The Tycoon's Seductive Revenge

by Kristi Avalon

  “Want me to go first?”

  “Definitely.”

  A private smile touched her lips. He still knew her hesitations, her apprehensions, her fears of the unknown.

  She stepped aside and he scaled the iron rungs, until he blended into the blackness.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “What?” Her heart pounded.

  “They never got rid of the bodies. It’s murder and mayhem up here.”

  “Oh, stop.” She shoved his calf, which quickly disappeared above her.

  Then his head hovered in her view. “Sure you want to risk it? We could be caught in a breaking news story.” He blocked the headline letters out with his hand. “Couple Finds Mass Grave in Attic.”

  Couple? Her i nsides pitched at the word. “At least we could defend each other’s statements in court—‘honestly, Judge, we’re innocent.’”

  “I’ll always fight for you.” He smiled.

  Ellie’s heart skipped a beat.

  His smile widened, and he stuck his hand out. She caught it, and he lifted her up into the gloom. “You know what happens to bodies that go unclaimed for too long.”

  “Will you quit talking about dead things?”

  “Seriously.”

  “I don’t know. They become ghosts?” Suddenly, Ellie didn’t want to let go of his hand. The fear of the Montgomery curse made her hair stand on end.

  “Worse.”

  She edged closer to him. “What?”

  He seized her. “ Zombies! ”

  “Sheesh!” she shrieked and cuffed him on the arm. “Don’t do that. I hate being caught off guard.”

  “You mean like this?” He cupped her jaw.

  A second later his lips captured hers.

  Carter consumed her mouth as if starved for her taste. He sucked on her lips, feeding her kiss after kiss. Her mind went blank with surprise. Then, to her mortification, a sigh of bliss escaped her.

  The moment her lips parted to take in a breath, his tongue dove inside, sweeping through her mouth, curling, pulsing. Probing and searching for the secret longing she’d tucked away for so many years.

  When she answered his continuous beckoning, he inhaled sharply. He angled her face, kissing her deeply. Their tongues danced together, a rhythm so familiar, so exquisite, she grasped his wrists to keep him right where he was.

  Ellie moaned in rapture. She tasted the secrets they’d shared, the dreams they’d spun, the love they’d made. She trembled, shaken by the power of their connection.

  God, she’d missed kissing this man. Things were still so easy between them—but far from simple. Those sweet secrets had become lies, lies became weapons, and weapons had wounded their hearts irreparably.

  You can’t do this . The words sounded weak in her mind.

  He pulled her tight against him. She felt heat and desire pouring off him in waves.

  She knew what would happen if they gave into this pounding lust, driving them closer to the moment when he’d lay her down, taste her body, seduce her soul. And satisfy the craving she didn’t want to deny.

  Chapter 4

  Carter’s blood sizzled in his veins. He wanted Ellie with a powerful lust he hadn’t known since the last time he held her in his arms.

  He stroked his hand down her back to her hips, nudging her closer. His tongue claimed her mouth, relentless thrusts that weakened her resistance. When her hands slid up his chest and circled his neck, he wanted to peel off his shirt so he’d feel her fingertips against his skin.

  “Yes,” he groaned.

  Every nerve-ending on fire, he couldn’t catch his breath. He knew what would happen next.

  But she wasn’t ready to give him what he wanted. She might succumb to his seduction, but she hadn’t reached the point of abandon. He wanted her to burn for him, with need so excruciating it transcended sexual passion and entered the realm of consuming obsession.

  Then he’d lay her down, touch and taste every inch of her. Remind her of what she’d given up when she forced him out of her life. He’d bring her to ecstasy over and over until she finally surrendered her unattainable heart.

  Soon .

  Knowing that, he scraped up the will to release her. His tongue retreated, and he slowly pulled his lips from hers.

  Light from the utility closet beneath them outlined the edge of her face, revealing a dazed sparkle in her eyes. She pressed her fingers to his mouth, as if she could recapture the kisses he withdrew.

  “Carter,” she whispered.

