Naughty and Nice by Sarah J. Brooks (81)

“Who is this?” a stranger’s voice asked.

I stopped short. “Who is this?”

“This is Mavin Toller. I’m calling because your number was the last number dialed from this number. There’s been an accident. The man who owns the phone… he… he’s in bad shape, I guess is the best way to say it. Are you his wife?”

I didn’t answer right away, my thoughts suddenly delayed, running on slow motion.

“Hello? Ma’am?” The voice on the line was impatient.

“I’m not his wife,” I said. “I’m… I’m a friend. What happened?”

“I don’t know, I just came upon him like this. I called an ambulance. He doesn’t have an emergency number listed in his phone that I could see, so I just called the last number dialed.” Now I could hear the tremor in the man’s voice.

“Where are you?” I asked. “Is the ambulance on its way?” A sudden jolt shot through me. “Is he alive? Is he breathing? Did you do CPR?”

“He’s alive,” the man said. I could hear the faint siren of an ambulance getting louder. “The ambulance is here, Ma’am; I have to go.”

“Wait!” I yelled into the phone. “What hospital is he going to? Where should I go?”

“I’ll call you back,” the man said, and the line went dead.

The Billionaire’s LEGACY

Dangerous Times

Sarah J. Brooks

Cassie

“Come with me, or I’ll shoot you right here,” the man said in a raspy, whispery voice. He reached out and grabbed my wrist, tugging me out into the hallway. I hadn’t noticed when I walked to the bathroom exactly how separated it was from the rest of the restaurant. Rather than walk back toward the dining room, my captor took me in the opposite direction, down a hallway, and through a back door into a parking lot that was clearly the back side of the restaurant. In addition to a few cars, a dumpster, and recycling bins, there was an enormous black van. The man was tugging me toward it.

“Help me!” I screamed. “Someone, help! Fire! Fire!” I’d heard that the real way to get someone’s attention if you need help is to yell ‘fire’—it makes people look around. But, I realized with horror, there was no one around. I’d never seen a parking lot so deserted. The infidel slapped his hand over my mouth and my eyes burned with the sting of it.

“I’ll kill you right here,” he seethed. “Don’t do that again.”

I tried to pay attention to his voice. It was a distinct accent, and one I knew well: I thought the man might well be an American.

“My boyfriend is inside the restaurant,” I said, quieting my voice. “He’s going to come out here any second and catch you. He packs; he’ll kill you before you know what’s happening.”

The man laughed. “He’s not your boyfriend. Your boyfriend is Bradley White, owner and operator of Legacy Luxury Hotels, which is a cover for one of the biggest arms manufacturers and distributors in the world.” I craned my neck to stare at him as he muscled me into the back of the van. He climbed in with me and handcuffed me, pressing my chest into the floor as he twisted my hands behind my back. His knee was pressing into my spine, and I found that I couldn’t move; I couldn’t squirm out from under him.

He pounded on the side wall of the van, and the van squealed out of the parking lot. My captor nearly lost his balance as the driver turned sharply left and right, but he stayed on top of me.

“The man you were having lunch with is Patrick Shim, an agent for the NCA. I know all about you, Cassie. And I know all about how you operate your life.”

I stared at the floor of the van, not responding, my mind absolutely reeling with the information the man knew about me. I didn’t know if he knew I was a journalist. The thought filled me with absolute terror. It was well known how American journalists were treated in Middle Eastern countries. We were in Morocco, but that didn’t mean that I might not suffer the same fate if my captor knew my profession.

“Nothing to say?” he teased, pressing his knee into my back hard; my chin hit the metal floor of the van and scraped it. Pain was beginning to radiate through my body. I closed my eyes and mentally reached out to Patrick, mentally reached out to Brad. I didn’t believe in that crap one bit, the idea that someone could psychically reach out to another person, but I was in a life and death situation here, and I figured it couldn’t hurt.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, my voice muffled by the floor. My captor shoved his knee down one more time, then released and sat back. I tried to roll over, to sit up, but the van was moving too quickly; it seemed like every time I tried to shift, the van would turn and I’d go sliding back to my stomach. This seemed to amuse my captor, who was sitting against the wall of the van.

“I actually have no interest in you,” he said. “You’re bait. A pawn. I want the big fish.”

“Who’s the big fish?” I asked. “Brad?”

My captor laughed loudly at this. “Bradley White? A big fish? No, sweetheart, Bradley White is a minnow in the ocean. He’s nothing. I’m after his boss.”

I didn’t know what to say. Brad was his own boss. I thought of the documents I’d seen, the inventory with the lists of guns. I’d never been able to put it into context, and I hadn’t been able to find any other information besides that isolated list. Was this man an arms dealer?

“I think you’ve probably got the wrong person,” I said, my voice shaking. “Brad is a hotel owner and operator, nothing more. He’s got money, though; you could be a very rich man if you give me back to him in one piece.” I wasn’t about to tell my captor how much money Brad had, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to try to appeal to his sense of greed and self-interest. “Whoever you’re working for can’t possibly pay you as much as all this is worth. Brad could make sure you never have to worry about money again.”

This was the wrong thing to say. My captor leaped off the wall and back onto my back, straddling me from behind and pressing his gun to the base of my head. I saw stars.

“Do I look like I need money, bitch? Now shut the fuck up. If you talk again, I’ll kill you.” To emphasize this, he pushed the barrel of the gun hard against my head, and my forehead and nose slammed into the floor of the van. I sniffed, sure that my nose was bleeding, but I kept quiet.

After a moment, he got off of me and moved to the front of the van. He opened a small window between the back of the van and the front, and spoke to the driver in a language I didn’t understand. The driver said something back, and my captor grunted in agreement, and then shut the door again. He sat back.

I looked around, trying to see anything I could use as a weapon. If I could get out of the handcuffs, or, hell, even if I couldn’t, I could get out of the back of the van and take my chances landing on the road if I was able to paralyze my attacker for even a moment. But, the van was stripped and completely empty. It was pitch black except for the light that came through the window in the front. That light was just enough for me to see the bulky shape of my captor against the black paint of the van.

I tried to stay focused on him, tried to memorize his features. Sweat rolled into my eyes and, with my hands cuffed behind my back, I could only try to rub it away with my shoulder. The salty sweat stung, and the fabric of my shirt only added to the rough feeling against my eyes. I slumped back for a moment, blinking as I realized the salt in my eyes wasn’t just from sweat; it was from tears.

I felt my breath shake as I inhaled and exhaled slowly. I wasn’t a yoga instructor anymore, but I had been one for five years in college and just after. The one thing I took with me from my yoga practice was that any posture, any obstacle, can be conquered with a strong, sound breath. Our brains functioned better, our nervous system calmed itself. Our fight or flight instinct disappeared. I forced my breath to move in and out as slowly as possible while I kept my eyes on my captor. I began to notice details about the van. The engine had a loudness to it that suggested trouble—it either had recently had work or would need it soon. The paint job was fresh; I could smell it. Who knew what color the van had been before, but the interior and exterior colors were likely not the same as how they had started.

I tuned my ears into my captor talking to the driver. His accent was definitely American. I tried to place the region. Not Southern, and not New York or Boston. It was a fairly non-descript accent, which meant Midwest or, perhaps, the West Coast. I had heard about a number of terror cells being founded in places in the Midwest that wouldn’t normally draw suspicion: Minneapolis, Minnesota; Kansas City, Kansas; Columbus, Ohio.

With my journalist senses on high alert, I was able to keep my brain occupied enough to calm myself down. Distraction to focus. I continued to be watchful and alert, my brain moving quickly as I tried to envision myself escaping, somehow, before we got to wherever my captor was taking me. I knew if he took me out of the van, I probably wouldn’t be alive much longer.

I laid back and closed my eyes. It was impossible for me to sleep, obviously, but I knew that I could trick my body a bit into relaxing further by mimicking the actions of sleep. Eyes closed, body slack, breath slow, I began to calm myself down from the inside out.

“Hey!” A rough voice accompanied by a kick pulled me out of my trance. I opened my eyes, and looked up at my captor, still hooded and hidden from my view. “Hey, what the fuck?”

I didn’t respond.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. In two minutes, the van is going to stop. And when it does,” my captor said, making his way from my right side to my left, closer to the back double doors. When he mentioned the van stopping, my heart began to pound fast and hard in my chest. “When it does, I’m gonna pull you out, and you’re gonna come real nice. Real quiet. There’s no one else around anyway, so there’s no need to waste your screams.”

“Are you going to kill me?” I asked.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snarled. “Stand up.” The van slowed to a stop and, in what felt like one motion, my captor grabbed me with both hands, kicked the door open with his foot, and pulled me out. I landed on the ground in a heap, the breath forced out of my lungs as I grunted. I looked around. We were on a gravel road, and the dust from the road clouded my vision. When it cleared, I could see that we were in a remote area, the country of Morocco, and we’d pulled up in front of a house that looked like any other non-descript Moroccan housing. A few walls slapped together made from metal that didn’t look as strong as it probably was, mixed with clay and stone. My captor picked me up by the back of my shirt and tried to drag me into the house. I let my feet slacken and my body turn to dead weight, though, inside, I was buzzing with terror. Again, I knew, if he took me into that house, I was as good as dead.

He didn’t bother asking me ‘what the fuck’ this time; he knew. He strained to lift me and eventually picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. I turned rigid, then, to try to make my body harder to hold onto.

“You fucking bitch,” he said, his breath ragged and challenged.

“I’m not going to let you kill me without a fight,” I said. “I hope you know that.”

We reached the door and, in place of a response, he kicked the door open and tossed me against a wall that looked like it would have been a living room if the house had been furnished. On the other side of the room was a sink. Two chairs and a table sat in the middle. Other than that, the large room was unfurnished.

I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzziness of being thrown around, when my captor came to my side and pulled my arms, still cuffed, toward the wall. He ran a chain through my cuffs and fastened it to some sort of attachment in the wall. Then, he punched me hard. I felt a flash of pain and I saw light… then I blacked out.

Brad

“So,” I began, shifting uncomfortably, “this is kind of awkward.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “It’s pretty much all awkward.”

We stood together at the restaurant where, just a day earlier, Patrick and Cassie had been having breakfast. I tried to think of it as ‘breakfast,’ not as a ‘date,’ though I would have definitely wondered about that under different circumstances.

My plane had landed an hour earlier and I’d come straight to the restaurant. Patrick was there as a witness; his team had been, according to him, investigating since he’d called it in when Cassie hadn’t returned from the bathroom and he’d gone looking for her.

“Well,” I said, clearing my throat. “Let me try to help it out. Basically, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Cassie, and I don’t care. My only concern is finding her alive and in one piece. One she’s back, then you and I can have a gentlemen’s conversation about who her boyfriend is.” I sized him up as I spoke. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, though he didn’t seem to have any attributes I was lacking. His posture suggested he was ready for anything; even after the last twenty-four hours, he stood straight and alert. Of course, I couldn’t help but notice that he looked like he’d recently been through a mangler.

He also looked confused.

“What do you… me and Cassie?” He shook his head as he forced the words out. “I don’t know what…” He looked at me and I watched as awareness dawned on him. “Oh, wait, you think… No! That’s not what I meant by things being awkward. Cassie and I are not… no, she’s your girlfriend and I don’t do that. Neither does she.”

“So, I’m to suppose that you just happened to travel to Morocco at the same time as Cassie—and at the same time I was in South Africa—by coincidence?” I couldn’t keep the sneer out of my voice. What kind of an idiot did this asshole think I was?

“No, and that’s… that’s the awkward part. Cassie didn’t tell you… I’m… well, I was, I’m probably not anymore, investigating you.”

Years of practice in takeovers and business meetings, not to mention my interactions with Manuel Brown, had taught me to keep my face carefully neutral no matter what was thrown at me, so I knew my face and body didn’t change. Inside, however, my heart surged blood through my body and my mind moved faster, trying to assess what exactly Patrick Shim was investigating about me. How much did he know? Every word suddenly became a landmine.

“Oh?” I said, arching my eyebrows in what I knew would be a socially understood response. “Oh. Well, yes, yes, I suppose that would make this more awkward. And, now I’ve gone and made it as awkward as possible by suggesting my girlfriend is cheating on me with you.” Another tactic from the board room—bring the focus back to the other person as quickly as possible.

“Yeah. Well, obviously my investigation is suspended for at least the time being, and, uh, I hope that we can cooperate here, uh, in the interest of bring Cassie back safely.”

I smiled. I could see that my confidence and experience had thrown Patrick off his game. He was searching for his words, and beads of sweat had broken out on his temples.

“Do you need to sit down?” I asked, pulling out a chair at a nearby table. “You look like you’ve had a rough go of it.”

