Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set

by Jill Elaine Hughes

  Rebecca flushed red and stared at the ceiling. “Actually, I think I have a pretty good idea,” she muttered.

  “Oh, really? Who?”

  Rebecca flushed even redder. “I think it was probably Rodney Doyle.”

  “What?” I shrieked. “That’s impossible. He’s a thousand miles away.”

  Rebecca’s expression suddenly became very serious. “Actually, Jasmine, no he’s not.”

  I sat down beside her on the bed. “What do you mean?”

  Rebecca sucked in her breath, then blew it out slowly through her mouth. “He’s here, on the island. He took the same flight down here as Jacob and I did. I wanted to tell you right away, but—well, things happened, and I sort of forgot all about it. Until now.”

  I sighed and rubbed my temples. This was the last thing I needed. I was supposed to be on vacation, for Christ’s sake. I was supposed to be trying to rebuild my career, far, far away from all the Washington nightmares and scandals, and Rodney Doyle decided to show up and spoil everything. Why the hell was that man so intent on screwing with my life? “Is he here at the resort, then?” I asked.

  Rebecca shrugged her shoulders. “He must be. I didn’t think he’d be staying here, since I know he likes his privacy too much. I figured he’d be at one of those ultra-luxe, private-island places off the coast that the Hollywood celebrities like. But—”

  I cut her off. “But you did tell him where I was.”

  “Technically, yes, but I didn’t actually think he’d just show up here in the middle of the night and break into your private hotel suite. I mean, that’s pretty outrageous.”

  I smacked a palm to my forehead, exasperated. “Of course it’s outrageous,” I seethed. I stood up and headed for the closet where I’d stashed my suitcase, searching for something to wear. “You have to understand, Rebecca, that you can’t just drop sensitive private information about my personal life right into a man like Rodney Doyle’s hands and then not expect him to do anything with it. He’s a tabloid publisher, for God’s sake. Messing up people’s lives is what he lives for. He’s built a billion-dollar media empire based on it, after all.”

  Rebecca wrapped herself in a sheet and headed for the bathroom. “What makes you so sure he’s intent on messing up your life?”

  I threw up my hands in disgust. “Duh! What do you think he’s been doing all along?”

  “I don’t know,” Rebecca sighed as she stepped into the bath suite. “But I do know what you’ve been doing all along.”

  “Oh, and what’s that?”

  “Making up every possible excuse to avoid a man who’s obviously in love with you,” Rebecca shot back, then shut the bathroom door behind her.

  Rebecca’s words hit me like a steel pole. Rodney Doyle, in love with me? The very idea was ridiculous. Sure, I’d admit the man was attracted to me. Wildly attracted to me, even. But in love with me? That was absurd. I doubted the man was even capable of being in love. After all, he’d deliberately orchestrated my complete and utter public humiliation back in Washington by getting me mixed up in his shady, underworld sex dealings. He’d used me for his own bitter ends. My career was over, and it was all his fault.

  Wasn’t it? After all that had happened, what other conclusion could I possibly draw?

  I sank down into an overstuffed chair, suddenly nauseous. Maybe it wasn’t his fault. Maybe Rebecca had been right when she said that the terribly unflattering story about me could have been planted in his paper without his knowledge. Maybe—

  Maybe I’d misjudged him. Maybe I’d jumped to too many conclusions. Maybe I’d just been plain wrong.

  Maybe I’d just been a stubborn, obstinate, total bitch about the whole thing.

  It was high time for me to finally stand face-to-face with Rodney Doyle and find out the truth.

  Chapter 18

  I dressed quickly and headed for the lobby. There was only one person working the resort’s front desk at this ungodly hour, and that person was fast asleep at his post.

  I knocked the desk clerk hard on the shoulder with my knuckles. “Excuse me,” I shouted in his ear. “I need some help here! Pronto.”

  The clerk jerked awake, then stumbled around the reception area searching for his spectacles—which he put onto his face crooked when he finally located them. “Wha? Oh, yes madam. Was I asleep?”

  I nodded.