  The sound of his name on her lips filled him with anticipation, nearly shattering his resolve. Somehow, he managed to let her go and step away.

  Instantly her chilly reserve returned. “I-I can’t remember where the blueprints are,” she said, icing her tone with indifference.

  Her attempt at detachment told him how far he’d gotten under her skin with his kiss. “Shouldn’t be that hard to find. It’s not like there’s tons of old junk to dig through,” he said wryly. The place was packed to the dormers with furniture and boxes.

  After three steps, Ellie tripped over a lamp. The antique piece crashed into the darkness and something shattered. “Crap!”

  Carter caught her and laced his fingers through hers. “Careful.”

  “It could be valuable.” She tried to tug her hand free, aiming to go after the demolished fixture.

  “Easy, sweetheart. I don’t want you ending up with shattered glass in your hands, bleeding all over the place.”

  By the sound of her exhale, she wasn’t amused. “You know what? I think I’ll wait for you in the utility room.”

  “And miss the adventure? Not a chance.” He tightened his grip so she couldn’t get away. They edged through the dusty space, avoiding furniture and miscellany that probably dated back to the Civil War.

  Carter bent down in places where the roof sagged with age and stepped over missing floorboards, guiding Ellie carefully. They made their way through the shadows toward an eve that sliced diagonally through the center of the long room.

  “If there are zombies up here, this is where they’ll be. Lurking in the blackest corners.” His voice dipped low and spooky. “Foul beasts in the night. Starved for our souls. Waiting for us to get caught in their trap, never to be heard from again.”

  “Quit it!” She jabbed his ribs. “I hate creepy places—you’re not helping.”

  Grinning devilishly, he let out a demonic laugh.

  She snorted. “Okay, that sounded more like The Count from Sesame Street .”

  He hung his head in shame. “So much for my aspirations of terror and mayhem.”

  “Yeah, you’re really not cut out for the dark side.”

  You think that now, sweetheart. But when I get you naked, I’ll do things to you that’ll keep you up in the middle of the night, waiting for me to visit you in darkness .

  To Ellie, he lamented aloud, “Go ahead, crush my dreams. That’s fine. Really, I’ll live.”

  She giggled. “You have many impressive qualities. Humility isn’t one of them.”

  He halted. When Ellie bumped into him, he caught her and murmured, “I can show you what I’m good at.”

  Pressing his lips to her neck, he felt her pulse racing. She cleared her throat. “I think we’d better find those blueprints and get out of here.”

  “You ruin all my fun,” he teased, nuzzling the side of her neck before he released her.

  “I wouldn’t put this on my top ten list of fun times, sorry.” She sounded irritated, losing patience with him.

  Carter took the hint. “What do you say we shine some light on these dust motes?”

  He ducked under the eve, cleared a path and felt along the back wall until he found panes of glass. Swiping his hand down the small, circular window, he removed enough filth to let in a few glimmers of midmorning sunlight.

  He dusted off his hands. “Look, no zombies.”

  “What a relief,” she deadpanned.

  “But, I think if you look near your left heel, you’
ll find something much more interesting.”

  Rays of the sun slanted through the panes, falling on Ellie’s black kitten-heels. She looked down where he pointed. “Carter, you were right!”

  “Can I tape record that statement?”

  She rolled her eyes, bent down and scooped up the plans. When she straightened, a glitter of awe shone in her eyes. Damn, she looked beautiful.

  The center of his chest ached for a moment. “Let’s head downstairs and take a look.”

  Pausing, she peered at him. “What is it you think you’ve found?”

  He dipped his chin coyly. “You’ll have to stick around and find out.”

  *

  Lightheaded with excitement—and not because of Carter’s amazing kiss, she insisted to herself—Ellie flew down the iron rungs, glad to leave the musty attic filled with relics of the past and memories better off undisturbed.

  They descended to the first floor Senate Room. In the corner stood a mammoth mahogany desk that remembered times when men signed life-altering documents with quills on parchment.

  “Spread it out here,” she directed.

