“Change of plans. We’re going to pick her up.”
Emmaline frowned. “I’m going to a special lunch with her and Valerie.”
“More change of plans. Valerie couldn’t make it. You’re going to special lunch with Stella and me.”
Lucas reached for her elbow, then seemed to think better of it and used his hand to indicate their direction instead. “We’ll go out through the garage.”
Upon reaching Stella’s, she tried to switch seats so the younger woman could sit beside her brother.
“Stay put,” Stella insisted in a chirpy voice. “And get comfortable. We have a bit of a ride ahead.”
“Where are we going to lunch?”
“Palm Springs,” Lucas answered. He didn’t look away from the road. “To visit the home where you grew up.”
“Palm Springs?” She reached for the handle of her door, only to hear the snitch of the lock.
“It’s on the child setting,” Lucas said. “You won’t be able to open it yourself.”
Panic and anger made a ball of fire in the pit of her belly. “I am not a child. And I am not going to Palm Springs.”
“We’re going to Palm Springs.”
Fuming, she wondered only for an instant how this had come about before it all became crystal clear. The hacker in the family had likely only needed a few essential facts to find out most everything. She glanced around at Stella. “I told you those things about me in confidence.”
The younger woman’s face twisted in sympathy. “I know you’re nervous. But it will be all right.”
Emmaline appealed to Lucas while trying to hold back a scream. “Please. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Actually,” he said, and this time he glanced at her, his gaze filled with a heart-flipping tenderness. “I do. I’ve done research.”
Her face flushed with heat. “So you investigated me.”
“I investigated Bruno D’Angelo and Enzo Abelli. I believe I understand the situation pretty well.”
Of course he did. Lucas would have sussed out all the salient pieces of information and added them together to get the answer—shady dealings, half-criminal enterprises, California, Mafia-style. “Then you know why I’ve kept my distance. It’s safer for my dad. It’s safer for me.”
“I have another way to keep you safe.”
She clutched her purse in her lap. “I can’t stand men who think they know better than me.”
“Good God, Emmaline,” he complained in a mild voice. “You knew what I should wear to that charity dinner. You knew how to get that scratch out of the coffee table. I don’t get all bent out of shape when you know things I don’t.”
“Because you pay me to do those things.”
“People pay me to find out information.”
Emmaline threw up her hands. “You’re impossible to argue with.”
“I’ll try not to be smug about it.” But the half-smile on his face said he was.
“I’m not leaving this car,” she declared now. “You can drive me there, but I won’t get out of my seat.”
Lucas shrugged, which only left her to seethe for the rest of the trip.
But as they approached her old neighborhood, she found herself coming out of her dark mood to catalog every change, what she hadn’t done on her last visit. Then she’d practically slid beneath her seat. Now she saw that the elementary school had been painted a soft blue. The house four doors from hers had a new second story. There was the uneven piece of sidewalk that once upon a time tossed her off her bicycle. She closed her eyes against a wave of piercing sentimentalism.
In order to combat its insidious affects, she attempted to rekindle her outrage and shot a glare at Lucas. “I can’t believe you ambushed me.”
“It’s more of a kidnapping,” he said. “Your ex isn’t the only one with a few criminal tendencies.”
Maybe he meant to make her smile at that, but she could only stare at her old house as Lucas pulled up in front. The clean, mid-century style. The stucco still painted aquamarine, to match the tranquil waters in the courtyard pool. Clutching her purse harder, she tried imagining the man inside. Her father hadn’t been much of a hand’s-on parent after her mother died, but he was the only family she had left.
Then the front door, still painted a distinctive canary, opened, and a silver-haired figure stepped out into the heat that shimmered from the walkway leading to the sidewalk. He wore gray slacks with a matching knit shirt tucked into the waistband.
“I’m not getting out,” she said, but fumbled for the door handle anyway.
