by Lexi Blake
“She’s in the guest suite. Don’t piss her off.”
Hatch sat up. “Since when do I piss off lovely ladies?” He ran a hand across his hair, slicking it back. “I assume this means she signed the contract.”
“She did.” And he would have a short amount of time to discuss how their “relationship” was going to work. “And she’s already found proof that the body we buried wasn’t my mother’s.”
Even in the low light he could see the way Hatch paled. “It could still be a mistake.”
Drew tried not to roll his eyes. “So the fact that Carly perfectly described Iris to the police sketch artist was coincidence?”
Hatch stood, his body practically vibrating with irritation. “Maybe. She admitted it was dark in the room and she’d just seen her lover shot. Carly saw that portrait Patricia kept in her office. Maybe that was where her mind went. And why would she describe Iris looking so young? The woman in that picture was at least fifteen years younger than Iris would be.”
The very thought of that portrait threatened to send a shudder through him. They’d discovered a portrait of their mother the night Bran had broken into Patricia Cain’s private office looking for the files that would prove the lifestyle maven had a hand in killing their parents. The portrait had been an eerie presence in the room.
A weariness stole over Drew and he wished he was still sitting with Shelby in his office. Or in the booth at the Italian hole-in-the-wall he’d taken her to afterward. She’d run down her investigative methods and how she’d started reporting. He’d pointedly not talked about his parents’ case because he wanted to know about her. He knew it all already, but it was different hearing the history from her instead of reading it off a computer file. Her eyes lit up when she talked about her work. She was passionate. She was engaging.
She’d made him laugh.
He should have stayed there with her. “Carly didn’t see that portrait, Hatch. Bran was the only one who went in that room. Carly stayed outside.”
“I forgot about that,” Hatch admitted. “But it still doesn’t explain why Iris looked so damn young.”
Drew called on every ounce of patience he had. This was Hatch, and he’d had a thing for Iris. Drew had figured it out a long time ago. When he’d shown up on Hatch’s doorstep, the place had been a testament to how far the man had fallen. He’d gone from millions to a filthy motel he paid for by the week. Drew had found him drunk and on the path to a very early meeting with his maker. He’d also found a single photograph. It had been a picture of Iris Lawless in all her glory. She’d been wearing a cocktail dress and smiling at whoever held the camera like she was waiting to eat him up.
“Botox and good plastic surgery explain why she hasn’t aged.” And evil. He wouldn’t put it past the woman to make a deal with the devil. In exchange for eternal youth, I, Iris Lawless, will eat my own children. “You know she was always vain.”
“She liked to look good. She was a beautiful woman,” Hatch said, his voice flat.
“I understand you cared about her.” He didn’t want to listen to Hatch weep over his lost love. “But you do understand she had an affair with Patricia. It likely began long before she murdered my father and Francine.”
“Yeah, I get that. Don’t think I’m still in love with the woman.”
But Drew had to wonder. “You knew about Francine. Do you know when it started? Obviously my mother found out about it. I would assume that’s why she chose Francine to take her place.”
Hatch crossed to the bar. “Sometimes I think I don’t know anything.”
He didn’t need Hatch’s guilt. He needed his knowledge. “When did my father tell you about Francine?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I have to.”
“I found out when he asked me if I knew any good divorce lawyers.”
That felt like a kick in the gut. “He was going to leave us?”
Hatch put down the bottle. “Never.” He strode toward Drew. “Don’t you think that for a second. Your father would never have left you. He wanted the best lawyer because he wanted full custody of you and your siblings.”
“How long had the affair been going on?”
“About a year.” Hatch sighed and seemed to resign himself to talking. “They’d been working together for a little longer than that. Francine was what I like to call a naive idiot.”
“Yeah, well, so was my father.”
“He viewed the world differently. Ellie reminds me a lot of him.”
Because Ellie was concerned with more than money or power. She wanted to change her employees’ lives, to make them better. His father had wanted to make the whole world a better place. It was precisely why he’d been killed. He’d invented a way to make the Internet more accessible back when it was in its infancy, but he’d chosen not to sell the technology. He’d wanted to make it free. After his death the board of the company his father had helped create took his stock and divided it among themselves, and then sold the company and the technology for millions of dollars.
And Drew and his three siblings had been placed in foster homes because they had no one in the world left to care for them.
Drew tried to shake off that morbid feeling he got whenever he thought about those years. “Yes, Ellie is a lot like our father with the single exception that she’s got several people in her life who never let anyone take advantage of her.”
“I know I failed your father. I think about it every single fucking day of my life.” He headed right back to the bar. It was Hatch’s happy place.
There was nothing at all happy about this conversation. “I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t blaming you. You couldn’t have known.”
“I fucking should have.”
“When he asked you about the lawyer, did he tell you why he’d had the affair? I have to ask, because in my head my parents were happy. They never fought in front of us.”
“Benedict would tell me that they fought, but I never believed him. Iris always seemed so gentle. Now I understand that was all an act. She was excellent at adapting herself to someone else’s needs.”
