Until Kai. Yeah, she’d gotten all dolled up and seemed to have turned into a kick-ass professional, but he still saw that girl underneath. The one he’d liked so well before his buddies had come along and sort of mucked up the works.
He’d paced his cabin on the Randall yacht that morning, once he’d made his way back to the boat and found Kai gone. The girl, was how he thought of her then, because he’d drunk too much to remember her name. He was glad she wasn’t still tied to the bed, of course. But he kind of wished she was, because, at least then, she’d still have been there. Instead of gone.
He’d spent that day resenting his friends, thinking of how differently things might have gone with her if Vin and then Tim hadn’t found her there in his bed. He’d tried putting some of the blame on Kai, too, because she’d allowed it.
But, really, it was all on him. He’d had something he’d liked a lot, a woman, and he hadn’t held on to her as he should have. He should have told Vinnie to get lost the moment he’d known that one had come to his bed. And then Tim, too.
He hadn’t. He’d been drinking, and it was a party, and they were his buddies…
And, truth was, it had been fucking spectacular. He’d kissed Kai and held her hand as his buddies fucked her. He fucked her himself as his buddies had fucked her. He didn’t like thinking it, but he’d never had another sexual experience that even began to compare. At the least, not until the three men had met up with Kai again.
He was in that very same place right now—wanting her, wishing his friends didn’t want her, and, still, thinking of how it was with all four of them. But this was grown-up time, not party time, and so…
Ryan didn’t want to share her, and it didn’t look like his pals were going to give her up, so he was shit out of luck, was what was.
Which couldn’t be more obvious as someone joined him in the wait for the elevator—Tim, who hadn’t bothered to change out of last night’s tux.
That one only lifted a brow at Ryan’s irate stare.
“Were you with her last night?” he demanded.
“Kai?” Tim said. “No.”
Contrary as it was, that only pissed Ryan off further. “You were with someone else?”
“No.” Tim grunted, and he sounded about as unhappy as Ryan was.
The elevator car came and they stood silently in it, shoulder to shoulder.
Vin opened the door to them, dressed only in jeans with his thick head of hair still wet. Ryan thought that could be explained by a Sunday morning workout, but, bitterly, he figured if that was the case, it had most likely happened in Kai’s bed.
With his own disgruntled look, Vin challenged Tim, too. “You were with another woman last night?”
Which pretty much confirmed that Vin had been with Kai, since he hadn’t had to ask that question first.
“No,” Tim said, sounding ever crankier. “I meant to be, but I wasn’t.”
Ryan wanted to know what that meant, but Vin lifted the coffee pot in offer, and Ryan took the distraction. Tim just plopped himself down in Vin’s oversized recliner, slouching, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, showing nothing but attitude.
Vin gave Tim his CEO “duly noted” face and took a seat with Ryan on the big leather couch. “We gotta talk about Kai,” he said. He turned his gaze to Ryan. “You been walking around looking heartbroken, pal, but Kai says you broke it off with her.”
“That’s not exactly the way it happened,” Ryan told him sourly.
Vin prodded when he said no more than that. “So, what way was it?”
Tim grunted. “He wants her to himself.”
Ryan shot him a mutinous look but didn’t say anything else. Because it was damn true.
Vin ran a hand through his hair. “We got a problem. Last night, I told Kai I loved her, and she said it back.”
“Then I guess we’re done here.” Not trusting himself to do anything different, Ryan stood and headed toward the door.
“No, we’re not.”
Vin and Tim had both spoken, Vin coming to his feet and Tim still slouching in his chair.
Ryan leaned his shoulders back against the door and looked at his two friends.
Vin spoke first. “She’s sad,” he said. “She misses you both. She wasn’t exactly forthcoming about it, but I pushed her to admit it. I figured what happened with you, Ryan, but I don’t have a clue about why Tim hasn’t seen her in a week. She says she doesn’t, either.”
Tim gave a long look to Vin and then Ryan. That was the extent of it before his gaze went back to the floor. It was another good minute before he spoke. “The truth of it is, none of us should be with her.”
