In Rides Trouble (16 page)

The woman had left her about a zillion messages, all of which she’d studiously ignored. Because Samantha Tate wasn’t after another quote for her paper on the whole piracy incident. Of that, Becky was absolutely sure. Although just exactly what the reporter
was
after was still murky.

And when it came to interaction with the press, she absolutely hated murky. Scratch that. It was more like when it came to the press, she absolutely hated interaction.

The woman made a beeline for Becky.

Well, this is just frickin’ frackin’ great!

For the first time in over three years, she and Frank were talking,
really
talking, and then the one thing guaranteed to make the big, bad, I-ain’t-scared-of-nothin’ Frank Knight take off with his tail tucked between his legs came marching through the door.

Given the clandestine nature of his profession was at direct odds with freedom of the press, she wasn’t surprised when he hopped from the barstool and carefully strolled away, leaving her to deal with the reporter on her own.

“What do you want, Miss Tate?” she growled before the journalist could take a seat.

“A follow-up,” the woman replied, slinging a hot-pink crocodile carry-all onto the bar and motioning for Delilah as she appropriated the barstool Frank had just abandoned.

“Not gonna happen,” Becky shook her head. “In case you haven’t gotten the hint, I’ve given all the interviews I’m going to give. Told my story as many times as I’m going to tell it and—”

“That press conference the day you returned, and the few phone interviews you’ve given since, aren’t going to satisfy the public’s thirst for more detail about your harrowing experience,” the reporter declared firmly before turning to Delilah. “I’ll take a martini, extra dirty, two olives.”

“And I’ll take the check, Delilah,” Becky announced. “Add her drink to it.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I guess it’s the least you could do after refusing to return my phone calls.”

“Like I said, I’m all interviewed out.”

“Mmm.” The reported nodded slowly, then slid Becky a calculated look that had the hairs on the back of her neck twanging a warning. “So how’d your employee get hurt?”

“What?”

“That big, brutal-looking guy that was just sitting here.” She motioned with her chin over to where Frank had joined the rest of the Knights by the jukebox. “He’s one of your employees, isn’t he? So how’d he get hurt?”

“None of your damned business.” If ambition had a scent, it would be called
eau
de
Samantha
Tate
. Becky just hoped like hell the breaking story that boosted Miss Tate to the top wasn’t the discovery of a covert group of government contractors operating out of good ol’ Chi-Town.

“Why the hostility?” the reporter asked, feigning injury. “It was just an innocent question.”

“I’ve learned no question is innocent when posed by the press.”

“True.” Miss Tate laughed, shaking her head. “So, was he injured while rescuing you?” She took a big swig of the cloudy martini Delilah plunked down in front of her.

Uh-huh, innocent question my ass.

“Rescuing me from what?”

“The pirates.”

“Of course not. He’s one of my mechanics. What would he be doing out in the Indian Ocean?”

“What indeed?” Miss Tate lifted a smooth, infuriating brow.

“Thanks,” Becky murmured to Delilah after being handed the check. She glanced at the total and fished in her jacket pocket for her wallet, praying she had enough cash to cover the total without having to wait to run a credit card.

Thank
you, St. Peter
, she did.

Throwing a wad of bills on the bar, she stood.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Miss Tate. Like I said before, I’ve told my story too many times already. And I’m sure people are just as sick of hearing it as I am of telling it.”

“Something more happened on that tanker, didn’t it, Miss Reichert?” the reporter called after her. She’d already turned to head toward the door. “Something more always seems to be happening when you’re around. Tell me, why is that?”

Becky’s heart dropped down to her feet, but she managed to swing around and march back toward the bar in order to tower over the nosy journalist—only she was too short to tower so she satisfied herself with glowering instead.

“I’ve told you everything I know. Now normally, if someone wants to go on a wild-goose chase, I let them. But you’re not only wasting your time by barking up this tree, you’re also wasting
my
time. And yes, I
know
I mixed my metaphors, so just go ahead and quote me!”

