Damaged Beauties (Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire (Erotic Romance)) (3 page)

I try to get up on the bed, and a wave of giddiness assails me. Uh oh. I collapse back into my pillows. Gawd, but I’m thirsty.

After a while, the door swings open. I squint.

A very tall man enters my room. He’s so tall that I have to blink twice to make sure that he’s not scraping the ceiling. He appears to be fifty-something, with a full head of dark hair shot with silver. He wears a black suit over a crisp white shirt, the kind that looks as though it needs to be starched in the twentieth century way.

“Ah, you are awake.” He carries a tray with a thermos on it. “You are hungry, I presume?”

“Yes. And you are . . . ?”

“Jeffrey Pendergast.” He sets down the tray on the table beside me. “Don’t move. You’ve had a concussion.”

Ah. I know where I am now.

Despite my obvious state, I’m kind of excited.

But should I be afraid after all the spooky tales I have heard about this place and its inhabitants? After all, my premonition did warn me that I should not be attempting Pine’s Lookout in a raging thunderstorm. That very premonition is telling me now that I should be bolting out of my bed and making a run for it before I end up like that poor, undiscovered, but obviously not forgotten hooker.

I quell my nervousness. I say aloud, trying to make my tone cavalier, “I figured as much. Why am I not in the hospital?”

“Because it’s nothing I can’t fix.” Jeffrey towers over me, and he’s such a vertically-enhanced monster that I can’t help but cringe as he puts his hand gently upon my head. For the first time, I realize I have a bandage wrapped around it. Why didn’t I notice it before?

“Where is this place?” I ask, despite knowing the answer.

“You are in the house of Mr. Ethan Greene.”

The name sends a frisson of excitement down my spine, despite not being sure than this is the guise David Kinney – the object of my youthful adoration – is wearing today. Something tells me that Mr. Ethan Greene’s stickler for absolute privacy is what’s keeping me here in his guest bedroom and not in the hospital where I belong.

Still, he could have sent Jeffrey to the ER with my moribund body.

Ah well –

Jeffrey says, “You’ll be all right.” He straightens himself, and his frame blocks out most of the light from the window.

Light!

“How long have I slept?” I ask.

“Two days.”

Two days! This time, I bolt up in amazement.

“Two days, and you didn’t bring me to the hospital?”

“It was a concussion, nothing more serious,” Jeffrey pronounces patiently, as though to a child who is hard of understanding. “I dressed your wound. It was nothing serious.”

I wonder what Rick must have thought when I didn’t show up. Maybe he thinks I have bolted from Kelowna. I wouldn’t be the first person to do that. Or maybe he thinks I’m lying in an unmarked grave right now next to the poor, undiscovered hooker.

“What happened?” I demand.

“Your car slid off a cliff and fell into a ravine. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a particularly deep one, or you wouldn’t be alive.”

Figures. It sure felt like I was flying forever in that plunge, nevertheless.

“But you did hit your head against the windshield. You sustained some scratches in addition to your concussion,” Jeffrey continues. “Luckily, you were wearing your seatbelt.”

Lucky indeed.

“What happened to my car? How did you find me?”

“I was returning from an errand. Your car is still in the ravine from which I extricated you. It was badly damaged.”

Gad, and that’s a rental. I hope Avis has good insurance.

Should I go to a hospital?

“Just rest, Ms. Tremont,” Jeffrey instructs me.

I frown. “How do you know my name?”

I’m certain I didn’t tell him. The reporter instinct in me rears its suspicious head.

“I took the liberty of looking in your purse for identification. I understand that you are out of state.” Jeffrey’s lined face is a mask.

“You looked in my purse?” I am aghast. OK, well, I shouldn’t be. Most good Samaritans do look in the purses of accident victims for some sort of identification. Except that I’m not sure Jeffrey is a completely good Samaritan.

“What were you doing driving up Pine’s Lookout, Ms. Tremont?” Jeffrey cocks his head slightly, even though his serene expression has not changed. “Are you aware that it’s private property?”

Rats.

“I got lost,” I say sheepishly.

“What were you looking for?”

“I had some directions drawn for me on a map. I must have taken a wrong turn. I tried to turn back when I realized my mistake, but there was nowhere for me to make a U-turn.”

That was semi-truthful, at least.

I’m bursting with questions, of course, but I realize I have to be very careful. I’m glad I don’t have anything linking me to the newspaper in my purse. I never do.

“Would you like me to call whoever it was you were looking for?”

“Uh no. They weren’t expecting me anyway. I was just looking at some property belonging to my aunt out here, but it’s not important.”

What I meant to say is ‘I can stay here awhile longer to snoop around, if it’s OK with you’. I sink back into the pillows and attempt to look woozy – which is not completely an act.

Jeffrey pours some hot water into the thermos flask and hands it to me. “Here, drink this.”

I take it, grateful for some fluids. Any fluids.

“I’ll bring you some food,” he says. “What would you like?”

I would like to meet Ethan Greene, if I may, thank you very much.

“Um, whatever you have would be nice.”

“Some bacon, eggs, sausages and toast?”

Ah, a man who understands my healthy appetites. My stomach suddenly lets out a rumble.

“Yes, please.”

I make sure that he exits the bedroom before I attempt to get out of bed. So much to do. Where do I begin? I swing my legs over the side, and realize that I’m in some sort of old-fashioned cotton nightgown.

But another giant tsunami of dizziness hits me and I fall back into the bed like a limp doll.

So much for exploring today.

5

It’s two whole days more before I can get up and walk about. I do not insist on seeing a doctor, even though I know it isn’t one of my better decisions. My sleuthing is paramount, my health comes . . . um, not even second, I guess. I might have more than a concussion. I might have intracranial bleeding that is causing intra-tentorial herniation, whatever that means.