“No,” Patrick said firmly. “I’m fine.” He cleared his throat, but I saw him slowly exhale, a tell that showed how nervous he was.

“What do you have so far?”

Patrick looked at me sharply, and I realized that my question could have been regarding information about Cassie, or information about his investigation of me.

“About Cassie,” I clarified. “What leads have come in? Who’s seen them? When was the last sighting? Have there been any ransom calls? Obviously money is no option; whatever they want, I’ll pay it. I’m sure Cassie has told you—or,” I added dryly, “you’ve found out on your own, that I have plenty of money.”

“There haven’t been any leads yet,” Patrick responded, ignoring my comment about the ransom. “No one saw them leave, though we know they left from the back. There are no cameras. No evidence of any getaway vehicle in the back lot. She went to use the restroom, and, when she didn’t come back after ten minutes, I went to look for her. So, that’s the maximum amount of lead time they had. It’s not a lot, but… it was obviously enough.”

“Whatever resources you need, I’ll fund them. Private investigators, more manpower, whatever it takes. We need to find her before the sun goes down today.”

I felt a buzz in my pocket and assumed it was Simon, but it was a text from an unknown number. South Africa will send inventory today, it said. I sighed. Relieved, but now that seemed like a pebble in the ocean in terms of importance. Of course, it would make Manuel Brown happy, and that was of the utmost importance.

Especially now. I knew he had Cassie. I needed to get ahold of him and reason with him. I couldn’t let what had happened to Lorinda happen to Cassie. Not again. Never again.

While I had my phone in hand, I texted Simon. I’d texted him several times since my plane landed, but he hadn’t responded. I was starting to get worried.

“Mr. White,” Patrick said, interrupting my thoughts. “We just got a tip. A restaurant down the street has some video footage of a van driving recklessly around the same time Cassie was taken.”

“Let’s go check it out,” I said, putting my phone back in my pocket without waiting to see if Simon had texted me back.

We walked onto the sidewalk and over to the makeshift headquarters that had been set up outside the restaurant. The NCA agents on site tried to hide their stares, but I found more than a few of them regarding Patrick and me walking together. I wondered how much money was exchanging hands and what the bets actually were. Billionaire becomes allies with the NCA agent who investigated him? NCA agent steals billionaire’s girlfriend under his nose?

“Hey!” I barked at the lot of them, “Get back to work and piss off with your gossip and staring. You’ve got a kidnapped woman to find. If anything happens to her because you were too busy fucking around to find her, I’ll have all your jobs and I’ll own your lives.”

I stared at them until the last one looking at me looked away. I turned back to Patrick, who was staring at me with a look that smacked of both fear and respect.

“Now,” I said, clapping him on the shoulder lightly, though he still winced, “let’s find Cassie.”

Cassie

My captor sat at the table, tapping away at his iPhone. Every time I said something, he ignored me, no longer even looking up when I moved or spoke. Another man, the one I assumed had been driving the car, came in and out several times before sitting next to my captor at the table. They began to speak in low voices, and I could tell that the driver was definitely not an American. I strained to see their faces, though the reason I couldn’t see them had nothing to do with my eye sight; they were wearing their hoodies up and also wearing gloves; I couldn’t even get a feel for their skin tone.

I thought about what I had to bargain with. What I could offer that might buy me some extra time. I’d seen a few weapons, and I knew both men had at least two guns each on them as they sat at the table. That didn’t give me great odds. But, I was still alive, so, statistically, I had already beaten the odds. I was fairly certain based on my internal clock that I had been in captivity for longer than twenty-four hours, though how much longer I couldn’t say. Twice I had believed my captor would kill me, and twice he had not. So, it stood to reason that he was intentionally keeping me alive to use me, as he’d said, to get to Brad.

I knew Brad had to be close. With the amount of resources he had at his disposal, all I needed to do was stay alive until he could get to me. I knew he was searching. And then there was Patrick. Patrick had said he was giving me five minutes in the bathroom, which meant that he had to have come looking for me almost immediately after I’d been taken.

A horrifying thought crossed my mind as I realized that, because of my relationship with Brad, and because of Patrick’s relationship with me, the two were bound to meet. To have some conversations. At the very least, Brad would find out that Patrick and I had been at breakfast together when I’d been taken.

Horror overtook me. What if Brad was angry and had written me off? He would never, ever do that, a strong voice rang out in my mind. And I knew that he wouldn’t—he was a gentleman and a knight in shining armor if there ever was one; he wouldn’t abandon me. Not until he knew I was safe. I felt my ears rush with noise as I realized that he may actually believe I’d been cheating on him.

“I’m a writer,” I suddenly blurted out. I slammed my mouth shut as both my captor and the driver looked over at me as if I’d just announced I was having a baby. “I mean, I’m a professional writer. It’s what I do for my job, for a living. I write. Stories and stuff. I… I thought you might want to know that.”

“Are you threatening us?” the driver asked me incredulously. He looked at my captor. “Is she threatening us?”

“I don’t know what the fuck she’s trying to do,” my captor said to his companion.

“I can help you… further your cause,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “You’re going after Brad because of something with Legacy, right? It’s something political? I can help. I can help write a… a manifesto or something for you.”

I was trying to avoid calling myself a journalist or indicating in any way that I wrote for a magazine. I obviously knew what had happened to journalists when they’d been kidnapped in the Middle East. I had no clue what would happen if my captor found out I was a journalist, but I didn’t think it would help me.

But, if he knew that I could contribute, if I could help whatever he was trying to do… that was another reason to keep me alive. Even if I could just keep him talking. I was realizing that I needed to do literally anything to stay alive, and each minute, each second, was a victory.

“I can do other things, too,” I said, twisting my body to lift my chest and accentuate my breasts.

My captor rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up,” he said. He shook his head at his companion. “Fucking bitch can’t shut up.”

“Have you gotten any word from the boss?” the driver said. I keyed into each word.

“Yeah, he said to hold tight.” He glanced at me and I looked away quickly, trying to pretend I was out of ear shot. “He said everything is under control. The weapons were where they were supposed to be.”

“Fuckin’ A, man,” the driver grinned, but his smile slowly faded at the look my captor gave him. “Sorry,” he said, recovering his serious stance.

“Overconfidence gets you killed,” my captor said. “Pay attention, and don’t forget that you can’t take your eyes off the ball for even a micro second. If you do, it’s lights out for all of us.”

I kept my eyes closed, listening. I was learning more about them than they could ever know. I just needed to file that information away and find ways to use it to keep myself alive.

I think I faded out for a few hours. That was what I did now, faded out rather than slept. Disassociated instead of zoned. When I came back to awareness, my captor was gone for the first time. I knew he couldn’t be too far away because the driver was at the table, still, or perhaps returned, and my captor wouldn’t go far; he didn’t trust the driver.

“Could I have some water?” I asked quietly. I’d read enough hostage negotiations and been in various newsrooms when negotiations were taking place to know at least the basics, which were pretty common sense anyway. Get your captors to see you as a human being. The way to get them to see you as a human being was to have base, human needs. Water. Food. A bathroom. Be modest. Be respectful.

He looked at me for a moment, then looked away. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said. He jerked his head toward the door. “You know.”

“Yeah,” I said, adjusting my tone to show that I was commiserating with his situation, having to deal with an unpredictable, asshole of a boss. “Yeah, I hear you. That’s okay, I don’t want you to get into any trouble.” I turned my head away as if the conversation was over, closing one eye but keeping the other lightly open.

For a few moments, he didn’t move. He was watching me, trying to figure out if I was faking, maybe assessing his options. I waited. After a minute, he stood up, the chair scraping across the floor a few inches. I closed my eyes. I heard him open a cabinet. Water running. Then, a moment later, I heard the sound of glass on wood as he set my water near my hip.

I opened my eyes, kept them trained on the floor. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I won’t tell.” My hands were still cuffed behind my back, but the driver had set the glass close enough that I was able to put my mouth against the rim and tilt it toward my face. My body screamed out for the water and it took all of my self control to not try to gulp the glass, which would have tipped it over and I’d have ended up with nothing. I sipped the water I could until I couldn’t get any more.

I could feel the driver’s eyes on me. Maybe expecting me to complain, to beg, to do something other than drink my water. I stopped, though my body was crying out for hydration, and I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.

Once again, I heard the chair scrape across the floor. A moment later, the glass was removed and taken back to the sink. I watched him as he sat back down at the table and took out his phone.

“He took you because he’s tying to smoke out your boyfriend,” he said suddenly, not looking up from his phone. I tried to hide the tremor in my voice as I formulated my response. Speaking to me directly meant that he was, at least for the moment, seeing me as a human being.

“What does he want from Brad?”

The driver shrugged. “Not my job to know. But it’s no use trying to hide how rich he is. He knows he’s a billionaire.” The driver’s voice was slightly muffled through the side of his hoodie. I tried to imagine what he looked like. His accent was muddled, a mix of French with possibly Moroccan. He could very well be a local.

“I figured. If it’s money that he wants, Brad will pay it. Easily. He’ll pay as much as he wants.”

The diver was silent.

The door opened and my captor came back in, striding fast, slamming his phone down on the table. Something was wrong.

“Get up,” he said to the driver. “We have to talk outside. Away from that.” He nodded toward me. That. Not a human.

The driver didn’t argue, just stood up immediately and followed my captor out the door. Something was happening.

Brad

I stared into my coffee without really seeing it. I had gotten virtually no sleep the night before, so I was exhausted; still, my mind was racing. I couldn’t figure out what had triggered Manuel Brown to kidnap Cassie. I’d run through every detail, finally coming to the conclusion that Manuel Brown didn’t need a logical reason to do anything.

But that wasn’t it. Manuel Brown was a lunatic, but he was a controlled one. He was well-protected, and he hadn’t gotten to where he was in his life by taking stupid risks, like kidnapping someone who was being tailed by one of my men and talked to by the police.

But, if not Manuel Brown, then who?

To make matters more complicated, I still hadn’t heard from Simon. He had been, technically, missing for as long as Cassie. Perhaps even longer. Perhaps whoever had kidnapped Cassie had taken care of Simon first in order to get at her.

I paced around the restaurant, which had been closed and overtaken by the NCA. All around me were the sounds of what I hoped was progress. Walkie talkies going off, fingers clacking on keyboards, agents on cell phones taking notes.

I swallowed hard, resisting the urge for the millionth time to go running over to Patrick and tell him that I knew who had Cassie. I had a name. I had some possible locations for Manuel Brown. But, I knew that, though I would gain Cassie back in the short term, all I would be doing was exposing the entire project and labeling myself as a rat to Manuel Brown. That would mean death for everyone involved—Antoine, Simon, Cassie, and me. No, I had to wait for the NCA to put everything together on their own… then at least I could speak the truth when it came time to face Manuel Brown and his men.

“Morning,” Patrick said grimly, sidling up next to me with his own coffee.

“Morning,” I said. “No news?”

“Nothing concrete. Not yet.” He was about to open his mouth to say something else, when a young agent, a woman in her early twenties, came running over with a piece of paper.

“Agent Shim! We got a lead. Here!” She held out the paper and Patrick grabbed it from her hand, skimmed it quickly, then nodded.

“Good work, Tessler.” Then, to me, “Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way.”

My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I realized progress was both good and scary; getting Cassie back could mean even more danger down the line. We raced out to Patrick’s rental car and drove out of the parking lot.

“Apparently, Cassie may have been the victim of mistaken identity,” Patrick said. “There’s a local cell of infidels who are engaging in terroristic activity. They’re looking for arms, big time, and they seem to think that Cassie may be connected to an arms dealer.” He glanced over at me. “You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

I was silent, my mind still focused on the words ‘local cell of infidels.’ That wasn’t Manuel Brown. His men were all sophisticated, white collar people like myself. Confusion must have shown on my face, because Patrick continued.

“You know that anything you say to me can be used against you; that’s my job. But, morally, if you have anything you need to tell me about Cassie…”

“I don’t know who has her,” I said sharply. “Obviously.”

“Of course,” Patrick said. We drove quickly along the city streets. Soon, the buildings became fewer and further between as we moved out of the city and into the country. My phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. Simon!

“Simon!” I exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

“I am now,” Simon said. “Is Cassie all right? Is she with you?”

I winced. “She’s not,” I said.

“Damn,” he whispered. “They got her.”

“Who’s they?” I said. I debated putting Simon on speaker, but decided against it.

“It’s not Manuel Brown, Brad. It’s someone else. I don’t know who, but I saw her get taken and it wasn’t Manuel’s MO.”

“You saw her get taken?” I could hear the rage in my voice. Patrick pulled over.

“I saw her get taken, and then I got thwacked in the head and I woke up in the hospital. That’s where I am now.”

