Kept

by Jami Alden

  She didn’t respond, just stomped past him to the elevator as fast as her Christian Louboutins would take her. Andy followed her in, and Alyssa punched the “door close” button several times.

  Of course he slid in before the doors closed.

  He seemed to suck up all the air in the tiny compartment, and Alyssa felt her chest constrict as she struggled to get enough oxygen.

  “How could you?” she said, unable to hold back any longer.

  “I’m trying to help you, Alyssa,” he said, so matter of fact, like she was an idiot for not realizing it.

  “Help me? Help me?” she said, hating the way her voice rose with hysteria. “You think ratting me out to my uncle is helping me? If you really wanted to help me, you would help me find out who’s slipping me drugs.”

  “Jesus Christ, Alyssa, will you let it go already?” he snapped. “I only told your uncle so maybe you’d face reality—”

  “Yeah, I faced reality, all right. The reality of having my salary cut in half, so now I have barely enough to cover my mother’s medical expenses—”

  She snapped her mouth shut, remembering his “poor little rich girl” comment. She wasn’t going to pour out her stupid, sad tale. She didn’t need his help or his sympathy. She’d figure out who was drugging her on her own. She’d get her manager to line up more work. Someone would pay her for something, no matter how trashed her public image. She’d take care of herself. “Forget it. Just leave me alone. But I’m not taking drugs.” She turned to Andy, who stared straight ahead, pretending not to hang on every word. “Andy, you’re always with me—you live with me, for Christ’s sake. Tell him I’m not using again.”

  Andy’s eyes got wide behind her glasses, and she pressed her lips together. “I haven’t seen you taking anything,” she said. But Alyssa’s triumph was short-lived when Andy continued, “But I’m not with you twenty-four hours a day, and I know from experience that addicts become very good at hiding their behavior.”

  Alyssa looked at her supposedly loyal assistant, gasping like a dying fish as she struggled for words. Was everyone determined to believe the worst about her?

  “It’s going to be okay, Alyssa,” Andy said. “I’ll help you get through this.”

  Good old Andy. Always there for me, Alyssa thought snidely.

  The elevator doors slid open, and Alyssa stepped into the parking garage, feeling like she’d stepped into some bizarro world where nothing worked right. Her life had been messed up before, but ever since she’d moved up to San Francisco, life had been one bizarre blow after another.

  First her father was killed. Now someone was slipping her drugs, trying to make her look like an addict.

  Fear curled in her gut, and a chill snaked up her spine. What if the two were somehow related. What if she—

  Alyssa didn’t have time to finish the thought as shouts of “There she is!” echoed through the garage. Suddenly she was surrounded, flashes popping in her face, hands grabbing her as she struggled to get to her car.

  “Alyssa, is it true you spent last night in the emergency room?”

  “Alyssa, is there any truth to the pregnancy rumors?”

  “Alyssa, with this latest relapse, will you be going back to rehab?”

  The questions, the snapping cameras bounced off the concrete walls, creating a cacophony in her head, disorienting, dizzying. Her vision was clogged by bodies pressing in. Her lungs seized as panic set in. She couldn’t get enough air. She was going to pass out, and everyone would chalk it up as more evidence that she was out of control.

  A strong arm wrapped around her shoulder. She didn’t need to look up to know it was Derek. She knew him from the way her body immediately relaxed, the way her panic eased so she could breathe again, no longer on the verge of losing consciousness.

  Angry at him or not, Alyssa clung to him like a lifeline, using him as a human barrier as he cut through the throng of reporters like a hot knife through butter before shoving her into the passenger seat of his car and told Andy to take her car. Alyssa flashed back to last night, a vague impression of Derek executing similar driving skill as he’d extracted her from the party.

  He had her home in minutes. But instead of driving into her garage, which was blocked with reporters, he parked around the block and brought her in through a side entrance only accessible from the narrow alley that separated her house from her neighbor’s. Because the reporters didn’t recognize Derek’s car, they had no idea Alyssa was even in the vicinity.

