What Belongs to Her (Harlequin Superromance)

by Rachel Brimble

  She snapped the phone closed and strode from the nook. She stopped short and stared at the bustling activity ahead of her, A few days of vile memories marred a childhood of happy ones, but she wouldn’t let that terrifying time ruin it forever. If she did, her molester would have succeeded in taking away her dreams as well as her innocence and ability to trust.

  The days she was violated came alive in vivid Technicolor, as though they had occurred yesterday rather than fifteen years before. Heat rushed to her face. Her paranoia that people might know what happened to her reared its ugly head once more. Again and again, she suspected it ever since the sale of the fair went through. If her mother knew and told her grandfather what happened that summer... Sasha shivered and shook her head. No. That was impossible. What mother would learn something like that and do nothing but take away the one thing her daughter loved more than anything else in the world?

  She had to find a way to stop this endless doubt. Sasha stormed forward. There was only one other person with the same emotions pumping through his blood. Only one other person who cared about setting the story straight and starting again.

  Jogging through the gates, she went in search of John.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JOHN SMILED AS he rounded the back of the bumper cars and followed Freddy toward the storage warehouse. Nothing could have been more perfect. Alone in there, they’d be far enough away from the fairground to avoid detection. He wanted answers and would get them any way necessary, before Sasha had a chance to ask questions and be exposed to the risk of repercussions.

  Kyle and Freddy were involved in the kind of lifestyle that brought threats and violence. As far as John knew, neither of them would think twice about hurting Sasha should she get too close to uncovering something either of them wanted to remain secret.

  Freddy tossed a glance over each shoulder before ducking inside, and John narrowed his eyes. Freddy was definitely up to no good. He picked up his pace and rushed forward just as Freddy moved to push the door closed. John shoved it open, sending Kyle’s second-in-command stumbling backward, causing him to lose his grip on his cell phone. It dropped to the concrete floor and landed with an unhealthy clatter.

  “How’s it going, Freddy?” John locked his glare on Freddy as he kicked the door closed.

  Freddy leaned his considerable weight forward to retrieve his phone. He wiped it over with his fingers before slipping it into his shirt pocket. “What do you want?”

  “I want a lot of things. First and foremost, I want to know what my father and you talked about when you went to see him the other day.”

  Freddy sniffed and smiled, revealing more gum than teeth. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” John strolled farther into the warehouse and stuffed his hands into his pockets, casually scuffing up the ground dust with the toe of his boot. “And you’re going to tell me. You started something by mentioning Sasha’s mum to me earlier. Something that makes my decision of what to do next pretty cut and dried, depending on the outcome of this conversation.”

  Freddy’s smile stretched to a grin. “You really think you’re something, don’t you?”

  “Not particularly, but I am a man who doesn’t walk away from people who think they can intimidate or distract me from finding out what I want to know. Now, you either tell me what you talked about or I’ll be forced to ask Kyle. As that option will royally piss me off, you’ll leave me no choice but to fire you. So...what’s it going to be?”

  “You can’t fire me.”

  John smiled. “You know that’s not true. I’m not putting up with any crap from my staff. Including you.”

  Freddy raised his eyebrows, his eyes dark with anger. “You really think your dad’s going to let you push me out of here when I’ve been here as long as I have?”

  “Funland’s mine. I can do whatever the hell I want with it.”

  “That’s not the impression Kyle gave me.” He grinned. “Seems to me Kyle wants me here to keep my ear to the ground.”

  Frustration quivered over the surface of John’s skin, making him want to slap the superior look off Freddy’s face. He curled his hands into fists inside his pockets. “Well, Kyle should’ve thought about what he did and didn’t want before he handed me the papers for everything he owned. Now I’ll ask you again, what did you talk about? Why did you mention Sasha’s mum and the fair in the same sentence?”

