

  “Mr. Burkhart just sent an email to everyone. Apparently he’s not the owner anymore?”

  Shit. “He sent an email? What a horrible way to announce it.”

  “Did you know about this? Is it real?”

  She wanted to lie and tell him she was just as surprised as him, but Sean deserved the truth. “Mr. Burkhart told me yesterday. I had hoped to change his mind, but...” But obviously that wasn’t happening. “Is everyone okay?”

  “I guess. I think everyone’s just confused. We want to know who this new buyer is and if everything is still going to, you know, keep going.”

  “I’ll figure this out. Just go on like normal. I’ll head back right now.”

  “Nah, don’t worry about coming back. I know you’re on your date and all. I wanted to make sure you saw the email though.”

  Katy knew there was more to it than that. He wanted to see whether she was worried. As long as the employees thought she was okay with the sale, they’d be okay. The problem was that she had no idea how he should feel about the sudden change of hands. She wanted to believe it was an innocent transaction and the new owners would want to maintain the steady increase in business that Katy had helmed, but her gut knew that rushed transactions like this didn’t signal good things.

  “Thanks for the call, Sean. Let me know if anyone is especially concerned and I’ll call them personally.”

  As soon as he hung up, Katy pulled up her email on her phone.

  “Word of the sale got out?” asked Nathan.

  “Yep. And Burkhart sent out a goddamn email to everyone. He didn’t even give me the dignity of breaking it to the staff in person. No wonder the inn did so badly when he was in charge. That guy is horrible with people.”

  “Hey, Katy, I wanted to—”

  She held up a hand. “Hold on. I found the email. I want to see if...” Her heart seemed to stutter in her chest and all her breath left her. “What... How...” Words failed her until all she could do was look up from her phone and stare in shock at Nathan.

  He winced and ran a hand over his eyes. “Damn it, I didn’t want you to find out like this. Let me start from the beginning. I bought Seal Cove Inn.”

  If Nathan ever met Burkhart in person, he was going to punch the idiotic man. The ink was barely dry on the deal and he was sending out a good-bye email to everyone? He’d planned to have Katy relaxed and happy as he gently broke the news and, most importantly, his reasoning to her.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I looked into the property and, after hearing how upset you were about losing it, I bought the inn.”

  “You...” Her chest rose and fell as her breaths came faster and for a second, Nathan thought she might actually pass out.

  “Why don’t you take a seat and—”

  “Don’t tell me to sit down!” she snapped even as she fell into the seat. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. She seemed to be looking anywhere but in his direction. “Did you just spend three million dollars because you want to date me? Do you have any idea how crazy that is?”

  Nathan knew exactly how crazy that was, but it wasn’t that simple. “Three million isn’t that much money.” Katy’s eyes widened and he knew that was the wrong thing to say. “What I meant was—”

  “I need to get some air.”

  Katy started to stand, but Nathan set a hand on her arm, stopping her before she walked away from the car. “Let me take you home.”

  Katy scoffed. “Why not? I already let you buy me an inn. What’s one more thing?” The words dripped with sarcasm and Nathan braced himself for whatever was coming his way.

  “Hear me out. You were right. I looked into it and whoever was offering Burkhart three million for the inn was out of their minds.”

  Katy fell back against the car and narrowed her eyes at him. “But not for you?”

  “Just think about it. The Carriage House
. The leak in the brand-new ceiling. All conveniently right when someone was trying to buy the inn from someone who doesn’t want to sell. The fact that it was so rushed. All of those are red flags. Whoever was trying to buy Seal Cove Inn was trying to force Burkhart’s hand. I couldn’t just let someone manipulate something you cared so much about.”

  “No. You could’ve easily let that happen, Nathan. Now what? Now you’re my boss? Am I supposed to report to you once a week with expense reports?” Her face paled and she covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh my God, I slept with the new owner.”

  “This doesn’t have to be complicated.”

