Dangerous (The Complete Erotic Romance Novel) (59 page)

It made no sense.

Kendra flung out her hands in frustration, then realized the truth. Someone wanted Reid to know she’d broken the terms of their contract. She had. She’d slept with a guy that one night, and that’s the image Reid apparently had, a picture of her in the act with someone else. He could tell the date because the welts he’d put on her with that first beating, the one with the riding crop, had been fresh in the pictures.

Who would care?

Who was policing Reid’s sexual contracts? Why?

And how? She scanned the room yet again, convinced there had to be some sign left of how the pictures had been taken, and that was when she saw it. On the top of the door molding in the corner of her room was a small camera, its lens shining in the shadow.

Kendra swore and got a kitchen chair.

* * *

Forster had always dreaded that this day might come.

Now that it had arrived, he wished he was anywhere else in the world.

He should never have stopped for a cigarette. At least he could have chosen his own time for his inevitable confession, instead of being compelled to make it now, under Jackson’s watchful eye. The old bastard had been waiting for this moment ever since Forster had walked in the door—and Forster wished he’d been cheated of it.

But there was nothing for it. He was cornered and being made to admit the truth.

It didn’t help that Mr. Stirling looked uncharacteristically volatile. The man was always smooth and composed, but on this morning, he looked on the verge of fury. It wasn’t just that he was drenched with sweat from his workout, and it wasn’t just that his muscles were pumped. He was sizzling, his eyes a bright blue, and the force of his emotion nearly made Forster take a step back.

The man could rip him apart with his bare hands, even though he was a bit shorter than Forster and a decade older. Forster wasn’t looking forward to give Stirling a good reason to do just that. It was only natural that his mouth was dry and his palms were damp.

Stirling’s arms were folded across his chest and his expression forbidding. “Well?” he demanded, with more than his usual impatience. It was as if he already knew, and Forster wished he did, wished it didn’t have to be said aloud.

“Now,” Jackson prodded, offering no more compassion than his employer.

On the other hand, Forster probably wouldn’t have a job in ten minutes.

He felt the weight of his employer’s gaze upon him, and swallowed to be under such scrutiny. Still, he couldn’t just come right out with it. “Mrs. Jackson says that your wife, sir, Mrs. Stirling, was pregnant when she died.”

“That’s what the coroner has determined.”

“And Jackson says that you told the police it couldn’t be your child, sir.”

Stirling spoke crisply and quickly. “Perhaps you recall, Forster, that I was in Asia for six months and Mrs. Stirling chose not to accompany me.” The other man’s voice was cold enough to give Forster frostbite. “Since she was evidently three months pregnant and I had not been with her for nearly six months, the conclusion is inescapable.”

“Yes, sir.” Words deserted Forster.

“And I would assume that you have some information pertinent to this matter,” Stirling prompted.

If he didn’t know, he’d guessed.

Forster took a deep breath. “It might have been mine, sir.”

“Yours!” His boss stepped closer and his hands tightened into fists. His eyes blazed so brightly Forster actually flinched.

The driver took a quick step back and stumbled on the rug. He heard the old bastard Jackson make a sound of disgust, and managed to hold his ground.

Fear loosened Forster’s tongue. “It was innocent at first, sir. I always drove Mrs. Stirling when she went shopping, you knew that. She didn’t like taking cabs and she didn’t like to wait. She liked knowing that I was there, close by.” He swallowed and decided to go with it. “I felt sorry for Alana.” Stirling caught his breath when Forster called her by her name, but that was what he had called her. Every day. “She’d look so sad some days when I drove her, like she might cry. Such a beautiful woman, it just seemed wrong that she was sad.”

Stirling was listening avidly, seemingly frozen in place. His eyes glittered and his jaw was tense.

Forster tried to explain what had seemed to be an inevitable progression at the time. “At first, I just parked the car and waited for her, but then she wanted me to come and get her packages from the store. She was so cute about it. She loved to fill the whole back of the limo with parcels. She liked to stack them up for me, so that I could barely see, and she’d be so happy that I couldn’t say no to her. Once the car was full, she’d laugh and talk to me. She was like a different person then. Happy. Young.” Forster shook his head, remembering the sight of her in the rear view mirror. She’d been so gorgeous, like a super model, her hair long and blonde, her eyes dancing, her mouth...well, she’d been his every fantasy come to life. “I thought she couldn’t even be real,” he admitted weakly.

“But something changed.” Stirling’s voice was harder.

Forster nodded. “She was even sadder when you left. I thought she missed you. I thought maybe she regretted staying home alone.”

“She could have changed her mind.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to admit she’d made a mistake. I don’t know. She went shopping more often, though, and she talked to me more. She insisted that I leave the dividing window open.” Forster felt suddenly very self-conscious and his voice dropped low. “Then she started to show me what she’d bought.”

The words hung in the room for a moment, seeming to resonate in the silence. Stirling had to know his wife loved to buy lingerie. And hot shoes. It seemed some days that was all she bought. Body glitter. Fuck. She’d put it on her nipples while he watched.

Forster felt hot remembering the first time he’d looked in the mirror and found her nude. And smiling at him.

Shit, he couldn’t get a hard on, not here in front of Stirling, not talking about the man’s dead wife.

But he did have one.

And he was sure Stirling had noticed.

Forster tried to distract his employer with more confession. “She’d unpack things in the back seat, spreading them all around, holding them up for me to see. It was just clothes and stuff, not really very interesting to me, but I liked to see her smile. Showing off her purchases seemed to make them better to her. I complimented her on her choices, probably in dumb ways, but it made her laugh.” He swallowed. “And then, she started to try things on while I drove.”

