“Sounds like a fair program. What are Liam Russell’s and Aurik Archimbald’s interests?” Jonah asked, then took a sip from the glass of champagne.
“The same thing. Nolan says they have connections to fine art and they’re well known in the importing and exporting business,” she replied, then took a sip from her champagne.
“Those men don’t give donations. There must be something more at hand. Where is the location for the museum and school?” Niall asked, and she told them the address.
“That’s a pretty large building,” Jonah pointed out.
“I think Nolan’s hope is that it takes off and he can expand. It’s really not my area of business. I handle the financial aspect of it all.” She took another sip of her champagne.
“Then why were you trying so hard to get Liam and Aurik to invest in the school and donate art?” Jonah asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
She raised one of her eyebrows up at him. “I wasn’t trying hard.” She leaned forward and held his gaze with an intense expression.
“Really? Because it looked like you were trying.”
“I can assure you, Jonah, if I tried to get them to invest, I’d have a check in hand and art ready to be delivered Monday morning.”
He eyed her breasts over. “So you’re more than his CFO. You’re his seductress?” he asked.
She chuckled.
“On the contrary, you have the entire situation all wrong. Delores, Nolan’s assistant, is the eye candy of Nolan’s business. She comes in, flaunts her assets, and gets men to open their pockets.”
“Where was she?” Trace asked.
“Sick with a stomach virus, and Nolan was in a complete panic. What a waste of a night. I was unable to hang out with Louisa and her men. God, sometimes I hate working for Nolan.”
“Then why do you?” Trace asked.
She leaned back against the chair and played with the stem of her champagne glass.
“Money. I have to pay the bills, plus I’ve been with him for two years. It was a bit rough when I first graduated college. Had two small temporary positions and then finally landed this job with Nolan. Within a year and a half, I became one of three CFOs and the only female. It was the perfect job, right near my hometown and my friends, and pretty casual considering the snooty sort of atmosphere around the office. It doesn’t bother me though. I do my own thing.”
“So you came here tonight to be the eye candy because your boss was desperate?” Niall asked her.
“The man signs my checks, but I must say, I hadn’t expected Liam Russell or this Russian guy, Aurik.”
“So you don’t know them? Never met them before?” Niall asked.
“No,” she said but didn’t make eye contact with them.
Jonah looked right at Niall and then Trace. They knew she lied.
“Keno said you go way back,” Niall said to her, and she looked at him, eyes wide and lips parted.
“I think he was just trying to piss you off, Niall.”
Niall caressed his hand up under her hair and tilted her head up toward him as he shifted in his seat to better face her.
“He did piss me off, especially thinking he could curl his finger and demand you to come to him. I don’t want you near him. He’s dangerous.”
Jonah watched Pina’s eyes, and then she swallowed hard.
“I know he is, but I also know that you’re in no position to make such demands on me.”
“Maybe I think otherwise.” Niall looked at her lips.
“It was one kiss, Niall.”
“One kiss I plan on repeating.” Niall slowly moved closer.
She looked away and down. “Don’t do this to me, Niall. I’ve had men hitting on me all night, and I don’t like it.”
“It’s different with me, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer right away. “I’m not interested. In fact, I should go.” She stood up.
Jonah watched Niall squint as his hand fell from under Pina’s hair. The whole scene and verbal exchange aroused Jonah, too. He was attracted to Pina, but he wondered who she really was and what she was hiding.
“We’ll walk you to your car.” Trace placed a hand at her lower back.
“You don’t have to,” she said.
“We want to,” Jonah added, catching her surprised expression. As they headed out of the gala, their escorting Pina didn’t go unnoticed as Jonah caught Liam’s eye and the Russian’s. He had to admit that the fact that those men showed interest in Pina made him feel jealous, but the uneasy, guarded felling was even stronger. What was with the Russian? Why did Jonah feel like trouble was heading their way?
Chapter 4
“Well?” Niall asked Dane and Knox as they walked into the kitchen. Niall was sipping a cup of coffee and looking at the stock-market ticker pass along the bottom of the TV.
“She came up clean,” Knox replied and poured himself a cup of coffee.
“Shit. You had to have missed something. Does she owe money? Have debt?” Niall pushed.
“She has a small mortgage on her house like twenty grand,” Dane added.
“Any family?”
“Parents who live in a house that’s fully paid off. She had a brother who was in the army, but he passed away.” Dane took a seat.
“How did he die?” Niall asked.
“Stabbed to death in what police labeled a robbery,” Knox said.
“Hey, not for nothing, but you kiss this woman and now she’s an instant obsession?” Knox added.
He exhaled and then licked his lower lip. Figures that Trace and Jonah had told them about last night.
“There’s more to it than that. Liam’s guard and partner, Keno, knew her. He said they went way back.”
“So maybe she slept with him and knows Liam, too,” Dane said.
“No, definitely not. I swear she was giving the man daggers, yet her body language said she was scared of him.”
“So their paths crossed before. There wouldn’t be a money trail if she had been in debt and borrowed from Liam Russell. He does a lot of loan sharking on the side,” Knox stated.
