“About Jessica, I did love her and I thought she loved me. That was until I found her in our bed with her personal trainer. I was played, Stef, and I vowed that it would never happen again,” he said quietly. She was facing away from him but could picture how his dejected face must’ve looked.
She let go of her suitcase and sobbed into her hands. Jason pulled her back into the villa, slammed the door and pushed her against it. Heat radiated from Jason’s body as he embraced her. Heavy breath steamed through her hair. Stephanie struggled to free herself from his grip. Her face was hot and her hair stuck to her cheeks from a mixture of tears and sweat. Jason held her even tighter.
“No, Stef. I won’t leave you alone. I can’t.”
Stephanie could barely breathe as his body crushed hers. She turned her head; ashamed of the tears she shed.
“Look at me,” he said.
Stephanie lifted her eyes to meet his. She stopped struggling and searched his eyes for answers. As though he understood her unspoken questions, he cradled her face into his hands, wiping the tears away with his thumbs.
“I won’t let you go. Not now, not ever.”
He greedily kissed her firmly and his tongue sought hers. Stephanie resisted for just a moment. Then in a show of acceptance, she sighed and put her arms around him. The action fueled Jason’s yearning. He pinned her against the door and kissed her along her jawbone and down her neck. A day’s growth of stubble scratched at her neck and excited her senses.
“Jason, but—”
He placed his fingers to her mouth. “I’ll explain everything but not now. Right now, I am going to make love to you right here.” Jason reached under her dress with both hands and ripped the panties off her body. His actions both surprised and excited her and she groaned with passion. Stephanie unbuckled his belt, worked the button of his pants and unzipped his fly. Sliding her hands under the waistband of his boxers, she cupped his ass as his pants fell to his feet with a clatter of the belt buckle. He grabbed the back of her knee and wrapped her leg over his hip. Stephanie guided his stiff erection to her slick channel.
With a raspy groan, Jason entered her with ease and ravenously drove into her over and over. Her shoulder blades hit the door with each thrust. Stephanie whimpered when Jason withdrew from her slick tightness without warning. Swooping her up in his arms, he carried her three paces to the suede sofa. He slowly dropped her legs so that she stood at the end of the sofa and spun her around so that she was facing the seat.
“Bend over the arm, Stef.”
His request was almost enough for her to come right there. She bent over the sofa and waited for his cock to fill her.
Jason’s fingers began their journey at the top of her thighs to her ass and up to her lower back. He nudged her feet apart with his knees so that her legs were spread wide. Her aching pussy swelled with anticipation as his cock entered her core once more. Stephanie cried out and Jason slid a hand between her body and the armrest of the sofa. He found what he was looking for as he circled her clit and relentlessly pummeled her over the arm of the sofa.
“Stef, God, Stef, I love you,” he whispered into her ear from behind.
His words tipped her over the edge. Her climax wracked her body as her inner walls gripped his cock. They lay connected for a long moment. She was afraid to move, and decided if she stayed still they’d stop time if just for a little while. Jason stood silently, gathered her into his arms and carried her into bed before crawling in beside her where they drifted off to sleep holding each other, as though it was their last night together.
Chapter Nineteen
Stephanie woke from Jason pulling his arm from around her waist.
“What time is it?” She glanced at the dark window.
Jason stood and pulled on his pants. “It’s almost nine. I’m going to grab us some dinner at the hotel. What are you in the mood for?”
“Is that a loaded question?” she asked as she surveyed his bare chest and conspicuous bulge as he zipped his fly.
“I’ll be sure to bring back some whipped cream to top off our dessert. But first I’ll pay the chef a visit and see what he can make for us,” he said before he kissed her softly on the lips.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I know you don’t want to talk about her, but Jessica said something really strange as I walked away from her today. She said to let you know they’re coming for you.”
Jason halted in the bedroom doorway, and slowly turned around.
Stephanie sat up in bed and wrapped the sheets tight around her. “What’s going on, Jason?”
“Stef, I—” The buzzing from his cell phone in the next room interrupted him. “Hold that thought.”
Stephanie overheard his conversation. “Yes Sam...when?...it’s okay, you had no choice...take care of Stephanie.”
Loud banging echoed through the villa followed by shouting. “Jason Royce, this is the Las Vegas police; open the door!”
Stephanie pulled on her robe and rushed to the living room. Jason turned toward her, “Stef, go back to the bedroom and close the door.”
“Do you think you can tell me now what the hell is going on?” she shouted.
“I’m sorry to get you involved with all of this. Go back home to Boston, Stef. Sam will take care of the arrangements for you.”
Stephanie trembled. “You didn’t answer me. What’s going on? What did you do?”
The banging at the door became louder and more urgent. Their eyes locked from across the room. Stephanie searched his face for a clue.
“Good-bye, Stephanie.” He turned and walked toward the front door. Three police officers charged into the room and immediately searched and handcuffed him.
“You are under arrest for the blackmail of city officials in the state of Utah. We’re taking you into custody and you will be extradited to Salt Lake City for trial.” An officer held his arm and guided him out the door.