  Alyssa’s hands shook so much she could barely unlock the door. Derek tried to take the keys, but she hit him with a sharp jab of her elbow, feeling grim satisfaction at his grunt of pain.

  She walked through the entryway, her heels thumping on the wood floors as she marched down the hall to her bedroom. She flung the door open. “Go ahead, do your search.”

  Andy hovered nervously behind Derek. “Is this really necessary?”

  Derek’s mouth was a tight, grim line. “I’m afraid so.” He addressed Andy, but his dark eyes remained on Alyssa’s face. “I need to search the whole house.”

  Andy hurried off, muttering something about tidying up. Alyssa couldn’t imagine what she had to do. Andy’s neatness bordered on OCD. Even her bras were color coordinated.

  Alyssa stomped back into the living room and flopped on the couch. Anger bubbled and hissed until she thought steam was coming from her ears. She turned on the TV, struggling to block out images of Derek pawing through her clothes, searching through her bathroom, seeing private, girlie things women didn’t want men to see.

  Finally he emerged, a flush riding his high cheekbones. She wondered if her lingerie drawer had done him in. Served him right.

  “Find anything?”

  He shook his head and wordlessly searched the rest of the house. Alyssa retreated to her room. Though he hadn’t moved or disturbed anything—the mess was all hers—she could feel his presence in the room. He’d looked through every drawer, run his hands over every surface.

  She paced, feeling the walls of the spacious master bedroom close in over her. She twitched back the curtain of the bay window facing the street. Reporters swarmed like ants.

  She could hear Derek and Andy moving through the rest of the house, catch muffled bits of their conversation. Her stomach rumbled.

  No way she was going back out there. She’d eat her own hand first.

  She couldn’t stand this. The need to escape that had reared its head the night before came back, even stronger. She had to get away. Her uncle’s face flashed in her mind. There would be consequences. But right now she couldn’t think that far ahead as the panicked claustrophobia threatened to drown her.

  A plan formed in her mind. Not foolproof, but if she was careful, she could pull it off.

  She flipped open her cell phone and sent a quick text. Need 2 get awy. Cn use beach plc?

  Almost immediately, her phone buzzed with a reply. Of crse. U OK? U call if u need nythng. Nythng!

  Alyssa smiled. At least someone out there had her back.

  She forced herself to go to the kitchen for a snack, knowing that if she stayed locked in her room, Andy would come in after her. Or, worse, Derek, thinking she’d pulled some pills from some unmentionable place and was sitting in her room getting high.

  As soon as it got dark she made a big production about going to bed and left Derek and Andy sitting in uneasy silence in front of the flat screen.

  She dressed in jeans, running shoes, and a sweater, throwing a water-resistant shell on top to keep out the worst of the rain. She dug a backpack out of her closet and filled it with enough to get her by for a couple days. She didn’t plan to be gone long, just enough for a breather. She gave thanks for the blaring TV as she eased open the window. Like most of the old San Francisco Victorians, hers had a fire escape that crawled down the side. Lucky for her, it was accessible from the master bedroom.

  She dropped the bag onto the metal deck of the fire escape and slipped out after it. Hear
t pounding, she lowered herself to the ground, praying no one would look up and take notice. Her feet hit the ground, and she breathed deeply of the cold, rain-soaked night.

  The bedroom of the hotel suite echoed with Louis’s grunts as sweat dripped on the woman beneath him. His hand tightened around her throat, his lips pulling back in pleasure as her blue eyes widened. Her face flushed red, and a vein pulsed in her forehead as she struggled underneath him.

  He pumped hard with his hips, slamming her into the mattress as her fingers clawed at the hand around her throat. In the dim light, if he let his vision lose focus, he could almost believe it was Alyssa.

  Savage pleasure surged through him at the thought of having her underneath him. Her small body pinned under his as he fucked her. His huge hand wrapped around her delicate throat. Her very life in his hands.

  The girl struggled, thrusting her hips frantically to buck his weight off her. Louis heard the harsh trill of his phone but didn’t stop the brutal thrust of his hips. He was almost there. He kept his gaze locked on the girl’s face, imagined it was Alyssa’s pink mouth parted in a silent scream as he choked out her breath.

