DrillingDownDeep
Page 22
The gun at his back registered at the same time as he saw the body on the floor of the bedroom. Vanny’s body, a stream of red dripping from her forehead.
Oh God, no.
“Stay right there, Reynolds.”
Ignoring the man with the gun, seeing nothing but Vanny, he rushed to her, falling to his knees and taking her in his arms. She was warm and limp as he held her, but she was breathing. She was breathing!
“She’s not dead. Just knocked out.”
He glared up at the little man holding a gun on him. “Kohler.”
“Oh yes. You recognize me now. Now I’m important enough for you to notice me. Well, too late, Mr. Big Rich American. Too late for doing it nicely.”
He didn’t remember the guy as having an accent, but one seemed to lurk at the edge of his words now. Or maybe he was just imagining it.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Something simple really. I asked your girlfriend there to help me, but she claimed she couldn’t and, frankly, she was so unhelpful I had to knock her unconscious. She tried to overpower me, me, when I was the one with the gun. A woman! What a wildcat!”
He gathered Vanny closer. “If you’ve hurt her—”
“Save your threats and I might not kill you both.” He gestured with his gun. “Now leave her and get up and take me into that little locked room where you keep all your electronics handiwork.”
“What is this all about?”
“Do it now or I’ll shoot her in the head from here. Then you can do it. Either way.”
With a rage he didn’t know he was capable of feeling, he laid Vanny down gently and stood up, blocking Kohler’s line of sight to her at least.
“I was going to do this the American way. Joint venture. Patent agreements. Proper bills of lading and all. But it simply is not working out like that. And my bosses are anxious for your little circuit board. So time to do it my dear old papa’s way.”
“What circuit board?”
“Now!” Kohler gestured frantically with the gun, taking care not to come too close.
Understanding that the best way to help Vanny now was to lure this madman away from her, he started back to the front hall.
“This way,” Kohler barked at the doorway of the bedroom in the direction of Michael’s workroom.
“I need my key,” he muttered. When he retrieved it from the bowl at the door where he’d dropped it, he headed back. “Why didn’t you just break in? Why wait ’til we’re here?”
Kohler shrugged as Michael unlocked the door. “To tell the truth, I’m not sure I would recognize what I want when I see it.”
He led him in to the workroom. “So how do you know I won’t give you the wrong thing now?”
“Because, Mr. Big American, I’m going to take a picture of it on my phone and send it to somebody in Moscow who will tell me whether you’ve given me the right thing. And we’re going to wait right here while I do.”
“What circuit do you want?”
“The one you’re developing to put in a prosthesis.”
Michael didn’t even bother to ask why. He didn’t give a fuck. He went and got it and handed it to him. He’d figure out how to minimize the damage later, when Vanny was safe. That was all that mattered to him now.
“Thank you. Now let’s go get your girlfriend.”
“Leave her out of this.”
“Go pick her up. Now.”
Trying to gauge whether he could overpower him or not, Kohler evened the odds and out of nowhere, with no warning, shot him. The pain coming from his shoulder was excruciating. He nearly fell to his knees with it. He’d never been shot.
Shit. It hurt.
He took a deep breath, one hand automatically going up to the bleeding shoulder wound, pressing on it.
“Now go. In front of me. You refuse to do it and you’ll have a matching shot in the other shoulder.”
At gunpoint, he went back into the bedroom, where Vanny was still lying motionless.
“Pick her up.”
Oh God, please.
“Come on. I’m not going to hurt her. I just want the two of you out of my way while I verify you gave me the right thing. I’m going to lock you in a closet.”
Michael picked Vanny up, a little more difficult when she was dead weight, oh and he had a gunshot in his shoulder, but he managed and headed to the walk-in closet.
“Not there.”
The closet Kohler ordered him to in the library was probably the smallest enclosed space in the whole damn apartment. More of a safe than a closet, it housed valuables from time to time, though now it had nothing more than the diamond necklace that Vanny had refused to accept and he had not gotten around to returning. Just big enough for him and Vanny to stand in, if she could stand now, but not much bigger than that. And a solid iron door, with a combination lock. He didn’t bother to lock it half the time and it wasn’t locked now.
“Get in.”
If they got in there, they were dead. They’d suffocate, waiting for Kohler to fulfill his empty promise to let them out again. The only way he was going to let them out was if his Moscow contact told him the circuit was a dummy.
And it wasn’t. In his zeal to get Kohler the fuck away from Vanny, he’d given him the real circuit. He saw no reason not to.
Now he realized the error he had made. When it was too late.
Vanny stirred in his arms and Kohler snapped, “Now! Or I’ll shoot you both right now!”
“All right, I lied. That’s not the right circuit.”
“Or you’re lying now. Just get in there while I check it out.”
“Let’s go back to my workroom and I’ll get you the real one.”
Vanny’s green eyes came open slowly, almost sleepily, and she put her arms around his neck. Her slow smile almost broke his heart. Oh Christ, he would get them out of this. He would!
Then she opened her mouth. “He’s claustrophobic. He’s afraid to go in the closet,” she said in a dreamy voice, as she slid down out of his arms to the sound of Kohler’s laughter.
“You gotta be fucking kidding me!”
