Sweet Seduction Surrender (Sweet Seduction, Book 4)

by Claire, Nicola

"Will you come into the Station?" I asked, pulling some tailored trousers out of my closet and slipping them on. The skirt rule was defunct today too, I needed to be fully clothed to face the Police.

  "I trust Pierce," he said, reaching for his phone and scrolling through the numbers in his address book.

  By the time I was fully and respectably dressed Jason had given up trying to reach either Dominic, my father, or Nick. All three not answering their cellphones. He could have tried Papa at home, but the Police had started banging on the front door again reminding us I had an escort waiting.

  "I'll be right behind you. I won't be far away," Jason murmured, walking the short distance across the room to me and lifting his hands to cup my cheeks.

  "Why do you think they need to talk to me?" I was just Tremayne's designer, he'd been the one to lock and secure the premises last night.

  "I don't know, Kate," Jason said softly. "Maybe with Tremayne out of town they need you to look at the damage and assess what items have been taken."

  That made sense, I should take my satchel with the floor plan and labelled pieces we put in place yesterday. "Do you you think much would have been stolen?" My mind was whirling, trying to guess answers where there couldn't possibly be any yet.

  "Baby," Jason murmured, "I just don't know."

  I nodded, my face still cupped gently in big hands.

  "Take a breath," he instructed. "Nice and slow." I did what he asked, feeling myself centre and calm down, just as he intended. "Good. Now, kiss me, Kate."

  A small smile tipped my lips up and I leaned forward willingly to breach the short distance between us pressing my lips to his. Jason kept his hands on my cheeks and flicked his tongue along my bottom lip, sweeping inside when I moaned and opened my mouth. The kiss was slow and gentle, full of meaning; his love for me, his need for me, his desire to make me feel complete and sated. He was still trying to calm me down, even through a kiss.

  We pulled apart, when the Police announced their presence again, and caught our breaths. Jason leant his head against my forehead and inhaled deeply.

  "You know the drill, Kate. Make sure you have Dominic or your father representing you before they ask any questions."

  The calmness he'd instilled, from that beautiful kiss, vanished. Of course, I'd been raised by a lawyer, I knew the drill as well as he did. Just because he'd reminded me didn't mean he thought I truly needed legal representation.

  I nodded, took a deep breath in and then pulled out of his clasp. He looked a little pained at the separation. I could relate to that. No matter how much I told myself this was all routine and nothing to be alarmed about, it just didn't reach my rapidly beating heart. That unsettling feeling I'd had on and off throughout this entire Tremayne project was back with a vengeance, but I had no idea exactly what was triggering it. And keeping Jason close seemed the most natural thing to do in the face of such uncertainty.

  "OK," I said resolutely, preparing myself for whatever lay ahead. "I'll grab my satchel and go."

  "I'll see you soon. Understood?"

  Understood. Even in this context the word felt so familiar that for the briefest of moments calmness invaded my mind.

  "Understood," I whispered. Jason leaned forward and kissed me softly on the lips, then followed me to the front door.

  My satchel was where he'd left it when I got home last night, having taken it from my grasp as I opened the door, and placed it by the hall table so my hands were free to molest him... at his instruction. I shook those rather delightful memories from my mind and faced the two uniformed officers outside. They looked impatient, so I thought it best to give them some Katie Anscombe cheer.

  "Good morning, Officers," I said with a soft smile. "Sorry to keep you, but I'm afraid Jason had some trouble waking me up. Of course, I'd be happy to assist you in your inquiries. Shall we go?"

  As suspected they both relaxed. My father had always advised to offer nothing worthy of argument, then watch as the wind is stolen from your opponent's sails. Too many people gave a defence when it wasn't even warranted. Getting out of this trip to the Police Station was not going to happen, therefore there was no point fighting it.

  "Thank you, Miss Anscombe," one of the Uniforms replied. "Just this way," he indicated a marked Police car sitting behind my BMW.

  We started heading down the footpath, one policeman in front of me, one behind.

