Authors: Claire Kent
“I don’t care. He must sign the contract. You need to find a way to make him do so.”
It was becoming clear what this conversation was about, and a chill ran from her neck to her fingertips as she processed the cold ruthlessness in his words.
He continued after another pause, “No. That won’t work. No use wasting your time with that. What do we know about his family?”
There was a much longer break as the person on the other end of the call evidently rehearsed information on the individual in question. “Wait,” Caleb said at last. “His daughter is at Eastlodge? How can he afford to send her there on his salary? Wait. What kind of scholarship?”
After the answer, his tone changed. “That’s it, then. Call the headmaster. Use my name. Make sure Johnson knows that his daughter will lose the scholarship unless he signs the contract tomorrow by noon.”
Kelly was so numb from overhearing this conversation that she literally couldn’t move. She’d known who Caleb was—on paper, anyway. She’d read all the evidence her mother put together on his callous treatment of others, his unethical business decisions.
But hearing it firsthand like this was something entirely different. This was the man who could have made a call to have her father killed. Maybe he’d even done it on his way to dinner.
Because she was so overwhelmed with shock, rage, and pain, she couldn’t do anything to hide the fact that she’d been eavesdropping when Caleb suddenly appeared around the corner.
He was sliding his phone in his pocket, and he glanced up to see her frozen on the third stair.
His eyes rested thoughtfully, observantly, on her face. “You heard?”
She nodded, since there was no way to hide the fact now.
“Did it upset you?” He didn’t look worried—just curious and a little wary.
This was important. She had to get her response right if she was going to stay in Caleb’s good graces. She also needed to be believable. She cleared her throat. “It sounded kind of—heartless.”
He gave a little shrug. “It was. It’s business.”
“Yeah, to you. But it’s not business to that poor girl who might lose her scholarship.”
“She won’t. I know how to read people. Her father will do the right thing.”
She let out her breath, forcing her body to react. She couldn’t let him see her real response to him at the moment. She absolutely couldn’t. She slanted a look up at him. “Are you sure?”
He smiled, as if pleased that she was falling in line with what he wanted her to feel about this. “I’m sure.”
“Okay. I guess that’s good. It still seems a little—ruthless.”
“Anyone you talk to will agree that’s a fair assessment of me.”
She smiled, as she was supposed to, and swayed a little closer to him. “So you’re ruthless, are you?”
“That’s what they say.” A sexy little smile tilted up the corners of his mouth. “Does this change anything?”
She shook her head and slid her hands up to span her fingers around the back of his neck. “I don’t think so. It’s not like I’m the most moral person who ever walked the earth, you know. And, to tell you the truth…”
She trailed off, and dropped her eyes.
He tilted her head back up. “To tell the truth, what?”
She let her eyes grow warm and languid. “I don’t want it to go to your head or anything, but I might actually find it a little—hot.”
And that was clearly the right thing to say.
A few days later, Kelly needed to talk to Jack Martin, the private investigator who was helping her and her mother.
It should have been easy enough to make a phone call, but she was constantly on guard. Caleb’s security staff were ubiquitous, and she kept noticing security cameras in unexpected places. She didn’t want to risk a dangerous phone call while she was on Caleb’s property.
She mentioned to Breah that she felt like shopping for clothes, and the next thing Kelly knew, she was being driven to a high-end shopping center. She was trailed by a bodyguard, but she’d expected that—since Caleb was still playing the protector—and she took her time, browsing in a few boutiques and buying a few pieces of sexy lingerie and a pair of shoes she couldn’t resist.
Finally, she got to a shop where the dressing cubicles were in a completely separate room from the main store. She grabbed a couple of outfits and went to try them on, making sure the bodyguard waited at the door and didn’t come into the dressing area with her.
She went to the farthest cubicle and hung the clothes up before she pulled her phone out and sat down.
If Jack didn’t answer—right now, the one chance she had to talk to him—then she was going to be highly annoyed.
