HOT MEN: A Contemporary Romance Box Set

by Ashlee Price

  Even so, it made me want to throw up.

  I tried not to think about it, but I didn’t like where my imagination kept going whenever I gave it room to roam.

  I couldn’t help but think about Flynn. I hoped Langdon’s information was right, that the cops were just keeping Flynn stashed away. But for what, I wondered, and for how long? What if they do find something on Langdon? There could have been mistakes in his business that might wind up getting him into some trouble. If they look hard enough, aren’t they bound to find something?

  I thought about Margaret at our last meeting, how she’d angrily accused me and Langdon of putting Flynn up to a hoax to ruin John’s company. It wasn’t a bad theory, the more I thought about it, and I had to start wondering if she hadn’t accidentally leaked John’s own strategy, which she probably would know to one degree or another. Could John and Flynn be working together to bring Langdon down?

  It all seemed possible, but also so complicated, so complex.

  If I were John Alister and I wanted Langdon Cane out of the way, how would I do it? It wasn’t easy to answer that question, because I just didn’t think the way John did. At one point I’d hoped to learn from him and emulate him. Suddenly I was learning more than I wanted to know, and emulating him was the last thing on my mind.

  More and more, I was just hoping to escape him.

  Because there was always a simpler explanation, as much as I didn’t like to entertain it.

  Forget all this angling, I told myself, assuming the role and putting myself in John Alister’s place. Forget involving that kid Flynn; he’s too unreliable. Forget trying to buy out AussieGarb; it’s too likely that they’d tell him what I’m up to before I could get it done. That’s sloppy, risky, and that’s not me, that’s not John Alister.

  With me, nothing is the way it seems.

  Because ultimately it would just be easier to draw him in with a bogus offer, let him fuck my personal assistant for a while, and then have them both killed and make it look like an accident. Maybe a skiing accident…

  A shiver ran up my spine as we reached the top of the mountain and slid off the ski lift. As relieved as I was to have my skis back on firm ground, I didn’t feel much better about anything else. Even more than a few minutes before, I felt helpless, dangling, headed for a fall.

  Langdon took a good look at me through the goggles and wool hat and scarf. He seemed to have an insight most people lacked, and his insight into me was only getting keener.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah, I’m… it’s a bit higher up, isn’t it?” I looked down the slope, eager to cover up the real reason for my sudden concern. Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. As if John Alister would go through all that trouble, as if he were capable of such a thing.

  We pushed off, and I was suddenly moving much faster than I’d expected. I tried to keep my skis pointing inward to slow my descent, but I knew that wasn’t going last long. The mountain spread out around us, bigger than I’d realized. The other skiers were well distant, and everybody had plenty of room to weave and bob and slide down that icy slope.

  I started to feel better as adrenalin coursed through my veins while I sped down that mountainside. I felt strong, fast, beyond the reach of any nefarious elements and safe by Langdon’s side.

  You’re getting paranoid, I scolded myself.

  Paranoid? I silently countered. Those pundits weren’t talking about somebody else. It wasn’t my imagination. That was me!

  I started moving even faster. My legs strained to keep me upright. I leaned forward, crouching with my poles tucked under my arms. My form was good, up to the task of conquering the slope.

  What about all John’s affairs? There’s a lot to John Alister that I still don’t know, and he’s probably counting on that.

  I looked around, but was unable to see Langdon in my peripheral vision.

  S’okay, I told myself, he’s got to be close by.

  But although I didn’t see Langdon, I did see a skier in a black jumpsuit and helmet keeping pace alongside me and getting nearer and nearer as we both sped down the hillside.

  Langdon?

  I looked around and then forward again, feeling myself being pulled dangerously close to the trees.

  It’s your imagination. Keep your head in the game or you’ll smash into one of those trees and it’s game over.