  "Kate!" Jason called, making all three of us turn to see him standing on the top step of my stoop, hands holding onto the porch overhang above his head, bare chest flexing in the early morning sun. He'd done it on purpose, bless him. My eyes automatically devouring every contour and inch, forgetting for a moment that I had more pressing issues to contend with right now. "I'll see you soon, baby," he said with a smirk.

  I was smiling when I slipped into the rear of the squad car.

  At six forty-five in the morning Central Police Station on Cook Street was humming. I'm not sure when morning shift change is for the boys in blue, but there seemed to be more than expected moving about the place. We entered through an internal door from an underground carpark, bypassing the public waiting area completely and emerging into the inner sanctum. Maybe that was why there seemed to be so many cops, we had come out in the bowels of the operation.

  I was ushered directly through CIB - it had been labelled on the double doors in bronze coloured lettering - into what I assumed was an interview room and told to please wait. I had been offered a tea or coffee to drink, but declined. No one had confiscated my satchel or bothered to check whether I had concealed weapons inside. I felt decidedly uncomfortable when I realised I had left my Kombatan knife hidden in the lining. But consoled myself with the fact that had I been suspected of anything, I would have received a full body search, I'm sure.

  It was a full quarter hour before the door to the room opened. Time enough for me to become nervous all over again. Deep voices in hushed conversation preceded the person who was entering, from the volume I couldn't tell who to expect. Not that I would have necessarily known them. But I was hoping it would be Detective Pierce or his partner, Detective Stone.

  It was neither.

  Dominic strode into the room, worry making fine lines crease his stoic face.

  "Dom," I said on a breath of air, standing as soon as I saw him.

  He shut the door behind him and came directly around the table I'd been sitting at, wrapping me up in his big arms. I sunk into his embrace for a moment, crushing his suit jacket, and then found my courage. Things couldn't possibly be that bad. "What's going on?" I demanded, pulling away and sitting down in my chair again, smoothing the material in my trouser legs; a nervous tick.

  Dom sighed, he knew my tells, but took the seat opposite and leaned forward, elbows resting on the table's surface, hands clasped in front. His knuckles soon became white.

  "It's not good, Katie." I shook my head at him, not understanding how it could be not good. Especially the 'not good' said in the way my brother had just said it; resigned and troubled.

  "What's going on?" I repeated, my voice steady, my words sure, my heart and mind not.

  "At some undetermined time this morning Tremayne Arts was burgled, the entire stock cleaned out. The alarm system did not pick up on a problem." Oh dear, how? "No one saw anyone suspicious in the vicinity at any time throughout the night. ASI was not aware that the building had been compromised, even though the front door had been left propped open." Propped open? What a ridiculous slip-up for any burglar to have made. "A different security firm noticed the breach when they did their scheduled drive-by for one of the neighbouring businesses. They advised the Police, who entered the building at five. The security camera tapes were missing, but the alarm system was running; it hadn't been deactivated." What? "Despite this, no recorded triggers had been sent to ASI control. They insist they had no idea something was wrong. The Police say the system could have been purposely installed incorrectly to effect this exact outcome."

  I felt sick. There w
as no way in hell that Nick's firm would have done this. Why? For one and half million dollars worth of art? And so poorly? It was ridiculous. And although everything pointed to ASI, why would they set themselves up for this type of fall?

  "Nick's been set up," I said, stunned at my conclusion.

  Dominic just grunted, all the confirmation I needed. "What do you know about this Tremayne guy? Tell me everything."

  I let a slow breath of air out. Richard Tremayne. There was just something not quite right about the man from the moment I met him. What was his game? What was the point of all of this? Insurance fraud? I wondered what sort of financial position Tremayne was actually in.

  "He's... strange. I thought eccentric," I offered.

  "You'll have to give me more than that, Katie."

  OK then. From the beginning.

  "I met him at the Montgomery-Smith's sitting room reveal party. I didn't see him inside their house, I met him on the terrace when I was getting a breath of fresh air."

  "When was this?" Dom asked, pulling a pad and pen from his pocket to write my words down. Just like a cop, which made me think, where were the cops?

