by Lexi Blake
“I’ll have one installed tomorrow.” Bran inspected the back door. “Keep talking. Who were they? Was it the DiLuca guy you mentioned this afternoon? I’ve already put in a request for a report on him.”
It was good to know he worked fast. “They were his employees. Apparently Roger owed some money to the mob and they’re finally getting around to trying to collect. I really know how to pick a husband.”
“This door needs a dead bolt, too, and I’ll have to secure the fences. You need an alarm system with video monitoring. And you’re divorced,” he said, turning back her way. “Do they need to see the divorce decree?”
“I’m afraid Mr. DiLuca is a traditional kind of guy.”
“He’s a greedy kind of guy.” Bran slid out of the light jacket he’d been wearing and hooked it over the back of one of her chairs. The T-shirt he had on under it showed off how well toned his arms were.
“I think that goes without saying,” she agreed. “Anyway, the man who broke in basically explained that I’m being held responsible for Roger’s debt. He wasn’t alone. There was a second man. I kind of think he’s the one who does all the real dirty work.”
Bran’s jaw had gone tight. “I’m going to assume this million you suddenly need is to pay off the debt or they’ll come back and hurt you.”
She hated the way her eyes watered. “Yes, but if you don’t think my services will be worth that much, then you should let me know now.”
His whole demeanor softened and he stepped toward her, putting his hands on her shoulders and staring straight down at her. “I’ll give you the million. It’s not payment for anything.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because my brother set up a trust for me a few years back and he manages it. It’s ridiculous but I’m worth a hundred million dollars. I won’t miss it and you need it. So it’s yours. I want you to work with me because you believe in the cause not because there’s no other way out of your problems.”
She couldn’t stop the tears now because he was saying all the right things and she so wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe there was a man in the world who simply did good and wanted her to help him. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
Suddenly she was wrapped up in his big arms, the heat of his body warming her in a way no blanket ever could. “It’s all right. I’ll prove myself to you, Carly. You go ahead and cry. I’m sure it was terrifying, but it’s okay now. I’m not going to leave you alone again. Not tonight.”
She knew she shouldn’t but she couldn’t help herself a second longer. The events of the day pressed down on her and she cried. Tears poured out and she let herself be surrounded by his warmth.
It was easy to let go with him. Stupid, yes, but so easy. She’d been alone for so long. Even when Roger had been with her, there’d been no comfort from him. There had been what passed for good sex and companionship, and the feeling that she had to be so smart to have married such an attractive, charming man. And there had been a deep need to please him. He’d done a good job of keeping her always on the edge. He would give her just enough praise and affection to keep her wanting more.
Bran gave her comfort. He gave her arms that wrapped around her, hugging her tight.
Finally she moved away, her tears drying. He’d smoothed her hair back, saying nothing while she wept. He’d just been there.
She wanted to turn her face up to him, to let him know how nice it would be if he kissed her.
Stop. Don’t go any farther down that road.
She probably looked a mess and anything he gave her would be out of pity. She forced herself to step back.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Yes, you should have. You needed it and I liked being needed for a few minutes.” He reached out and tucked a stray lock back. “You don’t understand me yet, but that was meaningful to me. Now go sit down and we’ll talk. You said you’d been coming down to make some tea. What kind do you want?”
Actually, some tea might settle her stomach. She wasn’t as anxious now that he was here, but she still doubted she could get to sleep. “I’ll get it.”
He shook his head. “No, you sit. I’m perfectly capable of boiling water. We need to talk about how this is going to work. If it’s going to work at all.” He held out a chair for her. “I meant what I said. The money is yours whether you work with me or not.”
“Why would you do that? Look, I get that you have plenty of cash, but it’s a million dollars.”
He grabbed her teakettle and quickly filled it. “I don’t care about money. I care about bad shit happening to good people.”
“How do you know I’m good?”
“Because you wouldn’t let your sister go to jail. Hell, you wouldn’t even allow her to be arrested. You do understand she could have gotten off with a good lawyer. I read up on your husband’s case after I left you this afternoon. Your sister was very young. She likely knew nothing about the embezzlement. There’s not a lot of chance a jury convicts her with a decent attorney.”
“I couldn’t take that chance.” It hadn’t even been a thought in her head. She couldn’t let Meri come so close to danger.
“Does she know what you did for her?”
That was another thing she hadn’t even considered. She never wanted Meri to know how poorly it could have gone. “No. Patricia allowed me to write her a check for the money in that account. Luckily Roger hadn’t taken it yet. I explained to Meri that I needed it and she turned it all over without question. She was too involved in helping me hold everything together to ask too many questions. I didn’t want her to feel bad about it. We didn’t grow up in the best of circumstances. We had to watch out for each other. If she thought I was stuck in this job because of her, she would try to get me out of it any way she could. She’s a great kid. She’s worked hard and she deserves a bright future.”
“But you don’t?”
