by Lee, Nadia
“But I’m inviting you! Barron told me we could all bring a friend, and Zack can’t come because he’s staying here. His mom’s kind of traditional about holidays.”
Eric’s guileless talk squeezed Daniel’s heart. It was like the boy had no fear that he might get into trouble over what he’d said. Not that he was impolite. But he was open and earnest in a way only a child who knew he was loved unconditionally could be.
Daniel hoped nothing would ever happen to make Eric lose that sense of belonging and rightness, even as he knew he would have to grow up. There were rites of passage. Daniel had gone through them, and everyone else had as well.
Merry returned and said, “Okay, Zack’s mom said you can come over.”
“All right!”
“You can take Bear too, but you have to keep him in their back yard.”
“No problem.”
“Do you need to drive him over?” Daniel asked Merry.
“No. Zack’s only two blocks away.”
“Thanks, Mom. Bye, Daniel!”
Eric rushed out with his dog. After the door closed, Merry shook her head. “Sorry. He can be a little loud.”
“I like him. He’s a good boy.”
“Thanks.”
“He even invited me to Thanksgiving with Barron,” Daniel said jokingly.
“Did he? He’s had Barron wrapped around his finger for a while now. Or maybe Barron’s just indulging him. Who knows?” Merry shrugged. “You’re returning to St. Cecilia, right?”
“No.”
“Oh. Is Ella flying out?”
“For what?”
“Thanksgiving, silly!”
“No. We don’t spend Thanksgiving together.”
Merry looked slightly nonplussed. “Why not?”
“There’s no point. I never did anyway, and now it’s just a tradition to spend it alone.”
“That sounds awful.”
“Actually, it’s better this way. I get a lot of work done during Thanksgiving. No interruptions or emergencies. Everyone’s too busy eating turkey and putting themselves into a coma to bother.”
Meredith hesitated, studying him for a moment, then finally gave him a small smile. “If you want, you can come to ours. You can either go as Eric’s friend or my date. Either way, you’ll be welcome.”
Something cracked around his heart. Eric’s friend or Merry’s date… Daniel rolled both on his tongue, and they felt so easy and natural. She and Eric were getting to him in ways that nobody ever had. But he couldn’t say no. He couldn’t go back to the coldness.
“Why not go as both?”
She grinned. “An excellent choice.” Then she came over and swung a leg over his lap, straddling him, and put her hands on his shoulders. “Now… Where were we?”
* * *
They barely made it to the bedroom. Meredith would’ve been perfectly happy in the dining room, but Daniel had insisted they do it properly this time.
“I don’t know. It felt pretty proper last night,” she teased, breaking their kiss.
He groaned. “You’re such a temptress. That’s probably how you fell.” He undid the straps around her ankles.
“Fell?”
He tossed her shoes aside. “From heaven.”
His mouth closed over her breast and bit her gently through her tunic. She moaned, clever comeback forgotten as her back arched, heat curling in her belly. She’d thought she’d gotten most of it out of her system the night before, but her body apparently disagreed.
Daniel’s hands were busy, pulling up her top and stripping her out of her jeans. When she was in her underwear, she stopped him. “You take off your clothes now.”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“Last night I didn’t get to see you at all. So today I’m going to see you. Come on.” She snapped her fingers a couple of times. “Strip for me.”
With a slow smile, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it on the floor. The rest of his clothes and shoes soon joined the shirt. Revealed, he was stark muscle and lean, powerful lines. Dark hair dusted his chest and tapered until it reached his erection.
Her mouth watered. “You’re gorgeous.”
“You have no idea what that word means if you think it describes me. The word was created for you. I’m just lucky to be here with you like this.”
Her nipples beaded almost painfully at his sweet words, and she felt herself grow slick with need. She got rid of her bra and panties. “Come here.”
