Taking Control (Kerr Chronicles #2)

by Jen Frederick

  “I haven’t asked because her mother died, and I didn’t want her looking back later thinking I’d proposed because she was in a bad state emotionally. And before . . .” I stretch out my legs, “before she was busy resisting my obvious charms and would have said no just to spite me.”

  “Sounds like you two have a healthy relationship,” Gabe observes.

  “Given that all you assholes are single except for Steve, you haven’t the first clue what a healthy relationship is.”

  “Oh, we know. We’re just incapable of being in one,” Jake retorts.

  “Speak for yourself,” Kaga interjects.

  He and Jake stare at each other for a long time before Jake says softly, “Sorry, old man, but I know you too well. We’ve shared too many experiences. You’re a good man, but you’re not for her.”

  Kaga tightens his fists and takes a step toward Jake. We all tense, preparing for a fight. It’s a showdown that’s been a long time coming, but with visible effort, he loosens his fists and dips his head slightly. “If you say so, Jake.” With that, Kaga turns and leaves, abandoning us in his own office. The tension is thick enough to choke on.

  “Ready?” I ask Steve. He nods. As we exit, I turn back to Jake. “You’re going to regret keeping them apart for so long. There’s no one more decent than Kaga. He’d do right by your sister.”

  Jake’s mouth tightens, but he says nothing.

  “Where to?” Steve asks as we climb into the Bentley.

  “Office. I’ll change there.”

  “What will you do about Howe?”

  “It’s time to ratchet up the pressure, not just in his social life.”

  Despite the appearance of Mitch Hedder, the attack was most likely orchestrated by Richard in response to the first round of pressure. If he was behind the assault, though, it meant direct and swift action must be taken. Not just for my sake but for Tiny’s.

  In the office, changed and prepared for a full day of analyst reviews and meetings, I call Tiny to give her the rundown on what happened this morning.

  “He wouldn’t talk. We’re letting him stew for a few more hours and then releasing him. Jake’s got a guy who’ll follow him for a couple of days.”

  “You didn’t hit him or anything?”

  “No, Tiny, I did not. You’ll be happy to hear my lawyer was there, so I was extra circumspect.”

  She sighs with relief. “I just don’t want you hurt. Your eye looked terrible this morning. What will you tell people?”

  “That I didn’t duck quickly enough at the gym during a sparring session.”

  “You spar?”

  “A little, although not as much as I have in the past. I had my share of fighting when I was young and dumb. I prefer to fight in a suit with a lot of cash. It’s less painful and a lot more rewarding. Plus, if you get beat up, it’s hard to make love to your girlfriend.”

  “Really? Because you had no problems last night,” she said.

  “Keep talking like that and we’re going to have lunch early.”

  “Speaking of lunch, I’m going to cancel on you. Sarah called.”

  I shouldn’t begrudge the time she spends trying to repair past relationships. I shouldn’t, but I do. I take a moment so my next words to her show no evidence of my true feelings. “That’s fine. I’ll see you at home tonight.”

  “Love you, Ian,” she says. And then I hear a door slam. “Hi, Jake.” A grunt of a response and then another door slam.

  “Wow, he’s a bear this morning.”

  Undoubtedly. “Take an early lunch today. Stay out of his hair.”

  “What’s this about?” she asks suspiciously.

  “Nothing to do with you or me. He and Kaga had an argument this morning.”

  “Okay. Love you,” she repeats.

  “Love you too.”

  My next call is to Jake. “We’re letting him out at eleven.”

  “I’ll have a man over there fifteen minutes prior.”

  “Just have him observe and deliver the usual. Name, occupation, associates. We should be able to figure out who his brother is.”

  “You think it’s Howe?” he asks.

  “I do. I called him a few days ago and told him that it was time for him to go.”

  “You did?” He sounds surprised but pleased. “It’s a good time. Out with the garbage before you start something new. Of course, you had to enjoy knowing you could crush him at any time. I can see why you’ve waited. I’ll report back on the details of our friend.”

