by Casey Hagen
As much as Micah wanted payback, he wasn’t willing to slog around in that shit. He had to think this through before going any further. He needed to put feelers out to see what kind of deals Addington had lined up with Bellini. Maybe he had only gotten into a few small favors or representation, nothing permanent.
Only, ninety-nine percent of the time, dealing with the mob even once resulted in permanence.
Micah shook his head and tossed the picture onto the pile of bank information.
Addington may be book smart, but when it came to street smarts he was one dumb son of a bitch.
The next picture showed Addington with his arm around a blonde beauty. A note on the bottom identified her as Claire Addington, his wife of thirty years. He’d bet their union had nothing to do with Addington’s good taste, and everything to do with duty and the blending of two powerhouse families. He flipped the picture over, looking for further details, and there it was. Formerly Claire Sellers, of the Westchester Sellers, married to Wallace on June 13th, 1987.
If Addington stepped out of line, Bellini’s men would waste no time stripping her bare and desecrating her right in front of the man.
Idiot.
Micah flipped to the next picture and his blood ran cold. Beatrice’s face stared back at him.
His lungs seized and his head spun. His fingers curled on the picture, crunching the edge in his fist.
The note at the bottom read, “Beatrice Addington, daughter, twenty-seven years old.”
In an instant, every vile act he could have pictured courtesy of the mob flashed in his mind, but not directed at Addington or his wife.
But at Beatrice.
Micah shot off the bed and paced the room, the picture of Beatrice still clenched in his palm. Revenge had just become a tricky web if Micah was going to avoid being drawn into Addington’s mob dealings. Not getting involved meant that Beatrice remained vulnerable to her father’s failures in his shady business dealings. If he got in over his head, no doubt he’d mistakenly think his money and clout would assure he’d get out of it.
That’s not the way the mob worked.
And Beatrice would be left vulnerable.
There were three ways out of the mob.
Body bag.
Prison…eventually leading to said body bag.
The witness protection program…also eventually leading to the body bag.
Fuck.
He had to draw Beatrice from her family and find a way to protect her by keeping her with him. Not such an easy task, when she’d made it clear that she lived in servitude to her family and their social calendar.
There had to be a way.
He turned and slammed his fists against the wall. “Think, dammit!”
Sebastian said something about bringing a date to a party. Shit. He dropped back onto his bed and dug through the remaining pictures of Addington’s staff, with their names and information.
And he found it on the last page. He scanned the words and smiled. Addington had a girlfriend on the side…and lookey here, it was quite possible she was pregnant and Addington himself didn’t even know about the potential impending arrival.
Micah didn’t want to know how Sebastian came up with the info. For all he knew he found the identity of the girlfriend and went through her trash, finding a used pregnancy test. That’s what Micah paid him for, and Sebastian had never failed in his duties.
So, the party was for a few local businessmen, a kind of boys’ club, one that Micah had heard about. The guest list looked to be made up of some up and coming hotshots in the investment business. He recognized some of the names. A few had inheritances, and were just itching to play with the big boys and break free from the family name and expectations. Others came into their money through windfalls. Ken Williams had won a modest four million in a settlement against a doctor, and kept sixty percent while his attorney took forty. He’d been at The Sliver one night, bragging at the bar while buying rounds for everyone there. If Ken didn’t get control over his need to show off, he’d be broke before he could invest.
They would all be at The Cellar, a sort of underground gentleman’s club where you didn’t necessarily have to be a member, but you had to be on the list of potential players.
Micah was on the list.
He had been for three years running. He’d avoided the club for the most part, always shrugging off invites in the name of business commitments, but this time he’d go.
Maybe, if he was lucky, Addington would be there with the girlfriend.
And maybe it was time for Beatrice to see her father for what he was, while his family looked the other way.
This had the potential to work. Creating a rift with dear old dad. It was the start of revenge for Micah, but it also separated Beatrice from her parents so maybe Micah could protect her from becoming collateral damage in the shit storm Addington was creating.
Micah gathered up the papers, shoved them back into the folder, and headed for the shower. His mind still churned, and just outside of the bathroom door he slowed to a stop.
Beatrice had no commitment to him beyond the day. She could easily choose to walk away at any time, and he’d have no way to protect her then.
That fucking Infidelity investment deal and the fallout brought them together, but because of Addington’s business acquaintances it could very well tear them apart.
If she ever found out just how much Micah knew, she’d likely walk out on him. But maybe if he offered her a partial confession, exposed her dad, admitted that he set out to expose her dad, but keep the mob element to himself, he could keep her in partial ignorance. Maybe, if she listened to him and followed his lead, with his help she could extricate herself from her family enough to not become collateral damage.
He needed a way to bind her to him, and there was no way in hell she’d marry him. She craved adventure. She wanted something new, something of her own, but she had a practical, responsible side and there was a line.
Marrying a man she had only known a week or so would be crossing that line.
Infidelity.
