Текст книги "Sweet the Sin "
Автор книги: Claire Kent
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Chapter 9
Caleb slammed down his coffee mug in a futile expression of his absolute frustration.
Unfortunately, the mug was halfway full, and the impact sloshed hot coffee over his hand.
Growling in annoyance, he pulled his hand away, waving it in the air to dry and cool it.
It was almost five o’clock, and the whole day had passed on an equally exasperating keel. Only very occasionally, on the worst days, did he keep drinking coffee all day long like this.
He’d just hung up with his investigator, and there was still little progress on looking into Kelly’s background. After the one lead he’d gotten last week about the Russian gang in Baltimore, they’d run into a dead end.
At Caleb’s sharp, impatient comment, the investigator had been trying to explain to him just now that they had to rely on word of mouth or documented evidence. There was little documented evidence of any of Kelly’s relationships, and the Russians were, for obvious reasons, a closemouthed community.
Caleb hadn’t taken the reasoned explanation particularly well. He’d laid the man out in his coldest tone, the one that made his staff want to run and hide.
He turned his desk chair so he could stare out through the wall of windows in his office. His view of the DC cityscape was enviable, but he wasn’t even seeing it at the moment.
The tension at the back of his head was almost unbearable, and he raised his hand idly to rub at it.
If Kelly would just tell him who the man was, he could take care of it for her.
Maybe it sounded foolish—thinking he was in any position to take care of a Russian mob boss—but money and contacts could go a long way. Maybe law enforcement had their hands tied, because they were bound by legal restraints.
Caleb wasn’t. He had the number of a guy who cleaned up messes—no matter what the messes were. Caleb could have Kelly’s mess cleaned up for her, without the slightest twinge of his conscience. He’d done it before, and in this case he’d do it with pleasure.
But he could only help if she gave him a name.
He picked up his mug and brought it to his lips, but the coffee was lukewarm now so he put it down without taking a full swallow. He kept rubbing his neck, picturing Kelly’s face if he could tell her that she’d never have to worry about the bastard threatening her again.
“Mr. Marshall.”
Caleb heard the voice with one part of his mind, but it didn’t register immediately.
“Mr. Marshall.”
This time, the words sunk in. He blinked a couple of times and twirled the chair around to see Linda standing in the doorway of his office. She’d obviously just knocked and spoken to him twice.
“Oh, sorry,” he said with a rueful smile. “I was out of it.”
“I apologize for interrupting,” she said, although she had nothing to apologize for. After working for him for fifteen years, she still wouldn’t call him anything except “Mr. Marshall.” “Did you miss the call to Jim Strait?”
Caleb made his brain focus and realized he was supposed to have called someone fifteen minutes ago, a call that had been scheduled for three days now. Linda had even reminded him of it five minutes before he was to make the call.
But then the investigator had called about Kelly, and he’d completely forgotten about everything else.
He stifled a groan. “Shit. I totally forgot. Can I call him now?”
“His assistant said that he had another meeting at five, so we’ve rescheduled for tomorrow, if you don’t mind fitting it into your lunch slot.”
“That’s fine. Thanks.”
Caleb massaged the sore muscles of his neck and wondered what was happening to him. He was never absentminded. He never let anything distract him from his job.
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir,” Linda asked hesitantly, pausing in the process of turning to leave.
Caleb raised his eyebrows and waited.
“Is everything all right? Is there anything I can help you with?”
Damn. He must be in bad shape if Linda was willing to break her normal professionalism to ask him a question like that.
“No, but thank you. I’ve just been—distracted lately. It’s personal stuff.”
Linda nodded with a sympathetic smile. “You’re welcome. I believe it’s not uncommon with a new relationship. I do hope everything works out.”
Having said that, she made a quick exit, as if afraid she’d overstepped. Caleb stared at the door she’d closed behind her.
She obviously thought he was in a new relationship. Maybe that was what everyone thought.
There was no reason for people not to think so. He hadn’t taken Kelly out in public—on any sort of date—but she was living with him, and he’d been going home most evenings far earlier than he usually did.
