Unnatural Relations (Lust and Lies Series, Book 1) (29 page)

Again, he did precisely what she demanded. Watching her bring herself to climax accelerated his own. And when he had no more to give, he slumped in the chair, barely able to breathe, let alone clean himself up.

Between the pain in his chest and the overdose of sexual satisfaction clouding his brain, it took him a moment to realize she had put on her coat and hat. "Why?" was the only word he could get out as she gave him a peck on the top of his head.

"Must go, sweetie," she replied in a cheerful voice. "Call me tomorrow if you have any more ideas. I'm sure you'll think of something to speed this matter along now. Just remember, the sooner you get your bonus, the sooner we can be married. Oh, one more thing. Barbara's had a few dates with a man she just met, and she might be falling for him. His name's Kyle Trent, works for IBM out of Richmond. It might be a good idea to check him out. Maybe you know someone who could arrange for his transfer to Hong Kong before things get serious between them."

He watched her float out the door as if what they had just done hadn't burned up one bit of her energy. It probably hadn't. She could probably play sex games twenty-four hours a day and never get tired. The mere idea of what it was going to be like after they were married was enough to kick his brain back into action.

He had to think. There had to be some way to force Barbara Mancuso into giving up her son.

From the dark side of his mind came the thought that if she couldn't be bribed or coerced, perhaps she could be gotten out of the way entirely. He wondered whether there was any limit to what Russ would do if the payment was high enough.

Chapter 14

After Russ's note that morning, Barbara was back to being on full alert. Unfortunately, she couldn't just hide under her bed. There were still everyday things that needed to be done, like taking Matt to the mall after work to buy new sneakers for his rapidly growing feet. She had purposefully turned her phone off while they were having dinner and shopping and as soon as she got home and turned it back on, she was glad she had. One call would have been enough to start her stomach acid churning. Four was an extremely bad sign. Again she was reminded of Dani's comment about her being surrounded by smoke.

She stood there, staring at the cell phone's screen, not wanting to hear what the callers had to say, yet knowing she had to in case it was something important, like a call from Dani. With that possibility in mind, she pressed the button to listen to her messages. The first voice made her teeth clench.

"This is Simon Decker. I stopped by to see you this weekend, but you were out. I have a very attractive offer to present, one that is entirely to your benefit. Please call to set a time when it would be convenient for us to meet and I will put myself at your disposal."

She couldn't imagine how any offer he had to present could be to her benefit, but he had sounded more respectful than he had during any of their previous conversations. She quit thinking about Decker when she heard Kyle's voice next.

"I called your office this morning, and they said you weren't in, and now you're not home. After everything you told me... Geez, Barb, I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you. Please, call me as soon as you get in."

Guilt washed over her. Nellie had told her that Kyle had called, but she had so much to do when she finally got to work, she hadn't stopped to call him back. It had been such a long time since she'd checked in with anyone other than Matt that it hadn't even occurred to her that he might be worried. A woman's mournful sob started the next message.

"Oh, Barbara
,[sniff],
where are you? The most awful thing happened and
[sniff]
I really need to talk to you. I hope you don't mind, but I'm just going to drive up and hope you're home by the time I get there."

Barbara wondered what thing more awful than losing her job could have happened to Tammy since they'd spoken earlier. According to the phone's display, she had called over a half hour ago, which meant she could be here at any time.

She pushed down the annoyance such an unexpected visit caused as the final message began to play.

"It's Kyle again. It's now... eight o'clock. If I don't hear from you in the next hour, I... I'm going to have to do something. I don't know what...
something
."

Barbara recognized the mix of emotions in his voice from personal experience—fear, panic and frustration, all barely held in check by the hope that he was worrying for nothing. As quickly as possible, she returned his call.

"What's going on?" Matt asked from the doorway.

"Hello? Barbara? What's going on?" Kyle's questions ran together as if they were all one long word.

"Hold on a sec," she told Kyle then answered Matt.

"I was just listening to messages. Tammy called. She's on her way here. You can keep an eye out for her while I talk to Kyle."

"Cool," he said with a smile and went to wait by the front window.

As she was about to get back to Kyle another call was coming in and she quickly rejected it. "Kyle?"

"No. Simon Decker. I was hoping we could get together this evening."

Damn! She must have hung up on Kyle instead. She felt like screaming, but she kept her voice level. "I don't know how much simpler I can make this, Mr. Decker. I am not interested in hearing anything you have to say. Good-bye."

"Wait! Don't hang up. If you'll let me present the final offer in person, I guarantee I will not call or visit you again."

If that promise had come from Russ, she would not have believed it, but as an attorney, Decker couldn't afford to continue to harass her. "I'll agree to listen to your
final
offer in exchange for that guarantee, but only over the phone. And as soon as you are finished, I trust I will never hear from you again. Understood?" She heard him let out an exasperated sigh. "Take it or leave it, Mr. Decker."

"Your attitude is making this more difficult—"

"The clock is ticking."

"All right. The Hamiltons wish to extend an invitation to you and your son to live with them in Boston."

