Sunlight streams through the window and I roll over in bed, seeking the warmth of the man beside me. The heat isn’t there.
Is Cav already up? My eyes still closed, I reach out—and feel nothing but the soft bumps of a quilt. Reality invades like a bitch slap to the face, and my eyes snap open.
The sunlight streaming in through the window isn’t the blindingly beautiful Belizean sun. No, it’s . . . Where the hell am I again? My head aches and my mouth tastes like days-old caviar. Blech. For the record¸ I hate caviar.
I take in my surroundings while moving as little as possible. Delicate white wooden furniture, lilac wallpaper, and lace curtains. The room of a girl, not an adult.
Right. Kentucky. Creighton stashed the sister who can’t keep her shit together in Holly’s gran’s house in the backwoods.
Noises come from the kitchen below, along with the scent of bacon. Creighton? Cav? No, not Cav. Because that son of a bitch lied to me from the beginning.
Squeezing my eyes closed against the prick of tears, I can see his face right before Creighton stormed in on our little haven. Determination. Sadness. Guilt.
“I love you. You’re mine. And not even Creighton Fucking Karas is going to keep us apart.”
Sorry, Cav. That’s where you’re wrong.
Everything else that happened after is a blur courtesy of my screwed-up emotions and vodka.
Lately, I’ve become all too familiar with the state of hungover as hell. Do I have a problem? I don’t even know if I’m in denial because I’ve never thought about it. Clue number one that I should back off on the booze solves all ills school of problem-solving is how crappy I feel right now.
And then I remember the Twitter stunt.
Shit.
Did I delete it?
Searching the surface of the small nightstand next to the bed, I come up empty when I look for my phone. Oh crap. Did I lose it?
More noise comes from downstairs, and I decide that even with the pounding headache and questionable stomach, I need to get my ass out of bed and downstairs to find out what the plan is and when I can actually go home. I know I’m going to face another lecture about drinking and tweeting, but I can face that as long as the reward is breakfast.
A small bag Creighton liberated from my apartment rests on top of a desk, and I grab the necessities and make my way into the small connecting bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m showered, dressed, and making my way downstairs.
“Thought you’d sleep forever when you didn’t rush down here at the smell of bacon,” a familiar voice calls out before I reach the kitchen.
Cannon has been part of my life since Creighton’s business really took off. They were friends before that, but apparently not the kind you introduce your little sister to. I had a mad crush on him when I was younger, but it didn’t take long for him to become another annoying older brother who liked to tell me what to do and spoil my fun. My crush died hard and fast.
“I was out, I guess. Where’s Crey?”
I lower myself into a chair, attempting not to jar my head too much. I scavenged some ibuprofen from the medicine cabinet upstairs, but considering it expired four years ago, I’m not holding my breath that it’s going to work any miracles.
Cannon slides a plate in front of me—scrambled eggs and bacon. Nothing fancy, but then again, he’s no gourmet chef. Actually, I think he employs a chef.
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t answer my question about my brother until he sits down across from me at the wooden table that takes up the center of the small kitchen.
“Crey headed back to Nashville. He didn’t want to be away from Holly any longer than he had to be. Actually, I’m shocked he didn’t let me go after you without him, because he hasn’t been leaving her side for anything lately.”
Guilt settles in my sour stomach, and the appeal of the food in front of me falls several notches. Silence hangs between us for long moments until the sound of a toaster popping interrupts.
“Maybe toast is a better idea for you.”
Cannon stands again, and I let my gaze follow him as he butters the white bread toast and drops two slices of it on my plate.
How long has it been since I had white bread? A million years? My aunt served the kind of bread you could kill someone with if you swung it hard enough at his head. Basically, the consistency of a paperweight—but packed with healthy benefits.
I reach for the toast and crunch into it, finding that I’m not as hungover as the last time I got hammered and did something completely idiotic. I thought I was so smart for getting Cav’s attention again with that ad. Look at how much good that did me.
I refuse to admit my heart is well and truly cracked by the lies he fed me. Maybe not even so much by the lies as the fact that he made me believe in us. Believe we had a future. All that pretending we were real and we could have a life together set me up for a crushing fall when the truth came out.
Looking at Cannon over my toast, I decide to dig for more answers. With the exception of Creighton, Cannon always knows more about any given situation than everyone else combined.
“How did you and Crey find out about Cav?”
Cannon finishes his drink of coffee and lowers the white mug with #1 Grandma in a purple and pink swirly font to the table. “Dom Casso.”
Dropping the crust of my toast on the edge of my plate, I wait for him to elaborate. He doesn’t. “But that doesn’t explain how you’d find out now. Did Dom go to Crey? Or did Crey go looking for information and seek out Dom?”
When Cannon doesn’t answer right away, I know it’s because he’s weighing his answer against how much he really wants me to know. He never shows all his cards, but that’s just Cannon.