Drew knew the reason for that. “I believe sociopaths are good at reading people and can be quite chameleon-like. I remember her being a good mother. With the exception of not wanting to mess up her hair, she was excellent at taking care of us.”
“She wanted everyone to acknowledge how perfect she was,” Hatch agreed.
“What did my parents fight about?”
“Mostly she accused him of ruining her career by getting her pregnant, but you should understand that Bran and Mia were born because she was trying to hold on to him. The affair with Francine was the first time I know he cheated, but it wasn’t the first time he’d talked about divorce.”
The hits kept on coming. “So they talked about splitting after Riley was born?”
“I think that was a hard time for them both. We weren’t working together then so I’m not entirely sure what happened, but Benedict told me that they had agreed to divorce at one point and then Iris got pregnant with Bran.”
“That would be around the time the company was formed. You brought Dad on.”
Hatch nodded. “Yeah, your mom was good at picking a winner. Well, at picking someone who could potentially make a lot of money. She always talked about how rich your dad could be if he would only concentrate on what was really important.”
“And when he wouldn’t, she got rid of him.”
“I suppose so.”
“Why were you attracted to her?”
“She was beautiful.” Hatch took a long slug of bourbon. “And I was jealous of your father in some ways. I don’t know. I guess in some ways I wanted to be your father. He was a better man than I was.”
“You didn’t know about the affair with Patricia?”
A shudder went through Hatch. “God no. I honestl
y didn’t know about it until we found that portrait, but now a lot of things make sense. At the end she was spending time with Patricia. They were talking about starting a company that ended up being Cain Corp.”
“I always found it ironic that Patricia managed to take my mother . . . Iris’s ideas and work them into her own company. I recognized some of the recipes from Patricia’s first cookbook. There was a woman who ran the group home Riley and I were in who was a dedicated baker. I must have gained ten pounds while she was there. She loved Patricia Cain. Claimed she’d never found a recipe quite like her snickerdoodle one.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that, too. Her recipe books were supposedly lost in the fire. I suspected Patty had borrowed them or something. Now we know that Iris took them with her,” Hatch explained. “I always wondered how the assassin got past the alarm. Your father had a high-tech system. The police obviously thought what Iris wanted them to think so they didn’t question it, but your father was habitual. He always set the alarm when everyone was in the house. It would have been on that night. Iris either turned it off herself or she gave the assassin the code.”
“Shelby figured out who the assassin was.” It had taken McKay-Taggart weeks to figure that out, and they had tons of CIA contacts.
“She’s a smart girl.” Hatch sighed. “Though not smart enough if she signed that contract. Did she even read it?”
He would never admit it, but he’d kind of held his breath when she’d had that contract in her hand. It was all laid out. What he intended to do was all there in the contract. It wouldn’t be fair if it hadn’t been. “No. Not all of it. I’m sure she thought she got the gist, but there’s zero probability that she knows what that contract really says and what it means. She would never have signed it otherwise.”
“Well, that was a smart play. Make the contract so long and drawn out that she can’t possibly read the whole thing, then dangle the one thing she wants in front of her and give her very little time to choose. Tell me why you really insisted on the girlfriend clause.”
“I need her to work closely with me. I need her at 4L and you know how employees gossip. Now they can gossip about my affair with Shelby and won’t look past that to figure out why she’s really there.”
Hatch’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve been honest with you all night long. I think you owe me a little.”
“Fine. I think if I can get her into bed, she’s more likely to obey me when the time comes. She’ll feel closer to me, and that might be what makes the difference if Iris figures out I haven’t stopped investigating.”
“Or she’ll be so crazy about you she’ll do anything you tell her. Is that what you’re saying? You want to ensure that she has to stay close to you to protect your cover, and you think that will lead her to sleep with you.”
“I never said I wasn’t attracted to her.” He wasn’t sure where Hatch was going with this line of questioning, but he didn’t appreciate the way it was making him feel.
“But you still intend to use her.”
His hands fisted at his sides. “Tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing. I can’t allow that woman to stay out there. She’s safe and happy and we spent years in hell. My father died because she decided she wanted some cash.”
“Oh, Drew, you misunderstand me. I’m not blaming you for wanting revenge on your mama. She started this war, and she’s had far too many years of peace as it is. I’m simply worried that if something happens to Shelby, you’ll never recover.”
“I’ll make sure nothing happens. Once I figure out where Iris is, Shelby will be out of the equation.” He would send her somewhere safe and deal with the situation himself. He would invoke that nasty clause she’d missed and she would be out of his way.
“You truly think you can control that one?” For the first time in weeks, an amused grin pulled Hatch’s lips up. “That might be fun to watch.” Hatch nodded toward the stairs. “I think I’ll go to bed. I’m going to back off and let you do what you need to. But if it comes down to it, do you really think you can?”
“Can what?”
“Kill Iris? It’s the only solution I can see. I can’t see you exposing her. It would hurt the family too much. So I have to assume you’re going into this with plans to murder your mother.”
He felt his jaw tighten. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. I need to find her first.”