“Shit, man, okay. I’m glad you’re okay. Can we come and get you? Patrick will need to hear exactly what you saw.”

“Yes, come and get me. St. Francis Hospital. And, I think we should contact Manuel Brown. He has a vested interest in this if they have Cassie. He has the resources to get her back.”

“Um,” I said, glancing over at Patrick. He was listening keenly to my side of the conversation. “Um, I’m not sure that’s advisable, actually, at this time…”

“The entire project is at risk, catastrophic risk, until she’s found. You know that.”

I thought quickly, exploring both possibilities, the outcomes of what could happen if I contacted him and if I didn’t.

“You may be right,” I said slowly. “When we pick you up, we can discuss it.”

“Time is of the essence,” Simon said. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that.”

I closed my eyes and felt my jaw clench with tension. “Call his people,” I said. “Just do it now.”

“Yes, Sir,” Simon said, the sound of approval loud and clear in his voice.

I hung up the phone and looked at Patrick. He signaled and pulled back onto the road.

“What hospital are we going to?” he asked. “And who are you having him call?”

I kept all of my information about Simon close to the vest. Especially with the new information that Manuel Brown might not be at the source of Cassie’s abduction, I needed to make sure I knew the consequences of each move before I made it.

“St. Francis,” I said. “Do you know where that is?” Patrick nodded as he plugged it into his GPS. “And never mind on the other question. I’ll let Simon fill you in.”

I would, of course, do no such thing. My hope was that by the time we got to the hospital and Patrick saw Simon, he would be more interested in what Simon had to say about Cassie’s abduction and his attack than in who we were planning to call.

I exhaled as I pushed stress out of my body; I wouldn’t be able to rest until I knew Cassie was back at the Legacy safe and sound.

Cassie

I heard, rather than saw, my rescue. After finding out that the driver had given me water, my captor decided I was too dangerous to be in possession of all of my senses, so he blindfolded me. I fought it, of course, but struggling against the handcuffs binding my wrists only strained my already exhausted body. I was almost certain I’d torn my rotator cuff.

I was lying against the wall listening to the sounds around me when I heard a car engine. Immediately afterward, I heard two chairs scrape across the floor, so I knew my captors had also heard it. The sound of metal as guns were drawn. I swallowed hard, feeling the chalky dryness of my throat clicking with the sensation of swallowing. My heart pounded in my ears and I struggled between trying to sit up and trying to shrink myself down.

The door opened and there were screams, one, two, three men, maybe more, and shots were fired. I held my breath as time seemed to both slow down and speed up around me. I didn’t scream… or maybe I did.

Suddenly, there was silence. The sound of my heartbeat was the loudest thing in my ears, and then I felt arms around me, yanking me up sharply.

“Handcuffs!” I moaned, feeling my shoulders straining.

“Fuck!” I heard a man’s voice and relief washed over me.

“Brad?” I said, my voice suddenly shrill. “Brad??”

“It’s me, baby, I’ve got you.” He pressed down on me and yelled over his shoulder to someone else to “find the keys! Let’s get her out of here!”

A moment later, my arms were released and the blindfold pulled off. I winced as I felt the tremendous pain shoot through my arms, but Brad filled my vision and I smiled, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he pushed out in a huge sigh of relief. “Don’t worry about how I found you; I did. I wasn’t ever going to stop looking.”

He picked me up and carried me to the door. I tried to ignore the bodies on the floor: two men, their hoods finally removed. They were younger than I’d thought, though not young per say. I wondered which had been my abductor… and which had been the man to show me some kindness.

***
A few hours later, after I’d been checked out by the hospital and released ‘in remarkable condition considering,” I found myself back in the Moroccan Legacy suite I shared with Brad. He’d made me some soup, recommended by the hospital to assist in rehydrating me without stressing out my stomach.

“Your passport,” he said, reaching into his breast pocket and handing me the blue book. I smiled.

“Well, if I’d known all I needed to do to get things moving was to get kidnapped…” I joked, but my voice was weak. Maybe too soon.

“I will never leave you again,” Brad said. He leaned in and kissed me. His lips on mine sent waves of healing energy through me. My heart beat faster for a good reason, finally, and I crawled into his lap and into his arms.

“Hold me forever,” I whispered. I pressed the bridge of my nose against his neck, snuggling in as close as I could. He slid his arm around me, his forearm grazing my breast. I felt a tinge of arousal as he did, and I nuzzled in deeper. I dropped my hand to his thigh and slowly explored; he was hard, his cock pressing against his jeans.

“Hey now,” he said. “You’re teasing me, and you’re in no condition to be doing such a thing.”

“I’ll be the judge of my condition, thank you,” I said coyly. The truth was, he was probably right. The screaming in my muscles suggested that I should be soaking in an Epsom salt bath and doing little else for the next few days.

However, any woman who has ever been rescued by her man in a hail of gunfire will know exactly how I was also feeling. I was carnally horny.

I ignored the sensations in my muscles as I twisted my body and climbed on top of Brad. I sat back, straddling him, as he wordlessly took off his suit coat. I pushed him back and unbuttoned his dress shirt one button at a time, locked with him eye to eye. I could see him trying to fight the urge to overtake me, to control me. He was still not used to passing over control to anyone, and I knew this was against all of the instincts that had gotten him to the status of being a world known billionaire.

I didn’t care.

I shifted out of my yoga pants and pulled his dress pants down, dropping them on the floor beside the couch. He arched an eyebrow at me, and I arched mine right back. You have something to say? my look said. I tore my eyes away from his to look at his cock, huge and glorious in front of me, quivering, the tip wet with anticipation. I leaned in and took him into my mouth, sliding my lips up his shaft all the way to its base. I bobbed my head forward and back, my lips in a vacuum against the skin of his shaft. I felt his cock pulsing in my mouth, and I brought my hands to his body, cupping his sack with one hand. His balls were hot and hard in my hand, the skin stretching tightly with his arousal.

He moaned, and I quickened my pace, my mouth moving fast and smooth as I changed my tongue to my hand around his shaft, and began to swirl my tongue around the tip of his cock. I lapped up the bits of pre-cum and I looked up at him. I flipped my hair over my shoulder so he had an unobstructed view of my mouth on his manhood.

He looked down and I saw his eyes roll as the pleasure of my tongue overtook his ability to speak. I flicked my tongue along the underside of his cock, twisting his shaft gently with my hand and squeezed the underside of his sack—and felt him almost immediately explode in my mouth. I drank his cum hungrily, sucking up every last drop before lightly releasing my grip to let him recover.

I laid next to him and he stroked my breast under my shirt. We stayed like that for almost an hour. I was nearly sleeping against his warm body, being lulled by the beating of his heart, when he leaned in toward me and kissed me. He began to pull at me, his strong hands around my ribs, guiding me back on top of him.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I don’t want to crush you,” he explained. “Plus, I know how much you like to be in charge.” He said it in a teasing tone that let me know that he was, in no uncertain terms, allowing me to play the leader for the night.

“I do like to be in charge,” I said. Even though I should have been exhausted, I felt re-energized by the feeling of Brad under my hips. He was hard again, ready to go, and I positioned myself over him and then dropped myself down on to his cock, impaling myself and causing him to gasp, his eyes wide and alert.

“Fuck!” he breathed, and he grabbed my hips and began to drive me back and forth. I let him, feeling his rhythm and capturing it as my clit pressed against his pubic bone, each thrust bringing me closer to my own climax. “You’re so wet!” he whispered, his eyes closed. “So wet, so hot…”

I could feel the heat steadily rising within me, but something else, too: it was as though my body was celebrating being free from my captors. Celebrating being alive. My orgasm exploded and I felt wetness flow out of me as I cried out, energy pushing through every cell, every pore. My vision blurred and the only thing I could see was Brad, looking up at me as he came, holding me hard by my hips so he didn’t buck me off of him.

After, we made our way to the bed so we could stretch out. He laid on his back and I laid on my side facing him, spooning his hip. My hand on his chest, I ran my fingers across the tight, smooth skin that covered his pecs.

“Quite an adventure,” he murmured.

“You could say that,” I said.

“I would never let anything happen to you,” he said; “you know that.”

I let it slide that he had let something happen to me. I tucked it away for use at a later date. Instead, I stroked his chest with my palm.

“I knew you would rescue me,” I said instead.

“It was Patrick, really, who found out where you were. He’s the one who figured out the best way to track you. He’s the one who got in touch with me.”

I felt my body stiffen slightly at the sound of Patrick’s name coming out of Brad’s mouth. His tone was casual, but that didn’t mean anything. Brad didn’t like to share—no billionaire did, that was how they became billionaires.

“Patrick is a good NCA agent,” I said carefully.

“How did you meet him again? I don’t remember you ever bringing him up.”

I lifted my head. “I never did bring him up. He was tailing me one day while we were in London. He wanted to know about you. I told him to fuck off. He did.”

“Huh,” Brad said, stroking my hair with his fingers. He twirled a strand around one finger and tugged slightly. I felt the stirrings of arousal; I loved having my hair played with, and he knew it. “It’s funny that he ended up in Morocco at the same time we were there. Well,” he paused, shifting his head to look at me. “At the same time you were there.”

I felt my heart beating faster. “Yeah, that was quite the coincidence.”

“A coincidence?” he said lightly. “Was it?” He released the lock of my hair and grabbed another, began to gently twirl it as he had the first. “I suppose, yes, it could have been that.”

“What else could it have been?” I asked. I was both angry and nervous. Angry because I sensed he was about to accuse me of cheating on him with Patrick, and how dare he… and nervous because, well, he wasn’t completely wrong. At least in my mind, I had gone further than I should with Patrick Shim.

“That’s a funny question. It could have been lots of things. I guess it could even be that you’re actually not a journalist for an American travel magazine at all, and you’re actually an NCA agent.”

My heart thudded loudly in my chest.

“What?” I asked. “What on earth would make you think that?”

“Nothing,” he said mildly. “Unless it’s true. Is it true?”

I stared at him. He was serious.

Cassie

“Please make sure your seats and tray tables are in their upright and locked positions for take off.”

I heard the flight attendant’s voice over the intercom but did nothing; I hadn’t touched either my seat or the table attached to the seat in front of me yet; I rarely ever did. My carry on bag was still in my lap where I had set it as I’d taken my seat earlier. I stared out the window at the baggage handlers of the London Heathrow Airport and I realized that I had no idea if I was making the right decision or not.

I knew my ribs hurt; that was for sure. I knew that my face, behind my sunglasses, looked bruised and beaten. I had done my best with my make up, but there was no hiding the fact that I had been through the wringer in a pretty significant way. The seat next to me was still empty, and, with any luck at all, it would stay that way. Chances were good, considering the plane was nearly loaded. I looked up the aisle that ran right next to my seat on my right, and I looked at the last remaining people who were boarding and trying to find their seats. I watched their eyes, knowing that almost everyone did what I did when they boarded a plane: they began to count the rows to check out their potential seat mate from the moment they got within eye sight of what could be their row.

No one seemed to be looking in my direction at all, though, so I closed my eyes and leaned back, keeping my hands resting on my bag. The trouble was, I saw Brad’s face every time I closed my eyes, his confused expression as I’d told him I was going back to the United States now that I had my passport back in hand. Our argument, him accusing me of being an NCA agent—of all insane things—and me retaliating by letting him know that he was a fine one to talk about having secrets, that I knew he was continuing to withhold information from me. I had known I was going too far, but my mouth and words seemed ten seconds ahead of my brain. We had stood at one another, glaring, his arms crossed over his chest and my hands on my hips, until I had finally turned away and started to pack my bag.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he’d asked, stalking into the bedroom after me.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I’d spit back. “Now that you’re done holding me hostage,” I said as I’d thrown my passport on top of my purse, “I’m going back home.”

“To New York?” The look of incredulity on his face would have been funny, if we hadn’t been in the middle of such drama.

“Yes,” I’d said back, firmly and with the coldest touch I could add to my voice. “I have a job there. I have friends there. I’ve put everything on hold to be with you, and I think that was a mistake. You don’t trust me, which is ridiculous. I did trust you, but it’s looking now like that was also ridiculous.”

“You can’t just leave,” he said, grabbing some of my clothes from the bed and putting them back into a drawer.

“Watch me,” I’d dared, and then, “and don’t touch my stuff.”

He’d taken one final shot at me. “Is this about Patrick? Are you going to him?” he’d said. But, rather than dignify his accusation with a response, I’d glared at him with every ounce of venom I could muster, and he’d known he had lost. He snarled and walked out of the room.

I had packed quickly and called for a cab to drive me to the airport. I swallowed the painful lump in my throat as I remembered Brad sitting on the couch as I’d left. He hadn’t said goodbye. Hadn’t looked at me. I’d thought about saying something. I’d waited an extra moment before closing the door to see if he’d call my name. Of course he hadn’t; that was part of the reason I’d fallen for him. I couldn’t have it both ways, and I knew it.