  “I begga your pardon, madam,” the clerk stuttered in a thick island patois. “Can I help you, madam?”

  “I need to know what suite Rodney Doyle is staying in,” I barked. “I have urgent business with him.”

  The clerk gave me a blank look. “There no be anybody named Rodney Doyle staying here, madam.”

  I stamped my foot, livid. “And how would you know that?” I barked, a little embarrassed by my nasty tone. “You didn’t even look at the register.”

  “I have the entire guest book memorized, madam,” the clerk replied, adjusting his glasses. “’Tis part of my job to know that. And there be no Rodney Doyle here, I promise you.”

  I couldn’t take any more of this. I knew Rodney was here—it was just a matter of figuring out what alias he was registered under. Remembering his penchant for Dickens characters, I reached over the registration counter and snatched the red-leather bound hotel register book. I scanned the most recent page until I found the name “Nicholas Nickleby” listed in the entry line for the Presidential Suite.

  I thrust the register back at the stunned clerk. “Thank you, sir. You’ve been most helpful.”

  With that, I turned on my kitten heel and headed through the courtyard to the private Presidential Suite.

  After an almost ten-minute walk through the dimly lit brick paths that winded through the resort’s heavily vegetated outer grounds, I finally arrived at the gated entryway to the Presidential Suite—which wasn’t a suite at all, but rather a private villa.

  A heavily guarded private villa. Two uniformed security guards—both with sidearms—blocked the door. I immediately recognized one of them as the same bulky, hulking guard that had been on duty at both the Beltway Times’ offices and Rodney’s apartment building.

  Rodney’s personal bodyguard, I thought to myself.Obviously, that huge, luscious sample of black manhood traveled with Rodney everywhere. And with good reason. After the wringer that Rodney and his sleazy tabloid had put me through, I could understand why there would probably be hundreds of people in the world who’d want to do the man harm.

  I didn’t know if the hulking guard would remember who I was, but I knew there would be no way to get past him if he didn’t.

  “Excuse me,” I stammered. “I umm, don’t know if you remember me, but—“

  The huge man cut me off with a curt nod and a grip on his gun holster. “You wanna see Rodney Doyle,” he boomed in his deep, Barry White-on-steroids voice. He made Ving Rhames sound like a child’s teddy bear.

  I swallowed hard. “That’s right.”

  “Sorry, no can do, ma’am. Mr. Doyle don’t wanna be disturbed.”

  “But—but I know him!” I protested. “And he specifically flew all the way down here just to see me.”

  The two guards exchanged looks and shrugged. “Sorry, ma’am,” the familiar one said. “We have our orders. You’ll need to run along now, ma’am.”

  “But—wait—“

  Barry White On Steroids was inches away from manhandling me across the courtyard when a disheveled-looking, pajama-clad Rodney appeared in the doorway. “What’s the trouble, George?” he asked the hulking guard. Then he saw me and did a double-take. “Jasmine! What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

  “I should ask the same of you,” I retorted. “What gave you the right to fly down here on a moment’s notice just so you can break into my hotel suite and steal all my phone messages?”

  Rodney looked sheepish. “So you figured out that was me,” he sighed.

  “Actually, my friend Rebecca did. She’s the one who told me you were here. What do you
think you’re doing, showing up here on a remote Caribbean island unannounced just so you can ruin my vacation?” Now I was really seething. The two security guards took their cue to leave us alone and took up a new post on the far side of the courtyard. “That really takes a lot of balls, Rodney, considering what you pulled on me back in Washington.”

  Rodney bit his lip. “I’ve tried and tried to tell you, Jasmine. I had nothing to do with those pictures ending up in any of the papers. Including my paper. Why won’t you give me a chance to explain?”

  Instead of answering, I shoved past him into the villa. I wandered from room to lavishly appointed room until I discovered a wet bar, and poured myself a strong drink of local 100-proof rum.

  I heard Rodney’s footsteps just behind me. “I thought you didn’t like hard liquor,” he said.

  “I don’t,” I shot back. “But you’ve driven me to drink.”

