Drastic Measures

by Shiloh Walker

  Her gut knotted as she realized the ramifications of that. Yeah, Ethan had a lot of money. He was good with it. Everything he touched turned to gold. But he was willing to write off that loan for a night with her. Her. Pam was short, on the plump side and while she wasn’t unattractive, she’d never be much more than cute. She wore her blonde hair long because keeping it short required more trips to the salon that she cared to make. She burned in the sun so she was always pale. Her skin seemed to blush pink with even the slightest emotion and her green eyes always looked a little surprised, in her opinion.

  Nothing special.

  So why the hell was Ethan Parker willing to let go of that kind of money for a night with her?

  “Oh, shit.” She pressed a hand against her belly to still the nerves dancing around in there and then she looked at the clock. Three hours.

  Her hands shook a little as she lifted the dress out and held it against her. Slowly she turned and stared at the mirror that hung over the couch on the opposite side of her office. The green seemed to glow against her skin and she looked even paler than usual. Of course, that could be because she was scared to death.

  “You really are going to do this,” she whispered.

  Part of her wanted to insist it was because she didn’t have much of a choice.

  Part of her wanted to insist she was doing this because she didn’t want to lose the club.

  But deep inside, she knew that wasn’t the only reason. She wanted to know exactly why the hell Ethan Parker wanted a night with her, of all people.

  Published by Shiloh Walker

  © Shiloh Walker

  Initial Publication 2008

  Second Publication 2015

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Drastic Measures

  Shiloh Walker

  Chapter One

  “Ever heard of asking for help?

  Arms loaded with supplies, Pam jumped at the deep voice—the deep familiar voice. Damn it. What the hell is he doing here? Distracted and thinking about Ethan, she had missed the last step and if he hadn’t been standing there, she would have landed on her ass in front of him.

  Instead, she just dropped a huge box loaded with office supplies, the olives that she favored from the party store across town and bulk-size boxes of tampons that she kept on hand for the ladies’ room.

  Grimacing up at him, she said, “You need to wear a bell or something, Ethan.”

  Ethan Parker always managed to show up, seemingly out of thin air and almost always when she didn’t expect to see him. Crouching down, she shoved stuff back in the box and flicked him a dismissive glance. “Shawn’s not here, Ethan.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He knelt beside her and helped gather up the dropped items, storing them neatly inside the box. His hand brushed against hers when he added a box of pens and Pam stiffened, instantly drawing back and then feeling like an idiot.

  He always affected her like that, made her so self-conscious and clumsy to boot.

  “If you’re not looking for Shawn, why are you here? The club doesn’t open for a few hours.”

  He shrugged. “Wanted to go grab a bite from Fontana’s and wondered if you’d join me.” A grin tugged up the corners of his mouth and he said, “I don’t like eating alone.”

  That boyish charm probably worked wonders on the women who didn’t know the man under the charm. Pam did, though. She’d seen Ethan in action and the guy was a shark. Boyish charm or not, the man made her nervous.

  Besides, why the hell was he asking her? If Ethan didn’t want to eat alone, she’d imagine he could easily find five different women who’d love to join him. But he’d asked her?

  Frowning, she glanced at him and shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve got a ton of work to do. The new manager is starting tonight and I’ve got to get my work done so I can get her trained.”

  An odd look—a dark scowl—there and then gone, tightened his features. “Yeah, that wedding isn’t too far away, is it?”

  “Just a few weeks,” she replied, pulling her attention away from her fiancé’s sexy partner and focusing on straightening up the supplies in the box. Organized by nature, she stacked things neatly, giving everything an attention that would have done Adrian Monk proud.

  Except it was more an attempt to keep from looking at Ethan than anything else. Yeah, she was neat, but she wasn’t fanatically so.

  He sighed and there was something almost forlorn about the sound, something that made her look up at his face. “You okay?” she asked.

  A faint smile, mocking and typically Ethan, curved his lips and he reached up, brushing her hair back from her face. “No reason I shouldn’t be, is there?” His gaze dropped to her mouth and despite herself, Pam felt a shiver race down her spine. Then he blinked, the moment disappeared and he stood.

  Without saying anything else to her, he turned and walked away.

  * * * * *

  Sometimes a man had to take drastic measures. Ethan knew that. He’d never been opposed to taking risks—hell, he liked taking risks. Loved it when they paid off, learned from his mistakes when they didn’t.

  But there was a lot riding on this risk. It wasn’t ever a smart move to take on a risk when the personal stakes were this high. Ethan knew that as well. He’d always taken care to make sure he looked at things objectively and weighed all the options before he made a big decision. Some people called him a gambler and he was—in some ways. He took risks but he didn’t take them blindly.

  This one though…

  Blowing out a breath, he shoved a hand through his hair. It was thick and black and almost to his shoulders. It was more from laziness than anything else. He hated taking the time to keep it cut short and it grew so fast that he either had to mess with a haircut every month or just grow it long. Long was easier. Most of the time he kept it tied back but this early in the morning, he hadn’t bothered yet.

