Desire (#4)

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About Carrie

DESIRE 4

Carrie Cox

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Copyright © 2012 Carrie Cox

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author.

I STARED OPEN-MOUTHED at my sister.

The last time I’d seen her she’d been distraught, sobbing and pleading with me to help her. She had gotten into some serious money problems and owed money to an illegal money lender.

I’d been terrified when Tina told me the heavies had threatened to break her fingers unless she came up with a payment by noon the next day.

Of course, being a fool, I promised to help her and managed to scrape one thousand dollars together. I’d even gone with her to the trailer park on the outskirts of Miami to make the payment.

She was so grateful. She promised to never touch drugs again. She was full of talk, telling me how she would get a job and sleep on my couch until she got sorted.

I wanted so much to believe her. The next morning I woke up and found her gone. She hadn’t even left a note. A week later I got the first phone call. The loan shark told me in no uncertain terms if he couldn’t get the money from my sister, he intended to get it from me.

I knew it was pointless arguing. He didn’t want to hear that she screwed me over. He didn’t care. He only wanted his money.

I struggled on with the first couple of payments. But every week, the three-hundred pound gorilla turned up demanding more interest. I couldn’t see a way out.

So I left everything behind: my job, my apartment, and hid away for months. I worked in bars and cafes for cash in hand until my friend Suzanne emailed me about the job restoring Benjamin’s mural.

I felt Benjamin squeeze my hand.

This had to look strange to him, but then I supposed he knew all about dysfunctional families.

I wished I could coolly dismiss her, but I was too mad. Any words that would leave my mouth right now would be curses.

I let go of Benjamin’s hand, turned on my heel and ran out of the sitting room. I ran through the Great Hall, almost knocking over Carter, the butler. I didn’t stop to apologise but sprinted down the stone steps out into the garden.

I made my way down to the end of the lawn, towards the cliffs.

How could she just turn up like that? And she didn’t even look sorry! I sat down on the grass, near the cliff’s edge, clenched my fists and held them to my eyes. Dammit. I wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t worth it.

I couldn’t stop the memories flooding my mind. Images of us playing on the beach, in matching bathing suits, when we were kids.

I sensed Benjamin’s presence, before I heard him.

He sat down on the grass beside me, and despite the tears misting my eyes, I felt an overwhelming desire to laugh.

Benjamin Easton wearing an extortionately expensive suit was sitting on the damp grass beside me. If his tailor could see him now, he’d have a fit.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m sorry I came off a little dramatic in there.”

Benjamin fixed his dark eyes on me.

I shifted my gaze back to the sea. Sometimes the way he looked at me made me feel uncomfortable. It was almost as if he could look inside me and see all my secrets.

“I take it you don’t have an amicable relationship with your sister?”

I snorted. “You could say that,” I shrugged, then said, “I don’t understand how she found me.”

“I think I might know the answer to that,” Benjamin said.

I turned back to face him. “What do you mean?”

“When I paid your debt to that loan shark, I made sure he knew who I was. I wanted him to know I could ruin him if he ever so much as looked at you again.”

“I told you not to!” Anger suffused me. He’d gone behind my back.

He narrowed his eyes. “Would you rather live in fear?”

“Yes! No … I mean, I wanted to handle it myself.”

“You weren’t doing such a great job of that,” Benjamin said.

My jaw dropped. “I would have found away. I was saving. I planned to save the full amount the take it down to Miami. He may be a low-life money lender, but he’s a business man. He would have taken the money.”

Benjamin waved my words away. “The matter’s over. I can afford it. So I paid.”

I wanted to shake him. Didn’t he see how annoying that was? I wasn’t some sort of pawn he could push around.

“I’ll pay you back,” I said sulkily. “I have eight thousand dollars save so far. I’ll give you a check in the morning.”

“Like hell you will,” Benjamin said, his eyes blazing.

“It’s my debt, and I’ll pay it.” I said scowling at him.

“It wasn’t though, was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The debt was your sister’s, not yours.”

I didn’t know how he knew that. Come to think of it, I didn’t know how he figured out who I owed money to.

He smiled at me, his eyes softening, and as if guessing my thoughts, he said, “Private investigator. It’s difficult to keep secrets these days.”

He reached up a hand to stroke my cheek.

I pulled away. “You hired a private investigator to dig around in my past?”

“Be reasonable, Kate. A man in my position has to be careful who he gets involved with.”

I shifted away from him on the grass. I couldn’t believe this. How could he? I focused of the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, trying to think straight. Involved with. He wasn’t involved with me. There was no relationship only sex.

“Tell me,” he said, “how did your sister get into debt?”

I looked up at him through my lowered lashes. He probably knew all this anyway from his devious poking into my past. There was no reason to hide it now.

“My sister started taking drugs when she was sixteen,” I said. “My mother never gave up on her. She lost her house because of Tina’s addiction. She sold almost everything she had for drug treatment programs. When she died, Tina didn’t even show up at her funeral.”

“When did your mother die?” he asked softly.

“Six years ago. She battled cancer, but for a long time, she didn’t worry about herself. She was always too busy worrying about Tina.”

He let out a long breath. “That’s hard. My mother died of cancer too.”

I blinked up at him. He’d never mentioned his mother before.

“When did she die?”

