Authors: Kylie Knight
He'd spouted out instructions so quickly that Elaina found herself struggling to keep up. How was she supposed to remember all of this? And how was she supposed to trust a man who bore the Colten name?
"What are we—"
"I've got too much going on to cater to your questions. Either be there or don't be there, but don't waste my time. I will see you just before midnight on Friday. Don't be late."
The call ended. Elaina took the phone from her ear and gazed down at it in wonder. This was the man who was supposed to help her loosen up and have fun? He certainly didn't seem like much of a people pleaser. How was a guy so distant and curt supposed to teach her how to relate to her staff? Well, even were he a complete failure, at the very least she would have a chance to glean insight into his company functions through their encounter. Three hundred dollars seemed a reasonable price to pay for the potential outcome.
Addled, Elaina put her phone down and stood. The mask she wore had dried, and it was time to shower. Here at home was the one place she let her hair down. Without the sharp angles and hard lines of the business suits she wore and the professional way she wore her hair, Elaina was almost ethereal. Her blonde hair was long and well cared for, always beautiful and full of life, and her eyes were a crystalline blue speckled with delicate muted green. Full lips and a petite, pretty nose completed her pale face. Before he had died her father had always called her his angel, and what Elaina wouldn't give for that to be true. He was missed, and his absence stung at her every day.
But time marched on before he had died and after it. The night faded away into morning, and then the day faded into the next, and before Elaina knew it, Friday had arrived. All week she had been anticipating her appointment with Caleb with dread. Although she intended to use the encounter for her own good, the thought of having to waste time doing something
fun
had her anxious. Time spent awake was time meant to be productive, and Elaina couldn't remember the last time she'd stayed up past midnight. Good sleep was as valuable to being productive as self-discipline was, and she was always in bed by eleven at the latest.
Yet here she was. Ten minutes to midnight, garbed entirely in black and heading on foot towards Chez Pierre by the pier. The black yoga pants she wore, so much more comfortable than the slacks she wore day to day at work, had no pockets, and so she'd stuffed her driver's license into the right pocket of her black hoodie. In the left pocket was the three hundred dollar fee Caleb had ordered her to bring with her. Black sneakers with arch support saw her across the cobblestone. The area by this section of the pier was historic, and usually it was a hotspot for tourism. Usually such an area would be busy on a Friday night, but Elaina saw hide nor hair of anyone. Even the restaurants were closed down early, their lights extinguished and their storefronts dimmed. The sight was eerie, like the whole world had been extracted by divine force to leave her to navigate the dark on her own.
Where was Caleb? He'd told her to show up on time, yet he was nowhere to be seen.
As Elaina approached Chez Pierre, she saw him. A dark figure against the shadows, reclining against the front of the building. Surely he had to know how dark it was, and yet he made no effort to make himself visible. When the Coltens had arrived at the funeral, she'd avoided them. This was the first time they'd be meeting face to face, and yet Elaina knew that it had to be him leaning there.
"Caleb!"
The masculine figure in the distance stirred as she called to him, propping himself up from the face of the restaurant. Like she did, he wore black, and so it was difficult to make him out through the shadows.
"Why are all the lights out?" Elaina inquired. "And where are all the people? Please tell me what's going on."
The soles of her sneakers met the uneven cobblestone without protest; Elaina was so used to the click of heels against tile that it seemed odd, like she had something to hide. Well, besides being seen out in public with a Colten. If word got out to her execs that she was fraternizing with the enemy, she could only imagine the tension and hard feelings the knowledge would bring. At that point Richards would have reason to jump ship. But out here at midnight she saw little chance of a meet-up.
It all happened at once.