After the third ring, a male voice came on the line. “Martin.”
She sighed in relief, recognizing the gruff tones from when she’d talked to him before she came to Caleb’s. “It’s Kelly.” She spoke softly, even though she was alone in the dressing room and the bodyguard was a room and a closed door away.
There was a slight pause. “So I guess that means he doesn’t have you tied up in his dungeon.”
It was so close to the language Caleb himself had used in his teasing, seductive way that Kelly felt the same jolt of erotic interest at the visual of Caleb’s tying her up. To hide it, she made sure her voice was very light. “I’ve looked and looked and looked, but I can’t seem to find a dungeon.”
“Too bad. Is everything all right?” Jack sounded just a little concerned.
She knew he thought she was stupid for doing this. He’d told her in no uncertain terms the last time they’d spoken. But she already knew it was stupid. That was hardly the point. It was still what she needed to do.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I just needed to know if you’ve found out anything that will help me.”
“Not much. You’re not in his computer yet, are you?”
“No. I don’t know how I’m going to manage that. The man must suffer from paranoia, with all the security he has in place. Plus, he doesn’t trust me yet. I’ll need more time.”
Jack muttered something inaudible, and she didn’t ask him what he meant. Whatever he’d said, it was disapproving.
“Anyway, I need some direction—at least something to be looking for, other than the name of the project. Please tell me you’ve got something.”
“I’ve got some people who might have been involved. I’m going to read their names. You ready?”
She had nothing to write them down on, and she couldn’t risk that anyway, so she focused carefully on the five names he gave her until she’d committed them to memory.
“Has he introduced you to anyone? Do you hang out with his friends?”
“I honestly don’t think he has any friends. He doesn’t do anything but work and—”
“Spare me the dirty details. Please. What is your situation like? Can you get away if you need to?”
“It’s a little hard to manage, but it’s possible. He thinks our fictional mobster is after me, so he’s got a bodyguard tagging along after me, but I’m shopping now. I’m sure I could slip away if I needed to. Or, if necessary, I could tell him I was leaving. He’d let me go, but I’d have no chance of getting in with him again. Why?”
“I was just checking. I might have something to show you in a few days, but it would have to be in person, unless you want to risk me sending it to your phone.”
“No.” Her heart jumped at the thought. “I don’t trust him not to look at my phone. Don’t send anything by phone.”
“Okay, then. Well, if necessary, maybe you could arrange another shopping trip, and we could find a way to meet up quickly. I’ll let you know.”
“Okay.” The thought made her nervous, but she dismissed it as irrational. Caleb was neither omniscient nor omnipresent. She had to be careful about the bodyguard, since he would report back to Caleb, but there would be ways to work around that.
She was in control here. Not Caleb.
No matter what he thought.
“Anything else to report?” she asked, deciding she better end the conversation soon before the bodyguard got nosy.
“Well, I just got a new receptionist,” Jack grumbled. “And she can’t even make decent coffee. I’ve been drinking this swill for a week now. It’s becoming a nuisance, but I’ll be damned before I pay three dollars for a cup at Starbucks.”
Kelly couldn’t hold back a laugh. Jack was obviously competent at his job, and he was also kind of funny. “I’ll be greatly disappointed in you if I find out you’ve caved and forsaken your principles for the lure of good coffee.”
“So far, I’m managing to stay strong. I’ll be in touch.”
She hung up, feeling strange and a little relieved, like there was a whole world outside Caleb’s sanctum.
She’d been starting to feel like there was nothing in the world but him.
On Friday of the following week, Kelly was still at Caleb’s house outside of the city.
He kept asking about her old lover, and she’d refused to tell him a lot of details—just a few breadcrumbs for him to follow that wouldn’t take him anywhere. Her reticence clearly frustrated and puzzled him. But his curiosity was good. It would hold his interest, even if he started to grow sated with the sex.
There was no sign of that happening yet.