Hatch’s head shook slightly. “Now that’s the second time you’ve lied to me tonight. Sleep well, Drew. Tomorrow’s another day to plot.”
He watched as Hatch walked out.
Drew had always been compared to his father, but he was suddenly afraid he was a bit like his mother, too. It was not a thought that sat well.
He strode into his office. There would be no sleep for him tonight.
Chapter Three
Shelby sat back in her chair, the scent of cinnamon hanging in the air. She’d been asked via text to join Drew in the kitchen. The polite invitation had been waiting on her phone after her shower. She’d hustled and gotten herself ready, certain that she would be ushered into some lavish, servant-heavy meal. There had been a gorgeous buffet laid out, but only two places set and absolutely no sign of staff. “Is Mr. Hatchard not joining us?”
Drew sat down across from her, his plate covered with eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls Shelby was almost certain hadn’t come out of a can and been heated up. Someone had spent time on those beauties. “Hatch doesn’t believe in mornings. We’ll go to the office without him and he’ll roll in some time this afternoon.”
“Where is your chef?”
Drew reached out and picked up the carafe in front of him, pouring coffee into her cup. “Evelyn is taking the rest of the day off to spend with her grandchildren. We’ll have lunch at the office and then we’ve got reservations for this evening.”
“The cinnamon rolls look delicious. But seriously, you don’t have to make a big show for me. I can get by on a protein bar and some coffee.”
“I’m afraid we kind of make a big show of all meals in my family. You’ll find we like to sit down and eat together. I hope you’ll join me for meals while you’re here.”
Because she was supposed to be his girlfriend. “I’ve been thinking about that. I suppose we’re going to be seeing Carly and Bran while we’re in Dallas next week.”
She had one week to get comfortable around Drew. One week to figure out if she could actually sell this cover to his family.
“It would seem odd if I didn’t pay them a visit. Bran knows I have a meeting with Taggart scheduled. We’ll be in Dallas for two days. Dinner with Bran and Carly and Mia and Case has already been planned.”
“Exactly. And you don’t want to raise a bunch of questions. So I was thinking it might be smarter for me to get my own hotel room. I can lie low and they don’t have to know I’m in town.” She’d sat up for a good portion of the night doing two things: thinking about how much she’d wanted to kiss Drew Lawless and then freaking out about it because that was a bad idea. Beware of billionaires with six-pack abs. It was her new mantra. Yes, she’d signed the contract last night, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t reason with her new . . . boss . . . partner . . . whatever he was.
“I told Bran you’re coming with me.”
This was exactly what she’d worried about. “You told him? I thought I would have more time. How am I going to explain this to Carly? I think she’ll wonder why one of her closest friends didn’t mention she was dating her brother-in-law.”
“I’ve already explained it. We wanted to make sure it was real before we went public. It’s that simple. We met in Los Angeles. I contacted you. We went on a few dates and we’ve been talking a lot. You’ve come out to Austin because we’re contemplating moving in together. This is a trial run,” he said calmly, as though he hadn’t upended her entire life. “Also, I asked Bran not to mention it to Carly because you would rather tell h
er yourself. It was a safe bet Bran wouldn’t ask too many questions, but Carly will want to know everything. It’s why we need to get our stories straight.”
She focused on the words that messed with her life. “Moving in together? You told them we’re thinking of moving in together?”
“How else was I supposed to explain it when all your belongings arrive here?”
“What?” She winced because the words had come out in a screech.
“I’m having your things packed up as we speak. They’ll be here in a few days.”
“Why the hell would you do that?” How was she going to get everything back to LA?
Drew relaxed again as though he’d already gone over this argument in his mind and knew he would win. “I wanted you to be comfortable. This is going to be a full-time job, and not a quick one. I suspect we’ll have to keep up our ruse for at least six months. Potentially a year. Also, that apartment you were living in was incredibly dangerous. Did you know it was recently condemned? The movers told me about it when they explained they were charging me extra for how fast they had to move. It’s scheduled to be demolished in two weeks.”
“What?” She stared at him. He expected her to live with him for six months to a year? Somewhere in the back of her head she’d been thinking a week or two tops, and then she’d go back to LA and work from there. Her apartment building was shitty and she was fairly certain someone cooked meth in part of it, but it was all she could afford. And it was solidly built. There had been no hint that anyone was planning on building in her part of LA. Gentrification had not reared its upscale, hipster head yet, so that left her with one very manipulative bastard. “Tell me you did not buy my apartment building and schedule it for demolition in an attempt to leave me with nowhere to go.”
He managed to look almost angelic in the soft light of morning. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He couldn’t have done it. Of course, if anyone could, it was the man in front of her. He could move mountains when he wanted something. One small building in a bad part of town would be absolutely nothing to a man like him. He could pick it up for less than his Maserati and voilà, instant move-in fake girlfriend, because it wasn’t like she had a home to go back to. And she wasn’t the only one. “You know, Mrs. Harper was a nice lady. She’s raising her grandson. I don’t care about the other two. They’re asshole criminals, but she was a nice lady and she doesn’t have the money to find another place.”