On Her Terms (The Arrangement Duet Book 2)

by Madison Quinn

  “You ready?” The detective asks, as we go through the intake process at the prison.

  Carter arranged a private meeting and screening area with security, so we can try to minimize the chance of the press learning of my being here today. I take a moment before answering, to wrap my head around what I’m about to do. I need to think about this as a business transaction: I am simply here to gather information.

  “I’m ready,” the CEO mask I put on before a big meeting is firmly in place. I’m on a mission and I will not fail.

  “The prisoner is being escorted in, it will only be another moment while we secure her,” the warden confirms.

  “You’ve heard from Hunter and Johnson?” I ask Carter.

  “Yes, Mrs. Parker has not left the condo and has had no visitors,” he confirms.

  I wanted Kenzie here with me; I didn’t want her alone at the condo, not that she’s really alone, but still. I figured how much safer could she be than inside a prison? Of course, she wouldn’t be in the room with me during the meeting, but still, she would be safe here right? Carter argued that it was safer to keep her at home until we know what is really going on. I’ve warned him though, after today I’m done putting my life on hold.

  I need to return to PFS this week—I will not let this bitch control my life for one more minute. She did enough of that after she tried to destroy me, I won’t let her do it again. So before we returned home from Montana, Carter made some changes. We now have two CPOs per person when we leave the building. When PFS reopens this week, extra security posted at all entrances. Business dinners, functions and events are still being discussed, as Carter reviews the security for each venue before we decide whether or not to attend. With Christmas approaching I have received several invitations, however I’m letting him decide which, if any, Kenzie and I attend. If I need to miss a few dinners and events, I won’t complain–I hate them anyway.

  “The recording equipment is in place and ready to go,” Carter confirms before lowering his voice. “Just remember, nothing we obtain—”

  “I know, I know,” rolling my eyes as we approach my attorney who is waiting ahead of us.

  He absolutely refused to allow recording equipment in the meeting today; without offering Harper the right to have her lawyer present, we can’t use anything she provides in court, as it would be immediately thrown out. Understanding his point, Carter and I decided against following his advice. I’m wearing recording pieces that will transmit every word spoken back to Asher, who is seeing that it is backed up to prevent it from suddenly “disappearing.” Our goal is not court—I’m not worried about getting evidence to put Westbrook or Harper away. My lawyers will see that justice is served. Recording today’s session is to ensure that we don’t miss something that is said that could give us a clue to where Westbrook is or what his plan is.

  “You ready, Mr. Parker?” Mr. Brown asks as we approach.

  “I’m ready,” I answer confidently. It’s true… I may not want to be here, but I’m ready. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Kenzie safe, even if that means facing her to do it.

  “Remember, play into her obsession of you. As much as you’re not going to want to, let her believe that if she helps you she’ll have a chance with you. It’s the only leverage you have over her,” the detective we’ve been speaking about the case joins us.

  “I know,” I reply before taking a deep breath and following the warden into the room. Sitting at the table, hands cuffed to the top of the table is Harper… thankfully, this time, she is at least fully dressed.

  “Nicholas!” She gives me a huge smile and even tries to stand up to greet me before remembering she is attached to the table.

  “Sit down or you will be taken back to your cell,” the warden reminds her, and she immediately sits back in the chair, but still smiles at me. She actually looks thrilled to see me I realize… which should play right into the plan.

  “Harper, how are you? Are they treating you, okay?”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad,” she shrugs. “I’m hoping I won’t be in here that much longer.”

  Thankfully, her bail was denied as they deemed her a flight risk. I have no idea why she thinks she won’t be here much longer, considering we don’t even have a preliminary court date yet. But rather than argue with her, I just smile and nod in agreement, sticking to the plan of staying on her good side to get the information.

  “I didn’t know you were coming today,” she looks down at her chipped nails, shaking her head. “They didn’t even tell me I had a visitor until a few minutes ago and then, they wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

  “Don’t worry about it, you look great,” I lie.

  “Aw, thanks,” she beams. “You always knew exactly what to say to make me feel better, even if it couldn’t be further from the truth. So… what brings you here? Not that I’m complaining of course, because I love that you came to see me…”

  “I wanted to see you, to try to understand what happened at Sweet Dreams last week,” I carefully chose my words.

  “What do you mean what happened?!?!? You were there!” she suddenly seems angry, and I know I need to bring her back down if I’m going to get any information from her.

  “I was there, yes,” I keep my voice steady and calm. “But, you know how much I hate violence, Harper, yet you brought to me.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t be happy about the knife,” she sighs. “But he said it was the only way…”

  “Who said that was the only way?”

  “No one.”

  “I was very disappointed that you brought it into the bakery,” the words are forced because disappointed is probably the least accurate word to describe how I felt that day.

  “I know,” her head hangs down, the anger from earlier completely gone.

  “But you still brought it—why?”

  “He said it was the only way,” she whispers.

