Keeping Her

by Holly Hart

  “It appears the money was recalled by the depositing account.”

  What? A cold fury creeps into my guts.

  “How is that possible?” I ask. How could you let that happen, I want to scream.

  “There are certain unique provisions in accounts of this nature. Payments can be withheld or withdrawn in extraordinary circumstances, usually to do with breach of contract.”

  I draw a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  “I am very sorry, Ms. Vincent,” he says. “Obviously this is a mistake. Unfortunately, it is not one I can rectify here at the bank. You will have to contact your lawyer.”

  He smiles nervously. I swallow the rage building inside me and manage to smile back.

  “Of course,” I say, rising from my chair, as if this kind of thing happens to me all the time. “These things happen.”

  We shake hands and I walk out of the office. Carson looks up from a copy of Yachts International as I emerge into the waiting room. His eyes widen as he sees my expression.

  “I take it things didn’t go as planned,” he says cautiously.

  I flash a thousand-watt smile.

  “The fuckers took my money back,” I say.

  Carson’s jaw literally drops open.

  “What?”

  “Every cent. Two days ago. Andre said they have the right as the depositor and to take it up with my lawyer. I don’t have a lawyer.”

  “I’ve got about eighty,” he says absently. “But we can’t get them involved in this. You don’t want something like this coming anywhere near the eyes of a judge.”

  “No kidding.”

  He takes me by the shoulders and looks me in the eye.

  “We can fix this,” he says.

  “I can fix this,” I say, trying to keep the venom out of my voice.

  I don’t want Carson Drake riding in on his white horse to save the helpless damsel in distress. This may be distress, but I’m far from helpless.

  He holds up his hands in surrender.

  “Absolutely. I know what you’re capable of.”

  He wishes. That flip on the dance floor was child’s play. I was just surprised then.

  You don’t want to see me when I’m angry.

  Carson smiles crookedly.

  “Can I ask one favor?”

  “Make it good.”

  “Can it wait till we get back to New York tomorrow night? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. Until then, let’s enjoy the next twenty-four hours.”

  I’m still pouting, but the idea is growing on me.

  “I’m still obscenely rich,” he says.

  “Yeah, and I’m flat broke.”

  “But soon to be rich. Maybe not obscenely, but rich enough that people will shake their heads and cluck their tongues.”

  I fight the smile as long as I can, but I finally I give in. How does he do this to me? Before he came back into my life, I wouldn’t have slept until I’d figured this out.

  “All right,” I say, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Let’s go find Tricia and Maks. Might as well have a night out while we’re here. Besides, I want to show off my body. I’ve sweated away fifteen pounds since we arrived.”

  He shakes his head.

  “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

  “If you think that’s bad, imagine if you’d stolen a couple million dollars from me.”

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Two

  48. CARSON

  One of the great things about Grand Cayman is that the sun sets between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. every day of the year.

  And when the sun goes down, the party starts.

  The club we’re in – it’s called JetStream – is all blue lights and bright whites, with electronica throbbing out of the speakers. But we’ve got a booth in the VIP section, and it’s low season for tourism, so we can actually hear each other. Sort of.

  Cassie points to the dance floor and puts her lips to my ear.

  “Look at them!” she says. “Who’d have thought?”

  I know from experience that Maksim is a seriously good dancer – he literally lives in nightclubs, how could he not be – but Tricia is a surprise. She’s writhing and grinding with him like an old pro. All while holding a triple mojito.

  If nothing else, the girl knows how to cut loose.

  “I think Tricia likes him,” says Cassie.

  “Are you kidding? He’s been talking to the hand since we took off from JFK.”

  “She was just playing hard to get. She wants a guy to work for it.”

  “That’s good,” I say. “It’s about time Maks had to work for something.”

  We clink our glasses together and down some of the blue concoction inside. It’s sweet and coconut-y and totally unlike anything I usually drink. But hey, it’s Cayman. And what happens in Cayman…

  I can tell by the look in her eyes that Cassie’s mind isn’t here in the club, though.

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s figure out how we’re going to tackle this when we get home.”

  She grins like a kid who just got a parent to play Barbies with her. The fact that she gets so giddy about planning revenge disturbs me a little.

  Not to mention the way it causes my shorts to fit more tightly.

  “The woman in the red dress is key,” she says. “If we can find her, we can communicate with the organizers.”

  “Agreed.”

  Cassie pulls on her lower lip. It’s been a sign of deep thought since we were kids.

  “Of course, that’s easier said than done,” she says. “They have plenty of kompromat on me and you – and the other contestants. But we have nothing on them. They like it that way.”

  “Kompro-what, now?”

  “Kompromat. It’s Russian for blackmail. Their intelligence community collects or manufactures compromising info on public figures, then uses it as leverage to ensure compliance. The US does it too, but the Russians are masters at it.”

  Her competence turns me on. Is that wrong? I don’t know, but if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

  I slide my hand under the table and onto her bare thigh. She returns the favor, but her expression is still all business.

