by Kira Blakely
Hell, maybe I’d get it in Oregon, Maine, or England. Who cared? I could get as far away from The City of Angels as possible. I didn’t want to be in the town Drake McManus owned. It was too painful.
He wasn’t set to come into the offices today. He and Dad were working cheek by jowl to rehab the charity so I’d only have to worry about bumping into vice presidents and turning over financial records to help smooth through the transition.
Good.
If I’d had to see him, I’d have fallen apart.
Still, the one thing I didn’t expect as I opened my office up at six a.m. was to find George Peters slipping through my door.
I groaned, figuring the universe was having a field day. Drake seemed to be dating the hottest starlet in L.A. and the human pest was back to hovering over me again like my own personal Steve Urkel.
“George, it’s super early.”
“Like I’m not a VP as well. I knew that his team was coming in to set everything up. I figured you’d need an extra hand,” he said, pulling up the other rolling chair in my office and bringing it closer to me than he had to.
George didn’t seem to think that “personal space” applied to him.
“You haven’t talked to me much since you got back,” he said, placing his hand over mine on my mouse.
I jerked back like I’d been scalded. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asked. “You didn’t have to go at all. I tried to stop you. Hell, I’d have gone with you. I can see how upset you’ve been since you got back, how depressed. Do you think I’m blind?” His deep hazel eyes peered into mine.
“I think you pay a creepy amount of attention to me,” I snarked back.
“Maybe,” he said, standing and looming over me. He wasn’t as broad as Drake—who was?—but he was wiry and muscular, far stronger than I was. For a crazy moment, I regretted that I wasn’t near my purse where I kept my pepper spray. “But he did something to you. I knew if you left he’d tear you apart, play his mind games, and he did.”
“He didn’t do anything, and you should apologize for that stunt you pulled on the tarmac. You nearly jeopardized all the negotiations before they started. You did that alpha male crap and could have cost us everything!”
George chuckled and placed his hand on my thigh. “I think we know exactly the kind of negotiations you two were up to.” He pushed his hand up further and I grabbed it then, pushing it away.
“George, stop this. We’re not an ‘us.’ We’ve never been an ‘us,’ and even if Drake never existed, we’d still never be a couple. I can’t stand you, and if you don’t get your goddamn hand off my thigh, I’m going to claw your eyes out and then have Dad fire and blacklist your ass. Actually, I’m going to have those second two things happen anyway. Do you want to keep your eyes?”
“That’s cute,” he said. “That’s why I love that spunk of yours.” He leaned down and kissed me, his bulk pinning me for one panic-raging moment.
Fear lanced through me but so did rage. How dare he? I brought my knees up as hard as I could into his stomach. He let out a breath and staggered back as I grabbed the desk phone and slammed it down hard on his head. George groaned and fell to the carpet, giving me time to rush out and to the café across the street.
I couldn’t dial 911 fast enough.
***
“I can’t believe this!” my father screamed into his cell. “Neil, you can’t be serious. We have video footage of the attack. There’s his hair jammed in the phone base. The cops came to court and testified to what they saw on scene and the judge still let him post bail?”
My stomach turned days later and only a few hours post George’s arraignment. Daddy had pulled every string he still had to speed George to justice, but now there’d been bail.
Mom’s mouth fell open in concern but she tried to school her features to neutral. “Maybe he won’t be able to afford it.”
“It’s only set at one hundred thousand. George has that or has enough friends to do it. He’ll be out by morning,” Dad said, covering the end of the line. “I’m trying to see what else we can do before his trial.”
I stood and rubbed at the back of my neck. “It doesn’t even matter. When the date comes, I’m going to throw everything I have at that creep in my testimony.” I shuddered, my mind flashing back to those three monsters at the bar in the Bahamas. If Drake hadn’t been there, I didn’t even want to know what would have happened to me. I’d been able to save myself this time, but I wished he’d swept in to save me. I wish I could tell him what was happening, but it was too embarrassing to say. “I’m just gonna go upstairs and get some sleep. Tell Carol I’m sorry, but I just need to get some rest. I know she worked on dinner, but…”
Mom gathered me into her arms and squeezed tightly. It pained me to feel how thin she was. She might be out of danger as far as her aneurysm went, but she was also struggling with the cancer still eating through her, and was still all skin and bones.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’re here for you.”
“I know you are,” I said, kissing her forehead and hugging Dad, too. “I know you’re trying. I just need a minute.”
Dad snorted. “I need a crowbar and five minutes alone with George’s kneecaps.”
“The law will get him, but I just need to rest,” I said.
My legs felt heavy, as if they’d been made of iron as I trudged up the stairs. Then I crossed slowly into my bedroom and flung myself down on the mattress. Like always, my fingers snaked under my pillows and pulled out the collar. The diamonds were cold and hard against my fingertips, offering none of the warmth or comfort that Drake would have.
I curled up into a ball and held the collar to my chest, letting the memories of all our times together wash over me.