  But another glance to my right told me it wasn’t my imagination, not at all. Langdon was nowhere around, and the guy in black was getting closer and closer, even glancing over at me from behind his black helmet. Then he pulled something out of his pocket and raised it. It was black plastic, but I couldn’t quite recognize the shape.

  A gun? Did John have a hit man waiting for us? Did he send us right into an ambush? Just like in that dream! The first dream with Langdon came true, now the one where Alister kills us both is coming true too!

  Get a hold of yourself, my better voice urged me, just find Langdon!

  Where’s Langdon? Did they already get him? Oh no, Langdon!

  My heart was pounding in my chest and my palms were sweating in my gloves as I raced forward, faster than I could control and getting faster still.

  The man in black got closer, and I swerved closer to the edge of the woods. Any one of those thick pine trunks would be enough to bring instant death—if a silenced gunshot didn’t do the job first. Is that the game, drive me into the trees, make it look like an accident?

  Where’s Langdon?

  I went faster, more recklessly, closer to the pines on my left. That faceless bastard was closing in on my right, and I could feel my time running out. He raised that black thing in his hand, but I could not afford not to be looking dead ahead. Death was waiting for me from every direction. The only question was, from which way would it finally come?

  I felt like I had only one choice. Bending down, I dropped my poles, unfastened my boots, and rolled over onto my side, praying there weren’t any boulders hidden under the snow. I hit the snow hard, kicking up a cloud of white powder and rolling down the mountain with my legs tucked in and my arms over my head as the world toppled around me.

  I rolled to a stop and looked up, concerned about who was speeding toward me. But it was Langdon. He swooped down fast and pulled me up, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tight and rocking me very gently.

  He asked, “Are you alright? What happened?”

  I looked around, confused. “I… what happened to you? Where were you?”

  “Just behind you. I didn’t know you were going to go down that fast.”

  “I didn’t mean to, but there was a guy chasing me… with a gun.”

  “A gun? Are you sure?”

  I glanced down the mountain to see the man in black gliding along the slope, still aiming that strange black device at me as he drifted past.

  But from that nearer distance, and without all that movement, I could see that it was a camera. The skier was probably an opportunistic paparazzo, or maybe just a lucky tourist with a shot at a million hits on his YouTube channel.

  Langdon called out, “Oye, mate, get ‘cher ass over here, yeah?”

  I shook my head, holding my hand up. “No, Langdon, don’t bother, it’s fine. It’ll only be more trouble for us.”

  “Yeah, yer prob’ly right, luv.” Langdon glanced around. “Let’s go have a cup of tea, eh?”

  We retrieved my skis and made our way slowly down the hill, attracting the attention of more than a few curious onlookers and one or two amateur paparazzi like the guy in black.

  We returned our skis and slunk into the lodge for a hot buttered rum, delicious and spicy with cinnamon, apple, and just a bit of nutmeg. I sighed as I sipped it, leaning into Langdon for support and just to feel his closeness, his energy.

  He was happy to respond with a little nuzzle, leaning against me in a wordless promise of his undying love.

  His smartphone rang, and Langdon pulled it out, swiped the screen and raised it to his ear.
“Yeah?… Yeah… Okay… I see…”

  My heart nearly froze in my chest. “What is it, Langdon? What’s wrong now?”

  Chapter 17

  Langdon held one finger up to me, his attention still on the phone. “S’great news, mate… Right, I’ll get back at ‘cha.” Langdon pocketed the phone, and I didn’t need to ask for an explanation.

  “The kid’s okay, your little office romance—”

  “Langdon, c’mon.”

  He chuckled. “My info was good. They were just sitting on him a while.”

  “While they were trying to put something together on you?”

  “Me, J.A. … both of us? S’hard to say, really.”

  “So… what now? Are you in trouble?”

  Langdon shook his head. “How should I be? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “Well, I… I don’t doubt it, of course.”

