by Jami Alden
“I don’t do drugs.”
He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow. “I did a lot of research when I took this job.”
Heat flamed in her cheeks. “Yes, I went to rehab, but I’ve been clean for over three years.”
“You nearly OD’d on pills and coke,” Derek bit out.
Alyssa bit her lip. It was a dark time, one she didn’t want to revisit. She’d been dating a musician, a heavy drug user. At the beginning, she’d loved the feeling of invincibility the coke gave her, the sense of peace she could find with pills. Then she’d received a wake-up call in the form of a trip to the emergency room to have her stomach pumped. “I dealt with the problem before it got out of control.” She went to rehab and ditched the boyfriend and found that once she was away from that life, the drugs weren’t nearly as attractive. “People like to make it more of a problem than it was.”
“Don’t give me that ‘poor me, persecuted by the press’ shit, Alyssa. We both know the truth.”
His words hit her like a blow, hurting more than they should. She was used to the rest of the world seeing her as a fuckup, and on most days her skin was pretty thick.
But it killed her a little to see that Derek was just like everyone else, ready to make assumptions and judgments based on the stupid choices she’d made in her past.
“Come on,” he said, his voice softening a little. “Tell me the truth. Let me help you.”
He sounded almost like he cared. Which would have been awesome if he also didn’t believe she was a pill-popping junkie. “I told you. I’m clean.”
His look of mingled disgust and disbelief made the rage boil in her throat. “Fine. I’ll prove it to you. Our family has a personal physician on call. I’ll pee in a cup and take a blood test right now to show you I don’t have any drugs in my system.”
“That’s impossible,” Alyssa said, staring at the toxicology report Dr. Patel had handed her.
“I can run the tests again, Miss Miles,” Dr. Patel said in his lilting Indian accent.
Alyssa blinked, praying that when she opened her eyes the notes on the paper would miraculously change. But there they were in black and white. Opiates. Ketamine. Both found in the drug test Dr. Patel had expedited through the lab.
This was crazy. She looked at Dr. Patel, a slightly built man in his late fifties. He’d acted as the Van Weldt family physician for years, but Alyssa had met him only recently. The doctor’s liquid brown eyes were carefully blank.
“This is impossible,” Alyssa repeated. She huddled in her chair, wanting to disappear inside the oversize sweatshirt she’d borrowed from Derek. She couldn’t bear to look at him sitting rigidly silent beside her.
“He can stay,” she’d said with such bravado when Dr. Patel had suggested Derek leave the room when he gave her the lab results. She’d been so smug, anticipating the moment she would rub his face in the truth.
Now fear clawed at her insides as the truth hit her like a brick wall. Someone had drugged her. More than once.
“Someone must have slipped it in my drink,” she said, fear making her voice small.
Derek made a scoffing sound in his throat.
“I don’t care what you believe,” she said, exploding out of the chair. “I didn’t take any of that stuff. Even when I was using, I never did heroin or methadone, or special K.”
Derek stood, too, towering over her as his brows pulled in a frown. “How can you deny it when it’s there on the lab tests? Jesus, Alyssa, I’ve heard of denial, but this is fucking ridiculous.”
“Please,” Dr. Patel said, “keep your voices down.” He turned to Alyssa. “There are several facilities where you can get help—”
“I don’t need help,” Alyssa said, hating the way her voice shook. But she couldn’t shove the fear down. She did need help, but not the kind he was talking about. Someone was drugging her, making sure she made a complete fool of herself in public.
She looked at Derek, immovable as a mountain with his face carved in stone. So strong, so capable. And no more inclined to believe her than the rest of the world.
Alyssa grabbed her bag and stalked to the door. “Just take me home. Take me home and leave me alone.”
CHAPTER 8
“THIS IS INDEED upsetting, but hardly a surprise.” Harold Van Weldt sat across from Derek, his fingers steepled against his chin as his eyebrows pulled into a thoughtful frown.
