Guarding the Socialite

by Kimberly Van Meter

  “I don’t know…maybe.”

  “Well, tell him no one will hurt him here. This is a sanctuary, remember?”

  Bella’s mouth lifted in a sheepish smile. “I know. Thank you, Emma.”

  Emma reached up and gently moved a swatch of hair from Bella’s eyes, almost holding her breath. When Bella stiffened but didn’t pull away, Emma nearly sagged with relief. “You’re welcome, Isabella.” They shared a moment laden with tears that neither would shed at the moment and then Emma straightened. “From now on, no more secrets. All right?”

  Bella bit her lip but nodded. “No more secrets.”

  Emma swallowed and savored the breakthrough. This was what she’d been working toward with Bella for the past six months. But as Emma left Bella’s room, her buzz was short-lived. How would she keep her promise to Bella when the state would surely not agree to letting Ben stay if his parents wanted him back? She was skating along the edge of insanity. She should’ve flatly told Bella no. She had enough on her plate; she didn’t need further complications. But she’d worked so hard to help Bella recover from the trauma in her life that Emma had nearly wept with joy at the appearance of compassion and empathy in the girl’s emotional palette. She probably would’ve agreed to anything.

  Emma detoured to her office, her mind in a jumble. She kept a board in her office with pictures of runaways; that way if she came across one, she knew the appropriate agency to contact. Sometimes kids ran away because their home lives were horrendous and the street seemed a far better option than living one more day under their abusive parents’ roof. But other times, kids just ran away because they were young and immature with romantic delusions about life on the streets. Those were the ones who were only too eager to return to the comfort of their homes, their parents sobbing with relief as their wayward child was collected.

  It was possible she’d missed a new runaway report with all that’d been happening lately. And it was possible no one had issued a report. The city was full of runaways; not every parent cared to have them back.

  Where did this mysterious Ben fall?

  Chapter 14

  Dillon knocked on Emma’s door, ready to start his night shift. Although his back twinged from being on his feet all day—another by-product of that lovely explosion—his mind was still chipping away at the mystery that had presented itself at Mad Johnny’s and he was eager to ask Emma some more questions.

  She answered the door and immediately his heart rate kicked up, setting his blood to percolate and simmer inside his veins. Even when she wasn’t trying, she took his breath away. Wrapped in a soft gray velour tracksuit and fuzzy pink slippers with her hair tucked into a messy knot at the base of her head, she should’ve looked ordinary. In his eyes, she radiated beauty. Hell, she could’ve answered the door wearing a paper bag ensemble and his tongue might’ve still hit the ground.

  “You look cozy,” he observed, a smile warming his mouth as his gaze devoured her from head to toe. What would she do if he just pulled her to him and made love to her lips the way he wanted to do to her body? But as his feet carried him closer, obeying the growling hunger pushing him, the clear, agitated look in her expression stopped him. “What’s wrong?”

  “We had an incident with Bella,” she said, her brow furrowing. He followed her to the living room, where she took a seat, kicking off her slippers to curl her feet underneath her. “Apparently she’s been secretly housing a boy she met at school.”

  “Help me out. Why is this something that has you stressed out? I imagine teenage girls have been sneaking boys into their rooms for aeons. So, it seems she’s normal. Isn’t that a good thing?” he said, his hormones not quite ready to release his brain. Perhaps if she didn’t look so delectable…

  She gave him a look. “No one is allowed to bring home strays at Iris House. It’s one of the rules.”

  “So you going to toss the girl out?”

  “Of course not,” she retorted unhappily. “While yes, she did break the rules, the very fact that she cares about another human being means she’s reached a milestone in her recovery. So, I’m trying to help him in order to help Bella.”

  “Very noble of you,” he said, taking a seat at the other end of the sofa, stretching out his long legs for a bit. “But I’m not surprised. You have a soft spot for the girl.”

  “Is it that obvious?” she asked.

