Point of Seduction [Sunset Point] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Lori King

  “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so let’s get down to business.”

  Her mind still raced with the events of the past twelve hours. She’d been in police custody since she had run screaming into an LA precinct sometime after midnight. Damn right she had questions, but she waited for fear her thoughts would come out in a jumbled up mess. All she knew was that she’d be going somewhere. That place had yet to be named.

  “Ms. Erikson, I’m sure you already understand that your life is in danger. You’re a witness to a murder committed by a man the FBI has been investigating for some time.”

  “Yes,” she said, and it was the only word she could manage. She had oodles to say in reality, but couldn’t form a coherent thought or sentence.

  “Joe Reicher is under investigation for human trafficking—”

  Lane waved a hand, already figuring out as much. All she wanted to know at that point was where in the hell they were sending her and when she could return to her life? “Skip it. All I want to know right now, at this very instant, is where on God’s green earth you are sending me? I haven’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours. I’ve seen a beautiful young woman dead—”

  Mr. Donaldson interrupted. “I know this isn’t easy for you—”

  “Isn’t easy, you say? You, the man sitting there calmly with a file folder opened up while I’ve had to pack my clothes to go…who in the fuck knows where.” She tossed her hands in the air with irritation. “Well, you, you apparently know. Meanwhile, my life has been upended. It’s going to hell in the blink of an eye, and you say, ‘I know this isn’t easy for you.’ Hell no it isn’t easy! In fact, it sucks and not in a good way!” Her nerves bunched up again and she began getting that nervous leg jiggling twitch she gets when worried. What about her life? What about her career? What about anything that meant anything to her?

  “Ms. Erikson, I don’t mean to sound uncaring, but we have to expedite you away from the area until the investigation is complete.”

  Lane rolled her eyes. “And how long will that be?”

  Mr. Donaldson shrugged. “As with any investigation, there is no set in stone date for completion. The agency has been working on this case for a while. I cannot say with certainty when it will be completed. The important part, right now, is you. We need to keep you safe.”

  “Why?” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Because you care about my life, or because you care since I’m a witness?” She cocked her head to the side and studied him.

  “Both.”

  “Whatever.” She shifted in her chair. “I’m exhausted. I can’t form a logical thought. Every time I blink my eyes I get dizzy. So, tell me, where in the hell are you sending me, and when in the hell can I come home and resume my life?”

  Mr. Donaldson pushed a folder toward her. “Inside is the location. I can’t say with confidence how long you will be there, could be months, years even.”

  She sat upright in a fraction of a second. “What? Are you fucking kidding me? Years?”

  He folded his arms over the desk and stared at her. “Yes, ma’am. This case is large with a huge criminal network—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I don’t care. I have a life here. I’ve got modeling jobs next week!”

  Mr. Donaldson stared at her for a moment. “You will have to cancel.”

  “Can I opt out of this? I don’t want to leave. I didn’t ask for this!”

  “Mr. Erikson, I know you didn’t ask for this, nor does any other person put into witness protection. We will need your testimony in the future, and we think it best if you’re alive to give said testimony. Of course, you can opt out. We can’t force you to take our protection, but the next place you may end up will be in a body bag like the young woman from the club.”

  She swallowed hard. Body bag? Me? I don’t want to die. Would Joe kill me or have someone else do the deed?

  As if reading her thoughts, Mr. Donaldson continued. “Yes, he would. I know what you’re thinking, and I’m telling you, Ms. Erikson, your life is in danger.”

  Lane pulled the folder off the desk and lifted it up where she could focus through her bleary eyes. Blinking, she pulled it closer. Damn, it’s about time to have my eyes checked. “Where is this place?” She caught the name and realized she’d never heard of it. “Sunset Point Island?”

  “It’s a small island located in the Pacific.” He replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “You’re sending me to a small island!” All she could picture was Gilligan’s Island for some reason. She got to watch many reruns as a child. Small huts and no running water without the aid of the professor entered her mind.

  “Ms. Erikson, this is the only place we feel with certainty you will be safe. There are only two ways on or off the island a couple times a day. It is a small place with a hometown feel.”

  “Hometown feel as in we all share the same outhouse?” She’d like to think she’d be going to some posh resort island, like Maui, but since she had never heard of this particular place, doubted it could compare.

  “Ms. Erikson, I think you will be quite pleased after living in LA.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter at this point. Does it? If I accept protection, I have to go where you say. Right?”

  “Yes, that is correct. I mean, I could send you into northern Canada where the snow reaches six to ten feet during a single storm.”

  Lane coughed and shook her head. “No, unknown island with outhouses will do.”

  Mr. Donaldson offered a smile like he knew something she didn’t. Of course he does, she thought, he had the dart and threw it at the map for sport to pick out a place to hide her out. She began to wonder if they did that, just for fun and all. She turned the page while Mr. Donaldson narrated.

  “The next page is your new identity. When you arrive at Sunset Point, you have to become Reece Wyatt. You are from Wichita, Kansas and the Wyatts of the island are your aunt and uncles.”

  Lane looked at the picture of the three people. “But, I don’t know them.”