  “It was the only way for what?” I try a different tactic. I don’t need her to name Westbrook; we know he was there that night.

  “To get you to realize…”

  “To realize?”

  “To realize that I was right!” she suddenly exclaims loudly. “He said you wouldn’t take me seriously if I didn’t. I had to make you see… make you realize, that I was right about her.”

  “What were you right about her?” Ms. Baker told me not to say Kenzie’s name unless Harper said it first, as it could make her angrier. It’s killing me sitting here, listening to how she talks about Kenzie as if she is in the wrong here.

  “That she isn’t what you need! Didn’t you listen to me, Nicholas?” she’s practically screaming at me now.

  “I’m sorry,” I immediately apologize. “You were right about her; you made me see what I was blind to all along. She’s not what I need.”

  “She can’t be! She can never be the type of wife you need! If she couldn’t keep him happy, how could she ever keep you happy? You’re so much more… you have so many more needs than he does.”

  I take a deep breath and slowly let it out, trying to reign in the anger, before I explode on her and ruin the only chance we have at finding Westbrook, or at least, finding out what his plan is. What I really want to do is tell her how wrong she is about Kenzie; that she is exactly what I need and that I couldn’t be happier. But I don’t; instead, I take another deep breath and try to relax my body so Harper doesn’t see that her anger toward Kenzie is affecting me.

  “If she couldn’t keep him happy, why does he want her back?” I ask.

  “He doesn’t… well, not really.”

  “Oh?”

  “She can’t keep you happy—she can’t make you happy the way I could. Why should you suffer because of her? With her out of the picture, I could make you happy again. Like I made you happy before,” she smiles, almost seductively, at me.

  “Were you going to kill her that night?” I almost don’t want to know the answer.

  “No! I’m not a murderer, Nicholas! I wou
ld think you know me better than that!”

  “You’re right, I do. The knife just must have freaked me out.” Really? What else did she expect me to think when she was waving a knife around the room?

  “I told you, I needed you to realize I was serious. I needed you to see what I knew all along.”

  “So you weren’t going to hurt her?”

  “I would have, but only if she tried to hurt you! Or if she tried to get to me, of course. But I wasn’t allowed... I couldn’t kill her. Only injure her a little.”

  Interesting… so Westbrook’s plan wasn’t to kill me, or Kenzie, that night. But to injure Kenzie… what the fuck is it with this bastard getting off on causing her pain?

  “You said he doesn’t really want her.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “Now that we’re not together—”

  “You’re not?” her surprised eyes immediately find mine.

  “No, I told you, I realized that night that you were right: that she wasn’t enough for me, that she couldn’t make me happy,” I lie and it absolutely kills me to say the words. I have to keep reminding myself that this is all an act. Kenzie and I talked on the plane ride home, and again before I left the condo, about what I was going to have to say and do, to try to get the truth from her.

  “You realized,” there are actual fucking tears in her eyes as she takes in my words. Fuck! How did I not see how crazy she was all along?

  “Yes, you made me see what I couldn’t see before. You did that.”

  “I knew one of those ways would work eventually. I knew you would see that you needed me all along.”

  “You tried other ways? I must have been blind to those too…”

  “I tried so hard, so many times to get you to realize that you needed me back.”

  “I didn’t hear from you after…”

  “No, I couldn’t. They said I couldn’t talk to you or see you again, so I tried other ways.”

  “Other ways?”

  “I tried to make you see that you needed me by your side. You needed me to make you look good.”

  “To look good…” FUCK!

  “So you wouldn’t lose your business. You needed me by your side, so you could keep PFS going strong.”

  “You weren’t involved with PFS, though.”

  “Silly! You needed me to attend all those functions you hated so much, so people wouldn’t think you had a problem running PFS.”

  I knew she was behind it!

  “The reporters… all those articles written about me not being able to keep a woman happy…”

  “Exactly! You needed me!”

  “That’s how you tried to show me I needed you.” I’m going to fucking kill her.

  “You see now, right?!?! You see how I tried—”

  “Yes, you did try,” I cringe trying and failing at keeping my anger under control.

  “You seem angry… are you mad at me?”

  “No, mad at myself for not seeing it sooner,” that’s not an entire lie. I suspected she was behind the tabloids, but no one was ever able to find proof.

  “It’s over now, that’s all that matters. And as soon as you drop the charges against me, we can be free to be together again!”

  “Except, we still need to deal with her.”

  “Oh, he’ll take care of her, don’t worry.”

  “He’s going to take care of her?”

  “With you out of the picture, he’ll be able to get to her a lot easier. He couldn’t figure out how to get around your security guys. But, he said once you ended things with her, the security would end and then he could get to her easier.”

  “I’m confused… if she didn’t make him happy, why would he want her back?”

  “Because no one else should have her,” she shrugs. “I don’t get it either, but he says if he can’t have her, then no one can.”

  FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

  “Do you know what he’s going to do with her?”

  “No,” she looks at me for a moment. “But why do you care? I thought you weren’t with her any longer?”