“Why not?” This time, Ryan and Vin spoke in unison.
Tim gave each of them another of those looks before he sighed. “Ten years ago, less than a week after our graduation party, my father paid Kai Morrison one million dollars.”
“That’s bullshit,” Ryan said, sure as he could be of it.
Vin merely kept his gaze on Tim.
“It’s true,” Tim told them. “My brother saw the check. Apparently, Kai claimed something that didn’t really happen. Something that my dad felt was worth a mill to keep quiet.”
“What the hell.”
Vin ignored Ryan. “You think she cried rape?”
Tim lifted a shoulder. “Anyone see a better explanation?”
Ryan would defend her if no one else would. “That’s not Kai.”
Tim went on in a drawl. “In ten years, she’s built a very successful, very respectable business. How’d she do that?”
“We did the same thing,” Ryan pointed out. “That doesn’t mean we—what? Committed blackmail? Is that what you’re accusing her of?”
“Yeah, well, among us, we had some start-up funds.”
He meant among the two of them, Ryan knew—Tim and Vinnie. He hardly needed the reminder. With bare control, he stuffed his fists in his pockets.
Like usual, Vin could read him. “Don’t get your dander up. He’s just sayin’.”
“Just sayin’,” Tim said, but he was almost a snot about it.
Still, Ryan forced himself to keep his fists in his pockets. “It’s not Kai,” he said stubbornly.
“I kind of have to agree,” Vin said. “I’ll admit, I had my suspicions for a while. I figured she had to get a bankroll from somewhere. But the more I knew her, the more we learned, well, it just didn’t fit that it would be something…sordid. So what does your brother know about it, exactly?” he asked Tim.
Tim lifted a shoulder. “He saw the payment is all. When he took over after Dad died, he went through the books. A personal check for that kind of money stands out.”
“A personal check?” Vin asked. “It wasn’t a business account?”
“Personal,” Tim said, like he shared Vin’s appreciation of the significance of that. Which Ryan didn’t, exactly.
“I’m not about to assume the worst before we even hear her side of it. If you guys want to, that’s fine with me.” Ryan had his hand on the doorknob before Vin told him to stand down. Then to sit down.
With a look at both of his friends, Vin picked up his phone and hit a couple buttons. He turned away a bit as he spoke. “Hey, babe,” Ryan heard. “I need a favor. Would you mind coming over here? To my place? Yeah, I know you were. But…please? Yeah. Yeah, me, too.”
When he turned back, Vin blushed at little at the look Ryan gave him. Kind of confirming the worst of what Ryan was thinking—that Vin had known Kai’s plans for the day, and that the “yeah, me, too,” was in response to her telling him she loved him.
Fuck.
Vin walked over to his TV and flicked it on. He tossed controllers to Ryan and Tim, kept one for himself, and fired up a game.
* * * *
Kai wasn’t terribly surprised, when she stepped past Vinnie, to see Tim and Ryan inside the apartment. Vin’s greeting while his big body still blocked the door had been fairly muted, though he’d taken her hand and leaned in to gently kis
s her.
She stopped when she saw the other two, until Vin touched her back, said, “Come in,” and shepherded her into the living room.
Though she cautioned herself not to, she looked at both Ryan and Tim and felt the heart-pain of it. Her step hitched a little, and her gaze stuck on Tim when she realized he was still in last night’s tux.
Presumably.
He frowned and shot her a defensive look. “I wasn’t with another woman.”
She remembered the past week with no word from him and bit her lip. After a moment, she said, “I guess it’s none of my business.”
“Yes, it is.”
That was both Vinnie and Ryan. She looked from one to the other and quietly sighed. “What are we doing here?”
“We…want to talk,” Vin offered. He motioned to the sofa. “Will you sit?”