He grabbed his cell and punched in ‘1’ on the speed dial and waited for Sebastian to answer.
“Mr. Alessi. How can I help you?”
Micah filled him in on the night and on the discovery that Beatrice was Addington’s daughter.
“And you’re too invested to walk away,” Sebastian surmised.
“Walking away is not an option. But I need a way to hold on to her should she decide to leave. I want her to stay, but if she finds out just how far I’ll go she’ll run. Her pride will demand it.”
“Maybe marriage? Convince her it’s a marriage of convenience, or use it to avoid a marriage of convenience. Her circle inflicts that type of crap on their kids all the time.
“She’ll never go for it, but what about getting her involved with Infidelity and a contract with me? Can you find out what it would take? A contract will buy me a year.”
“And after the year?”
“I better have found a way to keep her with me for a lifetime.”
And if Beatrice ever found out what he’d orchestrated behind her back, she’d be gone.
For good.
***
Twenty-seven and Beatrice had been reduced to sneaking into the house with her heels hooked over her finger.
This is what she got for not moving out.
Yesterday, the idea of living with her parents seemed perfectly normal.
Maybe the time had come for her to get her own place.
Which meant finding a paying job, since her trust fund didn’t become available until she married. Most families had done away with that antiquated criteria generations ago, but not the Addingtons.
After one night with Micah, and the glimpses into his past, her situation seemed trite. The idea of telling him that she still lived at home made her burn with embarrassment.
Micah, whose life had been filled with hard lessons. A man who probably hadn’t let anyone
support him beyond his eighteenth birthday.
Beatrice’s car wasn’t even in her own name.
“Well, good morning, dear,” her mother said from the doorway to her father’s study. She stood there, ramrod-straight, her arms crossed, her lips pinched, and judgment in her eyes. True to form, no matter the day, no matter what parties had been attended the night before, even if she had only gotten two hours of sleep, Claire Addington emerged with every blonde hair perfectly in place and a wrap dress hugging her body to perfection.
She just had to catch Beatrice wearing the same clothes she had gone out in, doing what most referred to as the walk of shame. How many other kids managed to sneak out at all hours, and from the time they were fifteen or sixteen?
Beatrice did it once, on the downhill slide to thirty, and here she was, busted and judged.
“Mother,” Beatrice said, swallowing a sigh.
Her mother crossed the foyer, advancing on Beatrice. “Do you mind telling me where you were all night?”
Beatrice stopped two steps up, held the banister, and turned to her mother. “Yes, actually, I do mind. I’m an adult and I was out. Now I’m home, safe and sound.”
Her mother perched her hand on the newel post. “You had us worried sick.”
Beatrice tilted her head and leveled a look just short of a glare. “Really? Did you call the police? Did you go searching the streets for me? Did you call all of our country club friends?”
Her mother reared back, a delicate hand going to the strand of pearls around her neck. “Of course not. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, young lady, but I don’t appreciate your tone.”
“And I don’t appreciate being monitored,” Beatrice shot back.
Her mother’s hands froze on her necklace. One perfectly arched eyebrow shot up. It was the expression her mother pulled with anyone who dared to defy her. “Who were you with?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Her mother leaned in. “If you’re out cavorting, I think I deserve to know with whom. I’d rather not hear about it via the whispers of our friends.”
“Your friends need better things to do with their time,” Beatrice replied, heading up the stairs once again.
“Who, Beatrice?”
She stopped. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t know him.”
“What do you mean I don’t know him? Where did you meet?”
She spun on her mother. “If you must know, we met at a bar last night,” Beatrice confessed. Maybe if she shocked her mother she would finally realize she didn’t really want to know the details, and she’d stop pursuing the topic.
“You spent the night with a stranger you picked up at a bar? What if you had been raped, murdered? What then? You can’t possibly think it’s safe to trust someone you’ve known for a whole ten minutes, and then spend the night with them. I won’t have it.”
Beatrice bit back a laugh at the ridiculousness of the conversation. She’d never done anything to warrant the third degree and, at some point along the way, thought she had aged out of being eligible for it altogether. “You have no choice, Mother. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take a bath followed by a long nap, and then I’m going to dig out my skates.”
“Skating? Who are you going skating with?” her mother asked.
“A friend.”
“The same friend you spent last night with?”
God help her she needed sleep, and she was ready to shock the bloomers right off her old-fashioned, pain-in-the-ass mother if she had to in order to get to that tub. “Yes. Look, I’m exhausted. I’m done answering questions. I’m getting some rest.”
“Do you have any idea how embarrassing it was to tell Chase and Gemma that I had no idea where you were and why you didn’t show up?”
“I would think that you would be more embarrassed that you feel the need to treat me like I’m a teenager, and not a grown woman with a college degree who has been an adult for nine years, but then, what do I know? I’m not a parent.”
“Well, I never—” her mother sputtered.