He needed to trust her—at least enough to let his guard down around her. He wasn’t a fool, and he wasn’t going to give her access to incriminating information this early in their relationship. His office at home was always locked. She knew this because she’d checked it. Even if she could get in, it wouldn’t do her any good unless she could get onto his computer.
So he worked all day, and they would fuck in the evening. Nothing really had changed, except she was getting used to having sex with him, so it wasn’t quite so traumatic.
Given his history with women, it was a miracle he was still interested in her at all.
She needed to use that while she could, so she brainstormed all Friday morning until she came up with an idea for sex that evening.
She wanted something hot, exciting, different, and the only inspiration she could come up with was pulled from her own fantasy life.
Since she normally only had casual sex with strangers, she’d never had the chance to live out many of her sexual fantasies before. Caleb was here—a willing and able partner for anything she suggested. She might as well use him to give her body the kind of pleasure she’d only imagined until now.
It would be yet another tool she could use.
She planned things out purposefully, waiting on the window seat in her room until she saw his car approach. She grabbed her robe and hurried up to the master suite, where she started to draw a bath in the tub.
She figured she had enough time to fill the tub before he got into the house.
When it was full, she turned on the jets and got in, being careful not to submerge her hair in the water. She was wearing two pigtails. She’d braided them for strategic effect.
She thought she heard him enter the room a little while later, but he didn’t come into the bathroom. He had to know she was here.
She’d thought he might come in to see her, but it didn’t matter whether he did or not.
He might think it was some sort of surrender, like entering the bathroom would break a kind of stalemate and give her the advantage.
Their relationship—even on the surface, without any knowledge of her true purposes—was as much a duel as anything else.
She took her time in the bath, even though she was dying to finish up so she could find out what Caleb was doing. It made her feel vulnerable, not knowing.
So it was almost thirty minutes later when she came out of the bathroom at last, wearing a little pink satin robe and her braids.
He was sitting in a chair near the window, working on something on his tablet.
He glanced up casually at her presence.
She felt an immediate quickening of her heartbeat and breath at the sight of him, sexy and well dressed in a ridiculously expensive suit. He didn’t have that impotent prettiness of a lot of young men. He looked his age. Experienced. Jaded. Powerful, inside and out.
He’d earned that presence from years of taking anything he wanted, no matter what the cost to others.
She stopped short, as if surprised by his being in the room.
“Oops.”
His eyebrows arched, as she’d known they would. “Oops?”
“I didn’t realize you’d be back already.”
“Right.” He obviously didn’t believe her for a moment. She’d never be able to get away with the little manipulations that women often played with men. He’d been around the block too many times to pull them off.
But deeper manipulations—those that took everything from both parties. No one could be prepared for those.
“How was work?” she asked.
“It was work.”
He obviously wasn’t one of those men who spilled a lot of trivial details about their days to any conveniently open ears.
She gave him a slightly annoyed look. “Okay. Well, I’ll see you later.”
Let him think she was frustrated by his closing down polite conversation. Let him have a reason for following her.
He didn’t follow her, and she was starting to completely rethink her plan. Damn him. Why did he always make things harder for her than they needed to be?
She had an empty wineglass with her, from the drink she’d had in the tub, so she went to the kitchen to put it in the sink.
Breah was the only live-in staff, and she was good about being discreet when Caleb was home, so the large, fancy kitchen was completely empty. Kelly set the glass in the sink carefully and wondered where she should go from here.
“Did you enjoy the bath?”
Kelly whirled around, startled by the voice. Caleb had followed her after all.
“It was a bath,” she said, with exaggerated coolness.
Caleb laughed softly as he approached her. “It’s not like you to hold a petty grudge.”
He really believed that.
“I’m not holding a grudge. You’re obviously not in the mood for conversation, so why should I bore you with the details of my bath.”
He gave her a knowing smirk and walked forward until she was trapped between his body and the edge of the kitchen table. “Maybe the details of your bath wouldn’t be boring. Did you do anything interesting in there?”