There was a big recliner facing the TV and then the sofa where Ryan stood. He’d come to his feet when Kai had walked into the room, though Tim, in the recliner, had not. The TV was off now, but presence of a video game controller at the opposite end of the couch from Ryan indicated where Vin had been sitting. That left the middle of the couch for her, and that just wasn’t going to happen. Leaning, she looked around Vin’s big shoulders to the modern dining room set. Vin got the picture after a minute and, with a sigh, went and carried over a chair for her.
“What are we talking about?” she asked once she was seated.
There was a small silence that lasted even after Vin had gone back to the couch and Ryan had sat again, too.
Finally, Tim answered. “The million-dollar payoff you took from my father.”
“Ah.” Kai felt like she’d been punched in the chest. She’d started to prepare herself for an emotional confrontation. Reasonably, they might ask what was she was doing, toying with the affections of three men, putting their friendship in jeopardy. That had been the worst-case scenario she’d imagined.
Not this.
This came as a blow. A “payoff,” Tim had said. Not a loan. “Well,” she said. “What do you know about it?” What do you think you know?
After another silence, Tim spoke. “We know that less than a week after we left you in Ryan’s room, you extorted a million bucks out of my father.”
Kai looked at Tim and knew he was judging her every bit as harshly as his father had. Well, she was a lot stronger woman than she’d been back then. It hurt to harden her heart, but she could do it. She crossed her legs and swung one foot. “‘Extortion’ is such a strong word,” she said. “And you forgot to mention you left me tied.”
“Granted,” Tim said. “But we didn’t leave you assaulted.”
“No,” she agreed. “And I never said you did.”
“Yet you said enough my father thought it was worth a mill to make it go away.”
“To make me go away, you mean.”
Tim lifted a careless shoulder. No difference.
Kai stood and walked away. She went to the windows beyond the dining room, taking in the pricey, bird’s-eye view of Central Park. She didn’t think of the men behind her, but of what she’d done with that money from Timothy Randall II. Not just what she’d built for herself, but all she’d done to help other women. Bright, talented women who’d been held back by nothing more than their lack of resources.
She wasn’t all the way proud of having taken that money, but she wasn’t quite ashamed, either.
Looking over her shoulder at Tim, she reminded herself she didn’t have to care what he thought of her. But she liked Ryan very much, and she’d told Vinnie she loved him.
She sighed. They were Tim’s friends first, obviously.
After another moment, she turned and went back. She put her hands on the sleek wood of the chair back and looked at the three men. “I will tell you,” she said. “And then we’re done. Me, with all of you.”
“No,” Ryan said. He rose and came over to her, putting his hand out. “Don’t explain it. Just walk out of here with me.”
Vinnie had stood, too, speaking her name. But he stayed where he was.
More slowly, Tim came to his feet. When Kai took Ryan’s hand, Tim spoke. “It’s not wrong for us to want an explanation.”
Kai leaned, just the slightest bit, into Ryan’s shoulder, and couldn’t keep herself from asking. “You think there could be one that would satisfy you?”
“I don’t know,” Tim said, not exactly sympathetically. “Try us?”
She considered it. Tim’s suspicion was a small blow to her pride. Or maybe not so small. But in the meantime, Vinnie walked over to her, too. He stood on her other side, in no way insinuating himself between her and Ryan. He took her other hand, just lightly twining her fingers with his.
“I’m not taking back what I said last night,” he told her.
Kai took a steadying breath. “No matter what?”
He nodded once. “No matter what.”
On another deep breath, Kai relented. “All right,” she said. “Let’s sit down.”
Somewhat awkwardly, both Ryan and Vin kept hold of her. In a little parade, they walked together over to the couch. She sat between them as she was sure was originally meant. Tim spun his chair so he faced the three of them.
She spoke to him.
“That morning,” she said, “a woman on the housekeeping staff found me. A pretty Caribbean woman.”
“Nyoka,” Tim said.
Kai lifted a shoulder. She’d never learned the woman’s name. “She untied me. I cleaned up and dressed. I used your toothbrush,” she said to Ryan.
He smiled, maybe more pleased than offended. “I know.”