“I was wrong,” I said, my voice small and cold. “You weren’t a distraction, Drake. You were the only thing that was real.”
***
“Sis,” Carol said as she turned off the lights in her office across the hall. “You don’t have to burn the candle at two ends like this. Four days ago, George almost… I don’t even want to think about what he did. You don’t have to work. We’ll get the transition handled. With two companies this big, it won’t all happen overnight.”
“I have to work,” I said.
It was true. By day, I kept flashing back to what happened with George, with what he’d tried to do. At night, I’d hold my collar and toss and turn, pleasant memories of my time in the playroom with Drake haunting me. The only thing that seemed to help at all was to have something else to focus on, to have the details of the merger working through my brain. Besides, this morning I’d found something unusual. An account no one from our company seemed to have authorized. It looked like a slush fund of several million dollars, and it made absolutely no sense.
“I just… there’s something weird with the books is all.”
Carol snorted. “You run our books. There’s no one on Earth who’s sharper with them. I doubt there’s even a penny out of place.”
“Maybe,” I said, biting at my lower lip. “I’m just finding this weird pattern. I dunno. It’s like a few million dollars just got moved off the books. I can’t quite figure it out.”
“That has to be a glitch. No way that’d get past you,” Carol said in a cloying tone. Sighing, she threw her arm over my shoulder and gave me a tight hug. “All right, Nancy Drew, just don’t miss dinner, okay? Mom wanted to try something simple. It’s just spaghetti, but she wanted a celebratory dinner for how much better she’s been feeling.”
I chuckled. “As long as Dad didn’t make it. He’s the worst.”
“Agreed. Seriously, leave the accounting mystery to the CPAs. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. Just keep taking care of you, okay?”
“An hour more, I promise,” I said as she shut the door to my office.
With my head down and my vision focused on the computer screen, I was hot on the trail of the missing funds. Well, the almost f
our million dollars of spare cash that clearly was in a slush fund that no one seemed to have authorized.
“The hell?” I blurted out loud, confused by everything.
The knob turned, and I quirked my head back, expecting it to be Carol checking up on me. Shit, had I missed dinner? Except my heart sank when I saw who was at the door.
“George!” I screamed, getting to my feet and brandishing my chair as best I could like a weapon. It was a huge rolling chair and a third of my size. I wasn’t doing well handling it. Flailing would have been a better description for how I was doing. “Get the fuck away from me!”
George shook his head and pulled out a gun. “I’m really sorry about all this, Belle.”
“Because I wouldn’t sleep with you?” I asked as he kept the gun trained on me.
He shook his head as he stalked over toward me. Arching his arm up, he shook his head. “No, because you know too much.”
With that, he brought the butt of the gun down hard against my skull, and I fell to the floor and into darkness.
***
Chapter Eighteen
Drake
“Drakey, don’t you want another shot?”
Rose’s voice grated against my ears like nails on a fucking chalkboard. I was doing the PR for her show, Sabrina, which was some witch crap or teen drama. I didn’t really know all the details; one of my assistants handled the account personally. Still, when I got home from the cluster fuck that was the Bahamas, I’d gotten back into whatever routines I could without Belle. What a joke that was. It was as if I’d never had a life before her. Every night, the flashbacks dragged me down, thrusting me into nightmare after nightmare until I woke up to my own voice screaming until it was raw. Every day, I went through the motions. I caught myself replaying the three voicemails that Belle had left me dozens of times a day.
I wanted to call her.
But she’d been so hurt. What could I say? Maybe I was a distraction. I felt the guilt as well, that sensation that we could have done negotiations in a couple days, and she could have been home for Angelique, there when her mother got sick. It helped that I’d been able to get her Mom good care and that from all the doctors’ reports, Angelique was doing better. It also helped to be able to give her money, give her back the wealth and station her family had once had.
It didn’t help worth a goddamn that I had to spend long days with Maurice, wishing that I could ask after Belle with more than a casual curiosity. I wanted to see her, but I just couldn’t because, deep down, she didn’t want to see me.
I was a distraction after all.
But the old tricks weren’t working to keep the PTSD at bay, to keep my beast satiated. The clubs didn’t have any subs I wanted to work with, no one who’d ever compare to Belle, to my princess and her willingness to explore everything. It was worse trying to make the right image for my company and for Rose’s show. It was only a few dates on the deal, nothing more than some drinks at clubs.
But Rose was getting on my last fucking nerve.
Standing up, I tossed a hundred-dollar bill on the table. “Sorry, Rose, but I’m going to call it a night.”
“It’s not even midnight yet, baby,” she pouted. Did this routine really work on any guy?
“Oh, trust me, it feels a hell of a lot later,” I said, hurrying out to my waiting limo.
***
Most of what was happening these days I expected. I expected to be miserable. I expected the constant barrage of nightmares and to be back there, holding dead friends and their limbs in my arms. What I didn’t expect was to have a literal bucket of cold water dumped over my head the next night at close to ten p.m. Ugh, I’d been on a bender of my own after I got back from the club. I hadn’t actually passed out on my own until eleven a.m.
