Dangerous

by Audrey Alexander

  “They only took the laptop?” Jace asked, clenching his jaws. They’d gone too far this time. If Carrie had been here…he couldn’t bear to think of it.

  Carrie nodded, eyes wide. “I’m so sorry, Jace. I never would have left it here if I thought anyone had any idea that I might have the footage…”

  “Pack a bag,” Jace said with a nod. He didn’t care about the damn footage right now. Carrie’s safety mattered more than anything else, and it was clear she was no longer safe here. “You’ll stay with me until all this blows over. They won’t likely come back, but just in case, you need to be somewhere safe where no one can get to you.”

  “What about Coco?” Carrie asked, still holding her cat like it was a lifeline.

  Jace sighed but gave a nod. “Your cat can come, too.”

  Heavy footsteps pounded on the stairs. Jace froze, glancing at Franklin. Franklin nodded and edged toward the side of the door, drawing a gun from his jacket. Carrie sucked in a sharp breath, her entire face draining of color. He knew she hated weapons, but if the burglars had returned, they needed to be as prepared as possible.

  “Go to your bedroom, Carrie,” Jace said.

  “What’s going on?” Carrie asked in a whisper.

  Someone pounded on the door. “Police! Open up!”

  Jace relaxed but only for a millisecond before the severity of the situation settled over his mind. He turned to his assistant and spoke in a low voice. “Get out of here, Franklin. Now.”

  Franklin hesitated, but he gave a nod before disappearing past a frozen Carrie into the short hallway leading toward her bedroom. Hopefully Franklin would have time to get out of a window before the cops came barreling inside. If they took him in, they’d be sure to make the connection to his true identity, and he could be stuck in prison for the rest of his life. Or worse.

  Squaring his shoulders, Jace took a deep breath and opened the door. Three cops stared back at him, their guns raised and their faces severe. Jace held up his hands and took a step back into Carrie’s apartment.

  “What’s going on?” Carrie’s shaking voice rang out behind him. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “We’re here to arrest Jace Holt. For the murder of Anders Holland.”

  Carrie Simmons wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Central Booking for the NYPD was a nightmare in the best of circumstances, and nothing about her current situation could be considered the best. She stood beside her boss, her mother, and her step-father. Walter Holt had helicoptered into the city from his Long Island estate just as soon as he’d heard the news about his son, and Carrie found she could barely look at him knowing how few hours it had been since she’d been naked with Jace.

  Her boss was pacing back and forth, clearly unhappy with how much Carrie had dropped the ball on this case. If she’d done her job well (and if she’d been more careful about the video footage from Jace’s hotel), none of them would be standing there right now, surrounded by the barking sounds of Manhattan’s worst.

  She was walking on thin ice, and she knew it could break at any moment.

  “Did you know Jace had his security footage altered?” her mother asked, her crisp blond bob swooshing on her shoulders when she turned to finally speak to her. She’d been silent and cool through most of the proceedings so far, standing slim and tall in her white peacoat and heels.

  Carrie pressed her lips together. That had been the damning piece of evidence, of course. The police had been suspicious of Jace’s gun, but when some anonymous tip led them to the real security footage from the night of the murder, they’d immediately named Jace as their lead suspect, and they were charging him with the crime.

  “Attorney-client privilege,” Carrie said. “If I did know, I would keep that information to myself.”

  Jace’s father huffed. He was a tall and towering presence, rich and sleek and sharp on all his edges. Jace took after him a lot, though Walter Holt was a lot more gruff and a lot more fire than Jace ever was. “You should have called me about the situation before it came to this. I assumed the two of you had this under control, but I see now I was wrong to trust something this important to a girl like you.”

  “A girl like me?” Carrie raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her chest. She hated when he spoke like this about her, like she wasn’t good enough to be a part of his family. And she supposed that was true in his eyes. She was the spawn of her mother’s previous husband, a man Walter Holt made clear he had zero respect for.

