by Ivy Layne
Adam slept upstairs. If Adam was at stake I could do anything. I would do anything. But I didn't want to.
I'd raced to the kitchen. My progress toward the mudroom was a lot slower. I clutched my phone in my hand, thinking it might be worth Dave's patronizing reassurance to avoid facing whatever made that noise in the mudroom. Except…
Except the last time he put his hand on my shoulder, his eyes gentle and worried, and said that maybe the strain of taking care of Adam by myself was too much. Maybe I needed a break. He hadn't said he was going to call social services. He hadn't said he planned to tell them Adam's mother was crazy and delusional. He hadn't had to.
I wasn't calling Dave unless I was sure I had no other choice.
The light in the hall should have been reassuring. It wasn't.
The powder room was empty. Warm, heavy air wafted down the hall, out of place in the sterile, air conditioned house. My fingers tightened on the handle of the knife as I reached through the door of the mudroom and pushed up the light switch with the side of my wrist.
The fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling seared my eyeballs. I blinked hard, the scene in front of me slowly coming into focus. The back door gaped open, the woods beyond the house black. Impenetrable. I couldn't see anything moving, but it was so dark beneath the trees someone could be lurking right outside the door, and I wouldn’t know until he was on top of me.
The tall, metal umbrella stand by the back door was on its side, umbrellas spilling out across the tile. The crash I heard. Someone leaving?
I wanted to believe it was someone leaving.
The alternative, that someone was inside the house, was too frightening to contemplate.
My brain was stuck in a loop.
Pick up the umbrella stand.
Close the door.
Pick up the umbrella stand.
Close the door.
I did.
The flick of the lock, the bolt sliding into place, should have made me feel safe. It didn't.
The alarm was off. The door was open. Someone had been in my house.
I could have imagined the sound, the shuffle, and the thump, but I did not imagine the alarm being off. I did not imagine the door hanging open and the umbrella stand knocked over.
I stood there, staring at the locked door, trying to think. I should have taken a picture. I should have called Dave while the umbrella stand was still knocked over and the door was still open. If I called him now, with no proof, he wouldn't believe me.
But if someone had been here I didn't want to leave the door open. I wanted it locked. I didn't know what to do. I gripped the knife and shifted my weight from one foot to the other, trapped by indecision.
Why would someone break into my house?
A thief could have made off with a fortune in artwork from the first floor alone. I hadn't noticed anything missing as I passed through the house.
At a loss for what else to do, I left the mudroom and went back through the first floor. Nothing was missing. Nothing I could see. Why would someone break in if not to steal?
I thought of Adam asleep in his bed, so small. So vulnerable. I had to protect him. I had an alarm and the best locks money could buy. Still, we weren't safe.
We should have been safe.
I'd locked the mudroom door, but I didn't know.
Had I locked someone out? Or locked them in?
I stood in the middle of the kitchen scanning the quiet, brightly-lit house.
What do I do? What the hell was I supposed to do?
And then I remembered. Not long before he died, Trey started talking about a new security system. I'd brushed him off, hadn't really paid attention. The system we had was overkill for a small town in Maine, even considering the artwork Trey had collected.
He'd been restless and anxious those last few months. Promising me everything was fine, then talking about buying more guns and getting a better alarm. He'd been short-tempered and easily irritated. Annoyed when I asked questions, so I'd stopped.
He'd said once that if anything happened, if I needed help and he wasn't there, I should call someone. He had a card. I couldn't remember the name, but there had been a lion's head and a circle. Black on white.
Still clutching the knife in one hand and my phone in the other, I walked past the front door and down the other hall to Trey's office. I rarely went in there. Not before he died and not after. This was his space, his room.
His desk was just as neat as he'd left it. Everything lined up. Everything in its place. No business cards.
I should have paid attention. I should have listened, but he'd been so erratic back then. I got used to tuning him out when he went off on a paranoid rant about guns or a new alarm. About people coming after him. If he'd been afraid for Adam I would have taken him seriously, but it was always about him. Never us.
The top drawer slid open silently, the contents as neatly arranged as the surface of the desk. Pens lined up together, paperclips organized by size, and in the corner a neat stack of business cards.
Reluctantly, I peeled my sweaty fingers from the handle of the knife and set it on the desk. The blade gleamed obscenely against the warm mahogany. The first card in the pile was his stockbroker. The second for a local maid service. The third for the Castle Falls newspaper.
Below that, a white card with black printing. A lion's head surrounded by a circular banner that read ‘Sinclair Security’. The name underneath was Maxwell Sinclair. Two phone numbers, one toll-free and the other an interchange I didn't recognize.
It was the middle of the night. No one would be in the office. Before I could think better of it, I dialed the toll-free number and waited. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. A click, as if the call were being transferred. It rang again, and a woman's voice informed me that I had reached Sinclair Security after office hours but was welcome to leave a message.