Miss Tate threw her head back and laughed. “I think if things were different, you and I would be very good friends, Miss Reichert.”

“Doubtful.”

“You never know.”

“Whatever.”

“Are you used to getting the last word, Rebecca?”

“Always, Samantha.”

The woman snorted and saluted Becky with her martini glass. Becky couldn’t help it, one corner of her mouth twitched.

Shaking her head, she turned and started toward the door, only to slow her steps when she glanced into the back corner. Even though the features of man in the booth were still concealed in shadow, there was something slightly familiar about the general shape of his face, the hard ridge of his jaw and broad expanse of his forehead.

Hmm…

“Who is that?” she murmured to Frank with a jerk of her chin as he held the front door for her. The rest of the Knights had already exited Delilah’s—yep, throw a reporter in the mix, and men whose lives depended on their cover were quick to quit the scene. The rough growl of their engines firing up out on the street nearly drowned her question, but along with a superior physique, Frank also had superior hearing.

“That would be the ex-CIA agent known as Dagan Zoelner,” he replied.

Her eyebrows shot up her forehead as she turned to get a better look, only to be thwarted once again by the shadows. Dagan Zoelner had been working for the senator responsible for the brutal deaths of two of the employees of Black Knights Inc., but as soon as he’d realized the senator’s treachery, Zoelner had been instrumental in bringing the man down. And the last time she’d seen him, he’d looked like a human punching bag, having withstood a serious ass-whipping by Dan, so it was no wonder she didn’t recognize him now.

“What’s he doing here?”

“Dunno.” Frank shrugged as they stepped out of the dim bar and into the weak October sun. “Guess we’ll wait for him to tell us, huh?”

“This day has just been one surprise after another,” she observed above the racket of the rumbling motorcycles.

“You’re telling me.”

She glanced at him sharply. “Did you really think I was in love with Angel?”

“Is that so hard to believe? According to you, the guy’s drop-dead gorgeous.” The last word came out as a snarl.

“Yep, he is,” she admitted and wondered if she should go one step further and just admit the whole kit and kaboodle.
Oh, what the hell.
“But he’s not you, Frank.”

The man skidded to a halt so fast it was a wonder he didn’t slip a disk. When she glanced at his face, his expression was stricken.

“Don’t go there, Becky,” he ground out, his deep voice so low it was barely audible.

“Why?” she demanded, sick and tired of the games they’d played for the last few years. “I thought we were finally being honest with each other today.”

“Then believe me when I honestly tell you nothing can come of it. I can’t give you what you want.”

Why did men always think they knew what women wanted? Would they never learn? “And just exactly what is it you think I want?”

“What every woman wants. Everything!”

Ah, the ol’ I’m-not-into-commitment excuse. If she hadn’t been so mad, or sad, or whatever the hell it was she was feeling, she would’ve laughed because…well, it was so pathetically cliché.

“God, Frank. Now who’s being dense? You think just because there’s always been this…this,” she motioned between the two of them, “…this
thing
between us, that I’d want
everything
? What happened to good old-fashioned sex just for the sake of sex?”

He looked so startled she almost managed that laugh.

“Don’t you tempt me with this now,” he groaned. “Not today.”

“Why?” she demanded, scowling up into his hard, stubborn, wonderful face. “What’s different about today?”

Something frightening flashed behind his eyes and a strange chill streaked down her spine.

“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head so forcefully she wasn’t sure whom he was trying to convince, himself or her. “I refuse to give in to this thing between us.”

Ow.
Okay, now
that
stung.

“Your choice,” she told him as she stalked toward General Lee.

Shoving her helmet over her head, she tried to ignore the erotic sensation of his big body warm against her back as he mounted up. He dwarfed her, and she realized he was the only man on the entire planet who made her truly appreciate her own femininity.

Most of the time, with paint on her shirt, grease under her fingernails, and a power tool in her hand, she forgot that she wasn’t just one of the guys.