Stirling’s eyes narrowed.

“One day she spent hours at the lingerie store. The back of the limo was loaded with packages and she was just over the moon, she was so happy. I was watching the road as I merged on to the highway, and when I next glanced in the mirror, she was sitting there, almost naked. She had on a black lace bra and panties and these, these heels.” Forster could see Alana in his mind’s eye, so beautiful and so available. That inviting smile, and the way she slowly unfastened the bra, watching him all the while. She’d rolled her nipples between her fingers and thumb, then tipped her head back, apparently in heaven.

Then she’d eased down the panties and touched herself. He’d been able to see her glistening wet snatch...

“I thought I’d crash the car. She undressed herself, like a model in a peep show. She laughed at my reaction. I thought she just wanted to tease me, to prove to herself that she was sexy. I stopped looking and just drove.” With sweat running down the back of his neck. “When we got to the house, she was all dressed again, and I thought that was it.” Forster paused, remembering how Alana backed him into the car, how cold it had been, how hot and hungry her kiss had been. Her hand had been in his pants, her fingers caressing and stroking. He’d thought he was going to come on the spot, but she’d backed off... “When she got out of the car, she told me to pick her up for dinner. I thought she was meeting someone. I thought it wasn’t my business and she’d tell me where once she got in the car.”

He paused, well aware that his employer was barely breathing, forcing himself to edit his confession. The least of it was bad enough. “She did,” he said, meeting Stirling’s steady gaze. “She directed me to a motel and told me to get a room. When I gave her the keys, she ordered me to follow and to please her.” He made a gesture of helplessness. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Decline,” Jackson said coldly.

“I couldn’t. She was my boss. I told her we shouldn’t, but she just laughed at me. She insisted and once we were in that room and she had her hands on me, well, I couldn’t stop.” He hung his head, not wanting Stirling to see how much he had loved that interval. “I’m sorry, sir. I thought it would just be the once.” It was a lie, but maybe Stirling wouldn’t know it. Forster had hoped and prayed it would happen again, but he hadn’t expected it would.

He certainly hadn’t expected to become Alana’s obsession.

“But it wasn’t,” Stirling guessed, his voice was tight.

Forster shook his head. Not even close. “I’m not even sure how many times, sir. Every time she got in the car, I hoped she wouldn’t want more. On the other hand, I hoped she would, because she was gorgeous and so hot...” His voice faltered again as he met Stirling’s gaze.

He decided it would be a bad idea to admit he got an erection whenever she called for the car, anticipation making him hard and hot.

He also thought it would be a poor choice to confess how horny Alana was, how wet she was, how insatiable she was. He’d always figured she was so demanding because he just wasn’t measuring up to his employer’s bedroom skills, but the look on Stirling’s face made Forster bite his tongue. There was no way he could have confessed that part and made it sound good.

It probably would have been equally stupid to admit he’d been trying to convince her to run away with him when she’d disappeared.

The silence was so heavy Forster was sure his boss had read his thoughts.

“I should have insisted she come to Asia,” Stirling said finally and turned to face the window.

“I’m going to the police, sir.”

“They’ll want a DNA sample.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stirling glanced over his shoulder. “Did you kill her?”

“No, sir. I swear to God I didn’t, sir.”

His employer’s lips tightened before he spoke. “You loved her.”

Forster opened his mouth and shut it again, knowing the confession wouldn’t gain him anything. He shrugged helplessly. “She was amazing.”

“At least you knew her,” Stirling said quietly, which made no sense to Forster, then turned his back again. He grabbed a towel and headed for the shower off the side of the gym with purpose.

Forster cleared his throat. “Should I come back, sir?”

“Only to pack.” Stirling peeled off his T-shirt and flung it into a laundry bin. He’d decided something that was for sure.

“Yes, sir.”

“I will give you a severance, but probably not a glowing reference.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Forster waited, uncertain what else he wanted—forgiveness, maybe, or understanding—but Stirling continued into the shower. A second later, the sound of running water carried into the gym, along with a waft of steam.

Jackson cleared his throat pointedly, so Forster followed him out of the room. He felt jangled and uneasy, but doubted that would improve before the police finished with him.

Funny but he was less afraid of the police than he had been of Stirling.

“Consider yourself lucky,” Jackson said tightly. “Left to me, you’d have gotten nothing but a kick in your sorry butt.”

“She wanted me.”

“Because she was wrong.” The older man’s eyes were cold.

“Because she was dirt common,” Louise murmured, and Forster spun to confront her.

“She wasn’t!”

Louise lifted a silver brow. “You had no more right to her than to the silver in the dining room.”

“I loved her!”

“She was the wife of your employer.” Jackson shook his head. “Or perhaps I should say, your
former
employer.”

“The police will be waiting,” Louise added when they reached the kitchen. Forster looked between the two of them—judge and jury—and knew there was nothing he could say in his own defense to them.

“I’ll pack your things,” Louise called after him.

Forster could just bet he’d find his stuff in the garage on his return. Even given how things had worked out, he couldn’t regret a single one of those encounters with Alana. In the car, in the motel, in the garage—he must have had her a hundred times in a hundred poses and every single time had shaken his world.

She’d shaken his world.

He’d never stop loving her, and he’d never forget her.

He grabbed the keys to the limo on his way to the garage, thinking that Jackson could stick it if he disapproved of that. Forster wasn’t going to walk all the way downtown to the police station. He toyed with the idea of taking Stirling’s car, just to drive it one last time. He was already fired, after all.

He remembered the feral look of Stirling and decided to use the limo. He told himself he wanted that severance but that was only part of the truth.