  “That’s right. Nothing is complicated for you. You charge right ahead, only thinking about the endgame. Well, I have news for you, rich boy. Sometimes when you’re charging straight ahead, you’re pushing other people down and those people don’t give a damn about your endgame!” Her hands balled into fists as she yelled at him, but she never struck out.

  Nathan wished she would hit him. He could defend those blows. There wasn’t much he could say to get her to see what he was thinking, to see how this would work out. She was worried now, but it would take time for her to realize that this wouldn’t be awkward. He would make sure it wasn’t.

  But before they got to that point, it was going to take a hell of a lot of groveling. Nathan didn’t remember whether he’d ever groveled to anyone, so he didn’t expect this to go smoothly.

  “Take me home,” she finally said.

  “We can get a drink and—”

  “I swear, if you don’t start the car in the next ten seconds, I’m going to start walking and call someone to pick me up.”

  Nathan was itching with the need to say more, to tell her everything he was thinking, but he thought better of it. “Fine,” he bit out. “Get in the car.”

  Katy got into the passenger’s seat and slammed the door shut before he could try to shut it for her. Once he was behind the wheel, he backed out and started back toward town. After a few miles of silence, he couldn’t hold back any more. He knew she had questions. He might as well answer.

  “I didn’t start any of this until yesterday. I swear it wasn’t part of some big master plan.”

  Katy didn’t say anything and now was looking out the window so he had only her body language to go off of. Based off body language alone, she was still pissed. “It’s just... It’s weird, Nathan. Really weird. And you should’ve told me.”

  “If I told you, you would’ve told me not to do it.”

  “If you knew this wasn’t what I wanted, then you never should’ve gone through with it. You come back here with all the right words and slide right back in under my radar and slip through my defenses, but this proves that nothing has changed.”

  “I did this to help you!”

  “Can we please not argue right now? It’s too late to change anything and I’m suddenly tired.” Her words were hollow and empty, as though she were a million miles away. He didn’t think he’d miss the yelling.

  Nathan finally stopped talking. He didn’t know what he could say to make things better. Katy would need time to get used to this new situation. Time for her to realize that nothing had changed.

  They made the rest of the drive in silence. Once he pulled to a stop in front of her house, Nathan started to get out, but Katy stopped him. “Don’t bother. I suppose I’ll be seeing you at the inn. Good-bye, Nathan.”

  “I’ll make this better,” said Nathan. “You’ll see. I promise.”

  Katy was already halfway out the door but his words had stopped her. “I know people,” she said softly.

  “What?”

  “I know people. If I wanted to buy the inn, I didn’t need you to swoop in and save me. Victoria and Dean paid for my education and they helped me buy this house, but I can’t rely on people to take care of me forever. It is my choice to do things on my own, and you took that choice away from me. Just... I’ll talk to you later, Mr. Farrell.” She shut the door and Nathan stayed in the car.

  After she disappeared into the house, he slammed his fist onto the steering wheel. “Fuck.” He hadn’t expected this to go well, but fuck, he hated Katy looking at him like that. As if he was using her. As if he was scum.

  She was his fresh start. His chance to start over. Now that was ruined. She probably hated him more than anyone.

  His anger completely clouded over his mind, and he barely remembered driving from Katy’s house back to the inn. His inn now. The one he’d paid well over fair market value for. So what was so valuable here to the people who wanted it?

  “Hello, Mr. Smith,” said Sean. A reminder that no one here besides Katy knew who he really was, or how important he now was to everyone here. He should tell Sean now so that there were no accusations that he was trying to fool anyone, but before he got any words out, Sean said, “There’s someone waiting for you in the library. Said his name was Mr. Hart. I called up to your room and when you didn’t answer, he offered to wait.”

  Nathan nodded. “Thanks for the heads-up.” He followed the hallway and turned in to the last door before the restaurant.

  Scott Hart was a towering man and probably could get any of the men he arrested to talk just by shooting them a dirty look. Probably could get the ladies talking with a dirty look too, but for as long as Nathan had known the man, he hadn’t seemed to care for any women at all. Not after what happened to his wife. “Thanks for coming, Hart. Have a seat.”

