Chain of Title

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Chain of Title Page 23

by Robyn Roze


  He brought his hands around to firmly hold her face. “You should know by now, I’ll take you anyway I can get you.”

  The emotions that raced across his features made her heart hurt and her stomach churn in a jumble of nerves. All of the disparate thoughts colliding in her head at that moment came to a screeching halt, and time seemed to stand still. She loved this man, but.... But what? It came down to how much importance she placed on recent events, recent knowledge about a side of Sean she didn’t know, a side he wasn’t going to share.

  Could she accept that?

  She thought she had known Frank and look how that turned out. At least Sean had been honest enough to tell her there were things he was unwilling to discuss, unwilling to involve her in. And what about Wes? If he had lived, would they still be together? Would she have found out later that he wasn’t who she remembered him to be, who she had built him up to be? He was still untouchable in her memories, but after all, they had just been kids when they married. So much of life had been ahead of them, ups and downs that certainly would have challenged them, even changed them. She sighed heavily as her thoughts consumed her.

  A look of defeat slowly veiled Sean’s face and his eyes closed, his forehead dropping to press against hers as if to read her mind, or change it. She couldn’t stand seeing him like this, couldn’t stand being responsible for his anguish. He loved her, and of that she had no doubt.

  Head or heart, Shay? Which one do you listen to this time? His hands fell from her, taking their warmth and promise with them.

  Not able to cause him any further agony, she made a decision and steeled her resolve. Cupping his square jaw in her hands and leveling their eyes, she answered with conviction, “I’ll marry you, Sean Parker.” The immediate relief coloring his face was palpable and the hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, his eyes warming and softening, his hands returning to her body. “But you should know, I would’ve married you anyway,” she whispered, voice trembling, as a lone tear fell across her cheek. His eyes widened at her admission. He hugged her so tightly she thought she might break.

  “You’ll never regret it, Shay. I promise. We’re going to have a great life. I know I can make you happy,” he pledged, his tenor thick with emotion. He kissed the shell of her ear, nipping at her neck and caressing her back.

  “You already have,” she said breathily, feeling the warmth spread on her skin in the cool night air, as heavy heat pooled low in her belly.

  Her hands slid down his broad chest and quickly dispensed with the button and zipper on his faded jeans. Skimming a hand under his trunks, his breathing hitched as she began stroking the hard, velvety smooth prize in her hand. They had made out like teenagers the last few days, working their way up to third base, and now she felt ready to slide home. Her cheeks warmed when she realized she was rocking against him shamelessly.

  “I want you, Sean. I want all of you—now,” she said, with choked desire in her voice. The world around them faded into the powdery mist rising from the inky water as their bodies molded to one another. Nothing else, no one else, existed at that moment.

  He pulled back, gazing into her dreamy eyes, his own heavy lidded and cloudy. Tilting her chin up, he admitted huskily, “You’ve had me, all of me, since the first day you walked into my restaurant.” He kissed her fiercely, devouring her lips and mouth, stealing her breath and branding her as his, forever.

  CHAPTER 26

  He listened to her calm, measured breathing, sometimes punctuated with a long, peaceful sigh wrapped in the hint of a moan. Felt the tickle of her balmy breath across his skin and scattering of chest hair. A satisfied smile eased slowly across his square, shadowed jaw, and he carefully molded her even more snugly against his body, not wanting to wake her. They’d had quite a night, and she deserved a rest—until later that is, he thought lustfully.

  He rewound his memories to the image of Shayna prowling sexily above him, offering her gorgeous breasts and sweet pink nipples to him, as she expertly stroked his cock before mercifully sinking down onto him and riding him into oblivion. Sean closed his eyes tightly at the memory and sucked in a deep breath of air with a hiss. If he didn’t fully understand before, he knew now, without question, he would never get enough of her. There was no fighting it. Every time he had her, he only wanted her more. No other woman had ever made him feel that way. No other woman had ever owned him so completely.