  Last night he’d gone to bed convinced he was making the right decision. But now, he had to wonder if his obsession was getting the better of him. He’d risen before dawn after a long, restless night and paced for what had seemed like hours. Brooding, debating, trying to figure out if he was going about this wrong.

  But he really didn’t see many options. In the back of his mind, he could hear a clock ticking away the minutes, hours, days. In less than six weeks, Pam James was going to marry Ethan’s sorry-ass business partner. Leaning back in his chair, he opened a drawer and pulled out a folded piece of paper. It had a heavy feel to it and that fine linen appearance, like most wedding invitations. It was simple—a metallic peach design embossed on the front and the font inside the invitation was done in a matching color.

  When he’d opened the thing last week, he’d almost torn it into tiny shreds. That had been his first inclination. Instead, he had laid it carefully on the desk in his home office and then helped himself to the better part of a bottle of Jack Daniels. The resulting hangover had almost been worth it because he’d been too
busy listening to the pounding in his head to think about the wedding invitation.

  But eventually the headache had faded and he hadn’t had much choice but to think about the wedding.

  From the first time he had seen Pam, he’d wanted her. Even after he’d found out she was already taken, he’d wanted her. Shawn wasn’t exactly what Ethan would call a friend so he hadn’t had any qualms about making a move on Pam but the lady just hadn’t been interested.

  Hell, she had seemed scared to death of him.

  “What you’re doing isn’t going to help,” he muttered under his breath.

  If it wasn’t for the sound of that clock ticking away in the back of his head, he might just continue to brood for another week or two. But the longer he waited, the harder it would get.

  Resolute, he tucked the invitation back into the drawer and left his office. He needed to take a shower. It wouldn’t be too long before he saw Shawn and when he did, he was going to get this done.

  * * * * *

  When it came to discussing plans for the weekend, this just had to be a first. It had to.

  “You want me to what?”

  She hadn’t heard him right. There was no way in hell. But as Pamela Lynn James stared at her fiancé, she knew that she had heard him right.

  Shaking her head, she whispered, “You can’t be serious.”

  Shawn Cooper looked away, his elbows resting on his knees and his gaze on the floor. “We don’t have a choice, Pam.”

  “The hell we don’t. He can’t…he doesn’t—” she sputtered off, unable to even finish the sentence. She turned away and rested a hand on her belly. It took three tries before she finally managed to ask the question. “Why the hell does he think he can get away with this?”

  Shawn was quiet. Finally, she looked at him but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I…I sort of owe him money.”

  Oh, this was just perfect. “You owe him money but I’m expected to whore for him?”

  He flinched. “It’s not like that, Pam. It’s just one night. He just wants you to go to the Midnight Madness Bash with him.”

  The Bash. Damn it. Somebody had finally invited her to one of the most expensive, most elaborate, most romantic parties in town but it hadn’t been her fiancé. “One night. And exactly what am I supposed to do with him on this one night, besides the Bash?” she asked scathingly.

  A dull flush stained Shawn’s face red. Heaven help her, he was serious. Dead serious. “He didn’t elaborate much but he did say he didn’t expect you to sleep with him.” Then he sneered. “But he sure as hell wants you to.”

  Pam arched a brow. “And what do you want, Shawn?” She was almost afraid to ask. Almost. But the need to know was strong, almost obscene.

  Averting his eyes, Shawn said, “I don’t have the money, Pam. I can’t pay him right now and he isn’t going to give me any time to get the money, either.”

  Quietly, Pam said, “That’s not much of an answer.” She stared at him, waited for him to say something else, anything else. But he didn’t—he just stood there looking miserable. The bastard. He wasn’t the one who had just been betrayed, was he?

  There was no way. “Forget it, Shawn. Go tell that bastard he’s going to have to collect his money some other way.”

  “I can’t.” Shawn’s voice got hard. “I can’t do that, Pam.” He finally looked at her and his brown eyes seemed nearly black. “He’s got the deed on the club. If I don’t pay up—either the two hundred fifty K that I owe him or you do this—he’s taking the club.”

  She jerked as if he’d stabbed her in the belly with a hot poker. “He can’t. Damn it, that’s my club.”

  Shawn shook his head. “It’s ours. Both of our names are on the deed, Pam.”

  “But you don’t do a damn thing,” she said, her voice shaking. “You fronted me and that’s it.” This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. It just…how could… Pam turned away and covered her face with her hands. This wasn’t happening.

  “It’s still in my name,” Shawn said, his voice soft.

  They’d bought Venture three years ago and managed to turn the hole-in-the-wall into a successful club. Shawn had fronted the money for the club outright, even though Pam had been nervous about it. She had known he had the money and it wasn’t as if he was giving it to a total stranger or anything. They had been talking about getting married even then and a few months after the club had reopened, he’d proposed.