  “I’m not,” I insist. “But, just because we’re not together, doesn’t mean I want to see her harmed.”

  “After what she did to him, she deserves it.”

  “What did she do to him?”

  “She embarrassed him! He would take her to dinners with his business partners, and she would flirt with everyone! She was constantly embarrassing him at work or different functions. She doesn’t know how to act in our world, Nicholas! How could someone like that fit into your world? Can’t you see why she wouldn’t be right for you?”

  “You’re right…”

  “Five minutes,” the warden opens the door to alert us.

  “I can’t believe the hour is already up! I feel like you just got here,” she whines. “Please tell me you’ll come back!”

  “Of course, I will,” when hell freezes over.

  “Good.”

  “How can I contact him?”

  “Why? Why would you want to contact him?”

  “So I can tell him how where she is.”

  “Oh he’ll know. He’s going to watch and wait for the security to be dropped so he could get close to her.”

  “And then what?”

  “I don’t know. Why should I care what he does with her? With her out of the picture, I can focus on making you happy, and showing you why you shouldn’t have let me go the first time.”

  “He must be staying in New York somewhere.”

  “He got a room at a motel. It’s not like anything you would ever stay in. I felt dirty the second I walked into the room.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it’s near the bakery at all,” I try to get more information from her in the limited time we have left.

  “No, not at all,” she giggles. “It took us awhile to get there that night. He did the drive a few times and said that without traffic it would take thirty-three minutes to get there. But that night it took thirty-six because of a road closure. He was not happy!”

  “I bet he wasn’t.”

  I doubt that is much of anything, but it might give Carter an idea of where to start to find Westbrook. I rack my brain trying to find ways to ask for more information about Westbrook without her becoming too suspicious.

  “Are you going to see him again?”

  “Are you jealous?” she winks. “No. I wasn’t allowed to see him after the… that night.”

  “Good, I don’t like you with him.”

  “I never knew you to be jealous, Nicholas,” because I was never jealous when it came to you, bitch.

  “I’ve changed,” in more ways than you’ll ever know.

  “Maybe, the time apart was good. It made you realize just how much you needed me.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I can make you happier than she ever could. I know what you need both in and outside of PFS. You’ll never have to worry about me embarrassing you, or not knowing how to act in certain situations. With her gone you’ll never have to worry again. She won’t be able to do anything to hurt you.”

  “Time’s up.”

  Chapter 49

  Kenzie

  “Honey! I’m home!” Nicholas announces loudly as he stumbles into the living room with Carter next to him, sort of guiding him to the couch.

  “Nicholas?”

  “Kenzie… I’ve missed you. Come sit with me,” he pats the couch heavily next to him after he plops down.

  “Mrs. Parker, would you mind if I got a bottle of water from the fridge?” Carter asks, eyeing the kitchen.

  “Of course not, let me help you,” I lead Carter to the kitchen.

  “What—” I start.

  “This is his way of dealing,” he shrugs.

  “I thought you guys were stopping to eat at The Summit?”

  “We were. I think he needed to drown out the meeting with her.”

  “Did you… did she say anything?”

  “Not really. We have a couple
of leads that we’re going to follow up on,” I can tell he’s purposefully being vague.

  “Is he okay?” I ask, not referring to his obvious drunk state.

  “I think the alcohol helped,” he shrugs. “That woman… she’s… really something.”

  “That bad?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Kenzie! Where are you?” Nicholas calls from the living room.

  “Thanks for bringing him home.”

  “Of course. Try and get him to drink as much water as possible, it’ll help lessen the chance of a hangover in the morning.”

  “I will.”

  “There you are!” Nicholas stands and sways a little as we enter the room.

  “Have a good night, sir,” Carter says as he walks toward his apartment.

  “Who’s on tonight?” Nicholas asks.

  “Hunter is at the entrance,” Carter confirms. “Ben is on call.”

  “Good.”

  I can’t help but chuckle, even in his drunken state, he’s still worried about our safety. As Carter leaves, I set the deadbolt and turn on the alarm, knowing that we’re not going to be leaving the apartment at all tonight.

  “Are you hungry—”

  “Yes.”

  “I can make something for dinner if you’d like. Julie and I already ate—”

  He pulls me onto his lap as soon as I get close to him. I’m straddling his thighs, facing him as his arms wrap around my hips.

  “I want you for dinner, baby,” before I can respond he pulls me closer to him until his lips find mine. His tongue immediately searches out mine, as his hands roam my entire body. I can feel his erection through my thin yoga pants as he grinds himself against me. Our clothes quickly come off, thrown carelessly on the floor.

  “What are you doing?” I ask as he moves towards the end of the couch before standing up, carrying me toward the kitchen.

  “I told you… I want you for dinner,” my face blushes as he sets me down on the dining room table. He pulls my ass to the edge of the table, before gently urging me to lay down. My arms automatically come across my eyes, embarrassment hits me, as the thought of being completely naked on the table.