But when Frank walked in the room, so large and powerful and
male
, suddenly she remembered that she had breasts and a womb and needs, and, oh for Pete’s sake…

Before she started the engine and joined the others out on the city streets, she decided to throw all her cards on the table once and for all. An emotional Hail Mary play. Glancing over her shoulder, she pinned him with a challenging stare. “Should you ever change your mind, you know where I sleep…”

Grafton
Manor
St. Ives, England

The trip had been interminable, the pain excruciating, but Sharif clenched his jaw against the overwhelming urge to lie down in the cool, wet grass blanketing the expansive lawn and just sleep for the next century. Instead, he shuffled up the wide, flagstone steps of the Tudor-revival-style house, and fumbled with the front door.

He could’ve rung the bell, he supposed. Phelps, aged, stoic, and so typically English, would’ve been quick to respond to the summons. But he had no stomach for answering the question he knew he’d see in the old butler’s shrewd eyes.

When he stepped into the cool, tiled foyer, with its precise line of cherrywood pedestals supporting priceless Ming vases, he heaved a small sigh of relief.

He’d made it.

For a few moments during the flight, when the unbearable pain caused his vision to narrow to a tiny, dark tunnel, pierced only by a small shaft of light, he thought perhaps he was nearing his end. And he lamented, in a strange, detached sort of way, the prospect of never seeing the bright green fields of England again. Africa might have been his birthplace, but England was his home.

Allowing himself one more moment of peace, he finally shuffled toward the immense set of carved mahogany doors at the end of the dark hall. Upon reaching them, he screwed his eyes closed, knocked, and girded himself for the confrontation to come when a deep voice bid him, “Enter.”

Born from the brief dalliance between a wealthy English lord and an affluent African princess, Asad Grafton had struggled to make his way between the two worlds. That struggle had molded him into the man he was today. Tough, razor sharp, and completely merciless.

Sharif had had occasion to witness that mercilessness once, and the memory still haunted him…

Pushing open the heavy doors, he stepped into the wide library with its large, cheerfully crackling fireplace and two-story bookshelves filled with first editions. The floors were hand-laid parquet, lacquered to a high sheen so that his reflection stared up at him. The furniture, imposing and ornate, was Sotheby’s quality antique Chippendale.

And in the midst of all that opulence Asad sat perusing the latest edition of the
London
Times
. He glanced up after carefully folding back one corner of the paper. “You shouldn’t have come here. Interpol is after you. My sources say they’ve already picked up your trail from Kenya to Heathrow. You should’ve been more careful.”

Sharif’s mouth twisted with a cynical smile. “It’s good to see you’re alive as well,
father
.”

“Don’t be so sensitive,” Asad sneered. “You’re just like your mother.”

Ah, the worst insult the man could conceive of. “I came because I need information. And I hadn’t the time to be more careful.”

“Then you should’ve killed that backward bush pilot you paid to fly you to England. I doubt he waited until you cleared the tarmac before he called the authorities, giving them your description.”

Sharif held up his bandaged hand. The movement caused blood to pound in the wound like a second heartbeat, a second heartbeat with sharp, venomous teeth. “That backward bush pilot was twice my size, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m more than a little impaired.”

“I heard you lost a finger.”

“I could’ve lost much more,” he snarled, feeling a sick sweat break out all over his body. He’d been oscillating back and forth between hot and cold ever since he’d awoken in the Kenyan hospital. “I could’ve lost my life.”

Asad—Sharif didn’t think of him as Dad—leaned back in his leather wingback chair, steepling his long fingers under his aristocratic chin. “And you blame me?”

“I would not have been there, out on that tanker, had you not sent me.”

“Oh, how selective your memory.” Asad smiled like a shark, all teeth and no feeling. “Wasn’t it
you
who begged me for a job that would pay enough for you to retire from this nasty business?”

In learning to live between his parents’ two worlds, Asad had perfected the ability to live in
both
. He took the wealth he’d inherited from having been born a Grafton and invested it into deals with the contacts he made from being his mother’s son. Asad’s public business ventures were simply fronts for his private enterprises. Namely drugs, guns, the slave trade, and, most recently, piracy.

