Authors: Angela Claire
It made her go for an even more shrewish tone. “Is that what
this is all about,
Mr. Reynolds
? Trying to get my attention before your
daddy does?”
“I don’t know. Does he try to get your attention by shoving
his cock in you? I wouldn’t think he’d have it in him anymore, but—”
She rotated her ass deliberately and it shut him up except
for a groan as he leaned over her fully, giving her his weight, tugging her
back closer. God, he felt so good.
He widened his thighs, forcing her to widen hers, to take
more of him, and she bit her lip to keep from crying out with the pleasure of
it.
“Do you want me to feel sorry for you because you’re not the
favored son?” she taunted. It would’ve sounded appropriately scathing if she
hadn’t ended it on a groan herself as he tugged her blouse out from her
waistband and slid his warm hand against her stomach to then close over her
breast through her bra, squeezing.
“If you felt sorry for me now,” he muttered, “I wouldn’t
quite be doing my job, would I, Andrea?”
“You don’t have a job! You’re a—”
He shoved his hand inside her bra cup and rubbed her nipple.
Oh, this was not going how she had anticipated this final interlude going at
all. If she didn’t concentrate, she’d be having the best orgasm of her life.
And that was not—again,
not
—the aim here.
She settled for “I have to go back to work.”
“Think of it as being paid double.”
“I’m not a prostitute, you condescending jerk,” she spat
out, causing him to laugh, the shaky sound of which turned her on even more.
“I was pretty sure on that point by now, but too bad.
Because if you were, I’d pay you a fortune to come back to Maine with me and
I’d really get my money’s worth out of you.”
She tried to wriggle away then and he wouldn’t let her,
continuing to thrust though she was causing him enough annoyance with her
efforts that he paused and warned, “If you don’t stop that I’m going to drag
you out into the hallway and fuck you up against the wall. Would you like that?
Because Daddy might not. I’d hate to get you fired.”
His lips were on her neck but made it up to the corner of
her mouth and she tilted her face back to kiss him fully. His tongue in her
mouth while his cock was between her legs was the most extraordinary sensation,
though she supposed it was really only the most ordinary of ones. Men liked to
kiss when they fucked, didn’t they? Big deal.
After a minute of it, she pulled her mouth away. “Whether
you think I’m a whore or not,” she panted, “you’re treating me like one.”
“I thought it worked for you.”
“No, you didn’t,” she whispered in a little voice.
He stopped thrusting and there was only the sound of their
mutual heavy breathing filling the office as they were joined, his front to her
back, his hard incredible cock wedged into her drenched, tingling cunt. Trying
to take a deep breath, she was horrified that it came out sounding like a
little hiccup, the mere hint of, the mere beginning of, a sob, but still she
was horrified.
“You don’t play fair,” he said softly.
“I’m not playing.”
“What are you doing, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Miss Prentiss? Miss Prentiss?” It was out in the hallway,
muffled, but getting closer.
“Miss Prentiss Jr., I presume?”
“Shh,” she warned him and he responded with a particularly
wicked thrust that wrenched a moan out of her.
“You shh,” he countered, but he stayed still as Miss Grady
walked by the closed door, presumably back into her office.
“Finish,” she whispered and with four more powerful strokes
he did. She tried her very best to keep silent on the last one, seeing as how
it wrenched an orgasm out of her after all. Pulling out, he left her to
straighten her clothes as he did the same, dropping the spent condom casually
in the waste basket she doubted got picked up anymore since the office was
empty. She’d have to take care of that.
Before she left.
Once back in her office, she resumed her seat, ignoring Miss
Grady’s curious look.
“Goodbye,” she said definitively, eyes down on the
translation left on her desk blotter, watching him out of the corner of her
eye.
He shook his head and exited. Unfortunately he exited right
into his father’s office, slamming the door behind him.
Resolutely, she retrieved her phone and with shaking fingers
dialed.
* * * * *
Evan hadn’t been in his father’s office, the actual inner
sanctum, since he was a kid. It hadn’t changed a bit from what he could see.