“Everything in my life that’s messed up is because I made the wrong choices. Meri didn’t. She made all the right ones. She’s the smart one. She got a scholarship right out of high school. I barely made it through community college. I thought I was lucky to get the job with Cain Corp.” She noticed him opening cabinet doors. “The tea is in the one on your left. I’ll take the chamomile.”
He found her tea box with its neatly organized bags and paraphernalia. He was smiling as he opened it. “You really like tea.”
When he grinned like that she couldn’t help but smile back. He was such a lovely man. “I do, but there’s also wine in the fridge, and I think I have some brandy somewhere.”
He settled a teacup in front of her and another across from her. “I can handle tea. Do I look like a man who only drinks alcohol?”
“Well, it sounded like you were in a bar when I called.” The music had been so loud. She could envision him at a hot nightclub, dancing with all the ladies. He would be a hit with them.
“I was at a strip club,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a hobby. Now tell me how you did get the job at Cain Corp. You’re right. You weren’t qualified. All of her other assistants had degrees from prestigious schools.”
They’d come from Harvard or Vassar. The one right before Carly had been a Brown graduate. They’d all gone on to bigger jobs in the corporation. “I was actually applying for another job but Patricia overheard me talking about a recipe my grandmother used to make. She’d been trying to put together a hometown Christmas theme for an episode of her show. I was trying to get a job at her magazine as a proofreader and I was talking about the fact that the recipe they were using wasn’t truly Southern. It was too froufrou to be down-home. Patricia stopped and asked me to show her. We have these huge test kitchens in the offices. So I did. My grandma’s sage corn bread dressing is now a staple in a lot of households and I suddenly became her assistant.”
The kettle started to whis
tle and Bran made quick work of pouring the hot water. “Did she give you credit for the recipe?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“I would bet she claimed she’d found the recipe in her mother’s attic or she invented it herself, right?”
Carly settled the tea bag in her cup. She preferred loose leaf, but her life ran at such a hectic pace that she didn’t usually have time to let her tea steep properly, so she was left with this option. “She claimed she’d done all kinds of research with Southern cooks. All bullshit, naturally. But that’s how one builds a brand. One lies through one’s teeth.”
“So she saw your potential and used it to prop herself up. How much have you given her over the years?”
“So much. It’s a slippery slope. At first I shared with her because I thought if I did a good job, she would reward me. That never happened. I thought maybe she’d give me a byline in the magazine, or hell, maybe I can go on her lifestyle show and help out. That was when she explained I don’t fit her image.”
Bran slid into the seat across from her, selecting his own tea. A white tea with orange and passionflower. It was a vibrant tea with a bright finish. “Her image?”
“Celebrities and well-respected members of the community. She doesn’t have assistants on.”
“How much of her work do you do?”
“If Patricia gets stuck on something, she’ll send me into the kitchens to figure it out. I’m the one who designed the Thanksgiving menu last year. She couldn’t handle it so she shoved it off on me. She’s getting worse about that. I think she likes the business part more than the actual core work. She would greatly prefer to be in a boardroom than the kitchens.”
“Not you, though.”
She felt a smile slide across her face. “Oh, I live for those days. You don’t know what it’s like. I have an unlimited budget and access to every tech aid I could ever want. I have top-of-the-line appliances, and no one cares what I do as long as it works. I grew up having to make do with whatever happened to be in the kitchen at the time, and mostly that was crap. I can actually do a lot with a can of Spam.”
“There were days when I longed for Spam.”
She’d forgotten. It was too easy to see only the wealth and privilege of his current state. “That’s right. You were in the system for a long time. You know what it means to have to make do.”
“I know what it means to not know if I’ll make it through the night, but we were talking about you.”
“I’m going to help you.” She’d made up her mind before he’d come to her doorstep. He might be willing to write her a check and walk away, but she needed to pay him back in some small way. “I only ask that when you take her down, if you take her down, you try to leave me out of it. I don’t think she’ll come after me unless she figures out I was working with you. Actually, I don’t care if she comes after me at all. I’m worried about Meri. The statute of limitations doesn’t run out for another two years.”
“I promise you no harm will come to your sister. She’ll be protected by us. You don’t have to worry about that, and you need to know this. We will take Patricia Cain down. We’ll take her down and she won’t be able to hurt anyone again.”
“Do you promise?” She wasn’t sure why she asked, wasn’t exactly sure what she was asking him to promise her. It was more than simply taking down Patricia. She wanted to believe him.
He reached across the table, covering her hand with his. “I promise.”
Somehow she got the feeling he, too, was thinking of more than the mission at hand.
—
“Are you absolutely sure you want to stay here?” Carly frowned as she brought out a blanket twenty minutes later. “The couch is pretty small. I’m not sure you’ll be comfortable on it.”
Bran was one hundred percent sure he wouldn’t be, but that wasn’t the point. He tugged his shirt over his head and folded it neatly. “I’ve slept in worse places. And I think it’s best I stay here tonight. Unless you want to come home with me.”