“I never thought you’d put me in the direct line of fire,” Sharif informed his father coldly. For a long minute, Asad simply stared at him. It was somewhat like being a wounded gazelle, watched by a lazy, satiated lion. You knew there was the potential for quick, painful death, but there was the eternal hope the big cat wouldn’t deign to expend the energy.

Finally, Asad spread his arms, indicating the luxury of the room around him. “Do you think I got all this from staying safely behind the line? From never taking my chances and facing the Reaper?”

“I only meant that—”

“Enough!” Asad bellowed, and Sharif briefly closed his eyes as the sound echoed like a dropped anvil behind his fevered brow. “None of this matters now. The operation was a failure, so the only course is to move forward. But first you must leave here. You can’t be seen with me.”

“And why would anyone ever think to look for me here,
father
,” he snarled the word. “No one knows of our relationship.”

Like his father before him, Asad Grafton had made a voyage to Africa, and there met a beautiful, exotic woman. But unlike his father before him, Asad had refused to publically acknowledge the child that resulted from the brief, tumultuous affair. Sharif didn’t even known he
had
a father until he was old enough to attend school. Then his mother shipped him to England where, with the benefaction of Asad Grafton’s money, he received an education—and nothing more.

“Nor will they ever know of our relationship,” Asad said with infuriating unconcern. “Especially now that your face is in the system. And speaking of that, you need to leave England. Immediately. Go to a non-extradition country and have surgery to change your appearance. We’ll get you a new identity, that’s easy enough.” He waved his hand like the forging of passports, personal histories, birth certificates, and any other such legal documents was inconsequential. Which, for a man of his resources and power, was probably true.

“I will,” Sharif agreed easily, because that’d been part of his plan all along. “But first I need all the information you can give me on Rebecca Reichert.”

“What?” Asad frowned. “Why would you need that?”

Again he lifted his hand, ignoring its protest at the movement. “Because she must pay for this.”

“Ah. But revenge for such an insignificant wound seems a bit self-indulgent, don’t you think?”

“Insignificant!” he raged. “I’m permanently disfigured! This isn’t something a plastic surgeon can fix!”

“Yes, but you can hardly blame the woman. From the reports I’ve received, you had a weapon to her head, threatening to throw her over the side of the tanker. Did you expect her to go willingly?”

How Asad came by his information, Sharif would dearly love to know. The man was like a God, endowed with omnipotence.

“She insulted me at every turn. Surely, you of all people understand that I cannot let that stand.”

“She’s American,” Asad declared, as if that excused her behavior.

“She’s a mouthy bitch, and I want her silenced,
permanently
.”

“Mmm.” Again with that indulgent, knowing smile. It’d always made Sharif’s skin crawl. Now was no exception. “And in what way will you make her suffer before you silence her permanently?”

“I don’t know, father,” he sneered. “Perhaps I’ll make her suffer the same way you made my mother suffer.”

Sharif had been finishing his sixth year at boarding school when his mother made her first trip to England to visit him. She’d been weak and haggard, a mere shadow of the beautiful woman he’d left behind.

The civil war in Somalia had decimated the country and left its population starving and destitute. He hadn’t known it at the time, but his mother had been desperate. And that desperation had led to her death, because she badly misjudged Asad Grafton. When she tried to blackmail Asad, promising to go public with the story of his illegitimate son, Asad simply responded as he responded to any obstacle in his path, decisively and permanently.

Coming back to the dormitory where his mother promised to await him following his last class, Sharif had arrived to find his father waiting instead. On the drive to the hotel, he’d been deliriously happy, thinking his parents were going to get married, thinking his father would save his mother and make everything all right.

As it turned out, the salvation of Nadifa Garane was the very last thing on Asad’s mind.

To teach his son the lesson that no one crossed Asad Grafton and lived to tell about it, his father tied him to a chair in an opulent room at the Savoy in London and made Sharif watch as he first raped and then strangled his mother.

It was a lesson Sharif learned well, but even with the fear of his father’s vicious disapproval, he could think of nothing save making Rebecca Reichert pay for what she’d done to him.

