“I’m going in the other room to contact everyone I know that can help me. OK?”
“OK,” I said, trembling. He stayed in the living room for an hour. By that time I had showered and had my bag packed. He came in to say that we were going to Montana. That was where he’d had Maxim, and that’s where Maxim had disappeared. He moved about with slow, deliberate steps, looking as if he had just spent time climbing a mountain, and it had conquered him. “My limo is waiting outside. I’ll take a shower on our flight. We should be there in an hour with the ride to the airport and all.”
I reached for my bag, and Max took it from my hands. He held it as he walked ahead of me, opening the door. “Wait. I have to leave a note for Crystal.”
“No. Text her,” Max said in his take-charge voice. “The time is important.” And he placed his hand behind my back and ushered me into the limo. Max was silent traveling to the airfield. He appeared to be mapping something out in his mind. Something that he did not want to include me in. “I need to call Jonas. He should be informed. He was in Special Forces and he will be instrumental in the search.”
Max took the phone that rested in his limo and tried calling, but I could tell from his expression that he wasn’t having any luck. “God damn it. He is never around when you need him.” He tried over and over until we landed in Billings, Montana. I looked around, and it was surreal, as if I had never left. I felt the wind and the smell of fresh air and the bristle of the dry climate. When we entered the limo, he tried calling again. After not reaching Jonas, Max decided to leave a message.
We rounded a bend in the road and stopped at Max’s mountain retreat. It was as I remembered, beautiful and secluded. Max jumped out, extending his hand and helping me out. As we walked into the house, he said, “I thought that when I brought you home to Montana, I would be bringing you as my bride.” He held my luggage with one hand, and the other was on the small of my back.
The first time I saw this place, I was twenty, impressionable, and in Max’s arms. Now I was twenty-three and I’d seen too much and it was not a very good year.
“Welcome back, Mr. Blackstone, Mrs. Blackstone.” The servants greeted us as a married couple. “I don’t know what happened. One minute Maxim was playing on the grounds next to the swings, and the next minute he was gone,” the nanny explained with tears in her eyes.
“I don’t have time to talk, Pilar. Get Alex…Mrs. Blackstone’s bags. Would you like something to drink, Alex?”
“I don’t want anything. I need a clear head.”
“Then show Mrs. Blackstone to our room.”
“I would rather—” He interrupted my conversation and thoughts with his take-charge, do-it-my-way self.
“Look, Alex, I have this under control.”
“The way I see it you have nothing under control. Maxim is missing…”
“Do you want to fight and let the servants see?”
“I don’t give a damn what they see.”
“Go to our room.”
“Now you are sending me to the room as if I’m a child. Which room am I to go to? The one where you—” I didn’t want to finish that thought. “Or the one that no woman is allowed into?”
“The one no woman but you has seen. I’ll join you shortly. Remember, I’m trying to get our son back, and you’re not making anything any easier. The men I requested for the search are on their way now, and I can’t find Jonas.”
I left Max talking on the phone. I hadn’t been back since I marched out of that door and swore I would never return, and that was three years ago. I staggered past the room where Max had taken my virginity. Feeling weak from worry, my guilt about Maxim lifted when I saw the bed, and it made me smile because even though I was angry it had to have been the most exciting moment in my life. I peeped in just to relive that moment when Max sat across from me and asked me to feel his heart.
From a simple gesture and a complicated relationship with Max, our baby was born. I took a great sigh and moved on into the room where I had been for only a moment. I looked around and walked to his medicine cabinet, looking for something stronger than aspirin to calm my nerves. My hands touched a bottle of Excedrin PM. “This will do the trick. I want to be dead to the world. Maybe by the time I wake up Max will have located Maxim, or the kidnappers will have been caught.”
I swallowed two tablets, and I looked around and picked up some bottled water from the counter and drank it. I took off my clothes found one of Max’s shirts and sat on the bed. I spied a figure of a man standing in the doorway. It was Max’s butler. “Is everything OK, Mrs. Blackstone?” I didn’t know why everyone on Max’s staff kept referring to me as Mrs. Blackstone, but I would take it up with him later.
“I’m fine.”
“Can I get you anything to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then I’ll let you sleep.”