“Ten years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He took hold of my hand and gazed down at it, tracing a pattern on my palm with his fingers. “What happened to your father?”

I shrugged. “No idea. He left when Tina was only a baby.”

Benjamin’s jaw tensed, then he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the tips of my fingers.

Tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t lose it now. I couldn’t get sad. I needed to stay angry. “I can’t let Tina into my life. She’ll just take and take until she’s run me dry.”

His dark eyes were warm with pity as he looked down at me. Did he think I was being too harsh?

“That’s why she’s here now,” I said.

“Tina?”

I nodded. “My sister has a nose for money.”

A solitary tear trickled down my cheek. Dammit. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.

Benjamin reached over and wiped away the tear with the pad of his thumb.

I swallowed. No, don’t be nice to me, or I’ll lose it completely.

I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand. “I’m sorry. I’ll make sure that this doesn’t affect you. I’ll leave in the morning, if that’s okay?”

“Leave?” His eyes widened, and his fingers closed around my forearm.

I turned to face him and tried to smile.

“The past few weeks have been great,” I said. “But I always knew it was a short-term thing. It’s better if I go now. If I stay longer, Tina will realise how rich you are and stick to you like a leech. If I leave now, she’ll soon realise there’s nothing to stay around for.” I shrugged. “If there’s no money, she’ll soon lose interest.”

Benjamin gripped my arm tighter. “Don’t go,” he said.

A complex mixture of emotions played over his face.

I stared up into his dark eyes. Did he really want me to stay? My heart leapt, but in the next instant I felt cold disappointment wash over me. He understood what it was like to have a screwed-up family. He probably just felt sorry for me.

But I couldn’t resist asking. “Do you … want me to stay?” I stammered.

He stroked my cheek with one finger.

“Yes,” he said. “I don’t think I can be everything you want, Kate, but I want you to stay with me. I’ll give you everything I can, but I don’t want to settle down and have a family. Ever.” His face tensed. “My family has torn itself apart over the Easton legacy. The money has set brother against brother for generations. I don’t want children. I never will. Are you willing to give that up for me?”

Never have kids? I hadn’t thought about it in definite terms, but I’d always pictured myself at some point in the future having them. Could I give that up for Benjamin? I didn’t know. My family life hadn’t been a walk in the park either, but I didn’t want to give up on the idea of family.

I leaned into his touch, pressing my cheek against his hand. “I don’t want to go,” I said in a quiet voice.

“Then don’t,” he said and leaned towards me until his lips grazed mine.

A frisson of desire ran through me in response to his fleeting touch. Jeez, how did he do that?

“Stay, Kate,” he said. “I’ll try to be what you need.”

I didn’t know what I needed, but I knew right now I wanted to stay with him.

Could we make it work? Tina’s arrival had changed everything.

She’d find a way to spill her poison and ruin this for me. Maybe hurting Benjamin in the process. I couldn’t let that happen.

“My sister…” I began. “…She’s manipulative and…” It hurt me to say those words, even now after everything she’d done. “She’ll find a way to wreck this for us.”

Benjamin’s mouth set in a firm line as his dark eyes stared down into mine. I shifted beneath his intense gaze.

“I didn’t get to where I am today by allowing myself to be manipulated, Kate,” he said. “I can handle your sister.”

I pulled a face and looked away. He didn’t know how persuasive my sister could be. She should have been an actress.

He tucked a finger under my chin and lifted it up, so I was forced to look at him.

“Just because you can twist me around your little finger, doesn’t mean she will,” he said. “I’m not like this with anyone else.”

My heart leapt. I could twist him round my little finger? Really? I couldn’t stop myself grinning.

He smiled back and kissed me on the cheek.

“Now we’ve got that settled,” he said and took my hand, “let’s go and deal with your sister.”

Benjamin convinced me to let Tina stay for dinner. That way I would have a chance to calm down before I spoke to her and wouldn’t say something I’d regret. I made him promise to tell me everything Tina said to him, especially if it involved money.

BENJAMIN WENT BACK TO the sitting room to invite Tina to stay for dinner. I decided to take a quick look around the house. I’d only worked in the Great Hall and hadn’t seen much of the house before we left for England.

I’d seen Benjamin’s home office, where he worked occasionally if he didn’t have to go to Providence or Easton’s head office in Boston. I flushed as I remembered what happened in his office, over his desk to be precise. Hmm … maybe I might get a repeat performance of that at some point.

The Great Hall was in effect a huge lobby, with multiple corridors branching off in all directions. On the far right there was the huge, winding staircase, which led up to the bedrooms and Benjamin’s private office and residence.

I remembered Mrs. Wicker telling me there were seventeen bedrooms. Seventeen. How could anyone need a house this big?

I picked one of the corridors leading off the hall and walked along to investigate. The first room I picked was a library. Wow. Row upon row of leather-bound books filled the elegantly-carved, walnut bookshelves, and the shelves covered the entire wall, right up to the ceiling. Benjamin even had one of those ladders on wheels, to reach the books on the highest shelves.

I wanted to investigate further, but thought Benjamin might wonder where I’d disappeared to, so I wandered back along the corridor towards the lobby.

Just before I got there, another open door caught my eye. I peered inside and blinked in fascination at the portraits lining the walls. There were so many. I stepped inside to get a closer look.