Identity Crisis (20 page)

‘See you soon,’ he replied.

She hung up just in time to hear Don saying. ‘Look, I’m at the airport. I was flying back this morning, but with the threats and now this mess with Stacie, I think it best if I stick around. How are you holding up, Kay?’

She slipped back onto the sofa. ‘I’m fine. Please don’t come, Don. We have everything under control here.’

‘Threats, what threats?’ Stacie said.

‘Threatening emails,’ Garrett said. ‘I’ve been … Tess has been getting them for ages, but now that Tess has a face, they’ve gotten worse.’

Stacie shot Kendra a horrified look. Kendra only shrugged. Then she had an idea. She picked up her iPhone and K. Ryde sent a very quick email.

‘Hold on,’ Don said. ‘I just got an email in from K. Ryde. Damn, I wish the man had a phone. He’s got to be furious with all this going on. Anyway, I’ll be there as soon as I pick up another rental … Oh, wait a minute.’

Everyone leaned over Garrett’s BlackBerry as though they could see the email from K. Ryde. But really only Kendra knew in advance what it said. ‘Read it,’ she commanded.

Bachman. This mess has put my girl at risk. Now I’m taking care of it. If you feel you need to stay in Portland, that’s up to you, but stay away from Thorne’s house until I’ve dealt with this. I don’t want you interfering with my plans. If you do, I’ll pull Kay and you’ll have to figure your own way out of this mess. By late this afternoon, I’ll have it sorted. Now back off. Are we clear?’

‘Shit,’ Don cursed. And just as a chant outside Garrett’s house started – “Tess rocks, Thorne sucks, Tess rocks, Thorne sucks” – K. Ryde got an email from Don Bachman agreeing to back off.

‘I’ll find a hotel room, then,’ Don said. ‘I’ll be here if you need me.’

He cut the connection, and the three were left to watch a woman in a poison green tracksuit two sizes too small lob an egg at Garrett’s house.

Kendra stood and yanked the robe tight around her. ‘Harris is on his way. I couldn’t stop him.’

‘Shit,’ both Garrett and Stacie said in unison.

‘I don’t want to hear it, all right.’ Kendra’s control slipped. ‘We have a mess to clean up here and I’ve bought us a little time. I think Harris might be just what we need.’

‘I don’t see how Harris Walker could possibly be just what we need, and what the hell do you mean, you’ve bought us a little time?’ Stacie asked.

Garrett shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and nodded to Kendra. ‘Stacie Emerson, meet Mr. K. Ryde.’

‘Fuck me,’ Stacie breathed.

Kendra offered her a nothing-for-it-now shrug. ‘Harris won’t be here for another 30 minutes. He forgot about the construction on I-5. He always forgets. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I need a shower.’

She left Stacie pumping Garrett for information about the events of the last 48 hours. 

Chapter Twenty

‘Wow,’ Stacie said as they watched Kendra storm up the stairs. ‘She’s K. Ryde. That I would have never guessed.’

Garrett nodded, his eyes still locked on Kendra’s legs as she disappeared up the stairs. ‘You know K. Ryde?’

‘Well as much as anybody does, I suppose. He, I mean she did some fabulous PR work for me a couple of years ago. But this I didn’t see coming. The threats. Are they serious, do you think?’

Garrett turned off the TV with the remote, his gaze still locked on the stairs where Kendra had just disappeared. ‘I honestly don’t know. I just know she wouldn’t be in this mess if I hadn’t practically begged her to be Tess for me.’

He could feel Stacie studying him, and the woman never missed a thing. ‘K. Ryde has dealt with lots worse stuff than this, Garrett. Lots worse.’

‘That may be. But it feels like it’s Kendra Davis I’m putting through all this. Not K. Ryde.’

‘And besides, it’s not K. Ryde you’re in love with.’

Christ! Did he actually flinch? Stacie had a way of bringing the most outrageous things into conversation as though she was discussing her shopping list. Before he could tell her how wrong she was, before he could tell her it was none of her business, she continued.

‘You’re not really going to let her shower alone, are you?’ She waved a hand toward the kitchen and the back door. ‘Don’t worry, if Harris Walker gets here before the two of you are finished, I’ll let him in and entertain him.’ She rolled her eyes as though that would be a task and a half. Then she nodded to the stairs. ‘Go. I’ll do the dishes and hold back the angry mob.’

He wanted to protest. He wanted to tell her he’d already had a shower and was happy to leave Kendra to it, but she’d know he was lying. Stacie could always read the Thorne brothers like books.

‘You sure you can handle Walker?’ He was already halfway to the stairs.

‘Of course I can.’ She waved him on. ‘Just go.’

He shouldn’t be here now. Dear God, he shouldn’t. What was he thinking? This wasn’t his plan. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but he couldn’t stay away. He just couldn’t. The woman was like a magnet. No fucking way could he stay away from her! It would be the easiest thing in the world to end it all now. All he had to do was go into the bathroom, open the shower door … A simple snap of her delicate, slender neck, and no one could stop him. No one would even know until after he was long gone. He felt giddy with the power of it, the control of it. Her very life was literally in his hands right now, and she didn’t even know it. No one in the house, no one outside in the yard, not the press, not the security, no one knew it but him. Her life in his hands. The thought made him hard, made him drunk with the power of it. He flexed his hands in the latex gloves.

