Played

by Barbara Freethy

  He grinned back at her. “I have a few ideas.”

  “I’ll bet you do.” She pressed her lips to his and murmured, “I love you, J.T.”

  “I love you back.”

  TAKEN

  The Deception Series – Book One

  Excerpt - @ Copyright 2011 Barbara Freethy

  All Rights Reserved

  Prologue

  “To my wife.” Nick Granville gave Kayla Sheridan a dazzling smile as he raised his champagne glass to hers.

  Kayla tapped her glass against his. As she looked into the gorgeous blue eyes of the man she had married, she felt a rush of pure joy. She could hardly believe she was married, but an hour ago she’d vowed to love this man above all others. He’d put a ring on her finger and a diamond necklace around her neck and he’d promised to stay forever, which was really all she’d ever wanted. A child of divorce, she’d split her time between two houses, two sets of parents, two cities, and she’d said more than her share of good-byes. That was over now. She was Mrs. Nicholas Granville, and she would make her marriage stick.

  The champagne tickled her throat. She felt almost dizzy with delight. “I can’t believe how happy I am,” she murmured. “My head is spinning.”

  “I like it when you’re off balance,” he said.

  “I’ve been that way since the first second we met,” she confessed. “Marrying you tonight is the most impulsive, reckless thing I have ever done in my life.” She glanced down at the two-carat diamond ring on her finger. It was huge, dramatic, and wildly expensive. It wasn’t the kind of ring she’d imagined wearing. She’d thought she’d have something set in an old-fashioned silver band, and in her wildest dreams the stone had never been this big; she was an incredibly lucky woman. And Nick was a very generous man. He’d been spoiling her rotten since their first date.

  “You do impulsive well,” Nick commented. “Better than I would have thought when we first met.”

  “Because you’re a bad influence,” she teased.

  His grin broadened. “I’ve been told that before. Life is supposed to be fun. You are having fun, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely. This day has been perfect. The chapel was lovely. The minister made a nice speech about love and marriage. I was afraid it would feel like a quickie wedding, but it didn’t. And this hotel room -- it’s incredible.” She waved her hand in the air as she glanced around their honeymoon suite. Nick had ordered in scented candles that bathed the room in a soft light, riotous colorful wildflowers on every table, rose petals lining a romantic path to the bedroom, and silver trays with chocolate-covered strawberries, her favorite dessert. She couldn’t have asked for a more romantic setting in which to begin her new life. “You’ve made me so happy, Nick. You’ve given me exactly what I wanted.”

  He nodded. “I feel the same way.” He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the mouth, a promise of what was to come. “I’m going to get some ice.” He sent her a meaningful look. “I think we’ll want some cold champagne...later.”

  A tingle of anticipation ran down her spine. “Don’t be long.”

  He picked up the ice bucket and headed for the door. Once there, he paused and pulled out the antique pocket watch she’d given him as a wedding present a few minutes earlier. “Thanks again for this,” he said. “It means a lot to me.”

  “My grandmother told me I should give it to the man I love. And that’s you.”

  Kayla wanted him to say he loved her, too, but he simply smiled and gave her a little wave as he left the room. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t said the words. He’d married her. That was what was important. She’d spent most of her twenties with a commitment-phobic boyfriend who couldn’t bring himself to pop the question. Nick had told her almost immediately that he intended to be her husband. She’d been swept away by his love and his confidence that they were perfect for each other. Now, only three weeks since that first date, she was his wife. She could hardly believe it. Three weeks! This was definitely the craziest thing she’d ever done.

  Well, so what? She’d been responsible and cautious her entire life. She was almost thirty years old. It was about time she took a chance.

  Too restless to sit, Kayla got up to look out the window. Their luxurious honeymoon suite was on the hotel’s twenty-fifth floor and offered a spectacular view of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Sierra Nevada mountains. She was only four hours from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it felt like a million miles. Her entire life had changed during a simple wedding ceremony that had been witnessed by only two strangers. It was her one regret that neither her family nor Nick’s had attended the wedding. But the past was behind her. Tonight was a new beginning.

  Turning away from the window, she entered the bedroom. She took off her dress and slipped on a scarlet see-through silk teddy that left nothing to the imagination. Then she drew a brush through her long, thick, curly brown hair that fell past her shoulders and never seemed to do exactly what she wanted. Her best friend, Samantha, had told her that the messy, curly look was coming back in, so maybe for the first time in her life, Kayla’s hair was actually in style.

  A flash of insecurity made her wonder if the hot-red teddy was too much or if she should have gone with elegant white silk. But the sophisticated white lingerie she’d considered purchasing had reminded her of something her mother would wear, and she was definitely not her mother.

  Smiling at that thought, Kayla couldn’t help but be pleased by her reflection in the mirror. There was a sparkle in her brown eyes, a rosy glow in her cheeks. She looked like a woman in love. And that was exactly what she was. She’d made the right decision, she told herself again, trying to ignore the niggling little doubt that wouldn’t seem to go away.