  He took the rum bottle from my hand and poured a shot for himself. “And you have the same effect on me,” Rodney said. He made no effort whatsoever to hide the fact that he was undressing me with his eyes. The bastard.

  I gulped down my drink and gave Rodney the evil eye. “You’ve been itching to explain yourself,” I snapped. “So explain yourself already.”

  He gulped his own drink, then poured another. “Jasmine, I think you’d better sit down,” he said. “This is going to take a while.”

  ****

  Rodney paced the room back and forth for almost ten minutes in silence. I was getting antsy.

  “Will you please just stop pacing and start talking?” I blurted. “It’s the middle of the night and you’re wasting valuable sleep time.”

  He finally came to a stop just in front of me and sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t exactly know where to begin.”

  “Well, just pick someplace and start there,” I snapped. “Otherwise, I’m going back to bed. This whole situation is just plain getting ridiculous.”

  Rodney ran a hand through his sandy blonde hair. “You’re right, the whole situation is ridiculous. And it’s just going to get worse. I doubt you realize just how bad it is already.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Why don’t you enlighten me, then?” I asked, not even trying to hide the sarcasm in my voice.

  Rodney pulled a ladder-backed wooden chair away from the wall and straddled it in front of me. “For one thing, you friend Dexter the taxi driver isn’t who he seems.”

  “I kind of figured that,” I said, remembering my backseat bribe session with him in distaste. “And I just found out from somebody he used to work for the FBI. Is that true?”

  “Yep,” Rodney says. “But he hasn’t been with the FBI for almost thirty years. Now, he’s—“

  “An independent contractor?”

  Rodney lifted one eyebrow, obviously surprised at how much I already knew. “You could say that,” he said. “Although calling him an ‘independent contractor’ would be putting it a bit too nicely.”

  “How would you put it, then?”

  Rodney winced. “I would call Dexter a sleazebag for hire, among other things,” he said. “He’s basically a professional character assassin. He seeks out easy targets with big-ticket connections—people like you, for instance—and uses them for his own ends. The cab driver act is just a cover. Newspapers, magazines, TV networks, political campaigns, and even foreign governments hire him to dig up dirt on people that can be used to destroy them in the media. His work has decided elections, ended careers, even overthrown a couple of governments overseas. It makes what I do at the Beltway Times look like child’s play.”

  “That’s insane,” I said.

  “Yep, it sure is,” Rodney said. He was getting agitated. A sweat had broken out on his forehead and he was fidgeting his hands.

  “Why does he do this?” I asked. Although I had some idea.

  “Dexter’s very good at his job, and he gets paid handsomely for it. Rumor has it he made close to a million bucks on an exposé job he did during the last presidential election. But nobody knows which side hired him. Personally, I think he might have done work for both.”

  “How do you know all of this?” I asked.

  Rodney frowned. “Easy,” he said. “Dexter’s my father.”

  My mouth dropped open. “What?”

  “My mother died when I was a toddler. My father raised me until I was about ten. Then we had an argument about what Dexter—I mean, Dad—did for a living when one of the public officials he helped expose as a homosexual committed suicide. Do you realize that Dad usually gets paid a bonus when something like that happens with one of his targets? He actually works those kinds of clauses into his contracts.” He shook his head in disgust.

  My eyes flew wide. I didn’t even know how to respond to that. Even more amazing, I’d discovered that there apparently were levels that even sleazy tabloid publishers like Rodney wouldn’t stoop to. As implausible as it might sound, it seemed that Rodney Doyle—America’s answer to Rupert Murdoch—had a moral compass.

  “I didn’t like how Dad did business, and I told him so,” Rodney went on. “He responded by packing me off to boarding school and never speaking directly to me again. I basically grew up an orphan. I was cared for by boarding-school matrons and Dad’s lawyers.”

  “Oh,” I said, my voice very small. “I’m so sorry.”