“Excuse me, Miss?” A woman’s voice pulled me out of my memory and back onto the airplane. “I need you to put your bag under your seat, please.”

I complied, sitting back up and looking around me. It didn’t look like the flight would be too bad. No kids around me. An aisle on one side, and an empty seat on the other. On the other side of the empty seat was a young man, maybe mid-twenties, who was engrossed in his headphones and iPad. Not a talker. I leaned back and settled in for what I hoped would be a nap long enough to get me all the way back to New York.

“Hi, yeah, sorry, could you move your legs please?”

I opened my eyes as all of my senses except for taste were assaulted at the same time. A woman was on top of me, straddling my knees, trying to wrangle a bag that wouldn’t fit under the seat even if it was empty without hitting me in the head. The woman stank of alcohol and there was a slight tinge of body odor. I couldn’t help but look at her with an expression I knew rang of distaste.

“I can’t move them anymore,” I muttered, unable to help myself, as I tried to shift to give the enormous woman enough space to get by.

“What’s that? Oops, sorry,” the woman said as her bag clocked me in the side of the head. It didn’t hit me hard, but given that I’d had a concussion pretty recently, I saw faint stars all the same.

“Ow!” I said. “Do you mind?”

“Well,” the woman said, “If you’d moved…”

I sighed and closed my eyes, then I counted slowly to five. I wasn’t going to get into it with a crazy woman on an airplane that I would have to sit next to for the better part of the day.

“Yes, of course,” I said instead. “It was totally my fault.” I made myself as small in my seat as possible while the woman got settled. She unloaded half of her bag into the seat pocket in front of her, and spread herself out to take up both arm rests.

“Ma’am,” the flight attendant said, coming back to their row, “Ma’am, I need you to put your seat belt on. The flight is about to depart.” And we’re waiting on you, was the unspoken thought I heard in the annoyed, exhausted flight attendant’s voice.

“Can I get some wine?” the woman asked, and I stared at her.

“No, Ma’am, I’m sorry; we’ll be doing beverage service a bit after take off.”

“How about if I don’t put my seat belt on until you bring me a bottle of chardonnay?” the woman asked back, and I put my head in my hand, closing my eyes.

“Ma’am,” the flight attendant said firmly, “your seat belt is a matter of your own personal safety; it’s not a negotiation. Please put your seat belt on now. Beverage service will begin shortly after take off.

“These fuckin’ skinny bitches think they own the world, am I right?” the woman said to me in what I presumed was supposed to be a whisper but was, in fact, a slightly louder than normal volume. “Though I’m not sure you’d know, being a skinny bitch yourself.” I rolled my eyes and looked up at the flight attendant. Minding my own business, and here I was: a skinny bitch.

“Ma’am, if you become belligerent, you may be asked to leave the plane,” the flight attendant said. Her voice was automatic, as if she had been trained in exactly what to say in the event that an overly-perfumed, drunk woman would be the last person on a flight and would start demanding things before she’d even gotten settled.

Still, the flight attendant’s response surprised me and I arched my eyebrows. Calling someone a fucking bitch didn’t qualify for belligerent yet?

“Fuck you,” the woman said in response, lifting up her fat middle finger over my head and shoving it right into the flight attendant’s face. I nodded, not in agreement, of course; I knew that the woman had just purchased her one way ticket off of the plane.

A moment later, before the woman had even retracted her finger, a man in a uniform appeared standing by my seat.

“Okay, Ma’am, I’m going to need you to come with me,” he said in a firm tone.

“I’m not going anywhere without my friend here,” the woman said, grabbing my arm. I felt my eyes widen in surprise and a small amount of pain as the woman’s fingernails dug into my upper arm.

“Are you two together?” the air marshal said doubtfully, looking at me. I looked up at him with the most pained expression I could manage. “Yeah,” he continued. “I didn’t think so.”

He was a nice looking guy, I realized as I scanned his body. Obviously, a man in uniform had an automatic amount of sexiness that most non-uniformed men didn’t possess, but, even without the air marshal badge, this guy would be cute. His chestnut brown hair was spiked on the top of his head and shorn close to his head on the sides. He had brown eyes, which I would normally have described as dull, except his had a glow to them, gold or something, that gave them depth and soul.

Brad, a voice in my head said softly, and I flushed with guilt.

“All right, Ma’am,” the air marshal said. “Let’s get going.” He reached in and lifted the woman out by her elbow, knocking me around a bit as the woman struggled. Soon, another two marshals were standing in the aisle, one of them creating a space for me to slip out.

“You’ll be safer over here,” he said. A struggle ensued as the three air marshals restrained the now screaming, swearing woman and removed her from the plane. Everyone’s eyes were on me because I was so close to everything going on. I could only imagine what they were thinking.

Forty-five minutes later when the plane was finally ready to take off, I was back where I’d started: an aisle and an empty seat on either side of me. The twenty-something had taken off his headphones with all of the fracas, though, and he turned to me and tugged lightly on my sleeve with his fingertips.

“Crazy bitch, huh?” he asked. “She was drunk; I could smell it. Did she hurt you?”

It was this last question that made me take notice and actually look at the man, who was pretty close to my age. I looked over at him and he was staring at me with concerned eyes.

“No,” I said. “She didn’t hurt me. Just annoyed the piss out of me.”

“Well, good,” he said. “Because you look like you’ve had enough… hurt…” he paused as if trying to think of exactly the right word, “for a while.”

I muttered in agreement, but he kept his eyes on me as if he was looking for a more significant answer. “Um… yeah,” I said. “I guess I have.”

“Well, can I buy you a drink?”

I almost said yes. I looked at his earnest expression, hopeful and seeking, and I almost, almost said yes. After all, if I meant what I’d said to Brad, that I was going home to continue my real life and end the fantasy life I’d been living with him, there was no reason to not let this nice, fairly cute man buy me a drink.

“No,” I said. “I have a boyfriend,” I said instead. I ignored the brief look of rejection on his face, and I turned instead to fix my gaze on the tv screen on the back of the seat in front of me.

“Okay, then,” he said. He paused a moment longer and I could feel his eyes on me. Then, he shook his head and put his headphones back on and tuned out the world and, most importantly, me.

Brad

“Well, at least he didn’t arrest you on the spot,” Simon said grimly. “That’s something.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I half expected him to put cuffs on me as soon as we left the hospital with Cas. I’m not going to tempt him further, though; he’s after me.”

Simon stirred some non-dairy creamer into his coffee and then lightly tapped the spoon on the edge of the cup. It was a habit of his, something I’d seen him do hundreds of times; it meant he was deep in thought.

“And he thinks it’s you,” he said finally. “The big mastermind. The one he’s got take down. His white whale.”

“Oh fuck no,” I said, shaking my head. “He doesn’t have me confused for Manuel Brown. He has no idea of the scope of what he’s investigating. We had a few conversations and, even based on what he told me he would arrest me for, he’s got no clue. I could turn him onto Manuel, but then I’d have a lot more to be worried about than just being arrested.” I grimaced at the idea of turning Patrick loose onto Manuel. Antoine would be dead within an hour.

“Or,” Simon said, “you could just go to jail for a while. It would prove your loyalty to Manuel.”

“I don’t think stripes look good on me,” I said, sipping my own coffee. The trouble was, I needed to be out in the world to coordinate all of the aspects of the arms deals currently going on at the six warehouses I had going just this month alone. And, I needed to get my son. And, to complicate things even more completely, I had a girlfriend to deal with. Had, past tense, pushed through my brain like acid. I wondered if I was ever going to end up in a normal relationship, or if that was something that was out of my reach like, surprisingly, so many aspects of a normal life.

Simon did have a point, though; going to jail for even a few days would prove to Manuel Brown that I wasn’t going to roll over and produce his name for agents that came sniffing around. Of course, I reasoned, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. It wouldn’t be the last. I could go to jail; I’d probably never actually spend even an hour there before my lawyer got me out.

“I could probably end up making a good show of it,” I said. “You might be onto something.” I wondered if Antoine was awake or asleep right now, as I sat talking indirectly about him and his future. I wondered what he was wearing… what he was doing. These were the thoughts that tore me up on a regular basis.

“Well, you could also always go back to South Africa,” he finally said. He tapped the spoon on the side of his cup again and I nodded.

“That’s a likely alternative,” I said. “It gets me out of the country, gets me away from the NCA and Patrick Shim, and still keeps me in good graces with Manuel and his crew. I think that’s the best choice I have until things blow over a little. Agent Shim will get caught up in something else before too long.” I narrowed my eyes at the thought of him and Cassie spending time alone together. “Something more his speed. Right now, he’s trying to gnaw his way through a buffet. As soon as someone comes around and offers him a more reasonable bite of food, he’s going to realize how exhausted he is and take the switch.”

“If he’s smart,” Simon agreed.

“And, if he’s dumb,” I said, “then he’ll just end up dead.” I shrugged and sipped my coffee. Simon smiled grimly and nodded. We’d both seen it too many times before.

“When are you going?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and calculated in my head any last minute transactions that would need to be dealt with here in London, and weighted them against the knowledge that Patrick Shim was, as I sat there, likely gathering up warrants for my arrest.

“Later today,” I said. “I don’t want to waste a lot of time.”

“And Cassie?” Simon asked. I thought I detected a change in the tone of his voice.

I cleared my throat and sat up a little straighter, reaching for my wallet. “Cassie left on a plane for the US this morning.” I threw a twenty on the table and looked across to Simon, daring him to say anything.

He didn’t… he was smarter than that. “I see,” he said, nodding. “Well, let’s get out of here and get you set up for your trip. Have you talked to Istanbul yet?”

We walked out of the café and our conversation turned away from women and NCA agents and back toward logistics of negotiations and development. We agreed that Simon would handle some pending business with Istanbul while I traveled, then we would have a video conference once I was safely in South Africa to get everyone on the same page.

I got back to my house and walked through, noticing that, without Cassie around, things seemed especially quiet. Too quiet? Maybe. It was too soon to tell. I didn’t allow myself to think of her as being gone, of having left. When I began to let my mind wander in even remotely that direction, I would start to get a pain in my chest that seemed more like a heart attack than was probably good for me. I busied myself packing and, when I was ready, I got onto my plane and headed back to South Africa.

Cassie

When I saw the air marshal again, I thought for a moment that he was coming to my seat to apologize, to check in to see if I needed anything, or to let me know that I’d helped them and he was grateful (that last one might have been a bit more fantasy than anything else, but, what’s the harm?). I didn’t expect that he was going to show me his badge.

“Ms. Young,” he said.

“Yes, that’s me,” I said, feeling my face sort itself into a questioning expression that matched the tone of my voice. Something wasn’t right.

“I need to see your passport for a moment.”

I took it out of my purse and handed it to him. He glanced at it, then took out his cell phone. For a moment, it looked like he was comparing my passport to something on the phone, then he put the phone away. “I’m really sorry to do this to you, especially after what just happened, but I’m going to need you to come with me.” He was still holding my passport. I reached for it, but he pulled it away.

“I’m not with that bat shit crazy woman,” I protested. “I’d never seen her before, not even here before we boarded the flight.”

“It has nothing to do with that situation. I don’t want to have to handcuff you, so please just come with me and we’ll get what I’m sure is a misunderstanding sorted out and get you onto the next plane to the US.”

“I’m going to miss my flight? What’s going on?” I stood and began to gather my things, feeling a mixture of fear, anger, and panic over how I was going to get back onto this plane—my plane—as soon as possible.

“Please, Ms. Young.”

The air marshal grabbed my bicep gently but with a firmness that let me know he would stop being gentle if I gave him any sort of reason, and we walked off the plane. Neither of us spoke as he led me back out the gate I’d walked through an hour earlier and down the hall of the airport. At the first security checkpoint we came to, he stopped.

“In here,” he said, gesturing to an unmarked door. He keyed in a code and put his thumb onto a black square until a light turned green and I heard the door unlock.

“What in the hell is going on?” I demanded. “This is a serious misunderstanding, and I want it taken care of.”

“Ms. Young,” the air marshal said, “My name is Agent Andrews. I had to take you off the plane because when the officers arrested the woman next to you, they ran the ticketing information for all of the passengers in her immediate vicinity. Your name came up with a hold; I’m amazed you even got onto the plane.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I said. I felt like I was in a dream. This air marshal, who had looked so handsome while he was taking out the crazy lady next to me, now looked like a threatening entity, standing large and forceful in front of me.

“Your passport was tagged; you’re essentially on a no-fly list,” he said. “An NCA agent is on his way here and he’ll question you, either here or at Headquarters, and you may or may not be able to leave London in the near future.”

