Authors: Kelly Favor
And then, just seconds later, as Sheri’s
shadow faded from view on the hallway wall, Kennedy realized she still had no
idea who this woman even was or what her relationship was to Easton.
Easton
won’t tell me.
He doesn’t want me
to know anything about his personal life.
She could assume that Sheri was an ex, or
maybe a current girlfriend, some plaything that wanted more from him.
Whoever she was, though, she was
important enough to get him off the call with Red, and from the little Kennedy
had overheard, she still was getting
something
from him.
But
what?
Before Kennedy even realized what she was
doing, her legs were carrying her out of the suite, following Sheri.
The woman was already at the elevators;
Kennedy heard them ding and then glimpsed Sheri stepping in just as Kennedy
rounded the corner of the hallway.
Kennedy got on the next available
elevator, hoping it wasn’t too late.
What
are you doing?
What do you plan to
accomplish following this crazy woman?
She couldn’t quite say, Kennedy only knew
that she felt a strong desire to see where Sheri was going next.
She was hoping to find out
something—something more than what she currently knew, because this was
going to tear her apart otherwise.
Once she got to the ground floor, Kennedy
stepped out of the elevator, scanning the lobby.
That’s when her gaze landed on Sheri, who
was curbside, handing a valet some bill as a tip.
Sheri was about to get into the driver’s
seat of a Mercedes, but before doing so, she looked through her purse and then
pulled out what looked like an envelope of some sort.
Kennedy started running for the revolving
door.
She needed to see what Sheri
was looking at—it might be a clue as to whom she was.
What
if she catches you watching her?
It’s
a free country
.
And then she was pushing through the
revolving door, trying to see what Sheri was looking at.
But just as she got outside, Sheri was
putting the piece of paper away.
As
she caught just a glimpse of it, Kennedy’s first hunch was that Sheri had been
holding a check…but it might have been anything, really.
Sheri got inside her car and slammed the
door, then pulled away from the curb.
“Shit,” Kennedy said, breathing heavily,
her chest heaving.
She still didn’t have a damn clue who
this woman was.
It’s
none of your business, Kennedy.
Stop being a crazy stalker.
But as she watched the Mercedes speed off
into traffic, Kennedy realized that she’d seen the license plate clearly.
New Jersey plates, and what was more,
Kennedy remembered every number and letter on it.
***
When she got back to the office suite,
Easton was waiting for her.
His
expression was dark, tense, impatient.
“Where the hell did you go?” he asked.
She swallowed.
“I had to go to the bathroom.”
“We have one right here,” he said,
staring at her intently.
She looked away.
“My stomach…it was upset.
I didn’t want to get sick in the
office,” she lied, feeling genuinely queasy.
“Look at me, Kennedy.”
She made eye contact, and her entire body
flooded with want, confusion, anxiety and desire all at once.
“Who was that woman and what did she
want from you?” she demanded, partly to avoid his questioning stare, hoping to
put him on the defensive for a change.
“None of your business.”
She felt herself becoming defiant.
“It is if you’re sleeping with her.”
Easton’s expression shifted to something
more enigmatic—something between anger and humor, but she didn’t know
which.
“Why don’t you stick to your
job,” he said, “which you don’t seem to be focusing on so well lately.”
“I’m very focused on my job.”
“Then how come you still haven’t added my
meeting with Red tomorrow to the calendar?
I ended up doing it myself.”
“I told you, my stomach was upset.”
“Because you’re thinking about things
that aren’t your concern.”
“Don’t tell me why my stomach’s uneasy,
you don’t know what’s inside my head or my body.”
“Oh, yes I do,” he replied, stepping
towards her.
His eyes focused on
her with total confidence.
“I do
know what’s inside of you, Kennedy.
I understand you more than you could ever know.”
She hesitated, the desire for him coming
to the forefront.
“Please, just…”
“Just what?” he asked.
“Just what?”
“Just stop torturing me.
I can’t take it.”
“You can and you will.
Go sit down.
I’ve sent you an email with the work
you’re to accomplish today.”
He
turned and walked away from her.
“And stop complaining.”
Kennedy wanted to scream at him, wanted
to force him to come back and deal with her, even if he had to shake her.
Anything she needed to do to get him to
touch her physically would be worth it.
That’s when she realized her pussy was
wet, and shame set in even deeper.
She was wet, throbbing for him and he’d done and said nothing indicating
that he even wanted her.
In fact, he was pushing her away.
She went and sat down, feeling like
crying, feeling like this was the worst decision she’d ever made.
She’d left a great career in
mathematics, walked away from MIT for what?
To become the plaything of a man she
hardly knew, a man who barely even considered her human?
The sister she’d wanted to connect with
had no interest in building a relationship, the city she’d chosen was harsh and
impersonal, and she was turning her once-promising career path into nothing but
a dead end job with a boss who demeaned her and used her sexually when it
served his interests.
