“So you haven’t seen Simon, or anyone named Manuel or Antoine there in Morocco in the two weeks you’ve been there?”
“No, I told you! Wait—how did you know we’ve been here two weeks?”
“The nurse said you came to my room on the night I got to the hospital, but that you hadn’t been back since. I used my detective skills.” I heard strain in his voice as he shifted.
“Is there anything else?” I asked. “Because I need to get back to my vacation.” Truthfully, I was embarrassed that Patrick knew I had rushed to his bedside after hearing about his attack. I wanted to sink into the floor. The only saving grace I had was that we weren’t face to face; I was an entire continent away.
“Be careful,” Patrick said. “And keep your phone on you. Mine disappeared; I think the nurses took it. But, I’ve got a new one on its way from the department. I’ll text you the number when I have it. I want to make sure I can reach you at all times; can you promise that you’ll respond to my texts?”
I heard his words, but my mind was stuck on him saying that his phone had disappeared and that the nurses had taken it.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Promise me, first,” he said.
“Fine, I promise. Now, answer me this: do you know anyone named Mavin Toller?”
“Mavin… no,” he said. “I’ve never heard the name.”
“See what you can dig up,” I said.
“Why are you asking? Who is he?”
“Just do your detective thing and get back to me. I promise I’ll answer.”
We hung up a few minutes late, and I sat back in my chair, my brain buzzing with both champagne and dread. I was suddenly faced with a lot of work; I had names to research, for starters, and I needed to find out exactly what Brad was doing when he was ‘working’ while we were here in Morocco.
I stood up and stretched, then carried my champagne flute and the bowl of half eaten fruit back into the suite. It was a habit from my pre-billionaire dating life that I couldn’t shake, no matter how much Brad made fun of me.
“Brad?” I called into the suite. “Honey?”
There was no answer. I set the dishes on the counter and walked to the door of the room Brad was using as a makeshift office. I frowned as I realized Patrick was right. If Brad and I were truly on vacation, why did he need an office?
I rapped my knuckles gently on the door. “Brad?” I called out again, quietly this time, and pushed the door open.
The room was empty; Brad was gone. I looked around, confused, then walked back to the kitchen. I grabbed my phone to check for texts, even though I knew I would have seen one from Brad when I was talking to Patrick if one had come through. Nothing.
“Where the fuck are you?” I wondered out loud.
I walked back into the office and began to look around. The computer was on its screen saver and, when I clicked the mouse, it opened immediately to the password page, of course. I sighed, then noticed a stack of papers next to the computer. They looked nothing like the previous documents I’d seen, the ones with the listings of all of the weapons, and relief washed over me. These were simple financial spreadsheets.
I flipped through the papers, just confirming that there wasn’t anything in there that was out of the ordinary, that would suggest that Brad was doing more than just running his hotel while we were here in Morocco.
About three quarters of the way through the pile, a flash of black caught my eye. It stood out against the white computer paper both for the image color and its texture; it was a photograph. I pulled it out and looked at it, my mouth open.
It was a picture of a young boy. I couldn’t say how I knew; there were no identifying features on the picture at all. No names, no writing, not even a date. But, I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that this boy was named Antoine. And his eyes… his eyes were the same eyes I had looked into so many times. They were Brad’s eyes.
I heard a noise and looked up. Brad stood in the doorway glaring at me.
“Cassie! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Cassie
I looked up in shock at the sight of Brad standing in the doorway. He looked absolutely furious. The picture of the boy felt like dead weight in my hand and I dropped it onto the desk as if it was burning.
“Hi,” I said quietly, not knowing exactly what to say; I was so surprised. I felt myself flushing with embarrassment. I had absolutely no reason to be in his makeshift office, and there was no way to disguise what I was doing: snooping. Plain and simple.
“What are you doing?” Brad walked into the room and over to me, his anger mixed with what I could tell was confusion; apparently he couldn’t believe what I was doing either. He snatched the picture off of the desk and held it in his hand.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I just came in to look for you, and…”
“And you thought I would be hiding under a piece of paper on my desk?” He pushed past me and began to gather up the papers that were covering the desk. The picture of the boy got mixed in with the rest.
“No,” I said, “obviously. I just… Brad, who is that boy?” He looked at me sharply. I pointed to the stack in his hand. “He looks like you,” I said slowly, feeling the flush rise more harshly into my cheeks.
“It’s not what you think,” he said, “whatever you think. It’s a picture of me. When I was younger.” There was something about the way he answered that twisted my instincts. He sounded both rehearsed and genuine. His eyes, they were both lying and completely believable. I began to realize that there was a lot more to Brad, to his life, than I knew. I shook my head and stepped back.
“Okay,” I said. “I guess… I guess I don’t have any reason to doubt you… do I?” I could hear the tone of my voice, begging him to confirm my belief in him. He did just that.
“Honey,” he said, setting the stack of papers on the desk. He stood me up and put his arms around me. “You have no reason to doubt me. Who else would that picture be?” He kissed my neck and I felt his hands squeezing my hips, making their way down to my ass.