The massive oak desk, the throne-like leather chair, and the fully stocked bar
were just as he remembered them. At least now he was old enough to take
advantage of the bar even if he wasn’t old enough, or something enough, to be
invited into the office in the first place.
He chose a fifty-year-old scotch as his poison—never mind it
was barely noon—and poured a hearty amount into a glass while his father and
whoever the hell the other guy was watched. “Don’t mind me,” he said casually.
“I’m just waiting for my date to get off work.”
“Jack, this is my youngest son, Evan. Evan, Jack
Tottingham.”
Tottingham rose from where he was being given an audience
and held out his hand, but Evan just nodded and drank the scotch. In one gulp.
“Pleased to meet you,” Tottingham said anyway, standing
awkwardly while Evan went to assume a seat on the couch.
“Join us, won’t you, Evan?” his father said drily. “We were
just talking about a potential investment Jack’s hawking that I’m going to pass
on.”
“You’re not giving it a chance, Damien.”
“What investment?” Evan asked. “Maybe I’d be interested.”
“Don’t tease, Evan. Jack will think you’re serious.” He
confided to Tottingham, “Evan’s the only one of my sons
not
interested
in the business.”
“I don’t need to be,” Evan said with more aggression than he
probably had ever shown his father. “I have the Evans fortune to hold me over
if the Reynoldses ever go belly up.”
Tottingham laughed. “No chance of that, I’m sure.”
“Don’t be so certain.”
His father scowled at him as Tottingham asked, “Your mother
was an Evans?”
“Was. Is. But my grandfather is gone and passed almost his
entire estate directly to me.”
Tottingham began to show interest for the first time.
“Really? Well, aren’t you a lucky young man. And dating that beauty out there
as well. Ah to be young again, eh Damien?”
“Speaking of which,” Evan asked, “who did you say Miss
Prentiss looked like?”
“Angelica Stavros. You remember her, don’t you, Damien?”
“Can’t say that I do.”
“Very tragic actually. She married the elder Stavros boy
first, Paul I think his name was, not the unpleasant one.”
“I don’t remember either,” Damien said flatly, never one to
find time for gossip.
“He was a diplomat of some kind. He never cared about the
family business either,” Tottingham pointed out to Evan.
“And that was what again?”
“Shipping, of course.”
“So what happened to her?”
“Oh very sad actually. Her husband died in some kind of
accident and she was forced to marry his brother.”
“Forced?” Evan set down his scotch glass. “They allow that
in Greece?” He wondered whether there was forced dating too. Might be something
there.
“Well, not forced exactly, I’m sure, but he wooed her and
there was some talk, well, unpleasant talk, that he simply wanted the other
half of the Stavros fortune. And then she died.”
“And he got it, I presume.”
“No, that was the odd part. Not until her daughter died too.
Killed herself.”
Evan sat up. “Really?” He dug in his pocket for his iPhone.
“When was this?”
“Angelica?” Tottingham asked as Evan fiddled with his phone.
“No. The other one. The daughter.”
“Athena? I don’t know. A decade or so ago, I guess.”
Evan stared at the image brought up on the small screen in
front of him. It was dated, black and white, but it was there. Angelica
Stavros. And the resemblance to Miss Prentiss
was
startling. The only
problem was if Miss Prentiss was Angelica Stavros, she was holding her age
extremely well. Angelica had been thirty-five when she died sixteen years ago.
That would make her over fifty, and unless Andrea had discovered the fountain
of youth that didn’t fit.
But the daughter…
He fussed with Google on his phone, looking for a picture of
the daughter, but came up empty-handed.
“How did she kill herself?” he asked.
“Just walked into the sea one day, they say. She drowned.”
“And they never found the body?”
“Oh no, they found the body all right. Otherwise, the
brother Freddie wouldn’t have been able to inherit. No, he combed the area
where she drowned and found her eventually, although of course there wasn’t
much to find by that point.”
