Kept in the Dark

by Heather MacAllister

  The pressure from her hand increased slowly. But relentlessly.

  My God, what’s she going to do?

  He inhaled through clenched teeth. “Let go,” he commanded with all the authority he could muster. It wasn’t much.

  “No.” Black eyes. Blank face. Firm grip. What are you going to do about it? went unsaid.

  And what was he going to do? What could he do? She’d positioned herself perfectly. He had no leverage and no way to reach for his gun. Push her away? No. Blake broke into a cold sweat. Clearly, he was facing a very angry woman who was letting him know just how angry she was in a way that left no doubt.

  They stood like that for an eternity. Eventually, they’d be discovered, and he’d be embarrassed, but the loss of his pride was currently number three on his list of priorities. Numbers one and two were in Kaia’s hand. “This isn’t funny,” he said.

  “I’m not laughing.”

  “It’s not sexy.”

  “It’s not about sex. It’s about power. Isn’t that what you were just showing me?”

  No. He’d been responding to an overwhelming attraction. To her. He thought it had been mutual and the mistake was costing him dearly. Now wasn’t the time to explain or argue or demand. Now was the time to grovel. Blake had never been a good groveler. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked into his eyes. “For what?”

  “Kissing you.”

  “Not yet you’re not.” And she squeezed ever so slightly.

  It was enough. “Kaia!” He gritted his teeth. “Let go now.”

  Her lips tilted upward. “When I’m ready.”

  Blake fought to keep his breathing even. “I apologized. You’ve made your point.”

  “Oh, I know. Now it’s about making sure you won’t forget my point.”

  No way would he ever forget this moment. They were standing, partially hidden from the room, but someone was bound to wander by soon. If that happened, Blake knew with absolute certainty that Kaia wouldn’t flinch—or let him go.

  Sweat trickled from his armpits and down his spine as Blake imagined scenarios from having his own men rescue him to being caught by Tina, his most important client. “So is this payback?”

  Smiling, Kaia raised her chin until her mouth was close to his and her breath caressed his lips. And damn it, he felt himself growing hard. “This doesn’t begin to pay you back.”

  Okay, he got it. He really got it. He’d humiliated her; now she was humiliating him. Enough. “Release me, or you’ll regret this.”

  “Go ahead. Call your people.” She tugged. “Tell them I’ve got their boss by the balls.”

  He’d never live it down. He swallowed. “What do you want?”

  At that moment, screams sounded as the awning blew apart and pieces crashed against the windows. Blake automatically tried to turn, but could only move his head. Kaia didn’t even twitch.

  “Kaia, I need to help out in there! Tell me what you want so we can end this.”

  Her gaze never wavered. “I’ve got a new life.” She released him. “Stay out of it.”

  Blake stepped back. Thank God. He tried not to react as relief flooded through him, but his hands fumbled with the zipper as he closed his fly. “Stay on the straight and narrow and I will.”

  Without responding, she walked past him to the stairs.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  Her lip curled. “To wash my hands.”

  A little parting punch to the gut.

  Even though he should be with Luke helping to keep things calm while they checked outside for damage, Blake watched her climb the stairs, his emotions in a turmoil that defied description.

  Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. She’d totally blindsided him.

  And he didn’t hate her. God help him, he was more attracted to her than ever. How messed up was that?

  Totally. It was safe to say that Kaia Bennet hated him with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns.

  But at least she felt something.

  AS SHE CLIMBED THE stairs under Blake’s angry gaze, Kaia was glad she wore a long dress because it hid her shaking knees.

  If Blake had seen them he would have thought she was afraid, but she knew from past experience that an abundance of adrenaline let loose all at once caused the shakes. She’d kept her emotions in check and now all that pent-up energy had to go somewhere. Right now, she was headed to the upstairs bathroom where she’d revel in the euphoria of besting Blake, and do a few calisthenics to work the quivering out of her muscles. Now that was the kind of reunion to have with The Man Who Done Her Wrong. The thing about a bold move was that you had to commit fully or it wouldn’t work. And once you started, you had to see it all the way through, which she had. Take that, Blake McCauley.