  “But you’re relieved just the same.” I had to roll my eyes, but I was unable to disguise my little smile. “S’alright, Sheryl, I don’t blame you. So much going on, all this big business bullshit, hey, mistakes get made, y’never know what they might have turned up on me without me having the slightest idea. There’s always a danger of that at our level. People like me and J.A.—”

  “But not me. I’m still just a lower-rung type, just some personal assistant.”

  “You are whatever you want to be, Sheryl. You give any more thought to something philanthropic? AussieGarb’s always looking to help out where we can.”

  “Well, that’s… I appreciate it, Langdon, I really do. But shouldn’t we make sure your company’s going to be around a good long time before we start just giving your money away?”

  “If y’like,” he said, turning to the bartender and pointing at the television over the bar. “Find a news channel, will ya, mate?” The bartender nodded and picked up a remote control, flicking from one channel to another until he found a cable news channel.

  “Checking your stock prices?” Langdon chuckled, but didn’t respond. I tried again. “Have you been in touch with your board of directors back in Australia?”

  “Nobody’s got much to say about being approached by anyone from Alister Fashions or RicTel or anybody like that.” Giving it a little thought, he added, “‘Course, if they were selling me out, they wouldn’t mention it.”

  “But if even one of them turned the offer down, they’d tell you about it, wouldn’t they?”

  Langdon scratched his chin. “S’likely, not certain. They might just take hush money to go along with it, stay quiet. He may not stop short of physical threats, either. S’a pretty dangerous gambit to try to threaten an Aussie, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  The TV screen grabbed Langdon’s attention. “Oye, mate, turn it up, yeah?” The bartender turned up the volume on the TV. Flynn McGinnis ‘s bandaged face dominated the screen, his eyes still swollen, one shot with red blood.

  “I really just want to be left alone,” he said as unseen reporters clamored for answers from behind their camera crews and the microphones sticking into his battered face.

  “What’s your account of what happened that day with Langdon Cane in Central Park?”

  “I was in the wrong,” Flynn said. “My behavior was due to a personal issue, and it had nothing to do with Mr. Cane, Mr. Jonathan Alister, or Miss Sheryl Francis.”

  “What can you tell us about the relationships of those three people? You worked alongside Mr. Alister and Miss Francis for over a year, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know anything about any of their relationships.”

  “But you were motivated by romantic jealousy, isn’t that right?”

  “It is, but that’s entirely my responsibility. Any romantic connection between me and Miss Francis was… it was in my imagination, it was… hopeful but unrequited. She never gave me any false hope or any real reason to think she had those kinds of feelings for me.”

  “So you’re not going to press charges or pursue any civil remedy here?”

  “No,” Flynn was too quick to say, “nobody’s done anything that needs to be remedied. All I can really do is ask forgiveness. I shouldn’t have put Langdon Cane or Miss Francis or John Alister in the positions I did. Now I just want to try to undo whatever damage I’ve done.”

  “Then what?” another reporter asked. “Where do you go from here?”

  “Me? I’m leaving New York as soon as I can. I want to withdraw from corporate life, from a spotlight I never intended to be in and never wished to be in. You’ll all move on to some other story soon enough, and the world will forget that Flynn McGinnis ever existed… which is probably for the best.”

  Flynn walked on, leaving the reporters behind him, their cloud of questions rising up behind him as he shuffled down the street and away from the police station.

  I turned to Langdon. “That’s great news! You’re off the hook!”

  But I could tell by the slow shake of his head that Langdon wasn’t convinced. Nobody else in the bar seemed at all interested. “I dunno,” Langdon said, thinking out loud, “s’strange that he’s not gonna sue. I thought everybody sued everybody here in America.”

  “He’s probably ashamed. And since they couldn’t get anything on you, or John it seems, Flynn probably feels like he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

  “Maybe.” Langdon leaned back with a sigh. “Or maybe the kid’s still in play.”

  “Langdon?”

  One corner of Langdon’s mouth tucked into his cheek. “I think maybe that kid knows more than he’s saying.”