He hadn’t even gone into the office for the last couple of Sundays.
He supposed he was in a new relationship, although he and Kelly had both been running in circles to avoid using that language.
There was no reason not to use it, though. He was with Kelly in a way he hadn’t been with any woman—maybe ever. He wasn’t about to give her the send-off any time soon, and he would be very unhappy if she decided she wanted to leave him.
Over and over for the last few weeks, he’d been on the verge of running—aware that he’d gotten in so deep with her that he’d have a hard time coming out of it. When she was crying in the middle of the night. When she walked into his office with cords in her hand, offering herself to his hands. When they’d made love on the couch and she’d felt as real to him as she ever had before. Each time, he’d been torn between the fear of her getting too close and the fear of her never being close enough.
His instinct for self-preservation was strong, but his need for her was stronger.
And his strongest need at the moment was to keep her safe from whoever was threatening her.
She wouldn’t tell him who it was because she wanted to protect him, but she didn’t understand.
Other people needed to protect themselves from him.
He needed to get working again. He needed to stop brooding about all these unanswered questions. And he needed to stop picturing her face when she came, when she cried, when she laughed.
How was he ever supposed to work if he couldn’t stop thinking about her?
He couldn’t, though. For one of the few times in his life, he simply couldn’t focus on work. Not when there was something more important to do.
He stood up, feeling compelled to go find Kelly and talk to her now. He wanted things to move forward. He didn’t like this weird emotional limbo he was in.
Just because he’d never done something before didn’t mean he shouldn’t do it now.
He wanted to do it now. With Kelly.
Linda looked startled when he asked her to call down for his car, saying he was heading home. It was just after five, but he usually stayed later than that.
He called out good-byes to the staff he passed as he left the executive suite, and he was feeling determined and inspired as he rode down the elevator.
He would talk to Kelly. He would get a few things settled. She would know that she could trust him to do whatever she needed him to do, that she could fully depend on him.
As he was passing through the lobby, a feminine voice stopped him.
“Mr. Marshall.”
He turned to see the cute blonde who had been temporarily working security for several weeks. She was wearing the coat that went with the uniform, so she must have been doing something outside. “Yes?”
“I have something to show you, if you have a minute.”
The woman wasn’t smiling, and she was doing security in his building, so he suppressed his impatience as he nodded and followed her into a back room.
“What is it?” he asked, trying not to sound like he wanted to get through with this conversation, although he definitely did.
The woman smiled. “Today was my last day here. I’m not working for Vendella anymore.” She opened her coat, revealing that she was completely naked beneath it.
Caleb stared at the woman’s body—small, firm breasts, flat belly, long legs, nicely curved hips.
His body tightened just a little—the reflexive response to seeing an attractive naked female body—but that was it.
That was it.
Several weeks ago, he would have had her turned over the table and be rutting her hard with no prelude or hesitation. He’d had her in mind for a fuck from the beginning, and she’d obviously picked up on the signals.
But something had changed. Something really important had changed.
Caleb didn’t want her anymore.
He didn’t want anyone but Kelly.
He stood frozen, trying to process this revelation, which was even more disorienting than his reflections on being in a relationship up in his office just now. Somehow, it drove the reality home a lot more fully.
It was one thing to admit to being in a relationship. It was something entirely else to admit that he wanted only one woman.
Never in his life had he experienced something like that.
He shook his head, finding his voice at last. “Close your coat and go home,” he said, as mildly as he could manage. Without waiting for a response, he turned to leave the room, heading back through the lobby to where his car was waiting.
He’d been using a car service for the last week, instead of driving himself, so he could get more work done during the longer commute. He got into the back of the car that was pulled up to the curb.
Without thinking, he pulled out his phone and dialed Kelly. He didn’t have anything particular to say. He just wanted to talk to her.
The phone rang until voice mail picked up, so he ended the call, wondering what she was doing.
Maybe she was still with that client she was seeing this afternoon. It could have run long.