* * *
I woke with Max staring down at me. “Are you OK?”
“What time is it? And how long have I been sleeping?”
“It’s about six a.m. I thought it better to let you sleep.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“I have everyone looking for our son. I haven’t received a note or call for ransom. I had a team of men in the house when you were asleep. A friend of yours is working for me. He came highly recommended by the San Francisco police department.” I looked on curiously, expecting Max to tell me sooner or later.
I got tired of waiting and asked, “Who is it?”
“Detective Blake Scotto.”
“Why…what possessed you to get him mixed up in our lives?” I said, concerned for Max’s safety and Blake’s.
“You do want the best. Well, he is best at getting to the truth. And you always keep your enemies close,” Max said with dark eyes and a wandering glance.
“How is he an enemy?” My words brought back Max’s glance, and it settled on me.
“He wants you.” Max undressed, walked into the shower, and closed the door. When he returned he had a restless look about him and a towel covered his hips. He paced the room like a wounded animal. “Damn, Alex, I can’t find Jonas. I don’t need to worry about my son and my brother.” He plopped on the bed with the phone to his ear and the towel opened at the center, exposing his body. I went to my knees holding on to his thighs and gazing into his eyes. He needed release from the tension of staying up all night.
I took his penis in my hand and placed it in my mouth. I heard him say, “Jonas, call me. Fuck everything else. I need you, brother.”
It was clear that he needed me more than I needed him. He dropped the phone, and his head swung back with his mouth open wide. He raked his fingers through my hair as he held my head, whispering, “I don’t know what I would do without you and my son. You two are my life. If I don’t have you two, I don’t want to live.”
Max fell into a deep sleep. I moved away from him and watched as he curled up in a fetal position, like a baby. He stayed in that position facing the enormous floor-to-ceiling window circling the bed. I woke with my arms draped across his waist and my head lying on his shoulder. Max had been sleeping hard because he didn’t feel me remove my arm, scoot across the bed, grab a housecoat and slippers, leave, and close the door behind me.
I smelled coffee and wanted a cup. I headed in the direction of the aroma and found the kitchen. “Good morning.”
“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Blackstone,” said Rodger Van Horn, Max’s butler. “You should have remained in bed and I would have brought you coffee and breakfast.”
Turning to meet my glance, Blake rose from a stool with a cup in his hand, and next to him lay a folder on the counter. We stared silently at each other, waiting for the other to speak. The butler noticed the uncomfortable moment we shared, and walked from the kitchen.
The silence was broken. “What brings you here so early, Mr. Scotto? I hope you have some news about my son. I’m tired from worry.”
“I’m sorry, but you don’t
look any worse for it.”
“Mr. Scotto…”
“Please don’t be so formal. I’ve asked you to call me Blake, remember?” Our eyes met. My lashes lowered. “As a matter of fact, I have some great news.” My eyes raised, and my heartbeat quickened. “I’ve viewed the security cameras, and your son wasn’t kidnapped after all. Mr. Blackstone was the last person to see him yesterday.”
“That’s impossible. Max was in Seattle with me,” I said, my voice hoarse, my mind confused and wandering.
“Well Alex…unless he has a twin, then he is the only one who could have taken his son.” My heart screamed with the irony and truth of what Blake had said. I knew very little of Jonas Blackstone, only that he was a drop-dead gorgeous man, an identical twin with mental issues.
– THE END –
Also by Rachel E. Rice
The Incredible Mr. Black
The Captain and the Virgin
The Captain’s Lady and the Pirate
The Captain’s Revenge: a Triangle of Love and Sex
Seduced by an Earl
The Naked Countess
Warm Bodies, Cold Hearts: Obsession
Naked Obsession
Burning Obsession
Tamika Jade: The Case of the girl with the rose tattoo
Book 1 (The Incredible Mr. Black) is available where all e-books are sold. Visit my blog at: http://rachel-e.blogspot.com/ or email me at: [email protected]
Thanks for taking the time to read my book. Please leave a review, if you loved it, if you don’t, or if you just don’t know what to think of it. I appreciate your thoughts.
Coming Soon: Book 3
Submission to Black
Temptation In Black Page 13