by Nic Saint
“You don’t know the first thing about me,” she shot back.
“That’s right. I don’t. All I know is that you’re mine now, and I need to decide what to do with you.”
He’d walked around the table and was now towering over her, intimating her with his bulk. She swallowed, wondering what the hell he was up to. “If you have to know, I live in this tiny apartment in Brooklyn that I share with an aspiring model. Ta—Tatiana’s practically never home, and she doesn’t eat either—“ She tried to laugh, but it came out all strangled and forced. “She’s a model, you see. She—she doesn’t eat, so I’m always cooking for one—mostly pizza or ramen noodles, and—“
Her voice trailed off as he planted his hands on her shoulders. “I can see you now, Kelley,” he whispered against her ear. “You being fucked in the ass by a dozen hobos in that squat you call home. All bearded hippies taking turns to fuck you in every hole.”
His words sent shivers of anticipation coursing through her veins.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? All those revolutionary buddies of yours taking turns? You have a special friend, perhaps? One you like more than the others?”
She was surprised to hear the note of jealousy in his voice, and she turned on him. “And what if I have? What is it to you?”
Instantly, he took his hands away as if her words had stung him. With a grumble of annoyance, he returned to his desk and gestured at the door. “Get the fuck out of my office, Casey. I’ll deal with you later.”
And with a final look of defiance, she stalked out, head held high, and slammed the door behind her as hard as she could, the glass rattling and almost breaking. Startled, she looked back, and when she saw that the door was still in one piece, heaved a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed was another excuse for the Thorntons to toy with her.
Casting an apologetic look at Sonia, she slouched back to her cubicle and slumped on her chair, her limbs quaking as she felt the effect of the adrenaline tapering off. Suddenly, she found herself bursting into tears, her body wracked by wave after wave of desperate sobs.
God, what had she gotten herself involved in this time?
Chapter 15
Harlan eyed his ball narrowly as it shot from the tee and landed with a dull thud in the rough to the left side of the green.
“Christ! Fuck!” he cried as he hurled the club away from him with force. It hurtled along the green and struck the golf cart with a clang, chipping off some of its gleaming red paint.
“Easy, Harlan,” implored his golf partner. Mackie, a thick-set man with no neck and no hair, gave him a look of censure that did much to cool his temper. “What’s gotten into you, huh?”
Harlan stretched his limbs, pressing his fists in his lumbar region and leaning back, enjoying the series of little crackling sounds his vertebrae made at this. Accepting another club from his caddie, he sighed deeply. “You remember that guy Turtu?”
“The Rasta? Sure. What he done now? Gone and gotten himself caught?”
Harlan didn’t mind confiding in his long-time friend. Richard MacGregor descended from a long line of tough Irish sons of bitches and had been Harlan’s bodyguard and muscleman for as long as he could remember. Now a millionaire in his own right, and owner of a security company, Mackie took care of most of the dirty work Harlan threw his way. And since Ty’s death, the man’s workload had easily tripled, as Ty used to take care of the more delicate stuff the Montesquieu patriarch was involved in.
“He had this hacker girl working for him. Some anarchist freak. First day on the job? Practically shot Will Thornton—“
“Good for her.”
“Yeah. Too bad she was such a lousy shot. Anyway, for some reason the kid took a liking to the chick and ended up hiring her. Set her up at Thornton Tower as some sort of secretary.”
Mackie’s eyes gleamed. “With access to the mainframe?”
Harlan sighed again. “She did, until Roland caught her chatting with this Turtu idiot and took her out of the picture.”
“Iced her, did he?” Mackie nodded. “Yeah. I would’ve done the same.”
“But then he didn’t, did he? Instead, it looks like he hired her.”
“Turned her, huh? Even smarter. Moves and countermoves. Roland hasn’t lost his touch, has he?”
“Seems that way,” said Harlan through gritted teeth. He still didn’t know what exactly had happened in Alaska a couple of weeks back, but when he’d buried his son, he’d sworn he’d make sure Roland paid for what he did.
“So? What are you gonna do?”
“I think it’s time we got us some payback, old friend. Are you up for it?”
“Up for it? You gotta be kidding me. I’m straining at the leash to get back at those sons of bitches. They killed one of ours, it’s time we got one of theirs.”
They both stared out across the green as they ambled along in the direction of Harlan’s ball. It lay buried beneath a clump of grass, and he cursed as he kicked at it with his foot. “Fucking sport. I should never have taken it up,” he grumbled.
“It’s what us rich folks do, buddy. It’s this or polo.”
“I hate horses.”
“Or sailing?”
“I hate getting wet.”
Mackie shrugged and pointed at the ball, which had magically reappeared on the green. “Then golf it is.”
As Mackie took a swing at his own ball, and squeezed one eye shut as he did so, he innocently asked, “So who’s the target this time?”
“You know better than to ask,” growled Harlan, watching his friend’s ball land dangerously close to the hole.
As the sun rose across the green, reducing a water hazard into a sea of sparkling glitter, a look of understanding passed between the two men. Yes, Harlan thought. It was obvious who had to die. An eye for an eye. A son for a son. It was the only way. This time Jack would get the message loud and clear.