  “You will. We have been in contact with them and worked out the details. Since the island is very picky about new residents, having relatives on the island will help you in and hopefully to blend in.”

  “What kind of place can pick and choose who moves there?” Seriously? A place could do that? She suspected the place was smaller than Mr. Donaldson led on.

  “Sunset Point can pick and choose new residents. It’s in their charter.”

  The strangest feeling overcame her. She knew she must be dreaming, because she couldn’t make this shit up. A yawn echoed in the room. She was so tired she couldn’t even form a thought. The Skipper began to dance in her head with his goofy hat and grin. Would she be trying to build herself a boat, too, in order to get off of Sunset Point Island?

  Sunset Point

  Breaking Point

  Lexa Fox lost her childhood the day her mother took her and fled Sunset Point. Twenty-three years later, she’s returning to claim her inheritance from a father she barely remembers, in a place she doesn’t belong.

  Detectives Beau Rivers and Diego Mendez grew up in ménage families and always knew they’d be a trio if they could find the right woman. They’d found her once, but fate took her out of their lives long before they were old enough to stake their claim. No woman since has ever managed to live up to their memories of Lexa, so when fate brings their childhood sweetheart back into their lives, they do everything they can to convince their gray-eyed, world-weary beauty to stay.

  There are dangers to be faced and enemies to overcome, but in the end it’s up to her men to show her that some hearts never give up hope, and some loves have no Breaking Point.

  Genre: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 60,693 words

  Chapter 1

  The ferry felt almost empty. There had been only a dozen or two passengers onboard, and Lexa was the only one still lingering outside. The rest of the passengers had eyed her with idle curiosity as th
ey’d left their vehicles and headed indoors, no doubt enjoying the ship’s air -conditioned comforts while they ate and passed the time doing whatever rich people did when they were at sea.

  Occasionally someone would open one of the doors and she’d catch a whiff of something heavenly being cooked in the restaurant, and Lexa’s stomach would start gurgling again, loudly protesting the fact she hadn’t had anything to eat since the previous evening. The motel last night had emptied her bank account, and the ferry ticket had taken the last of her cash, leaving nothing leftover to afford anything more than a vending-machine-brewed coffee for breakfast.

  Lexa just wrapped her arms around herself and willed herself to ignore the hunger. It wasn’t the first time she’d gone hungry in her life. She’d spent most of her childhood teetering on the ragged edge of poverty, and it was a place she never wanted to be again. There’d been good times when there had been food and clothing and a warm place to sleep, but Lexa had spent far too many nights curled up in the backseat of her mom’s little hatchback, hungry and cold.

  All that was going to change now. She was the new owner of Dolphin Bay Marina, and after a lifetime of barely getting by, Lexa was now a rich woman, at least on paper. A gift from Chris Fox, her father, a man she barely remembered and hadn’t seen or heard from since she was eight years old. There’d been a time she would have given anything to have him in her life, or better yet to swoop in and carry her back home to Sunset Point, where life had been warm and full of laughter and safety. She used to dream he’d come for her, but that dream had died a long time ago, and now it could never happen. Her father was dead and gone, and now that it was too late, he’d finally found a way to bring her home.

  Lexa dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of one hand. No crying. Crying is for weaklings and I am not weak, she scolded herself. She flicked the tears into the blue-green waters of the Atlantic Ocean and gave herself a mental shake. I already look totally out of place here. If I add in blotchy cheeks and red eyes, they’re likely to send me right back to the mainland before I contaminate their exclusive little community.

  As if her thoughts had summoned it out of the ocean depths, the island of Sunset Point shimmered into view. Lexa stared, suddenly feeling a yearning she hadn’t felt in a very long time, the longing to come home. The warm breeze on her face and the tang of salt in the air sang to her heart and whispered to her that no matter what her head was saying, this had been her home all along.

  I don’t have a home, she reminded herself and then swore as she realized she was standing outside in the blazing Southern sun without a scrap of sunscreen on. She was so fair skinned, she was only a shade or two up from zombie, and Lexa knew that if she didn’t slather on some sunblock right away she was going to look like a parboiled lobster by the time they docked.

  She fished around in her oversized purse until she found the travel-sized bottle and coated her arms, face, the back of her neck, and even her ears with a liberal amount. The faint scent of coconut stirred memories she’d long buried, and she found herself leaning against the railing, straining to see the details of an island she’d not seen in more than twenty years.

  “Welcome back to the island of sin, sex, and wickedness,” she whispered under her breath, using her mother’s favorite phrase to describe Sunset Point and its inhabitants. “I wonder if it’s the same as it was back then. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  On the way to the ferry terminal they passed the marina, and Lexa drank in every detail. There was her house sitting on a small rise overlooking the expanse of docks, boats, and blue water. The docks themselves looked familiar, but that was all she felt, a feeling of familiarity and a few fleeting images. The memories she knew she must have of this place refused to surface from whatever part of her mind they’d been safely buried.

  Once they were tied up, she picked up her few belongings and joined the other walk-on passengers as they were herded down the ramp and onto the dock. Large signs pointed the way to the parking lot and points beyond, and Lexa followed the directions as she headed up the dock and onto dry land. She was still on American soil, but her father’s lawyer had warned her that things here were a little different.