She didn’t have to ask twice. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her like she was his universe, the only light in his life. She kissed him back with all the love in her soul. She wanted to comfort him, make him feel good and let him know he wasn’t alone. Maybe it was foolish of her to be so open with her emotions when she was hiding a big secret from him, but she couldn’t help it. She’d been fantasizing about him since she was a teenager.
And now, here they were.
His hands roamed along her body, setting off her nerve endings. He didn’t ask for permission, just took, and she opened up to him and gave him everything, glorying in the toe-curling friction of his thrusts and the rough, hot breaths fanning against her neck. She pulled his thick finger inside her mouth and ran her tongue over it, tasting salt and male tang. He groaned when she sucked on it.
His rhythm grew erratic and fast. “Come for me,” he ordered. “Now.”
That was all she needed to scream her pleasure. As she shattered around him, he climaxed with a guttural cry.
She wrapped herself around him and closed her eyes. He’d said she’d fallen from heaven for being a temptress. He was wrong. If she were a fallen angel, it was because she wanted this with him.
Chapter Seventeen
Daniel would’ve lingered in Merry’s bed if it hadn’t been for an urgent text from his investigator, Ernest Kim. As pleasant as it would have been to loll around in post-coital bliss, there was business to be taken care of, and he had to ensure the sabotage wouldn’t be repeated.
Daniel went to Ernest’s office in Falls Church, not that far from Merry’s place. The building was ten stories tall; Ernest rented the entire fourth floor space. A cute Asian receptionist with purple hair and what seemed to be two dozen bangles on her left wrist smiled at Daniel. “Ernest is waiting for you in his office,” she said before returning to typing on her laptop.
The office was all the way in the back, facing a gray parking lot and Route 7. Nothing in the square room was cheap, but it wasn’t expensive either. A couple of plushy chairs squatted in front of Ernest’s metal desk. When Daniel walked up to it, Ernest stood to shake hands.
Ernest was in his mid-thirties, dressed casually in a blue and orange University of Virginia sweatshirt and jeans, tall enough to look Daniel in the eye and with a body honed lean from years of karate and taekwondo. His cheeks were hollow under glossy black hair combed straight back, and they gave him a sharply hungry look. Daniel knew Ernest had a freakish metabolism that made him look like he was starving no matter how much he ate.
But looks didn’t matter; what mattered was that Ernest was discreet and excellent at his job.
“So,” Ernest said as they sat down. “Whatever’s going on is definitely internal to Aylster Resorts. I spoke with TLD’s investigator—Pattington—and he came to the same conclusion. Looking at the amount of money Rob was paid, there was no way it could’ve been Jacob Lloyd, who was first on my list of suspects. He barely has enough assets to maintain the kind of lifestyle he apparently feels he’s entitled to. I doubt he’d waste even a penny on Rob. So that brought me to my next target—the board members at Aylster Resorts, since you were certain it was personal. But none of the board members has a reason to discredit you this way. The expense is too great, and it’s not like they’re going to personally benefit somehow by getting rid of you. But there’s one person who is a good possibility.”
“Who?”
“Claude.”
“Claude?” Daniel pulled back. “He’s my uncle.
”
“I’m aware of the family connection. How does that change things?”
“He’s not a bad guy.” Claude had acted as a buffer between Daniel and his father when he could. He’d been kind to Judy as well.
“Look, nobody else has the percentage of shares that he does.” Ernest spun his pen around his fingers like a propeller. “Thirty to your twenty-two point five. The only reason you’re able to control the company the way you do is because you have Ella and Ashley voting with you. With the two of them also holding twenty-two point five, you three control forty-five percent, while Claude only has thirty. If he can discredit you and get support from Ella and Ashley, things will change. He’ll have control over the company with more than fifty percent of the shares…enough to replace you if he wants.”
Daniel frowned. He knew about the share distribution, but it still didn’t make sense. “I don’t think he has the ambition to do that. He never showed any interest in taking over after Dad’s death.”
“Maybe he just made you think that because he didn’t have all his ducks in a row. He’s been making some rather large bank wires recently to some firms with, well, dubious reputations.”