  “We should operate under the assumption that this was deliberate,” she says. “But we need to make sure we don’t go in with guns blazing, just in case it wasn’t.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Diplomacy can work wonders when you give it a chance.”

  “Unless you’re in a situation where someone is screwing with you,” she says. “Then you nail them to the wall with railroad spikes and pour battery acid into the wounds.”

  I can’t help myself: I take her hand and lay it directly on my hard-on.

  Cassie’s eyebrows go up.

  “Easy, tiger,” she says, but gives me a friendly squeeze for my trouble. “We’ve got all night.”

  “Believe me, it’s going to take all night.”

  Her smile is so sexy it makes my heart stop.

  “Promises, promises,” she purrs.

  I knock back the rest of my drink in an attempt to steady myself. How was this girl possibly a virgin last week? She’s taken to sex like a fish to water.

  I guess she has a lot of lost time to make up for.

  “All right,” I say. “We agree that the first step is to find Red Dress and figure out what the situation is. If it’s innocuous, we settle it.”

  She smiles. “I love it when you use $50 words like that.”

  “It’s my milieu,” I say, buffing my fingernails on my Guayabera shirt.

  “Oh my God,” she gasps. “It sounds so dirty when you use it the wrong way like that.”

  She’s right, dammit, I did screw it up. I chuckle and shake my head.

  “The question is what we do if it’s not innocuous,” she says. “If they’re trying to pull a fast one.”

  That prompts an unpleasant idea that never occurred to me before. It should have, but it didn’t.

  “What if th
e whole thing was a set-up to get kompromat on a group of wealthy men?” I ask. “Maybe you were meant to be collateral damage the whole time.”

  Molten lava seethes behind her eyes. Apparently it never occurred to her, either. Now that is has…

  “You’re obscenely rich,” she says. “So are the other contestants. That means you have resources.”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “Just like Liam Neeson, I’ve got a very particular set of skills.”

  “Okay, you’ve got the skills, I’ve got the resources. What are we going to do with them?”

  She raises her glass in salute and downs it in a gulp.

  “We’re going to fuck them up,” she says. “Hard.”

  “First things first,” I say. “We have to find Red Dress.”

  Cassie rummages in her purse and pulls out her phone. She slides her finger along the screen for a moment, then turns it toward me. On it is a photo of a laptop screen, featuring a woman with long, golden curls.

  “It’s not much,” she says. “But it’s a start. I wish I had full access to my agency computers. But then I’d have to explain what I was doing.”

  A Cheshire cat grin threatens to circle all the way around my head as I picture the floor-to-ceiling screen in my computer room running through thousands of online photos per hour.

  “I happen to have something back at my penthouse that may be of service,” I say.

  Before I can elaborate, Maks and Tricia suddenly appear, sliding into their seats on the other side of the booth. They’re sweating freely and laughing like kids.

  They see the looks on our faces and the laughter dries up.

  “I am thinking you need drinks,” Maksim says.

  Tricia’s eyebrows go up. “Quadruples, by the looks of things. Everything all right?”

  I smile. Cassie follows suit.

  “Nothing we can’t figure out,” I say. “Man, you guys were tearing it up out there!”

  Maksim beams at Tricia.

  “A dancer is only as good as his partner,” he says.

  “You notice his English always gets better when he’s throwing out pick-up lines?” Tricia says, shaking her head.

  Cassie giggles, and it’s almost as if our previous conversation never happened. She’s the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.

  She raises her hand to catch the server’s eyes. She twirls her index finger in a gesture to signal another round.

  “All right,” she says. “Let’s kick this night into high gear!”

  The waitress arrives with a tray of drinks and a shot of what smells like top-shelf Don Julio tequila for each of us.

  “Compliments of the house,” she says with a practiced smile.

  We each grab a glass and clink them together.

  “To obscene riches,” I say.

  We drink. The smooth liquor goes down like a fire in the walls, heat without flame. I highly recommend expensive tequila if you have the means. The cheap stuff is just rubbing alcohol in a fancier bottle, as far as I’m concerned.

  Suddenly Cassie’s lips are at my ear. The scent of her shot fills my nostrils.

  “Pace yourself,” she whispers. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us, remember?”

  Under the table, her hand slides under the hem of my shorts and finds the delicate skin of my cock.

  “Trust me,” I say. “It’s all I can think about.”

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Three

  49. CARSON

  The screen-window in my computer room displays blonde after blonde after blonde. I’m hoping Red Dress is a natural, or I’ll have to do this all over again with brunette when this cycle is done.

  In any case, this is going to take awhile, so I might as well be doing something else while it does.

  I suit up in my running shorts and a tank top and lace up my Reeboks. Matthias worked me like a rented mule this morning, but after all that booze and rich food in Cayman, I feel like I need to put in some extra effort.

  Plus running always helps me think.

  I climb into my elevator for the eighty-floor trip to ground level. As it descends, my mind wanders to what Cassie’s doing right now.