  The quiet in the room made the voices in her head grow louder. She could hear her mother’s shocked and disgusted words: “Kayla, have you lost your mind? You can’t marry a man you’ve known for three weeks. It’s foolish. You’ll regret this.” And her friend Samantha had pleaded with her. “Just wait until I get back from London. You need to think, Kayla. How much do you really know about this man?”

  She knew enough, Kayla told herself firmly. And this marriage was between her and Nick, no one else. Turning away from the mirror, she sprayed some perfume in the air and walked through it. Debating whether or not she should wait for Nick in bed, she tried out several sexy poses on the satiny duvet. She felt completely ridiculous and chided herself for being nervous. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t had sex. And it had been good. It would be even better tonight because they were married, they were in love, and they were committed.

  As she stood up, the suite seemed too quiet. She wondered what was taking Nick so long. The ice machine was only a short distance from the room, and he had left at least fifteen minutes ago. He must have decided to run downstairs and pick up another special dessert or more champagne. She smiled at the thought. Nick was so romantic. He always knew just how to make her feel loved and cherished.

  She walked into the living room and sat down on the couch to wait. She flipped on the television and ran through the channels. The minutes continued to tick by. Glancing at her watch, she realized an hour had passed. An uneasy feeling swept through her body. She got up and paced. Within seconds the room grew too small for her growing agitation. She had a terrible feeling something was wrong.

  Returning to the bedroom, she slipped out of her lingerie and dug through her suitcase for a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. All the while she kept hoping to hear Nick’s footsteps or his voice.

  Nothing. Silence.

  She grabbed the key and left the suite, heading to the nearest ice machine. Nick wasn’t there. She tried the other end of the hall, the next floor up, the next floor down. Her heart began to race. She checked the room again, then took the elevator down to the lobby, searching the casino, the shops, the restaurants and bars, and even the parking lot, where Nick’s Porsche was parked right where they’d left it. She stopped by the phone bank in the lobby
and called the room again. There was still no answer.

  Kayla didn’t know she was crying until an older woman stopped her by the elevator and asked her if everything was all right.

  “My husband. I can’t find my husband,” she muttered.

  The woman gave her a pitying smile. “Story of my life. He’ll come back when he runs out of money, honey. They all do.”

  “He’s not gambling. It’s our wedding night. He went to get ice.” Kayla entered the next elevator, leaving the woman and her disbelieving expression behind. She didn’t care what that woman thought. Kayla knew Nick wouldn’t gamble away their wedding night. He wouldn’t do that to her. But when she returned to her room, it was as empty as when she’d left it.

  She didn’t know what to do. She sat back down to wait.

  When the clock struck midnight, and Nick had been gone for almost five hours, Kayla called the front desk and told them her husband was missing. The hotel sent up George Benedict, an older man who worked for hotel security. After discussing her situation, he assured her they would look for Nick, but there was something in his expression that told her they wouldn’t look too hard. It was obvious to Kayla that Mr. Benedict thought Nick was either downstairs gambling and had lost track of time or he had skipped out on her, plain and simple. Neither explanation made sense to her.

  Kayla didn’t sleep all night. In her mind she ran through a dozen possible scenarios of what could have happened to Nick. Maybe he’d been robbed, hit over the head, knocked unconscious. Maybe he was sitting in a hospital right now with amnesia, not knowing who he was. She hoped to God it wasn’t worse than that. No news had to be good news, right?

  Finally, she curled up in a chair by the window, watching the moon go down and the sun come up over the lake.

  It was the longest night of her life.

  A knock came at the door just before nine o’clock in the morning. She ran to open it, hoping she’d see Nick in the hallway, wearing a sheepish smile, offering some crazy explanation.

  It wasn’t Nick. It was the security guy from the night before, George Benedict. His expression was serious, his eyes somber.

  Putting a hand to her suddenly racing heart, she said, “What’s happened?”

  He held up a black tuxedo jacket. A now limp and wilted red rose boutonniere hung from the lapel. “We found this in a men’s room off the lobby. Is it your husband’s jacket?”

  “I...I think so. I don’t understand. Where’s Nick?”

  “We don’t know yet, but this was in the pocket.” He held out his hand, a solid gold wedding band in his palm.

  She took the ring from him, terrified when she read the simple inscription on the inside of the band, FOREVER LOVE, the same words that were engraved on her wedding ring. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak.

  This was Nick’s ring, the one she’d slipped on his finger when she’d vowed to spend the rest of her life with him. “No,” she breathed.

  “I’ve seen it happen before,” the older man said gently. “A hasty marriage in a casino chapel, second thoughts...”

  She saw the pity in his eyes, and she couldn’t accept it. “You’re wrong. You have to be wrong. Nick loved me. He wanted to get married. It was his idea. His idea,” she repeated desperately.

  She closed her hand around the ring, her fingers tightening into a fist. Her husband had not run out on her... had he?

  Chapter One

  Two weeks later

  Nick Granville was happy to be home. He hadn’t left his heart in San Francisco, as the song went, but he had missed the city of narrow, steep streets and sweeping bay vistas. As he set down his suitcases on the gleaming hardwood floor in the living room of his two-story house, he drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. While the past three months spent in the jungles of Africa had been spectacular, engineering bridges in remote parts of the world had taught him to appreciate the simple pleasures in life, like a hot shower, a good cup of coffee, and a soft bed. He intended to enjoy all three as soon as possible.