  One last thrust, and he came with a bellow. He collapsed on top of the girl and released his grip on her throat. She sucked in a desperate breath, sobbing and heaving as tears streaked down her face.

  “Careful, lover. I like it as rough as the next girl, but that got a little scary,” she said and tried to regain her composure.

  Louis’s mouth curled in distaste at the harsh sound of the woman’s voice, the too firm press of her fake tits against his chest. He’d picked her up the night before, another club slut lured by a wad of cash and a taste of high-grade nose candy.

  Another nameless, faceless distraction for him while he waited for his prey to come into range.

  Alyssa.

  He’d wanted her from the moment he first met her two years ago on some rap star’s rented yacht off Saint-Tropez, but she’d barely given him the time of day. At the time she was infatuated with the same stupid nobody who would later post naked photos of her all over the Internet for the entire world to see.

  She’d made the deal with the Van Weldts all the sweeter. Soon he’d have same control over her as he did the rest of her family’s business.

  His phone rang again, and he rolled off the bed and walked naked across the bedroom to answer it, his brows pulling into a frown when he saw the number on the display.

  “What kind of an idiot are you to call me at this number?” he asked as he walked into the sitting room of his hotel suite. His head of security, Marius, looked up from the magazine he was thumbing through. The big Boer didn’t raise an eyebrow at Louis’s nudity.

  “Alyssa’s gone.” Richard Blaylock’s voice vibrated with tension.

  “What do you mean, gone?” Louis snapped his fingers and motioned Marius into the bedroom. No time for a second round with the girl, he thought with passing disappointment.

  “Andy called me two hours ago. I’ve been trying to reach you since last night. I didn’t know what to do.”

  The woman came stumbling out of the bedroom, clad in the skintight dress she’d arrived in. She’d brushed her hair and wiped away some of her makeup. But there was no hiding the angry red marks ringing her throat. Louis’s lips curled in a smile at the sight.

  “I thought the bodyguard was watching her. How can one of the most recognizable women in the world disappear?” Louis asked impatiently.

  “I don’t know,” Richard said testily. “But it wouldn’t be a problem if you’d let us finish her off and get it over with.”

  Louis’s grip tightened around his phone. “I would watch my tone if I were you.” He was growing tired of Richard, his jumpiness, his insolence, his questioning of Louis’s decisions.

  “All I’m saying is she’s becoming a problem. First the comments in that article, and now this. We need her taken care of before this whole thing blows up—”

  “You will leave her alone until I decide different,” Louis replied. Richard worried needlessly. No matter what she said about her nightmares, Alyssa had seen nothing that night. His men were professionals, and the police had seen exactly what Louis had wanted them to see.

  They wanted Alyssa out of the way, for reasons that had nothing to do with what she may or may not have seen the night of her father’s death, but Blaylock and the others knew better than to cross him.

  Louis had his own plans for Alyssa, and he wanted her very much alive.

  Some might call what he felt for her obsession, his need to possess her, body and soul. From the moment he’d met her, he’d sensed the heat, the vibrancy of her, known it would translate into explosive energy in bed. He wanted to be master of that energy, hold her life in his hands as he showed her the true pleasure that comes only when you taste death.

  “This can’t be good,” Richard protested. “She knows something. Why else would she take off?”

  “Do not deviate from the plan,” Louis said, his voice brooking no argument.

  Richard was silent for several seconds, and Louis could feel his hesitation through the phone. “You fuck me, and I will fuck you harder than you can imagine,” Louis said, breaking the silence. “If the truth of Oscar’s death gets out, I will not be taking the fall.”

  Not to mention, due to gross mismanagement, Blaylock and the Van Weldts desperately needed Louis’s influx of capital and steady supply of stones to keep the company afloat. Just as Louis needed them to move large volumes of stones without too much scrutiny.

  A stab of satisfaction fired Louis’s belly as Richard’s wet swallow echoed over the line. “Of course,” Richard said. Then, “Harold has sent Taggart after her. What if she tells him something? Are we going to kill him, too?” Louis could practically smell the odor of fear-laced sweat coming from Richard’s pores.