“Why all this interest, Evan?” his father asked. “Are you
thinking our Miss Prentiss is a long-lost Greek heiress? If so, I’m afraid I’m
going to have to disappoint you, my boy. She grew up in Scarsdale, went to
Wellesley. I think Michael may have even known her father.”
“Oh.” He dropped his phone and went for another glass of
scotch. He didn’t know why he was disappointed somehow. It was weird. But there
was more to Miss Prentiss than most people saw. He was sure of that.
“Still, maybe there’s something,” Tottingham persisted.
“It’s quite a resemblance.”
His father stood up. “Nice to see you, Jack. Let’s have a
drink sometime.” He pressed the buzzer. “Please show Mr. Tottingham out, Miss
Prentiss.”
And efficiently, without even a glance at Evan, she came in
and did so.
“Sure you’re not related to the Stavros family somehow?”
Tottingham was asking as the door closed behind them.
“So to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure, Evan?” His
father sat behind his desk again.
Evan shrugged. “I told you. I came here to see Andrea.”
“Who?”
“Miss Prentiss. Shit, did you really not know her first
name?”
“My relations with my employees are none of your affair,
Evan. Although I take it you have more than a passing interest in Michael’s
assistant.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m pleased to hear it. It’s good for a man to show
an interest in a woman who’s not paid to be in bed with him. At least once in a
while.”
“How would you know?” Evan asked casually.
His father looked shocked. “You’re in a mood. Is your mother
feeling all right?”
“Yes. She wants you to stop calling her.”
Damien laughed as if Evan had just passed along his
ex-wife’s affectionate regards. “She’d be heartbroken if I did.”
Evan shook his head. What a conceited old bastard. The fact
that it was true made it even worse.
His father looked at his Rolex. “It’s only noon. Don’t tell
me you plan to hang around here until the end of the workday. Don’t you have
sailboats to build or cabinets to fix or some such other thing?”
“No. I’m all out of manual-labor projects at the moment. I’m
just hanging out—”
He was about to say “waiting to get laid again”, but
something held him back. Respect for Andrea’s frosty reputation or a knee-jerk
reaction to not giving the old man too many details on his life. He didn’t know
which.
“So how’s the island?” his father asked.
“Fine.”
“I should try to make it out there sometime.”
Evan nodded absently.
“You know, I think there’s going to be a family wedding
soon.”
“So I gathered.”
“Do you think you could manage to make this one?”
Evan had missed his sister Samantha’s wedding. “I’ll try,”
he said halfheartedly.
“Maybe we should just hold it on your little island. Then
you’d have to come.”
“Planning Michael’s wedding for him, Dad? That’s a bizarre
piece of male bonding.”
“No, of course not. I was kidding.”
“Oh.”
His father shuffled papers on his desk and muttered, “I
don’t actually have anything to do. I’m just…antsy, I guess. I know Michael’s
going to be all right, but…” He looked up and Evan thought he might have even
detected a little moisture in the usually clear blue eyes. “Well, when you
almost lose a child…
again
…it’s frightening.”
“Yeah, and your two best ones too. The favored son and the
baby girl.” He finished the scotch.
“I love all my children, Evan. When you have children
someday, you’ll understand that.”
He stood up. “I don’t plan on having any. That’s another
good thing about paying for it.”
“Life can deal you some funny curves, Evan,” his father said
as he came over to shake his hand.
When Evan would have turned away, Damien unexpectedly went
to hug him, hard, and Evan let him.
“Bye, Dad.” He pulled away and went to the door, intending
to breeze past Miss Prentiss—and come back later in the day—but she wasn’t at
her desk.
The other girl leapt to her feet. “Miss Prentiss went out on
some errands.”
Evan nodded and left as if it didn’t matter. It wasn’t until
he came back later in the day that he realized Andrea hadn’t come back to the
office.
That in fact she was gone.
And it mattered quite a bit.
