Dangerous (The Complete Erotic Romance Novel) (56 page)

Reid closed his hand around hers tightly, as if he didn’t plan to let it go. “Don’t sell yourself so cheap.” There was a twinge of bitterness in his tone that caught at Kendra’s ear.

“Have you ever talked about Alana to anyone before?” she asked softly.

Reid shook his head. “Never.” He frowned, hiding his thoughts from her again. “So, try to be merciful. I might not be a very good storyteller.”

“Lucky for you I’m a good listener.”

Reid gave her an intense look, one that made her mouth go dry, then turned away. “We’ll see what you say after you’ve heard the truth.”

Kendra took a seat, wondering whether he’d meant to feed her trepidation.

* * *

Ethan was pissed.

What a waste of time and money. What a waste of effort. He was sure that nothing could make up for the frustration and humiliation of this weekend.

And he’d had such high expectations. He was supposed to be banging Kendra right now, getting as much of her as he’d always wanted. Instead he was walking barefoot up the muddy hill from the cabin, in the dark. He was cold. He was hungry. His cell phone was literally fried, his Jeep was gone, he was out of a job and short on cash. There was nothing that could pull this adventure out of the shitter.

Or so he thought.

Ethan could only hope that some people still picked up hitch-hikers. If he could get to the highway, maybe he could get a ride back to town. He was almost at the crest of the hill when he heard the car engine. He hurried forward, slipped and wiped out in the mud. He scrambled to his feet and up the last of the hill.

To his surprise, there was a dark sedan parked to one side of the road. The engine was running and the interior lights were on. A guy was sitting behind the wheel, making notes or something. He glanced up at Ethan, then got out of the car, leaving the door open.

He looked like a cop. He wasn’t wearing a uniform but he had the stance of a cop and all the disapproval that cops usually had when they looked at Ethan.

“You wouldn’t happen to know Reid Stirling, would you?” the guy asked.

“Yeah, I know him.”

“Did you just see him here?”

“Yeah.”

“Would you mind answering a few questions about him for us?”

Ethan wanted to laugh out loud. The cops were looking for Stirling. Vengeance didn’t get any better than this. “No, I don’t mind at all. Any chance you could give me a ride back to town?”

The cop hesitated. “You always take rides from strangers?”

“No, only from cops who are strangers.”

The cop smiled. “You’ve got to ride in the back. We can talk on the way.” Ethan might have argued that, because he wasn’t under arrest—or at least, he didn’t think so—but as he stepped closer he saw that the front seat of the car was filled with computer equipment.

“Undercover,” he said, remembering the news flash from earlier. “You think he killed his wife.”

“Do you?”

“I think he probably tied her up a lot.”

The cop’s eyes gleamed, just for a second, and Ethan felt a sense of triumph. Vengeance was going to be sweet—even sweeter because it was all true.

* * *

Reid ground coffee beans, well aware that Kendra was watching him closely. She sat on a stool on the other side of the breakfast buffet, elbow braced on the counter, chin propped on her hand, her hair flowing over her shoulders like pale silk. He got out a filter, wondering where to begin.

“I met Alana at the gym,” he said quietly, remembering the moment all too well. “It was just for a moment. We passed in the corridor. She’d been working out and was going to the women’s locker room. I had showered and changed and was going to work.” He could see her in his mind’s eye, beautiful and confident. “I wasn’t the only man admiring her, but I was the one she smiled at.”

“Imagine that,” Kendra murmured. Reid spun to look at her. “Come on, Reid, I’m sure everyone in the place knew who you were.”

“You’re suspicious.”

“You weren’t? Even if she didn’t know your name, a glimpse of one of your suits would have proven that you weren’t the janitor.”

“I can’t just be attractive for my own sake?”

“Of course you can. Sorry.”

Reid frowned and filled the water reservoir. “About a week later, I saw her at the ballet, in the bar before the show began.”

“Not ‘The Nutcracker’?”

“It was. How’d you know?”

Kendra spoke as if reciting a memorized lesson. “You’re a patron of the ballet because your father was, but the only show you ever attend is ‘The Nutcracker’ every December. That’s because your parents used to take you when you were a kid.” She shrugged. “It’s in a bunch of articles about you, Reid.”

Reid turned on the coffee pot and leaned against the counter, his arms folded across his chest. He knew his marriage had gone to shit. He suspected he was the guilty party. He wasn’t nearly ready to believe that Alana was guilty of anything, beyond a bad choice of spouse. “She said she used to attend the ballet with her parents, that her mother had wanted her to be a ballerina but she’d always had two left feet. She loved ‘The Nutcracker’ because it was the only ballet she’d ever performed in. My dad had died that past year, so it was the first year I’d attended alone. I was glad of the company, if only for the reprieve from my memories.”

“She didn’t tell you that her mom had just died, had she?”

Reid might have accused Kendra of being overly suspicious, except that she was right. “How did you know that?”

“It sounds like she was stalking you.” Kendra slid off the bar stool and came around the breakfast buffet. She pulled the toaster out of the appliance garage in the corner, plugged it in and put in two slices of bread. “Starving,” she reminded him with a smile as she pressed down the button. She leaned against him, playfully bumping his hip. “Not that I can blame her, but I would have expected you to be ready for that.”

“I was. I was always suspicious. It was easy to talk to her, though. And she was beautiful.”

“And you just kept running into her,” Kendra concluded with sigh. “Like it was meant to be.”

Reid didn’t miss the skepticism in her tone. “I’m not that much of an idiot. I had her investigated.”

“I’ll guess you didn’t find much.”

“Why?”

“Because it sounds like she’d planned this a long time in advance.”

Reid watched the steam coming out of the coffee pot, disliking the direction of his thoughts. “How much do you know about me?” he asked quietly.