  “Yes, but that’s all right. Everyone in this house makes special allowances for her.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah, from what I can see, you and Chick protect her while the other ladies look out for her. She’s their surrogate little sister it seems. Iris House is her family.”

  Tears pricked Emma’s eyes and nodded. “It’s true. I just never knew if Bella realized it.”

  “She does,” he returned with easy confidence. During his interviews with the house, the common thread among them was their affection for the surly teen. He didn’t blame them…he liked Bella, too. He’d always had a soft spot for the prickly ones. “So is he here now?”

  She shook her head. “No. Chick scared him off. She only caught sight of him as he jumped out the window and shimmied down the fire escape. Poor kid must be so frightened out there. I wish I knew where he was staying just for Bella’s sake. She’s a wreck. This is the first time I’ve ever seen an emotion on that child’s face aside from anger and contempt. I was so flabbergasted by the entire situation I might’ve promised more than I can deliver,” she confessed, her distress pulling at him.

  “Well, don’t beat yourself up too much just yet. With everything going on right now, until we get a positive ID on this kid…I say let him keep his distance. Trust isn’t something we can afford with that psychopath running around, looking for an opportunity.”

  “But he’s just a kid,” Emma protested.

  “Maybe.” He caught the unease fluttering between them. “And maybe…he’s not.”

  Emma swallowed and rose sharply. “I feel the need for a glass of wine. Would you like some?”

  “I suppose one glass wouldn’t hurt,” he said, and she was incredibly relieved. She didn’t want to drink alone but her hands were shaking from the fear that had stationed itself in her stomach. She hurried to her kitchen and pulled a red wine from the rack without glancing at the brand or vintage.

  What had happened to her world? She ran Iris House like a military vessel—efficient, orderly and structured. This philosophy had served her well. Now everything was slowly unraveling, being pulled apart by a psychopath with an agenda only he knew. She poured the wine and a little sloshed out of the crystal glass. She bit back a cry of frustration. Jerking a paper towel free, she quickly wiped it up.

  Drawing a deep breath to find some sort of calm, she scooped up the glasses and returned to Dillon where he sat, a pensive look on his handsome face. Somehow just having him here made her feel better, more centered. It was silly and rubbed the wrong way against her need for total independence, but she yearned to sit beside him and just relax for a moment.

  She handed him the glass, which he accepted with a short smile that didn’t bode well for a quiet evening, and she tried not to hold her breath in apprehension. “I know it’s been a stressful day but I need to ask you some questions,” he said with a look of regret. “It’s about Charlotte.”

  She nodded and returned to her seat, longing to guzzle the wine in her glass rather than sip at it the way she was trained since she was old enough to socialize. “Did you find a lead?” she asked, ridiculously pleased to hear that her voice didn’t wobble or quiver. An appearance of control would do in a pinch since she was dangerously close to revealing she felt the exact opposite.

  “More of a curiosity,” he said, earning a frown on her part. “I talked with that pleasant fellow Mad Johnny today. He was so kind as to share some new information with me.”

  Distaste pulled her mouth into a tight pinch. “He’s a vile creature. I doubt he gave you anything of value. I might suggest a rabies shot if
you got too close,” she muttered, taking a deeper swallow of her wine, forgetting to let it aerate in her mouth. “What did he say?”

  “Well, he was blackmailing Charlotte with some photographs of her and her lover, which I assumed was Robert Gavin—whom I also visited, by the way, and I found to be a total ass—but the man she was seeing was named Carlyle. Does that name ring a bell?”

  “First or last?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted.

  “Well, off the top of my head, I don’t recall a Carlyle, though I suppose that’s not a surprise. Charlotte wasn’t required to tell me of her romantic attachments.”

  “Does it bother you that Gavin was seeing Charlotte sexually?” he asked.

