The Asset

by Anna del Mar

  Martin fumbled his juggling act, but he managed to catch the shoes against his chest before they hit the ground.

  “Merde,” he cursed under his breath and glowered at me. “See what you made me do? This is not about what you want. It’s about what I need. The simple fact is that you’re still my wife and, tonight, I need your support, which means you need to get ready.”

  “I want no part of whatever this is.” I stood my ground. “I’m not going.”

  “Oh, come on, let’s go dancing, my dear.” He tapped the stilettos’ heels on the kitchen counter. “Don’t make me out to be the bad guy. Be nice. Do as I ask.”

  I took a deep breath and dug my nails into my fists. “I want you, the gown, and the shoes, gone.”

  Martin stopped the impertinent tap dance and tsked. “For such an agreeable soul, you’re in a bad mood today. I didn’t want to disrupt your dull little routine, but I’ve got news for you.” His stare hardened. “WindTech is out of money. We’ve run out of time. Either I find a funding source or we go bankrupt.”

  The news didn’t come as a total surprise, but it hit me like a jab to the gut. My belly roiled. WinTech had gone under even sooner than I’d expected. Another blow to my efforts to keep us afloat. But living in bankruptcy couldn’t be much worse than the way I lived now. Could it?

  “I’m sorry, Martin,” I said and I meant it. “I know the project is important to you. Maybe this will give you an opportunity to regroup?”

  The look he gave could have vaporized me on the spot. “I’m not going down and neither is WindTech. I’ve arranged for an introduction to the man who can change my fortunes. It’s happening tonight. At the party. You’d better pray he takes the lure.”

  “The lure?” I gaped, even more alarmed. “This sounds like a really bad idea, Martin. I’m out. If you really feel like you have to go to this party, go without me.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, suddenly too amiably for comfort. “If you come to the party, go along with what I say, smile and act the part of the charming wife, you’ll be done for a while.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll leave you alone. I swear, if I get the funding, I’ll stay out in Ohio and I won’t disturb your life here. Oh, and I’ll pay for the nursing home. I’ll pay the late charges and bring the account current. Come on, Lily.” He flashed his best smile. “Do it for me. Do it for your mother.”

  A life free of Martin might not seem like a lot to anybody else, but it would be one humongous gift to me. I wouldn’t have to put up with his verbal abuse, his mood swings and his condescension. I wouldn’t have to deal with his bar bills, partying and reckless behavior when he came to town. Best of all, my Mom would be safe from eviction at the nursing home.

  Careful Lily. I suppressed an inkling of hope. Martin had never kept his promises before. Why would he start now?

  “Martin,” I said, “I... I don’t want to go.”

  “Zip it.” The smile wilted on his face. “Do I have to remind you of the deposition that sits ready with my attorney?”

  I swallowed hard. “Blackmail will only get you so far.”

  “Far enough to make you do what I want,” he said. “Fraud is such an ugly charge.”

  I snapped. “You set me up!”

  “And what judge is going to believe you?”

  I clenched until my teeth hurt. “The day you use that deposition, you’re done too.”

  “So, I get to go back to France, while you get to face the music. Not too bad. For me.” He adjusted his horned-rimmed glasses and smirked. “But we’re jumping the proverbial gun, dear. I don’t wish to return to Europe yet, especially not under such unpleasant circumstances. Which is why you’ll help me save WindTech. If my world comes to a sudden end, so will yours.”

  He grabbed the dress and tossed it over the counter. It skimmed across the laminate and billowed in the air for an instant before it plummeted to the floor, where it lay flat like a corpse.

  The walls of my small apartment closed around me. My throat tightened, allowing only a trickle of air to get through to my lungs. The weight of his threats crushed my resolve. He meant every word he said and I knew it.

  I hated the tears that welled in my eyes. I bit down on my lips. I wasn’t going to cry, not in front of Martin, not in front of anybody. I wasn’t going to have a panic attack either. My circumstances might suck, but I had some dignity left in me. I’d survived heartache and managed on my own for many years, until desperation struck, along with Martin. I was no dimwit. I was smart, educated and hard-working and yet, here I was, trapped by a single, fatal mistake. I couldn’t believe my life had been reduced to this.