“Wait, please, give me a second?” he asked.
The officer dropped his grasp and nodded, allowing Jason to spin around.
Stephanie was rooted to the spot in the doorway. In her wildest dreams, she never imagined witnessing a scene as this.
“Stef, like I said earlier, this has all been real for me. I’m in love with you and have been since Miami. Please don’t believe everything you hear about me.”
“Let’s go, Mr. Royce.”
Before Stephanie could respond, Jason was gone.
Chapter Twenty
Stephanie couldn’t sleep that night and spent the rest of the next day in a fog. She called her clients to explain that she was still in town if they needed her assistance and was relieved to have an excuse to get away from the villa. Nothing was real to her except work and she needed to feel grounded. She concluded her business meetings and returned to the villa to pack. A knock at the door jolted her from her thoughts.
She peeked through the window to see Sam.
“Hello, Miss Thomas. You’ve had quite a couple of days. I assume you’ll be staying here for a few more days?”
“No. I’m leaving tonight. I have a redeye to Boston. Should I call a cab?”
“Of course not. I’ll take you personally.”
“Thanks.” Stephanie smiled and fought back the tears in her eyes.
Sam turned to leave but swiveled back when he heard Jason’s name on the television from the living room.
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Sam said as he closed the door behind him.
Jason’s arrest was the headline of the evening news. She turned off the television after she heard the charges and incriminating recorded telephone conversation. The local news channels all showed a video recording of Jason passing an envelope to Jessica at La Luna. The newscaster reported that Jason paid off his ex-girlfriend for her silence. He then threatened to kill her, so she came forward with the recording. Jason was charged with paying off government officials to issue certificates of occupancy on units built with substandard material. Two other Salt Lake City
builders were charged months ago. Royce Homes was investigated but not charged at the time.
Payoffs? Threats to kill? Who was he? All she knew was her head hurt, the man she thought she loved was in jail and her life would never be the same.
Sam drove her to the airport for the redeye flight back to Boston. Stephanie turned to Sam while he pulled to the curb at Departures. “What’s going to happen to him?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but the other builders are serving jail time and lost their businesses. I have a hard time believing Mr. Royce was involved. I watched The Gates’ construction from the ground up and nothing but the finest materials were used. In fact, the project was delayed because a supply order was delivered wrong and we had to wait for the correct materials. He doesn’t cut corners.”
“But the recording, it doesn’t leave much room for interpretation, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. It’s very incriminating. Almost too incriminating. Good-bye, Miss Thomas.”
“Good-bye and thank you.”
****
Stephanie fell into a restless sleep on the flight back to Boston. She dreamed about the confrontation with Jessica at the makeup counter. “You like to take things, don’t you?” Then Jason’s recorded voice repeated like a broken record in her dream. She awoke with a start. There was something not quite right about that recording. Stephanie had been around Jason long enough to know the pace of his speech. His voice was smooth and slow like poured honey. The recorded voice was choppy and quick. Then she recalled Sam’s last words to her, “...almost too incriminating.”
“Damn you, Jason Royce.” Stephanie muttered under her breath as the plane landed in Boston.
Once off the plane she headed directly to the ticket counter. “I need a one-way ticket on your next flight to Vegas.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Stephanie stepped out of the cab outside of The Gates. A security guard walked toward her and waived, “Miss Thomas, I thought you left.”
“I need to see Sam.”
The guard escorted Stephanie through the guard stand and into the security office where she found Sam at the surveillance desk. He turned to her as she walked in. She noticed the dark circles under his eyes and his rumpled shirt and pants. It appeared that he had been up all night, too.
“You noticed it too, didn’t you? The recording?” she asked him.
Sam nodded. “Come, sit down.”
He played back the recording, but it sounded different. He slowed it down and increased the background noise. “Do you hear that? The background noise changes with each word grouping. This conversation was spliced together. Jessica must’ve tapped his phone while she lived with him. She had this professionally done; it’s a good splice job. The only problem is the rhythm isn’t right. That’s not the way he speaks, but no one other than those close to him would ever catch it.”
“Exactly! What now? We go to the police?”
“I’m afraid they won’t do much. This information is really only useful as evidence during his trial, which could be months from now while he sits in jail. No, we need a confession, Jessica’s confession.”
“She could be anywhere,” Stephanie said and leaned back in her chair.
“But she’s not. She moved herself into Jason’s Seattle house,” Sam said with a smile on his face.
“His house? How do you know she’s living there?”
“I handle all of Jason’s security and I watch over his properties when he’s not home. She moved in yesterday.”
“She’s living in his house and you haven’t thrown her out? She caused all of these problems for him and now she’s moved into his house? She’s sleeping in his bed while he’s in jail? She has no right to be there. Call the cops and have them arrest her for breaking and entering.”
Sam raised his eyebrows at Stephanie. “Don’t you see? That’s exactly where we need her. I want her to relax and feel like she got away with something.”
“Okay, so what’s the next step?”