  She blushed a little and laughed, a trifle uneasily. “The easy answer is no but the honest answer is yes. I wouldn’t encourage any of the Iris House boarders to engage in a sexual relationship with one of our donors. In my opinion, it sends the wrong message. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that if they make a donation, they get personal favors. First and foremost, I have to consider Iris House and the ramifications of such a relationship, but then again, I can’t tell my boarders how to live their lives. If one of them were to meet someone through their association with Iris House and it turned out to be the love of their life…who am I to stand in their way?”

  “Well, let me set one thing straight…Gavin wasn’t looking for true love with Charlotte. He was using her.”

  Robert? Kind, sweet, generous Robert? “How do you know this?” she asked, not ready to believe it. “Surely, he didn’t just come out and say something so crude.”

  “Oh, of course not,” he agreed easily. “At first he was congenial and suitably somber when the conversation turned to Charlotte, but when I questioned his relationship with her, he became more reserved…almost prickly.”

  “Perhaps he values his privacy,” Emma said, still troubled by this new side of Robert she’d never even suspected. “It’s not unusual or suspect that Robert didn’t feel compelled to share private aspects of his personal life. It’s simply bad luck that the woman he was seeing turned up dead.”

  “Perhaps,” he mused. “But what if it’s not?”

  “Not bad luck?”

  “Well, it was certainly bad luck for Charlotte but what if Gavin was actively hiding something? What do you know of this man aside from the fact that he’s a generous donor to Iris House?”

  Emma paused for a moment, thinking back, trying to remember when she first met Robert. He was a fairly new acquaintance introduced by another frequent donor…or was he? She frowned. “That’s funny, I can’t seem to remember how I came to meet him. I know it was sometime last year, but I can’t quite recall who introduced us.”

  “How do you compile the guest list for the Winter Ball?” he asked.

  “Invitation only. We make it that way so that it’s considered prestigious to attend. We invite big money because we expect them to spend big money, either at the silent-auction table or with a straight donation.”

  “I’ll need a list of your top donors,” he instructed, at which she balked.

  “That’s confidential information. I can’t just hand it over like a grocery list.”

  “It’s not like that but if you need me to I could get a warrant,” he said, watching as her lips tightened and her cheeks flushed with a faint dusting of agitated pink. She was circling the drain, he could feel it. Too many things were being wrenched from her control and it was like a sensory overload. “The information is safe with me,” he promised. “I just want to check it over and run some names through the system. Something tells me we’re dealing with someone who’s accustomed to traveling in tony circles. He knows how to blend, how to move in and out of those circles without drawing attention to himself.”

  “But don’t you think that it would be rather counterproductive to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars if you didn’t want attention? We take a picture of the top donors to mount on a plaque for their contribution. It’s one of our little tokens of appreciation. I can’t see a killer wanting that kind of press.”

  “Unless he’s a narcissist, which many serial killers are. They have no ability to feel empathy and often cannot think of others in relation to their actions. Their victims are simply objects used to fulfill their own twisted desires, whatever those may be.”

  “That’s horrid,” she said, shuddering. She finished her wine and contemplated another glass, needing the alcohol to blunt the razor’s edge of worry and apprehension that cut at her ability to stay centered and focused. She stared at her empty wineglass. “Did Robert say how long he and Charlotte had been seeing each other?” she asked, privately mortified that Robert and Charlotte had been together.

  “Yes, he admitted to three months, though I wouldn’t put it past him to lie. He pretty much tossed me out as soon as the questions got too personal. But I sensed he was hiding something. And—” he paused a moment until she looked at him in question “—I think Chick was right…he has a thing for you.”

  Emma looked away. Damn Chick and her mouth. “I suspect he does,” she admitted. There was no sense in lying. Robert hadn’t been subtle in his pursuit no matter how much she tried to deter him. “I never encouraged him but I knew he hadn’t given up.”

  “Out of curiosity…”

  She cut him a sharp look. “Because I don’t feel that way toward him. He’s a generous man but not my type.”

  Emma tried not to see the way Dillon lost some of the tension in his shoulders when she answered. She wished someone like Robert was her type. He was stable, kind, patient…dull. Where’d that come from? She shook out the errant thought whispered in her mind and focused on Dillon. “But even if he’d been my type, I’m entirely too busy to casually date.”

