“Good choice,” he said. He tossed the same number of pretzel sticks into the pile and then dropped his cards, face down, on the breakfast bar. “Four of a kind.”
“Oh, hell,” I muttered, tossing my cards down on the bar. “I give up.”
Conrad laughed. “I had you that time.”
“You had me every time. How in the world could you not have a tell?”
“I have one. You just haven’t spotted it yet.”
I pushed away from the bar, grabbed my wine glass, and sauntered over to the couch. “I’ve never played with anybody I couldn’t read before.”
“I believe that. You’re pretty good.”
Conrad joined me on the couch, his wine glass in his hand. I sipped at my own, letting the thick, red liquid settle over my tongue for a long minute before swallowing. I’d learned a lot more from my uncle than just how to play poker.
“You could go to Vegas with that talent, make a killing.”
“I have. I’ve also lost quite a bit.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Believe it.”
His tone was wry, the look on his face a little sour. A part of me wanted to reach over and wipe away the frown lines between his brows. Damn, but he was good looking! I wanted to do more than wipe away his frown lines. I wanted to…it’d been a long time since I’d wanted to be close to a man. Ever since I was forced to leave everything and everyone behind, since losing Tony…
I turned my gaze to my wine glass. I didn’t normally drink because it tended to make me a little maudlin. When I drank, I let my thoughts dwell on all the bad things that had ever happened in my life—the loss of my parents when I was just a baby, the dog that got hit by a car when I was ten, the hurricane that ripped away everything that was solid in my life—and it almost always ended with me in tears, unable to eat or sleep for days afterward.
But, again, I was already in a bad place. So, what difference would it make?
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Conrad said.
I shook my head, as I leaned forward and set the wine glass carefully on the cheap coffee table.
“You are such an enigma. I look at you, and I can’t even imagine what’s going on in your head.”
“Oh? People always tell me I’m as easy to read as a book.”
“Now who’s the one telling windys?” he said.
I laughed. I hadn’t heard that term in years. I settled back into the arm of the couch so that I could see his amazing eyes, pulling my knees up against my chest and wrapping my arms around them.
“You’re from Texas?”
“Dallas, originally, but the family settled in Houston when I was about five.”
I tilted my head slightly, as though the new angle would reveal more truths he wasn’t saying, the things that were stuck between the lines.
“But you went to college in New Orleans.”
“I went to three colleges all together,” he said with a soft smile. “Rice, Tulane, and the University of Portland.”
“Why so many?”
He offered a slight shrug as he took a last swallow from his wine glass. “Kept getting myself kicked out.”
“Why?”
He leaned over and dropped his glass onto the coffee table. “It’s a long story.”
“Just a hint? Was it academic or behavior?”
“A little of both.”
I groaned. “Talk about enigmas.”
“I’m not an enigma. I just don’t like talking about myself.”
“What would you rather talk about?”
A soft, teasing smile split his thin, but handsome, lips as one of his eyebrows rose. “What makes you think I want to talk at all?”
It took me a minute to realize what he was saying, and when I did, a hot blush bloomed across my face. I started to sit up, but he took hold of my arm and pressed it against the couch cushion. Then, he leaned close, close enough that I could smell the wine on his breath.
“You are so beautiful.”
I started to shake my head, but he slid his other hand up along the curve of my jaw and buried his fingers in my hair so that he could control the tilt of my head. He forced me to look up at him, forced me to lay back against the couch so that I was completely vulnerable to his touch.
“You are beautiful. That night at the launch party? I couldn’t concentrate on anything I was supposed to do because I couldn’t tear my eyes from you.”
“You’re a liar.”
“It’s true.” He pressed his fingers deeper into my hair, moving around to cradle the back of my head. “It pissed me off because I swore after Aurora that I would never again let a woman distract me from what I needed to do. But there you were, and I knew who you were and I knew…” He groaned. “I knew you were trouble, but I couldn’t stay away from you.”
The memory of that night again floated through my mind. I remembered him watching me, remembered the way the tiny hairs on my neck stood on edge each time I turned around and our eyes met. And when he approached me…
“I know you,” he said as he came up behind me. “Your name is Mellissa Cambray.”
My heart sank heavy in my chest as I turned and faced my accuser, telling myself I was disappointed not because I had thought he was interested in me, but because I knew what someone recognizing me would mean.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been in this position. It happened in Arizona. California, too. I just…not now. I liked it here.
“No. My name’s not Cambray. It’s Anderson.”
He studied my face for a moment, his face a hard, unreadable mask. “I would recognize those eyes almost anywhere—I stared at them often enough in the pictures your uncle kept on his desk. You’re Mellissa Cambray, Mike Cambray’s niece.” And then he grabbed my upper arm, his grip rough, painful. “Your uncle screwed me over. I should call Johnny Duprey right now and tell him where you are.”