“That’s where you come in. Are you up for a challenge to help Jason?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything to help him.”
****
Sam made a few calls and secured Jason’s Cessna for the trip to Seattle.
“The man owns a helicopter and an airplane?” Stephanie remarked as they parked alongside the small plane with “ROYCE” lettered below the cockpit window.
“Mr. Royce likes his toys,” Sam said as they boarded the plane.
Within two hours they were in Seattle. Sam arranged for a surveillance van to meet them at the airport. They parked a few blocks away to prepare for the meeting.
“Are you sure you’re up to this? Jason will kill me if anything happens to you. Maybe I should be the one to confront her.”
“We talked about this. She’s more likely to admit what she did to me than you. We already determined that she’s alone in the house and you’ve disabled the alarm system. It’s just Jessica and me. I’m not worried. Let’s do this.”
Sam pulled the van just outside of view from the house and turned off the engine.
“Here’s the key to the front door. If you need me just say so,” Sam said, handing her the suitcase. He’d wired her so that he could hear everything that went on inside the house. She also had a small microphone inserted in her right ear.
Stephanie slipped out of the van with the suitcase in hand, took a deep breath and strode to the front door. She turned the key easily and walked into the grand foyer. She couldn’t stem her curiosity and took a moment to look around. It was a beautiful home with similar touches and décor as the Vegas villa and Miami penthouse. Stephanie scanned the connecting living room and open kitchen. She could picture Jason building a fire in his massive stone fireplace. A sharp pain stabbed her heart when she pictured him living there with Jessica. Stephanie shook her head. I need to focus and find Jessica.
She remembered the blueprint Sam showed her of Jason’s home and crept upstairs to his bedroom. Placing the suitcase on the bed, she smoothed her hand over the cotton comforter that covered the king size bed. The bedroom was decorated for a man’s taste with no indications of a female’s touch anywhere to be found. She bet that he got rid of everything in the room and had it completely redesigned after the painful incident of finding Jessica with another man in his bed. Stephanie walked to the edge of the bed and picked up one of the pillows. She held it to her face and inhaled, picking up a trace of Jason’s scent.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jessica stood in the doorway wearing workout clothes and wiping her face with a towel.
Startled, Stephanie dropped the pillow on the bed. “Oh, you scared me.” She cleared her throat. “I’m moving in with Jason. The question is, what are you doing here?”
“Me? I live here. T-this is my house and you need to leave.”
“Your house, huh? Jason threw you out of here along with your personal trainer boyfriend.”
Jessica glanced at Stephanie’s suitcase. “Well...why are you moving here? Jason’s going to jail for a long, long time. You may as well move on unless you’re happy with romantic dates consisting of a glass wall and a telephone receiver. That doesn’t seem to be your style, Stephanie.”
“You really taught him a lesson, didn’t you? You must have known your relationship wouldn’t last. You bugged and recorded his conversations from the time you moved in so you would have something on him, didn’t you?”
“I made sure I had a little insurance. So what. I had to protect myself.”
Stephanie walked around the room while she spoke. “You must’ve accumulated hours and hours of conversation. What a daunting task it must have been to listen to it all. Then how disappointed you must’ve been to come up empty.”
“What do you mean? I-I recorded Jason talking about the payoff. He admitted to it.”
“Yes, you found his conversations talking about the payoff. Of course you did. It was all over the news and he was even ques
tioned about it, but they found him innocent. He never admitted to it, because he never did it.”
“Yes he did. Didn’t you hear it?”
“What I heard on the news was a spliced together recording of Jason’s voice. That recording was compromised; it’s a fake. The FBI is examining it right now. Jason will be out of jail very soon and I have a feeling you will be in...unless....”
Jessica’s face was as white as a fresh Boston snow. “Unless what?” she asked quietly.
“Unless you confess that you falsified the recording.”
Jessica sat on the bed, cradled her face in her hands and began to cry. “I didn’t mean for it to get this far. I made a mistake and I just want things back to where they were, before, before...”
“Before you cheated on him and broke his heart?” Stephanie asked.
Jessica shook her head. “I’m really not a bad person.”
“Prove it then, Jessica. Call the Las Vegas police right now and tell them about the recording. You owe him that.”
Taking her cell phone out of her purse, she pushed the autodial number Sam programmed for her and called the Las Vegas police department number. She waited for it to connect. “I need to speak with a detective, please.”
Stephanie pushed the speaker button. She wasn’t taking any chances that Jessica would disconnect the call. She overheard Jessica’s confession and the detective explaining that he was sending the Seattle police to pick her up to make an official statement at the station.
Jessica sobbed on the bed and Stephanie almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
Stephanie walked down the stairs and took one last look around before she quietly shut the door behind her. Sam was grinning from ear to ear when Stephanie slid open the van door.
“You did well, really well. Jason will be very proud.”
They waited in the van until the police car got to the house. After they watched Jessica get escorted into the police car, Sam turned to Stephanie and said, “What do you say we go get Mr. Royce out of jail?”
Marooned With the Millionaire Page 9
