Damage Control

by Lisa Renee Jones

  The engine hums to life, and I back up, watching as he drives away. Brandon Senior is not even close to a nice person, but he’s Shane’s father, and it will hurt when he loses him. You won’t have to tolerate it for long. I’ll be dead soon, he’d said last night. I believe him. I wonder if Shane has really, truly prepared himself for this, and my gut says no. He has not. Deciding I need to talk to him about it tonight, I head for the elevator. I’m almost to the doors when they open, and to my dismay, Derek steps out.

  “Well, well,” he says, closing the small space between us. “Don’t I have exceptional timing today. Always running into you at just the right moment.”

  He’s mocking my pizza incident but I don’t give him the satisfaction of noticing, and I have bigger things on my mind, as should he. “I walked your father down. He was bad, Derek. He was coughing up blood and he just … he wasn’t good.”

  Derek’s chest expands on a breath he holds for several beats and then lets out. “I guess we know why he’s set the board meeting then.”

  “Right,” I say, intentional condemnation in my voice. “The board meeting. Unbelievable. That’s what matters when your father is dying.” It’s not even a question.

  His lips quirk. “Righteous like my brother. No wonder he’s fucking you.”

  “Apparently being an asshole runs in your family,” I say, trying to step around him, but he grabs my arm, his grip a little too tight, his touch uncomfortable in about a million ways. But I don’t pull away. I don’t give him that satisfaction of rattling me.

  “Are you referring to my brother or my father?”

  “Both,” I say, because it’s part of me playing the used and abused lover. “You know. You and Shane are brothers. I don’t understand the hate between you. Siblings have a bond that is supposed to last a lifetime.”

  “I wasn’t aware you had a sibling to make that assessment.”

  “I don’t,” I say, not missing a beat. “But I wish I did. I wish there would have been that kind of bond to fall back on when my parents died.”

  “That’s right,” he says, and then proving he’s already been looking into my background, he adds, “They died in a plane crash, didn’t they?”

  There is something about the narrowing of his eyes, the sharpness to his tone, that tells me he is suspicious of my story. Or maybe I’m paranoid, but then I have reason to be, but I don’t get time to find out.

  “Let go of her,” I hear Shane say from just behind me.

  There is a beat that turns into three and suddenly my arm is free. I whirl around to find Shane facing off with Derek. Neither man is looking at me. I am frozen.

  Suddenly Shane is standing beside me. “Go upstairs, Emily.”

  I inhale and force myself to calm down before I do exactly what I’m told. I walk when I want to run. Slow. Steady. I reach the elevator and I punch the button to call the car, thankful it opens immediately. From there I barely remember entering or exiting to the main elevators, but once I’m on the ride up, my heart is racing, my knees rubbery. I said nothing wrong, but I didn’t have to. Derek has been checking into me, but I tell myself that he still can’t know who I am. He still can’t trigger the Geminis’ attention because they aren’t looking for me. Unless my brother hasn’t told me something. I flash back once again to the night of my stepfather’s death and the moment my brother had said What the hell are you doing here? and for the first time I remember the look in his eyes. There was no fear or remorse for what he’d done. No regret. There was anger, at me.

  SHANE

  I stand toe-to-toe with my brother, and the fact that I haven’t shoved him against the wall like the last time we stood in almost this same spot is a testament to my willpower.

  “Protecting your woman?” Derek asks.

  “You’re just pissed I fucked her first, but then, I hear random fucks are off the table for you, since you’re basically engaged to Adrian Martina’s sister.”

  “What can I say? She’s a good fuck.”

  “You don’t just fuck the daughter of a kingpin, or the sister of the heir to their dynasty. Because when you stop, you end up dead.”

  “Adrian Martina cares about money, not me fucking his sister.”

  “Is that why he came to see me today? About money?”

  “Because you’re standing between him and his money.”

  “So you knew he was coming?”