  Blake had struggled to keep her from seeing how shocked he was. Truthfully, she’d shocked herself. She was not impulsive by nature and when she’d been walking across the room, she hadn’t planned to grab him by the balls. Then again, she hadn’t planned to let him kiss her, either.

  And that’s what keeps life interesting.

  She hated it when people said that.

  Kaia couldn’t risk looking to see if Blake still stood at the bottom of the stairs, but she figured he’d leave her alone for a little while.

  She passed by the open landing overlooking the party room and entered the enclosed part of the hallway. At this point, she was out of Blake’s view unless he’d followed her up the stairs. Highly unlikely.

  Surprisingly, no one was upstairs. Kaia listened at the guest bath door and then cautiously pushed it open enough to see that it was empty.

  This was a bonus. Now was her best chance to search for the bracelets. She glanced back and didn’t see Blake following her up the stairs, so she flipped on the bathroom light and closed the door. Hitching up her dress, she silently ran down the hall to the master bedroom closet.

  The clock was ticking. At some point, Blake would notice her absence and either come looking for her or check her tag’s location on the monitor. She wished he hadn’t seen her go upstairs, but she couldn’t have everything.

  Inside the bedroom door, Kaia fastened her skirt into the waistband and withdrew a pair of sheer latex gloves from a hidden pocket. She’d already been in the bedroom today, but it would be difficult to explain her fingerprints on a safe. “I was chasing Jo Jo” would only go so far as an excuse.

  The first order of business was not to look for the safe, but to plan her exit strategy.

  From the floor plans, she knew that the master bedroom bath connected to a room the Nazarios had turned into a home gym and sauna.

  Using a tiny LED flashlight, Kaia moved through the bathroom and noted a twin of the high, hexagon shaped window in the guest bath. That was one exit possibility, she thought, and opened the door to the gym.

  Nice. Almost as nice as the one she’d had growing up. But hers had been equipped with specialty balance and strength training machines. Until she’d left home, Kaia had spent part of every day of her life in that room.

  But now was not the time for sentiment. Was there ever a good time? Sentiment was wasted emotion.

  Kaia crossed to the sauna, pulled open the door and discovered a nice, large window facing out over the back of the house. Beautiful landscape lighting. If it weren’t storming, the view would be spectacular. The window was a bump-out with a bench in front of it, and doubly insulated, but more important, there weren’t sensors on it. Kaia pressed against the glass and from what she could see, there was nothing but a sheer drop to the ground. And she’d need to break both the inner and outer windows and most likely have to use the free weights to do it. Tough, but not undoable.

  Once outside, she’d have to climb up to the roof, but it wasn’t as if she’d never been on a roof before. And it was doubtful anyone would think to look in the sauna until she was long gone. Or in this case, back at the party, innocent expression firmly in place.

  Okay, then. On to Tina’s clo
set. Back in the bedroom, Kaia checked to see if the hall was empty before quietly positioning the door halfway closed and wedging a piece of crumpled plastic beneath the bottom. If anyone pushed the door open, the plastic would crackle and alert her. When they checked to see what was catching on the door, she could sneak away.

  Though she would prefer not to do so, Kaia closed the closet door behind her and flipped on the light.

  Tina’s clothes were organized by color. There was a motorized rack that rotated out of season clothes, a wall of shoes, drawers galore, racks, a three-way mirror, a little bench, a clothes steamer, and something that looked like a glass sauna, but turned out to be a climate-controlled closet for Tina’s furs. There was even a flat-screen TV. What, Tina couldn’t listen to the one in the bedroom? Kaia thought just before she saw the camera. Kaia was allergic to cameras. Her heart blipped until she noticed that it was pointed in a strange direction for a security camera.

  Kaia picked up the remote and taking a chance, clicked it. The TV screen blinked on and she saw herself. Pressing another button started a slide show of Tina wearing outfits with the occasion and date displayed on the bottom of the screen.

  Holy cow. This was one organized woman.