“I’ll ask Drake,” suggested Mackie, and Harlan agreed he was the best choice for the job. As Ty’s second-in-command, he was driven to get back at the ones responsible for his friend’s death.
“Make it bloody,” added Harlan.
Mackie’s weather-beaten face worked. “Don’t worry, my friend. We’ll make it count.”
Chapter 16
Will eyed his secretary strangely. Sonia had just burst into his office, all undone, and from her babbling he had managed to distract the one piece of information foremost on the loyal woman’s mind.
Something was happening to Kelley—something very terrible indeed.
At this, Will jumped up from behind the desk and followed Sonia out of his office. He felt rotten at how he’d treated the girl before. Jealousy was a contemptible emotion, he knew, and yet he’d allowed it to play havoc with his mind and his emotions, saying the most horrible things to an already distraught soul.
He cared for Kelley, he knew that now—cared for her deeply, which was why he had intervened when Roland had come down hard on her, pounding her into submission.
The least he could do now was to make sure she was all right. Though he’d insisted she help them in the war that continuously raged between the Thorntons and the Montesquieus, he’d decided she was much too fragile for such a task.
Following Sonia to the outer office, therefore, where he had a crew of salespeople set up, along with the customer service desk, he wondered what could have happened to Kelley that had startled his robust secretary.
The moment she led him into one of the closed offices at the other end of the open space, he frowned in confusion. Kelley was pecking away at the computer with a determination and a focus that didn’t signal distress or exasperation of any kind.
On the contrary, her cheeks were flushed, and her hair mussed and she looked as if she was actually enjoying herself.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded, and only then caught Sonia’s disapproving eye amidships and faltered.
Shame on you, sir, that eye seemed to say, and then it dawned on h
im that Sonia was one of those people everyone and his little brother confided in—the kind of person who manages to extract confidences from the most hardened hermit or social recluse.
Avoiding his secretary’s kindling eye, he understood that Kelley had told his trusty secretary all, and she didn’t approve. What was more, she had decided to get some of her own back and had done so by spooking him into a decline.
“She looks fine to me, Mrs. Grey,” he said a little caustically. “In fact she’s never looked better.”
“No thanks to you. Sir,” intoned the woman frostily, raising her chin mutinously.
“Yeah, well,” he muttered, then gestured at the office floor, where three dozen pairs of eyes were hanging on his every word. Louder, he exclaimed, “Nothing to see here, folks. Get back to work. Show’s over!” More quietly, he added for the sake of his secretary, “That goes for you too, Sonia. Get back in the saddle before I take out my whip and lay one on you.”
“Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker,” she quite unexpectedly returned, and with her head held aloft, sailed back to her station, leaving her boss staring after her with a look of quiet amusement.
“Very hard to get good help nowadays,” he muttered under his breath. Then he stepped into the office and closed the door. “So. What are you up to then, Miss Casey?”
Kelley eyed him askance, then turned her gaze back to her screen without deigning to respond.
He took a seat next to her and heaved a sigh of annoyance. “Look, I’m sorry, all right? I had no reason to yell at you back there. I treated you poorly, and I apologize.”
“You told me I was a prisoner here in Thornton Tower until I agreed to do your dirty work,” she muttered without looking up.
“Well, I may have exaggerated a little.”
“Your brother didn’t.”
“No, I guess he did not. Roland usually takes things very seriously.”
“Unlike you, sir?”
He took a firm grip on her shoulder and yanked her around, so she was facing him. “Cut the crap, Kelley. I behaved abominably, and I’m sorry. What more do you want me to say?”
She blinked, and he thought he detected anger and hurt in her eyes. So Sonia had been right after all.
“What’s wrong?”
“Do you need to ask? You called me a whore. You—“ She swallowed and he thought he detected tears glistening in her eyes. “You accused me of—you told me I was no better than a common tramp.”
Now tears really rolled down her cheeks, though she tried to stem them bravely. He held her face and wiped at her tears with his thumb. “I’m sorry, Kelley.”
“After what happened between us this morning you still treated me as if I were—as if—“
She watched as tenderness glistened in his eyes, replacing the harshness that had been there before. And then suddenly he was kissing her tenderly, placing his lips on hers, and the warmth of his touch did much to dispel the horrible feeling of disappointment and forlornness she was experiencing.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her lips. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“Sonia told me you were a brute and a cad and a misogynous monster. You and your brother,” she sniffed. “She said she would give her notice in a heartbeat if that would make me feel better. Said you would think twice about abusing innocent young girls next time.”
He held her close, then, and feathered kisses on the top of her head, then her ear, then her throat. “I am a brute. And a cad.”
“And a misogynous monster.”
“That, too.”
“And so is your brother.”
“He’s all that and more, no doubt. But he’s also the person trying to keep our family safe from harm. And to do that he needs to be brutal from time to time.” She gulped as he held her. “We have very powerful enemies, Kelley. Enemies who would go to great lengths to hurt us any way they can. Enemies who stop at nothing—not even manipulating young women to stir up trouble in our stores.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know I was being manipulated, and the moment I found out I decided I couldn’t go through with it. I would never have hacked your computers, Will, or sold your information to this Harlan person. I’m not the enemy. Really I’m not.”