  “Closely guarded for the sake of the residents’ privacy” had been his exact words, and Lexa was starting to think that was something of an understatement. There were security cameras strategically placed around the dock area, and she saw two uniformed security guards watching over things. It seemed like overkill considering that there hadn’t been more than thirty passengers on the entire ferry, and that included the noisy, sticky fingered munchkins she’d seen bouncing from window to window.

  She hefted her single, battered suitcase in one hand, tossed her long, black ponytail back over her shoulder, and kept walking. The lawyer had said he’d meet her at the parking lot, which was a good thing since Lexa had had to sell her car to scrape up the money for the flight from Reno. This was it, her last big shot at making a life for herself. If things didn’t break her way this time, Lexa was going to be buried under the tidal wave of her mother’s medical bills and bad debts.

  “Alexandra Fox? Excuse me, are you Miss Alexandra Fox?” The question pulled her out of her thoughts and back to the present.

  “That’s me,” she said and looked up to find herself facing her past squarely in the eye. Memories of ice cream and swing-sets and laughter flashed through her head and it was a moment before she could find her voice as the first flashes of her past suddenly reemerged. “Uncle Sam?” Her voice cracked as she looked up into a face she’d forgotten until this moment.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d even remember me.” The older man smiled and Lexa could have sworn he looked like he was going to cry for a second. “You look just like your mother.”

  “I didn’t remember you, not until I saw you. But you were friends of my parents, I remember you used to take me for ice cream sometimes.”

  “Strawberry ripple,” he said and grinned, the smile making him look years younger and bringing back more memories of him. “You do remember.”

  “So you’re my father’s lawyer? Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” The man she’d called Uncle Sam wasn’t really her uncle, but she did remember he’d been like part of the family. It was disturbing to realize just how much of her past she’d buried and forgotten.

  “I said I was a friend of your father’s, but when you didn’t react to my name I knew you didn’t remember me. You were so young when your mother took you from us.” He paused. “I mean when your mother took you away from Chris. I thought it would be easier to tell you everything face-to-face.” He nodded to her suitcase. “I’ll carry that over to my car and we can go straight to your dad’s place. I’ve had a maid service in to get it all cleaned up for you.”

  Lexa winced. “I hope they weren’t too expensive, I’m a little low on funds for a maid right now.”

  Sam leaned back and she felt him taking a good, long look at her, from the tips of her worn-out sneakers to the dollar store sunglasses resting on top of her head. “I’ll bill it to the estate, not to worry,” he said in a comforting tone. “I had the kitchen restocked, too, so you should have plenty to eat for a few days before you need to hit a grocery store.”

  At the mention of food, Lexa’s stomach rumbled and she blushed. “Sorry, I skipped breakfast.”

  “Then let’s get you home and settled. I was going to go over the paperwork today, but I’d say you’re more in need of food and rest than to listen to an old lawyer natter on in legalese when it’s clear you’re travel weary. If you come by the office tomorrow I’ll walk you through all the hoops, and then I think you and I should talk about…well, anything you want to know.” Sam cleared his throat and gave her a wistful smile. “You’ve been gone a long time. There’s things you should know, and a whole lifetime I want to catch up on.”

  Lexa just nodded, grateful that Sam didn’t seem to be judging her. She’d learned a long time ago that too many people in the w
orld would have taken one look at her and dismissed her as being beneath their notice. As a bartender at a busy casino back in Reno, she’d been damned near invisible to the people she served. Unless there was a problem of course, then they were quick to point fingers and accuse her of being incompetent or worse, and those had been mostly ordinary people, tourists, and gamblers.

  As Lexa looked around her at the beautiful, and clearly wealthy, people that called Sunset Point home, she couldn’t help but feel like she was the only stray at the dog show, and any minute now someone was going to come along and tell her she didn’t belong here.

  Sam took her suitcase and then glanced back at her. “Travelling light?”

  Lexa decided to be honest and answered, “Living light. I’ve never really stayed too long in one place, not since Mom and I headed out on our own. I guess I have more in common with my mom than just looks. I seem to have inherited her itchy feet too.”

  Sam started walking, leading the way toward a vintage Jaguar convertible, and as he set her suitcase in the back he gave her a thoughtful look. “I hope your feet stop itching now that you’re here, Lexa. Chris always hoped you’d find your way home one day. He left you everything, the house, the marina, the rental business. He never managed to find you or your mother, but he never stopped trying. It was his dying wish that I keep looking for you. He made me promise to bring you back here one day.”

  Lexa froze, her heart hammering against her ribs as a strange buzzing sound filled her ears. That couldn’t be right. If he’d been looking for her all this time, surely he’d have found her before now, after all it had only taken Sam eight months to track her down.

  “I’m not staying,” she declared and got into Sam’s car when he opened the door for her. The moment he shut it, she folded her arms across her chest and repeated what she’d just said. “I’m not going to stay here any longer than I have to. I intend to sell the business and the house and then go back to the mainland. I have financial obligations I need to see to, and this isn’t my home anymore.”