I sat back, completely stunned. Brad shot through my mind. He had messed with my passport somehow, or gotten someone else to. But why? Why would he have done such a thing? Why wouldn’t he have just asked me to stay?

“Do I get a phone call?” I asked.

“You’re not under arrest,” Agent Andrews said. “You’re being detained for questioning, but you’re not under arrest.”

“So… did that answer my question?” I tried to keep my tone mild, but I was pissed off and confused, and my ability to censor myself was quickly disappearing.

“You can make all the phone calls you want,” Agent Andrews said, not taking my bait. I quickly took my phone out of my pocket and, under Agent Andrew’s watchful eye, texted Brad.

I’m stuck in London at the airport. No fly list. What the actual fuck? What did you do?

I waited and waited for a response, but more than ten minutes went by and nothing came. Furiously, I texted Patrick.

He responded immediately. I’m on my way. Are you okay?

Less than twenty minutes later, Agent Andrews’ phone buzzed and I watched him answer it.

“I see. Right away, Sir,” he said, and walked over to the door. He opened it and Patrick walked in.

“Agent,” Patrick said, a grim expression on his face. I observed immediately that he was in “cop mode” and he would treat me accordingly. I braced myself for being roughed up a little.

“She came up on no-fly, but she’d already gotten onto the plane. I don’t know how it could have happened, some sort of glitch in the system, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “It happens more often than people think, especially at places like Heathrow and JFK. The system isn’t foolproof. But, it looks like you did a great job, Agent… Andrews.” Patrick made a big show of looking at Agent Andrews’ badge. “I’ll take it from here.” He looked at me. “Ma’am, stand up and put your hands behind your back, please.”

I complied and winced as the cool metal of silver handcuffs pressed against my wrists.

“Could you be more gentle, please?” I asked through my teeth. He was probably being more gentle with me than he would be with other criminals, but he was still being pretty rough. He tugged the cuffs when I said that.

“I need to make sure they’re secure, Miss,” he said. He turned me around and put his hand on the back of my neck. “That her stuff?” he asked Agent Andrews, nodding at my bag.

“Part of it. She checked some luggage that didn’t get pulled off the flight. We’ll get it sent back from JFK when the plane lands.”

“Awesome,” I said. “No clean underwear for a week, then, huh?”

“We’ll make sure you’re taken care of,” Patrick said. “Let’s go.” He made a big show of pushing me out of the room with my bag tucked into a large paper shopping bag. He didn’t say a word to me until he got me outside Heathrow and had me in the back of a black car with a small revolving light glowing red and blue above the driver’s side door.

“Seriously?” I said, rubbing my wrists where he was removing the handcuffs. “You’re putting me in the back?”

He rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I was the first agent on the scene. You’re damn lucky. I saved you a strip search and a lot of humiliation, my dear.”

“But my underwear is on its way to New York City,” I said.

He ignored me and closed the door, then walked around to the driver’s side. He started up the car and pulled back out onto the road.

“Given that you look like someone beat the shit out of you eight ways from Sunday and you just landed yourself on the no-fly list, I’d say that you’ve got a lot bigger problems than having to buy yourself some new undies. Have you given much thought to how you ended up in this mess?”

He was referring to Brad, of course.

“Yeah,” I said, “the funny thing is, I’ve known Brad for a few months now, and I didn’t have any trouble at all like this until I came to London. And met you. Suddenly, I’ve gone from having a nice, normal life to being handcuffed in the back of a police car.”

“I’m not the police.”

“Whatever.” I laid my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t on my plane. Suddenly, my eyes flew open and I leaned my face against the glass cage that separated the front of the car from the back. “Wait, where am I going to stay?” I asked.

He sighed. “Where do you want to stay?”

I thought for a moment. “Just take me back to Legacy,” I said. “I can get in touch with Brad and I’m sure he’ll arrange a room for me.”

“I’ll make sure you have a room—and some clothes—before I leave you for the night.” He signaled and pulled onto the road that would lead us to Legacy. When we pulled up, he opened the door and escorted me out. Without the cuffs on, I felt at least passable as a normal person, though I felt like a few people were definitely staring at me.

We walked into the lobby and I spoke to the woman at the front desk, explaining that I had missed my flight (not a lie, I reasoned) and I had been staying in Brad’s suite, and she could call Brad to confirm that if she needed.

“Not necessary, Ms. Young,” she said smiling at me. “We all know who you are, and we’re delighted to have you back, though I am sorry you missed your flight.” She typed a few things into the computer. “Mr. White is traveling for the next several weeks, so his suite is open and available.”

I nodded as if I knew full well that he was traveling, though her words split my stomach in two. He hadn’t said he was going to go anywhere. Of course… we hadn’t exactly left on the best terms.

I got the key fob and walked back to Patrick.

“Everything set?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Good, then come to the dining room with me. I have some information that you need to have before you go any further in your involvement with Brad White.”

“Um,” I started, remembering vividly the last time Patrick and I had a meal together.

“Obviously I’m not allowing you to use the bathroom,” he said, and gave me the first smile I’d seen from him since he’d rescued me.

“Well, in that case,” I said. “You can buy me lunch; I’m starving.”

We walked into the dining room and sat down at a table in the corner. Patrick selected it; he wanted us to have a private space.

We ordered, and, when the server walked away, Patrick turned to me, a serious look on his face.

“You had asked me about Mavin Toller and his involvement with my assault.”

I nodded, sitting up a little straighter, all traces of my previous snarkiness gone from my voice and face. This was serious. It had always been serious, of course, but with each passing episode it was getting harder and harder to see any humor in even the smaller moments.

“I told you that he was well known to my men. What I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t know at the time, was that he’s a former CIA agent from the United States. Retired, officially, but dishonorably discharged, unofficially. He caused tremendous trouble while he was a CIA agent.”

“That’s how he knew how to find you,” I said.

“Exactly,” Patrick confirmed. “He has the connections he needs to find anyone, anywhere, any time.”

“Why was he looking for you?”

Patrick stopped as the server came by with our salads and an appetizer of grilled ahi tuna. I waited for him to continue.

“Do you remember me asking you if you’d ever heard Brad mention the name Manuel?”

I thought for a moment, and then I nodded. Yes, I remembered the phone conversation, with Patrick in the hospital and me in Morocco with Brad. That seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Manuel is Manuel Brown, one of the top level drug lords and arms deals in the world. He owns most of the underground deals and the people who conduct them.”

I took a bite of ahi and watched Patrick talk. His eyes were animated and I could see in an instant why he had become an NCA agent. For all of the danger and life-threatening situations he found himself in, Patrick got excited by it all. He was in his element, putting pieces together, going after the bad guy, protecting people from the evils of the world. It was hot.

“Okay,” I said. “So what does that have to do with us?”

He looked around and his voice dropped. “Originally, the finger pointed toward Manuel Brown as the one who had kidnapped you. But, it wasn’t him; it was Mavin Toller.”

“Mavin Toller kidnapped me?” I asked, and then I immediately shook my head. “No, I’ve met Mavin Toller, and he was not the man who took me. He wasn’t the other guy, either, the guy who gave me water.”

“Mavin Toller didn’t kidnap you directly, Cass, but he ordered it. That’s how he works. Just like Manuel Brown, he has other people do his dirty work for him.”

“So what do Manuel Brown and Mavin Toller have in common?” I asked.

Patrick looked around again, then leaned in. “So far, the only thing I can determine that they have in common is you and Brad. I don’t know what that means just yet, but I’m getting closer. I can feel it. When Toller had me assaulted—which he did—it was, I believe, a calling card to Manuel Brown.”

I glanced up sharply as our server approached the table from over Patrick’s shoulder with our meal. We ate in silence as I pondered what Patrick had told me. The thought that continued to run through my mind was the picture I’d see on Brad’s desk, the young boy. He was tied up in all of this somehow, I knew. And, I was in Brad’s suite for at least a few weeks without him there; perhaps I could get some time to sleuth around in a way I never could with him around.

We finished our meal and waited until the server cleared our dishes before we continued.

“So, what now?” I asked.

“Now,” Patrick said, drinking the last of his water, “you continue your life here in London as if nothing is the matter. I’ll do what I can to get your passport cleared, and, when I do, you can go back to the States.”

“And what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I’m going to track down Mavin Toller first, and then I’m going to go after Manuel Brown. You need to know,” he said, his voice lowering again, “that Brad is involved in this mess. To what degree, I don’t know. But, you need to know that his hands aren’t clean in this.”

I nodded. While I had originally thought Patrick was completely wrong about Brad, I had to be honest at least with myself in knowing that something had been “off” in my mind about Brad since day one. All of the little details that seemed quirky were now adding up.

“Brad would never assault or kidnap anyone,” I said firmly.

“I didn’t say he would,” Patrick said agreeably. “I just want you to be careful.”

Patrick paid the bill and we walked back out into the lobby.

“Lunch was grand,” he said, “but I need to go back to work catching real criminals, not silly Americans that land on the no-fly list for no reason.”

He hugged me, which was both strange and wonderful. We embraced, and I felt his arms slide easily around me, pulling my body toward his. His chest was warm and he smelled like he’d just gotten out of the shower, fresh and manly.

I waved as he walked to the door, standing in the lobby as long as I could to see him walk toward his car.

I hadn’t yet reached the elevator when the building rocked with the sound of the explosion. I heard shattering glass and watched as several hotel workers ran out onto the sidewalk.

“What the fuck happened?” I asked, walking toward the door. Already, sirens were blaring and police and fire trucks were approaching, the street filling with people and vehicles.

“Some guy just got into his car and fried all to shit,” a man next to me said. “Blew to kingdom come, he did.”

I felt my stomach drop out of my body. My throat dried and I saw stars poking at the sides of my vision.

“Who…” I whispered, but I couldn’t get the entire sentence out before my legs began to give out from under me.

“Whoa,” a man said, catching me and sitting me gently on the ground. “Easy there.”

I couldn’t speak. My eyes were stuck on the street, on the trucks and police gathering around a black car I had sat in just an hour before.

And Patrick… my eyes filled with tears. Patrick.

Brad

I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I knew Cassie was on a plane on the way back to America, but it was as though I couldn’t picture her actually leaving London. I boarded my plane and felt it taxi slowly away from the terminal.

My phone pinged and I looked at it; Simon was calling me. I felt my brow furrow in confusion; he knew where I was going, and we had just spoken.

“What is it?” I asked into the phone.

“You can’t leave,” he said. “There’s been another attack.”

My stomach seized up and I felt my heart race. Of course, I couldn’t let that show in my voice, not even to Simon.

“What?” I asked. “Where? Who?”

“It’s not a property,” Simon said. He hesitated.

“Not Cassie,” I said, my voice taking on a tone I didn’t like. I could sense an element of fear in it.

“Not Cassie,” he said quickly. “But it was a person. That NCA agent, Agent Shim, that Cassie was…” he was about to say ‘involved with,’ but changed his course quickly and said, “was questioned by, the one who helped you find and rescue her…”

“Yes,” I said, “I remember him.” I snapped my fingers and, when my flight assistant looked up, I motioned to her to tell the pilot to stop the plane. Her eyes widened and she nodded.

“Well, he was just blown to bits outside Legacy in London. He had, according to witnesses, just had lunch with Cassie at the hotel.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. “Cassie left on a flight to the US this morning. She’s gone.”

“The information I have is only according hotel sources,” Simon said. “I haven’t been there to confirm anything for myself. I’m on my way there now.”

“I’ll call you back,” I said. I hung up the phone and, while I stalked the length of the plane to get to the cockpit to tell the pilot that the flight was canceled and to turn the plane around, I dialed Cassie.

Her voicemail came through after the fourth ring.

“Cassie,” I said quickly into the phone. “Call me as soon as you get this. I need to know where you are, and I need to know that you’re safe.” I clicked the disconnect button and realized I was sweating, flushed with worry about Cassie and the fact that she was not safely on a plane back to the US, but was, rather, possibly at the site of a car explosion.

“What the fuck is going on?” I asked the empty space around me.

The pilot came onto the loudspeaker and said we had been cleared for immediate return to the airport. I called Simon back and, at the same time, texted my driver to ensure my car would be waiting for me.

“Where is she?”

“She’s at the hotel; I’m on my way. I’ll make sure she gets to the suite. Are you on your way?”

“Yes,” I said. “She didn’t answer when I just tried to call.”

“Some of the lines are down around that area; there’s lots of activity, lots of people using up bandwidth, calling, recording, tweeting. You won’t have any trouble locating her when you get here; the hotel staff knows who she is.”

“Why wasn’t she on the plane to the States?” I asked, more to myself, but, of course, Simon answered.

“I’ll find that out as well, of course. I’ve got a call into a gate agent at Heathrow that owes me a few favors. I’ll know within the hour.”