  Rodney sneered. “Don’t be. I’m better off without Dad—Dexter, believe me.My father has spent the past thirty years making my life miserable. Nobody holds a grudge like he does. He’s spent all these years trying to find a way to sabotage the Beltway Times and derail my career, so I’d have no choice but to come crawling back to him on hands and knees. Frankly, I’d rather die than let that happen. So I’ve done everything in my power to make my newspapers and media outlets a more legitimate alternative to the kind of business Dexter does. I know that might sound laughable to you—the notion that tabloid journalism can be at all legitimate—but I do think I conduct my affairs with a bit more compassion than my father does. And it infuriates him to no end that a lot of people around the world who used to pay him buckets of cash to spy on people are now able to rely on papers like the Beltway Times to do their dirty work for free. And I’m also proud to say that nobody has ever died because of something the Times published. I’ll admit to embarrassing the hell out of a lot of people, but I don’t have anybody’s blood on my hands. That’s a vast improvement over my father’s record, believe me.”

  I didn’t know what else to say, so I stayed quiet.

  “I suppose you’ve gotten caught up in his latest scheme to punish me for not wanting to join his little operation and striking out on my own all those years ago.” He paused, choked back what had to be tears. “I know all of this probably sounds hard to believe,” Rodney said, taking my hand in his, which was ice-cold. “But it’s true.”

  I stared into Rodney’s deep-set eyes and saw unimaginable pain there—the kind of pain that can only come from years and years of estrangement and abuse from the one person who should have loved him most. “I do believe you,” I said. “But I still don’t understand what’s happening.”

  “My aides have been following this for awhile. Apparently my dad is working for some unnamed overseas media moguls who would like nothing more than to see my empire crash and burn. He’s been searching for ways to infiltrate my inner circle for a long time. He discovered you completely by accident. But now that he’s found someone close to me, he’s moving in for the kill.”

  Close to him? “What exactly do you mean, I’m close to you?”

  Rodney squeezed my hand hard. “Jasmine, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I happen to care very deeply about you. Probably more than I’ve ever cared for any woman. I honestly don’t know why I feel this way, but I do. So there it is.”

  I jerked my hand away. “If you care about me so much, how could you let those photos of me get published in your paper?” I stood up and began to pace the room myself. “I know you knew about
it ahead of time. You knew about it the night you threw me out of your apartment.”

  Rodney’s face went deep red. “You’re right. I did know. Unfortunately, I found out too late to do anything about it. The papers had already printed and shipped. I sent you away that night because I was afraid that one of Dexter’s spies would find you at my apartment and leak that to the media, too.”

  I sighed. “Honestly, I don’t think that would have made much of a difference in what anybody thought of me,” I said. “Or you.”

  Rodney held up his hand. “That’s not even the worst part. I’d received several mysterious phone calls that day from a caller with an electronically distorted voice that threatened to do you harm. I put two and two together and deduced out that Dexter’s people were having you followed. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that one of the freelancers Dexter has working for him could resort to violence to obtain the information he or she was hired to get. I wanted you out of harm’s way until I figured out a better way to protect you.”

  Now my head was spinning. “Dexter picked me up himself in his cab at your building that night,” I said. “He told me to call him anytime I needed a ride, day or night. He showed up five minutes after I called!”

  Rodney shook his head. “That’s because he’d been laying in wait for you,” he said. “He must have known you were there all along. Jasmine, I think Dexter has a mole working somewhere in my staff. I haven’t figured out who it is yet, but I think that mole is responsible for hacking those photos you took at the House of Flowers off your phone and slipping them into the morning edition under the radar.”

  I sank back into a chair. “Dexter was so nice to me whenever we spoke,” I said. “He was almost like a grandfather. I can’t believe he was just using me the entire time.”

  “He was,” Rodney said. “He’s using you now, too.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Rodney’s expression became gravely serious. “Jasmine, I know that you planned a little sexcapade of sorts for your stay down here. I know you planned to leverage some of the new bedroom skills I helped you cultivate to try to revive your career, too. And I know that Dexter—my father, mind you—helped broadcast that fact with a number of very highly-placed officials so you could make your services available to the broadest possible market. And from what I understand, that market includes a sitting Congressman and the editor-in-chief of the Washington Post, among others. Am I right?”