  Freddy’s gaze roamed over John’s face as he blew out a theatrical breath. “This is interesting. You give the impression you don’t give a crap what your dad has to say and you’ll run things the way you want. Yet here you are, all fired up about him. I’m guessing this has a lot more to do with the way you feel about Sasha than anything else.” He laughed. “Please tell me that girl hasn’t gotten to you. Didn’t your dad warn you about her the minute before you set foot in this place?”

  John glowered as the niggling doubt that he was entirely out of the loop as far as his father’s enterprises were concerned resurfaced. What if Sasha only thought about her own agenda when they made love? What if her mind had been on her goal rather than on him? Anger threatened, and he forced it aside. How could anyone fake the longing way she looked at him? How could anyone fake the trembling, which revealed a need as raw as his when he touched her?

  Impatience was never a good thing, but it was especially bad when a man wanted to protect a woman and had come face-to-face with the asshole stopping him from doing just that. “Why don’t you tell me what he said about Sasha’s mother and drop the act? You and I both know any information Kyle shares with you will be for his own benefit. This isn’t about him including you in the inner circle. This is about him pulling the strings from behind Her Majesty’s concrete walls. Considering you’re on very shaky ground right now, you’d do well to pledge your allegiance to me rather than a man who won’t be much good to you as far as your future prospects are concerned.”

  Freddy’s cheeks darkened. “Kyle and me are friends. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be around these parts. I keep telling you, Templeton don’t like strangers.”

  John huffed out a laugh. “As opposed to drug dealers, you mean.”

  Freddy shot him a sneer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one out and lit it with casual indifference to John. The smoke plumed on his exhalation, rising between them in a gray mist before evaporating. Freddy narrowed his eyes. “Considering you and your dad have been separated for years, it’s interesting how well he knows you.”

  John stiffened. “What does that mean?”

  Freddy lifted his shoulders. “He knew you’d ask questions about what was said even though you didn’t accept his invitation to join us.” He took another drag on the cigarette. “He also knew you’d be taken in by Sasha and that fake, fragile ‘woe is me’ thing she likes to use whenever the mood strikes her.”

  “My father knows nothing about me. He’s playing games. When will you learn the man is a piece of shit who likes to mess with people’s minds and lives?”

  Freddy smiled. “He knows you. He knows everything about you.”

  Anger simmered like a smoldering fire in John’s gut, and he dragged every ounce of self-control he possessed to the surface. He had to think of Sasha’s needs and not the urge to smash Freddy square in the face. “The hell he does.”

  “He’s had people following you for years.” Freddy sniffed and wandered toward a stack of boxes at the side of the room containing various bits of metal machinery. He sat atop one of them. “No son of Kyle Jordon’s was ever going to go without what he needed. Kyle’s words, not mine.”

  “What I needed?” John laughed. “What I needed was a father who...” He pursed his lips. What the hell was he doing? The last thing he needed to blurt out was the height of his vulnerability. God only knew what Freddy would do with the knowledge the only thing John ever wanted from his father was his presence. He cleared his throat. “He’s playing with the pair of us. He wants us to dance to his tune, and it looks as
though his plan is working.”

  Freddy’s eyes shone with malice in the shadowed darkness of the room. Weak afternoon light filtered through the gaps in the corrugated iron roof, sending sunny beams dancing across the dusty floor. There was nothing sunny about the rising hostility crackling like electricity between them.

  John paced back and forth, tension rippling through him. “He doesn’t want Sasha to have this place. Did he tell you that?” He stopped and faced Freddy.

  The other man glowered, saying nothing.

  John smiled. “Did he tell you he’d give you back the investments you’ve made with him? Maybe demand I give you Funland as recompense for your years of loyalty and service?”

  Freddy’s continued silence spoke volumes.

  John grinned. “As I thought. He’s giving you nothing but the runaround. Now, you have a choice here. You either work with me, which means telling me what Kyle told you about Sasha’s mother, or you continue with this stupid hangdog thing you’ve got going and let Kyle carry on kicking you around like he has for the past ten years. Which is it going to be?”