After hanging up the phone, I paced the plane, regardless of my flight assistant telling me to sit down and buckle myself in. It seemed as though time stopped as we taxied back to the terminal and I deplaned. I raced through the terminal to where my driver always met me; he wordlessly opened my door and drove toward Legacy. It was clear Simon had told him exactly what to do and where to go.

When I got to the hotel, the chaos seemed to have diminished slightly, though the streets were still clogged with onlookers and police. Two firetrucks parked right outside the hotel blocked my driver’s path, so I got out at the end of the block and raced into the lobby.

“Cassie,” I said, seeing her sitting on a bench against the wall. One of my managers was sitting with her, her arm around Cassie’s shoulders, holding a glass of water. She was patting her thigh with her palm. Cassie was white, shaking.

She looked up at me when I said her name, and it looked like it took a moment for her to focus in on my words.

“Hi,” she said dully. “You’re back early.”

“So are you, my love,” I said, and I picked her up, nodding to my manager that she should return to her other duties. “Come, let’s get you upstairs.”

I led her to the suite and put her in a warm bubble bath. I helped her undress and stabilized her as she slid down into the water.

I ran a sponge across her skin, soapy water flowing over her shoulders and her back. She looked up at me gratefully, and I ran my finger along her cheek.

“You’re safe,” I said. “That’s the most important thing.”

Her eyes welled with tears, and she pulled me in close to her. I felt my sleeves getting wet, and I pulled off my jacket and shirt, then knelt down at the edge of the tub. It was the nicest tub in the entire hotel; a double hot tub with candle holders, a space for champagne and glasses, and steps that led up and into the tub. Steps on which I was sitting.

“Don’t ever leave me,” she whispered, and she reached her arms out to me. I gazed at her, getting hard at the sight of her even though I knew the timing couldn’t be worse. I stripped off my clothes and got into the tub with her. She immediately climbed onto my lap, straddling me, the front of her body pressing against the front of mine. Her nipples were hard, erect, reaching toward me, and I arched an eyebrow in surprise as she kissed me.

I tried to pull away slightly, not wanting to take advantage of her, but she pulled me to her more tightly than before.

I felt her fingertips wrap around my cock, and I leaned in to kiss her, feeling her smile spread across her lips.

Cassie

He kissed me and I pressed my body to his, feeling the warm, soapy water slippery between our bodies. I wrapped my fingers around his cock, hard and insistent against the inside of my leg. I felt torn; I couldn’t have been less in the mood for sex, but my hunger for Brad was carnal; it was beyond the lust it had been that first night or any night since. I needed him.

I spread my legs, widening my straddle over him, and I guided his cock into me. Its hardness pierced through me and I gasped, feeling pleasure move through me instantly in waves as I rocked against him. His public bone nudged my clit, slowly becoming more and more swollen, and I moaned, my mouth pressed against his.

“Cassie,” he said, “we don’t need to…”

“Yes,” I said, “we do.” I kissed him harder, brought my hands to his neck and began to run soapy water through my fingers over his ears and cheeks. I wanted to touch every cell. He, with my granted permission, began to thrust his hips against me. He gripped me with one hand on my ass and the other on my back, holding me to him as we moved in the water.

I didn’t remember ever making love in the water before; the sensation was full body. Each movement reverberated with the echoes of the water, and Brad felt both hard and soft at the same time. I melted into him and cried out as my orgasm shuddered through me. He rode it out with me as I moaned with each new wave, and, when he knew I was slowing down, he pulled out and picked me up, his arms strong and his grip tense on my body. He wrapped me in a towel and carried me to the bed, where he set me gently, never once taking his eyes off of me. I felt my words, Don’t ever leave me, moving through his mind as he gazed at me. I won’t, his eyes said back, and I reached for him.

He entered me again, my arms pinned down and my legs spread, and this time he let himself go. He pounded at me, his cock pressing apart the folds of my pussy with each thrust, exposing my clit to a pressure that would, I knew, make me explode at least once more before we were through.

“Cassie, were you in that car?” he asked suddenly.

A bolt of fear moved through me as I remembered sitting with Patrick, laughing.

“Yes,” I said, and he wrapped his arms around me, buried my face in his shoulder, and continued to thrust, slowly at first, then faster, faster, faster, until we were moving together and my breath was a continued, gasping cry of ecstasy. When he came, it flooded from his body into mine, and he groaned, a sound that was more growl, more force, than I’d ever heard.

He finished, and he slid off of me, laying next to me on the bed. Our bodies were still covered in suds from the bath; the bed was wet, but neither of us cared. He reached his hand out to mine and interlaced my fingers with his own.

“I have some answers,” I said. “And I think I know who did it. I think I know who tried to kill me. Who killed Patrick. He told me, kind of, before he…” I stopped. I couldn’t say the words.

“Whatever you think you know, Cass, it can wait until tomorrow. Let me take care of you tonight. Are you hungry? I’ll get one of everything up here within the hour. If you’re thirsty, we’ll get water, wine, whatever you want.”

“No, I need to say this. I need to tell you who’s responsible.”

He looked at me with eyes that were at first pleading, then, as he saw I was serious, I watched them gloss over. He had disengaged.

“It was a man,” I said, “a very powerful man. I just don’t know his name. Yet. But, I’m investigating; Patrick, he told me some names to go on, and I’m going to investigate them until I get to the bottom of what happened.”

“The NCA knows how to do their job, Cass,” Brad said gently, rubbing my breast with the pads of his fingertips. “Let them do the detective work. Like you said, you’re not an investigative reporter.”

I looked at his expression; it was guarded. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, and not just from my recent arousal. I knew the time was now: it was now or never.

“Manuel Brown,” I said slowly, the words feeling foreign on my tongue. “Does that name ring a bell?”

The Billionaire’s LEGACY

Unbelievable Revelations

Sarah J. Brooks

Cassie

“You need to eat something,” Brad said from behind me. His voice startled me and I jumped a bit.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just ate a little while ago.” I didn’t turn away from the computer screen. The light from the monitor spilled onto the skin on the back of my hand, and I focused on it when Brad put his hands on my shoulders and began to rub them. I resisted the urge to lean into him, but I felt my body wanting, craving, his touch.

“That was seven hours ago,” he said gently. “Let me at least make you a sandwich. I’ll bring it to you.”

I sighed quietly and looked up at him over my shoulder. He was looking down at me, a concerned look on his face. “Okay,” I said, more to get him out of the room so I could get back to work than anything else. I wasn’t the least bit hungry and, more, didn’t believe for one second that I’d sat there not moving for seven hours. Where had the time gone? “That sounds good.”

He smiled gratefully, as if he had been anticipating an argument, and he squeezed my shoulders, leaning in to kiss my neck. His lips were warm, and I felt my body begin to respond to the softness of his kiss.

“Okay, then,” he said and left the room. I sighed and leaned back in my chair, his interruption causing me to take a breath and realize that my eyes were hurting from the strain of staring at my computer screen for so many hours. It had been a week ago that Patrick had been killed, and, since then, I’d done nothing but try to figure out who was responsible.

I shuddered as I remembered back to that day, to the explosion that had rocked the hotel where Patrick had just hugged me goodbye. The hours afterward, the chaos. The next morning when I had checked my email and found the message Patrick had sent before his death. He had sent it in the moments between when I’d said goodbye to him and when he’d gotten into his car. I imagined him walking to his car, his phone in his hands, shoulders hunched, tapping quickly at the keys. An email, not a text. Had he known? I would never know the answer to that question. I’d woken up the day after his death and turned on the computer seeking a sense of normalcy. Instead, I’d found his message.

Cass,
Don’t forget our conversation. Don’t forget the names we discussed and their relationship to one another. In the event that you are reading this after something has happened to me, don’t let fear or sadness stop you. You have friends; they will make themselves known to you as needed. You are protected.

Patrick

It was such a cryptic message, still, and, though I found it impossible to believe that he had known he was going to die, a part of me believed that he’d had an intuition about it. He had never emailed me before; I didn’t even know he knew my email address. But, NCA agents can figure out probably most anything, I guessed… except for the connection between Manuel Brown and Mavin Toller.

I heard rustling at the door behind me and quickly closed out of Patrick’s message. I would have no way of explaining it to Brad, and I didn’t want to cause a fight. A moment later, Brad came into the room with a sandwich and a glass of water on a small tray. A rose in a vase and silverware on a cloth napkin made it seem as though the meal was from room service, but I knew from the look of the sandwich that Brad had made it himself.

I smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you,” I said.

He kissed the top of my head and pulled me toward him. “I’ll leave you alone, please eat.”

He left, and I stared at the sandwich as a bizarre mix of hunger and sadness filled my stomach. I didn’t know what our relationship would end up being. So much had happened to pull us off track, and it didn’t seem like either Brad or I knew how to bring things back to where they should be. It was as though the obstacles between us were insurmountable. I thought back to the first night in Belize when we had talked, how drawn I had been to him, how curious and insatiable our initial contact had been. Now it seemed like it was a contest as to which of us was pulling away more, faster.

I had been surprised, though I shouldn’t have been, that he had accompanied me to the funeral. I’d never been to the funeral of a decorated agent of anything before. The outpouring was incredible. NCA agents, as well as representatives from Scotland Yard and the FBI populated the church and burial. Brad had stood by my side from beginning to end, introducing himself in a way that no one really knew exactly who he was. I wondered, based on Patrick’s ideas, if he had done this out of compassion for me, or if he had been worried about being arrested.

I took a bite of the sandwich and my stomach rumbled gratefully. I looked at the website on the computer screen. I’d tried a thousand different searches, sent out several different feelers to contacts, dug deeply into every journalistic instinct I had—and, still, I kept coming up against dead end after dead end. I could find references to Mavin Toller, and, thanks to a contact of Patrick’s, I was able to look at some parts of his former CIA file.

Manuel Brown was a ghost. I found one mention of a Manuel Brown, but, without any other corroboration, it was impossible to tell if that Manuel Brown was the same as the one I was looking for. No birth date, no pictures, no references past or present. No articles, family trees, or even the most basic google information. It was as though he existed in name only.

Still, I was determined to find the truth. If something could happen to Patrick, something could happen to Brad, or to me. I knew Brad was involved in something; I had known that, at least on some level, since day one. It was time to figure out what that was.

Had I missed an opportunity with Patrick? I chewed my sandwich and thought back to the funeral. To all of the people who had said Patrick was the best friend a guy—or girl—could have. He had no family, no wife, no children, parents deceased. I chewed another bite of my sandwich and wondered.

Three days later, I was still wondering. I was dressed in a ball gown standing in front of a full length mirror in a dress Brad had had delivered hours earlier. The dress fit beautifully, and he had brought in a velvet covered box after I’d told him I had the dress on.

“The sparkle in your eyes will make this shine more brightly,” he said, and he’d opened the box to reveal an emerald necklace with diamonds. It popped from the black dress and, as I looked in the mirror, I realized he was right; it made my eyes shine.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, wrapping my arms around him and kissing him. “Thank you.”

“I know a benefit is the last thing you want to be doing right now,” he said, pulling back from me and looking into my eyes. He gripped my forearms with his warm hands, and I felt a shiver move through me. “But, it’s important for you to be there; and I want to be able to show you off.”

He smiled, then, and I had no choice but to smile back. When we’d first met, the idea of a billionaire wanting to show me off to his friends would have blown my mind. Now… after so much had happened, I didn’t know what showing me off would accomplish.

“I know it’s important to you,” I said. “And we don’t have to stay all night, do we?”

“No,” he said. “We’ll cut out early, I promise.”

We drove to the benefit and arrived in time to be a part of the opening red carpet walk. Camera flashes and shouted questions pummeled me and assaulted my senses as I realized I hadn’t been out of the hotel at all since Patrick’s death. Brad covered my shoulders with his arm and protected me, hurrying me past the photographers and into the building. Once we were in, he relaxed. I felt grateful for his protection and his care. He was, at the very least, a consummate gentleman.

It was that feeling that carried me through the evening. I watched him talk, network, schmooze, whatever, with benefactors and clients, working the room like he was born to do it. His tux fit him like a glove, and he moved in it as though it was a second skin. His smile was natural and unforced, yet it had an energy behind it that seemed to reach out and grab people; even the crankiest person in the world couldn’t have resisted.

I watched women lust after him, seeing it happen in a way I never had before. Because I was on my own for much of the night, sitting at the bar or walking around talking to Simon and the other business associates of Brad’s that I’d met, most of the flirters didn’t know he had come with a date. I watched women flock to him, flutter around him, and slip back like insects gently shooed away, daunted but not deterred. Every few minutes, he looked over at me. Sometimes he smiled or waved, but most often it was just his gaze traveling across the room and burning into me.