Jesus, what a mess, I thought as I blinked at my digital clock.
Then I groaned when Leonard and Mrs. Johnson were standing on either end of my bed. Mrs. Johnson was smiling widely, even if she had that red bucket still clutched in her fingers.
“Rise and shine, cupcake,” she said, rattling that bucket as if it were a threat. “We need to talk.”
“I think you’re not exactly into talking,” I said, standing up and hurrying into my adjoining bathroom to grab a towel. “Seriously, you two do understand that I’m your fucking boss, right? I could fire you anytime I wanted.”
Leonard chuckled as if that were the funniest joke he’d ever heard. “Operative word, sir, is ‘could.’ We both know you won’t. We’re two of the only people in the world who will put up with your crap and call you on it to your face, and you know it.”
I groused as I ran a towel over my hair. “That doesn’t mean I’m not pretty damn tempted. What the fuck was that all about?”
Mrs. Johnson finally set the bucket down and put her hands on her plump hips. “You. It’s been close to two weeks, and you’re an utter mess, dear. You’re burying yourself in your work where you can, putting out the PR image for the company, and then not sleeping. You’re worse off than you ever were before Belle came.”
“I don’t want to hear that name.”
“It’s true,” Leonard said. “You’re avoiding everything, and you know it. That girl said things—whatever she said—when she thought her mother was dying. You know she didn’t mean it because of those voicemails.”
I blinked. “How do you know about those?”
“Please, dear,” Mrs. Johnson said, her voice as syrupy sweet and maternal as ever. “We know everything. Someone has to keep an eye out for you since you can’t do it for yourself. The girl misses you, and all you have to do is contact her.”
“I guess I could call her.”
Leonard snorted. “That’ll really sweep her off her feet, sir, good thinking. You’re serious?”
“Well, it’s polite to return a voicemail,” I said, tossing my towel back to the bed.
“You haven’t spoken to her in two weeks and after a hell of a fight,” Leonard reminded, as if I could ever forget.
“And?”
“That means you’re going to need to do far more than that,” Mrs. Johnson said. “You’ll need to apologize in person with dozens upon dozens of roses if possible.”
I nodded, feeling dumb and chicken shit for avoiding Belle in the first place. I probably wouldn’t have, but I didn’t want to be in her way while her mom was going through therapy. Belle wasn’t sure what she wanted, and I felt she at least needed to stay focused while Angelique was in danger, but with her mother newly released home, that wasn’t a valid reason anymore.
Besides, if I didn’t get Belle back in my life soon, I was going to go crazy.
Frowning, I came up with an idea, but I wanted my servants out of the room first. My thoughts weren’t completely legal. They weren’t wrong, per se, but I had a feeling that Mrs. Johnson would object. Leonard? He was harder to call. Guy had a Machiavellian streak of his own.
“You’re right.”
“And another thing,” Mrs. Johnson said, her eyes going comically wide when I agreed with her. “What?”
“I said ‘you’re right.’ I have an idea but can you let a guy get dressed first? Shit, guys, I don’t need prodding like a little kid here!”
“If the shoe fits,” Mrs. Johnson said before Leonard led her out of the room.
He winked at me before shutting the door. “I’ll just go and get the Rolls warmed up then, sir.”
“Sure,” I said, waiting till he shut the door to first get on some clothes that weren’t coated with freezing water.
Then I sat down at my computer and activated a program I’d had one of my techs install years ago. I might have gone through a little bit of a phase where I liked to keep closer tabs on my subs. I regretted that now, but the software still helped me track things like cell phones down if I had the number. Right now, I was planning to see if I could plan a way to “bump into” Belle while she was out tonight or tomorrow. I figured trying to talk to her at her house with all her family would end u
p being a FUBAR experience. I wasn’t sure her mom, her dad, and Carol wouldn’t have pitchforks and barrels of bubbling oil waiting for me.
Better to surprise her with the roses and the diamonds somewhere with less backup.
As I fed her cell into the program, I frowned. That couldn’t have been right. According to the map and the GPS, she or at least her phone was in a warehouse in one of the shadiest, most dangerous areas of Los Angeles.
What the hell?
Maybe the damn thing had been stolen. I called it first, trying to see if I could get an answer, but the phone just rang through, and things were starting to look even bleaker.
Bracing myself, I called Maurice. I wasn’t sure what lie I could tell that would be good enough to explain why I was calling at close to eleven p.m. to speak to Belle but calling his phone, but the right line of bullshit would come to me. It usually did.
Maurice’s voice was frantic on the other end. “Hello? Drake?”
“Maurice, I was trying to get Belle but her phone went to voicemail. Is she all right?”
“She’s been taken.”
“What?”
“The kidnappers just called. She was working late at the office and the cameras cut out and everything. Cops have already tried to comb through it and couldn’t find anything. The kidnappers called and told me to wait for future instructions and they’d tell me what to do. I… I don’t know what to do.”