  “Carrie, don’t talk back,” her mother said. “He has every right to be upset right now. His son has been charged with murder.”

  “We did the best we could to keep that from happening,” Carrie couldn’t help but argue. “It’s not our fault someone is trying to sabotage him.”

  Though that wasn’t entirely true, Carrie couldn’t help but admit to herself. If only she’d kept a closer eye on that footage, if only she hadn’t left it in her apartment unattended. But she’d had no way of knowing that someone would break in and steal it. She couldn’t blame herself. It wasn’t her fault. And she wouldn’t let Jace’s father blame her for it either.

  “No, this is important, Carrie.” Rick Allen moved in close to Carrie’s side, dropping his voice to a low whisper so the vagrants around them couldn’t hear his words. “Did you know Jace was with Anders Holland that night? We could have been building up a defense all this time. We could have been better prepared for this.”

  Carrie bristled. “Jace wasn’t with Anders Holland that night. That’s not him in the footage.”

  “So you did know about it.” Rick’s face drew down into a frown, and Carrie realized where she’d misstepped. She should have told him about the tapes when she’d first found out about them, and she should have told him that Jace and Franklin had doctored them. She’d just been so afraid of what might have happened to Jace that she hadn’t considered the ramifications of keeping his actions to herself.

  Rick sighed. “Well, we may be able to salvage this yet, but…I’m worried there may be too much of a conflict of interest having you on this case from this point forward.”

  Irritation flared up inside of Carrie. Of course there was a conflict of interest. She’d said so from the very beginning. Keeping her voice calm and steady, she replied, “Yes, I agree with you. It’s why I suggested he hire you in the first place.”

  “Jace Holt wanted you, though.” Rick Allen gave her a knowing look. “So that’s what he got.”

  “Well, I think you should have had my son’s best interests at heart, Mr. Allen,” Walter Holt interjected into the conversation.

  He’d been leaning closer and closer to hear their words, and Carrie felt a blush spread across her cheeks. Could he have any idea what Rick meant by calling it a conflict of interest? Or did he just assume it was because he’d married Carrie’s mother? No, there was no way he could know about her relationship with Jace…unless he was an avid reader of New York tabloids, and he’d recognized the back of her head in that photo like Rick had.

  “You should have put the best attorney on the case, and if that wasn’t Carrie here—and I’m sure it wasn’t—you shouldn’t have given it to her even if my son demanded it of you.”

  “Oh, he demanded it,” Rick said, giving Walter Holt a tight smile. “Believe me, I tried to sway him otherwise, but he insisted. He said he’d take his business elsewhere if I didn’t concede.”

  Carrie’s eyebrows shot to the top of her head. She hadn’t known that, and she wished she had. Jace had pushed things way too far with her boss, and now look at where it had landed them.

  “Well, maybe that would have been for the best!” Walter Holt barked out a harsh laugh and gestured around him at Central Booking. And he was right. If Jace had taken his legal business elsewhere, they might not have been standing there in the dredges of the NYPD. Someone unbiased and not head over heels in love with Jace might have done a better job at protecting him.

  “Excuse me, sir, but Jace Holt has been
a client of my firm for years,” Rick said, crossing his arms and meeting Walter’s fiery gaze head on. It was a battle of heat and ice, and Carrie wasn’t certain which one would win.

  “Hmm,” Walter finally said. “Well, I think it’s for the best if Alice and I stay in town until all of this is sorted out. And we’ll stay as long as it takes.”

  Carrie stiffened and tried to reign in her shock and dismay. The family being in town meant only one thing to her: the possibility of exposure. She and Jace could hardly spend hours in each other’s beds if his dad was sniffing around Jace’s penthouse whenever he wanted.

  “I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Carrie said slowly, though she could tell by the determined set in Walter Holt’s jaw that there was no use in trying to sway him otherwise.

  Just then, the double doors down the hall swung open to reveal Jace. Carrie’s heart lifted, and she took a step toward him, her feet moving out of their own volition. He looked fine, normal. Crisp and pristine and sharp and full of power. His eyes met hers from across the room, and she swore she felt an electric charge pass between them.