  “Completely sensible,” he agreed with a smile, but there was a glint in his dark eyes that sent a shiver down her back. “A woman in your position…dragging around a significant other doesn’t seem your style,” he said, moving toward her.

  Her eyes widened, apprehension warring with her desire to meet him halfway, and she stammered as she tried to slide away, “Wh-what are doing?” By this point, he’d climbed her body, pressing against her in the most delicious way as somehow she’d ended up on her back, the forgotten wineglass leaving her fingers to roll harmlessly to the floor. “Dillon? We shouldn’t…I’m not looking to date anyone, not even you.”

  “Shh,” he instructed softly. He stared into her eyes, melting her with that heated gaze, demanding her full attention without saying a word. “Who said anything about dating?” he growled right before claiming her mouth in a sizzling capture that for a split second made her forget what she’d been protesting.

  Why fight this? It’s so good, a voice said in a breathy gasp that was surely not her own. There was a very good reason for not doing this. And in just a minute she would remember…any minute now.

  Neither of them was looking for a relationship, but that didn’t mean she was looking for casual sex. Good God, no. The idea made her feel dirty. She wasn’t that kind of person and didn’t want to be. And just like that the mental fog cleared.

  She wrenched her mouth from his and gave him a hard push that toppled him right off her body.

  “What the bloody hell, love?” he exclaimed, his brow furrowed in a dark storm of confusion and cooling ardor. “A simple no would’ve sufficed.”

  Emma sat up and crossed her arms, anger replacing the hot stuff flowing through her veins. “We agreed not to do this.”

  “We did?” he asked, indolently propping himself on one elbow. His tousled hair and reddened lips gave him a decidedly Lothario look that was incredibly sexy, but Emma sensed he probably knew this so she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of reacting to it. He’d plainly gone against their agreement and was now feigning ignorance.

  Sensing her patience was thinning with his act, he dropped it. “No, you made a dictate and I simply went along with it for the moment. But the fa
ct remains that I find you incredibly sexy and you feel the same about me. We’re consenting adults. I say we should let our feelings lead the way.”

  “Absolutely not,” she snapped, incensed at how entirely casual he was about the fact that they’d been intimate. “That’s not how I operate.”

  “And how do you operate, Ms. Vale? Educate me.”

  His request took her aback. “What do you mean?” she asked, exasperated. “I’ve already told you…”

  Dillon pushed to his knees and moved toward her. “Yes, but the question is…did you mean it?”

  She stared. “Of course I meant it,” she shot back, though in truth she was a little confused at the moment. “I’m not a casual sex kind of girl. I’m sorry if I gave off the wrong impression.”

  He pulled back. “So you’re looking for a commitment…”

  “No, I’m not looking for anything.”

  Apparently he didn’t believe her. “Everyone is looking for something, even if they don’t want to admit what it is they want.”

  “You’re talking in circles,” she accused him, getting annoyed all over again. “I know exactly what I want.”

  Dillon’s chuckle sounded dark around the edges as he said, “Love, wanting and having are two different things, aren’t they?”

  She fell silent. He was right. Privately, she wanted a life of her own. She wondered what it might be like to be less involved with Iris House, to have the freedom to explore the possibilities of a true relationship, but when she thought too hard about it, the inevitable conclusion was painfully clear.

  It was either Iris House or a relationship, and she just couldn’t make that choice. So it was better this way, to never know what could be. Besides, she was a practical woman and rarely prone to flights of fancy, so why did her chest feel as if something was sitting on it when she pushed Dillon away?

  She stole a glance at Dillon and then scooped up her fallen wineglass. The whole thing was ridiculous. Him and her? A recipe for disaster. And frankly, she didn’t need any more wrenches thrown into the cogs of her well-oiled machine. “Good night, Dillon,” she said stiffly and then removed herself from temptation.