A long beep sounded in my ear and I began to babble. "This is Lily Spencer. I—my husband—my former husband—I'm a widow—uh, told me to call you if there was ever any trouble. I live—we live—I live up in Maine, and we've had some break-ins. Uh, I think. The police haven’t found anything, but tonight someone got in. Turned off the alarm. I don't know what to do. I don't know if you can help, but he said if anything ever happened I should call you, so I'm calling. Please, if you could call me back I'd appreciate it. Again, this is Lily Spencer."
I stabbed my finger at the screen of my phone and hung up. My cheeks were hot with embarrassment no one could see. I should have planned what I was going to say. Should have thought about it, but I was rattled.
Not rattled.
I was scared.
I left the card face up on the blotter and picked up the knife. I thought about making a cup of tea. Turning on the television for company. Of walking through the house again.
I did none of it. I went to the stairs and climbed to the second level, checking every room I passed. I stopped in front of Adam's door and turned the knob, breath held, praying with everything inside me that he was as I'd left him. Safely asleep.
He'd rolled over, pushing his pillow to the floor, Curious George under his head. He was still out cold, cheeks flushed with sleep, his back rising and falling in a regular rhythm.
My sweet boy. If he was okay I was okay.
I shut the door, turning the almost useless lock on the handle, and sat on the carpet, leaning against the bed frame, the only sound in the room Adam's even breathing.
Pulling my knees into my chest, I listened for any hint of a disturbance, for any sign that we weren’t alone.
Eyes glued to the door, the knife in my right hand and my phone in my left, I waited for daylight and the false promise of safety.
Click Here for more of Undone
Sneak Peek:
The Temptation Trap
Have you read Axel & Emma’s Story?
Chapter One
Axel
Emma Wright was becoming a problem. She was supposed to be a job. An e
asy job. Get close to her, find evidence that she was selling confidential data to a competitor. Get paid a ton of money. How hard could it be?
She was the head of Human Resources at a shipping company, not Mata Hari. This kind of thing was the bread and butter of Sinclair Security. I figured I’d take the meeting and pass the case to one of my guys.
Then I got a good look at Emma Wright.
Fiery red hair, creamy skin, abundant curves, and clear blue eyes with a wicked glint. She was irresistible. Luscious, soft, and more than a handful in all the right places. The moment I saw her picture, I knew I’d be handling her myself.
Fucking the suspect wasn’t usually my MO, but in this case, I was prepared to make an exception. Normally, my approach was to get the evidence, give it to the client, close the case, and cash the check. Not with Emma.
Getting her into bed wasn’t the hard part. Neither was pretending to be her lover. But Emma was tricky. She was smart. Funny. Gorgeous. And surprisingly kinky. Deliciously kinky. I’d never admit it, but it’s possible I was taking my time on the case just to have an excuse to keep fucking her.
That, and it was harder than I’d expected to find what I was looking for. I kept waiting for her to slip. Everyone did, eventually. But so far, nothing. I hadn’t caught her in even the tiniest lie. The client was getting restless, and I was starting to wonder if I was losing my touch.
I knew she was guilty. Most people were when it came down to it. I already knew what would happen in the end. Tears. Pleading. Excuses and justifications. None of that would matter to me.
I’d taken the contract, and I would do my job. In the back of my mind, I was hoping it would last just a little longer. I hadn’t yet had my fill of that lush body, and once I found the data Emma was smuggling out of Harper Shipping, she’d go to jail and our affair would be over.
Tonight my plan was to push her off balance, enough so she might make a mistake. Until now, I’d worked it out so that most of our dates were dinner at her house. More intimate and easier to search her place.
When I did take her out somewhere, I chose places that were upscale, expensive, and not my usual style. I didn’t need to be recognized as Axel Sinclair when I was pretending to be Adam Stewart. But tonight I’d picked a quiet, low-key Italian place around the corner from Emma’s.
I’d expected her to pout or act annoyed that I wasn’t spending a few hundred dollars on her dinner. I should have known better.
Emma was relaxed, drinking her wine and digging into her fettuccine Alfredo. Watching the woman eat pasta was a torturous form of foreplay. When the creamy sauce hit her tongue, she sucked a stray noodle into her mouth with pursed lips, her eyes closed in rapture.
I couldn’t help but imagine her sucking me off with that same expression on her face.
She couldn’t have cared less if she was in an exclusive restaurant surrounded by the best of Vegas society or a place like this one with paper napkins and a chalkboard menu on the wall. Emma enjoyed life however it came at her. I wondered if that would serve her well when she went to prison.
There was a chance she could avoid going to jail. Either way, I had to remind myself it wasn’t my problem. My job was to find proof she was stealing and give that proof to her boss. What happened to her after that was between them.
Most of the time the client didn’t press charges. That kind of publicity was worse for business than the crime itself. But the owner and CEO of Harper Shipping had made his intentions clear. As soon as he could prove what she’d done, he was calling the police.
Knowing Emma, she’d get off with probation. She was smart enough to hire a good lawyer, and she’d be able to afford decent counsel. She’d managed to hide the money she was getting for the data she’d stolen. If my hackers couldn’t find it, neither would the police. Somewhere out there, Emma had a tidy little nest egg, ready to cushion her when she fell.
Watching her wind pasta around her fork as she laughed over a story a friend had told her, I found it hard to reconcile the woman before me with the liar I knew she was.