  I gulped down my tears and my pride. “Please, don’t make me go.”

  “No more discussion.” Martin stalked around the counter, snatched the dress from the floor and shoved it into my hands. “Get ready. The benefit is for a good cause. Rich people love wounded warriors. They make for wonderful photo ops. So hurry up, my dear. Who will take care of your mother if you go to jail?”

  * * *

  My mother used to say that my mind worked like a color wheel. Color defined my world and explained it too. My mom, for example, fell into the violet spectrum, somewhere between lilac and Tyrian purple, the color of emperors. I belonged in the yellow spectrum, which I used a lot in my portraits. Martin, well, he belonged in the neon red category, a color that happened rarely in nature and only to announce extreme danger.

  On good days, primary colors filled my canvases. On not so good days—and there had been a lot of those lately—my eye craved neutrals, mostly whites and grays, since I feared black, the color killer. Despite the vibrant display of high fashion crowding the ballroom, Martin’s party fell squarely into the grayscale range. Very appropriate, since right after the speeches, I ended up in the bathroom, where I now knelt on the floor staring into the depths of a stark toilet bowl.

  Panic attacks were a bitch. Mine came on without warning. Sometimes I couldn’t breathe. Sometimes the full blow of my anxieties hit my weak belly. I couldn’t say that I preferred one over the other.

  “Come on, Lily.” I wiped my mouth and hovered for a few more seconds over the toilet. “You can do this.”

  I flushed the toilet, took a deep breath and, finding my feet, steadied myself against the stall’s marble wall. Focus on the positives. If one had to be sick with panic and anxiety, the plush women’s lounge at the Ritz Carlton on the Commons wasn’t the worst place in the world for a powwow with my lunch.

  The sounds of music and conversation drifted through the doors as someone walked out, leaving me alone with the empty stalls. In my hand, the little satin clutch I’d borrowed for the evening began to vibrate again. My gut ached with an additional pang of dread. I pulled out my battered cell. I had five texts from Martin.

  Come out. The words glared on the cracked screen. Think consequences.

  My stomach churned some more.

  Hurry up, the next text said. He’s here.

  And Come out now or I’ll come in there and drag you out myself.

  I took another deep breath and staggered out of the stall. I stumbled on my way to the sinks. Damn high heels. Martin had insisted I wear them. I made it to one of the crystal bowls lining the granite counter. Despite the tremors shaking my hand, I rinsed my mouth, reapplied my lipstick and straightened my dress.

  “Lily Boswell,” I said to my reflection in the mirror. “You’re perfectly capable of handling this.”

  My stomach completely disagreed.

  I forced myself to walk through the threshold anyway. The alcove that connected the restrooms to the ballroom held a small crowd, swarming around a Navy sailor wearing dark sunglasses and dress whites. A bar full of medals adorned his chest. I recognized him right away. He’d been one of the speakers earlier tonight, a
war hero and a wounded veteran whose appeal to assist his injured comrades had made me wish I had more than thirty dollars to my name.

  On the stage, the veteran had introduced himself as Petty Officer Chavez. He’d been poised and inspiring, an excellent spokesman. But standing at the center of this smaller crowd, he didn’t look nearly as comfortable. On the contrary, he looked nervous. The anxiety etched on his face mirrored my own. Sweat beads gleamed over his lip as a few clueless donors clustered around him to examine his state-of-the-art prosthetic arm, which was furnished by the Heal Our Heroes Foundation, the not-for-profit sponsoring the gala tonight. Healing Warrior Development Fund.

  The prosthetic arm seemed to work really well for the petty officer. The crowd? Not so much. I could almost feel his anxiety climbing, and so could his service dog. The restless yellow Labrador circled its handler, trying to put some space between him and the others. I wanted to do something to help him. Instead, I froze at the sight of all of those people. My legs refused to carry me forward and my belly squeezed. Faces crammed my visual field and shrill laugher tortured my brain. A clout of sweet perfume had me gagging. Oh, God. I covered my mouth with my hand. Was I about to throw up again?