  Enthusiastically Carter unfurled the crackling blueprints and spread them across the desk. They investigated the layers of prints together, his hands planted on either side of her, staring at them over her shoulder.

  “So, where is it?” she asked

  “Where’s what?”

  “Stop being dense.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a guy, not a mind-reader.”

  “Point taken.”

  “There,” he remarked almost breathlessly. His finger landed on a spot that, to her knowledge, didn’t exist.

  “Where? What?”

  “I’ll show you.” His whole demeanor changed from slick Miami multi-millionaire to reveal adorable boyish charm. Once, he’d been open with his emotions like this all the time. Excited about life and the next adventure waiting around the bend.

  Carter swiped up the top layer of plans and veered toward the hallway.

  Ellie followed at his heels. In the hall he checked the plans again, before his eyes scanned the hotel’s walls as if he could see right through them. Bricks, buttresses, plaster, support beams all seemed to coalesce for him. He always had a good eye for architecture, and was lightening-fast at geometry and physics. No wonder he’d gone into real estate.

  “This way.” He breezed through the door of the library. He scanned the space again with his three-dimensional vision. His eyes stopped at a bookshelf.

  “That’s it?” Her shoulders bowed. So much for excitement .

  He peered at her. “Haven’t you realized by now that things usually aren’t what they seem?”

  Ellie had never dealt with that kind of reality until her father had passed, when she was left to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. “I’m learning,” she admitted.

  “Sometimes you need to look harder to figure it out. But there are moments when that insight comes right to you, as if you’ve known it all along.”

  Feeling the weight of his stare, she sensed a deeper significance in his words. Still, she couldn’t puzzle out his meaning. “I trust you,” was all she could think to say.

  A smile crept onto his face. “It’s about time.”

  He dropped the plans and went straight for the bookshelf. Before they hit the floor, Ellie caught and cradled the precious documents, the entire history of every renovation of The Montgomery Hotel. “What’s the matter with you?” she hissed.

  “The plans aren’t important. It’s what they aren’t telling us that matters.”

  Ellie rolled the layer of blueprints and set them on a table beside an old globe of the earth mapping out Marco Polo’s routes, then went to his side. “Can you stop talking in Sherlock Holmes speak?”

  “Watch.” With certainty, he felt along the bookshelves. “It should be obvious. Like there. See the empty space? In this entire shelf, there’s only one book missing.”

  “Oh.” She’d never noticed that.

  Carter reached into the space, felt around. But nothing happened.

  Retracting his hand, he stood perplexed for a moment. His fingers drifted along book linings that smelled like pipe smoke and aged leather.

  Suddenly he turned to her. “Of course! They wouldn’t make it that easy.”

  Ellie stared, at a loss. Carter spent the next few minutes observing every nuance of the library. She took a moment to scan the space as well. She’d always loved this room, with its rich royal hues, high ceilings, crown molding, and air of splendor. She remembered finding her father here most evenings, smoking sweet-smelling tobacco in his pipe, staring into the fire. He usually sat in one of the stately leather chairs that flanked the stone fireplace.

  When she was younger, she’d find The Great Gatsby splayed open, face-down on the elegant the side table that some French artist had carved. The book had been abandoned for a moment of private thought, but never forgotten. After her mother died when Ellie was twelve, she’d find volumes of Poe’s works stacked on the gleaming tabletop beside him, along with a crystal dram of whisky. Those were the nights she’d knelt at his feet in her nightgown when she couldn’t sleep, and rested her head against his knee. He would pat her hair, tell her how he would always take care of her, how smart and lovely she was, just like her mother. The shared silence that followed expressed more than words could communicate. They’d both missed her. There was nothing more to say.

  After her father went to bed, Ellie picked up where he left off. She read the mournful epithets by the glow of red embers dying in the grate. She didn’t understand it then, but as time passed and she lost more people precious to her, Poe’s dark melodrama evoked a Gothic rendering of emotion that touched a chord and resonated within her.

  “Ellie, I found it.”