He tried futilely to do some work on the drive home, but he couldn’t focus on anything. He spent twenty minutes trying to compose a response to an email that should have taken him about three.
When his phone rang, he grabbed for it in an embarrassingly eager gesture, but it wasn’t Kelly. It was Wes.
Caleb let out a breath, telling himself not to be a heartless ass. Two years had passed without any conversations with Wes, and now it was three conversations in a month. And not easy conversations.
“Hey. Did you make it to town?” he asked, after connecting the call.
“Yeah. I got in yesterday.”
“How’s your mom?”
“She’s hanging in there.” Maybe he was tired, or maybe his mom was worse than he implied, but Wes didn’t sound good at all. “Thanks again for—”
“Don’t thank me again. It was fine.” Mostly, Caleb didn’t want to be reminded of that afternoon. It left him feeling too vulnerable in every way, including the aftermath when he’d seen Kelly with that other man and been consumed by that fierce, irrational jealousy.
“How’ve you been?” Wes asked, his tone changing, obviously trying to move back into a more natural conversation. “I’ve been hearing rumors.”
Caleb stiffened. “About what?”
“All kinds of shit. Did you get married?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you have a beautiful convict on the run from the authorities hidden away in your house?”
Caleb couldn’t suppress a huff of dry amusement. “Uh, no.”
“Oh well. Guess the rumors aren’t all true. You’re seeing someone, though?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Caleb admitted, “Yeah.”
“And you’ve got nothing more to say about that?”
“What am I supposed to say? It’s not exactly big news.” He was brushing it off on purpose, but anyone who knew him would understand that it was, in fact, big news.
Caleb Marshall fucked. He’d always, only fucked. He didn’t date.
“Well, it’s bigger news than I’ve got going at the moment. Why don’t you ever go out in public with her? All I keep hearing is that she never leaves your house.”
“She does leave my house, but she’s—she’s dealing with some stuff and doesn’t want to do a lot of socializing. Who have you been hearing all this from?” Caleb felt a strange mingling of annoyance, self-consciousness, and pleasure.
The pleasure was the most surprising feeling—as if part of him wanted the rest of the world to know that he was with Kelly. That she was fully his.
It must have been someone on his staff or from the office who’d gotten the word out, since he couldn’t imagine who else would know about the woman staying at his house.
“I’m not about to tell you and make some poor soul the target of your wrath. So it’s serious?”
“I never said it was serious.”
“Who do you think you’re kidding? You’ve tried to pretend it doesn’t exist, but you’ve always had this white knight complex going on, ever since Mall—”
“That’s ridiculous,” Caleb interrupted, before Wes could complete the thought.
“No, it isn’t. You make yourself heartless so it won’t hurt if you can’t save someone again. It doesn’t take a psychotherapist to figure that out.”
It felt like the air was thickening around him, dulling his vision, getting caught in his throat. And knowing his friend was right didn’t make him want to hear it any more.
After a moment, Caleb cleared his throat. “If you’re through with the half-assed therapy session, I really need to get back to work.”
“Yeah. Fine. But I want to get together while I’m in town. And you should bring your gorgeous damsel in distress.”
Caleb didn’t dignify that comment with a response, just said good-bye and hung up.
He thought about what Wes had said, though, and he decided it wasn’t quite right.
He did want to save Kelly.
But that wasn’t all he wanted.
His phone rang again. It wasn’t Wes calling back, and it wasn’t Kelly. It was Tim, the head of his security team.
Frowning, Caleb answered the call, having absolutely no idea what he was about to hear.
“Mr. Marshall?” Tim said.
“Yes. What’s going on?”
“You said you wanted us to report if anything happened concerning Miss Watson.”
“Yes.” Caleb’s heart jumped painfully. “What happened? Is she okay?”
“Yes. She’s fine. But Pete, the guy I have following her, witnessed something that seems—worth mentioning.”
Tim’s pause in completing the sentence was the first clue Caleb had that he was about to hear something he really didn’t want to hear. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me.”