“What the heck does that mean?”
“Meaning the kind of places that wouldn’t mind blackmailing someone if that gets the result their client wants.”
Daniel’s gut tightened, the euphoria from his lovemaking with Merry gone. “But he knows Ella and Ashley promised to vote with me at all times.”
“Promises? Really?” Ernest smiled. “They don’t mean much when you’re talking about the kind of money that’s on the table here. He’s probably confident he can change their minds.”
Daniel considered. What Ernest was suggesting wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. Didn’t he know how people could change? Ella might’ve felt bad about what had happened in Istanbul. Voting with him might be her way of atoning for that, and it was true that she’d even managed to get Ashley on board, but that didn’t mean Ella might not change her mind. Her family was rich, and people didn’t become rich by being stupid with their money.
“Anyway, Meredith Lloyd doesn’t have any enemies who could be doing this. We’ve looked, and that’s when one of my men noticed Frankie Newton following her kid.”
“What?” Daniel’s jaw felt tight. Frankie was a freelance investigator his family used for work that required discretion. Whatever he was doing, he wasn’t going to share it with Daniel unless whoever had hired him okayed it first. “Who was he working for?”
“No idea. My guy didn’t approach him, but it’s possible he was working for Claude.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Claude has no reason to investigate Merry or her son.” But if Frankie was involved, it was obvious that someone did. Daniel tasted something sour and bitter. He didn’t want Merry or Eric hurt because of an internal issue at his company.
“Look”—Ernest raised a hand, palm out—“maybe you’re right and Claude’s got nothing to do with this. I don’t know. But right now, he’s the strongest suspect. And you need to think of ways to protect yourself, just in case.”
“Getting rid of him would be difficult unless I had hard evidence. Like you said, he has a thirty percent stake in the company. That would need to be bought out.” Daniel frowned. He’d have to finance the purchase if Claude decided to sell. But all of that assumed his uncle was guilty, which he very seriously doubted.
“Getting the evidence is my job, and I’ll handle that on my end. Just watch your back and don’t give anyone an opportunity to discredit you. Remember, Claude knows what you’re up to all the time through internal memos. If this were the military, he’d be a traitor—potentially, of course—who had top security clearance.”
* * *
Claude tapped his fingers on the table at a café in New York City. Ashley liked the loud, congested city, even with its ridiculously cold winters. He pursed his mouth. She was also often late to appointments, which was surprising, given how New Yorkers seemed to value their time. But Ashley had never worked a day in her life. Her trust fund was generous with the contribution from her mother’s side of the family. Then there was the twelve point five percent stake she held in Aylster Resorts. It annoyed Claude that she had received so much when she was too lazy and stupid to vote on her own. No. The girl did whatever her mother did, which was unfortunate. What would the younger generation do without their mommies? he thought sourly.
Finally, Ashley showed up, fifteen minutes late as usual. She was fashionably dressed in a long red coat with white trim, worn over a cashmere sweater and slacks. Her hair was golden like her mother’s, but she had her father’s mouth, firm and tightly closed. Her boots clicked on the hard floor as she approached his table. “Hi, Uncle Claude. Sorry I’m late,” she said blithely as she took her seat. “Didn’t realize it’d take so long at the salon.” She dumped an oversized Louis Vuitton bag on the empty seat next to hers. “I was surprised to hear from you. Thought you didn’t like New York.”
“I had some business and decided to see how you’re doing before I return to Houston.” He sipped his coffee. “I understand you’re going to St. Cecilia for Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah. They’re saying it’s going to be really cold here, so I figured, why not? Fun in the sun on the beach.”
“Of course. By the way, have you heard about the problems with the St. Cecilia resort?”
She stuck out her lower lip and shrugged. “I haven’t really read any of the reports.”
What an enormous surprise. “The project’s been considerably delayed and things aren’t looking good. You really should take more interest in the company if you plan to vote.”