“I just want her to get the help she needs,” Derek said, ignoring the uneasy feeling in his gut that he was selling Alyssa out. After the fiasco at the doctor’s office, he’d dropped Alyssa at her apartment and left her in Andy’s calm, capable hands.
He went home and spent a sleepless night in sheets that still held her musky peach scent and wrestled with what he was about to do. In the end he’d called this meeting with Harold. What choice did he have? He owed it to Harold, his client, to tell him the truth, and he owed it to Alyssa to make sure she got the help she needed.
He had no illusions she’d see it that way. She would be hurt and pissed and would probably never forgive him. He knew he shouldn’t give a flying fuck how Alyssa Miles felt about him. Hell, he shouldn’t care whether or not she went off the deep end in a drug-induced stupor.
But like it or not, he cared. A lot. So much he couldn’t get the image of her fear-soaked eyes out of his mind as she’d claimed she’d been drugged. Couldn’t get out of his mind the feel of her slender fingers digging into his arm as she’d begged him to help her. No matter how he tried to keep himself locked up tight, he hurt for her; whatever weird reality she’d concocted in her head, she believed it 100 percent.
Whatever was going on, Alyssa was seriously messed up, and she needed help. Derek had stood by and watched his mother fall apart all those years ago and hadn’t done anything. Until finally it was too late, and Anne Taggart had disappeared without a trace, leaving them all to pick up the pieces. But Derek had been a kid then, unwilling to confront his mother about her problems or to lay out to his father just how bad things had gotten.
But he didn’t have that excuse anymore. It might hurt Alyssa in the short term, but until she admitted she was relapsing into addiction, she was a danger to herself.
“Thank you for coming to me first,” Harold said, “and with such discretion. I don’t want this getting out to the press.”
Derek’s fingers curled into a fist at Harold’s callousness. “The more important issue is that Alyssa has a problem and that she needs help,” Derek said tightly.
A tight bark of a laugh burst through Harold’s lips. “The important issue is that her string of public fuckups does not hurt our sales or our reputation.”
Derek bit back an angry retort and tried to ignore the pinching sensation in his chest. Jesus Christ. If Alyssa was as messed up as he feared, she was going to need a lot more support than her so-called family seemed ready to give.
Harold’s fingers formed a triangle against pursed lips as he regarded Derek steadily, daring him to protest. “Our official statement is that she fell ill, but no one is buying it. I trust you will keep what you have learned to yourself.”
Derek nodded, agreeing not out of loyalty to Harold but because Alyssa had enough bad shit being said about her, and he didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. “I think the best option is to get her into some sort of program—”
Harold shook his head and raised his hand to cut Derek off. “If she goes to rehab, that’s all anyone will talk about. We will keep a closer watch on her for the next few weeks and then decide what to do from there.” He spent the next several minutes outlining what he meant by “a closer eye” on Alyssa.
Fuck. House arrest, was more like it. If Alyssa thought he was like a prison guard before, she was in for a rude awakening.
Derek shook Van Weldt’s hand when he offered, stifling the urge to wipe his hand on his pants. Danny was determined that the Van Weldts were the kind of clients Gemini should cultivate and keep, but Derek wasn’t sold. What kind of person referred to
the recent murder of his brother as an “unfortunate passing”? And what kind of man prevented a young woman from getting the help she needed?
What kind of hornet’s nest had he stumbled into? And why was Alyssa so determined to take her place among them?
He rounded the corner into the lobby, his steps slowing as he saw Alyssa and Andy. Andy sat on a couch dressed in jeans, boots, and a blazer, her dark brown hair pulled into a tidy ponytail at her nape. Her thumbs flew across the keypad of her BlackBerry. Alyssa stood by the window overlooking bustling Union Square traffic. Her phone was pressed to her ear, and she was pinching the bridge of her nose as though in pain.
Her hair spilled down her back, damp from the rain that had been falling in a steady downpour since last night. She looked bedraggled, fragile, and weary, and Derek was blind-sided by the urge to scoop her up in his arms and carry her away to someplace safe. His mouth tightened in self-derision. He seriously needed to get over this protective thing he had for her.