He could hear the shower running. She was there. Just on the other side of the door. His heart raced like he’d been running, like he’d been lifting heavy weights. The prize was within his reach. With hands dead steady, in spite of the jumping of his heart, he carefully, ever so carefully, curled his fingers around the doorknob, took a deep, steadying breath, and slowly, patiently tried it with a silent sigh of satisfaction. Exactly as he’d suspected, it wasn’t locked. He could hear Thorne downstairs, talking to his slut of an ex. He heard the mention of the shower and was just about to turn and flee when Thorne’s cell phone rang. He relaxed his hand on the door, and stood quietly listening, holding his breath. When he was certain it wasn’t going to be a short conversation, he began to breathe again. Then he pushed the door opened slowly, ever so slowly.

Kendra leaned her forehead against the cool tiles of the shower, letting the hot water course over her, desperately struggling to calm down. She hadn’t expected to take it so personally when the people on the television had started in on Garrett, like they knew him, like they understood what drove him, like they understood anything about him. Of course they were only aping the same sentiments she had felt only a few days ago. But that was before she knew him, understood who he really was on the inside. Still, how could he stand it? How the hell could he just sit there and take it? And how could he have sat back and taken it all these years? She couldn’t have. She couldn’t have taken it for one minute. It was all so unfair, so wrong. And here she was trying to help him continue the farce.

And damn it, this was a job! Nothing more, this was just a job, she reminded herself. Garrett Thorne had hired her to be Tess Delaney for him. It was just another one of those delicate PR tasks that K. Ryde was famous for handling so exquisitely. So why the hell was she behaving like some lovesick teenager? She was a pro. She was the best, and this situation was a walk in the park. This situation wouldn’t even phase K. Ryde. That it didn’t go by the book, well, nothing ever did, did it? That was why K. Ryde was so good. She could think on her feet, she could fix it when it didn’t go to plan. This was no different. This was just another situation that didn’t go to plan. And the emails, well, Garrett himself said Tess had gotten lots. They were nothing, really, and she was ashamed of her overreaction, but that had nothing to do with the mess they found themselves in now, did it?

Ultimately it was Garrett’s mishandling of the Golden Kiss banquet that screwed everything up. Lest she forget, K. Ryde would have given him an ultimatum to shape up or she’d walk. So why was she still here? Why was she trying to clean up the mess that kept getting worse and worse, first with Garrett, and now with Stacie showing up? And why the hell was she letting this situation get to her so much?

It was as she turned in the shower and lifted her face to the hard spray that she saw him standing there in the open door. Her heart skipped a beat and everything inside her went warm and liquid. She could just see the shape of him, the dark of his jeans, intimations of the broad expanse of his chest; the rest was lost in the rising steam and the mist on the glass. She should tell him to go away. She knew she should. Garrett Thorne was trouble when she first met him, and Garrett Thorne was still trouble. The last thing on earth she needed was more trouble, more complications. She should tell him to go away. But she didn’t.

‘Well?’ she said. He took a step closer.

‘Are you going to take off your clothes and join me or are you just going to stand there and get a good steaming?’

*               *              *

He felt like the heavens had opened and the holiest of light had descended into the steam of the bathroom. She, the woman who had invaded his sleeping and his waking, every second of his life for as long as his life had mattered, was inviting him to join her, to make love to her, to join himself to her. This was the stuff of his deepest, most moving fantasies.

The mist and the steam played over her body as though she was doing a sensuous veil dance for him, revealing, concealing, and revealing again. The alabaster curve of a hip, the luscious fruit mound of a breast, the delicate arch of her back, and God, she was exquisite, she was heaven on earth calling out to him as he had always dreamed she would.

The sound of her soft laugh was like the music of the gods. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘The water’s great. All right, I know you’ve already bathed, but there are other things we can do in the shower besides bathe.’

It was a bit jarring, her being so brazen. But he could understand, after all this time of waiting, how desperate her need for him must be, and he wouldn’t punish her for that when his need was at least as great. With his heart racing in his chest, he took another step forward and reached out his hand.

‘Hurry up, Garrett, we don’t have all day. It won’t be much fun for Stacie or for Harris if he shows up and you and I are still busy fucking in the shower.’

And it was as though she’d poured ice down his spine, but the cold gave way to hot, burning rage in the pit of his stomach, and agony that was nearly unbearable, the brutal, bitter reminder that she was still first and foremost a slut. That she expected it to be that bastard Thorne coming to whore with her, that she didn’t even for a second consider it might be him, it might be the one she was meant to be with. He felt it all like the stab and the twist of the knife, agony that ripped at him like sharp teeth. For the briefest of seconds, he thought his agony would drive him to his knees, but he couldn’t let it. He couldn’t let the want of her cloud his mind to the truth. He eased his hand onto the door of the shower and took a deep breath. Just a sharp twist to the neck, that was all that was needed, and she would torture him no more.