It was summer, damn it, and unsafe for an older man to walk around in the blistering sunshine. The lock released, and she slid one leg out of the car, then looked over her shoulder.
“We’ll be right here when you’re ready.” Lucas said.
Twenty minutes later she let herself out of the house, feeling tender and new, like her insides had been tilled—the old turned under to prepare for new life. Her father intimated that her leaving in that way had not been the worst of ideas, his voice gruff as he told her he’d shown her goodbye note to Enzo’s family. Because she’d made it clear in the brief lines that it was her idea, and hers alone to leave, and that it was also her solo decision to cut all contact, Enzo’s father had decreed there would be no bad blood between the elder D’Angelo and the Abellis due to her defection.
She hadn’t detailed the physical abuse in that final letter, and she didn’t tell her dad about it now. She also didn’t kid herself that Enzo’s father’s decree meant no bad blood existed between her and her former fiancé.
But her father had her cell number now, and he’d patted her back as she hugged him goodbye. She supposed they’d see each other only rarely, if ever. He had a girlfriend, he’d told her. A divorceé his same age who liked bingo and taking her grandsons to Disneyland. It relieved her to know he had someone with whom to celebrate the holidays.
As she approached Lucas’s car, a sleek black sports car pulled up behind it. Before she could take a breath or scream a note of warning, Lucas was out from behind his wheel, and Enzo shot from his driver’s seat, his compact body looking lethal in black jeans and a black sports shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal his powerful forearms. His gaze on her, he ate up the distance between them.
Instinct instructed Emmaline to shrink away, but fear rooted her feet to the concrete path.
“A text, Coco?” he barked out. “Five years of nothing then a text to meet you here?”
Lucas put his hand on the small of her back. She glanced over. Her attention had been so focused on the onrushing threat that she’d not noticed him coming up beside her.
“That would be me who sent you the text,” Lucas said coolly.
Enzo’s gaze flicked from Emmaline to the man beside her. His gaze shifted for a moment, clearly taking in the proprietary hand. “And just who the fuck are you?”
“Lucas Curry. Feel free to look me up after our short meeting here.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“To verify that I’m in the business of being able to find out everything about you.” Then he proceeded to reel off nine numbers.
A vein popped on Enzo’s forehead. “That’s my Social Security number.”
Lucas spoke another.
“Son of a bitch,” Enzo muttered.
“His bank account number,” Lucas murmured to Emmaline, then pitched his voice louder. “Your password on that account is IStallion9.”
“For now,” the other man blustered.
“I’ll be able to learn the next one you choose as well—and just as easily.”
Enzo transferred his attention to Emmaline. “What the hell is this all about, Coco? What, you found a fucking spy to fuck?”
Lucas stepped around her, putting himself between her and the shorter man’s body. “Don’t speak to her like that. As a matter of fact, don’t speak to her at all.”
Enzo’s fingers curled into fists. Emmaline felt the old
helplessness sliding over her like a dark shadow. Her head spun, and without thinking, she reached out to steady herself on Lucas’s waist. He instantly curled his hand around hers, squeezed.
“Why am I here?” Enzo demanded.
“To understand I have access to all your private and financial information. That I can alter it, scrub it, use it to siphon off any and all of your funds and donate them to a charity of my choice.”
The other man’s face darkened. “I’ll—”
“You won’t do shit,” Lucas said. “I have instructions set up that will be triggered in case of my unfortunate injury or demise or of those I hold dear, which includes Coco. You live your life, Vincenzo, but never forget I’m always and forever looking over your shoulder.”
“Fuck.”
Lucas stepped away and began leading Emmaline back to his car. “Live a clean one,” he tossed over his shoulder, and ushered her into her seat.
In seconds, they’d pulled away from the curb, and she leaned into the vents so that the cold air conditioning blew over her face. The fear she’d felt leached away, and she blinked several times, trying to assess the outcome of the roller coaster ride she’d just experienced.