“No,” I hissed. “Please, you don’t understand—”
And then his grip relaxed. He still held my arm, but not as though he was trying to keep me from escaping. He stepped closer, the warm, wood smell of his cologne washing over me. He lowered his head, as though he planned on whispering something in my ear. But then…
But then there was a crash behind us, and he walked away, disappearing around some bushes before I could still the rushing beat of my heart and regain my equilibrium.
I got his cellphone number from the directory at work the following Monday and tried to dial it a dozen times in the days that followed. I needed to know if he was going to turn me in, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make the call.
And now…I wanted to know what he had been about to say.
I straightened my legs, laying them across his lap, as I wrapped my hand around the tie he had loosened but still wore. My heart was pounding, just like it had that night, but for a much better reason.
His lips brushed against my chin, that warm, woody smell once again surrounding me in a cloud of masculine closeness. I turned my head just slightly, suddenly aching for the feel of his lips against mine, for the taste of his wine on my tongue. But he pulled back just slightly, just enough to look into my eyes.
“I don’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
I tugged at his tie. “If I wasn’t comfortable with this, you would know it.”
He smiled. “I’m sure I would.”
And then he was kissing me, invading me without any preamble. And it was everything I had imagined it would be—the taste, the feel, the heat. A ball of need that had been sitting low in my belly for longer than I cared to consider quickly began to grow, creating a pressure that woke up nerves that had been dormant for far too long.
I let go of his tie and slid my hand up over his throat. I could feel his pulse pounding there and could feel how touching me made his body react. And I almost couldn’t wrap my mind around it—how a man like him could be so aroused by me. The realization only made that little ball g
row that much faster.
He moved his hand to my hip, drawing my legs up higher on his lap. I wished for a moment that I had chosen to wear a skirt this morning instead of my soft, linen pants. But, again, there was some added excitement to the idea that he would have to work a little harder to get what he wanted.
I slid my hand over his jaw and into his hair. It was soft, softer than I expected. And warm…everything about him was warm, from the taste of his lips to the feel of his hands on my body. You would think that one kiss would be just like any other. But this wasn’t. This was so different from anything I had ever known before.
Boy, was I in trouble!
I couldn’t do this; I couldn’t be with a man who made me feel this way. I wasn’t in a place where I could offer my heart to someone because I didn’t know where I would be tomorrow. I didn’t know what would happen next week or next month. I couldn’t survive that kind of heartbreak again. And I didn’t want to inflict it on someone else.
It simply wasn’t fair.
“Stop,” I mumbled, pushing him away. “Please.”
“Mellissa,” he said, his voice raw desire.
And that made it worse. I pushed at his shoulder and rolled away from him, climbing quickly to my feet and snatching up the wine glasses from the coffee table. I was in the kitchen, rinsing them in cold water, when he followed, coming up behind me and sliding his hand around my waist.
“I can hire a maid,” he said as he nuzzled my neck.
For a second, I moved back against him and let myself enjoy the feel of being in his arms. He didn’t even have to move his hand, or touch me in any particular place. Just being that close to him sent shivers of pleasure through my body to the point where I could almost ignore that voice of caution screaming in the back of my mind.
Almost.
I set the glasses carefully down inside the stainless steel sink before twisting out of his touch.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Why?
I stepped over to the far counter, putting feet between us. “We don’t know each other.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing,” he said, gesturing toward the cards still scattered across the breakfast bar. “I told you a few things about me.”
My eyes dropped to the floor, the pattern in the ceramic tile suddenly becoming quite fascinating. He didn’t understand, and I couldn’t exactly explain. If it was just about me, maybe I would take the chance. But it wasn’t. It was about my grandmother, too.
“I should go to bed.”
I started to move past him, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back.
“What is it, Mellissa? Is it that you still don’t trust me?”
I looked up at him, my heart shattering into a million pieces at the idea that he could believe that. There were few people in my life that I could trust. But I had little doubt that he was one of those. If he had called Johnny, if he had dropped the dime on me, I wouldn’t be standing here in this apartment. And they wouldn’t have confused Madison for me.
I knew that now.
But I couldn’t tell him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
I pulled away and rushed toward the bedroom, barely able to keep the tears from falling before I was safely alone.
It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.
But no one ever said it would be.
***
Madison
A woman stood in front of me, her pretty features twisted into something almost horrifying by the darkness seeping out of her mouth.
“You work for the president of Product Development. How could you not know what they’re planning to release at the end of the year?”
“I don’t really work for him yet,” I said, tears filling my eyes as I thought of Rawn. “I don’t start until Ms. Goldstein can find a replacement.”
The woman shook her head. “But we already know what Ms. Goldstein knows.” The woman glanced behind her. “Why did he think this would be better than Mellissa Cambray?”
The man behind her, the man who had interrogated me before, just shrugged.
“Mellissa Cambray?”
The woman focused on me again. “You went to Italy with Mr. Jackman?”