She told the rest of the story to Tim. “I meant to—hoped to—sneak off the boat without being seen. But, as though she’d been waiting for me, another woman stopped me. Patricia.”
Tim nodded once. “My dad’s AA. She works for you now.”
“She’s my partner, yes.” On another breath, Kai continued. “Patricia asked me—bade me, really—to go with her, and she took me to your father’s office. I suppose it looked bad—much worse than it really had been. I’d been left tied to the bed. My wrists were chafed, like—”
“Like you’d been forced,” Ryan said with a squeeze of her hand.
Rather than like she’d been fighting against the bindings while in the throes of wild passion.
“There were a lot…a lot of used condoms.”
Vin humphed a bit humorously.
“I cleaned them up before I left, but…”
“Nyoka saw,” Tim said. “She would have considered it her duty to report, either directly to my father, or to Patricia.”
“Your father was…”
“Rude,” Vinnie supplied.
Kai shrugged. “Worse. Unfailingly polite. But…disdainful. Superior. Presumptuous. He asked—demanded—what it would cost him to get my signature on a waiver of liability and a non-disclosure agreement.”
Ryan leaned over and kissed her temple. “So sorry, Kai.”
The rest was harder, but needed saying. “I…I was in a bit of a bad place at the time. I was there on the yacht, as you all were celebrating your graduation from Harvard. I was there because my best friend, Julia, had been invited, too. Because she, also, had just graduated from Harvard.”
“Julia Aaronson,” Tim said.
Kai nodded. “It was our dream, from when we were kids together in South Philly. The best day ever, when we both got out acceptance letters.”
“But you didn’t go…”
She looked up at Vinnie. “My father worked in the shipyards. He was injured, put out of work that summer after high school. I had five younger sibs.”
“Did they all go to college?” Ryan asked.
She smiled at him, both rueful and proud. “Yes.”
Tim said, “Please tell me your father didn’t work for Randall Enterprises.”
Kai grinned at him. “That would make the story good, wouldn’t it? But no.” She waved that away with a hand. “Still, it was a bad
moment for me. Julia, with her bright future ahead in law school. You all in your privileged lives.” She looked at Ryan, shrugging again. “That’s what I saw. And me, working as a waitress. That was supposed to have been my summer job before college.”
She paused, thoughtful. “It was really Patricia who made me think of it. Of course, Tim the Second’s snotty attitude contributed. But Patricia—she didn’t seem so different from me. Still, at the same time, she seemed a world apart. Her dress, her walk, her demeanor. I watched her, and I was entirely certain that she could run Randall Enterprises. That Tim’s father couldn’t run it without her, in fact.”
Kai took another long breath. “We were close to the same, but he treated me with such…scorn.”
Tim was watching her. “So you took his money. I guess I don’t blame you.”
“I took a loan,” she said. “Though I’m certain he never believed I’d pay it back. I’m sure he thought I was just prettying it up so it didn’t feel so sordid. But I did pay it back. I made the final payment last May.”
Vinnie let out a loud bellow of laughter. “Then you found us, and paid us back.”
“Well,” Kai said, trying for prim. “The agreement included a ‘non-approach’ clause for the three of you. I considered it nullified once the loan ended.”
Vinnie still chuckled. “Ten years. Our woman holds a grudge. We’d better remember that.”
Chapter Nine
Vinnie appeared to be enjoying himself, but Tim was feeling pretty somber. He checked gazes with Ryan and Kai, and found them looking back soberly.
He was processing what he’d learned from Kai—about her, and about his father. He wasn’t sure what to make of it all.
Timothy Randall II had been no man’s—or woman’s—fool. If he paid off a girl whom he’d thought had been assaulted on his yacht, he must have felt the offense was pretty serious. To his credit, he may have been trying to protect his son, but that pretty much presumed that he’d thought his son capable of a serious offense. As the son in question, Tim felt the hurt in that.
Tim’s father had been a wily old guy, though, and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he’d been more perceptive than Kai knew to give him credit for. Maybe he, too, had seen the similarities between Kai and Patricia.
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