Chapter Eleven
Megan ran her hand along the keys of the grand piano, but didn’t dare press them. Her family’s penthouse was a mirror image of Brandon’s, the living rooms side-by-side, and she didn’t want to take the chance that Brandon would realize the empty apartment next door wasn’t so empty.
The top of the piano had been filled with family photos in gilded frames, but now everything was as stark as a hotel room should be, all personal touches removed and likely sold to the highest bidder.
Her father’s high-tech entertainment system had been replaced by the hotel’s standard issue models, the modern artwork that had graced the walls swapped for some truly ugly pieces that must have spent decades hiding in the basement. Just like everything else in her life, it was the same but completely different.
The master bedroom smelled like clean laundry, not her mother. The vintage shoe collection was gone from the room-size closet, as was any sign that someone had ever lived here. Her father’s study had been replaced by the standard issue bedroom, just like at Brandon’s. She climbed the stairs to the room she’d shared with her sisters with deliberate slowness. Brandon had his office upstairs, but here the Carlton sisters had taken over on the nights their parents couldn’t be bothered to trek up the hill to the family estate.
The landing had once been home to a doll house and play kitchen, but those had long since been packed away, replaced by velvet chaise lounges and a bookshelf stocked with leather-bound classics no one ever read. Now the entire space lay empty.
She hoped someone would read those books.
Her hand shook as she turned the handle and opened the door to what had been her bedroom. Her heart sank to see the three twin beds gone, replaced by the same bedroom arrangement in any room in the hotel. It was what she expected, and yet it made her throat ache. She walked around the room, trying to remember it as it was, as she was.
A note on the closet door caught her eye. She read personal property and she furrowed her brow. She opened the door and found the walk-in closet just as crammed full as it had been since Ava discovered her love of handbags.
Three girls in one closet made for a tight squeeze no matter how rarely they’d stayed here, and it seemed even more had been added to the fray, including a cardboard box of pictures.
Megan sank to the floor with the box in her lap, thumbing through the photos that had been in frames throughout the penthouse. Memories of her first time on her pony, Ava’s sweet sixteen party, sporting a one-piece while her mother and sisters rocked bikinis on the beach in the Caribbean. It all flooded through her as fast as the tears spilled down her cheeks.
They’d had good times, happy family vacations and tender moments highlighted by the picture of her and Ava holding their newborn baby sister. It had been good and her father had thrown it away. He’d put a price on his children and tossed them to the wolves.
Megan could remember that he’d loved her mother once, and over the years his distance from them all grew, other women on the fringe but always there. It got worse and worse until he destroyed an entire legacy.
Brandon would be the same way if she let him. She’d deluded herself for too long that he was different. The lies would get bigger, uglier, and eventually she’d be strangled by them just as her mother was.
She fingered a glamour shot of her mother, one that had sat on her father’s desk right by the phone, and wondered why in the world she’d left with him.
…
“Well?” Brandon clasped the phone to his ear, his hand clenched around the back of his desk chair. He’d been pacing for two hours and hadn’t heard a word from the high-priced security team Danny thought so highly of.
“We’ve reviewed the security cameras from all the exits, and we think she’s still somewhere in the building.”
“I told you hours ago that she practically grew up in the Beverly Carlton. If anyone knows how to come and go unnoticed, it’s Megan.” Realization clenched his jaw. He’d supported her in their game of secrecy, encouraged her to learn how to get away without being seen, and now she’d gotten away from him.
“We’ve also investigated other locations where we’ve seen her the last few months. It’s our opinion she is in the hotel.”
“Where?” Acid burned his stomach at the thought she’d followed through on her threat to find someone else’s bed to sleep in, but the fire waned as quickly as it had built.
That wasn’t Megan.
He put a hand over his thundering heart and calmed himself with the knowledge of who Megan was outside of her circumstances. She was a natural-born philanthropist, a nurturer at her core. As unexpected as their frantic lovemaking in the entryway had been, it would anchor her.
Until Megan knew she wasn’t pregnant, she would act as if she were. There would be a pass on coffee and wine, eating balanced meals, and she’d have a safe place to sleep each night. She would be Megan, his Megan, however infuriated with him.
“We will find her. We’ve done a sweep of the common and employee areas, and have started searching the unoccupied rooms from the lower levels on up. She hasn’t made any phone calls and I was just getting ready to check her internet activity.”
“I’m not sure if she knows how to use the internet on her phone. She usually checks her email from the computers at one of her shelters.”
“She’s online now.”
Brandon shook his head. “I told you she left.”
“Let’s see, she’s in her email program now. She’s sent messages to both of her sisters. Nothing obvious there, but we’ll analyze them later to see if they’re cryptic.”
“Wait, hold on. You’ve been reading her email?”
“We monitor all communications.”
“Well, stop.” His pulse raced faster than before, the need to protect her overriding his own need to find where she was. “I mean it. Back out of her email and do not look or listen to another of her private correspondence. Are we clear?”