“Mom lives there. I’m sure she’s up on what’s going on. And Daniel probably knows what he’s doing.” Her phone rang with “My Favorite Things” and she reached into her purse. “Hold on a sec.”
While she checked her text messages, Claude shook his head mentally. Why had he bothered to see her? Talking to a tree would’ve been more productive. As long as she could continue to buy designer clothes and pricey purses and live in her luxury condo, she didn’t care. Judy would’ve been a far better shareholder for Aylster Resorts, and he regretted, not for the first time, that it had been Judy who’d died.
He finally murmured his excuses and left, while his niece was too distracted with her texts to do anything except wave her hand once.
Brat.
It didn’t matter. It would’ve been easier and faster if she’d possessed a modicum of intelligence, but he didn’t need her. Once he had his suspicions confirmed, he could proceed without Ella and Ashley on his side.
* * *
After Daniel left, Meredith sat at the kitchen table reviewing the final details of the overall budget for the charitable foundations she ran. The holiday season was approaching, and while donations were coming in, they weren’t enough. With the continuing economic slump, more people than ever needed help. But when the economy was bad everyone cut back, which meant fewer donations. She tapped her pencil on the tabletop. There had to be a way to get more money somehow. She just needed to figure it out.
The doorbell rang, and Meredith jumped to her feet. Maybe it was Daniel again…and Eric wouldn’t be back for at least another hour.
Meredith opened the door and blinked at the sight of Kerri and Natalie. They were both dressed casually in buttoned coats and jeans. She raised her eyebrows at the determined looks on their faces. “Hi. Did I forget a meeting?” She was certain there wasn’t any.
“Nope, but we got tired of waiting,” Kerri said. “Where’s Eric?”
“He’s still at his friend’s. Come on in. What’s up?”
Natalie took off her coat with a sly grin. Her red cashmere sweater gave a rosy glow to her cheeks. “You didn’t tell me you and Daniel had something going on.”
“Uh-huh, you so didn’t.” Kerri took the couch and draped her coat behind her.
Meredith blinked innocently. �
�What are you talking about?”
“Oh. Now she wants to know what we’re talking about.” Natalie turned to Kerri. “Would you like to do the honors?”
“If you insist.” Kerri swung her head in Meredith’s direction. “You. Daniel. Sneaking off together upstairs at the party. Then Daniel reappearing a little later, and you coming down afterward. Oh, and by the way, some of your lipstick was smudged on Daniel’s mask. I don’t know how you could’ve missed.”
“Amazing what you miss when you’re busy getting laid.” Natalie tapped her lower lip. “Thankfully I managed to wipe the smudge off without alerting anybody, including Daniel.”
Oh god. Meredith felt her face heat.
“Oh, you’re blushing!” Kerri chortled. “Was it that good?”
Meredith nodded.
“Well. He is kind of hot,” Natalie said.
“That he is. But Meredith, do you really want to get involved with him? He’s not a stable type, you know.”
“What do you mean?” Meredith asked.
“There are tons of articles about his women. I’d say at least half the stuff that the tabloids claimed he did was a lie, but…” Kerri shrugged.
“It’s not like some kind of smear campaign where people make up stuff about a political candidate to discredit them,” Natalie said. “You should be careful.”
“I will, but I don’t think Daniel’s like that.”
“Oh, honey, that’s what everyone thinks until they’re proven wrong. I don’t want to see you hurt. My ex was like that too. I thought he was it until he wasn’t.”
“But you found Alex at the end,” Meredith pointed out.
“Yes, but with him, I resisted. I was so sure he wasn’t it.”
Kerri nodded. “I even encouraged her to screw him once—just to see if he was really that good in bed—and then come join me in Hong Kong.”
“And I’m glad I didn’t, but that’s not the point,” Natalie said. “The point is, I don’t know if it’s going to end well for you, and I want you to be prepared.”
“I’m always prepared,” Meredith said.