“You can really access all his information?” she asked, her voice a dry rasp.
“Yes,” Lucas said, “unless he starts employing better and more expensive security measures. Even then, he’ll likely do something stupid like email himself all his account numbers and passwords. It’s what dumb assholes are wont to do.”
Another wave of emotion surged through her.
It was nausea and exhilaration. Intense relief and…something else.
“What is this I’m feeling?” she whispered aloud.
Stella leaned forward to reach over the seat and pat her shoulder. “You know what it is. You’re free. You’re finally free to do whatever you want. Be whoever you want. Coco again. Stay Emmaline.”
“Stay Emmaline,” Lucas said in a quiet voice. “That’s my vote.”
Stay.
But didn’t “free” suggest “go”?
Chapter 13
They stopped for lunch somewhere between Palm Springs and Malibu but, still dazed, Emmaline didn’t absorb much of the restaurant or the commonplace conversation between Lucas and Stella. Her mind kept circling back to the fact that she’d finally resolved her past. It was no longer going to hang over her head or drag at her heels. The weight was gone.
Her life had changed.
As she walked with Lucas into his house, a text came through on her phone. An “urgent” invitation for her to go to Joaquin and Sara’s place in a couple of hours for dinner. She held it up to her boss. “Your presence is requested as well.”
His eyebrows rose, and then he shrugged. “Sounds fine.”
In a call with Charlie, Emmaline learned the other butler didn’t know the nature of the urgency, either. But she was on board for the dinner as well, and would be accompanied by Wells and Ethan Archer.
“Ethan too?” Emmaline said.
“I told him he didn’t have to come,” Charlie said. “They’re my friends, and it feels weird when we socialize like this. Wells loves Sara and Joaquin, but when his dad and I—the three of us—do things together, sometimes it feels too much like a…”
An odd thought bounced into Emmaline’s head―Lucas remarking on the resemblance between Charlie and Wells.
Charlie tried again. “It feels too much like a…”
“Does it feel too much like a family?”
When her friend went silent, Emmaline signed off shortly after and without confessing that Lucas was attending the dinner with her as well. Charlie had her sympathy. She had her own concerns about getting too attached.
At the appointed hour, still wearing her fruit-printed sundress, she joined Lucas for a walk down the beach to her friends’ house. She breathed in the warm summer evening yet untouched by a chill, and the fresh air gave her a sudden, new buoyancy.
Smiling, she kicked off her sandals and scuffed her feet through the powdery sand like a child, digging her toes deep enough to reach the cool dampness below. Up ahead, she spied an intact mussel shell, its dark halves spread open like angel wings. She ran for it, scooping up the prize to run her fingertips along the smooth inner surface that appeared to have captured a midnight rainbow.
“Pretty,” she said, holding it up for Lucas to see as he caught up with her.
His gaze didn’t leave her face, and his fingertips lightly grazed her bottom lip. “Beautiful.”
Cheeks heating, she continued on her way, gifting the shell to a little girl pressing pieces of them into the side of a sand castle. Rewarded with an orange-ringed smile—a popsicle stick adorned the top of one turret as if waiting for a flag—Emmaline paused to watch the child at her task.
Lucas came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. Awareness lifted the down at the back of her neck and along her spine. He brought his mouth near her ear.
“She looks like a child you might have.”
Emmaline studied the sturdy little creature with her mop of dark curls and a red bathing suit riding up in the back. Apparently aware of their regard, the kid—maybe four years old?—looked over her shoulder at them.
“I’m a princess,” she announced.
“I just bet you are,” Lucas murmured.
Emmaline’s heart squeezed. The girl had the attitude of a child raised by Lucas, because he’d treat his children like he treated his sister, with love and care that begat confidence… and a little bit of healthy arrogance. Stella had faltered some, being young and not altogether wise, but in the end she’d come to her senses and stood up for herself. She’d be okay, and this child too.