  Sean rolled his head and nuzzled Shayna’s hair, inhaling her sweet scent. She smelled like sunshine. He chuckled quietly at his metaphor of choice. Oh, what this woman had done to him, the ways she had changed him, the things she had made him feel—without even trying. Now he was finally going to have the life that he had written off long ago. He smiled in the dark, and a sense of peace settled over him as he imagined everything they would share. The adventures they would have together. That’s what Shayna called them—adventures. He could already picture her stretched across the deck as he guided them from port to port, to new lands, fresh experiences, and different cultures. Their days would be followed by steamy, sweaty nights on the boat, or wherever, he grinned to himself. He could envision a richer, fuller life ahead for both of them. A life he wasn’t sure he deserved, but would hold onto with both hands for as long as possible.

  Shayna stirred with a sigh, and attempted to stretch and turn. He hated to let her go, but he needed to go up and check the mooring and the monitors anyway. With the unexpected turn the day had taken, he had bypassed his usual routine before calling it a night. He let her shift, fall away, and reposition herself next to him, her warm curvy ass pressed up against him, her hands tucked up under her chin, and her head wedged under his raised arm on the pillow. He smiled, kissing her shoulder and pulling the covers up over her. Then he slipped quietly out of bed and pulled his jeans on, took one last look at Shayna sleeping soundly, and padded barefoot to the upper deck.

  After making some adjustments at the helm and reviewing the weather map again, Sean picked his mobile up from the worktop and found that he had numerous missed calls and multiple voicemails. He clenched his jaw, feeling his chest tighten. Just as he readied to retrieve them, another call came through.

  “What’s going on, Charlie?” he asked impatiently. Sean paced, squeezing his free hand over his forehead. Then he dragged his hand hard down his face and exhaled loudly. “When?” he asked. He nodded and braced himself in the open doorway and stared absently into a black night too cloudy for even the stars to penetrate. “Why wasn’t Carter following her?” Sean snorted loudly in disbelief. “He couldn’t stay up with a girl out for a run! What the fuck?” He slammed the side of his fist hard against the fiberglass panel. “Then he should’ve gotten out of the goddamn car! Tell me you know where she’s at right now.” He shook his head in aggravation, and ground out angrily, “Find her! I’m heading back now. Get Mick and the other guys around. I want everything ready when—” Sean gripped the cell tighter and narrowed his eyes listening intently. His head bobbed with a modicum of relief. “Good. You better know something by the time I get back.” Sean pinched unmercifully at the bridge between his eyes and his brow furrowed deeply. “The local dirt doesn’t have the balls to do something like this. It’s Morales’ scum, isn’t it?” Sean’s head dropped at Charlie’s confirmation. “Fuck,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

  He abruptly ended the call and stuffed the phone in his front pocket. Breathing in, then expelling a cloud of chilly night air, he turned to prepare the Tuscan Dream to head home. Sean inhaled sharply, startled at the sight of Shayna’s scantily clad body and her proximity to him.

  “What’s going on, Sean? Why are you so upset?” she asked tentatively, moving closer and eyeing him with suspicion.

  He swallowed hard and wet his lips, not sure where to start, what to say.

  Her nostrils flared. “Does it have something to do with your friends?” she asked, in an accusatory tone.

  Sean stood straighter, lifting his chin and narrowing his eyes. His
chest expanded with a deep breath. “My friends are the only chance your daughter has right now.”

  Shayna’s eyes widened and her face drained of color. “What are you talking about?”

  He needed to get them back to Mt. Pleasant and didn’t have time for an interrogation, but he kept his feet planted for the moment. Warming his cold tone as best he could under the circumstances, he replied steadily, “I told you before that your ex is mixed up with some nasty people. They want their money and they’re using Danielle as insurance.” He could feel Shayna’s panic slam into him. Best not to tell her that it wouldn’t matter if these animals got twice the amount. She would never see Danielle again if he and his friends didn’t get to her—soon.

  “We have to call the police!” she shrieked. “I need to call Frank and see what’s going on, see what he’s doing about this!” Her hands clamped over her mouth as if trying to hold back the rising hysteria.