“You know she was meeting with a client this afternoon. She asked Pete to wait in the lobby instead of coming up to the apartment with her.”
“What?” Caleb interrupted. “There are multiple areas of access to apartment buildings. You can’t be sure she would be safe if he just waited in the lobby.”
“I understand that, sir. Pete didn’t want to wait there, but she insisted. And our understanding was that her protection wasn’t forced.”
Caleb let out a breath, knowing everything Tim said was correct. They couldn’t force protection on Kelly if she refused it—no matter how much Caleb might want to.
“Okay,” he said. “So what did Pete do?”
“Since he was concerned about leaving her up there unprotected, he managed to get access to the building’s security cameras while he waited. There aren’t very many—just in the lobby and the public areas. Including a workout room on the eighth floor.”
Caleb drew his eyebrows together. “Okay. So what’s the point?”
“The point is that, after she met with the client, Miss Watson went to the eighth floor and met with someone in the workout room. Tim copied the video feed. I’m sending it to you now.”
Caleb froze, trying to work out the significance of this information. “Who did she meet with?”
“We don’t know. We’re trying to identify him, but we have nothing to go on, so I don’t think we’ll be able to figure it out. They seemed—close.”
And it was then that Caleb’s heart stopped jumping and started to sink. “Close?”
“Sex didn’t happen. But close. Yes.” Tim was obviously reluctant to give that particular answer.
Caleb cleared his throat. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll look at the video and tell you how to proceed.”
He was holding his breath when he pulled up the message Tim had just sent him, clicking open the video feed.
The video quality was poor and it was black and white, but Kelly was clearly visible coming into the room with a tall, dark-haired man.
The man was facing the camera more than Kelly was, and he was clearly into her. Caleb could tell even from the slightly fuzzy image. They talked, standing very close, and the man got closer and closer as the conversation progressed.
Caleb recognized the man immediately. The same man from the dressing room. The one Kelly had insisted was a stranger who was just randomly coming onto her.
As he watched, Kelly put her hand on the guy’s arm at one point, and later he had her pressed up to the wall, his body against hers.
Caleb felt a shuddering of possessive rage as he watched this other man with his body all over Kelly. His Kelly. And something painful ripped through his chest as he saw her arms go up around his neck.
He dreaded the idea of seeing them kiss, but he couldn’t look away.
He waited, a lump lodged hard in his throat, for something worse to happen, but they left before anything did, the man’s arm around Kelly’s waist.
He stared at the final image for a long time, trying to think, trying to use his mind instead of his instinct, which was to howl in outrage and start knocking things over.
There weren’t many possibilities for why Kelly had met up with this man. She’d snuck away to meet with him twice, so they were obviously in some sort of relationship.
She had lied to him—right to his face, so convincingly that he’d completely fallen for it. Whether or not she was cheating on him with this guy, she was keeping secrets from him.
Either way, Kelly wasn’t being faithful.
He’d just turned down a luscious woman who had offered him easy sex for the taking. He hadn’t even wanted her.
When Kelly was here betraying him.
He was washed with wave after wave of cold anger and pain, and he sat stewing in it for the rest of the drive home.
He was in a bad state when the car pulled through the gates, and then up in front of his house. Something big and intense and broken kept swelling up inside him—something that felt like a dangerous, trapped, wounded animal—and he had to clench his fists to keep his hands from shaking as he climbed out of the backseat.
Nothing really had changed. He was still Caleb Marshall, a man who had always ensured he remained perfectly in control of his world.
He did what he wanted. Took what he wanted. Didn’t let anyone stand in his way.
He never let himself do anything, want anything, be anything that would cause him to be helpless again.
One young woman wouldn’t have changed him. Wouldn’t have cracked the hard contours of his life.
He wouldn’t let that happen.
When he entered the house, Breah started to greet him pleasantly, but she shrank back when she got a look at his face.
“Where’s Kelly?” he asked in a low voice, trying to level out his tone.