"Lainey?" Caleb's voice called from behind her. Elaina, in mid step towards the figure in the shadows, widened her eyes. The flash of light, like fire ripping through the night, and the accompanying rip of a bullet unloading from the chamber of a gun came shortly after, and then she was on the ground. No bullet had tore through her — someone had pushed her down to the ground. Amber and musk invaded her nostrils and registered hard, all sensations operating on high as adrenaline coursed through her veins. The man who'd saved her life was tall and his body was heavy with muscle, not fat. The connections fired in her brain, and without looking she pieced together who it was.
She'd been shot at, and Caleb Colten had saved her life.
But as quickly as she'd been knocked down, he'd scrambled off of her and had grabbed her wrist. A strong hand pulled her to her feet and tugged her urgently away.
"We've got to run," he urged, panicked. As Caleb pulled her down the street, her legs like cooked spaghetti, another shot went off and Elaina felt the rush of a bullet pass just short of her shoulder. Had she been more alert she would have screamed, but between the shock of attack and the crushing fall, everything felt surreal. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe it was still Thursday night and her Friday had been a terrible dream that she'd wake up from any second now. But as the night air bit against her cheeks and as Caleb's hand clamped down against her wrist, Elaina knew it couldn't be true. The situation she found herself in was as real as any other, and her life was in danger.
"What's happening?" Elaina gasped. Three times a week at the gym she did cardio, but never had her heart pumped like this before. Caleb pulled her along with everything he had, and her feet flew beneath her like she ran across a moving walkway at an airport.
"Don't talk — just run," Caleb panted. The pier blurred around them, shop fronts to one side, the river to the other. Typically such a location would have been romantic, but tonight Elaina had discovered its dark underbelly. The only thing that seemed real in that moment was Caleb. Dark hair, a handsome body, black clothes fitted to his dimensions, she took in the details of the man who'd saved her. Like her, he'd elected to wear a black hoodie, but the fabric of his athletic pants, while it was loose enough around the legs to look comfortable, clung to his ass in a very flattering way.
Warmth spread through Elaina's cheeks, and it wasn't heat from running.
They rounded a corner and still Caleb pulled her, directing her away from the rich waterfront to the seedier, isolated cargo warehouses along the less scenic part of the riverbed. Here cold, industrial factories littered cement roads, a far cry from the beautiful cobblestone they'd recently abandoned. Overflowing dumpsters and the stench of salt water and chemicals clung to the air here, somehow masked from the main tourists' lookouts.
"We need to hide," Caleb told her, breathless. The warehouses were sealed off from the public by chain link fence, but Caleb did not stop. "Can you climb?"
"Caleb, I—"
A gunshot rang out from behind them and the bullet hit the fence. The link shook as the terrible noise of metal against metal ripped through the night. This time Elaina did shriek.
"Yes!" There was no room to argue or to tell him she'd never managed to climb up the rope in gym class. Before she had time to jump at the fence to start to clamor over it, Caleb and knelt and braced his large hands to give her a boost upward. Elaina didn't hesitate to accept his help, and with Caleb's help she was over the fence without much issue. He followed, climbing the link like he'd done it professionally for the last decade. When the soles of his sneakers struck the ground he grabbed her by the hand and they made a dash towards the warehouse.
The large garage-type doors were closed, and without a prompt from the mechanism on the inside they would not open. Caleb didn't waste time trying to fiddle with them. Instead, he pulled Elaina around to the side door. It was locked by an electronic keypad, and Caleb punched in a string of numbers that saw the red light above the device turn green. The lock clicked and the door opened. He pushed her inside.
Shelves rose to the ceiling, all of them stacked with objects. Some were cardboard boxes, but others were heavy black barrels. Several forklifts were parked to one side, awaiting use. Elaina stumbled forward, able to see as far as the dim safety lights allowed her, before she let out a choking sob.
Someone had tried to shoot her. Someone had tried to kill her. And now he was following them and they were trapped in some dingy warehouse without any guarantee that they'd get out of this mess alive.
The door slammed closed as Caleb entered, and the young billionaire sank his back against it as he breathed out a heavy sigh of relief.