I had a lot of ideas on who the picture might be, but, I realized, part of what was leading to my confusion was that I knew that if Brad had a son, there was no way I wouldn’t know about it. He’s not the deadbeat dad type; he has plenty of money, and I imagined him finding out he had a son, how happy he would be. No way would he not acknowledge his own flesh and blood. So, against some of my reporter instincts that were yelling at me that I was letting him off the hook too easily, I moved my face toward his, caught his lips with my own, and kissed him.
He groaned and pushed the papers off of his desk and onto the floor. I grabbed his laptop and set it on the chair, leaving us the full expanse of the desk. He picked me up, his strong arms making quick, light work of me, and he set me on the desk, kissing me hard. I pulled him toward me and laid down on the desk, pulling him down on top of me. He quickly pulled off his shirt and I followed suit; I watched his eyes explore my body, pausing to appreciate my breasts, and my flush of embarrassment turned to a flush of arousal. I felt his cock, hard against my thigh as he sat over me.
“You’re delicious,” he said. “Absolutely, fucking delicious.”
I smiled. There was no trace of anger on his face or in his voice. He didn’t care that I had been in his office… or he had just gotten very distracted.
I wrapped my legs around his hips. “Come here,” I whispered. I reached for him and, as he lay on top of me, we quickly got rid of our remaining clothes and all I could feel was his hot skin above me and the cool desk below me.
He kissed my chest and worked his lips toward my nipples, which were hard and waiting for his touch. He sucked them individually, then cupped my breasts with his hands and pressed them together around his face. He moaned into my cleavage, then growled as he gently bit my left nipple. I gasped as a shot of ecstasy shot straight through me, a direct line to my pussy, which was already wet and waiting for what it hungered for. H
is cock was absolutely rigid, and it moved along the inside of my hip as he shifted himself to be hard against me. I spread my legs wide and he wrapped his hands around my thighs, positioning my legs over his shoulders as he slid down off the side of the desk. My pussy was so wanting, almost physically reaching for his attention, and he tugged me down toward him, giving me a mischievous grin through my legs as he did so.
The angle at which he pressed his mouth to my pussy was absolutely divine, and I felt myself relax into him. His hot mouth began to lap up my juices, licking and kissing my inner thighs, my labia, and teasing my clit as he passed over it with his tongue. I squirmed and groaned under his touch, my legs pressing against his shoulders.
“Someone has quite a grip,” he said, smiling.
“Shut up and fuck me,” I said, feeling a surge of power; there was something about fucking on his desk, in his office; I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done that before. We hadn’t done that before. It was the biggest turn on!
“Your wish is my command,” he said, and he latched his mouth onto my clit and sucked, hard, sending me over the moon in an orgasm that made me cry out so loudly the vague notion of neighbors popped into my mind. I laughed, the waves of my climax shuddering through me, until I felt him shift again and, suddenly, my pussy was filled with him, his thick, strong cock sliding into me easily. He groaned as my vaginal muscles massaged his cock and he began to thrust into me, slowly at first, then faster and faster as I came down from my first orgasm, knowing I wouldn’t come down all the way before he probably brought me to my second. Drops of sweat poured off of his bare chest and I kissed him, our salty tastes mixing together. I pulled him closer to me, forcing his pubic bone to press against my clit.
I could tell from the pace of his breath that he was going to come, and I gave myself over to my second orgasm, crying out as he pumped harder and harder, until he released in a loud moan of pleasure that nearly rattled the windows. When we finished, we both lay together, sweaty and laughing, his head on my chest, my knees bent with my feet wrapped around him.
“Delicious,” he said again, lightly stroking my nipple with the soft pad of his fingertip.
I was nearly dozing but woke up when my nipples became erect, happy with the attention Brad was continuing to give.
“You’re so incredible,” I said. “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said in a near whisper. “Ever again.”
I was about to ask him if he was serious or kidding when I heard my phone ring in the next room. I felt my body react and forced myself to stop and stay right where I was. I felt panic rising in my stomach and hoped that Brad thought the sudden increase in my heart rate was from him. The only person who would be likely to call me was Patrick, and I had promised him I would answer when he called me back with any information about Mavin. I hadn’t expected him to call back so quickly.
I squished my urge to jump up and answer the phone. It rang five times and then stopped.
“Your heart is beating practically out of your chest,” Brad observed, and I bit my tongue.
“I’m, uh, a little turned on right now,” I said. It wasn’t a total lie. “I might be ready to maybe see if the second time could be as good as the first?” I pushed the phone call out of my mind, and Patrick along with it. I couldn’t call him back with Brad in the house anyway; that’s something I should have thought of. I just hoped Patrick wouldn’t worry and think something had happened because I hadn’t answered the phone. I knew I needed to at least text him, and soon.
“I think it’s worth investigating, Miss Investigative Reporter,” he said, trailing the same finger that had been stroking my nipple up and around my throat and my jaw to my cheek.
“I’m not an investigative reporter,” I murmured as I moved to kiss him. “I just do fluff travel pieces.”
“Well, call me fluffed, then,” Brad said, and he shifted so I could feel his cock, already hardening again.