“Crey tried to reach you shortly after you landed in Belize, but got no answer on your cell phone.”
“I know. I didn’t have service down there.”
Cannon’s eyebrow rises. “You didn’t have service because Cav didn’t want you to have service. We checked with the carrier. You should’ve automatically switched over to the local network. Since you’ve been sleeping for about eighteen hours, I’ve gone through all the settings on the phone with the provider, and it appears Cav switched the one you needed to hook up to the local network. He wanted you cut off from everyone, Greer.”
My mind grapples with this revelation. First, how the hell did I sleep for eighteen hours? Good God, woman. And second, why would Cav do that?
The blows keep coming as Cannon continues. “The Internet was also disconnected in the house, and the caretakers were under orders from Cav not to relay any messages to you that Creighton was trying to reach you. He wanted you isolated from the rest of the world.”
The piece of bacon I just picked up falls back to my plate. “Why?”
“How better to get into your head than cutting you off from your support system? It’s a common technique to build rapport.”
Common to kidnappers and cults, maybe. Could Cav really be so calculating? It only takes me a moment to answer my own question.
Yes. He is.
I can’t forget I was a job from day one. Everything he’s said and done has been calculating. And dammit, I gave him the exact opening he needed to come back into my life.
The anti-Cav train in my head derails around the next curveball question. Why would he come back now? I’m not a job anymore.
I decide to throw that one at Cannon’s feet. “Why would he come back into my life and go to all this trouble? What’s his end game? What does he want from me now?”
Cannon lifts #1 Grandma to his lips again and drinks before responding. “I don’t know, but he has an angle. He always has an angle.”
For a moment, I wonder if Cannon is talking about himself, because I truly believe that about him. But I have trouble, even in my raw state, attributing that to Cav. He doesn’t seem cold and calculating. The opposite, actually. He seared me with the heat of his need, introduced me to pleasures I never knew existed.
But he lied. About everything. After you trusted him with the most vulnerable parts of you.
Betrayal is a cold blade slicing through the village of rationalizations I’m building in my head. I can’t rationalize this away. The stabbing pain in the vicinity of my heart tells me that too.
“So, what now? I’m banished to the backwoods of Kentucky?”
Cannon rises from the table and rinses his mug in the sink. “You’re laying low. If you want to call it banishment, that’s your choice. But after that stunt on Twitter yesterday morning, you unleashed another media cycle tearing into your character, and stock prices are taking a hit. We need to distance you from the companies if you’re going to keep acting like a spoiled little brat.”
And there we have it, the unvarnished truth from the mouth of Cannon Grove himself.
As much as it frustrates me to have my actions scrutinized so heavily and affect Creighton’s business, I know he’s right.
“How do you distance me?”
“You transfer all your interest in the companies to someone else. If you’re not a majority shareholder in so many of the businesses, then investors, after proper education, won’t be so concerned by your actions.”
Give up my interest in Karas Holdings? I remember the first time Creighton told me he was building the company, not only to secure his future, but to secure mine as well. He’d just taken a huge risk in the foreign currency market and made his first billion.
It wasn’t the money that hit me hardest, it was the feeling of solidarity. Creighton and me against the world, just like it was always Creighton and me against my aunt and uncle. Even though I have limited knowledge of all the details, I’ve been a part of almost every business venture he’s been involved in. When your brother is as busy and ambitious as mine, drawn in a hundred different directions at once, it’s one way to know you still occupy an important spot in his life.
The purchase of Homegrown Records for Holly was one of the first business deals he excluded me from, but obviously I held no resentment. I understood completely.
But to me, giving up my interest in those companies is equivalent to giving up that bond with my brother. I don’t want to do it.
I shake my head. “No. I’m not bowing out. I’ll be better. No more drunken ad posting or tweeting. I’m done.”
“Which is why you’re here, and you’ve got no Internet and no cell phone. I grabbed the case file on your counter, so maybe that’ll give you something else to do.”
“So this really is exile? You want me cut off from everything.” My words carry the weight of guilt I already feel. I’m twenty-six years old, and I’m still being treated like a child.
You did this to yourself, Greer. That inner voice is correct to a certain degree, but still . . . this is excessive.
“What about Banner? Can I at least talk to her?” I eye the old rotary telephone on the wall. It’s definitely an antique, but I can figure out how to use it.
Cannon follows my line of sight. “Phone has been shut off, and I’ve got a security guy coming in to babysit you while you’re here. It might be best for you and Banner to take a little break from wreaking havoc on the world for a week or so.”
“So I’ve been grounded. In Kentucky.”
His smile is slightly less smug than I expect. “Consider it an extension of your vacation in a new and exotic location.”
I open my mouth to deliver a witty and no doubt scathing retort, when a knock on the door interrupts us.
“And that’s your new security detail.”
“Why?”
Cannon heads to the door. “I have to get back to the city, so my availability for babysitting has come to an end.”
