Kept

by Jami Alden

  She answered the intercom and let the police in through the security gate, and then she opened the front door to let them in. Alyssa spent the next several hours answering their questions, going over again when she had arrived, what she heard, if she could remember the exact time she heard the gunshots.

  Kimberly arrived soon after Alyssa had called. Her blond hair was pulled back into a tight knot, and she was dressed in jeans and a turtleneck sweater. The knife-sharp creases in her pants and five-hundred-dollar designer flats kept her from looking anything but coolly elegant. But dark circles framing her eyes and the redness around her nose and eyes showed faint cracks in her composure.

  Richard Blaylock, Van Weldt Jeweler’s vice president of legal affairs, had arrived shortly after Kimberly. In his early forties with a lanky build, blue eyes, and blond hair, Blaylock’s clean-cut good looks made him, along with Kimberly, a natural spokesperson for the Van Weldts’ business affairs. More than that, after nearly two decades of working closely with the Van Weldts, he had become a close family friend.

  Alyssa didn’t know him very well but had gratefully accepted his comforting hug when he’d arrived. After he released Alyssa, he’d pulled Kimberly close. “This is horrible. How are you two holding up?”

  Alyssa shrugged. “I feel so awful. I can’t help thinking, what if I had been here?” Her voice cracked, and she choked back a sob. “Maybe I could have stopped her—”

  Kimberly shook her head, grief and resignation closing over her face. “We all knew Mother was getting worse. If you’d been here”—she paused, squeezing her eyes shut against tears as her shoulders heaved once, twice, before she regained control—“if you’d been here, who’s to say you wouldn’t have been killed, too? We all know Mother didn’t want you here.”

  Guilt coiled like a snake around the pit of Alyssa’s stomach. She’d wanted her father to accept her into his life, into his family, more than anything. But not at this price.

  “Stop it,” Kimberly said, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a light shake. “This is not your fault. If anything, it’s mine.” She held up a hand when Alyssa opened her mouth to protest. “I knew how unstable Mother was, how out of control her drinking had become. I knew I needed to speak to Daddy about getting her into a treatment program, but I kept putting it off. I didn’t want to have that discussion with him, didn’t want to have to deal with the public fallout of Mother being carted off to rehab.”

  She sank down on the sofa and buried her face in her hands. “I was afraid of how the family’s reputation would suffer, especially after you moved up here and we launched your campaign.”

  Alyssa tried not to take the comment personally.

  “It’s no one’s fault,” Richard said soothingly. “Your mother made the choice to put a gun in her hand. No one forced her.”

  “You don’t have any reason to believe a third party is involved?” Detective Thomson, who had arrived within minutes of the police, entered the living room, having obviously eavesdropped on their conversation.

  Kimberly shook her head. “As much as I never thought my mother would be capable of this kind of violence, I knew she was depressed, maybe even suicidal.” She wiped away a tear with slender fingers. “I never imagined she’d hurt Daddy, too.”

  The detective nodded. “We won’t finish the investigation for several days, but I’m sorry to say I think you’re right.”

  He spent another half hour questioning Alyssa before letting her leave. “I need a number where you can be reached,” he said.

  Alyssa gave him her assistant’s number. “Andy will always know how to reach me.” She stood up, feeling dazed as she looked around her father’s living room. “I suppose I should call Aaron or a cab to take me home.” She started to pull out her cell phone.

  “Not on your life,” Kimberly said and slid her arm around Alyssa’s shoulders. “You shouldn’t be alone tonight, and God knows I don’t want to be. I’m taking you home with me.” Through the horror and grief, Alyssa felt a little spurt of warmth. This was new, having someone she could lean on, someone who needed to lean on her, when things got really bad.

  She quickly packed a bag of essentials from the collection of odds and ends she kept in the guest room and followed Kimberly out to her car. She ducked into the backseat of Kimberly’s Mercedes. Kimberly slid into the passenger seat as Richard climbed behind the wheel. As they pulled out of the front gate, their path was blocked by at least four news vans. Flashbulbs popped, and reporters banged on the windows, their barked questions muffled through the glass. Alyssa slumped down nearly to the floor and pulled her bag up over her head, feeling the lights and noise like physical blows.