He knew she wasn’t going to take that option, but it would be nice. If Drew and Riley and Hatch met her, got to know her, they wouldn’t be so worried about her. All he’d had to do was spend a couple of hours with her to know that she was a deeply loyal woman. All he needed to do was prove he was worthy of that loyalty. She’d been bitten before and she was shy, but the man who gained her trust again would get everything from her.
She deserved to have someone who would watch her back, and that included ensuring that she could sleep the rest of the night. What little of it was left.
If someone showed up on her doorstep, he would take care of them. As viciously as he possibly could. He still intended to write her that check. He would do it because it would bring her peace of mind, but he was going to make sure none of them ever threatened her again. He would handle them in a way that would ensure her safety.
She shook her head. “You said your place is out in Palm Coast. That’s forty minutes away. I have to be at work pretty early in the morning.” She turned and started working on the couch, but not before he’d caught her staring at his chest. She smoothed out a sheet over the leather. “Why all the way out there? Why wouldn’t you set up here in St. Augustine?”
He would have to thank his brother-in-law for all the workouts. It was how they’d bonded. Case Taggart liked to lift weights and he’d brought Bran into his daily routine the last time he was in town. It wasn’t like Bran had been out of shape before, but Case’s daily regime had taken his lanky frame and honed it to something strong and masculine. He wished he could tell her how soft and sexy she looked in her pj’s. She had a robe wrapped around her, but every now and then it slipped open, revealing creamy skin and breasts he would love to get his hands on. He’d spent the majority of his evening watching women strip, but it was Carly in her pink tank top and perfectly respectable pajama bottoms that had his cock engaged. “We have some friends who have a condo out there and it’s outfitted with the best tech possible both computer-wise and security. Also, we thought it would be best if we were close but not too close. Patricia knew our parents quite well. One new person in her life who reminds her of old enemies won’t cause too much stress but if she were to see me and Drew, or worse, Hatch, she would definitely be suspicious. We’re simply being careful.”
“You have your mother’s coloring, but you don’t really look like her. You look more like your dad,” Carly said as she worked a pillow into a soft-looking pillowcase.
“I’m taller than he was, a bit more built. I looked more like him when I was smaller. Take off about thirty pounds of muscle, cut my hair into a military buzz, and put some glasses on me, and I look quite like him. Of course I’ve been told my father had an air of unmistakable genius about him that I don’t have.” Not that Hatch had put it that way. He’d explained that most people didn’t remember Benedict for his looks. They remembered his brilliant brain. “Drew is most like him. Another reason I thought it was better for me to go in instead of him. I think Drew would remind Patricia of our father.”
“I don’t know about that. She’s not very observant. One of the things you need to know about her is that she’s a narcissist. She doesn’t care about anything but herself and her bottom line.” She looked up at him. “Your brother is the man behind 4L?”
Naturally everyone was impressed with a thirty-four-year-old billionaire. “He is. I need you to understand that we have resources that we’ll use to take care of you. You’ll have a job at 4L if you want one. I’ll promise you that right now.”
“You need a personal assistant?” she said, her lips curling slightly.
He frowned because he hadn’t thought she’d ask that question. “No. I don’t really need one, but I promise I’ll find something for you. You won’t be left out in the cold. 4L is a big company and we own a lot of other companies. You would have your pick.”
Actually, Ellie could use a new PA. That wouldn’t be a bad fit. Ellie would be good to Carly and Bran spent a lot of time in New York. He could see her from time to time. He would have to think about it. He didn’t mention it, though, because Ellie’s last assistant had been brutally murdered in front of her. It wouldn’t give Carly great faith in them as a group.
She settled the pillow down and smoothed out the blanket. “I don’t know how I feel about a new job. Not that I’m not happy at the thought of keeping my house, but being a personal assistant wasn’t exactly my life plan. I wanted to write cookbooks. Well, I wanted to start out by editing them and work my way up.”
“It sounds like you want to be a chef.”
Her head shook slightly. “No. It’s different. I don’t want my own restaurant or to be in charge of a kitchen. I want to work at a lifestyle magazine. I love looking at decorating trends and cooking trends. A chef tends to focus on one type of cuisine. I want to try them all, not necessarily be a master at them. I like making people comfortable. At my heart, I’m a homemaker.”
Her home was lovely. The minute he’d walked in he’d felt a certain peace rush over him and not simply because the space was well decorated. Carly herself made a person feel at home.
Even when she was crying on his shoulder. She would probably run as fast as she could if she knew how much that had fed his soul. It wasn’t that he liked watching her cry. He’d enjoyed knowing he was helping her. He’d loved the way she’d clung to him, her arms tight around his body.
He probably shouldn’t tell her that, either. Best to stick to the plan. He sank down to the sofa, sitting beside her but giving her plenty of space. “We should talk about how you’re going to integrate me into your life.”
A fine blush crossed her cheeks. “Maybe we should say you’re my cousin or something.”
Little coward. “No. No one is going to believe I’m your cousin. And why would you take your cousin with you to LA?”
“Because we’re family?”