  John held Freddy’s steady gaze as he tossed his cigarette butt to the floor and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “My loyalty stays with Kyle until I know what he’s got in mind for this place and the business we’ve got going on here.”

  John lifted an eyebrow. “We, Freddy? Is any of it really yours? What does Kyle give you in return for your investment exactly? Cash? Women? Drugs? Or does he just toss you the odd promise of a stake in his fortune? One that never actually comes to fruition?”

  Freddy glowered. “You haven’t got a bloody clue about Kyle and me.”

  “Oh, I think I do. Now what did he say about Sasha’s mother?”

  The shrill ringing of Freddy’s cell phone cut through the palpable tension, and John stiffened. Freddy glared at him a moment longer before pulling it from his pocket and glancing at the display. His cheeks instantly colored. When he flashed an anxious glance in John’s direction, John immediately knew who was on the other end.

  He gritted his teeth. “Answer it.”

  Freddy tilted his chin. “No.”

  “I said, answer it.” John charged forward and tried to wrench the phone from Freddy’s hand before the big guy had the chance to push to his feet. John held the phone inches from Freddy’s face. “Now.”

  Freddy’s eyes bulged with rage and a vein pumped dangerously at his temple, but John didn’t move. Years of unadulterated resentment toward his father coursed through his veins on a tidal wave.

  Ring, ring.

  Freddy grabbed the phone from John’s fingers and stood. John stepped back and narrowed his eyes as Freddy lifted the cell to his ear, his eyes locked on John’s. “Hello?” A few seconds passed before Freddy nodded. “He’s with me right now.”

  John clenched his jaw, his pulse throbbing at his temple.

  Another heartbeat passed before Freddy lowered the phone and held it out. “He wants to speak to you.”

  * * *

  SASHA PUSHED HER key into the lock and stepped inside her apartment, her head nearly exploding with an impending migraine. After searching for John and Freddy for a full half hour with no luck, she’d drawn the conclusion the reason she couldn’t find either of them was because they were together. No doubt to discuss her and her mother...with a hefty dose of Kyle and Funland thrown in for good measure. It was clear she still couldn’t afford to trust anyone to be honest with her.

  She wandered into the kitchen and tossed her keys onto the counter. Curling her fingers around its edge, she closed her eyes. Just as she’d given up looking for John and Freddy, a massive fight had broken out between two groups of teenagers by the Ferris wheel, bringing her quest to kick some ass upon a different target than originally intended. Chaos had broken out as families scattered, most likely never to return, while other teenage spectators chanted for further bloodshed.

  It had been yet another incident to add substance to her mother’s claim that Funland would never be as it once was.

  Sasha had let her emotions get the better of her after her arguments with John and her mother. Her mind had slipped from the job—something that would’ve been unfathomable a few days ago—and her usually careful watch over the fairground had wavered, resulting in unnecessary violence.

  The scuffle had escalated quickly and Freddy and John appeared from nowhere and she, Freddy, John and the other fair workers split the boys up before ejecting them from the grounds. She opened her eyes and stared ahead. The kids’ nonsensical shouts, cursing and manic stares had made it clear at least two of the boys were on some kind of substance.

  She pursed her lips. Had that been sold to them at Funland? Was drug dealing still going on right under her nose? Under John’s?

  Distrust caught and stuck in her throat. Was there a possibility he actually knew and was doing nothing about it? She shook her head. That notion was ridiculous. If there was one thing she wouldn’t do, despite John’s reluctance to start doing everything he could to give her the fair, it was doubt the instinct in her heart that told her John was a good man. Albeit a good man with bad breeding.

  Pushing away from the counter, Sasha filled a glass with water and took some aspirin from a drawer. She swallowed the pills. The horrible thought that John might be continuing business as usual until he figured things out sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. She didn’t want him to be that guy. She touched her lips, and memories of their lovemaking flowed. She couldn’t afford to be ignorant to the possibility he could be more like Kyle than she wanted to believe.