  “You don’t think he’s… in cahoots with John Alister?”

  “He did used to work for him. Alister would have had a lot of pull there.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that. But it didn’t answer nearly as many questions as it raised. “But… to what end?”

  “Maybe it’s time we got back to Manhattan, ask him for ourselves.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Cane, Miss Francis?” We looked up to see a pretty red-headed woman I didn’t recognize standing with a microphone, a chubby, bearded cameraman standing next to her. “Carla Rosen, TMZ. What’s your take on the good news about Flynn McGinnis?”

  “I’m glad he’s alright, but I’m not that surprised to hear it. I didn’t hit him near hard enough to put him a coma. Look at the face I left him with, just a busted nose was all.”

  “Why do you think he was in a coma for so long? You are a demonstration-level fighter, after all.”

  “And what I demonstrated there was restraint.” I could tell Langdon didn’t want to commit to the record any of the details of what had really happened until we’d sorted them out ourselves. “Maybe the kid’s got other problems.”

  “Physical ailments, you mean?”

  Langdon just stared her down. “I know what I said.”

  She asked me, “What about you, Miss Francis? You were a friend of Flynn McGinnis…?”

  “We were coworkers, but we were never close.”

  Carla returned her attention to Langdon. “Does this mean you’ll be heading back to Australia?”

  “In due time,” Langdon said, his eyes turning to me even as he addressed the reporter. “I hope Miss Francis will consent to spend Christmas with me, wherever I happen to be. Y’know, in Australia we celebrate out on the beach.”

  A lump rose in my throat. “I… um, I think that would be quite lovely, yes.”

  Langdon turned the reporter. “You heard the lady.”

  “And what about Alister Fashions? John Alister seemed to intimate that your companies wouldn’t be entering into a rumored joint venture, and that’s got both your company’s stocks plummeting.”

  “Stock prices go up and down,” Langdon said. “I’m not worried about that. Whatever J.A.’s up to, I hope it works out for him.”

  ***

  We took the Alister Fashions company helicopter back to Manhattan. Langdon stared out the window at the snow-covered mountains spread out beneath us. “I’m surprised John didn’t
go out to Australia himself,” I said, trying to wrap my mind around the increasingly complex web of deceit. “It’s hard to believe he’d trust anybody else with such a sensitive mission, going out there and trying to buy out your board of directors.”

  “S’part of the campaign to keep himself out of it. There are still regulatory issues to be skated around, luv, and ol’ J.A. skates like a genius. It only makes sense that he’d send somebody else, even make a show of being around here, having nothing to do with it till way, way after the fact.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true,” I had to admit. A cold knot tightened in my stomach. “So who do you think his operative is? It has to be somebody he trusts.”

  “Could be almost anyone, I’m afraid. He probably went outside the company, some third party figure, private operator. A guy like J.A. can hire any number of specialists in the field. All the better when he just disappears. Fake name, no fixed address, shazam and he’s a ghost.”

  “That only makes sense,” I said as the pieces slowly began to fall into place. “That must be where he kept dodging off to during the days. I knew he wasn’t banging some girl in Harlem.” Seeing Langdon’s confused expression, I explained, “Office gossip, nothing to worry about.”

  “Unless his woman is the operative.” Langdon twitched, turning to gaze into his imagination before saying, “You don’t suppose his wife could be the operative?”

  “Margaret Alister?” My mind raced to digest the notion. “But… she’s been here all this time, until just a few days ago. The operative would have been in Australia for a while now. Hey, I wonder if keeping Flynn in custody was a way to keep you in the States so whoever was running this scam could get the job done?”

  Langdon gave that some thought. “J.A.’s got a lot of juice, there’s no getting around it. But does he have that kind of pull that the cops would do his bidding?”

  “If it helped them he might. He’s got a lot of money, could buy a lot of tickets to the Secret Policeman’s Ball.”