  She’s got a delicate conversation ahead of her. She has to explain to Tricia – then Miranda Winthrop at Tate Capital – that her funding has been delayed. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it puts her in an awkward position where she’ll have to lie. She’s trying to leave that behind.

  I get that. I tried to do it for years.

  The bell chimes as the elevator reaches the lobby. I trot through the foyer and out the front door that Chuck, the doorman, holds open for me. I smile and wave as I go by. Chuck’s cool. I slip him a hundred a couple of times a week and he takes good care of me.

  Park Avenue is already baking and it’s only 9:30 in the morning. I let my mind go on autopilot as I set my pace, feeling the jolt of each step, listening to the rhythm of my breathing, tuning out the noise of the street and its people.

  It’s kind of a Zen state that helps clear my mind of distractions so that it can start making the connections that my psychologist was talking about. Running threads of synapses from one piece of information to the other in a web of subconscious thought. Feeling for vibrations the way a spider feels for its prey.

  I head northwest on 122nd Street to Marcus Garvey Park. If I have to keep dodging all these pedestrians, I’ll never sink deeply enough into my brain. Once I’m there, traffic disappears and I have the trail mostly to myself.

  What reasons would the Chase’s organizers have to claw back Cassie’s money? I’ve asked myself that a thousand times over the last thirty-six hours. Occam’s razor says the simplest explanation is usually the right one. Was it just an accounting error?

  Somehow, I doubt it. Any group that’s as meticulous about secrecy as they are wouldn’t make a stupid error like that.

  Blessed shade covers me as I run into a dense copse of elm trees. Now I’m wishing I had thought to bring my water bottle with me. I suppose I can be forgiven – my mind is a bit preoccupied.

  So what’s the next scenario? Kompromat? If so, they’re taking an awful risk. I don’t know how many other billionaires are involved, but there’s only so far they’ll be willing to be pushed. Like Cassie says, we have resources.

  And I know from personal experience that many of them can be real bastards when they want to be. They didn’t get where they are by rolling over and showing their bellies.

  Or is it simpler than I’m making it? Maybe the men behind the Chase are just cheap misogynists. I mean, look at what the Chase is all about. They could simply be screwing Cassie over, believing there’s nothing she can do about it.

  If so, they definitely don’t know who they’re dealing with.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see a water fountain and head toward it. Normally I can go a few miles without a drink, but damn, it’s a scorcher today.

  I bend down to let the water flow into my mouth. When I’m done, I stand up to see a blonde in a red sundress standing beside me.

  “Good afternoon,” she says with a smile. “I hate to interrupt your exercise, but I’m afraid we have a few urgent matters to discuss.”

  Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four

  50. CASSANDRA

  “So let me get this straight,” Tricia says, cocking an eyebrow. “We just spent three days watching a private matinee, flying a private jet to Grand Cayman, and staying in five-star hotels, right?”

  “Right.” I feel like a kid in the principal’s office instead of a grown woman in an ice cream shop.

  “And now you’re telling me we have to wait a while for our start-up capital to come in.”

  “Yeah.”

  She manages to glare at me for a full five seconds before she bursts out laughing.

  “I know,” I groan. “It sounds ridiculous. But it’s just business. We’re still on track, I promise.”

  Tricia wraps a sugar-sticky arm around my neck and hugs me tight.

>   “I’ll tell you what, honey,” she sighs. “Life is never boring when you’re around. I know you’re good for it, Cassie. Besides, you were always the one with the deadline, not me.”

  She’s got me there. I guess I just assumed she’d be as disappointed as I am in not being able to move ahead on schedule. I should have known better. I’ve always been a Type A. Doesn’t mean everyone else is.

  “Now if only Miranda Winthrop can be as forgiving,” I say.

  Of course, Miranda definitely is.

  “Look, hon, I get that you want to make it on your own, and I’m totally with you on that,” says Tricia. “And I’m sure Miranda won’t have any problem extending the deadline. But if she doesn’t, you know you can just drop Carson’s name, right?”

  I do know she’s right, but just the thought of it makes me stiffen. I didn’t go through everything I’ve been through to just roll over and ask Carson to save me. I know he’d do it in a heartbeat, but that’s not how I do things. For good or bad, that’s not how my father raised me.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I say, leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek. “And I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “Chin up,” she says as I head for the door. “Your life is still pretty fucking good, you know.”

  I realize she’s right as I leave the air-conditioned safety of Patty’s and step into the midday Midtown oven. It’s just hot enough that I decide to cab it to Tate Capital instead of walking.

  I head for the taxi stand about a half a block up the street when someone pulls alongside me. I glance out of the corner of my eye to see a familiar face: it’s the Texan gentleman who bought me the white roses in Hell’s Kitchen.

  He stops to face me, and his jowls lift in an easy grin. He’s dressed in a manner more suited to his home state today: short-sleeved cowboy shirt, jeans and boots.

  “Looky who it is!” he hoots. “I told you I’d see you later!”

  “Well, hi!” I smile back. “Now, what are the odds that we’d run into each other again?”