She had been expecting a higher dollar amount. Never anything like this.
"Live with them?
You've got to be kidding!"

"I assure you, I am quite serious. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton understand your refusal to part from your son. Therefore, in exchange for your granting them legal guardianship of Matthew, you will be permitted to reside in one of the cottages on the estate, for as long as he resides in the mansion. They also understand your, uh, reluctance to accept their money, but once you move there, you would have no means of support. Thus, they are willing to establish an account in your name with a balance of two million dollars, which you can use or leave for Matthew when he comes of age. Surely you can see the advantages of this arrangement."

Barbara's blood was rapidly reaching a boiling point. And it didn't help that some of his words were being cut off as Kyle was calling in. "Is that it?" she asked through gritted teeth.

He paused as though there was something else but decided not to say it. "Yes. That's everything and, as I said before, it is their final offer. Though I will tell you that if there is a fine point you want clarified, there is some slight room for negotiation."

She ended the call without responding. It was times like this that she missed the ability to slam down a receiver. When it rang again seconds later, she could see it was Decker again and decided it was time to use one of her secret weapons. Before answering, she set her phone to record the conversation.

"Mr. Decker? Did we get cut off?" she asked politely.

"You impudent little tramp! How dare you hang up on me!"

"I agreed to listen and you agreed to leave me alone afterward. I did not agree to have a discussion with you. However, perhaps I misunderstood exactly what the offer entailed. I am willing to listen to it one more time."

Decker repeated the offer almost word for word.

"I see. Apparently I did not misunderstand at all, so this is the last time I am going to say this. Neither my son nor I are for sale for
any
amount of money! Nor would we ever willingly step foot on the Hamilton estate for one minute let alone live there with those monsters. Now, I believe you agreed to stop harassing me—"

"Wait! You said you'd give me five minutes and there is something else I have to say, something you don't seem to understand. The Hamiltons have enough power and money to get whatever they want. So far, they've been trying to deal with you fairly. But there are other ways."

"Are you threatening me, Mr. Decker? The policewoman you met will be very interested to hear that."

"Not at all. But perhaps if you were aware of how they took care of matters that displeased them in the past, you could put what I'm saying into better perspective. They wanted you out of Howard's life ten years ago, but all the usual methods of manipulating their son hadn't worked. It was very upsetting to them to have him stand up to them and refuse to break his engagement to you. So I presented him with photographs of you and Russ Latham having sex in his cottage and an accompanying tape recording on which you bluntly told him you would keep him on the side, but you were marrying Howard for his money."

Barbara gasped. "That's impossible. Nothing like that ever happened, and I know damn well I never said anything to him about Howard's money. I
never
cared about that."

Decker snickered. "Unfortunately neither the photos nor the tape still exists for you to prove otherwise."

He had just given her the missing piece to the puzzle that had plagued her for ten years and it fit together to create a truly disgusting picture. She remembered how jealous Howard had been when he had heard that she and Russ had spent an afternoon together and how readily he had believed the servants' rumors.

They had used his jealousy to kill his love for her... and Russ had been the executioner. What had Russ said the other day? That he had played a part in breaking the engagement. Decker's explanation was too awful to be a lie, but it was still difficult to accept. "Howard was shown fake photographs and he believed I would do that to him? Why didn't he come to me, give me a chance to deny it or at least explain?"

"Oh, he was going to, but there was that sudden emergency of his mother's, so all he had time to do was confront Latham. That young man really earned his money with that scene. He took quite a beating before admitting that the two of you had the hots for each other and that it was your idea to go ahead with the wedding anyway."

Barbara had a flash of Russ in her apartment in Queens, his face bruised and swollen. Russ had been Howard's best friend his entire life, while Howard barely knew her. Had she been in Howard's shoes, who would she have believed? The truth left her feeling more depressed than she could ever remember, but Decker wasn't finished torturing her yet.

"Months later, after Howard came back from Europe, he was talking about finding you again—he was having a hell of a time forgetting you, even started drinking pretty heavily—so Latham cooperated again with some new photos. Maybe you'll remember the day I came to visit you and Latham, and he carried you up the stairs to your apartment? That made a touching picture. But it was the ones taken with the hidden camera, showing the two of you sleeping together in your apartment, that did the trick, or rather, those and a document bearing your signature in which you agreed to break it off in exchange for an enormous amount of cash—obviously not the agreement you did sign. Unfortunately, rather than forgetting about you, Howard chose to drink more."

The world was spinning out of control for Barbara, but one question rose above the rest. "Was he drunk the night he..."

"The car accident? Yes, it was alcohol-related, although that detail was kept out of the media. As I said, the Hamiltons have more power than you can imagine. You can't win against them. It's just plain stupidity to try. I'll give you one more week to accept their final proposal. If you don't contact me by the end of that time, I will begin legal proceedings against you."

"Legal? Like forging agreements and touching up photographs? Do you intend to make me look like an unfit mother the way you made me look like an unfit fiancée? Even if you could, it won't do you any good if you can't prove who my son's father was. They'll have to exhume Howard's body to prove it without a doubt and you already said they didn't want to do that."