“Goodnight, Mother.” Or at least goodnight for Beatrice. She had five hours of sleep to make up for, and not a whole lot of time to do it.
“We’re just going to see what your father has to say about all of this.”
“Looking forward to it,” Beatrice muttered, waving her heels in the air and heading up the rest of the staircase. She got to her door, turned the crystal doorknob, and ducked in.
She lay her shoes in the closet before padding into the bathroom to fill the tub. Within minutes glorious steam filled the room, carrying the sweet scent of vanilla and lavender.
She shimmied out of her dress and stared at her body in the mirror, seeing it in a whole new light. Before she had gone out, before her night with Micah, she’d thought herself nothing more than a carbon copy of all the other society women in her circle.
Now, everything had changed. She paid closer attention to the flare of her hips, the triangle of hair she groomed for swimsuit purposes when other women waxed it off altogether. Now she wondered if she should do something a bit different in that area, not that Micah seemed to mind.
She smiled and ran a hand over her belly, then brushed over the curls there.
No, he didn’t mind at all.
She noticed the height of her upturned breasts, and the marks Micah had left on her neck with his teeth, the red scrapes along her left nipple, her abdomen, and the inside of her thighs from his stubble.
It was like seeing herself after her first time. Or what she imagined it was supposed to be like after her first time.
Her actual first experience with a man had been so underwhelming, she didn’t bother looking for changes or the evidence of the way he had played her body.
Chase and Gemma’s son had only been worried about getting off, so he had touched Beatrice the way he wanted to touch her to turn himself on, with no concern as to whether it did anything for her.
But Micah had made sure he marked her from head to toe.
Her mind flashed to his admission about the condom.
Beatrice Addington started the new year a whole new person, and this was only the beginning.
Chapter 8
She found him waiting at the entrance to the rink right at 4:00 like they had agreed. He wore jeans today, and a sweater with a lined leather jacket over the top. Hockey skates with the laces tied together hung over his right shoulder.
“Good afternoon, Beatrice,” he murmured as he took her hand and guided it to his mouth. Those warm lips moved over her skin, and took her right back to the way his mouth had moved over the rest of her.
She fought the urge to squirm.
“Good afternoon, Micah,” she said with a shy smile. She didn’t know why she suddenly had a hard time looking at him, but it was as if he could see her every reaction to him.
Being vulnerable scared her.
“Are you ready to skate?” he asked.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said.
He led her in to pay their admission before they changed into their skates. Twilight hung over the city as the sun disappeared over the horizon, shrouding the city in darkness, giving the lights a turn to illuminate them. Couples and families dominated the ice, the kids weaving between other skaters, nimble in a fearless way that only children can be.
Micah walked with confidence to the door leading out onto the ice. Beatrice followed, tucking her hat over her ears.
She watched as he stepped onto the slick surface. The minute his second foot hit the ice, he wobbled and grabbed for the side. She laughed. “Ha-ha. Very funny, Micah.”
“What’s funny?” he said from where he maintained a death grip on the wall.
“Pretending you can’t skate.” She glided out onto the ice, expecting him to follow her.
Only he didn’t.
She got about halfway out before turning around and finding him shuffling along the wall, gripping the side as if it was the only thing
keeping him tethered to safety as he jumped off the side of a skyscraper.
“Oh, my God. You really can’t skate?”
“Nope,” he said with a shake of his head, still hugging the wall.
She skated over to where she stood, stopping along the wall right in front of him. “Then why did you suggest we go skating? And what about all that skating you did with your grandmother?”
“It was once a year. It’s tradition. A tradition I never got the hang of, but tradition all the same,” he said. He glanced up at her. “Your mouth is hanging open.”
She snapped it shut and put her hands on her hips. “Yes, shock does that to a person. We don’t need to do this. You have nothing to prove to me.”
He shook his head. “Not until I get around once. That was my deal with her. I had to make it around once.”
“I think your grandmother would be impressed enough that you wanted to come out and do this. You don’t have to torture yourself,” Beatrice said.
He straightened, his dark eyes roaming over her, darkening with the same interest she saw in him just last night. “Maybe I’m hoping if I make it around, you’ll make it worth my while.” He leaned his hip against the wall and reached for her. Curling his fist into the fabric of her jacket, he pulled her in until her lips were just a hair’s breadth away from his.
“And what will make it worth your while?” she whispered over his mouth.
“A kiss when I make it all the way around. And not peck on the lips, either. I want to taste your tongue,” he said, a growl sparking in his throat.
“So, no grandma-esque kiss. Got it.”
She didn’t skate away from him again. He gripped that wall and made his way like a little old man, shuffling as he walked. By the fourth turn, he was taking honest to goodness strokes, albeit short ones and, most importantly, enjoying himself.
By the time she arrived back at the gate, he was a good ten feet from her. “Let go for the last little bit,” she said.
“No.”
“Oh, come on…if you let go for the last little bit, I’ll grab you scandalously during that kiss.”