I remembered telling Patrick that Brad would never abduct anyone. He wouldn’t need to, I thought as I watched him. Any woman—and a lot of men—would follow him straight into hell if he asked them to accompany him.

Was that what I was doing? Was I following Brad straight into hell?

“You know he only has eyes for you,” Simon said next to me. I turned to him.

“What?” I asked.

“You have a very sad look on your face,” he said kindly. “I couldn’t help but notice.”

I liked Simon a lot. He was intelligent, soft-spoken, and kind. He was Brad’s partner, but he seemed to have naturally, over time, fallen into more the role of an assistant. I got the feeling that both he and Brad preferred it that way.

“I was thinking about…” I shook my head. “I don’t know what I was thinking about.”

“You may have been thinking it was about time for the evening to wrap up,” Simon said. “I understand Brad promised you an early night.”

I nodded. “He did, but he’s obviously very busy. I know this is an important night for him.”

“You’re important to him,” he said easily. “Excuse me for one moment.” He stood up and put his hand on my shoulder, smiled at me, then walked toward the restrooms.

“Another cocktail?” the bartender asked.

“Sure, why not?” I said.

I’d had only a few sips of my martini when Brad broke away from the throng of people around him and walked over to me.

“Are you ready?” he asked. His voice was low and rumbling in my ear, and, despite the fact that I’d been feeling such distance between us, I felt my body warm, a faint tingling beginning in my stomach and moving between my legs. I felt my nipples harden against my dress.

“I’m ready,” I said, smiling. The martini had been delicious and strong, and I felt its effects as Brad escorted me across the room toward the door. I kept my face straight as I noticed the disappointed looks on the faces of more than just a few women. Did they really think that he was available? I shushed myself, realizing that he could very well be available; it was him committing to me that made him unavailable to all of these women, who were far wealthier than I was and had far more business being with him than I did.

The night air hit my face as Brad opened the door for me, and I leaned into his arm.

“Cold?” he asked.

“Freezing,” I responded quietly, and he drew me closer. The car pulled up and he opened my door for me. I slid in, and he followed, closing the door behind us. The privacy glass was up between the back of the limo and the front, and he put his hand on my thigh. I crossed my leg over the other toward him, and he leaned toward me.

“I’ve been wanting to do this all night,” he said.

“Do what?” I asked, putting a mock innocent tone into my voice.

He leaned in and kissed me, sliding his hand between the skirt of my dress and my bare leg.

“This,” he whispered. He trailed his fingers along the line where my thighs came together, and, when he reached the apex, I uncrossed my legs and he slid his hand under the hem of my panties. “Mmmmm,” he groaned. “You’re wet.”

I felt a shivering stab of arousal push through me, seeming to magnetically connect with his fingertips. I spread my legs, giving him greater access, and slid down a bit on the bench of the limo.

“Lie down,” he commanded softly. He moved my knees apart as I slid down onto my back, and he lifted my dress to my waist. My knees bent, he ducked between them and began to kiss my inner thighs. His lips felt like soft, pleasurable stings on my skin, and I sighed, feeling my body relax for what felt like the first time in my memory.

His fingers stayed working; his thumb traced my labia and the slit of my pussy until he slowly spread my lips apart and guided his fingers inside me. He continued to kiss my thighs, moving closer to the center of my pleasure—then pulling back again.

“Such a tease,” I said, my voice muffled by the sigh of pleasure that followed as he glided his tongue across my clit. “Oh…”

“You taste so good,” he said. “I could eat you all night.”

“I’m inclined to let you,” I breathed. He took my clit in his lips, rolling it carefully, then he flicked it softly with his tongue. I gasped… and he did it again, over and over, until my breath became nothing more than one ragged gasp after another.

“I saw you watching me tonight,” he said, his tongue retreating just as I was on the cusp of orgasm. “I want you to know that the only thing I was thinking about all night was doing this to you, right now.” He circled my clit with his tongue once again, this time pulling it into his mouth and sucking it, hard, harder, harder, until I exploded in a spasm of heat and saw stars. I cried out, pressing my knees apart, drawing him deeper. He rode out my orgasm with me, and, when I felt the sensations begin to ebb, he gently pulled my dress back down and drew me to him.

Brad

I watched Cassie as she slept; the lull of the airplane engines combined with the exhaustion I knew she was feeling had put her to sleep the moment we’d taken off. I sipped my wine and opened my iPad. I knew I needed to focus on the schedule for our time in Morocco; everything needed to go according to a plan that didn’t yet fully exist. Yet, I was distracted. I couldn’t focus on anything except for Cassie.

It had taken some convincing—no, that’s not right; it had taken some of my best negotiation skills—to get her to accompany me to Morocco.

“No,” she’d said flat out. “No, I’m not going. And, if you go, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be here when you get back. I’m done with all of this bullshit, Brad. People are dying. Dead. Do you get that?”

I’d taken a deep breath. The only woman who had ever been able to get away with telling me what to do had been Lorinda. I had to go back to Morocco. The site was nearing completion, and there was a huge amount of highly sensitive inventory that was going to be coming in; I needed to be there.

“Listen,” I’d said, knowing that the truth was impossible, “I think that you’ll maybe find some answers there. It’s where you were abducted. It’s likely that you will find some leads, some connections…some… something that will help lead you to the answers that you’re not finding on a computer screen. If you come with me, I’ll be able to help you.”

She’d looked like she was about to object. About to tell me that she was making progress on her own, finding answers, that she was one step closer. But, she closed her mouth in the same way she’d opened it, fast, like a fish gulp.

“I want you to find answers,” I’d said gently. “I know you, and I know you won’t rest until you do. Yes, I have some business to conduct in Morocco. But, that’s not the only reason I want you there. I want you there for both of us, of course, but mostly for you.”

I watched her body language closely, watching for the moment when I knew my persuasion was working. What separated Fortune 500 CEOs and people who earned billions from those who considered themselves ordinary citizens was less a talent for verbal negotiations and more the ability to discern body language. To know where the tipping point was. To lead someone right up to it, then take one more breath, say one more thing, just enough to push them over. Nothing more.

“Patrick’s death should show you that your life was, at least at one point in time, in extreme danger. I am here to protect you, and I will protect you with my life. But, I know that’s not enough for you. I know you want to be able to protect yourself. You’re a journalist; you live to investigate and find answers. I want to help you with that.”

Maybe it was Patrick’s name, or maybe it was acknowledging that I want to protect her. Whatever it was that I’d said, it had worked. And, now I sat staring at an encrypted calendar while she dozed beside me.

She slept the entire flight from what had to have been sheer exhaustion. We landed at first light, and I told her she could sleep in the hotel and I would go conduct my business.

“Where are you going?” she asked sleepily from the bed. “I’ll come with you.”

“I’m going to a building site,” I said. “For a new hotel.” As always, the lie rolled smoothly off my tongue. I assuaged my guilt by reminding myself that I wouldn’t be lying to a woman I was fairly certain I was falling in love with for much longer. Part of the reason I’d brought Cassie to Morocco with me was to confess some of the information about my past to her. Even the thought of doing so pushed my nerves into overdrive, but I had felt her distancing herself from me and I knew that, if I wanted to keep her around, I was going to need to start giving her some of the answers she was seeking—as I’d promised I would.

I rolled my eyes thinking about Simon’s reaction. “You thought you could outsmart her,” he’d said. “But she’s no bimbo. That one, well, you got into trouble with that one from the moment you laid eyes on her. She’s too smart for her own good, and she’s definitely too smart for yours.”

That she was.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I said, and kissed her forehead. She moaned softly but was already sleeping once again before I’d stood up straight. I gathered my things and walked quietly but quickly out the door of the suite. I wanted to hurry. I knew Cassie was safe in my suite at Legacy, but I also knew that her life was far from secure anywhere in Morocco. The faster I could get my business done and get us back to London, the better.

The drive to the site was short, and, when we pulled up, I felt, for the first time in what seemed like ages, a sense of hope.

“It looks nearly finished!” I said to the foreman, who was waiting for me just outside the security fence, a nervous look on his face.

“It is, Sir,” he nodded, seeming to relax a bit at the sight of my smile. “There are a few electrical things we’re still working out, mostly with the security system and alarms, but it will be ready for you when your shipment arrives.”

The foreman had aged in the time since I’d seen him last, and I knew that it had probably a lot to do with this project. I held out my hand to him, and he shook it.

“You’ve done fine work,” I said. “You and your men will be rewarded for going above and beyond what I’d expected for or dreamed was possible.”

At this, the foreman beamed. “Let me show you what we’ve done.”

A few hours later, I returned to the hotel, my spirits buoyed by the knowledge that the shipment coming in would be received to a secure facility, and that Manuel Brown, when he arrived, would approve.

Cassie was awake and sitting on the patio when I walked in. Her laptop was open on the table, and she was taking notes on a pad of paper next to her.

“Baby,” I said sitting down next to her. “You back to work already? How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” she said. She paused and sat back, looking over at me. Still, I could tell she was distracted. “How was work?”

“I want to bring you to the build site,” I said. She looked at me like I was crazy. “I want to bring you there so that I can show you part of what it is that I do. And, I need to tell you some things about my past. Some things involving the boy in the picture you saw.”

My heart was pounding loudly enough I could feel it in my throat and hear it inside my head.

“Your son,” she said slowly, her eyes locked on mine, daring me to deny it.

“Yes,” I said, blood rushing through my head. “My son. Antoine.”

Cassie

I couldn’t believe the day that I’d just had. Yesterday, I’d been hunkered down in Brad’s suite in London. Today, I was back in Morocco, once again at Legacy, and Brad was standing in front of me telling me that my instincts had been correct: the boy in the picture I’d found on his desk did have his eyes. The boy was his son. I felt a mix of “duh” along with “holy shit.” I remembered that the first feature of the boy that had stood out to me had been his eyes; his eyes were Brad’s eyes. But, whether I just didn’t want to believe it or something else, I’d let Brad convince me that it wasn’t his son or anyone nearly that significant in his life. I shook my head.

“What happened to him?” I asked. Of course, I feared the worst, and I felt pieces of the puzzle that was Brad beginning to fall into place. The lonely billionaire, isolated, successful in business, a captivating smile but no connections, a worldwide traveler with no roots. Of course; he was a bereaved father. Something had happened to his son. Something tragic, something that he was, perhaps, trying to atone for.

“I’m going to tell you some things today, Cassie, but we’re going to do it on my terms. I will answer only those questions that I feel your knowledge won’t endanger your life. If, at any point, I change my mind, we’re coming back here and I’m putting an end to it.”

I nodded, not because I agreed, but because I knew it was the only way to get him to continue talking. I closed my computer. “Let’s go,” I said. “I’ll get dressed.” I went into the bedroom and changed into tight jeans, boots, and a light t-shirt before Brad could change his mind.

We went first to the building site. I’d expected Brad to explain along the way, to talk about Antoine, to tell me about why he’d had this sudden change of heart and decided to talk to me about all of it, but he didn’t speak. He stared silently out the window while the driver took us through the streets of the village and, finally, pulled up to what looked like a small, modest factory. It looked slightly out of place, but it didn’t look anything like what I’d envisioned the build site of a billionaire to be.

I looked at Brad, confused. He seemed to read my mind. “Not everything is what it seems, Cassie; just wait.”

I nodded and he opened my door for me. He escorted me through the front door and into an elevator. I glanced at him, realizing that the ground floor was actually the top floor of a building that went deep into the earth. He hit the down button and we began to move.

Several minutes later, the elevator doors opened and I gasped. The room before me was immense, a full scale warehouse underground. It was empty, but along the walls and in the center were what seemed like miles and miles of empty shelving, waiting for… waiting for what?

“What is this place?” I asked.

“This is a warehouse for a shipment of… product. This is one of fifty such warehouses worldwide. There’s one in San Pedro—”

“On that tiny ass island?” I asked. He looked at me sharply. “Sorry,” I said, biting my lip.

“There’s another in London. Turkey. South Africa. Russia. The United States. Australia. Colombia.”

He added Colombia at the end, and my journalist brain caught the change in the tone of his voice. Brad thought, I knew, that he was the expert in body language and in reading people, but he didn’t know that I had a fair amount of talent in that area as well. He’d been hoping to just slip Colombia in among the others, but that country was not like the others. Colombia was known for one major thing: drugs. Drugs were connected with guns. Militia. Infidels. The manifest of weapons I’d seen on Brad’s computer shot through my mind, but I kept my mouth shut.

“And the product isn’t Hallmark cards,” I said, looking out at the warehouse instead of at him. “Are the other warehouses empty as well?”

“No,” he said. “This one is empty only because there was an attack on the building. This building that we’re standing in didn’t exist six weeks ago.”