  He walked across the room to throw open the windows. He was surprised to find the blinds open. The cleaning service must have forgotten to close them. He’d hired a service to come in once a month while he was gone to keep the dust under control. They’d obviously done a good job. The air didn’t smell nearly as musty as he’d anticipated, but he opened a window just the same, allowing the cool March breezes to blow through the room.

  He’d chosen this small house because it overlooked the Marina Green, the bay, the Marin Headlands, and most important, the Golden Gate Bridge. Bridges were his passion. He was an admitted junkie. His living room walls were covered with photographs of his favorite bridges, a few he’d had a hand in building. There was something about the massive structures that made his blood stir. He’d decided to become an engineer before he graduated from high school, and he’d gone after that career with single-minded determination. It hadn’t been easy. He’d had a lot of other distractions and responsibilities, which he’d acquired when his father had run out on the family, but that was water under the proverbial bridge, he thought with a small smile. He had the life he wanted now. That was all that mattered.

  Turning away from the view, he caught sight of his telephone answering machine. The red light was blinking. He pushed the button on the machine and listened as the first message played back. A woman’s voice came out of the speaker.

  “Nick, it’s Kayla. Where are you? Please call me as soon as you can.”

  Kayla? Who the hell was Kayla? The machine beeped.

  “Nick, it’s Kayla again. I don’t know what to do. The security guard found your coat and should have told me. Please call me.”

  His coat and his wedding ring? He sure as hell didn’t have a wedding ring. She obviously had the wrong number and the wrong Nick.

  “Me again,” she said, her voice filled with panic. “I don’t know why I keep calling, except I don’t know what else to do. The police say they can’t help me because there’s no evidence anything happened to you. They think you ran out on me. I guess that’s what you did. Don’t you think you owe me at least an explanation? I love you, Nick.” Her voice caught on a sob. “I thought you loved me, too. It was your idea to get married so fast.”

  Nick shut off the machine, reluctant to hear more of her desperate pleas. He felt as if he had stepped into the middle of someone else’s life, and his relief at being home was tempered by the sense that something was very wrong.

  As he looked around the room, his uneasiness grew. Small things began to stand out: the celebrity magazines on the coffee table, the wilted roses in a vase by the window, the empty coffee mug on a side table, the throw blanket that he usually kept on his bed now resting on the arm of his brown leather couch.

  Unsettled, Nick walked into the kitchen and found a box of Lucky Charms on the counter, the kind of sugared cereal he’d never eaten in his life. In the refrigerator there was a half-open bottle of chardonnay and a carton of milk that had expired a month ago. His stomach began to churn as he considered the possibilities. Obviously someone had been in his home. The only people who had keys were his mother and the cleaning service. His mother would never leave sour milk in the refrigerator.

  His nerves began to tingle. The air was filled with vague scents he couldn’t quite place -- a man’s cologne or a woman’s perfume? The silence felt thick and tense. He turned around, feeling as if someone were standing behind him, but there was no one there.

  He picked up the phone and called the cleaning service. “This is Nick Granville,” he told the woman who answered. “I’d like to speak to the person who has been cleaning my house for the last three months.”

  He heard the flip of papers, and then she said, “That would be Joanne. She’s not in right now. Can I have her call you?”

  “Yes, I need to speak to her as soon as possible. It’s urgent.” He ended the call and punched in his mother’s number. She didn’t answer. Not wanting to leave a long message on her machine
, he simply told her he was home and asked her to call him back as soon as possible.

  He moved across the living room and up the stairs. The master bedroom was the first door on the right. He paused just inside the room. The cream-colored down comforter on his bed was pulled back, the sheets and blankets tangled, as if someone had recently gotten up. A couple of towels from his bathroom lay in a heap on the floor. An empty wineglass sat on the bedside table.

  Every detail made his blood pressure rise. What kind of thief slept in his bed, took a shower in his bathroom, and kept food in his kitchen?

  The phone rang and he grabbed the extension by the bed, hoping for some answers. It was Joanne from the cleaning service.

  “Is something wrong, Mr. Granville?” she asked. “Laurie told me I needed to call you right away.”

  “Yes, there’s something wrong,” he snapped. “This place is a mess. There’s crap everywhere, towels on the floor, and the bed is unmade. What the hell has been going on in my home?”

  “Excuse me? I don’t understand,” she said, obvious confusion in her voice.

  “What don’t you understand? I’ve been out of the country. The only person to have access to my house is your cleaning service.”

  “But you were home a few weeks ago,” she said. “I ran into you right before Valentine’s Day. Don’t you remember? We spoke about how funny it was that we were finally meeting face-to-face.”

  “What are you talking about? I haven’t been home in three months, so you couldn’t possibly have spoken to me.” Nick’s mind raced. Joanne had spoken to someone -- who? Obviously it had been a man, and that man had told her that he was Nick Granville. Who would do that? Nick didn’t have any brothers, no friends who would play that kind of a joke on him.