  Sean’s hands sliced through the air as he towered above her with mounting menace. “No fucking way! No police! And no Frank! Hasn’t he done enough? You really think he’s going to protect you and Danielle? This is his fault! All of it! I’ll handle him and this situation. You stay out of it, Shayna!” He lowered his gaze, meeting hers. “And you stay away from him!” he warned angrily, backing her up against a closet door, pinning her and roughly tipping her chin up and her head back, closing her mouth before she could speak again.

  He saw the terror in her eyes. She didn’t recognize him right now, but it had to be this way. If he was going to get her daughter back, this was who he had to be.

  Nose to nose, he ordered sternly, “If you ever want to see Danielle again, you will do exactly as I say. No questions. No fight. Just. Do. As. I. Say. Got it?” he barked, in a cold, commanding tone. He felt her tremble slightly, and could tell that she was trying to keep her emotions in check, but a stray tear betrayed her and raced down her cheek. She nodded in the limited space he had given her to move. He eased back from her cautiously and then quickly pivoted toward the helm.

  From the corner of his eye, he watched Shayna slide down the paneling and slump onto the floor, tenting her knees and dropping her head onto her crossed arms. He noticed her head bobbing as she tried to sob discretely. Ordinarily, her distress would’ve affected him, but he had already flipped that switch off. Emotions and empathy would only slow him down now.

  He had a mission to accomplish.

  ****

  Frank moved away from the wall of windows and back to the executive desk in his den where he continued packing the oversized black duffel bag with large denomination bills. He had managed to get the money. It wasn’t easy. Basically, he had robbed Peter to pay Paul.

  Everything was spiraling out of control, now. He had to get Danielle back before Shayna found out she was missing. Then what? He huffed to himself. Danielle would tell her mother, would want to go to the police; it would all end up in the papers, on the news. He white-knuckled the edge of his mahogany desk and braced himself, closing his eyes.

  Danielle had been missing for over forty-eight hours, now. Harper kept calling him wanting to talk to Dani. Frank had lied to the kid. Told him Danielle hadn’t been feeling well and was staying at the house. Nothing serious, but she was sleeping a lot. He promised to have her call when she was feeling better. He called her employer and gave the same story. His stomach threatened to betray him again, but there was nothing left to purge. He’d had no food, no peace since the call about his baby girl, two days ago.

  How had he gotten to this point?

  He sank into his padded leather chair with a deep, defeated sigh. The gambling had just been a way to blow off steam when he was younger, have a little fun. He had done it as far back as he could remember, but he had always set a limit for himself—an acceptable loss limit. When he reached it, he quit and walked away, no harm, no foul.

  It had never been a problem until the economy started tanking and tenants broke leases with no new lessee’s in sight. Construction soon came to a standstill and CCL had to dive deep into its reserves—too deep for too long. He had leveraged his personal assets to keep his company from sinking down into the sludge. That’s when his acceptable loss limit began increasing and gambling became more about survival than recreation. Then Shayna followed through with the divorce he never wanted, forcing his hand. His people made sure the books looked good, but he had to come up with hard cash after she signed the papers. So that’s when he moved the funds from an offshore account to back up the numbers on his financials and to pay off Shayna—all except for that damned tract of land she wanted so badly.

  Events merged and swirled into the perfect storm that unwittingly conspired to bring him crashing down. A vicious cycle had become brutally real, with his daughter’s life now in the balance. There was no price he wouldn’t pay. Nothing he wouldn’t do to get her back safe and sound.

  Of course, he should’ve shared all of this with Shayna, but at the time, and even now, he couldn’t stand the thought of her viewing him as weak and incompetent. Instead, he’d had a ridiculous, clichéd affair with a much-too-much younger woman to prop up his ego and distract him from the brewing storm. He closed his eyes and shook his head in despair. He had never loved any two people as much as Shayna and Danielle. They were everything to him. They were the reason he did all of it—the good and the bad. He had never wanted to disappoint them and now.... Dropping his head in his hand, he pushed back the sting of emotion at the back of his eyes. Now he was a monumental fuck up. Nothing he could ever do from this point would change the permanent stain of his disgrace.