“Can you give me the information that you gathered on her, the brother, and parents? I’d like to have it to look a little deeper.”
“Niall, if you want to fuck the woman, why go to these extremes? Just ask her out. It isn’t like you’re planning on marrying her,” Trace said, joining the conversation.
“Don’t play this off. You were into her, too,” Niall said to Trace.
“She’s a gorgeous woman with a hot, sexy body. The majority of men in the place had their eyes on her. She’s trouble. I can tell these things.”
“Like that ever stopped you, Trace, from getting a piece of ass you wanted?” Knox said to Trace. They chuckled.
“Olivia Newport, a congressman’s daughter, who you fucked in a custodial closet at the man’s induction ceremony,” Dane stated. They all laughed.
“Hey, I was fine with getting a room. She was the sex manic who wanted to do it in a closet while her father was being inducted into office. Who was I to deny the young lady’s request?” Trace said and then began to put jelly on a croissant.
“We’re losing focus here. Last night a few things went down. One being that Russian you guys looked up, Aurik, showed up and was talking business with Liam,” Niall told them.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t want to dig too much, but there’s something more about that Russian guy. He has ties to a drug cartel. I don’t want to use my government resources on this quite yet, but there’s more to this guy and the fact he seems to be working with Liam is questionable indeed,” Knox said to them.
“Where’s Jonah? What is his take on this?” Trace asked.
“He’s talking to Mercury. I think getting feedback on that shitshow in Afghanistan,” Clark said, entering the room. He walked over to the coffeemaker.
“How you doing, Clark?” Niall asked, and Clark mumbled a “good,” then walked out of the kitchen with his cup of coffee.
<
br /> One look around the room at his brothers’ solemn faces, and he knew they were all feeling the same thing. Concern for Clark. What would it take to get through to him and make him talk to them more, maybe open up? Niall was starting to think the answer was nothing.
* * * *
Pina screamed out and awoke sweaty and gasping for air. Her nightmare was all too vivid, the guilt she lived with for more than six years now. She should have known that this would happen, considering the unexpected reunion with Jordene’s brother and the newfound knowledge that L.R. was, in fact, Liam Russell.
She tried to calm her breathing while she unraveled the sheets against her heated skin. She kicked them down to the end of the bed and then sat up and held her head in her hands. She was shaking. She had tried so hard to be brave tonight, to act tough, when all she kept feeling was weakness breathing down her neck, along with a fear of the past and getting on the wrong side of Liam Russell and Keno Mokovic.
She clenched her eyes closed and tried to stop the memories. Her parents’ cries of pain, the debt they’d been forced to pay back despite Brian’s death and isolation from them. He hadn’t even been living with her parents and her. He had an apartment with some friend, and it had been a year since Pina had talked with him. The last time she had he’d been high on heroine.
She glanced at the clock. Five a.m. There would be no falling back to sleep.
She walked to the bathroom, got washed up, and then got herself ready for a run. She then headed to the kitchen and ate a bowl of oatmeal and some fruit before grabbing her ear buds and the tiny iPod she’d used for years. As she tied her sneakers and took a few more sips of water in between, she felt the heaviness begin to subside. Keno didn’t know she was the one who’d killed Jordene. He didn’t know she’d taken money stolen from drug dealers and used it to pay off Liam. My God. L.R. was Liam Russell. How the fuck could this happen? Out of all the people for her boss to be doing business with, why Liam?
As she exited the house and locked the door, she felt the cooler morning air hit her still-heated cheeks. It had been a hell of a night, and what stood out even more than the ghosts from her past were the Mondave brothers, especially Niall. Holy shit could the man kiss, and his hands, Jesus, they were incredible. The hands of a doctor. That thought reminded her that he was probably a criminal who stitched up other criminals who couldn’t go to a hospital to get stitched up.
Why can’t I meet a nice guy? A boring, attractive, calm, compassionate accountant or something unadventurous? Hell, why am I thinking about this? I won’t even let a man close enough to have sex with me. But holy shit, if Niall kept kissing me, I may have considered a one-night stand.
She did her stretches and thought about his brothers as she took off down the side street. She traveled along the developments and then to the boardwalk and beach. Jonah Mondave was a sight as well. Dark eyes, dark hair, and the facial hair added to his wild, independent ways. He didn’t like being approached. She’d noticed him turn away or simply give a wave of his hand in dismissal. How did one get such power? She didn’t want power like that. She wanted freedom, security, safety, hell, she didn’t even want love. Love made you do stupid shit. Love was filled with sacrifice.
She ran a little faster, picking up speed, then running up and down the sand dunes, making her exert more of this pent-up energy. She needed to stop thinking and to just inhale the salty air and the scents of the water, the sand, and fish from low tide.
Then Trace popped into her head. Brown hair, dark brown eyes, a killer smile. Oh yeah, he knew how to lay on the charm but also seemed like the kind of man who could snap his fingers and get two women to take a seat on each of his knees. Power, money, untouchable to a woman like her.