‘Garrett?’ A sudden chill rose up Kendra’s back and a clenching down deep in her chest that had nothing to do with arousal. She grabbed for the wall, feeling disoriented and muzzy-headed. ‘Garrett, what’s going on?’

There was a smell, a scent that wasn’t Garrett’s. She could barely make it out over the steam and the soap. She could almost believe she was imagining it. Almost. It was more feral, darker, and it clawed at the back of her throat like it was desperate to get inside, to lodge there unwanted. It was all so sudden, so confusing. There was a charge in the air, a charge that she could almost hear in Garrett’s silence. It crackled around the room like heat lightning, making her feel like something crawled beneath her skin on tiny barbed feet. ‘Damn it, Garrett, whatever you’re doing, it’s not funny. Now, are you coming in or not?’

Just as she reached a trembling hand to turn off the water to see what the problem was, the smell of something different, something that caused her heart to pound, something that had nothing to do with sex nearly overwhelmed her. Then she gave a little gasp of surprise as Garrett turned and practically ran out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

‘Fuck you,’ she said out loud, standing in the warm steam, fighting back tears. It’s not like she expected anything from him, or even wanted anything from him, but she didn’t appreciate him toying with her, playing games with her. For a long time she stood just breathing in and out, forcing her emotions to calm. This didn’t matter. This was just Garrett Thorne being Garrett Thorne. They had more important things to deal with than the fact that he was too chicken shit to shower with her when his ex was downstairs.

By the time she turned off the water and stepped out of the steam, she had resolved not to mention it to him. She’d let him bring it up. She wasn’t about to let him think that it mattered one way or another.

He stood a safe distance from all of the press vehicles and watched the gathering mob around Thorne’s house. It had taken him ages to regain his equilibrium. He had vomited his breakfast at the end of the alley after he’d made his escape. That was simply his body’s way of reminding him how close he’d come to ruining all of his carefully laid plans, his body’s way of purging itself of being so close to her powerful lust, being so close to her wicked influence, being inundated by the filth with which she now surrounded herself. If only he had found her sooner, then perhaps he could have made things easier on her, but not now. Now it was much too late for the easy path. A snap of the neck was a clean death, a hero’s death, a death of virtue. She deserved no such thing, and he had, all of his life, believed that people should get what they deserve. It was right. It was what should be. It was the reset button for the balance of the universe.

On trembling legs, he leaned against a privacy fence at the end of the alley and watched Carla Flannery in her silly little motorhome. She was priceless. She was a godsend, she and Barker Blessing. They would serve him well before everything came together and he had his glorious triumph with Tess Delaney at his side. He felt better now. He felt his balance returning. He was glad he had the strength to pull back in the presence of such outrage. He was glad that his control had not broken. He would be patient a little longer. That was all that was needed. Just a little more patience and then the prize would be his, and he would savor it as he had savored nothing in all of his life.

Though she would have liked to linger, though she would have appreciated a little more time before she had to face Garrett again, Kendra didn’t take her time getting ready. She knew how uncomfortable Harris would be if he got there and found himself entertained by Garrett and Stacie. There was no love lost between the three of them, and she’d not had the chance to talk to Harris about what was going on between her and Garrett, though she was sure he’d figured it out when he delivered her clothes to Garrett’s house. He wouldn’t approve, but he’d have figured it out. Still, she didn’t want to make it more difficult for him than necessary.

She was halfway down the stairs, dressed and made up as Tess, when she heard the knock on the back door. She found only Stacie in the kitchen.

‘Garrett’s in his study working,’ she said, as she wiped her hands on the dish towel and scrambled for a quick exit. ‘I’ll be catching up on some of my own work in the guest room if you need me.’ She gave Kendra’s hand a squeeze.

‘If all goes well, I’ll probably need you both in a little while, and Don too.’

Stacie only had time for a raised eyebrow before Harris knocked again, and she scurried off up the stairs, choosing retreat over staying to hear Kendra’s plan. Just as well. Kendra figured best break it to them in small groups. Divide and conquer. And the hardest sell, by far, was about to walk through the kitchen door. If she could enlist Harris’s help, then she figured the other two would be a cakewalk.

Kendra took a deep breath and opened the door only to be bodily scooped off her feet into Harris’s muscular embrace. He said nothing, only held her there close to the rapid beating of his heart, surrounding her with arms and abs and chest made hard from kayaking, his sport of choice. He was good at it, and his body reflected his skill.

Not for the first time she wondered what might have happened had they not met so young, had they not became fast friends so early. But then again, Harris’s friendship, along with Dee’s, were the two most precious parts of her life. They were her constants in a world that had been anything but, and she doubted either of them could imagine just how much that had meant to her over the years. She could fuck anyone, but she could only love Harris in the way she loved him, in the way he loved her back. In the way she most needed him.