  Richard gunned the engine and laid on the horn; a squad car gave a warning burst of its siren and flashed its lights. Several neighbors lined the usually serene street, staring, speculating over what was going on behind the massive iron gate.

  Once again, the Van Weldts were prime tabloid fodder. But for once, Alyssa thought, she wasn’t to blame. Tears streamed down Alyssa’s face. Right now she’d give anything to have the scandal be about her.

  Three weeks later…

  “What have we got?” Derek sat down at the oval mahogany table that dominated Gemini Securities’ conference room. He joined his older brother, Danny, who sat at the head of the table, his younger-by-six-minutes twin, Ethan, and Ethan’s girlfriend, Toni, who also happened to be the latest addition to Gemini’s team. Rounding out the group were Ben Moreno and Alex Novascelic, both former Army Rangers like Danny and Derek, who now worked as security specialists at Gemini.

  Danny, Derek, and Ethan had started the private security and investigation firm four years ago after they’d all gotten out of the military, and had built up a respectable list of corporate and private clients.

  “We’ve got a personal detail on the CEO of GeneCor. He’s nervous now that animal rights activists have turned their attention to him. Alex, you up for that?” Novascelic nodded and took the file from Danny.

  “Moreno, I want you to do the site evaluation in Sacramento. It will probably take you a week or so. Plan to stay over.”

  Moreno groaned. “Come on, man, I have two dates this week.”

  Danny pinned him with a steel-gray stare. “Cancel.”

  “I can’t cancel on Angela. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to get with her—”

  “If Angela and her superpussy are so special—”

  “Hello, HR violation!” Toni said.

  Danny shot her a glare, but said, “Okay, forget I said that. If your lady friend”—Danny looked at Toni, who nodded and smiled in approval—“is so important to you, then commute. I don’t give a shit. But you be at LogicCorp’s facility in Sacramento at eight thirty sharp every morning until five o’clock every day, got it?”

  Derek met Toni’s grin with one of his own. That was just one thing he liked about her, the way she didn’t take shit. No small order, dealing with three six-foot-plus ex-military types who ran roughshod over most women they came in contact with.

  A chick needed attitude in spades if she wanted to keep a handle on any of the Taggart brothers. Toni had it, all right, and she’d wrapped his brother Ethan handily around her slender finger.

  “Derek, you finished the risk assessment at AtlaCorp, right?”

  Derek nodded. “Submitted my analysis to the COO on Friday.”

  “Good.” Danny’s face lit with an almost savage grin. “Because we’ve got a new client, a big fish who’s going to need a lot of personal attention. And if we play this one right, it could mean beaucoup bucks for a long time.”

  Everyone perked up at that. They’d kept business steady since the whole Kara Kramer story had hit the news but hadn’t landed any significant new clients. Under normal circumstances, the high-profile, muckety-muck jobs went to Ethan, who had the ability to deliver a certain amount of ass kissing while maintaining complete control over the situation.

  But after the public interest ge
nerated by the Kara Kramer case, Ethan was on an enforced sabbatical from any high-profile public jobs for the next six weeks. On the one hand, Ethan was being lauded as a hero for saving Kara and bringing down an elusive international criminal.

  On the other hand, the fact that information Ethan uncovered in the course of his investigation was used to put Kara’s father—and their client—Jerry Kramer, in jail, didn’t sit well with some of Gemini’s existing and potential clients. Derek, Ethan, and Danny agreed that while publicity was good for their security and investigation business, notoriety wasn’t. So Ethan was keeping a low profile these days, working mainly from the office or doing legwork from home. Not that the bastard minded, seeing as it gave him time to indulge in his latest obsession: Toni Crawford.

  With Ethan still effectively benched back here in the office and Danny in charge of an ongoing corporate job, Derek knew it was up to him to impress whomever their new client was with the services Gemini provided. “So, who is it?” Derek prodded.