An attempt on her life while on business with a Colten. Elaina pulled herself together and stopped crying. No one knew she had plans to come out this late apart from Caleb himself. She hadn't written about it on social media or recorded it in any of her electronic devices, so no one had hacked her accounts to get a lead. All of this danger had to be his own bidding, and Elaina's temper flared.
"This is all your doing, isn't it?!" she cried, turning towards him to point an accusatory finger. "The Coltens want to see the Harraway family business break so badly that you'd murder me? I should have known that all of you are made of the same stuff. I should never have trusted you!"
Caleb had not yet moved from the door, but as she turned to face him she saw his worried expression sour and harden. The handsome, angular features of his face grew sharp and incensed. Elaina regretted her wild accusations immediately. Caleb didn't look like a Colten, much like how she looked nothing like her father or brother. Henry Colten had a blotchy red face and pudgy features, a nose that was too big and eyes that seemed too small. Caleb was. Well. Elaina found that his ass wasn't his only attractive feature. Cutting blue eyes peered at her from behind narrowed lids, and rugged lips were set thin with distaste over her outburst. Careless stubble lined his jaw, and she found it breathtaking for how effortless it was. Caleb's brown hair was kept carefully cut and styled, and there was no doubt he was in touch with recent trends.
"Right," he near snarled back, "because I'd risk my own neck to rescue you from the hitman I hired. That makes perfect sense."
One hand dug into the deep pocket of his pants and withdrew a carton of cigarettes. Caleb withdrew a match from within, struck it across the box, and then lit up one of the cigarettes. Smoke curled upward and disappeared into the air. Elaina typically would have withdrawn with disgust, but pinned as she was by his reaction, she didn't dare move. She'd been too rash and hasty in accusing him, and now she felt guilty.
"Listen, I'm sorry. It's just—"
"Just that you're a bitch?" Smoke rose from the corners of his mouth, the tendrils of it dancing as they rose and dissipated. "Your brother was right. You act high and mighty, but you don't have the tact or grace to redeem yourself from it. You're not superior; you were born into a position of power. That doesn't make you any different from anyone else, but it does make everyone else afraid to call you on your bullshit."
No one had ever talked to her like that, and Elaina was taken aback. For as stunning of a man as he was, Caleb had a sharp tongue on him and he wasn't afraid to use it. The words he spoke were those of a man born into money, but of a punk who was angry at the world. A bad boy whose opinion of the world had been shaded by hardship. Elaina didn't understand where he was coming from, and she couldn't shake the thought of him and his biting words from her head.
"If I were born with a penis, the very same attitude would be celebrated as a testament to my commitment to business. I am serious all the time because I want success all the time. You can call me a bitch if you want to, you can think I'm haughty if it helps you to sleep at night, but know that I am not going to let anyone boss me around just because I wasn't born the right sex for the business world."
Caleb's expression did not change. Usually when she defended herself, her opponent folded. No one expected a woman to fight back, especially not someone so pretty and blonde. When they found out she had a brain it was like the world came crashing down around them, and they picked fights just to pick fights. It was a reality Elaina was all too familiar with.
"Yeah?" Caleb asked. "Well, where the fuck are we right now?" Frost solidified his words and their pierced through her skin like sharpened icicles.
"In a warehouse," Elaina replied.
"And what are we doing?" Caleb asked.
"We're trying to find protection from a deranged gunman," Elaina snapped. "I don't see why—"
"Right. So unless you're going to strike up a financial merger or arrange to trade stocks with this loon, then why are you still in office mode?" Caleb flicked the ash off of the end of his light and dragged on it once more. "Right now you need to be real with me. Let down whatever walls are protecting you because they are only holding you back. You know what you'll be if he gets his bullets in you? Meat. Bones and meat nothing more than that. So while you still have a chance to be alive, enjoy your humanity. Be a human, not a machine. Success is fine, but you'll never enjoy success unless you allow yourself to be alive."