Six Months Later
The first time Evan saw his lighthouse it was love. Pure,
true love, blind to surface imperfections. Such as no electricity, running
water or functioning toilet. Not to mention windows or stairways that weren’t rotten
through to the core. The lighthouse loomed, weathered and discarded, on a cliff
overlooking the pounding cold surf a half mile from the northern coast of
Maine. The island it had rested on for more than a hundred years was no bigger
than one of his father’s numerous estates. Just a rock in the ocean with a
beacon too old and outmoded to be of use in the modern age of sonar and
satellite feeds.
But Evan had never seen anything more beautiful. When he
stumbled upon it, he tied his sailboat up to the rickety dock, only half caring
whether it was swept away by the fierce tide, and camped on the island.
Pitching his sleeping bag in the room with, or rather without, the top light,
which had long since been shattered and blown away, he decided after a few days
to buy the lighthouse and the island that went with it. It was a year and a
half before it was renovated to his satisfaction, though.
“You could buy up half of Hawaii with what you’re spending
on that godforsaken hulk,” his mother chided. An exaggeration. It was more like
a few expensive beaches in Hawaii maybe. Most of the cost was in the materials
and getting them to the island. He did the work himself, self-taught in
everything from woodwork to plumbing, although no one in the past five
generations of either of his parents’ families had ever lifted a wrench or
hammer. But the manual labor was satisfying to Evan, enjoyable, and when he was
done and his lighthouse was to his personal specifications, there was nowhere
he would rather be. His mother was one of the few who had even ventured out to
see him there, which was fine with him. Maybe no man was an island. But some
men didn’t mind living on one.
He had his books. He had his music. He had his projects. He
was content.
So what the hell was wrong with him lately?
He moodily watched the storm outside his window from his
favorite stuffed chair in what he liked to think of as the “lighthouse room” of
his lighthouse. It was the top of the structure where the actual light should
have been. He had gutted the space and transformed it into a circular living
room with 360 degrees of windows, hardwood floors, liberal throw rugs and
comfortable furniture. He’d even installed a wood-burning fireplace in the
center to warm the room on nights like these.
But he was still feeling distinctly cold.
A loud snore at his feet reminded him that he’d also
resorted to the ultimate cliché of getting a dog to combat the blues he
couldn’t shake. The golden retriever puppy seemed happy with the arrangement,
although Evan hadn’t noticed that the presence of the dog—who he had yet to
name despite that the puppy had been performing his “man’s best friend” duties
for a month now—lifted his own spirits any. At least the little guy, well
actually big guy by now, didn’t bark. He leaned down to pet him absently.
The private detective Michael hired had found no trace of
Andrea Prentiss. A search of her apartment revealed she had taken nothing with
her, although she had sent an email, or someone had, saying she was resigning
and regretting that she could not give the customary two weeks’ notice.
It was as if she had fallen off the face of the earth. Even
more disturbingly, it was as if she hadn’t existed at all before she showed up
as Michael’s assistant. It turned out Michael’s previous assistant wasn’t as
careful on her way out at screening possible replacements as she might have
been. A more alert perusal would have caught that all of Andrea Prentiss’ résumé
and background had been fabricated. And Michael hadn’t known her father, as the
old man had so casually tossed out that one day, although maybe Andrea herself
had started that rumor.
But Andrea had been so perfect for the job that no one had
ever questioned her credentials. She was perfect for every day of eight years
until the one day—the day she had definitively blown him off, as a matter of
fact—she walked away and didn’t come back. Even perfect on that day, as she had
somehow managed to have the ideal replacement trained and ready to go right
away. Miss Colleen Grady’s credentials were certainly examined with a fine-tooth
comb before Michael would let her assume Miss Prentiss’ chair, though.
Damien Reynolds had been apoplectic at the emerging mystery
of Miss Prentiss’ disappearance, sure there was some industrial plot or other
at play. But eight years was very long for an evil plot to hatch and no harm
seemed to have been done. Besides, despite the abrupt departure and fake résumé,
both Michael and Vanny still trusted Andrea Prentiss. They even followed up on
that old guy Tottingham’s offhand remark that she looked like some long-gone
Greek heiress, which had turned out to be a dead end, as that woman had no
living close relatives. Michael and Vanny had finally given up, blissfully in
love with each other and planning their wedding. But whenever the subject came
up, it was clear they were still worried about her.