  “Harold Van Weldt. Chairman and CEO of Van Weldt Jeweler. He wants us to find out who’s leaking company information to the press and to provide personal security to select family members, namely his niece, Alyssa Miles.”

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” The words were out of Derek’s mouth before the internal editor could call them back. All eyes locked on him, everyone in the room surprised by his outburst. Ethan studied him closely, and Derek felt the uncomfortable prickle of his twin trying to probe his brain.

  “Is there a problem?” Danny’s voice was low, controlled, lined with cold steel.

  Derek focused his attention on his older brother. Most of the time he didn’t believe in any of that twin-bond bullcrap, but every once in a while something happened between him and Ethan, a transfer of knowledge that couldn’t be explained any other way. Maybe if he avoided Ethan’s curious stare, Derek could drop the equivalent of a mental invisibility cloak over his brain. He hadn’t told anyone about the night he’d spent with Alyssa Miles, and the last thing he wanted was for his twin to somehow ferret out what had gone on.

  “No, no problem,” Derek replied, covering his earlier outburst with a flat, emotionless tone. “But are they really the type of client Gemini wants to cultivate?”

  “Do you have any clue who these people are?” Danny asked.

  “It would be hard not to,” Derek said. The night he’d met Alyssa he’d had no idea who she was, no idea she was anything more than another trust-fund baby, flitting from one society event to another.

  But that had changed the second he’d turned on CNN the following morning. He’d already had the argument with himself about whether or not he was going to dig up any more information on the heiress Alyssa Miles. In the end he’d come down definitely in the “not” column. What purpose would it serve? Even if she did want to see him again, she wasn’t his type, and he doubted he was hers. They had nothing in common other than incredible physical chemistry, and until three weeks ago, Derek hadn’t used that as a compelling reason for a relationship since he’d been too young and horny to know any better.

  All the more reason to relegate Alyssa Miles and their one hot night to the memory banks, never to be repeated. He already knew everything he needed or wanted to know about her. There was no point cyberstalking a woman just because she made his dick hard.

  That morning he had flipped on the TV in his kitchen, having no clue he was in for the shock of his life. There on the screen was a picture of Alyssa, with the caption CELEBRITY HEIRESS’S FATHER DIES IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE.

  The anchor had given a quick recap of the life and death of Oscar Van Weldt but spent the majority of the time talking about Alyssa Miles and her escapades. Hard-core partying when she was barely out of diapers? Check. Nude photos of her “accidentally” leaked to the press by a boyfriend? Check. A stint in rehab for a coke and pill problem that nearly killed her? Check. Alyssa Miles had hit all the highlights of a young Hollywood starlet.

  The last woman in the world Derek wanted to get messed up with.

  For the first few days after the murder, he’d existed in a state of heightened agitation, ready at any moment to be contacted by the police or the press to talk about the hours he’d spent with Alyssa Miles. Every time his phone rang he’d braced himself, tried to figure out how he was going to explain to the world how he’d unwittingly ended up in bed with one of America’s most famous.

  But apparently she didn’t want anyone to know about their tryst any more than he did, because no phone call came, and no uniforms showed up at his house or his office. Alyssa’s public statement was that she’d been with her sister up until she’d gone to her father’s house, and Derek was happy to let her stick to that story.

  “You know what kind of publicity they could bring to Gemini,” Danny said.

  “I don’t know that we want to be associated with family scandal and party girls,” Derek snapped. Three weeks later he still had the punched-in-the-face feeling he’d gotten when he’d learned the truth about her. He felt stupid and strangely betrayed, though logically he had no good reason to feel that way. It wasn’t like she’d tried to hide her identity from him. She’d told him flat out who she was, even given him the “don’t you know who I am” treatment.

  He couldn’t blame her for his cluelessness.

  But that didn’t stop him from feeling angry every time he saw another newscast or picture of her in the paper. Whereas before he hadn’t had a clue, seeing as Alyssa didn’t show up much in The Economist or in The Wall Street Journal, now everywhere he turned there was something about her or the Van Weldt family, which always included a mention of her. There’d even been a line drawing of her in the Marketplace section of last week’s Journal.