  Startled back to the present, she nearly dropped the weight in her hands. Staring at the book in her grasp, she was surprised to find a volume of Edgar Allen Poe opened to the poem, “Nevermore.”

  Quickly she shoved the book onto the nearest shelf and ventured over to Carter. “What is it?”

  “Check out this old bell-pull.”

  “So?”

  “Mansions like this had bell-pulls for servants in the eighteen-hundreds. I found it dangling next to this bookshelf. Listen.” He gave the leather cord a tug. A bell rang distantly.

  Something clicked. Like a handle unlatching.

  “What was that?”

  “If it’s what I think...” He pushed against the edge of the bookshelf where the bell had echoed.

  The shelf swung inward, revealing a staircase that spiraled downward.

  Ellie’s jaw dropped. “No way.”

  “Want to find out where it goes?”

  “Heck yeah.” She pushed away hesitation and entered the stone-walled secret staircase. “This is amazing.” Her voice echoed.

  She scanned the passage’s brick walls along their descent as if crude drawings might appear to illuminate the inexplicable. A door came into view at the bottom of the staircase.

  She tried the handle. “It’s stuck.”

  “Let me try.”

  Carter felt around in the entryway, apparently looking for something. He shoved a lever above the door. A slot opened, just large enough for two eyes to peer out.

  “Too bad no one’s on the other side to let us in.” He pounded on the door twice.

  It gave an inch. Rust drifted from the hinges. He shoved again.

  This time the heavy steel door creaked open. Carter pulled a keychain flashlight from his pocket and ventured inside. Close behind him, Ellie squeezed her hands together wondering what they’d find.

  Carter held up the flashlight and stopped a few paces in. He let out a low whistle. “I never expected this.”

  Greeting her were the smells of aged liquor, moldy newspapers, and wood saturated with stale cigarette smoke.

  Ellie stepped out from behind him. “This is incredible.” Excitement bubbled up inside her. “It’s lik
e a speakeasy out of the nineteen-twenties. I’ll bet Eliot Ness and his crew never found this bootlegger hideaway.”

  “Neither has anyone else in almost a century.”

  “This would be the perfect attraction to play up for an island hotel,” she mused aloud.

  Carter said nothing.

  “Look at this bar,” she admired, running her hand along the scarred antique surface. “And the mirrors behind the old bottles back there.” She glanced up. “And the chandelier. Can you imagine the parties they had here? Women wearing empire-waist gowns, men in pinstripe suits and fedoras. Smoking and lounging at the bar, or swinging to the Charleston. I can almost see it!”

  Ellie turned a circle, envisioning parties like the ones Jay Gatsby held for the wealthy on Long Island, all the while pining for Daisy who lived a separate life across the channel. She could almost hear an eight-piece swing band wailing tunes.

  “Isn’t this perfect?” She jumped up and down. “This is just what the hotel needs to attract the kind of patrons it used to back in the day.”

  “Ellie, I think you’re missing the best feature.” Carter strode past her toward the far wall.

  “What could be better than this room’s history?” she asked, still dazzled by the possibilities of how much tourism this could draw.

  “Liquid gold, baby.” Using his flashlight he scanned the circle of light over stacks of wooden crates and barrels piled up to the ceiling.

  Pulling one crate from a lower stack, Carter set it on the floor and pried off the weathered lid. The contents revealed tightly packed bottles.

  His eyebrows shot up. “Now this is something.” He smeared caked-on grime from the bottle’s label. “Vintage, bootlegged rum.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe they left this here.”

  “Do you think they were raided?” Ellie suggested.

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “The fact is we’re sitting on dozens of cases of nearly century-old liquor and wine. That, sweetheart, will draw tourists with deep pockets from all over the world. You could sell the entire collection for a mint.”

  With a grunt he popped the top off the bottle he held. “We should drink—to old times.”

  Ellie smiled at his double-entendre. She slipped behind the bar and rummaged around until she knocked into a row of glasses. Holding one up, she wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ll take my rum extra-dry, without a twist of mildew.”