Evan’s feelings were a little more complicated. He didn’t
know how the hell he felt about Andrea’s disappearing act, but he sure as hell
knew he’d been in a foul mood ever since.
He thought for the hundredth time that all he needed was to
get laid. But somehow he couldn’t manage to do even that. He’d gone to New York
a few times, but when it came right down to it there were no calls to
high-class escort services or to friends-with-benefits from college. He hadn’t
touched a woman since he’d touched Andrea Prentiss.
So of course he was a little cranky.
“Come on, boy,” he instructed the dog. “Let’s call it a
night.” He trudged down the winding stairs in the base of the lighthouse, the
click of eager paws behind him, until he got down to the main floor. The
lighthouse had originally been attached to small living quarters for the
lighthouse keeper, no more than a kitchen, a bedroom and a privy. Evan had
taken his own brand of wrecking ball to the structure—a sledgehammer and a
great deal of enthusiasm—and out of the dust and some satisfying sweat had
emerged a sprawling ranch-style house with a large master bedroom, guest room,
library, two full baths and a kitchen a gourmet chef would be proud to cook in.
An experiment in different materials and natural insulations, the house had
been a good prototype of what he had in mind for utilitarian environmental architecture.
It was much bigger than he needed, of course, but compared to anyplace he’d
ever lived before it was equivalent to a broom closet and he figured he should
ease into anything smaller for now.
He stripped, looking distractedly out at the rain, so dark
it was almost a purple black. The island itself had no streetlights, as that
would be the height of non-utilitarian—it had no streets either. So when he
walked at night, he brought an industrial-sized flashlight. But even he would
be reluctant to venture out in something like this. The cliffs and paths, or
lack thereof, were treacherous enough in the dark. No need to add gallons of
driving rain to the effort.
Still he felt restless.
He wished it wasn’t raining so hard for another reason too.
He preferred to sleep with a window or even the sliding-glass door open. But
that wasn’t possible tonight unless he wanted to drown.
The dog’s ears perked up as Evan climbed into bed naked,
flicking off the bedside lamp. He was just about to drift off when fierce barking
snapped him to attention. Great time for this dog to remember he had a voice,
using it to woof steadily out at the storm.
“Hey. Settle down.” He got out of bed and crouched down by
the dog’s side, petting the silky gold hair until the barks died down to
whimpers. “That’s better. You see a squirrel or something?”
The dog gave him a baleful stare and then lay down in front
of the sliding-glass door, looking out.
“Okay now. No more of that.”
He climbed back into bed and had barely closed his eyes when
a sharp bark and a thud brought him bolt upright in bed again and a flash of
lightning from the storm illuminated the sliding-glass door and showed Evan
what the dog was barking at.
A ghost.
He scrambled out of bed toward the figure standing in the
pouring rain, white-faced and ethereal, with two palms pressed to the glass, as
if she could drift through it if she pushed a little harder. With the dog
yapping and the sudden black in the absence of the lightning strike, Evan felt
unusually clumsy, tripping over a stool he knew was there and banging his knee
against the corner of the dresser on the way to the door. By the time he got
there and fumbled it open with a curse, the figure had vanished. Not quite into
thin air, since the air was thick with the driving rain, but she was gone.
Though Evan had only seen the face for a few seconds, he knew it was a woman.
More specifically, he knew
what
woman. Andrea Prentiss.
Shit. He must be going nuts.
Evan clutched the collar of the dog panting at his side to
keep him from lunging out into the rain. All he needed to make this night worse
would be a muddy wet dog. At the dog’s insistent whimper, Evan looked down at
him, about to close the door again until he realized it wasn’t the dog
whimpering.
He turned sharply toward the sound and saw her.
Crumpled up against the side of the house, she was clutching
herself against the force of the rain, her long dark hair wild around her, wet
and thick.