As if she was walking on the air, Emmaline continued down the beach, anticipation singing in her blood. Something was going to happen tonight, some primal instinct announced to her. She could feel it in her bones and in her skin and in her hair.
Her stomach jumped around like it had the night before the start of a new school year.
Maybe because she was free to turn over a new page in her life.
Hailing Sara from the sand at the bottom of her back steps, Emmaline grinned, then caught up the fabric bag Lucas was carrying.
“Wine,” she said, holding it aloft. “And those shortbread cookies you like that are dipped in dark-chocolate mint.”
“Then hurry on up here!” her friend answered, looking radiant in a short white summer dress.
The Las Vegas getaway must have gone well.
Their back terrace soon became crowded. Charlie, Wells, Ethan. Joaquin’s mother, stepfather, and half-sister. Stella and Valerie arrived as well, having bonded with Sara over mojitos. They drank and ate as the sun went down, Sara setting out skewers of shrimp and teriyaki chicken for guests to barbecue on their big grill, as well as a mountain of vegetable-and-nut-dotted rice pilaf and a huge platter of sliced melons and berries. During a lull in the chatter, Joaquin suddenly lifted Sara to stand on top of a table, a bottle of champagne in her fist.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then just squealed, “We’re married!” and let the cork fly.
The assembled company went wild, and glasses of bubbly were passed around. Joaquin’s mother, Renata, tried to maintain a frown, denied the over-the-top nuptials she’d been planning, but after two glasses of champagne, she started talking about grandchildren instead.
Joaquin groaned. Sara giggled.
When the furor subsided some, the three butler friends made their way to the bottom of the steps. They sat, their bare feet in the sand, and passed more champagne around, drinking it straight from the bottle.
“I just knew something wonderful was going to happen tonight,” Emmaline said, grinning at her friend. “You’re a wife.”
“What would the instructors at the academy think if they could see us now?” Charlie wondered.
“They’d shake their heads and say, ‘Only in California,’” Emmaline answered, in the precise tones of the
ir sternest trainer.
Sara laughed, then sobered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the wedding ahead of time. We decided to keep it a secret from everyone.”
“Was there an Elvis?” Charlie wanted to know.
“Just two showgirls in pasties and feather headdresses as witnesses,” Sara said. “It was the classy Vegas wedding package.”
“I love it,” Emmaline teased. “So you.”
“But seriously, do you forgive me?” the new bride asked. “I couldn’t have made it to this place in my life without you two for support during our time at the academy and all the mess that came after.”
Charlie and Emmaline both assured her they understood.
“And I have something to tell now myself,” Emmaline said.
They gave her expectant glances.
She swigged champagne, swallowed, took a big breath. Then she told them about Palm Springs and Enzo, how she’d run from a bad situation and stayed away for five years. That Lucas had brought it to a resolution just that afternoon.
“I don’t know if he should have forced that confrontation on you,” Charlie said, frowning.
“Emmaline didn’t have a way to settle it without his somewhat nefarious help. I knew I liked him.” Sara took back the champagne. “Now she’s no longer hindered by the past.”
Charlie continued to frown. “Are you better off, Emmaline?”
“I think so.” She considered a moment, then nodded. “I must be, because I’m free.”
With the champagne bottle drained, their trio broke up so that dessert—a wedding cake, extravagantly decorated with ribbons of icing, glittering sugar crystals, and sky-blue nonpareils—could be served. Emmaline ended up sitting alone with her piece at the same spot on the steps watching the surf slide in and out, the skirt of each wave bridal-white in contrast to the inky ocean and the navy night sky.
Lucas dropped down beside her.
“Some dessert,” he said, turning his plate this way and that to admire the cloud of frosting and the five delicate layers of cake.
“I think it’s Sara’s small attempt to make peace with Renata over the loss of the big fancy wedding she wanted to plan.”
The Seduction (Billionaire's Beach Book 5) Page 19