  Hart glanced at the plush chairs in the center of the room before he shook his head. “I’d rather stand. You said this was an emergency?”

  “Something like that. There have been some strange things going on here at the inn. I want you to figure out why.”

  Hart raised a brow. “What’s it to you if strange things happen here?”

  “As of a few hours ago, I own the place. I think someone sabotaged the brand-new roof so it would leak right on top of a guest, and the night before a wedding, someone took a few cans of spray paint to the wedding hall.”

  “All right before a sale?”

  “From what I gather, the owner wasn’t looking to sell at all. I think these were calculated to push the owner into selling. Except the selling price that the original buyers offered was much more than it should’ve been.”

  “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I want you to find out who the original buyers were and why this property is so valuable to them. If there’s some sort of natural resource on the land, I need to know about it sooner rather than later.”

  “So you can exploit it for yourself?”

  “Because someone was willing to buy this inn for twenty percent more than it was worth for some reason. Now that I bought it, I’m in their way. I know from experience that if you get in the way of someone with money, bad things can happen.”

  Hart’s eyes narrowed and Nathan knew he hit a nerve. “I’m a cop, not a PI. And I don’t know anyone in the area. You’d be better sticking with locals to—”

  “I know what you want. You want revenge for what happened to your wife.”

  “Don’t bring her into this.”

  “Hart, you haven’t gotten a promotion in years. Why is that?”

  He stiffened and narrowed his eyes. “You looked into me.”

  “Well, I don’t offer jobs to just everyone. I know how cops work. It’s a career track with pretty set promotion dates. But you’ve been stagnant ever since Catherine was murdered. You’ve been looking into it when you shouldn’t, haven’t you?”

  “I can’t help you.”

  Hart started to cross the room to leave, but Nathan knew exactly what to say to stop him. “I can help your investigation.”

  Sure enough, Hart froze before his hand hit the knob to open the door. “Alex already swore he would help, and all of his investigators turned up nothing.”

  “That’s why I’m going to leave it to the pros. You. Quit your job and come work for me. I’ll give you all the time off you need to find the truth
and a generous salary.”

  Hart turned around, skeptical look firmly in place. “What makes you so interested in me?”

  “Without you, Alex and Ashley might both be dead. That’s not nothing.”

  Hart shook his head. “You want me because I didn’t follow the rules when we got them back. You’re looking for a dirty cop.”

  “A dirty former cop,” clarified Nathan. “Tell you what. Take a day off work. Look around town and see if you find anything. Then, if you still want to go back to working a job you don’t care about while your wife rots away in her grave, go ahead.”

  “You’re a special kind of asshole,” hissed Hart.

  “That’s the offer. Tell me when you make your decision. I am in the Blue Room and you have my cell number.”

  He left Hart to go back to the front desk. “Sean, has Katy called you since she left?”

  Sean shook his head. “I mean, I called her but she hasn’t—”

  “Don’t worry about it. Do we have any other rooms available for the night?”

  “Uhh...” Sean typed something into the computer. “Yes. A few since it’s a Sunday night. A lot of guests have checked out to go back home. Did you need to switch your room?”

  “No. The man who was waiting for me is going to be staying. Book a week for him and charge it to my card.”

  “Sure. I’ll do it right away.” Sean got right to it even as the confusion covered his face.

  “I need you to call me when Katy gets here. Can you do that?”

  Sean stopped what he was doing. “Hey, man, I don’t know what you and Katy have going on, but I can’t really get in the—”

  “My name is actually Nathan Farrell, and I just purchased this entire inn. I’m now her boss. So the next time you see her, no matter what time, I need you to call this number,” he pulled out a card and set it on the counter, “and tell me. Got it?”

  Sean paled as he reached over for the card. “Welcome to Seal Cove, Mr. Farrell. I’m sure we can upgrade your room if you—”

  “I don’t want an upgrade. I just need to talk to Katy as soon as she is here, and I need my associate, Scott Hart, to have a room to stay. Is that doable?”