“Yes.”
“For what purpose?”
“To secure the Alessa 3D X100.”
“No other reason?”
I thought about the meal he fed to me and the car he allowed me to drive. I would not soon forget the feel of power that could only be surpassed by the way it felt when Rawn was inside of me, but I didn’t think any of that was what she meant.
I shook my head.
“Damn!”
The woman turned away from me, walking closer to the other man. They had a whispered conversation, but I couldn’t hear any of it. My fingers were still tingling, and now my toes had begun to do the same thing. I knew what it meant. I was about to have an MS episode. And that was not good.
I needed to get out of here.
They’d been asking me questions for hours, mostly about Cepheus and the products that had been developed there in the past few years. I answered as well as I could, but I only knew about the projects I worked on. The Alessa telescope. That was it, really. I didn’t know anything else. I hadn’t been with the company long enough.
I wanted to scream at them, to tell them I was just a stupid kid. I was just a grieving sister who worked too hard to finish school early so that I could help my parents pay off the medical bills my condition and my sister’s death had left them with. I wanted to say that I was just a stupid kid who made the mistake of propositioning my new boss for sex the night before I was due to begin work. I wanted to tell them I was just the girl who fell in love with the broken knight in shining armor.
But I didn’t think any of that would make much difference.
“She doesn’t know any more than he does!” the woman suddenly yelled. “We wasted our damn time. The only way this is going to get us the results we wanted would be if—”
She didn’t finish what she was saying. At that moment, a huge crash reverberated through the building. My chair was pushed over by someone running past me, and my head slammed on the hard floor. The last thing I remembered as I fell was the sight of my captors’ feet running away, leaving me to my fate.
Chapter Five
Mellissa
I stood in the shower for a long time, trying to quiet that ball of need. There didn’t seem to be any way to do it though. It just kept growing, even as my heart shriveled with the realization that I could never feel Conrad’s touch again.
Afterward, I wrapped a warm, familiar bathrobe around my body and sank down on the edge of the bed. I needed to call my grandmother’s nurse, but I hesitated. She thought I was having some sort of romantic getaway. It would set off alarm bells if I called and sounded like my best friend had just died.
Finally, I dialed, relieved when the phone was answered on the first ring.
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. She ate most of her dinner and went to bed without too much fuss.”
“Good.” I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Thanks for staying, Christy. I know it’s something of an inconvenience.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can watch my shows as easily here as I can at home.”
“Well, still…I don’t know for sure when I’ll be home.”
“Have a good time, Mellissa. You deserve a little time off. I’ve told you that. And I’m perfectly happy to stay as long as necessary.”
“Thanks.”
I switched off my phone a moment later and was sitting there with it in my lap when Conrad burst through the door.
“Don’t you know how to knock?” I demanded as I stood and pulled my bathrobe closer against me.
“They found her,” he said, somewhat breathlessly. “She’s at the hospital.”
***
Conrad drove too fast, almost as though he were as anxious as I was to fi
nd out what had happened to Madison. When we arrived, he parked the car haphazardly in the center of two parking spaces and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the main entrance. There were reporters there, just a small handful, but they recognized Conrad as Cepheus’ PR man, and they began calling out questions to him.
“Is it true one of Cepheus’ employees was kidnapped?”
“Is it true the victim was shot during a rescue attempt?”
“Is it true the victim is your former wife’s assistant?”
Conrad slid his arm around me, tucking me under his arm to keep the reporters from snapping pictures of my face, as he called out, “No comment.”
Their words, however, began to bounce around inside my head until it was all I could think about.
“Is it true the victim was shot during a rescue attempt?” “Is it true the victim was shot during a rescue attempt?” “Is it true the victim was shot during a rescue attempt?” “Is it true the victim was shot during a rescue attempt?” “Is it true the victim was shot during a rescue attempt?”
I suddenly felt very sick to my stomach.
“Madison Miller,” Conrad said in a deep, commanding voice, as we approached the triage desk. “Where is she?”
“Are you family?” a woman sitting there demanded in a weary voice.
“Yes.”
That single syllable was so clear, so confident, that the woman didn’t seem to doubt it. She gestured toward a set of double doors behind her desk.
“Room 4.”
Conrad continued to hold me against his side as he rushed through the doors and down the corridor. He whispered numbers to himself as he went, pausing once to read the directions painted on the wall: Rooms 10-19 to the left, Rooms 1-9 to the right.
And then I saw Annie.
I pulled away from Conrad and broke into a quick sprint, nearly knocking her over when I reached her.
“They found her,” Annie whispered. “I can’t believe they found her.”
“Is she okay?” I pulled back and wiped the sweat dampened hair from Annie’s forehead.
“I don’t know. They haven’t let me see her yet.”
“Where’s Rawn?” Conrad asked.
Annie shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”
The TROUBLE with BILLIONAIRES: Book 2 Page 4