“I don’t know if I can do that for you.”
Despite his resolve, Derek couldn’t suppress the stab of concern he felt at the audible strain in her voice.
“I know,” Alyssa said to whomever was on the other line. “I know I promised.” Alyssa’s thin shoulders hunched inside her blue sweater as she seemed to curl up into herself. “Of course I care. I know you’re right, Mom.”
Right, her mother. Derek’s brows pulled together when he remembered Alyssa’s mention of her mother’s cancer. From what he gathered, Alyssa was paying for her care. Derek felt an unwanted stab of sympathy at the look of strained resignation on Alyssa’s face.
He lingered out of her view, shamelessly eavesdropping on her conversation until Susan, the secretary, nodded at Andy, who in turn went over to Alyssa and motioned to her with a thumb over her shoulder. Alyssa nodded and finished up her conversation with a soft, “Hey, Mom, I love you.”
She flipped her phone closed, and in that moment all traces of the fun-loving party girl were gone. Alyssa looked weary and sad and older than her twenty-four years.
He took a step toward her, not sure what he wanted to say. Sorry? He wasn’t sorry for telling the truth.
Just then, Kimberly Van Weldt walked into the lobby and called a good morning to Alyssa. Slim and elegant in her business suit, she was everything Alyssa was not: cool, elegant, untouchable.
But even subdued, tired, and still working out the aftereffects of all the shit she’d taken, Alyssa gave off a glow of energy that grabbed Derek by the nuts and wouldn’t let go.
Kimberly wasn’t alone, Derek noticed with distaste. Louis Abbassi walked beside her, his lean frame draped in a two-thousand-dollar suit. Despite the expensive suit and refined airs, there was no hiding the thug lurking underneath. Derek knew it like he knew his own name.
Kimberly would have walked through the lobby with no more than a quick greeting, but Abbassi made a point of stopping to say hello to Alyssa. Derek’s eyes narrowed, and he took another involuntary step forward, his stomach curling as he watched Abbassi lift Alyssa’s hand to kiss it as he had the night before. Abbassi ran his dark eyes over Alyssa’s form like he wanted to devour her and spit out the bones when he was finished.
Derek’s skin crawled at the sight of him touching her. He told himself he was just looking out for her.
But there was something else there, something primitive and territorial that made him want to snarl like a wolf defending what was his. When he’d taken this case, he’d come across several reports linking Alyssa and Louis romantically. The thought of him touching her, kissing her, made him physically ill.
Alyssa returned Abbassi’s greeting with what Derek had quickly learned to recognize as her “I’m supposed to smile even though I want to get the hell away from you” smile. He was irritated at how relieved he was to see that whatever Abbassi’s agenda, the attraction wasn’t mutual.
“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Alyssa said, trying and failing to retrieve her hand.
“Yes, I have a meeting with your sister and later your uncle. But running into you is a very good surprise,” he said. “We must have dinner,” he added, abruptly. “Tonight.”
“I need to check my calendar,” Alyssa said, her gaze flicking in his direction as she tried to catch Andy’s eye over Louis’s shoulder.
Derek knew the second she spotted him. Her entire body stiffened, and her soft mouth thinned to a narrow pink line before she turned to Abbassi, cranking up the wattage of her smile another thousand volts. “Call me later,” she said, suddenly the coquette, and then excused herself to go meet with her uncle.
Derek wanted to bum-rush her out of there and warn her not to fuck around with guys like Abbassi. He didn’t know the specifics—yet—but he’d run into guys like Abbassi before. He recognized that predatory, reptilian air, a core of viciousness no amount of money could hide. Derek knew Abbassi thought that money would let him get whatever he wanted at any cost—even a woman like Alyssa.
But for the moment, Derek let her pass. He didn’t try to speak to her as she brushed by him without a word, her face pinched, her green eyes staring at a point past his shoulder.
But he would be waiting when she came out, and he’d make damn sure Abbassi didn’t have another chance to get to her again.