  Things were going well. She was engaged to an attractive, successful guy, she owned her own club and she had even managed to drop close to twenty pounds as their wedding moved nearer. Her gut churned as she stood in the middle of the dance floor, staring at the floor as though it held the answers to the universe. No answers, though. It was quiet, hours before opening time and normally, this was the time of day she really loved, when she could walk through the quiet club and know it was hers.

  All hers. Yes, Shawn’s name was on the deed but he didn’t run it. He didn’t put money into it and other than the monthly payments she made to him for the loan, he didn’t get any money out of it.

  But unless she did something, it wasn’t going to be hers much longer.

  Shawn was a successful stockbroker. Two hundred fifty thousand dollars seemed like a lot of money to her but she knew it was practically pocket change for him. So why had he needed to borrow money from somebody like Ethan Parker? Why Ethan? And why had he needed the money?

  “Why did he need to loan you money?” she asked softly, staring at her club and trying really hard not to think. If she thought, she was going to start screaming or crying or both.

  Shawn said softly, “Please don’t ask.”

  Spinning on her heel, she snarled, “I damn well will ask.”

  Shawn averted his face. “I needed it for my kid brother. He got in over his head and…”

  Oh, shit. Shawn’s little brother Luke was ten different kinds of trouble. He ran with drug dealers, had been in rehab, even did an eighteen-month sentence for breaking and entering. Chances were, whatever kind of trouble Luke was in, it was the illegal kind, involving big guys, big guns and huge amounts of money. “And you couldn’t have used your money?” she asked, her voice husky. “Or just let him get himself out of trouble this time?”

  “They were going to kill him, Pam.” He looked down at his hands, spread them wide, then closed them into fists. “I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “You have your own money, Shawn.”

  He shot up out of his chair, furious. “Not the kind of money they needed. He owed them five hundred thousand and he had less than a week to produce it. I was able to get half of it together but I couldn’t come up with the other half.”

  Voice hollow, she murmured, “So you went to Ethan.”

  Ethan Parker was Shawn’s business partner and one of the spookiest men she’d ever met.

  Not because of the way he looked, though. He definitely wasn’t the kind of guy who would make a woman walk the other way down the street at night. If Shawn was attractive, then Ethan was in the drop-dead-gorgeous realm—six feet tall, long lean limbs and hands that looked like they’d know just how to touch a woman. He had thick black hair that he wore a little too long, skin that was a mellow-gold hue and she suspected it was that smooth gold tone all over. His eyes were golden too, dark gold, like Irish whiskey. He had a mouth that could turn a woman to mush and a man to ice.

  On a physical level, he just oozed appeal.

  But there was something about him that made her damn nervous.

  She couldn’t quite define it. It wasn’t his temper, his personality or the way he looked at all. Or maybe it was exactly that—all of that. A combination of the temper, the physical package, the way he carried himself, the way he moved, his confidence, his…arrogance.

  Over the past few years, she’d caught glimpses of his temper. It was wicked. The man had a way of looking at a person that made that person feel transparent. Pam really didn’t intimidate all that easily but Ethan could
intimidate her into silence with just a look. He was quick with his fists and she’d always pegged him as being a little too pushy, but this?

  This was unbelievable.

  Pam didn’t like him—at all. When he looked at her, she had the weirdest feeling he was mentally stripping her naked and that in itself was unnerving. She didn’t trust him either. She smiled bitterly and realized that apparently she couldn’t really trust Shawn either. “You bastard,” she said softly, shaking her head.

  “Pam—”

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t want to hear it.” Stalking out of the main room of the club, she headed for the offices upstairs. Her low-heeled boots made a dull thudding sound on the steps and behind her, she heard Shawn’s feet as he followed her.

  Her instincts screamed at her, told her to turn around and hit him. Square in the nose. He deserved it—she knew that much. But still, she fought the urge. She really, really wanted to hit him. But instead, Pam kept walking until she got to her office.

  In stark contrast to the public rooms of the club, her office was done in shades of white with blue and green accents. The carpet, the walls, the furniture were all a soft ivory, splashes of color found in throw pillows, in the rug in front of her desk and the framed art prints on the wall. Her desk was a huge affair that took up the back half of the wall, a soft, mellow gold that matched the series of file cabinets marching down one side of the wall and the one lone bookcase by the door.

  The computer was her latest baby. When last year had turned a huge profit, she’d invested in a state-of-the-art computer with all the bells and whistles that she had dreamed about but never been able to afford. Her hands clenched into fists as she realized that she could lose this office that she had put so much time and love into, lose the club that she had devoted the past three years to.

  I won’t lose this place, Pam thought as her temper spiked hot and strong and she once more had to fight the urge to commit some serious violent act. I won’t. She crossed to her desk, desperate to get some distance between her and Shawn. She could feel him at her back, feel the brush of his breath on her nape and her skin crawled.