“She’s upstairs—showering and changing clothes, I think.” Breah’s face twisted. “Is everything okay, sir?”
Caleb didn’t answer, although he’d always made a point of treating Breah with courtesy. He couldn’t answer. He just strode down the hall and into the west wing of the house, where Kelly’s guest suite was located.
He had no idea what he was going to say when he saw her.
When he got to her door, he stood outside for a few seconds, taking a couple of breaths and trying to get himself under control. If he lost his restraint, then Kelly would have the advantage, and he couldn’t give her that.
He swung the door open without knocking. This was his house. He could enter any room he wanted without waiting for an invitation.
Kelly had been buckling one of her high-heeled sandals. She was dressed prettily in a long skirt and sleeveless top that clung to her curves. Her long hair was loose, falling in lustrous waves over her arms and shoulders.
She must have dressed up for him.
She looked gorgeous. Like a pale, delicate blossom in the morning dew. Lush. Sensual. Innocent.
Innocent.
But she wasn’t. She’d never been.
She gave a little squeal of surprise at his sudden entrance, but her face changed almost immediately, smiling as she said, “Where are your manners, barging in like that? What if I was naked in here?”
Her eyes took on a familiar heated gleam as she spoke the last question in a lilting voice. He suddenly knew what she expected him to do.
Respond to the invitation. Get hot because she was hot. She’d done it the whole time. Pressed his buttons perfectly. Say one thing—and he would act this way. Say something else—and he’d do that instead.
Like Pavlov’s fucking dog.
And he was letting her. Letting her play him like a puppet.
No more.
“How was your meeting with your client?” he asked, pleased when his tone sounded calm and natural.
Her brows drew together, as if she sensed something was off, but she replied easily enough. “It was good. She wants me to paint the dog lounging on this velvet dog bed. You should see the fancy fringe on that thing.” She gave him another smile—this one sweet and amused.
She was expecting his mood to shift based on her expression and tone. She wanted him to laugh, come over to her, put his arm around her, lean down into a soft kiss. Yesterday, he would have done just that.
She was waiting even now for him to do it, and her smile broke in obvious confusion when he didn’t.
“What’s wrong, Caleb?” she asked, coming over to him instead. “You look all stressed about something.” She leaned against him a little, and stroked his chest softly. “Did something happen?”
Something had happened. Kelly Watson had happened. And his life would never be the same.
“Did you do anything after you met with your client?” he asked, his voice slightly hoarse now.
He wanted to see if she would lie.
“No,” she said, slightly haltingly. “What’s the matter with you?”
So she lied after all. Right to his face. Convincingly too. She looked nothing but concerned and bewildered.
She was a master, and he’d fallen for her like a boy.
He took a quick step backward, pulling himself away from her hands, since despite everything, he relished the feel of them. It was time to go on the offensive, anyway.
“Did you fuck him?” he bit out.
She jerked visibly, the pretty bewilderment transforming to real confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“Did you fuck him?”
She frowned, looking hurt and a little offended now. “You know I fucked him, Caleb. That’s how I got into this mess to begin with. Did you think I’d somehow gotten involved with this guy but didn’t actually—”
“No,” he cut in, realizing what she’d thought. It was such a natural and innocent misunderstanding that it broke into his angry momentum temporarily. “I wasn’t talking about before. I was talking about today. When you had the little meet-up with the guy in the workout room, after you left your client. The same one you met in the dressing room and pretended not to know. Did you fuck him?”
It took a moment for her to process the question, and he saw the whole succession of emotions cross over her face. Confusion. Recognition. Understanding. Fear. Anger. Anger. Anger.
“Are you spying on me?” she demanded at last, her cheeks flushing as she took several steps backward, away from him.
“You know I have the bodyguard following you, for your own protection.”
“If you know about my meeting that guy today, then he’s doing more than protecting me. You’re spying on me! Having your lackeys observe my every move and report back to you! How dare you do that to me?”