But somehow, the possibility of me dying a crushing brain death is not as exciting as being in the same house as . . . possibly . . . David Kinney.

Drat. I have got to get my priorities straight.

Jeffrey feeds me and clothes me with my own clothes from my own suitcase. Apparently, he has climbed into the ravine and retrieved my battered suitcase from my trunk. Eyeing him from top to toe, I fully believe he can slay dragons.

“Um, were you a basketball player in a previous life, Jeffrey?” I ask him.

He smiles, and I can see gap teeth.

I like Jeffrey. He’s soundless and efficient and learned and crisp. But I have been stuck two days here in this room and I have yet to meet his boss.

“Where’s Mr. Greene?” I venture.

“Out of town on business.”

“What does he do?”

“Business.”

Like, duh.

“What kind of business?”

“Mr. Greene has many investments in his portfolio.” Jeffrey clams up, as if they are too numerous and complicated to count. Then, “Now that you are up and about, I should see to getting you safely home, Ms. Tremont.”

Erm, that’s not exactly what I had in plan.

“I don’t actually feel that well,” I say, pretending to sway a little. “I’m not in a hurry anyway. It’s a long way from home and it’s kind of my vacation.”

He raises an eyebrow. “In Kelowna?”

“My aunt – ”

“Ah yes, your aunt.”

I think he full well knows that I don’t have an aunt who owns property out here, and I’m a curiosity seeker like everybody else.

“Mr. Greene will be returning tomorrow,” he says pointedly.

“Would he mind if I were here?”

Jeffrey seems unperturbed. “We have hardly any guests, Ms. Tremont, so your guess on his reaction would be as good as mine.”

“I see. Well, I will try to get better as soon as I can for your sake, Jeffrey.”

“Indeed, Ms. Tremont.” He gives me a look that says ‘You’d better’.

*

As soon as Jeffrey leaves me alone, I scamper out of bed to explore. Jeffrey didn’t say I couldn’t, and so I pad out of the room. There’s a long corridor outside that leads to other rooms, albeit with closed doors, and a stairway at the end that winds downstairs. The corridor walls are decked with gorgeous pieces of art – so gorgeous that I have to stop to savor them for a while.

There are watercolor landscapes. Impressionist-like scenes, only set in modern environs. Still life. There isn’t any particular style but a mélange of styles that seem to harmonize and flow smoothly into one another. But then, I’m not an art critic.

I try the handle to the door of the room next to mine. The door yawns open a tad too loudly for my taste. I enter a library of sorts. Or maybe it’s a study. There are rows and rows of books from the floor to the ceiling, and I read some of the titles: ‘Modern Film’, ‘A Renaissance of Film’, ‘Movie Guide to 1000 Classics’. A gleaming samurai sword is mounted on two wooden pegs against one bare patch of wall. I reckon it might be some sort of film prop.

So Mr. Greene is a film buff. My theory warms up the thermostat by several notches, and I allow myself a smile of satisfaction. If Ethan Greene is indeed David Kinney, then why does he choose to hide away like this – far from the public eye? Did he just get tired of all the attention? Was he feeling too much pressure to perform – to deliver hit after blockbuster hit year after year – as though he’s some sort of human jukebox?

Or was he disfigured so badly in some freak accident that he now resembles the Phantom of the Opera?

This last makes me cringe. I cannot imagine a face as beautiful as David Kinney’s being maligned in any way. It would be a travesty. A disaster of the highest magnitude.

Or is there some other more sinister reason I have yet to uncover?

I go to the desk. I know it is wrong of me to snoop in my benefactor’s house, but that has never stopped me. It’s my edge as an investigative journalist. The surface of the desk is neatly arranged with books, documents and papers. I glance at the documents. They are all stocks and bonds of blue chip entities and a few non-blue chip corporations.

Jeffrey was right when he said Ethan Greene is an investor. Maybe that’s how he upkeeps the house.

I start to open the drawers. In the second one, I notice a leather-bound diary. My curiosity piqued, I take it out. The entries are filled with spiky handwriting. My heart leaps.

I
know
David Kinney’s handwriting. I know it by heart. The fan sites were filled with scanned copies of his autograph. Sometimes, he wrote messages like ‘BE GOOD’ and ‘ALL THE BEST’. I know every slant and curl of his consonants, and the fact that this is left-handed writing.

Ethan Greene is David Kinney all right.

I take the diary and hide it within my robe. I am wearing a robe over a blouse and jeans to keep up the appearance of an invalid. I’m going to read this later.

I hope Jeffrey won’t know it is missing.

Noises outside alert me. After all, I have left the door ajar. I freeze, cocking my ears to listen.

Distant voices. Coming from downstairs.

I untangle my legs and dart to the door. I ease myself out of the study.

“Who?” someone says loudly from downstairs.

Oh, oh, oh – I recognize that voice!

I scurry noiselessly to the top of the stairs to listen. After all, I am not forbidden to walk around. If caught, I can always say that I’m bored out of my skull, and I decided to get something to read.

Ethan Greene is home early.

“What?” the deep, masculine voice says. Voices don’t change that much, even after ten years. This one is slightly raspier than before, as if he has had a chronic sinus problem. “What did you do that for?”

Jeffrey’s dulcet tones: “I brought her here to recuperate.”

“Are you nuts? You should have taken her to the hospital. She could sue, and where would we be?”

More placating noises. “I thought after what happened the last time, you wouldn’t want her to go to the hospital. Too many questions, remember?”

“OK. But I want her out of here as soon as she can walk. She can walk, right?”

“Her legs are not broken.”

“Good, then she can leave
now
.”