  He hangs up, but I’m left staring at the phone. You had to enjoy knowing you could crush him at any time.

  Shoving away from my desk, I walk to the plate-glass windows overlooking the downtown harbor. Had I let Richard go all this time because I liked the idea that his continued existence could be snuffed out at any time with a mere phone call? Perhaps. Perhaps knowing I could make him suffer was perversely satisfying in its own way, and I used Cecilia to justify it.

  Did I really care about Cecilia and her purported good deeds? Not particularly. I did enjoy knowing that I controlled Richard’s future, though.

  But now I want him gone. Tiny is the most important thing in my world. More important than revenge and retribution. Those things will only hold me back—or worse, they’ll endanger the fragile future Tiny and I are building together.

  Meeting Tiny, falling in love with her, I’ve realized that I’d rather look forward than backward. I’d rather live for tomorrow than wallow in the regret and pain of yesterday. It’s the mantra I’ve been preaching to her regularly. Her mother would want her to be happy. Her mother would want her to move on. If I expect Tiny to look ahead, then I need to as well.

  It’s hard. Very hard. But I’m no longer alone.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jake returns later that day with information on my assailants. The Ludwiczak brothers were small-time criminals with rap sheets as long as my forearm. They’d been involved in everything from burglary to assaults. Both brothers had served time, but they’d been out for a couple of years. It appeared that they were offering their services as paid muscle, which Jake said could move them back into the Hedder column, but Richard is the mostly likely candidate.

  The following day we take the Hedders to the gravesite in Flushing. Tiny’s father had originally been buried on the west side, but there wasn’t any space for her mother and father to be laid to rest together. With Tiny’s consent, I had her father moved to a new plot, where Sophie and Sandro Corielli would rest side by side.

  I hire a car to transport the Hedders, and Tiny and I follow in the Bentley.

  The last trip we made out to the cemetery was not together. Tiny had gotten on her bike and ridden for miles, faster and faster until her feet were nearly bloody. She’d finally collapsed on the grass at the cemetery, drained of energy.

  Fear had struck me hard that day. I’d followed her as best I could in the car, but she took turns that I couldn’t and often I guessed wrong, having to backtrack and then reroute.

  I thought maybe I’d lose her in those first weeks after her mother’s death. She was emotionally gone.

  It was a risk, but I took her out to the Long Island estate and told her that I loved her and wanted to spend every one of my future days with her.

  She came back to me that day, but I still feel like she’s unsure about her place in my life. And I’m helpless to fix it.

  The tension in the car thickens with each passing block.

  “You think I’m weak, don’t you,” she says.

  The color in her face is washed away, and her lips are pressed thin and tight. I don’t know if she’s angry or sad. Likely both.

  “Never. Not once,” I answer.

  “Then you think I’m stupid to come here with Mitch. I know he’s scum. You think I shouldn’t give in to him, pay him any attention.”


  She’s trying to pick a fight with me. I press the privacy console. Steve doesn’t need to hear this.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re too generous with your forgiveness and affection. I’m afraid that he’s going to take advantage of that.”

  “I’m just trying to do what I think Mom would want.” Her voice is aggressive, and her chin juts out in challenge. “I can’t do what you think I should do all the time. It makes me feel like a toy. I hate feeling like I’m an Ian Kerr accessory piece. Maybe not one that Frank would have picked out, but a knockoff that you’d find on Canal Street.”

  I stare with incredulous disappointment, not sure where her insecurity is coming from.

  Tiny leans her head against the window and sighs heavily. “I’m sorry. I just miss her.”

  Compassion eats away at anger. “I know you do.”

  Leaning across the expanse of leather, I run my hand over her shoulder and down her arm, trying to impart some comfort and love. Her whole world changed recently, I remind myself. The adjustment might take some time. I need to be patient.

  “Will I ever stop missing her?”

  I think back to the near knee-buckling grief I felt after my parents died. “No,” I admit softly. “But it’s less painful every day, every year.”