  But then his eyes moved to his father, and his face turned to stone. Carrie swallowed. This was not going to be a fun next few days.

  Jace Holt crossed his arms and glared across the table at Rick Allen, the puppet master behind the incriminating photos of him and Carrie from their night out at Bonds nightclub. Jace had tried to arrive at the law firm offices early to confront him about what he’d done, but his father had already been there for some private powwow with Rick.

  It was irritating how much his father felt that Jace couldn’t take care of himself, but it wasn’t exactly new. He’d been an overpowering presence all of his life, barely letting Jace make any of his own decisions. When Jace had started growing successful in Manhattan, his father had backed off, finally approving of his son’s direction in life. But this newest situation with the law was bringing the past right back into the present. His father was taking control of everything again without even asking Jace what he wanted, and it made Jace want to punch the wall.

  Now they were all sitting in Conference Room B at the law firm. Jace, Rick Allen, his father, and Carrie. Carrie’s mother had even come along for “moral support” though Jace wished she hadn’t bothered. It was making Carrie fidget, picking at the ends of her hair like she’d done back in college when she was waiting for the results from a particularly important exam.

  “Now,” Rick Allen said, placing his palms flat on the table. “I think it’s important to begin this meeting by saying that I am certain we can find a way to resolve this situation.”

  Jace narrowed his eyes as he watched Rick flip open a file folder. He wasn’t acting at all like he was aware of Jace’s glares. Jace wanted so much to confront him, right here and now in front of a large group of witnesses, but unfortunately, those witnesses were the very people who could never know about his relationship with Carrie. Jace personally no longer cared if they found out about the two of them, but he knew it would devastate Carrie. And he could never do something like that to her.

  “We’ll begin with the easier obstacle,” Rick said, lifting a photo of a gun from the folder and sliding it across the table to Walter Holt. Not Jace, of course. Even though it was his damn case. “This pistol found in Jace’s penthouse apartment matched the ballistics of the murder weapon.”

  Walter Holt’s face wrinkled as he studied the photo. “This is the easier obstacle?”

  “Well, it’s certainly less condemning than the actual video footage showing Jace entering The Grand Rizzato with Anders Holland. Just moments before the estimated time of death.”

  “That isn’t Jace in the footage,” Carrie spoke up, her eyes narrowing. Jace had noticed she’d been repeating this detail to everyone. It had started last night when his father had shown up at Central Booking to bail him out of the situation. He’d also noticed that no one seemed to pay much attention to her words. It was almost as if they all believed it truly had been him with Anders that night.

  “Even if that were the case…” Rick’s eyes moved across the table to land on Carrie. Something cold shone in them as he looked at her, and it made Jace clench his hands by his sides. “The man in the footage looks enough like Jace that any jury will believe it’s him.”

  “A jury?” Jace’s father spoke up. “Surely you won’t let it get that far.”

  “We will do the best we can to prevent it from going to a full trial,” Rick said, shifting in his chair and straightening his tie. “But we all need to be prepared for the potential of it happening. The evidence against Jace is fairly convincing.”

  “Anyone with eyes can see it’s not Jace in that video,” Carrie said in a clipped tone.

  Jace tried to suppress a smile. Despite everything, Carrie’s feistiness had come out in full colors. Her boss was angry with her, and so was Jace’s father, and yet she was far too headstrong to lie down in the road and let them run over her. Jace didn’t want to remind her that she had, in fact, thought it was Jace at first, too. But none of that mattered anymore. Not when it was the two of them against everyone else.

  “As I was saying,” Rick said, his tone holding a warning as he flashed his eyes at Carrie, “let’s focus on the murder weapon at the moment. We need a good reason for Jace to have had a gun in the first place.”

  “It’s for protection,” Jace said. “The same reason many gun owners have a weapon in their home.”