Alyssa didn’t bother asking Derek what he was doing at her uncle’s office that morning. She had a pretty damned good idea, suspicions fueled by the grim yet self-satisfied smirk on Uncle Harold’s face.
“Andy, would you do me a huge favor and run and grab me a Starbucks?” Alyssa said before Andy even had a chance to sit down. Alyssa knew this meeting was going to suck, and she didn’t want anyone, even her assistant, to witness her bending over and taking it from her uncle.
Andy smiled, but her eyes were dark with sympathy. “Of course. Venti black coffee with two sugars?”
Alyssa nodded, and Andy gave her a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder. “I’ll get some of that pumpkin bread you like, if they have it.”
Alyssa offered a wan smile. It would take a little more than pumpkin bread to improve her morning, but she had to give Andy credit for trying.
“Mr. Taggart informed me of the drugs in your system,” Uncle Harold said bluntly.
Though Alyssa knew as much, she felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. Rationally she knew Derek worked for her uncle, not for her, and it was his job to tell Harold what he’d discovered.
But it felt like a betrayal. And it didn’t help that she’d lain in his arms earlier that morning, practically begging him to have sex with her, only to have him shoot her down because he believed she was a druggie. Going to the doctor had seemed like such a brilliant plan.
Now it had all backfired brilliantly in her face.
The real kicker was, she still wanted Derek. Her whole body had thrilled at the sight of him, even as her stomach sank at the knowledge that he’d just sold her out to her uncle. And when she’d brushed past him in the hall, she’d wanted to fling herself into his arms and bury her face against his thickly muscled chest and lose herself in the safety of his embrace.
But there had been no safety in his dark, emotionless gaze. He’d thrown her to the wolves. Not that she had any right to expect any better.
“…so you will understand you leave me no choice.”
Alyssa blinked hard, focusing on what Uncle Harold was saying. “What was that? I’m sorry?”
His fleshy mouth pursed like a cat’s ass. “I was going over the terms of your employment here. I warned you last week that if you couldn’t control your behavior, there would be consequences.”
She swallowed hard, anxiety knotting in her stomach, humiliation pouring through her at being chastised like a five-year-old.
“I’m cutting back your salary by fifty percent,” Harold began.
“I need that money,” she protested.
Harold cut her off. “Your stipend from the trust is more than ample. You should have no trouble
living on that.”
Alyssa’s eyes widened. “After I pay Andy’s salary and send my mother money for her medical bills, I’ll have barely enough to cover household expenses.” Especially since she’d just gotten off the phone with Alexis. Her mother had her eye on a three-bedroom town house in Beverly Hills, claiming her current two-bedroom penthouse was “no longer suitable for entertaining.”
Alyssa’s challenge that Alexis didn’t do much entertaining between chemo treatments hadn’t been well received. There was no way she could afford her mother’s new mortgage on what her uncle was proposing.
“Mr. Taggart will search your house and remove any drugs he finds. I’ve also instructed him to search you and Andy, as well as any packages you receive.” He turned back to his computer screen.
She swallowed back a surge of nausea. Derek would be watching her even more closely than before, treating her like a criminal in her own house. “Harold,” she began, biting back her anger, knowing it wouldn’t buy her any points. “I know how bad this looks, but none of this is necessary. And please, don’t cut my salary right now—”
He looked up from his screen as if surprised to still see her there. “We’re finished, Alyssa. Now, I suggest you go home and stay there until your presence becomes necessary elsewhere.”
She walked out of her uncle’s office and found Andy waiting for her in the lobby with her coffee. Abbassi was thankfully nowhere to be found, but Derek was still there, all six-foot-plus of him sprawled like an angry mountain in one of the lobby armchairs.
She ignored him, using the tried-and-true “if I pretend not to see him maybe he won’t see me” strategy.
“Is everything okay?” Andy asked.
Alyssa nodded, not having the heart right now to tell Andy she might not be able to afford to employ her for much longer.
“Alyssa.” Derek rose from his seat when she would have breezed past.