Asad chuckled at his reference to what’d happened in that hotel room all those years ago. “You liked that, didn’t you? Watching the power a man has over a woman?”

No. He hadn’t liked it at the time. He’d cried until his eyes swelled, screamed behind his gag until his throat was raw, and struggled to get free of his bindings until his wrists bled.

All to no avail, of course.

But the thought of doing to that blond American bitch what his father had done to his mother made his manhood swell with blood. So, perhaps his psyche had broken that fateful day, or maybe it’d simply been warped beyond all redemption. Unfortunately, he was coming to believe the truth of the matter was that he was more like his father than he ever imagined.

“I want the information,” he declared, resisting the urge to wipe the cold sweat from his brow. It would be a sign of weakness, and he’d learned never to show weakness to his father.

“And you shall have it,” Asad reached into the side drawer of his desk, pulling out a file, offering it to him. For the first time in his life, Sharif thought perhaps there was a spark of pride in his father’s eyes.

When he opened the file, his blood boiled. There she was, her laughing face captured in a full-color, eight-by-ten photograph.

Rebecca Reichert.

I’m coming for you…

***

What
the
hell
am
I
doing
here?

It was the third time in as many minutes Frank had asked himself that exact question as he stood in the dark, empty hallway on the third floor of the shop, his forehead pressed to the outside of Becky’s bedroom door.

It was oh-one-hundred. Everyone had turned in hours ago, including him, and despite his belief that he wouldn’t, he’d managed to fall asleep. But he awoke sometime later with a violent start, his shoulder throbbing, chills racing down his spine, the certainty that tomorrow he’d see his last sunrise absolute.

So what did he go and do?

He jumped out of bed like the mattress was on fire, threw on a pair of old jeans, threaded one arm through a button up shirt, pulling the other half over his bandaged shoulder and sling, and padded down the hall to stand…outside the one door on the entire planet he shouldn’t be standing outside of.

That invitation…holy hell, he couldn’t get it out of his head…

“If you ever change your mind, you know where I sleep.”
It kept swirling around and around inside his heated brain, right along with,
“Whatever happened to sex just for the sake of sex”

And right behind all of that, a little voice would whisper,
It
doesn’t matter. You’re still her boss. She’s still too young for you. And think of how this will hurt Shell.

Unfortunately, with morning and his shoulder surgery creeping closer, that little voice was growing fainter and fainter while another voice, a more tempting voice, grew louder and louder.

That voice was telling him by tomorrow night he might be dead, and it was asking him which he would regret more. One night in the arms of the woman he wanted more than his next breath? Or the betrayal of someone he loved?

In answer, a memory flashed behind his closed lids…

It was a bright, sunny June day, and he was riding with the windows down in the passenger seat of his father’s teal-blue Thunderbird. He was ten years old and on his way to get “ice cream.” That was the code Robert Knight used when he was going to see one of his
lady
friends
, as he liked to call them.

The “ice cream” runs were always the same.

His father would buy him a double scoop of Rocky Road and a new comic book and plunk him down on the stoop of whatever apartment building Robert’s current lady friend happened to inhabit. An hour later his father would emerge, his step jaunty, his dark hair mussed, and they’d go home, both smiling at the little deception because it was fun to have
guy
secrets. Things they shared, just the two of them. Things the girls in the family didn’t know about.

But that fateful June day things were different. Because that fateful June morning Timothy Murray, Frank’s best friend and next-door neighbor came over crying, wailing that his parents were getting divorced because his dad was having sex with a woman other than his mother, and a light bulb went off in Frank’s head.

For the first time, it occurred to him that maybe his father wasn’t simply drinking Coca-Colas, smoking Marlboros, and playing poker with his lady friends.

“Do you have sex with them?” he asked when they pulled up to a little clapboard house with a covered porch and a patchy lawn. At one time, the house had been white, but it’d deteriorated to a peeling, faded gray. And even ten-year-old Frank recognized the smell of desperation hanging in the air like the fumes from a refinery.