Evan shot out into the darkness and he didn’t know what he
felt first, or strongest—whether it was the rain so cold and hard that it might
have morphed into hail, or whether it was the painful panic he felt when he
recognized that something was wrong, very wrong.
“Jesus, Andrea. What the fuck?”
Something
was
wrong, and wrong way worse than the
sheer impossibility of the phantom woman of his dreams, or his fantasies
anyway, showing up out of nowhere at his door in the middle of the
night—especially when his door was on an island in the middle of the ocean. Wrong
in the way of wrong with her.
She
was whimpering, not the dog, and when
he crouched down to her level she didn’t even look up, her arms tightly clasped
around her knees.
“Andrea,” he shouted again over the sound of the rain and,
not waiting for an answer, picked her up, cradling her, as he covered the few
steps back into the house. She felt impossibly light and fragile and her arms
hung from her body. He pulled her tighter to him for a moment before he lay her
down on his bed and went back to close the sliding-glass door, blocking out the
cacophonous fury of the storm at least a little bit. The dog had apparently
followed him out into the rain, although Evan had not noticed, and once back
into the warm dry house, he shook himself furiously to dry off as best he
could, pelting Evan with it as he did so.
But Evan couldn’t care less. He was focused only on the body
on the bed. Shit, not a
body.
She wasn’t dead, thank God, but she was
breathing heavily, her head slack, her eyes still closed. Not bothering to dry
off as the dog had or with a towel, he sat next to her, leaning down.
“Andrea,” he whispered and she stirred, but again with that
whimper, this time her arms coming up to clutch her stomach.
She was in jeans and a light jacket, thoroughly drenched,
and the good sturdy boots she wore looked as if they had climbed too many
cliffs. He reached down and slipped them off, along with two pair of very wet
socks, baring her icy feet beneath.
“Andrea,” he tried again. His fingers went to the snaps on
her jacket, brushing her arms and her whimper turned to a groan. He stilled.
“What is it? Are you ill?”
She didn’t answer, but in the light he suddenly thought to
switch on, she didn’t need to. She was desperately ill, or injured. One look at
the pallor of her white face, lined with what he could see now was pain, told
him as clearly as her voice could have. She was delirious with it.
He needed to get her out of these wet clothes and warm and
dry. He no more than had the clinical thought than his spirit leaped at the
mere thought of undressing Andrea Prentiss, whatever the reason. God, he was a
sick fuck. He ignored both the spark of excitement and the immediate
self-loathing that followed in favor of getting down to it before the poor girl
froze to death.
But when he went to take her jacket off in earnest, she
roused herself to try to push him away, going back to shielding her chest when
he automatically retreated.
“We need to get you dry, Andrea,” he soothed, accompanying
his words with quick action so the jacket was off her in seconds. Unfortunately,
it was at the cost of a sharp howl of anguish from her. From the way she was
trying to protect her chest, he guessed cracked ribs perhaps. The sea was
brutal in a storm like this and God knew how she had gotten here anyway.
Perhaps she had been dashed against the rocky cliffs that lined a good portion
of the circumference of this island.
He slipped his hand underneath the plaid shirt she wore,
trying to determine the source of her pain, and she cried out as his fingers
gently probed the delicate skin below her left breast and encountered wetness
too thick to be remnants of the rain. Oh Christ, it wasn’t cracked ribs. It was
worse. He pulled the shirt up farther to see blood. A lot of it. She, or
somebody, had tried to stanch the flow with a rag of some kind and whatever
color the cloth had once been, it was now completely deep red. He peeled the
rag back slowly and saw to his shock that it wasn’t a jagged cut caused by
battering against a rocky cliff. It was a knife wound.
“God, Andrea, where have you been?” he muttered.
He knew what he needed to do. Rushing into the adjoining
bathroom, he got a clean towel and held a portion of it under hot water and
then got his first-aid kit from the cupboard. At the last minute, he went out
to the bar and grabbed a bottle of whiskey.