  She peels away from the window and crawls into my lap. The wound from the loss of her mother is stark in her eyes.

  If I could, I’d suck all her pain out like poison from a wound. I tuck her head under my chin and hold her, hoping my embrace conveys what I’m not always good at expressing verbally. That I love her. That she’s my everything. That we can endure anything so long as we’re together.

  We walk to the grave together. Mitch is already there, pretending to weep, blowing loudly into a handkerchief. Malcolm is rocking back on his heels, his hands shoved into his pants pockets. His suit must have been retrieved from the floor of his closet, given its rumpled state.

  Beside me, Tiny’s hands clench and unclench as she stares at the headstone, but it’s Malcolm who looks as if he’s the most uncomfortable person present. I stare at him from behind my sunglasses but his attention is fixed on Tiny—and for a small moment, a naked longing is revealed. The look is intense and anguished and so swift that if I hadn’t been staring, I never would have caught it.

  I glance at Tiny to see if she sees his very nonfraternal feelings toward her, but her eyes are fastened on the headstone. Her jaw is tight as she tries not to lose it in front of the Hedders. Her unspoken desire to remain calm is what keeps me from reaching for her.

  Malcolm’s feelings for Tiny put another wrinkle in the situation. He definitely could be the one behind my assault, if for no other reason than the reality that I’m the one making love to Tiny every night. It must be killing him. Before me, Tiny had had one boyfriend and a few hookups, as she’d described them. None of them were serious enough to have prompted a reaction from Malcolm. From what she told me, her one dating relationship had ended because her ex liked to sleep around.

  After Mitch places a few flowers on the headstone, he comes over to embrace Tiny. She flinches at the touch, and I place my hand on her elbow to reassure her. She braces herself and pats Mitch gingerly on his back. Malcolm’s gaze tracks Tiny’s every movement. It’s unnerving.

  At least my presence is a sufficient deterrent to keep both Hedders from enacting some kind of con at the gravesite.

  “Thank you so much for bringing me, Tiny,” Mitch says. I grit my teeth at hearing her nickname come out of his mouth. It was her mother’s name for her, and it doesn’t sit right with me that he’s using it.

  “You can thank me by telling me what you have of Sophie’s.” Her voice cracks at her mother’s name, but her stare at Mitch is unwavering.

  “Let’s go back to The Plaza. We can sit down and—”

  “No,” Tiny interrupts. “I want to know what you have of hers. I had dinner with you. I brought you here to pay your respects, and now you tell me what you have of my mother’s.”

  “Your mother would have wanted us to be friends,” Mitch replies.

  “Bullshit.” Tiny responds. I stifle a laugh at Mitch’s shocked expression. “Bull-fucking-shit. You don’t have the first clue what Sophie wanted—not when you were married and not now. I’m going to assume that this is some long con you’re running to get money out of Ian, and you don’t have shit of my mother’s. You’re a snake, Mitch Hedder—a disgusting vile snake to use my mom’s death to make a play for cash or whatever it is you think you can get out of me or Ian. I’m done.”

  She grabs my hand and tugs me toward Steve and our idling car. Behind me I can hear Mitch scrambling to follow us.

  “You have it all wrong, Tiny. Your mother left me. I still loved her.”

  If steam could come out of a person’s ears, I would be seeing it right now. Tiny’s face is a thundercloud of anger. She whirls and advances on Mitch. He takes a step backward and loses his footing. We all watch as his arms pinwheel futilely in the air to gain balance. He fails and falls backward, nearly striking his head on a granite headstone.

  “Go, just go,” Malcolm waves us off. With resignation, he helps his father off the ground. “He won’t bother you. If he has something of Sophie’s, I’ll get it for you.”

  “Thank you,” Tiny says.

  As she turns away, Malcolm calls out, “If you need anything, I’m here for you.”

  She looks over her shoulder with a bemused look, probably remembering exactly why Malcolm sent her my way in the first place. She had fond feelings for him at one time. I suspect that they’ve cooled dramatically. “I have Ian now.”