  His mouth tightened. Taggart could be a problem, but not for the reasons Richard thought. Louis saw the way Taggart looked at Alyssa, the proprietary stance even as the man tried to keep his distance. Yet despite his fuckup in letting Alyssa slip away, Taggart and his brothers were purported experts at finding missing persons. “Let him bring her back.” The woman eyed him uneasily as she lingered by the door. “I will deal with her as I see fit.”

  “But—”

  Louis hung up the phone, rage and frustration humming through his veins. How hard was it to keep tabs on one small woman, especially when her family and the press tracked her every move?

  She’d be back soon enough, and he could use her disappearance and drug addiction to his advantage. Once he had her to himself and controlled every aspect of her life, she would do anything for her next fix. He merely had to bide his time, wait for the right moment to take her, willing or not.

  In the meantime…“Come here,” he said to the girl with a feral smile. He slipped the sash from his robe and looped it around her neck. His cock hardened as he imagined it was Alyssa’s eyes pleading with him to let her live.

  CHAPTER 9

  DEREK ALMOST DIDN’T recognize the small figure exiting the diner, one of three buildings that constituted main street for the tiny coastal town about a hundred miles north of San Francisco.

  Dressed in jeans, a bulky fisherman’s sweater, and a maroon Gore-Tex shell to ward off the icy, biting rain, Alyssa was so far from her usual dressed-to-the-nines glamorpuss self it was no wonder she’d managed to make it this far without anyone catching on.

  He watched her from his car across the street, eyes narrowed on her as she made her way to her car. She wasn’t driving the gold Mercedes. Sometime after she’d slipped through the window—the fucking window, for Christ’s sake!—she’d gotten her hands on a navy-blue Ford Mustang.

  As he watched her point the keys and unlock the car, the anger he’d been nursing for the last day and a half surged to a boil, hissing and seething and threatening to bubble over. He’d been operating on fury and adrenaline ever since Andy had shaken him awake on the couch to inform him Alyssa had
flown the coop.

  She’d slid down the fire escape while he’d watched Nightline. To say he felt like a fucking idiot was the understatement of the century.

  And Harold Van Weldt hadn’t been any more pleased, earning Derek a major ass chewing not only from Van Weldt but also from Danny. Derek knew if he didn’t find Alyssa, like, yesterday, his ass was grass, and so was Gemini’s reputation.

  Fortunately Alyssa’s feeble attempts to cover her tracks had been no match for modern technology. Yesterday he’d managed to slip a tracking device into Alyssa’s phone, so now pinpointing her exact location by a matter of yards was as easy as logging on to a Web site.

  Yet something kept him from letting Harold in on that bit of intel. For reasons he still couldn’t decipher, he hadn’t followed her right away, curious what the little Alyssa dot was doing in a beach house outside of a town that was little more than a pin dot on a map.

  The house, he’d learned, was the property of one Raj Gupta, a multimillionaire software mogul. Derek would have been jealous to see Alyssa running away to his house, had Gupta not also been very openly gay. Still, he wondered, since when was Alyssa friends with genius software developers?

  Whatever she was doing there, she didn’t seem inclined to stray far, and after giving her a day to do whatever she needed to do, Derek knew he couldn’t put off going after her. She’d made him look like an ass long enough. Now it was time to pack up her bags and go on home like a good little girl.

  Alyssa clicked the seatbelt and glanced warily in the rearview mirror as she backed out of the diner’s gravel parking area. Under the thick turtleneck collar of her sweater, her hair prickled on her neck, and she got that strange pulling sensation along her shoulders that told her she was being watched.

  She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and the few residents braving blustering coastal weather didn’t give her a second glance.

  She flicked on the wipers and pulled out onto the rain-slicked highway, kicking herself for venturing into town. She didn’t think anyone in the diner had recognized her. The broad-shouldered, flannel-clad woman who had waited on her had dismissed her as a crazy tourist right off the bat.