Caleb almost choked on his outrage, that she’d somehow managed to make him look like the bad guy in this when she was the one who’d just lied to him, who’d betrayed him. “You probably do think you’re that irresistible,” he said, stepping forward, his whole body tense with suppressed rage. “You think I’m so obsessed with you that I’ve turned into some sort of stalker over you? My man did his job—nothing more. And don’t think you can turn the topic away from the real issue. Which is the way you’ve been sneaking around behind my back, pretending to be into me when all this time you’re spreading your legs for some—”
His words cut off when she reached up to slap him across the face. He caught her wrist before she could, and he held it when she tried to pull free.
“Don’t act like an outraged virgin,” he snapped, grabbing her other wrist too when she used it to push him away. “You’re the one who has been using me.”
“Fuck you, Caleb,” she choked, giving up her attempt to free herself. “I didn’t fuck that guy. I’ve never fucked that guy. But even if I had, you have no right to act this way. There’s never been any commitment between us.”
He couldn’t believe she was trying to justify what she’d done, once again making him look in the wrong—like he was some obsessive, jealous bully. “Don’t try that argument on me. We’ve never spoken of a commitment, but we both know we’re in something deep here. I haven’t fucked another woman since I met you. I haven’t even wanted another woman since I met you.”
He shouldn’t be admitting that. It exposed too much about his heart. But he couldn’t seem to help it. His lifetime of control had snapped, and it drove something else home to him. “I’ve broken myself for you,” he continued hoarsely, still holding her in front of him by both of her wrists. She was so beautiful and vulnerable and everything he wanted that his body began to respond to her, despite everything. He felt his groin tighten and his skin heat up. “I’ve sacrificed the man I was before. For you. Because of you. I’ve lost him because of you. And all this time you’ve been screwing—”
She let out a wordless scream that sounded like absolute frustration, desperation. She yanked her arms out of his grip and pushed him backward, away from her. “You think you’ve broken yourself? You have no idea what broken feels like! You think you sacrificed something, because you’ve decided it might be nice to fuck one woman for longer than a night? Because you’re bothered when you think she hasn’t fallen in a besotted heap at your feet? You know nothing. I’ve sacrificed everything. I’ve lost everything. There is nothing of me left worth having. And it’s all because of you.”
Something about her words broke through the furious haze in his mind. Her anger and outrage was genuine. He could feel the truth of it in his bones. She wasn’t lying or playing a part now. She felt more real than he’d ever felt her.
It was like she hated him.
If her meeting with the guy hadn’t been as bad as it looked, then she might have a reason to be angry with him now. But hate him? Why would she hate him?
The puzzle broke through his irrational fury and calmed him down just enough to begin to think.
There was more going on here than he knew.
She had turned her back to him, obviously trying to get control of herself. She wouldn’t want to cry in front of him, even in anger. She would think it made her weak.
But Caleb couldn’t stand to be weak either. “Damn it, Kelly. Tell me the truth,” he demanded, using his words like a weapon.
She jerked and whirled around, obviously wanting to strike him again but holding herself back. “You’ve done nothing to deserve the truth from me.”
He reached out and took her by the upper arms, holding her so she couldn’t turn away from him again. It felt like the whole world was pulsing behind his eyes, in his ears, in his chest, and in his cock. “I don’t care whether I deserve it or not. Tell me the truth anyway. Why do you hate me so much?”
“Because—because—”
She was almost strangling on the words, tears streaming from her eyes, and her whole body shaking helplessly, with some sort of combination of anger, outrage, and grief. “Because you made me—fall for you!” She choked out the last words like they were horrifying.
For a moment, the truth of her words washed over him, answering, soothing the trapped, wounded animal inside him.
But they didn’t seem to answer or soothe anything in Kelly. She was just as broken as before as she continued, “You made me want you to be—want you to be—”
“To be what?” he demanded.
This was the final straw—the cusp of the whole world changing. He knew it somehow. What would happen now would change him, would change everything.
It might break him more than he was already broken, but he was going to have the truth anyway.