  “He wanted to know what was holding up further expansion of our relationship. You are the holdup.”

  “What part of ‘he will take our company away from us’ do you not understand?”

  “Not if I’m in control, which is how this ends.”

  “This ends with you in a grave because he finds out you’re fucking his sister to get close to him.”

  His lips quirk, as if I’ve amused him. “I guess we’ll see, now won’t we?” he says, stepping around me, and walking away.

  I let the bastard go, but my suspicion that he threw me to the proverbial wolves with Adrian is now confirmed. He’s willing to do more than lie and cheat to win the company. He’s willing to shed blood, and that changes the rules. I walk to the elevator, my journey back to the Brandon Enterprise offices focused on two things: Emily and my plan to cage Derek.

  Entering the lobby, I start toward my father’s office, and Emily’s desk, when the receptionist says, “She went toward your office.”

  I give her a nod, and stride down the hallway, cutting left to bring Jessica into view. “In your office,” she says, motioning to the door.

  I open the door to find Emily standing just inside the room, and I shut us inside. “He’s been looking into my background,” she blurts out. “He made a reference to my parents dying and it was sarcastic. He knows my file doesn’t add up.”

  “Easy, sweetheart,” I say, my hands settling on her arms. “Most likely he’s looking at your company interview notes, but even if he has looked closer, a few holes do not lead him to your past.”

  “I know. In theory, I know, but he’s turning over stones. He could find the right one. I hate this. I hate that I can’t control what is happening. I hate that for the rest of my life, I will have to worry about the monster around the corner.”

  “I’m not going to let that happen. You will be hidden. Well hidden and safe.” My hands go to her face. “I’ll call Seth and make sure your records are done tonight, as he promised.”

  “Yes. Please. Thank you, Shane.”

  “Let’s go home, get naked, and order room service after we work up an appetite.”

  “I have work—”

  I kiss her, a long slide of tongue against tongue before I say, “Let’s go home. Okay?”

  “Yes. Okay. I need to get my purse.”

  “Actually, give me fifteen minutes to call Seth and wrap up a few things.”

  “Yes. That’s good.” She walks to the door, pausing as she’s about to exit. “I put an envelope on your desk that your father wanted you to have.” She exits and shuts the door behind her, while I remove my cell phone from my pocket and walk to my desk, where I sit down and dial Seth, who answers in one ring. “That documentation you said you’d have ready tonight? Where are we on it?”

  “It’s done. I plan to bring it to you in a few hours.”

  “Bring it to the apartment. We need to talk about a few new developments, but nothing that requires your immediate attention.”

  “Understood.”

  I end the call and grab the envelope my father sent to me, removing a document. My eyes narrow at a proposal to invest in the basketball stadium, which is actually a good investment, but something tells me this is a request from Mike, maybe even a payoff of some sort. It’s time Mike and I have a chat. I reseal the envelope and reach into my pocket to remove the digital recorder I’d used for my conversation with Derek, hitting play and fast-forwarding to the part about Martina’s sister that I plan to use to force Derek back to our side.

  “You’re just pissed I fucked her first,” I say o
f Emily, “but then, I hear random fucks are off the table for you, since you’re basically engaged to Adrian Martina’s sister.”

  “What can I say? She’s a good fuck.”

  “You don’t just fuck the daughter of a kingpin, or the sister of the heir to their dynasty. Because when you stop, you end up dead.”

  “Adrian Martina cares about money, not me fucking his sister.”

  I punch the off button and curse. It’s not enough. I need the kind of ammunition that makes Adrian want to kill my brother.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EMILY

  I sit at my desk and close my eyes, willing myself to get a grip. Shane was right. Derek is not going to lead the Geminis to me or Shane. Even Seth and his people couldn’t find out who I really was until I told them. Inhaling, I open my drawer and grab the phone I’d used to talk to my brother, and go to throw it in the trash, and then kick myself for even considering such a thing in an office where everyone is in everyone’s business. Instead, I stick it and its battery in my purse. For reasons I can’t explain, Derek really got to me. I press my fingers to my temples.