  The dog’s yelp broke through the din.

  “Damn it!” A man dressed in a white tuxedo kicked at the dog and missed. “Did you see that? That mutt just nipped at me!”

  “Marie Therese doesn’t bite.” The petty officer knelt on the floor and groped for the Labrador, feeling along the leg that the poor creature held curled up against its chest. “You must have stepped on her.”

  “That dog is dangerous.” The guy snapped his fingers, getting the event manager’s attention. “You! Hey, you, yes. You need to kick this dog out of here. Call animal control.”

  “Please, don’t,” the sailor said.

  The anguish on his face powered my outrage. The people in the little crowd murmured assorted opinions, but no one intervened. I took an instant dislike to the jackass who chose to make such a racket at the expense of a hero. With his gel-slicked hair plastered to his head, the idiot looked like a plastic doll, like Barbie’s Ken with a rotten attitude. A total jerk. I was furious, but before I could muster my voice, a man I hadn’t seen before stepped into the alcove.

  “Why don’t we give Petty Officer Chavez a bit of space, people?”

  The newcomer’s appearance scattered quite a few of the bystanders. I watched in awe as a handful of Boston’s powerbrokers fled from the alcove. Whoever this man was, he commanded a great deal of authority.

  The resolve in his voice matched his body language. His brown eyes scoured the place for stragglers, clearing the room without need for words. Everybody left, everybody except for the jerk—who was reckless, dumb and drunk—and the petty officer and his dog. And me, of course.

  Blue. The newcomer unleashed the color blue in my mind, and not just any blue, but the most spectacular blue of them all, cobalt blue, rich, deeply hued, velvety and intense. When his eyes fell on me, adrenaline flushed through my veins in buckets. I wanted to run too, and yet despite the urge, I couldn’t move, because a ballroom full of strangers terrified me even more than the stare pinning me to the wall.

  The man stood tall and imposing, wearing an exquisitely tailored tux that emphasized his body’s broad shoulders and sleek lines. With his brown hair cut razor short and his expressive brows set into a permanent scowl, he was handsome, but in a stern, forbidding, frightening way.

  He moved fluidly, with purpose, intensity, confidence and elegance. He owned every stride he took, every gesture he made. He owned the place too, the room, the walls closing in on me, the air barely trickling into my lungs, the world all around me.

  His stare stalked me from across the room before it settled back on the drunk. “I suggest you return to the ballroom.” His voice rustled with danger. “You don’t want to miss the auction.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the auction.” The drunk glared. “That dog bit me and I want it gone!”

  “Perhaps you should’ve given the dog and its handler more space.” The man crouched by the dog and examined its paw. “Marie Therese seems to be okay.” He helped the petty officer to his feet. “Are you alright, man?”

  “Fine.” The sailor wiped the sweat off his brow. “But my dog. If that guy complains...”

  “Nobody will take Marie Therese from you,” the man said, and I believed him. “Nobody.” His stare returned to the jerk. “You owe Petty Officer Chavez and his dog an apology.”

  “I don’t apologize to dogs.” The drunk blurred his words. “Dogs shouldn’t be allowed in places like this.”

  “By law, a service dog is allowed to go anywhere its handler goes,” the man spat out in his exacting tone.

  “But that dog is too aggressive.”

  “Marie Therese isn’t aggressive.” The sailor’s fingers tightened around the dog’s leash. “She would never attack anyone!”

  “How would you know?” the drunk said. “You’re blind, you retard.”

  The newcomer’s face hardened into a blank mask, but the heat in his glare echoed the feral fury burning through me.

  “The dog didn’t attack anybody.” It was my voice and it sounded strong and bold. “This man stepped on the dog’s paw. I saw it. The dog nipped, but only because it was in pain.”

  “See?” The petty officer side-hugged his Labrador and turned his face in my direction. “Thanks miss, whoever you are.”