I stared at him. The scale of this project was incredible. There was major money behind building something this strong, this fast.

“Are you the sole funder of the project?” I asked.

“That’s not a question I can answer,” he said.

“You just did.”

He glared at me, and I knew I’d pushed.

“You have no idea how big all of this is.” He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up. The light caught on his forehead and I realized he was sweating. “This was probably all a huge mistake.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Brad, I love you and I want to be able to trust you. I can’t trust you if you withhold things from me. I think you know that, or you wouldn’t be telling me things.”

“What I’m telling you can get you killed,” he whispered, and he looked at me. I saw fear, which I expected to see, but I also saw pain. A pain that spoke so loudly, moved through me in such a rush, I felt my knees nearly buckle. He was in agony.

“Let’s get out of here, then,” I said. “I’ve seen enough.”

We rode the elevator silently back up, and, when the doors opened, I was surprised to see Simon waiting with the driver.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, both surprised and pleased to see him.

He smiled. “I didn’t want to miss the tour,” he said. “Brad told me that he was going to share some information with you, and I wanted to be here to support…you both.”

“I’m going to take Cassie to Florence tonight,” Brad said to Simon.

“Italy?” I asked, incredulous.

“No,” Brad said, finally cracking a smile. “Sorry. Florence is a lounge here in Casablanca. It’s very exclusive, private, and…” he paused.

“It’s secure,” Simon finished. I caught the look of relief Brad shot Simon, and I was glad that Simon was there with us. I had the feeling things were going to get worse before they got better.

Brad

I woke early so I could sneak out while Cassie was still sleeping. Yesterday had not gone well. Cassie might disagree, but I felt like all I had done was further expose Cassie to danger, and I hadn’t gotten very far in asking for her help or in explaining anything about my past.

I traveled to the build site with Simon, who knew enough to just sit in silence with me. I barely knew he was there as I pushed myself deeper into my thoughts. I paged through the texts on my phone I’d exchanged with an unknown number that morning. Manuel. He was meeting us at the site.

We pulled up, and Simon nodded at a black town car also pulled up to the side of the security fence. “There he is,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. I got out of the car; Simon did not. I walked toward the fence, and I kept my eyes trained forward as I heard a door of the town car open. I stood by the fence, waiting.

A moment later, Manuel Brown was at my side.

“Have you been inside?” he asked, staring at the door of the ground level.

“Yes, Sir,” I said.

“And what is your opinion?”

I paused. This was a landmine question.

“I think the foreman did an exceptional job,” I finally said, once again feeling my heart pound loudly in my chest. “I told him that I would be giving him and his crew generous bonuses for the work that they did so efficiently and to such a high quality.”

The words fell out of my mouth, and I paused to catch my breath, closing my eyes to force myself to get a grip. I’d been in board rooms with sharks, with people who proclaimed loudly that they had no soul save for the one they’d bought for themselves. I’d stood up to negotiate for more, better, stronger for myself and for my family at every turn. I needed to be able to handle this conversation in the same way.

“Generous bonuses,” Manuel repeated, chewing the words as if he’d never spoken them before. He probably hadn’t. “Those are the words of a bleeding heart, Mr. White.”

I said nothing. I kept my eyes trained on the door to the building. I knew that there was a gun pointing at me from the town car; that was the way Manuel worked. I knew if I moved, reached, stepped, did anything out of character, the gun would become an active entity.

“And you have a young lady with you this trip, I hear.”

My body fought to respond, to turn to him and tell him to not touch her, to not even reference her, but I kept myself still.

“Mr. White, you have done good work for me in the past. I consider keeping your son alive the equivalent to that ‘generous bonus’ you so readily hand out. Your work has been slipping lately, but I am pleased with the work that was done on this site. The shipment is coming in just hours from now; it’s on its way. Perhaps this is an upswing for you. Perhaps you will get to see your son again one day.”

Bile rose in my throat as Manuel Brown brought up my son. I swallowed hard.

“However, this young woman has caused you some trouble. Mavin Toller, for example, has crawled out of the woodwork. Do you know of Mavin Toller?”

“No, Sir,” I said. “I know of him by name only. From…” I stopped, not wanting to say Cassie’s name.

“From Cassandra Young, yes, I’m aware. I’m also aware of an NCA agent that lost his life in the presence of your young friend. They were close, weren’t they?”

I exhaled deeply but quietly. “They were acquainted professionally,” I said. “Agent Shim was investigating me and was questioning Cassie to get more information about me. Information she never gave him.”

“Right, because he had that unfortunate accident.” Manuel reached out and ran his fingertip along the metal of the chain link fence. “Unfortunate. Accident.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I wanted to meet with you today, Mr. White, to tell you to keep your eyes centered and forward. I’m uncomfortable with the amount of distractions coming into your life: young women, exploding NCA agents, competitors of mine…”

“I’m not distracted, Sir,” I said. “I brought Cassie here only to keep her safe. Mavin Toller has abducted her once, and he’s now killed an agent. I can protect her.”

A snicker escaped Manuel Brown’s lips. “Yes, you’re so well equipped to protect your loved ones. She’s in capable hands, I’m sure.”

I fell silent once again. Each time I opened my mouth to speak, I knew I was risking Antoine’s life, Cassie’s life, and possibly my own life.

“I’m not worried about Mavin Toller,” Manuel said. “Mavin Toller is an ant. I’m a giant holding a magnifying glass. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sir,” I said.

“So, put Mavin Toller out of your mind. Mavin Toller is not a concern to you. He pulled his hand away from the chain link and looked at me. “Mr. White,” he said, and I turned to look at him. “Stay focused. Remember why you began this. It wasn’t for pussy. Distractions, if they’re not eliminated, can undermine the best of men. Either you eliminate her, or someone else will.”

He turned and walked back to the town car. The door opened, he entered it, and I watched until his leg disappeared and the door closed. The car drove away, and then, and only then, did Simon step out of the car, pocketing his pistol as he did so.

“He didn’t look happy,” Simon said.

“No,” I agreed. “He sure didn’t. I have to get back to Cassie; we have to get out of here.”

Cassie

We returned to Florence on our last night in Morocco at my request. I couldn’t stand one more night in the hotel, and I’d actually had a good time at Florence the first time we’d gone there.

We arrived at eight o’clock, Brad in his tuxedo and me in an emerald green evening gown that Brad had, as he’d taken to doing, picked out for me. This was a particular favorite: it accentuated my curves and made my hair look even more fiery than it did on a normal day. I took a small amount of pleasure in stepping away from the computer and my research to don a black lace g-string, black silk stockings, and a corset-style bra that pressed my breasts together and up, creating a shelf of cleavage I knew Brad would want to eat right along with his appetizer.

I wasn’t wrong. He took one look at me and took me into his arms. I felt stress melt out of his body as he held me, kissing my neck and moving his tongue down my neck to the rise of my breasts.

“Easy there, killer,” I murmured. “I want to at least show this dress off for a while before you tear it off of me.”

“I will be tearing it off of you,” Brad said, smiling as he returned his lips to my ear, nuzzling his nose against my ear lobe.

“I expect nothing less,” I said. “Now let’s get going.”

We had the same table that we’d had the earlier night. Each table at Florence was a separate room with a private server. The room contained a traditional table with a u-shaped booth, but it also contained a couch with a table, a large screen television, a fully stocked bar, and a luxurious fireplace. Patrons could sit at the table or move around the room as they wished. Brad and I began at the table.

Our server, a young Moroccan woman who kept her eyes down yet managed to be remarkably attentive, brought a bottle of wine that Brad approved and that tasted like a dream.

The first course arrived, and Brad and I settled in.

“No business tonight,” I said when he opened his mouth to speak. “I want to be a normal couple tonight. Can we do that?”

“A normal couple?” he asked, smiling. “What on earth is that?”

I shook my head. “A normal couple might do something like this.” I took the glass of wine out of his hand, drew my hand to his upper thigh, and kissed him. His lips tasted like wine, and I sucked them lightly, then smiled as I felt his cock hardening against my hand.

“You keep doing that, and we’ll be a normal couple that gets arrested for indecent exposure,” he joked. That would never happen in a place like this, and I knew it. These rooms were private, I realized, precisely because of all of the things that went on behind the closed, private doors. Sex was probably the least of what went on.

“Ah, okay,” I said. “Hands off, then, I got it.” I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms across my chest. Doing so pressed my breasts up, and I watched Brad’s eyes hunger as he looked at them, at me.

“Not so fast,” he said, pulling my arms apart and leaning in to kiss me.

The door opened, and I began to pull away, but Brad pulled me back to him more tightly. I looked out of one eye and realized that our server kept her eyes down for modesty, for our privacy. She saw nothing, she heard nothing… even when she did.

I also realized that Brad and I were far from a normal couple. A normal couple… that, we would never be. I also realized I was okay with that. I pressed my breasts to Brad’s chest, and he groaned, feeling the fullness of me against his broad, strong frame.

“If we keep going like this,” I whispered, “we’re never going to get our meal eaten.”

“Are you hungry?” Brad pulled back from me suddenly and gazed at me, a look of concern on his face. “If you’re hungry, we can get food right away. Real food, we’ll get rid of these appetizers.” He waved at the sushi, bread, and olives as if they were nothing.

“Chill the fuck out,” I said, “and come with me to that couch.”

I led Brad to the couch and I laid down, beginning to pull Brad on top of me.

“One minute,” he said, and he stood up and walked to the door. He picked a red card from a sleeve on the back of the door, opened the door, and slipped the card into another sleeve on the opposite side. He turned and began walking back to me. “That’s to let our server know that we’re not to be disturbed,” he said.

I held out my arms to him and he dove onto me, kissing my neck and beginning to tug at my dress.

“Careful!” I scolded, giggling, “You’ll tear my dress!”

“I’ll have another one delivered by dessert,” he growled. “You are so fucking hot.” He sat up over me and pulled off his tuxedo jacket and shirt, then yanked off his belt and slipped out of his pants. I watched hungrily as his flesh appeared more and more before me.

I sat up and began to unzip my dress behind me. He snapped his fingers and I arched my eyebrow at his non-verbal command, but I knew exactly what he wanted. I sat up and turned, my back to him, and he unzipped my dress. Rather than turn back around, I got to my hands and knees on the couch. My breasts spilled over the corset bra, and I watched him take in my ass and thighs. I knew the g-string was already wet with my arousal, and I moved to inch down the thigh high stockings.

“Leave them on,” he said. “You are too good to me.” He lightly slapped my ass and I felt a surge of energy push through me; my clit throbbed in wanting. I arched my back, lifting my ass toward him. He took my hips in his hands and began to rub his hard cock between my legs. He pressed me down toward the couch, his hand in the center of my back, and I complied, dropping onto my forearms.

He entered me suddenly and I gasped, my body ready and wanting, yet not daring to hope for such immediate satisfaction. He began to thrust, stabilizing himself by gripping my hips and back. The sound of his quads against my hamstrings, a regular, slapping sound, made me wetter, made me call out his name.

“Brad, fuck, fuck that feels so good,” I gasped. The words ran together in one breath, and I braced myself harder against the couch.

He grunted in response, thrusting harder against me as he stood on his knees. I could tell he felt powerful in this position; his cock was nearly bursting in length and girth, and he slid in and out of me so easily I clenched my vaginal muscles to cling to him each time he entered.

“Oh, fuck, Cassie!” he called out as he came in a surge of pressure, his cum pressing into me, his hand slapping my ass lightly but with intention, the crack of his palm creating heat on my ass that drove straight to my clit and pushed me to my own orgasm. I cried out louder than I meant to, and was grateful for the fabric of the couch cushion and its ability to muffle my noise. Though, I knew that Brad liked me to be loud… I cried out again.

***

I woke up the next day with a delicious hangover and the sensation that I had been deliciously fucked. I got up and put on my robe, turned on the coffee, and saw a note on the counter from Brad.

“Ran to a quick meeting down the street. Be back in time for breakfast. Maybe like dinner last night?”

I blushed, grabbed my laptop, and walked out onto the patio. I took a moment to gaze out over the balcony to the street below. It was a week day, and the streets were filled with people on their way to work, meetings, social occasions. It was just another day in the life.

Then, I saw Brad. He was standing on the corner nearest to the hotel, and he was talking to someone. My body tensed immediately as I realized that he was upset. His gestures were animated, and his body was jerking with a nervous energy. I strained to see whoever he was talking to, but the man’s face—I was convinced it was a man—was hidden. I stood, watching, as the man, who had appeared calm at first, began to mirror Brad in his stress and energy. I looked around to see if anyone else was noticing the confrontation.

“Hey!” I yelled over the balcony, but it was too far down for either man to hear me. I ran to grab my phone and I quickly texted Brad.