  Exhaling a long breath, she refilled her glass and carried it into the living room. She kicked off her ballet flats and slumped onto the couch. Photographs of her grandfather that lined the mantel above her open fireplace taunted her, fuelling the simmering anger the conversation with her mother had ignited.

  The tension between her, Freddy and John had been palpable as they dealt with the teenagers and cleared the fair at closing. No further conversation had taken place and they’d all left the fairground at the same time.

  Freddy hadn’t as much as tossed her a smile all afternoon and slid into his car without a backward glance or a “see you tomorrow.” When she pushed her bike through the fairground gates, John was loitering at his car and she purposely strode past him, her head high. Oh, she’d heard him call her name—twice—but couldn’t find the strength to listen to what he had to say.

  Her emotions had been wrung and stretched, pulled and tightened to such an extent in the past twenty-four hours, she was afraid of making a wrong and irreparable decision. Her feelings for John were gathering momentum at a frightening speed, and that left her doubting her sanity, let alone the ability to think rationally and calmly.

  She raised her glass to her lips and shivered. He’d looked worried, confused and more than a little riled up. Maybe she should have stopped and spoken with him....

  Tired and frustrated, she pushed to her feet and strolled into the bathroom. She placed her glass by the sink and grabbed some lavender oil from a shelf above her. A long soak in the tub was what she needed before she collapsed into bed. She had some serious thinking to do, and the tension running through her system was nothing but a detrimental hindrance. The heat of John’s caresses and the smell of his aftershave still lingered on her skin, leaving her wanting more of him. Maybe if she washed them away, it would be easier to face the reality that sex between them might never happen again.

  She longed to pursue their growing care for each other. She wanted to push her rationale and fear away and be free in her feelings, to give herself over to someone else to take care of her for a while. Yet, couldn’t, despite the way she reveled in the thrill of intimate and loving human contact, of his skin beneath her fingers and his lips on hers.

  Her body quivered as tears threatened.

  Had their lovemaking been something never to be repeated? Had they made a hungry, passionate mistake? Did she now have to vanquish
the belief they were meant to repeat their intimacy over and over until neither of them could breathe without the other?

  Her heart thundered with the overwhelming possibility her nemesis’s son was her destiny. The man to make her feel loved and keep her safe. She swiped at her face. The prospect she was wrong about John hurt as much as anything else in her life.

  She turned on the faucets over the tub and poured some oil into the water. She’d been stupid today. She’d had sex with a man she barely knew, attacked her mother without knowing the facts and gone after Freddy with absolutely no idea what to say to him. She hadn’t held her place at Funland by making emotionally driven mistakes. Kyle had given every indication he wanted her out of the fair without actually saying it, so she’d never given him a reason that would stick should he try to fire her. He knew that and so did she.

  She stripped off her clothes and padded into her bedroom to turn on the digital radio, hoping to find something to banish her desperate need to call John.

  The abrupt knocking at her front door ground her to a halt in the corridor. She hurried into the bathroom and turned off the running water before whipping her robe from a hook on the back of the door.

  She yanked it on, tying the sash at her waist before she crept to the front door. When she peered through the peephole, her heart shot into her throat. What was he doing here at this time of night? Her hand flew to her hair, her lips, her waist. She grimaced as she struggled to decide what to do next.

  Another knock.

  She swallowed. “Who is it?”

  John leaned close to the peephole and wiggled his eyebrows. “If you’re not looking at me right now, I’m James Bond.”

  Damn it. She bit back her smile and forced a scowl instead, steadfastly planting her hand on her hip. “What do you want?”

  He stepped back and lifted his hands to reveal a paper bag of take-out food and a bottle of red wine. “Provisions. We need to talk.” His smile dissolved and he dropped his arms. “This can’t wait until the morning. I’m sorry to turn up like this—”