  “She’s lying,” the drunk said.

  “What’s your name?” the man said.

  “I’m Edward Lancaster.” He smirked. “My father is John Lancaster.”

  “John, yes.” The man crossed his arms and braced his feet apart. “He’s the chairman of Lancaster & Associates.”

  “And a platinum donor to the Healing Warrior Development Fund,” Edward Lancaster added with mindboggling arrogance.

  “Your father is very generous,” the other man noted. “Wasn’t he a decorated Air Force officer during the first Iraq war?”

  Junior hesitated. “Yes?”

  “Ah, then, do me a favor.” He flashed a vicious smile. “Go tell your Daddy that tonight you trampled on the service dog of a veteran who earned his Purple Heart in goddamn Afghanistan. Tell him that, after you hurt his dog, you whined like a spoiled brat and demanded that the dog be removed. If your father hasn’t choked on his bile or strangled you with his own two hands by then, tell him that you’re an idiot with a goddamn bug up your ass and that you were kicked out of the gala because you insulted a friend of Josh Lane’s.”

  The young man gaped. “You’re Josh Lane? The Josh Lane?”

  “Affirmative,” he said. “And you’re done here.”

  My stomach convulsed with another wave of nausea. For a moment, I couldn’t move. Numb, I watched as security escorted the drunk out of the alcove and the man conferred briefly with the sailor, before a staff member led the veteran and his dog out of the ballroom. Then the man’s stare narrowed on me, eyes rich with crystal brown hues, gaze curious.

  He drew in all the light in the room, consuming it, reshaping it, absorbing it, until he was the only image in my frame and blue was the only color on my canvas. I couldn’t look away from him. I stood there, rooted in place like a potted plant, unable to move. That is, until he started toward me.

  I bolted. I ran, back to the restroom, through the lounge, to the stall in the very back of the row. I locked the door and pressed my back against the wall. I had trouble breathing, thinking. Why did I run away when I’d wanted to stay? And why had I wanted to stay in the first place?

  I settled my hand over my heart. Oh. My. God. It couldn’t be a freaking coincidence. My anxiety returned in full, because the target of Martin’s plan, the source of my only hope, and the stranger outside the door shared the same name.

  J
osh Lane.

  Don’t miss

  AT THE BRINK by Anna del Mar,

  Available May 2016 wherever

  Carina Press ebooks are sold

  www.CarinaPress.com

  Copyright © 2016 by Anna del Mar

  Acknowledgments

  From beginning to end publishing a novel is a team sport and I’ve got some of the best players ever in my corner. I’m greatly indebted to my personal editor, the amazing Nancy Cassidy, who read through the first drafts of this novel and led me with great wisdom and incredible generosity all the way to Carina’s doors.

  At Carina Press, I had the enormous good fortune of landing on the desk of Kerri Buckley, editor extraordinaire, multitasking queen of the writing universe and precision surgeon of the story. Without Kerri, I’d be going in circles and my novels would be—well—way too long!

  I’m also thankful to Heather Goldberg, Stephanie Doig and all the folks at Carina whose names I haven’t come across, but whose talents and contributions I sincerely appreciate. Angela James, Kerri Buckley and the team at Carina Press represent everything that’s right, fun and inspiring about writing and the publishing industry. I can’t thank them enough for their hard work and enthusiasm.

  I’d be remiss not to gush about the usual suspects: my parents, who gifted me with the joy of reading; my sisters, who bring laughter to my life; my children, who are the inspiration for everything I do; and my husband, who is always willing to grab the helm and steer the ship to port when I go MIA. I’m blessed with their love.

  Finally, I’d like to thank you, the reader, for giving my novels a chance. I know that there are a lot of great authors writing some awesome romances out there. Thank you for choosing to read one of mine.

  Also available from Anna del Mar

  and Carina Press

  The Wounded Warrior Novels

  Dream Chaser, available August 2016

  The At the Brink Novels

  At the Brink, available May 2016

  On the Edge, available November 2016