I’d been in this game long enough to know that anyone could be a criminal, no matter how innocent they appeared on the surface. But Emma just didn’t give me the guilty vibe.
If I hadn’t seen surveillance video of her rifling through secured files and copying them, then later handing them off to a competitor in a dark parking lot late at night, I would have sworn she wasn’t the one they were looking for.
But I had seen it, seen her face clearly. Even had one of my guys check it. Video could be manufactured. This was real.
On top of that, she treated her briefcase like it held the keys to Fort Knox. And she got jumpy whenever I brought up her job. In fact, it was the only time she acted oddly. Not guilty. Not exactly. But not her usual fun loving self.
All of it added together was more than enough to convince me. Emma was guilty, and I would bring her down. A voice in the back of my head told me to find the evidence and close the case before I got in any deeper.
Sitting across from her, my eyes glued to her lips as she sipped her wine, I knew it was already too late. I was in deep with Emma. And part of me, a part I’d thought long dead, hoped that somehow I’d find a way to prove her innocent.
* * *
Chapter TWO
EMMA
Adam had that look on his face again. I’d seen it before, and I didn’t know what it meant. He stared at me as if I was a puzzle and he needed to figure me out. It didn't make sense. There's not that much to figure out about me.
I'm a basic girl. I have a job I like, good friends, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, the only unusual thing in my life was Adam.
We’d been dating for more than three weeks, and I still wasn’t sure what he was doing with me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a pretty good catch. I’m intelligent, not hard on the eyes, and my friends say I’m fun to be around.
I have a few too many curves for guys who like skinny chicks, but that’s okay with me. For every guy who wants a waif, there are two who like a full set of DD’s and a round ass.
I hate starving myself, and while I don’t mind going to the gym a couple of times a week I’m not spending my life there. I’d never be on a catwalk, and I didn’t care. None of the few guys who’d seen me naked had complained. That said, I’ve never dated much, mostly by choice. No offense to any good guys out there but most of the guys I’d hooked up with were assholes.
Going out every night and trying to find a good man is a waste of time. I know they say you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, but seriously, I’ve had enough frog kissing to last a lifetime.
Maybe I have a low tolerance for bullshit. Or maybe I’m impatient. Either way, I’d rather hang out with my friends, have fun with my hobbies, and live the good life without one more lying, deadbeat guy asking to borrow money before he cheats on me.
I'm not bitter or anything. I don't have some horrible ex in my past. I have a great Dad and two fantastic brothers. And I have some girlfriends with amazing husbands. I know there are good guys out there, I just don't seem to attract them.
I attract the dicks who have mommy issues and can't hold down a job or think that having self-confidence makes me a bitch. No thanks.
Adam was different. So far, not an asshole. But also, way out of my league. Like I said, I'm a pretty good catch. I've dated men with money. Successful men. Good-looking men. Adam was all three.
He was the kind of man you'd expect to see helping a supermodel out of a Ferrari. Not the kind of man you'd expect to meet in a cooking class at the local community college.
There I’d been, slicing carrots at my first night of learning to cook Thai food, when from beside me I heard a low, deep voice say, "What exactly are we supposed to be doing here? I got in late, and I don't have a partner. Tell me you're not taken."
I'd almost passed out when I got my first look at the new arrival. Tall, at least, 6'4". I’ve always loved tall men. At 5’ 10" it was a luxury t
o look up into a man's eyes.
Short dark hair, eyes so dark brown they were almost black, sharp cheekbones, and full lips. All of that with broad shoulders, lean hips, and no sign of a beer belly. I was ready to swoon.
I immediately forgave my friend Allison for talking me into Thai cooking class and then bailing at the last minute because she got back together with her boyfriend.
"Nope, I'm free," I’d said with a smile. "I signed up with a friend, but she's a no-show."
He let out a relieved breath and said, "Same for me. I thought I was going to have to do this myself." Holding out a hand, he’d said, "I'm Adam Stewart."
That was the beginning of what had become the wildest love affair of my life. That first night we’d eaten the Pad Thai we'd cooked, and Adam had asked me out for a drink.
The class was on Wednesday nights, and I didn't usually go out drinking when I had to work the next day. Especially with all the stress at the office in the last few months. But cooking with him had been a blast. He was fun as well as hot, and I wasn't ready to say good night.
Two glasses of wine and a scorching kiss later I'd left him in the parking lot and driven home wondering what would happen when I saw him in class the following week. If he even showed up.
I didn't want to get my hopes up. After that kiss, I had no doubt he would've preferred to end the night in my bed, but I didn't sleep with guys on the first date. Not even guys as hot as Adam.
Who was I kidding? I’d never been with a guy as hot as Adam. I still wasn't sure why I hadn't taken him up on his not-so-subtle suggestion that I invite him home.
Maybe I was intimidated. Maybe it just seemed too good to be true that someone as attractive and interesting as Adam Stewart wanted me.
I walked into class the following week to find him waiting at our work table. He looked up and saw me, a welcoming smile spread across his face, bringing light to his intense eyes and melting my caution.