“Sir, you hired us to find Mr. Carlton. Monitoring his daughters has been part of that from before we started protecting Megan. We need to act the moment they make contact with him.”
“Megan is bouncing on rock bottom. She has no idea where her father is.” He straightened up and looked out the floor to ceiling windows at the twinkling lights of Beverly Hills.
Megan was out there, somewhere, alone and running, and he’d been the one to send the wolves at her heels. No more.
“You’ve had three months to find Carlton, and stalking his very attractive daughters might get you hard, but it’s not doing your job.”
“They are the best lead we have.”
“Then find another, or you’ll be out of a client. Not just for the Carlton project, but everything. Danny may have faith in you, but I am rapidly losing mine. If I find out you’ve violated the privacy of any of those women, you’ll find yourself as decimated as any of the companies you’ve watched me dismantle over the years. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ve had three months to find an old man, and you’ve lost a young woman from under your nose. I’m not impressed.” Brandon clicked off the phone and hurled it at the wall. The dogs’ heads popped up as it bounced along the floor.
Brandon didn’t want to face them, to tell two dogs he’d lost their mom because his head had been on crooked and he couldn’t keep his pants on around her.
He bounded down the stairs, not at all surprised that neither dog followed. They were as disgusted with him as he was with himself.
How had he not realized how deeply he trusted her? He was completely confident in her ability to keep their child safe, and yet he’d worried about a business deal? About keeping an embarrassing secret for Gemma?
It was beyond ridiculous.
He stalked into the spare bedroom, looking around for some clue as to where she’d gone. Her half-packed bag still lay on the floor of the closet. She’d obviously had a plan, somewhere to run. Now he just had to figure out where.
…
The computer keys clicked beneath her fingers in the main room of the penthouse suite. It felt eerie to be here alone in the middle of the night, especially with everything stripped of the familiarity she’d known.
Still, correspondence and fundraising attempts for the shelters kept her mind occupied, so no matter how many times she had to look over her shoulder at the strangeness of it all, she kept at it. A Brandon-induced pity party didn’t help anyone, but finding a solution to the pet problem with the shelters might. She’d sent queries to dozens of agencies in the last week, but now she had time to sort through the replies.
She was able to find possibilities near each of the homes. It amazed her that they’d never thought to do it before. She’d been so wrapped up in the idea that she was helping so many, she’d been ignorant of the women they hadn’t been able to help.
Spending so much time in the homes lately had alerted her to other challenges, like young couples who needed a break, and mothers with teenaged sons who needed a place to stay with their older children.
She needed more houses, places designed for those who didn’t fit neatly in a traditional women’s shelter, but who needed help nonetheless. But since she was struggling to keep the doors open on the four she had, she didn’t know where she’d find the resources to start three new homes. She just knew that she had to.
Her instant messenger chimed, a screen popping up in front of her. She saw her sister’s handle and smiled.
“Late night?” Ava entered.
“I could say the same to you. Are you just getting in?” Megan typed.
“It’s six in the morning here. I’m starting my day.”
Megan quirked a brow. “Since when do you get up at six?”
“Since I have a business to launch next week. No rest for the wicked.”
Megan laughed, and then jumped as her vibrating phone danced across the desktop. She’d silenced it earlier when Brandon had started calling incessantly, afraid he might hear it ring and realize how close she was. She checked the caller-ID to make sure it wasn’t him again before answering.
“Hey, sis,” Ava said before Megan could so much as hello. “I got a ton of calls about you yesterday.”
Megan walked deeper in to the penthouse and curled up on the stiff, patterned yellow camelback sofa which had obviously been designed for looking at and not sitting on. She pulled a tufted pillow onto her lap and sighed.
“People I haven’t heard from in months wanted to know what was going on with you and Brandon Knight, and ever since the jerk hunted me down, I’ve been wondering myself.”
“When I figure it out, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I think I’ve hit the mother lode of handbags for you.”
“Don’t change the subject, though that was a nice try. You left a party last night with him.”
“Yes, I did.” Megan swallowed, wondering how much to tell. She didn’t want to hear how stupid she’d been.
“And? Come on, this is me. I know you had a major crush on him when you were younger, and then we came back from Europe and poof, you didn’t have the time of day for him or any other guy who looked your way. He’s the only guy I can remember you chasing, and then when he steals Daddy’s company all of the sudden he catches your eye again?”
“I caught him.” In so many ways.
“Doing what?”
Where to even begin? “You said I chased him, and I’m saying I caught him. I held on to him until the day you and I fought at the hotel, my birthday. When I came to get an explanation about what was happening with the hotels, I found him kissing Gemma Ryan.” She choked on a sob and wished her sister were here instead of on the other side of the country.
Ava swore under her breath. “You’re not kidding.”
“I wish I was making up the last part.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“So, why were you with him last night?”