After unlocking the ancient-looking dead bolt, he pulls the door open to reveal a man who blocks most of the light coming in from outside.
I lean to the side to try to get a better look. What I see is a stocky guy around five foot eight who’s extending his hand to Cannon.
“Troy German reporting for duty, sir.”
It’s his choice of words and the emphasis on sir that give away his military roots. I’m sure of it. So sure I’d bet a nude photo for the press on it. Cringing as soon as the thought sweeps across my brain, I rise and head for the door to meet my new babysitter.
“Cannon Grove, and this is Greer Karas.”
“The subject. Understood.”
Awesome, I’m a subject now. Way to dehumanize the situation, Troy.
I give him a polite but forced nod and return to my Wonder Bread. As I crunch away, I listen halfheartedly as Cannon grills Troy again on things I’m certain he already has memorized. But knowing Cannon, if a single answer doesn’t check out, this guy is gone. Cannon might be a controlling ass, but he’s always looked out for me.
When he’s satisfied, he invites Troy inside, but Troy declines.
“No, sir. I’ll be stationed out front and periodically walking the perimeter to make sure the property is secure.”
I assume Cannon finds nothing wrong with that because he nods, and the former military man turns and steps off the porch.
“Well, that was interesting.”
Cannon shrugs. “He comes highly recommended, and I’m comfortable leaving him in charge of you. All joking aside, he’s not your babysitter. He’s here to protect you, discreetly.”
“Protect me from what?”
Cannon’s frown clues me in to the fact that I’m asking the wrong question. The correct question is protect me from whom.
“Cav,” I whisper. “He’s here to protect me from Cav.”
A nod is all the confirmation I need. “He’s here to make sure Mr. Casso doesn’t decide to do anything stupid.”
“His name is Westman.”
“Only when it became convenient for him.”
“You know more about him than I do, clearly. So, why don’t you share?”
A few beats pass before Cannon replies. “That’s not my place. My job here is to make sure you’ve got someone you can count on to keep you safe. Now, is there anything else you need from me before I head back to the city?”
I open my mouth to deliver some snarky comment, but decide it’s not worth it. Cannon thinks I’m a world-class fuckup, so why reinforce that opinion any more than I already have through my actions?
“No. Nothing.” And because I still have the manners I was raised with, I add, “Thank you.”
“Anytime, Greer. You know both your brother and I would do anything for you. Including saving you from yourself.”
He could have left off that last little bit, thank you very much. I give him a pained smile and clear my breakfast dishes away. Cannon’s already out the door and starting up his car when I realize there’s no dishwasher. It’s not until I’m finished cleaning up the kitchen that I discover I’m completely cut off.
Cannon was correct—the old rotary phone doesn’t work. I have no cell. The cable is turned off. There’s no Internet.
Every single one of those things was missing in Belize, and yet I didn’t feel alone and deprived there because I had Cav.
And now I just have . . . me.
I can’t read another page in this book. My second Danielle Steel isn’t holding my attention. I’ve already read every detail of every page of Holly’s yearbooks from high school—she was adorable, by the way—and now I’m going stir crazy. Is this what they mean when they talk about cabin fever? I have to get out of here.
I opened the front door three hours ago, only to be met by Troy German with a stern order to go back inside. When I tried to chat, he stonewalled me and pulled the door shut. I made myself lunch with the ample groceries Cannon left, but now I need to do something before I start tearing my hair out.
During lunch and between my Danielle Steels, I watched Troy’s pattern around the house. Day is turning to dusk, and his pattern hasn’t changed. He stays stationed out front for twenty minutes and then spends five minutes “walking the perimeter.” Holly’s gran’s house doesn’t sit on a vast piece of property. I have no frame of reference for how big it is, but it can’t be much bigger than the footprint of my New York apartment building. Definitely not a city block.
So I start planning. Holly has told me the story about the night Creighton dragged her out of Brews and Balls, the bowling alley where she used to work and made her karaoke stage debut. I think Holly said it was less than a mile away.
I might be a city girl, but one thing I know I can do is walk. And if walking a mile gets me to some sort of civilization, then I’m down with it.
I dig through my available clothes, glancing out the upstairs window as Troy makes another round in his perimeter walk. I slip into skinny jeans and a blouse, shove some cash and my ID in my pocket, and make my way down the stairs. Peering between the front blinds, I catch him climbing back into his SUV and shutting the door.
It’s go time.
I’m breaking out.
Clearly, Troy doesn’t expect me to make this kind of move, because when I slip out the back door and haul ass across the grass to the dirt road that runs behind the back of the lot, I don’t hear him yelling. I duck behind a tree with a trunk double the width of my body and wait, my lungs heaving, for the shouts to come.
They don’t.
I wait another twenty seconds, counting slowly in my head, before I peek around the tree. Still nothing. I make another break for it, sprinting on my ballet flats to pause behind a shed at the back of the next yard.
All I can hope now is that I’m going in the right direction.