  Frank jumped when his cell yanked him deeper into the nightmare. “Hello?” he answered with more confidence than he felt.

  The hairs on the back of his neck bristled and he glanced up quickly in the large murky room, lit only by his desk lamp. He reached across, pulling down on the brass switch to increase the wattage. Scanning the room carefully, he decided his mind was playing tricks. He was alone.

  “Have you got what we want now, Frankie-boy?” the caller mocked over the phone.

  Frank gritted his teeth. “Have you got what I want?” he growled, trying to sound threatening. He heard a snort followed by a derisive chuckle.

  “I think we’ve already established you’re in no position to make demands, asshole. You bring it tomorrow—at midnight—Breakers Cliff. Don’t be late—not even by a second, old man.”

  The call ended, and Frank exhaled loudly, not even realizing he had been holding his breath. He tossed his phone on his desk as if it had burned his flesh, and swallowed hard, trying not to picture Danielle with those animals. That’s when he saw it again—movement. Or was it a shadow playing tricks from the clouds dragging across the moon outside the windows?

  Then a figure stepped out of the darkness, cloaked in black, confirming his worst fears and moving with assurance to stand menacingly across the desk from him. The thick black streaks across the intruder’s face only amplified the intense hatred blazing from his cruel eyes. Frank sat frozen in his chair, unable to speak, think, or breathe. This was it. This was the moment he would die.

  Time stood still, as a lifetime with Shayna and Danielle flashed in front of him.

  “You’re not going to say a word unless I ask you a question. You’re going to listen and do exactly what I tell you to do,” the man in black hissed with authority.

  Frank inhaled sharply at the familiar voice. “You! You’re behind all of this, Parker?” he growled with condemnation.

  Before Frank could utter another word, Sean leapt over the desk and brutally launched him from his chair, before swiftly pinning him like a rag doll against the wall with a large SOG SEAL knife positioned tightly at his jugular. He could feel a trickle of blood race down his throat. Maybe it was sweat. God, he hoped it was sweat. He could feel Sean’s hot, measured breath fan out across his face.

  “Got anything else to say, Chastain?” Sean dared him, with a sneer in the moonlight. Frank blinked and shook
his head, not wanting to apply any more pressure against the razor-sharp blade at his throat. Sean looked disappointed. “That’s too bad, because nothing would make me happier than gutting you like the stinking pig you are!” he spit through clenched teeth. “But first, I have to clean up your fucking mess!” He threw Frank hard into his desk, the lamp crashing to the floor, bulbs shattering, stacks of money dropping to a heap beside the desk. Now only the moonlight was witness to the disturbance inside. “Do you have all the money—unmarked?”

  “Yes,” Frank choked out, trying to steady himself, hands up in a demonstration of submission.

  “Are you sure? Because these aren’t the kind of people you jerk around, Chastain. They’re not as easygoing as I am.” Sean smirked.

  “This is my daughter we’re talking about! You really think I’d play around with her life?”

  “You already have, you stupid sonofabitch! And Shayna’s too. You really think they’re going to stop with you? You really think you’re going to get Danielle back just because you play nice with them?” Sean shook his head in apparent disbelief and huffed loudly. Frank suddenly felt any optimism he had dimming by the second. “You’ve exposed Danielle and Shayna to these bloodsuckers, and you’re powerless to stop them.” Sean pointed the tip of his partially-serrated blade just inches from Frank’s sweat-soaked face. “That’s why you need me. I’m going to do everything I can to get Danielle back—for Shayna.” Sean inched closer. “You’re meeting them for the drop—when is it?”

  Frank blinked and stuttered, “Tomorrow night. Midnight.”

  “Where!” Sean yelled.

  “Breakers Cliff,” Frank answered more confidently. “Who are you, Parker? I know it’s not who you pretend to be.”

  “Been following me, Chastain? Huh? Bugging my property?”

  Frank sputtered, “How do you know any of this? How do you know about Danielle? Does my wife know you’re here? Like this,” Frank said. He censured Sean, his eyes sweeping critically over his rival.

 

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