Kennedy hated that her mind sometimes
focused so much on the darkness, to the exclusion of the good.
She tried to remind herself that just
last night, Easton had taken her to the heights of ecstasy, showing her
pleasure she’d never before experienced or suspected might exist.
But that high had turned into a low that
felt almost too depressing to bear.
Easton closed the door to his office and
left her alone with her thoughts.
She opened the email he’d sent, a formal bullet point list that outlined
a series of simple and dull tasks that were hardly interesting enough to keep
her attention.
Although she had half a mind to ignore
the email entirely, instead Kennedy decided on a different tactic.
Focusing in like she’d done in her days
learning advanced mathematics at MIT, Kennedy began working on the list Easton
had sent her over email.
She worked at a rapid pace, fueled by
anger and the urge to prove Easton wrong and also to make a point to herself
about her own capabilities.
Within
a little over an hour, Kennedy had finished the tasks that Easton had expected
her to take all day finishing.
She didn’t send him any of her completed
work, however.
No, she had other plans—and Easton
didn’t need to know what those plans were.
Especially because they involved research into a subject that Kennedy
knew was supposed to be off-limits.
Kennedy went online and paid a small fee
to a site that would do a license plate lookup.
Her hands were shaking a little as she
typed in the information from memory, and then just seconds later, the service
had spit back the information, telling Kennedy that the Mercedes was registered
to a person named Sheri Rather.
Sheri
Rather?
For a heart-stopping minute, Kennedy was
sure that Sheri was Easton’s wife, or perhaps newly ex-wife that he’d somehow
kept secret.
But when she searched on Sheri’s name,
Kennedy found that she was actually Easton’s sister-in-law.
Sheri was in fact married to Easton’s
older brother, Dean.
Dean Rather lived in New Jersey with
Sheri, and they had two children, eight and twelve years old.
That was a relief.
Kennedy sat back and stared at her
computer screen, wondering if she should perhaps take the hint that she’d truly
overstepped her bounds and stop digging.
After all, her fear that Sheri was Easton’s girlfriend had proven
totally unfounded, and now there was little reason to continue the hunt for
answers.
Except that for some strange reason,
Kennedy found that she didn’t want to stop.
Something inside her insisted that there
was a mystery here worth solving.
She argued internally, telling herself how angry Easton would be with
her if he found out she was snooping into his family’s private matters.
But deep down, Kennedy knew that she
simply couldn’t leave it alone.
She’d never been one to stop and give up on a mystery.
Part of what had made her such a great
mathematician was that she was like a dog with a bone when they gave her a
complex problem to solve.
She’d
never had much of an inclination to leave well enough alone, and it appeared
that she wasn’t going to change any time soon.
She knew that whatever was going on with
Sheri, it likely had something to do with Easton’s brother Dean, and it also
seemed that Easton was growing tired of dealing with it.
Kennedy based that assumption on a few
of the comments Easton had made toward the end of his conversation with Sheri,
at least the parts Kennedy had overheard.
Kennedy had the overwhelming feeling that
there was more to this story than met the eye, and that Easton might need her
help before it was all said and done.
Of
course, you’d love to believe that, because it gives you every right to pry
into his life, guilt free.
Maybe
so, but what if I do nothing and then something terrible happens because I
didn’t get involved?
It’s
none of your business, Kennedy.
Haven’t you heard the phrase, let sleeping dogs lie?
She’d heard the phrase—the problem
was, she’d never much lived by it.
***
By the end of the day, Kennedy knew most
of the important information about Dean Rather and Sheri Rather.
She knew that they were living in a
small house in New Jersey, and she even knew their home address.
She also knew that Dean owned and ran a
local sports bar called Half-Time Johnny’s.
She’d conducted a background search and
learned that Dean had been arrested about fourteen years ago for writing bad
checks.
He hadn’t done any time
then, but he’d been arrested again, a few years later, for his part in an
illegal card game that had been run out of a New York nightclub.
After that arrest, he’d apparently
refused to testify against his partners in the illegal card game, and so he’d
ended up being sentenced to five years in prison.
He’d done a total of nine months in jail
before being released.
Since that last arrest, there was no more
record of any criminal activities, but that didn’t alleviate Kennedy’s sense
that something was amiss with Dean Rather.
His credit report was a mess.
He had a low score, and there were a
range of creditors that he owed money to currently—everything from a
small business loan for $25,000 to outstanding debts to Nordstrom’s for $9,000
and unpaid credit cards that added up to another $47,000.
Between the big and small debts, Kennedy
calculated that Dean Rather owed various creditors nearly one hundred thousand
dollars.
He was in big trouble, and she also
sensed that this was just the tip of the iceberg.
Just as she closed out of the credit
report on Dean, Easton came out of his office.
“Are you finished for the day?” he said,
startling her so badly that she jumped in her chair.
“You scared me,” she said, laughing a
little, but still nervous that perhaps he’d gotten a glimpse of what had been
up on her monitor just a moment before.