  “Why the hell do you think you need protection?” Jace’s father barked out a laugh. “What can hurt you up there high in your pretty penthouse?”

  Jace narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. He was one hundred percent done with this meeting. He refused to sit here and be questioned by the few people who proposed to be on his side, and he certainly refused to sit in the same room with Rick Allen and pretend like everything was normal between them. The man was trying to blackmail him, and his calm and smooth demeanor was grating on Jace’s nerves.

  “Protection.” Rick scribbled a note on a piece of paper and flipped through his folder. “It also says here in your records that you have an assistant on your employment roster who also doubles as your bodyguard. Franklin Snow. We may be able to call him as a witness to testify that you were indeed worried about your safety.”

  “We’re keeping Franklin out of this,” Jace said through clenched teeth. “He’s not even in the city right now anyway. Won’t be back for awhile.”

  Rick glanced up from his notes. “Where has he gone?”

  “On vacation.” Jace had told Franklin to head out of the city until the whole situation blew over. If the police took too much notice of him, they might clock onto the fact that he wasn’t who he said he was, and Jace was determined to protect Franklin from getting caught.

  “Jace,” Carrie said, standing from the table. “Can I speak to you for a moment? Alone? Outside?”

  “Of course.” Jace swept up from the table and buttoned his suit jacket, relieved for any excuse to get out of this hellhole of a room.

  Jace’s father glanced from him to Carrie, a frown growing deeper on his face. “What’s the meaning of this? You can’t just leave. We’re in the middle of a meeting about your murder charge.”

  “Just carry on without us,” Carrie said in a peppy voice. “We’ll be back in just a few minutes.”

  Carrie swung open the door and stepped into the hallway. Jace followed, his eyes drawn to the swish of her skirt against her perfect ass. As she shut the door behind her, Jace could smell the sweet scent of her vanilla shampoo, and he had the sudden urge to wrap his arms around her and whisk her far away from this place. They could go to France or Belize. Anywhere but here with these people.

  She dropped her voice low. “You need to stop being so confrontational.”

  “I could say the same to you,” Jace said, quirking his lips. “You seem like you’re going to snap at any moment.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not the one being charge
d with murder.” Carrie sighed and pressed her fingers to her temples. Jace itched to take her hands in his and rub away all of Carrie’s tension himself. It was his fault she was so on edge, and he wished he could roll back time to take this burden away from her.

  “It’s going to be okay, Carrie,” he murmured.

  “Is it?” She looked up at him with her big, gorgeous blue eyes. “The weapon and the tapes combined…plus, the fact that you doctored them. It’s not looking good, Jace.”

  “So, this is why you brought me into the hallway.” He tugged a strand of her hair. “To give me a pep talk.”

  Carrie’s lips split into a smile. “I wish I could kiss you right now.”

  The door to the conference room swung open, and Carrie hastily took a step away from Jace. Carrie’s mother frowned out at them, her manicured fingernails clinging hard to the doorframe. She glanced from Jace to Carrie and back to Jace again, something in her eyes flashing, though Jace wasn’t sure what.

  “You two better get back in here,” she said in a low voice. “Neither one of them is very happy you popped out into the hallway, and I think they’d be even more unhappy if they caught you…joking around like this. This is serious business.”

  Carrie’s face paled, but she followed her mother quickly back into the conference room. Jace gritted his teeth before stepping back inside. He would only take so much of this before he demanded it to be over. And then he’d get Rick Allen alone and get to the bottom of his blackmail attempt once and for all.

  Carrie hated being in her apartment after what had happened the other night. It no longer felt like a safe haven to her. Every little noise made her jump. Every time she moved from one room to the next, she had to flick on the light to make sure no one was there, skulking in the shadows.

  The plan had been for her to stay with Jace until all of this was over, but that plan had gone right out the window when their parents had landed in town. She couldn’t stay in his penthouse now. They’d surely find out about them if she did. She didn’t know how and she didn’t know when, but they would. She’d never been able to hide anything from her mother.