She sprinted across the sand, glancing at her watch and impressing herself with the time she was keeping. She continued along the way, then passed the main gates that led to the resident parking lot. She ran down the path and backtracked to her house a few blocks from the beach. Maybe she would hit the beach today after she met up with Rose. She wondered if her friend, the artist, had gotten the gig she had been hoping for. Her landscapes were stunning, the portraits amazing, and her eye for catching the emotion in a person’s eyes was breathtaking. She deserved her own gallery showing but had yet to grasp the attention of those she needed to in order to get discovered.
As she made her way toward her house, she slowed down at the sight of a sports car out front. Her heart caught in her throat when she saw Keno step out from the driver’s side and give her a smile. Dressed casually in a black T-shirt and a pair of designer jeans, he took in the sight of her.
“What are you doing here?”
“No good morning?”
“It’s six thirty in the morning,” she replied, walking slowly.
“I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about you.”
She blinked her eyes in shock at his statement and then forced herself to be strong and stand her ground.
“Seriously, Keno?”
She didn’t dare walk by him or he might force his way into her home. She thought about her gun and then stopped herself. She was breathing heavy still and in need of a drink.
“I don’t have time to waste. I have plans and need to get moving.”
“Aren’t you even interested in knowing why I stopped by?” he asked and walked to the end of the car a few feet from her. He stared at her body, licked his lips, and then locked gazes with her.
“Not really. You shouldn’t be here. I’m not interested in anything you have to say.”
He stepped closer, and she refused to show her fear and step back. It was a mistake, as he took her hand and now towered over her standing so close.
“I’m glad that the Mondave limo wasn’t parked in the driveway. Unless they rushed savoring a beauty like you.” He caressed her hair from her cheek and then ran his palm along her waist.
She gripped his arms. “Don’t touch me.”
“If you were mine, I’d spend hours exploring this luscious body and make you come over and over again, calling my name.”
“How romantic,” she snapped at him and pushed down on his hands. He didn’t release her.
“Don’t be a wiseass, Pina. It isn’t becoming. I’m trying to be a gentleman.”
“Really? Because right now you’re being a creep. I haven’t given you permission to touch me, never mind come by my house when you feel like it.” He held her gaze and eased his hands from around her but kept one on her hip.
“Stay away from the Mondave men, or you could get hurt.”
“Are you threatening me? Because the last time I checked I don’t owe you or Liam shit.”
He gripped her hip tight, and she gasped. “Once you owe Liam and do business with him, he owns you.”
“Not me. I stay clear of criminals.”
“And you don’t think the Mondave men are criminals?”
“Of course I know they are, but Liam and you are worse.”
“Liam has a proposition for you, Pina.” He used his free hand to stroke her jaw. He looked as if he wanted to kiss her, and she prayed he wouldn’t.
“I’m not interested.”
“You haven’t even heard it.”
“I won’t do anything for him. He isn’t my boss, and he doesn’t own me. You’re lucky my parents and I even paid that debt from Brian.”
“You had no choice, or your parents would have died next, just like Brian.”
Her eyes widened. “So Liam did kill him, or was it you who did the dirty work?”
He smirked. “I never said that. Don’t put words in my mouth, Pina, and never make an accusation against Liam or myself unless you plan on dying for it.”
“Threatening me again?”
“Educating you on how not to piss off a man like Liam Russell or myself. I’d hate to damage this pretty sweet face.” He clutched her cheeks and then leaned closer and kissed her. She tried stopping him and then turned away. He laughed.
“Just so
you know, I like it rough. Now here’s what you’re going to do for Liam.”
She was shaking now, and an instant headache formed in her temples.
“You’re going to meet Liam for lunch tomorrow with Nolan. When they discuss using the additional storage space in the building for Liam’s personal use, you’re going to tell Nolan it’s a great idea, especially since Liam is going to pay rent for it. Understand me?”
“Why do you need me to say that? Nolan would jump on the opportunity.”
“Would he now?”
“Why not when it’s art or whatever?” she replied.
“Or whatever.”
She opened her mouth to talk, and it hit her. He meant storing illegal stuff, possibly drugs. She shook her head and had started to walk away when he yanked her back against his chest. His hand slid along her ass and held her tight.
“Don’t freak out. Just do it, Pina.”
“No, then when the cops bust you I’ll get charged for knowing about it and even accepting payment as Nolan’s CFO. No. You can’t make me.”
“Sure I can.” He licked his lower lip. “Your parents live about five minutes from here, right? That same old place of theirs. Crazy how often these beach homes catch on fire, especially when older people leave the gas burners on the stove on.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
He glanced from her eyes to her lips. “Want to find out? Tempt me. I live for this shit.”
“Bastard.”
“Be careful, Pina. Like I said, I’d hate to mess up this pretty, sweet face. Now do as Liam asks, and no one will know a thing.”
She stared at him and knew her hands were tied behind her back.
He smirked. “Good girl, now give me a kiss to seal the deal.”
“No.”
“It wasn’t a request, or maybe you’d like to invite me inside and we can really seal the deal?”
She was shaking now and knew Keno was more than capable of raping her and beating her to get his way. Plus, he would think nothing of setting her parents’ house on fire. The bastard.
Tequila Sunrise [Love on the Rocks 4] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) Page 7