“More than you think I do,” Kendra agreed easily. “I’ve been a fan girl for a long time, Reid, because of your ability to make companies work. I think that’s an amazing gift. The personal stuff didn’t interest me much, not until I met you.” She gave him a rueful look. “I knew the ballet story before, though. I must have tripped over it three times in my research on you.” She must have seen something in his expression, because she smiled as if to put him at ease again. “I don’t mean to interrupt your story. Go ahead. Tell me about your whirlwind romance.”

“Not much to tell. It was electric. It was like we were made for each other. We agreed on almost everything.” Reid could almost hear Kendra’s skepticism, and now he wondered at his own gullibility. “We were married and everything seemed to be perfect.”

“Until?” Kendra prompted, hearing the doubt in his tone.

“It was the spending,” Reid admitted and fell silent, that last argument echoing in his thoughts.

“It looks as if she liked to shop.”

“I never believed it was possible for someone to spend so much money so quickly, then be ready to do it again. I didn’t mind initially that she enjoyed it so much, but there was no limit. Nothing satisfied her.”

“Couldn’t you afford it?”

“Probably, but I didn’t see the point. I thought there was a deeper issue driving all of it, and that we should talk about it. I thought we might solve it.”

He ran out of words again. The coffee maker finished with a sputter and a hiss, and he got a pair of mugs from the cupboard. Kendra had already gotten the cream out of the fridge, as well as the jam for her toast. The toast popped and she found plates and knives, then buttered both pieces. Reid poured her coffee. “Sugar?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m sweet enough already.” She cast him a playful grin, then trade him a piece of toast for the mug of coffee. She sipped and he watched as she closed her eyes blissfully. Her bare toes were curling against the stone floor. Her enjoyment would have made him smile under any other circumstances.

She opened her eyes and fixed him with a look. “So, you fought. First fight?”

Reid nodded, appreciating that she was helping him to tell her this story. “Huge fight. I’d never seen her so angry, or so irrational. She was volatile.”

“You hit a nerve.”

“It was incidentally her birthday, and we were hosting a large party to celebrate.”

“And you thought you’d solve her deep emotional problem beforehand.” Kendra shook her head. “I get frightened when you remind me of my brother.”

Reid chose to let that go. “I assumed she’d already thought about the same thing and we’d resolve it quickly.”

“Because you two were as one.”

“Or we had been.”

Kendra shook her head and sipped her coffee. “You crazy optimist.” Then she eyed him as she sobered. “What did she say?”

“A lot.” Reid drank a gulp of coffee, not caring how hot it was.

“Specifically.”

Reid looked at Kendra and knew he had to tell her all of the truth. “That I didn’t own her. That she wasn’t a possession like the car, which I’d just bought. That living with me was no picnic, given that I’m a workaholic, and she had nothing else to do with her time but shop. That she was bored. That she was lonely. That her life was hell.”

“Ouch. None of this was her fault, of course.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you forbid her to have friends? To get a job? To have any hobbies or interests?”

“No, of course not.”

Kendra put down her coffee, looking thoughtful. “Then what?”

“She went to get dressed. The guests came for the party. She was a perfect hostess and everything seemed to go very well. Around midnight, I realized she wasn’t in sight. I assumed she’d maybe gone to the kitchen or outside with some guests. I couldn’t find her anywhere and became alarmed. We turned the house inside out looking for her. One of the guests thought they’d seen her leaving in a car, but couldn’t identify the car. That guest was a bit drunk, so wasn’t the best witness.”

“And then?” Kendra was watching him closely.

Reid shrugged. “I never saw her alive again. The police came. There was an investigation. I hired another investigator, but she was gone without a trace.”

“You figured she left you.”

“I kept expecting to hear from her. I thought she’d want a settlement or a divorce or something, but there was never any word.”

“Until now.” Kendra held his gaze steadily.

“Until now,” Reid agreed.

“Do the police think you did it?”

“Probably I’m a prime suspect. I was before. There was no one else in her life, after all.”

“Maybe,” Kendra said. “But there was no body before. She was just missing.”

Reid nodded. “They also didn’t have the forensic evidence of my car being used to move her body to the town where I now live.”

Her surprise was clear. “Your car?”

“The limo was stolen from the driveway just after Forster arrived here with it. He left it running while he came in to ask Jackson where to park it. More coffee?” Reid turned to get the pot, then faced Kendra again.

She was watching him with a stubborn look. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you have to decide, Kendra. Someone is trying to frame me for Alana’s murder. They might succeed. You need to know what’s on the horizon to make the best choice for yourself and your future.”

“No one’s offered me a future.”

Reid pivoted to face her. “I chose to trust Alana because I wanted a future with her.” He removed the USB drive from the front pocket of his jeans, the one he’d prepared while Kendra was sleeping. He held it between his finger and thumb. “Now, you need to choose the future you want.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a clue to the mystery on this drive. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know where it is, but I’m sure the answer is there.”

“You can’t find it.”

“I can’t see the forest for the trees. I’m not objective in this.”

“But...?”

“I have no future unless this mystery is solved.” Kendra immediately made the connection, just as he’d expected she would. She reached for the drive with purpose, but Reid pulled his hand back. “There’s a trap closing, Kendra,” he said gently. “Think carefully before you decide to step into it with me. We might not be able to stop it, even together. As you said, someone has done a lot of planning. It might be smarter for you to just walk away.”

Her eyes flashed with an indignation that warmed his heart. “I’m not walking away from the only future I’ve ever wanted,” she said with force. She plucked the USB drive out of his hand, so passionate and determined that Reid caught her arm. He spun her around and pulled her into his arms, then bent and kissed her thoroughly.