  Why is he getting to me?

  Unbidden, my brother’s words come to my mind: What the hell are you doing here? And then, Derek’s words: Righteous like my brother.

  It’s then that my mind goes back to the night of my stepfather’s death.

  I gape at my brother in disbelief, a streak of blood down his cheek, trying not to look down at my stepfather.

  “What the hell am I doing here? Why are you not calling an ambulance?”

  “He’s dead. I checked his pulse.”

  I start to shake. “Call the police.”

  “I killed him. If I call the police—”

  “Call the fucking police!” I reach for my purse and suddenly, Rick’s hand is on mine and I can feel the wet stickiness on my skin.

  “We are not calling the police or we will end up dead.”

  “We? We didn’t do this.”

  “He stole money. We fought. I was protecting myself.”

  “Tell the police that.”

  “If we go to the police, we become a liability to the Geminis. We die.”

  I am trembling inside and out. “The Geminis that I’ve been trying to get you to get out of for years?”

  “Don’t turn on the righteous bitch routine, Reagan. I’m the only person who’s going to keep you alive.”

  My cell phone buzzes, snapping me back to the present. I grab it and pull up a text from Shane: Meet me at the Bentley. You go first.

  Because we’re trying, and failing, to keep our relationship a secret, which fits about everything else in my life. It bothers me, but I’m self-analytical enough to know my reaction is not about Shane. It’s just me trying to get to that acceptance stage about the loss of my brother, and a girl named Reagan. I type a return text message: Wait 5 to leave. I need to give the receptionist my number to reach me if necessary.

  His reply is instant: See you soon.

  Considering my mood, I have no idea why, but that reply makes me smile, and the tension in my spine noticeably lessens. Standing, I survey my desk for anything that needs to be attended to, and walk to Brandon Senior’s office to flip out the light. Then with my coat over my arm, I start for the front office, some of that tension returning with the prospect of running into Derek. Steeling myself for the possibility, I enter the lobby to find the receptionist juggling several calls.

  Grabbing a piece of paper and writing down my number, I wait until she pauses between calls, almost ready to leave, when she finally looks up.

  “This is my number. If anyone needs me or Mr. Brandon, call me. Do not call him. He’s in a very important meeting.”

  She takes the piece of paper. “Got it. Call you.” She points to her mouth. “No gum.”

  I laugh at her easygoing reference to my reprimand. “Very good choice.”

  She grins and then immediately answers another line and I waste no time darting for the door, and as far away from another encounter with Derek as possible. I start to dash for the door, and then force myself to go slow and easy. I am not going to cower before that man. What will that solve? In fact, if anything, he will be a wolf that smells blood. I am not prey. I am not a coward. I hold my head up high and I step on the elevator with my calm restored. I might not be Reagan anymore, but I am still me, and I am a survivor.

  I exit into the parking garage and dig out the Bentley’s key, unlocking the doors, and round the trunk to open the passenger’s side door, where I set my purse and coat in the backseat, but I don’t get in. Control is something I value and own too little of right now. I won’t cower from anyone again, but I do think it’s time I take every step I can to see what’s coming my way, rather than hiding and hoping nothing finds me.

  I’ve just reached the tail end of the car when the elevator doors open, revealing Shane as they part. He steps forward, his coat missing, his briefcase slung over his shoulder, his stride long and confident, and I am spellbound.

  He is power. He is confidence. He is sex. He is everything that my history tells me is wrong for me, and yet, never before has anyone been those things and still managed to be comfort, pride, and friendship.

  Suddenly, he is in front of me, and I haven’t looked away, or even tried to hide how I’ve tracked his every step. “What are you thinking?” he asks, a lean away from touching me, but he does not.

  “I don’t even know where to begin,” I confess.

  “Anywhere you like,” he says, “and only when you’re ready.”