  “Since when did you get to be such a tight ass?” Ethan asked.

  “Not wanting our firm to be associated with the queen of tabloids isn’t being tight-ass.”

  “She’s not that bad,” Toni interjected. “She’s totally turned over a new leaf since she got involved with the family business.”

  “That explains the picture of her falling out of a limo last week,” Derek said.

  “She’s grieving for her father. Which you should know because you read the story in the Us Weekly you stole,” Toni said, pointing her finger at him.

  “You left it in the break room for anyone to pick up,” Derek said. He hoped no one noticed the heat rising in his face as he remembered how he’d snatched up the magazine when he saw Alyssa’s picture on the cover. “Point is, after all the chaos the Kramer case caused, we don’t need to be known as the company who guards a train wreck waiting to happen.”

  He felt a little guilty for that. The beautiful woman he’d met at the party had been funny and sexy, not afraid to go after what she wanted. Hard to reconcile with the human mess who’d been plastered all over the media accompanying lurid tales of Oscar Van Weldt’s final hours.

  “Will you excuse us?” Danny looked pointedly at Ben, Alex, and Toni. “We need to have a partner meeting, get a few things clear.”

  Alex and Ben looked relieved to escape. Toni looked put out but didn’t argue. They left the room.

  “What do you care about our clients’ personal lives?” Danny asked.

  “I care if they impact the image of this company, something you should maybe be more concerned with after the last couple months.”

  “Exactly why we need a client like the Van Weldts. They’re one of the largest jewelers in the United States, with offices all over the world. The business opportunity is huge.”

  Derek’s mouth tightened. He couldn’t deny Danny’s point.

  “Besides,” Ethan said, “you get to work with Alyssa Miles. She may be a train wreck waiting to happen, but she’s still hot.” His gaze flicked uneasily to the door, as though he expected Toni to bust him. “Not that I notice that anymore.” Ethan, once king of the stick and move, was on a crusade to prove to Toni he could be happy and satisfied as a one-woman man.<
br />
  Danny made a whip-crack sound, followed by a high-pitched meow.

  “Say whatever you want,” Ethan said. “I’m the only one in this room who’s gotten any in the last month.”

  Not entirely true, but Derek wasn’t about to correct his twin. He didn’t even need to close his eyes to remember how her hot, smooth skin had felt against his hands, the salty sweet taste of her nipples in his mouth. The gripping wet heat of her pussy milking him to climax.

  Christ. All the more reason to make sure he never got within ten feet of Alyssa ever again.

  “What do they need us for? Doesn’t the company have its own security personnel?”

  “Since Oscar Van Weldt was killed, the company has been having internal issues that have somehow made their way to the press. His brother, Harold, has taken over as CEO and wants us to find the leak.”

  “Clients like this need a lot of ass kissing and hand-holding. You know I’m not the right guy for this,” Derek said, grasping at straws. “Put Alex on it. He’s better at making nice with clients, and you know it.”

  Danny shook his head. “They want a partner on it. Because loverboy here”—he gestured at Ethan—“is still benched for the time being, that means you. Besides”—he held up his hand when Derek would have protested—“I get the feeling Harold Van Weldt is a real hard-ass. He cuts to the chase, doesn’t put up with a lot of bullshit, and wants someone who won’t be impressed with the fame of certain family members.” He cocked his dark eyebrow. “Something tells me you’ll be perfect.”

  CHAPTER 4

  ALYSSA WALKED INTO the boardroom of Van Weldt Jeweler’s San Francisco headquarters, chin up, shoulders thrown back in her best approximation of a confident, in-control woman. She’d chosen her outfit carefully this morning. Nothing said professional like black tailored slacks and a crisp white shirt. Five-inch black boots added height and confidence, and she’d styled her hair in a sleek chignon with a deep side part. She had no idea why her uncle Harold wanted to meet her this morning but hoped it was to discuss the holiday marketing campaign about to hit. If that was the case, she wanted to make sure she dressed the part of savvy executive.