  Was it possible she’d kept a similar record of her souvenirs? Kaia pressed buttons, hoping to see them or discover a different file, but saw nothing helpful and acquired a serious case of shoe envy.

  She turned off the TV. Earlier, when she’d had Jo Jo, Kaia had noticed a strip of carpet in a slightly different shade of taupe. It was beneath a small chest that looked like an old-fashioned pirate’s treasure chest. Yeah, that Tina sure had a sense of humor. Kaia lifted the lid on the chest and discovered packages of tissue paper, cedar blocks, bags and assorted closety type supplies. Fortunately, it was all light-weight stuff. A good sign, since Tina would be moving it frequently.

  Kaia pushed it aside. Under the chest was a pull ring in the floor. Bingo. She lifted the square of carpet and flooring and there was the safe. Or one of them. This was too easy.

  Fortunately, it was a garden-variety floor safe with a standard dial lock package. Floor safes were usually installed in concrete on the ground floor, so Kaia knew there had to be reinforcement under the floor to keep someone from merely cutting the whole safe out. Definitely, a custom job and she guessed not one of Blake’s.

  She wondered how angry he was and whether she’d gone too far. But for years, she’d mentally replayed their time together and wondered how he could fake emotions for so long. And why. Okay, he thought she was a thief—but why hurt her emotionally like that?

  No. She hadn’t gone too far. She hadn’t gone far enough.

  From beneath her leggings, Kaia withdrew a Vernier ring that fit over the dial and allowed her to see more precise measurements. The interesting thing about safes was that people spent a lot of money and attention on the safe and how it was installed and then skimped on the lock. It wasn’t because of the expense, it was because the higher-rated locks were more tedious to open for the person with the combination, as well. People were lazy.

  Fortunately.

  Opening a safe by manipulation wasn’t that hard to learn. It was a matter of becoming familiar with the imperfections in manufacturing and exploiting them to line up gates in three wheels, get the fence to drop, and retract the bolt.

  Kaia spun the dial to the left and got started.

  NONE OF THE VALETS had been hurt when the awning had blown apart because they’d been in the den beside the kitchen area playing poker and staying out of the rain. Blake could hardly fault them. In fact, he wouldn’t mind sitting in.

  The awning was a total loss and only the fabric cushioning the poles had kept the windows from shattering. The alarms were reset; Tina organized an impromptu fashion show of Royce’s jewelry, and everybody calmed down.

  Except Blake.

  He paced. He paced into the kitchen, where the catering staff clustered around a small TV and watched weather reports of wind damage and strained power grids, and back to the main gathering where he watched women “ooh” and “ahh” over a bunch of metal and shiny rocks. And he paced some more.

  Thoughts of Kaia filled his head and he couldn’t concentrate on the job. What was it about her that got to him? Even now, when she clearly hated him, he couldn’t let go of his feelings for her. It didn’t matter to him that she wasn’t the same Kaia; he wanted to know the woman she was now. Never mind the fact that he didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust himself.

  Had she come back downstairs yet? Reluctantly, he scanned the room for her. She wasn’t part of the fashion show and he didn’t see her. And he hadn’t seen her since she’d walked upstairs after their…encounter.

  That, in a weird, twisted I-don’t-ever-need-to-go-through-again way, had reassured him. She was strong, and she could take care of herself.

  For someone with her background, she’d been strangely naive when they’d been together. Giving and open. He thought now of her hard, opaque eyes and unsmiling red mouth. Time and experience had hardened her. Then again, time and experience had hardened him.

  He shook his head as if to shake away the memories. She’d been out of his sight too long. Blake casually strolled to where Royce spoke to a couple. “Where’s Kaia?” he asked. He was interrupting and he didn’t care.

  Irritated, Royce said in an undertone, “I sent her off to clean jewelry.”

  When Blake gave him a skeptical look he added, “It gets makeup smudges and lipstick smears all over it. We must keep our sparklies sparkling!” He moved off.

  Okay. Blake would buy that. So how long did it take to clean jewelry?

  He watched the party for another minute, and then slipped outside the room. Tapping his earpiece, he asked his man monitoring the tags to locate Kaia.