He smiled, then, for the first time, and it was as if a ray of light touched her heart. “I know that now. And I believe you.”
She returned his smile, though her own version was a watery one, and she dabbed at her tears with a helpless hand.
“Here. Use this.” He held a handkerchief in his hand, and she took it eagerly, wiping away her tears, then loudly blowing her nose in the space between the monogrammed W and T.
Will winced when she handed him back the sodden hanky. “Thanks,” she snuffled. Then she caught his disapproving frown and laughed. “Serves you right.”
He grimaced. “I guess so.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips in a gesture of tenderness, then gazed up at her. “Why don’t we start over, Kelley Casey?”
Before she had the chance to respond, he’d raised himself and extended his hand. “Hi. My name is Will Thornton. Nice to meet you.”
“Kelley,” she said with a half-smile. “Kelley Casey.”
“Would you go out on a date with me, Kelley? Dinner and a movie?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”
A wide smile spread across his handsome features, and she thought she detected a sparkle in his emerald eyes. “Great. It’s a date. Pick you up at eight?”
“All right.” Then she thought of something. “Do you know where I live?” The moment she said it, she knew it was a dumb thing to say. Of course he knew where she lived. If you’re the brother of Sherlock Holmes, you know where everybody lives. He probably even knew her favorite cereal and what type of underwear she had tucked away in the bottom drawer of her dresser.
“Eight,” he repeated with a twinkle in his eye, and this time she bit her lip and merely nodded her assent.
The moment he left the room she wondered if this was such a good idea. After all, the man stemmed from a family of homicidal billionaires who ate girls like her for breakfast. But then the thought of the two of them locked in a passionate clinch in the bedroom behind his office wiped all skepticism from her mind. Of course it was a good idea. This was Will. The man who could turn her into a shivering pile of Jell-O with one well-aimed look.
Dinner and a movie?
Why the hell not?
Chapter 17
Dinner was fine. The movie? Not so much. Will had decided to let Kelley pick one, and they ended up sitting through two hours of a prolonged history of the Russian Revolution, probably all very informative, but it didn’t really hit the spot, entertainment-wise.
At least he now knew what she thought of rich people in general and his family in particular. The treatment Lenin and his band of revolutionaries had given the tsar and his family about summed it up.
As they strolled through Times Square, taking in the lights and the hubbub that still dominated that hustling and bustling place at this late hour, he ventured the question. “So is that the fate you have in store for me? Death by bludgeoning, bayonet, bullet or all three?”
“At least you’ll have a choice in the matter,” she returned immediately. “And death will be quick and merciful. A lot of poor people don’t even have that choice. Starvation is a much more painful and protracted death, as you well know.” She cast him a scornful glance. “Or not.”
They passed a beggar, who’d made a carton box his home, and Will flicked a dollar into his cap. “No, I can’t say I know what starvation means, to be honest.”
“Thought not. You idle rich are so used to being served everything on a silver platter you never spend a single thought on how the other ninety-nine percent lives.”
“I guess not,” he agreed. “But as I pointed out to you, I do work for a living, so the word idle does not apply.”
She tilted her shoulders. “It’s not exactly
work if you don’t depend on it for a living. You could take a month off and no one would miss you.”
“Mrs. Grey might,” he murmured with a comical waggle of his eyebrows.
She laughed. “I’ll grant you that. She might miss you. She’s awfully fond of you, did you know that?”
He spread his arms and briefly whirled around like a male model in a fashion show. “Of course. What’s not to like?”
She slid her arm through his and clung to it. “You’re funny,” she murmured.
“Oh? And what happened to brute, cad and misogynist?”
“Well, you’re all that as well, of course,” she amended.
“A funny brute,” he muttered. “People have called me a lot of things, but not that, exactly.”
“That’s because they don’t know you like I do.”
“And you know me well, mh?”
“Very well,” she said with glittering eyes. “I’ve studied your species very extensively, you know. I know all there is to know about you and yours.” She giggled. “Though I never thought I’d actually get to study you in the flesh, as it were.”
“In the flesh,” he repeated. “Has a nice ring to it.”
Ignoring him, she rattled off a few key facts about his life. “Your name is William Harold Thornton, you’re thirty-two, the second oldest son of Jack and Fay Thornton, and you studied economics at Harvard, graduating with honors. You have four brothers, Roland, Thomas, Anthony and Scott, and one sister, Chloe.” She glanced up at him. “Right so far?”
“Exactly right. You really went above and beyond.”
“You like boat racing, canoeing, sailing and love canoe polo. You won several sailing races and even contemplated going pro, but then your father convinced you to get your degree and join the family business, so you did.”
“Almost right,” he murmured, amazed at how much about his life was available in the public arena. But then again he was used to these kinds of things by now. A prominent family like the Thorntons had always attracted the attention of the general public and press alike. “I never actually contemplated being a sailing pro. My mind was always set on joining Dad in the business.”