  Those words make me want to pick her up and howl at the moon with satisfaction. I content myself with simply holding her hand.

  “Should we go home?” I ask once we’re in the car.

  “I’d like to go back to work,” she admits. “If I go home, I’m afraid I’ll brood. I’m in one of those moods where I want to put on melodramatic music and cry for hours.” At my wince, she laughs. “Even you don’t want that.”

  “I feel like I could distract you.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but you should save up your energy for tonight. I’ll be ready then.” She leans forward and gives me a quick kiss.

  When I get to my office, Louis is waiting for me.

  “Kaga OK’d the SunCorp management. Let’s do some more due diligence about margins and ROI, and we’ll make a decision next week.” He nearly claps with glee.

  At my desk, I flick through my contacts, pausing at the interior decorator that worked with me on the warehouse remodel. After a short hesitation, I delete her card. I slept with her during that remodel, and I don’t want Tiny to be the subject of any snide commentary if the decorator is miffed she’s not invited to stay the night.

  Frank can give me a referral. I need to call him anyway to have his assistant pick out a dress for Tiny for a fundraising event at the Frick in a couple of weeks.

  “Ian Kerr!” Frank sounds unusually upbeat. “How are all the clothes for your new friend working out?”

  “I hope no one from your office is in touch with the Observer.”

  Frank gasps. “We’d never break a confidence!”

  “I hope not. I wouldn’t want to stop working with you.”

  “As if you could,” Frank chides. “I’ve dressed you for over a decade.”

  “Longer, I think. I’m actually calling about two things. First, I need a recommendation for an interior decorator. The exterior is Northern European, but the interior can be anything other than modern. Tiny complained to me that the warehouse is soulless.”

  “I have just the person. She’s worked all over the Hamptons.”

  “I’m not looking for beachy, Frank.”

  “No, no,” he reassures me. “She’s definitely classy.”

 
“Make sure you tell her that I’m happily attached to the woman who will be directing her efforts. If she can’t operate under that premise, I’ll work with someone else.”

  Frank pauses and says hesitantly, “I’ve never had a problem with her.”

  “You’re gay. Why would you?”

  “I’m still hot. The ladies still want me and mourn constantly that I play for the other team. I’d be swimming in pussy if I were straight, I tell you.”

  “Fair enough. Straight men all over the city rejoice that you are kind enough to vacate the field for them.”

  “I’m a very generous person. What’s the other thing?”

  “Get me samples of some bolder fabric patterns for suits. Order a yard of each.” Tiny has been gravitating toward the more fashion forward suits in my closet. I haven’t decided whether she thinks it’s a dare or whether she really likes them, but hell, if it’s a game she enjoys playing then I figure she needs the pieces for the board. I don’t care if I walk up Fifth Avenue in my underwear if that’s what Tiny wants. A loud plaid suit? Maybe we’d start a new trend.

  “He hates doing big swatches,” Frank warns. “He” is the Savile Row tailor who makes all my suits.

  “I fucking hate those tiny swatches. They’re so small that I can’t get a sense of what anything is going to look like.”

  “He thinks it’s a waste.”

  “Tell him to sew some dolls and sell them on eBay. Also, I’m taking Tiny to the Frick Ball in a couple of weeks. It’s her favorite museum. She’ll need a dress.”

  “A couple of weeks?” he shouts.

  I pull the phone away from my ear as he sputters loudly for a minute about how women plan for months for this event, maybe even years, and how I’m a cretin with a bigger wallet than my fashion sense. “You have two weeks, Frank,” I state firmly and then hang up the phone.

  The Frick Gentlemen’s Ball is an annual charity event that benefits the museum’s art reference library. Tiny’s mother loved The Frick Collection, and they went there together frequently. It was, in fact, the last outing they shared before Sophie passed away. I hadn’t told Tiny about the event yet—it had been a busy few weeks—but I’d tell her tonight that I’d made a sizable donation in Sophie’s name.