  “She’s in the party room.”

  Blake stepped into the doorway and looked. “Where?”

  “According to the ID tags, she’s right there by Mrs. Nazario.”

  Holding her dog in her lap, Tina sat at the end of a row of chairs that had been hurriedly pushed together for the show. The man sitting next to her was not Kaia, nor was the woman sitting next to him. Or anyone sitting anywhere.

  “I am looking at Mrs. Nazario and Kaia Bennet is not in sight.”

  “That’s where her tag is—almost right on top of Mrs. Nazario.”

  “The only thing—” Tina’s dog licked her face and Blake froze.

  “Wha—”

  Blake disconnected and hurried toward Tina Nazario and her little dog, already knowing what he’d find.

  “Excuse me.” He pulled the dog from Tina’s arms. The dog growled and snapped at him.

  “What are you doing to Jo Jo?” Tina demanded.

  “Looking for an ID tag.” Blake ran his hands around the collar.

  Just as Blake’s fingers touched the disk, Jo Jo wiggled like crazy and snarled. Tina looked as though she was about to snarl at him, too. Blake set the dog down and it ran off, still wearing Kaia’s tag.

  “Sweetums!” Tina called after her.

  He’d expected to find Kaia’s tag on the dog, but he still couldn’t believe she’d actually try to steal something on his watch. And he’d wanted to believe her, wanted to believe she was nothing more than a jewelry designer’s assistant. Actually, he’d hoped he’d been wrong about her six years ago so he could justify his unending fascination with her.

  Now that he knew she’d been lying all along, it should be easier for him to forget about her.

  But first, he had to find her.

  8

  KAIA STARED INTO A well of jumbled jewelry and knickknacks. The mess was so unexpected and tragic. Unexpected because of the way the rest of Tina’s closet was stringently organized and tragic because the way everything had been dumped together damaged the pieces.

  Kaia could imagine Tina furtively opening the safe and tossing whatever she’d stolen into the hole in the closet floor, slamming the lid on, and forgetting about it.
The safe was full, too. Tina hadn’t installed a secret hiding place because she was clever; she’d installed it because she needed the room.

  Kaia gingerly pulled out a strand of baroque pearls, a sterling spoon, three Montblanc pens, some crystal figurines, ugly and scratched, bracelets, perfume bottles, an Hermès scarf and a ruby-red lobster claw key-ring—with the keys still on it. Somebody wasn’t very happy about that.

  Shaking her head, Kaia peeled away layers of Tina’s plunder until she spotted the blue and silver of Royce’s bracelets. They seemed to be okay with only a few minor scratches that could have been the result of normal wear.

  Kaia set the cuffs aside and continued sorting through Tina’s stash.

  This was taking too much time. The longer she stayed, the greater her chance of getting caught by Blake. At least she had Royce’s bracelets. But the snuffbox wasn’t in this safe.

  Casper had wanted an inventory of what Tina had hidden, so Kaia quickly videoed everything with the camera on her cell phone and returned all except Royce’s bracelets. She didn’t worry about the order everything went back into the safe—there hadn’t been any order. Did Tina ever look at the stuff after she’d stashed it? Take it out and admire it? Kaia doubted she’d realize the cuffs were gone or even remember that she’d taken them in the first place.

  Kaia fastened the cuffs into one of the hidden pockets in her skirt and searched the closet for safe number two.

  It had to be close by. She checked the bathroom, tapped floor tiles, searched the bedroom, and even looked in the chimney of the gas fireplace.

  Nothing. Therefore, the other safe was in the closet. Had to be, cliché or not.

  Kaia stood in the center of the room and pantomimed returning from an event. A fancy one with Casper in tow. His dressing area was beside this one, so Kaia imagined the two of them discussing their evening, putting on pajamas. Casper in PJs. Now there was an image she could do without, although it was preferable to imagining Casper without PJs.

  Now Blake without PJs…Kaia drew a calming breath, willing Blake out of her mind. Focus on Tina. Tina would have to talk, change clothes and hide the stolen goods all without alerting Casper.