  "Where's Pierce?" I asked quietly.

  Dom's eyes flicked up to mine. "He's given me half an hour with you before the cameras start rolling and he walks in. Out of courtesy."

  Oh. Bloody hell.

  "Am I a suspect?"

  "Not at this stage. More a witness to the events."

  "A witness against ASI and Nick."

  "Yes," he murmured.

  "Why am I not a suspect?"

  "Should you be? You designed his interior, your contract was for that."

  Oh boy. I ran a nervous hand through my hair, flattening it into its ponytail.

  "Katie?"

  "Did Nick not mention I held the contract to liaise with ASI on security instalment at Tremayne Arts? Tremayne signed nothing directly with Nick."

  "Jesus fucking Christ!" Dominic burst out. "No, he did not."

  Nick was covering for me, giving me time, because it would come out in the wash eventually. He would have guessed that. I sighed.

  "The job was unusual from the start," I murmured. "Tremayne had a ridiculously short time-frame in which to have the design and showroom completed. I only took the contract because he wanted a look and materials similar to the Montgomery-Smith's. Plus I had already several hard furnishings in mind that I hadn't yet used elsewhere, which meant I didn't need as long as usual to draft a concept, or even to acquire the finished decorations."

  I wasn't going to mention I was distracted by a broken heart at the time and not of sound mind, and that's probably the main reason why I took a job with such a short lead-in time. It wasn't really going to help my case, I didn't think.

  "Go on," Dom encouraged, making notes here and there throughout my speech.

  "From the start I found him changeable, one minute flirting, the next distant and demanding."

  "Flirting?" Dominic interrupted. I couldn't tell if his shock was due to the fact I'm his sister and he wouldn't want anyone flirting with me, or that it was highly inappropriate for a client to flirt.

  "Yes. He made it clear, and has repeatedly done so, that he wanted us to be more than just business acquiescences."

  "How did you react?"

  How did he think I reacted? "I turned him down, as politely as I could."

  "How did he take that?"

  "Again changeable. One minute politely resigned, the next petulant and then he'd try all over again to convince me to either start an exclusive contract with him, for his planned art rooms all over Australasia, or invite me to dine or share a drink."

  Dom sat back in his chair looking contemplative. "Eric mentioned that Tremayne seemed unreasonably fixated on you. Gushing your praises to him on Friday when they went over the security system. So much so, that it even surprised Eric, and we all know how relaxed he normally is with that sort of thing." That sort of thing being flirtations.

  "Did it surprise Eric so much that he was distracted?" I asked, my mouth ahead of my mind as I was just connecting the dots and coming up with Eric's unprofessional behaviour riling Tremayne up in the shop.

  Dom's shrewd eyes flicked down to mine. "I think that could be assumed. What are you suggesting, Katie?"

  "Someone falsely installed or changed that security system. And we both know Eric is the best in his field. He would not have made a mistake."

  "So, he was distracted, and Tremayne did something to thwart the instalment. Very clever, sis. Not just a pretty face."

  "Insurance fraud?" I asked my earlier theory.

  "It is something Pierce and Stone have questioned. At this point, however, they have to be seen doing their jobs, hence the entire team from ASI being interviewed right now."

  "They're all here?"

  "The artwork was worth several million dollars. This is not small fry."

  "Tremayne said it was estimated between one and one point five," I replied, stunned.

  "Did he write that figure down?"

  Oh. "No, just mentioned it in passing."

  "It's insured for six million," Dominic advised, voice serious.

  I sank back in my chair appalled. Why the hell did that man choose us for his misdeeds?

  Just then a knock sounded on the door and Detective Ryan Pierce walked in. He looked calm and collected, but a muscle was jumping along his jawline, making his dark brown goatee beard quiver. He was not a happy camper and Ryan Pierce angry, was not something I wanted to ever witness again.

  "Dom," he said with a nod of his head, then turned intense brown eyes on me. "Katie, you doing OK?"

  I shrugged. "I'll be all right when this is all sorted, Ryan."