As he began to kiss me, I pushed all thoughts of NCA agents, phones, pictures, fading from my mind as Brad’s mouth overtook my remaining sensibilities.
Brad
I stood at the site and surveyed the progress the workers had made in just a few short days. It was nothing short of impressive. The site still looked like a bomb had hit it and demolished everything, but the crew had been working around the clock to separate the rubble that was actual rubble from what was equipment and inventory that could be salvaged. The entire site stretched out before me and I still felt the sinking sensation of failure moving through me. I tried to imagine what the site must have looked like through Manuel’s eyes, and that increased the sensation, a squeezing pressure in my chest. I took a deep breath and was surprised to feel it shaking as it moved out of me. Manuel, as he’d said, had not been in touch. His last words to me echoed in my mind. I don’t like when people destroy what belongs to me, he had said. When you find them, kill them. When you kill them, alert me. I don’t want to hear a word from you until that happens.
“Hola, Senior,” one of the crew members nodded to me as he walked past, carrying an armload of wood scraps and metal as if it was nothing. I nodded back. The crewman had reminded me to find the foreman and let him know I was pleased with the work they were doing. I calculated quickly how much the entire job was going to cost, and I added ten percent as a bonus to be paid to the workers. I nodded, the act of calculating easing, slightly, the squeezing sensation in my chest.
I continued to walk around the site, surveying the work and adding to the growing list of things I needed to do. Whenever I thought of Manuel’s words, I didn’t know where to begin. He seemed to think that I knew who had done this; he seemed to think that I had some way of accessing the infidels in order to kill them. I knew that if I didn’t contact Manuel within a reasonable amount of time, he would assume I hadn’t completed my task. Then… would he take away something of value to me? Permanently? I pushed the thought out of my mind before the emotional sensations could double me over.
What I needed to focus on at that moment was contacting all of the sites I’d been in touch with to get a fresh load of inventory imported from those sites. Whatever the condition of the facility was, there was no way that Morocco could go any longer without the security our inventory provided. I’d been coordinating with several countries and, as I scrolled through my texts, I knew we were in decent shape. The only contact I hadn’t heard from was my South Africa contact. I sighed and put my phone back into my pocket. The South African contact was a newer acquisition; I’d just been there less than a year earlier. Though I’d been impressed with the facility and the organization, the primary contact I was working with had expressed a distinct lack of leadership ability. I wasn’t surprised I hadn’t heard from him.
“Coming along, Sir; we’re working as fast as we can.”
I turned to look at who had spoken, and I smiled when I saw the supervisor of the crew approaching. I shook his hand and complimented him and the workers.
“There will be a bonus for you and your men if you can continue at this pace,” I said. “I know it’s a lot, but the progress you’ve made already is extremely impressive.”
The man seemed to almost blush through the sweaty flush his skin had taken on in the heat of the day.
“Sir, we know that this is important. I made sure the crew understood that this was not an ordinary job.” He was obviously choosing his words extremely carefully.
“I appreciate your sense of urgency,” I said.
He shook my hand again and walked away. I stared after him, deep in thought. I knew that I was probably going to need to fly to South Africa for at least a few days to jumpstart the transportation of the inventory to Morocco. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be any sort of an issue… but I wasn’t in Morocco alone. I winced as the thought of Cassie came into my mind.
Cassie, who had gotten so close to discovering one of my biggest secrets. I could still feel the jolt to my heart I’d felt when I’d opened the doo
r to the room I was using as an office and saw that it wasn’t empty. Saw that she was sitting at my desk. Saw what she held in her hand. I shook my head, trying to clear it and remove the anxiety surging through me. So close. I had said that the picture of Antoine had been a picture of me, gambling on the fact that she had only been looking at the face, not at the background. She had seemed to believe me, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think that I was in the clear. I needed to make a decision quickly: either bring her in to help me, or cut her loose. Another mistake like what had just happened could cost lives. Cassie’s… mine… Antoine’s…
I needed to come up with an excuse that would be believable for why I had to fly to South Africa immediately.
My phone rang; the caller ID came up with Simon’s picture.
“What is it?” I asked into the phone. Simon and I had given up greeting each other with hellos and how-are-yous ages ago.
“Just checking in on South Africa. I’ve received manifests from Egypt, Turkey, and Russia; South Africa is the only one who we’re still waiting on.”
“I’m aware,” I said testily. “I think I’m going to need to go down there and deal with that asshole personally.”
Knowing exactly who I meant, Simon responded without skipping a beat. “I think that’s a shrewd decision. I know it’s a… disruption…” he paused, “but, it will ultimately take less time and be more effective in the long run.”
“You have no idea how disruptive,” I said.
“Does she know anything?” Simon asked, again, knowing exactly who I was referring to.
“Not yet,” I said. “I don’t think. There was a close call the other morning, but… no, I don’t think so.”
“I don’t want to remind you about her job, Brad, but I do want to urge you to be even more careful around Cassie than you would be around another woman. She’s not just going to take what you feed her without question.”
Billionaire Romance Box Set: The Billionaire's Legacy: An Alpha Billionaire Romance Box Set Page 11