  It is exactly what I need and want him to say, though I didn’t know it until now.

  He motions to the car. “But preferably anywhere but here.”

  “I like that idea.”

  He walks me to the passenger door and opens it for me, and I’m about to get in when a memory flashes in my mind of the first time we’d met and he’d done the same. The urge to turn and face him hits me, but so do words I don’t want to say with a potential audience. Instead, I sink into the soft tan leather seats and Shane seals me inside, and like that night, my gaze lands on the Bentley emblem; the spread wings with the “B” in the center. I reach out and touch it, years of goal-setting and studies replaying in my mind. My dream car, and I drove it today, on my own.

  “Why do you love this car so much?”

  I glance up in surprise to find Shane has joined me and I never heard the door open or shut. “My stepfather, of all people, made us keep dream boards. He even took us shopping to see fancy houses and cars. In hindsight, he was just luring us into the Geminis’ web.”

  “But it didn’t work on you.”

  “No,” I say, letting my fingers fall from the emblem. “My father was a law professor. I think I told you that, I’m not sure. Actually, I didn’t. I just wanted to tell you.” I don’t give him time to reply. “He made me love the law.”

  “We have that in common.”

  “And somehow neither one of us are practicing.” I shift in the seat to face him. “Do you miss it?”

  “I did.”

  My brows knit. “Did?”

  “I had to let it go to really be here and do this right.”

  Let it go. Those words speak to me, stirring memories of how I finally coped with my father’s suicide and the loss of my mother. Now, it’s the loss of a dream. “Do you remember the first night I rode in this car?”

  “The night we met,” he supplies.

  “Yes. Do you remember what I asked you?”

  His gray eyes darken, memory in their depths. “You told me I was driving your dream car after attending your dream school, therefore you weren’t sure if I was your kiss good-bye to your dreams or your promise they aren’t over.”

  “And you told me not to let the universe decide what those things meant. Not to let it have that power. But the universe didn’t take my dream. My brother did, and we both know that means I can never go back to law school without the fear the Geminis will find me and consi
der me a risk.”

  “Emily—”

  “Please don’t try to make me feel better. You just said yourself that you had to accept the change you faced to really move forward. That’s about claiming control, and I admire that in you. I want to admire that in me too.”

  “Acceptance is a bumpy journey.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “but thanks to you I have a chance to ensure the Geminis never find me. I’m not going to screw that up by foolishly heading back to law school, even five years from now; I can’t risk the Geminis finding me and considering me a liability they want to eliminate.”

  “I want to tell you that risk doesn’t exist,” he says. “But it does.”

  “Thank you for not giving me the candy-and-chocolate answer. I still want my Bentley, though. Not yours that I drive here and there. One I earn on my own and deserve.”

  “I know you well enough to know that if that’s what you want, you’ll get it.” He leans closer, his arm on the console between us. “Do you remember what else I told you that night?”

  “I remember everything from that night. Which part do you mean?”

  “The part where I told you I wanted to fuck you so right and well you’d never forget me.”

  Heat rushes through me. “You did.”

  His eyes darken, then light with amber and blue. “I’m going to do it again.”

  “Promise?”

  He laughs, low and deep, then settles back in his seat and turns on the engine. “I promise, and I never break a promise.” And those words are the biggest seduction of all. A promise that is a promise. Someone I can really trust.

  * * *

  We pull out of the garage with a debate over pizza or Chinese, settling on Chinese, and Shane hands me his phone with the number for his favorite place in his directory.

  “You must really love it,” I say to him.

  “I do and so will you.” He winks. “I promise.”

  I laugh, hitting the auto-dial, and oh how that wink from Shane manages to have my belly doing a flip-flop. He turns us on the road and I place our order, finishing up as we reach the door of the Four Seasons. Tai, my favorite doorman, greets us, eager to brag about his daughter’s restaurant making the food section of the newspaper.