And while he was laughing, distracted, she knocked the gun right out of his hand. It was almost comical the look of shock on Kohler’s face as he lunged for the gun and, without a second thought, Michael lunged for him. Furious, angry, with more hatred than he thought he had in him, he wrestled Kohler to the ground, sitting on him and then pummeling his face repeatedly with his good arm, the one that wasn’t bleeding profusely.
By the time he took a breath, he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. “He’s out now, Michael.” Vanny had the gun in her hand and was leaning over his shoulder just as he recognized what sounded like the front door being blasted open. Through the haze of what he realized must be blood loss, a bunch of policemen and one of the FBI agents he recognized from the other night, not Carter, were suddenly there, cuffing the still-knocked-out Kohler and helping him and Vanny up.
“We need an ambulance,” Vanny said and he grinned at her. And then he was out.
By the time he woke up in the hospital, his shoulder was bandaged and there was an intravenous tube in his arm and an anxious Vanny at his bedside.
“Hey,” she said when he opened his eyes. “My hero.”
He laughed, his throat feeling scratchy. “I think I’m supposed to say that to you. You’re the one who thought of the claustrophobia thing to distract him.”
“Me?” He realized her eyes were reddened and her hair a wild mass of curls and she was still in the robe he’d found her in, though her forehead was bandaged. And she looked unbelievably incredibly beautiful. More beautiful than he’d ever seen her. “I was just making fun of you. But I’m glad it worked out that way.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I love you, Michael. I’m sorry, but it’s there. It just is. I know I’m violating some mistress ground rule or something.” He saw a single tear roll down her cheek and he put his finger to it.
“You
’re not my mistress, remember? You’re my consultant.”
She laughed. “Then I’m probably breaking an even bigger rule.”
“I love you too. And saying that breaks a rule of a lifetime. Believe me. But I do.”
She kissed him. “Okay. Then it’s all right now.”
“Not so fast,” he whispered. “It’s not all right until we get married.”
“Oh Michael, you’re delusional.”
“Why? Because I’m too old for you?”
“Bullshit. If anything, you’re too rich for me.”
“I don’t believe that’s ever been a disqualifier before.”
“Let’s talk about this when you’re yourself again. Or at the very least when you’re off painkillers. Your whole family is out there, or at least most of them. Even that one I didn’t manage to meet at the party for some reason. Evan. And Miss Prentiss too. I think she likes you more than you ever thought. But I’m not sure she likes your brother for some reason.”
“Is Vik out there?”
“Yes. Vik and Samantha flew back from London right away. It was Vik who sent the police over to the apartment. His friend, that Agent Carter, got word that Kohler had boarded a plane to New York. When Vik tried to call you back to warn you just in case and couldn’t get you, he sent the cops over. They found the guard dead, hidden in the back room, and knew Kohler was there.”
“Thank God.”
She laid her head on his shoulder, his good shoulder. “Though you’d already rescued us.”
“Of course I did. I wasn’t going into that closet. I have a phobia, remember?”
“I remember. Good thing too.”
And then they kissed.
“You’re something more than my mistress, Vanny. You’re my last mistress. My very last one. I swear.”
She smiled.
Hell, he’d be writing greeting cards before long.
He pulled her close. And he was glad of it too.
* * * * *
Evan had been trying to get the tall brunette alone since he’d gotten to the hospital. Now that they all knew Michael would be all right, he had a thing or two to say to Michael’s secretary, who was cool and put together once again, this time in a camel-colored skirt and plain tan sweater, her hair in that same tidy chignon.
He finally caught her by herself near the candy machine, out of the way of the rest of his family.
“Remember me?”
She looked up, the big blue eyes wide and innocent. “Certainly, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Don’t you ‘Mr. Reynolds’ me. What was that all about?”
“What was what all about?”
“At my father’s party. You…we…”
“We had sex, Mr. Reynolds.” She laughed. “My, I certainly never thought I’d say that.”
“God, I hope not. You’re not Michael’s, are you? Because from what I can see of that Vanny, she’ll give you a fight to the death on that one.” He didn’t really think it, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying it, if only to insult her.
Her voice was cooler. “I’m not ‘anybody’s’, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Evan,” he snapped.
“Evan.” There was a long pause, with neither of them speaking. She finally asked, “Is there something I can do for you, Evan?”
“As a matter of fact, Miss Prentiss, there is. You can fuck me again.”
A long pause, then, “Where?”
About Angela Claire
Angela Claire’s first love was romance novels, but she resolved to give them up temporarily for law books (which were considerably less fun). In a quest for a “responsible” career, she headed off to Harvard law school, obtained her diploma and settled into a corporate law practice in New York City—which she hated! After staying in the rat race long enough to pay back her massive student loans, Angela returned to her roots in the Midwest and is working as a lawyer at a more leisurely pace than big city law firm life would allow. A multi-published romance author, she writes in her spare time and finds romance in real life with her husband. Angela would love to hear from you.
Angela welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Angela Claire
Executive Perks
Pleasuring the Professor
Seductive Intent
Undercover Surrender
Print books by Angela Claire
Executive Perks
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Drilling Down Deep
ISBN 9781419945717
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Drilling Down Deep Copyright © 2013 Angela Claire
Edited by Shannon Combs
Cover design and photography by Syneca
Additional cover photography by Juice Team/Shutterstock.com
Model: David
Electronic book publication April 2013
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Table of Contents
Blurb
Title Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
About Angela Claire