  "I can imagine."

  "My client will cooperate with any questions you may have," Dominic said in his lawyerly tone, getting up and moving himself around to my side of the table to take a seat.

  Tension rode the air and I sucked in a breath, while my stomach plummeted at the change of atmosphere and what it would mean for me. Dominic wanted to establish a professional environment right off the bat, but from the look of Pierce, he wasn't impressed with the brush off.

  "Katie's free to go," Ryan ground out, making both Dom and I jerk our heads back in surprise. "And for your information, Anscombe, I'm putting my neck on the chopping block over this."

  My gaze swung between the two men, Dominic bristling from Pierce throwing his professionalism back in his face, and Ryan scowling from, I should think, the whole sordid affair.

  "Thank you," Dom forced out between stiff lips.

  "Yeah, well. For some reason a certain piece of evidence has been misplaced. It'll be found by five pm tomorrow, in amongst Harvey's car magazines on his desk."

  Dom coughed, it was meant to be a laugh. I was just trying to think about what the evidence would have been. I was going with my contract, the one that outlined my liaising with ASI for the security instalment at Tremayne Arts.

  "You've got until then to do what you can to clear Nick and the others," Pierce was saying, his eyes on me and not my brother.

  But Dominic was the one to answer. "You think Katie can do something about this?" He sounded mildly incredulous.

  Pierce swung his now tired looking eyes at Dom. "I think Katie has someone ideally suited on the outside of ASI who can."

  He meant Jason. Who was no longer an employee of Nick's and therefore, as yet, not being pulled in for questioning.

  Pierce turned towards the door to leave. "You've got fifteen minutes to get her out of the building, at which point the Captain will be back from his barber's appointment and if he sees her, he might just be reminded of her involvement in this case. Oh, and another thing," he added, not looking over his shoulder as he stood at the opened door, "we're concentrating on hard copy evidence from ASI as well as interviews today, by first thing tomorrow we'll be sending the technical forensic team in... if this case follows the path it's currently on."

  With that he le
t the door click shut at his back. Dominic glanced down at his watch to check the time, I was guessing to see how long he had to get me out of the building before the Captain returned, and then started gathering his notepad and pen from the table's surface.

  "Come on, let's get you out of here. Where's Jason?"

  "Probably sitting in his SUV out the front of the building," I replied, following behind him.

  Dom swung his head over his shoulder and smiled. It was a knowing smile, mixed with a huge dollop of relief.

  "I knew there was a reason why I liked that man," he quipped, then strode through the open door.

  Brothers!

  Chapter 25

  Pfft!

  Jason jumped out of the driver's side of his car as soon as he saw us walking through the front doors of Central Police Station. I was wrapped up in his arms before we'd made it across the street, his face nestled in the curve of my neck, his chest expanding on an obviously relieved inhale of air.

  "Kate," he murmured, lips coasting over my skin. "Are you OK, baby?"

  Dom cleared his throat. "Can we do this out of sight of the cops? Katie's got a reprieve, not a complete pardon."

  Jason flashed the most threatening glare towards my brother, making Dom take a slow step back, well out of reach.

  "Cain," he said evenly, "we need to bury the hatchet. For Katie," he added.

  "He's right, baby," I said softly, placing a kiss on the edge of his firm jaw. His whole body melted at my touch and the use of our nickname for each other. It had been loud enough for Dom to hear, evidenced by another clearing of his throat, this time uncomfortable.

  I think Jason liked that; making Dom uneasy, making him witness openly how much I belonged to him. Why did I do it? I know my crazy man.

  "The car then," Jason conceded, leading us both back to his SUV. He opened the front passenger door for me and helped me inside, but left Dom to his own devices to slip into the rear. Jason rounded the hood and sat behind the steering wheel, he didn't start the vehicle up, just turned to face the back seat. "What happened?" he demanded.

  Dom outlined the entire wretched business, by the end of it I was exhausted and nervously wringing my hands in my lap, picking up on Jason's anger, feeling the rage pouring off him in waves of heat.