“It’s complicated.” She hadn’t wanted to worry her sisters about where she was living or working, and they were both so caught up in fixing their own lives they hadn’t asked. Megan hadn’t even mentioned the financial concerns at the Carlton Houses. She’d always been as positive and upbeat as possible. And private. She much preferred to fix other people’s problems than to share her own.
“Megan, after what he did to Dad—”
“He didn’t do anything to Dad. Our darling father stole from us, too. Let’s not forget that.” She blinked as she realized she’d just defended Brandon. Again.
“You don’t know that. How do you know Brandon didn’t take the money from our trust funds? He ruined Dad, that’s why they had to leave the country.”
Except Megan did know differently. She’d met with the financial advisors who managed the funds and knew her father had been the one to deplete them. But she didn’t want to defend Brandon any more than she wanted to villainize their father.
Megan rubbed her forehead with her fingers, exhaustion catching up with her. “Have you heard from them?”
“No, have you?”
“Not a word.” She cleared her throat. “How did Mom seem to you the last time you saw her?”
“The same as always. I want to know why she went with him instead of staying with us. I’ve actually been thinking that maybe he told her it was a vacation, and then when they got to wherever, he told her they couldn’t go back.”
“But why wouldn’t she call us? Do you think maybe something has happened to her?”
“Like what? A tragic manicure accident?” Ava laughed. “I think our lovely parentals are basking on a beach, waiting for it all to blow over, or for Dad to figure out a way to get out of whatever tangle he’s gotten himself into. We’ll probably hear from them on Christmas as if nothing has happened.”
“I hope so,” Megan said, knowing they wouldn’t. “So you think they’re someplace warm?”
“I don’t have any idea. Is Brandon trying to get you to find them? Is that what’s making things so complicated?”
“No, it’s not that.” Though she did want to find them before he had a chance to. “I want to join them.”
“Me, too. Work is hard.” Papers rustled in the background. “Well, it’s tedious. I’m up to my eyeballs in handbag rental legalities. It started to blur together last night, so I decided to get up early and tackle it when I’m fresh. But it’s still blurry.”
“Maybe you need glasses.”
“No, I just need Jack to come home and look it over.”
“So, you and Jack are…”
“Happy. We’ve been over this. Jack isn’t like the other guys I dated.”
“But you said he liked to play mind games, and that’s why you stopped seeing him.”
“Really, it was that he didn’t want to bend the rules for me. We’re good now, really good. He’s learning to be more flexible, I’m learning to stretch.”
“You two sound like a workout routine.”
“That’s another story entirely. Tell me about this handbag mother lode you tried to distract me with earlier.”
“Our closet at the penthouse is full. As far as I can tell, they didn’t sell anything we had here.”
“What about Mom’s shoe collection?”
“Those are gone.”
“Damn. Well, I’m going to have to hire you.”
“Hire me?”
“Yes, I have employees now. Well, just the one, but I do. I’ll need you to take pictures of the handbags and email them to me with a cute description. I’ll shoot you over an example. Easy peasy, and I’ll have you make the initial shipments from there. Sound good?”
“Anything I can do to help.”
…
When the electronic lock on the front door clicked, Brandon froze in place. His body locked tight in the push-up position as he stared up from the hardwood floor. Sweat dripped off his nose and the muscles along his taut abdomen shook with the strain at having been used to the extreme for the last two hours. Time slowed to the beat of his pulse, loud and heavy in his ears as he waited breathlessly for the handle to turn.
Megan inched open the door, a collection of handbags threaded on each arm. She stepped inside and kicked the door shut with the heel of her shoe.
Brandon’s body sagged in relief for a moment before he propelled himself to standing.
“Where the hell have you been?” He wiped his slick brow with the back of his arm as he stalked towards her.
She barely had time to shoot him a haughty look before the dogs bounded down the stairs, their nails clicking along the marble floor of the entry. She knelt on the floor, greeting both animals with an affection he sorely missed.
She slipped Cash into one of the handbags, one so large he seemed to stand in it, and rose. Money followed her as she made her way towards the spare room.
“Aren’t you going to answer me?”
“I don’t have to,” she said in a sing-song tone meant to drive him crazy. It worked.
“It is four in the morning, Megan. Do you have any idea what has been running through my head?”
She spun on her stiletto heel and lifted her chin at him. “More lies, perhaps? Is that why you’ve been working out? Trying to get more blood to your brain to help you solve the problem of spinning a tale I’ll actually believe?”
“I haven’t lied to you.” But she was right on about the work out. A bout of intense exercise usually helped him solve any problem that came his way.
But this time there were no options.
“Right,” she drew the word out. “Your definition of ‘nothing happened’ is just different than the one everyone else uses.” She turned back around and stormed into the guest room.
He followed, not about to let her get the last word, especially if it was one against him. “You’ve got to let this thing with Gemma go.”
“Wouldn’t that be convenient for you?” She set the bag with Cash on the bed and slid the others to the floor. Money jumped back as the waterfall of purses tumbled to the ground. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.”
“No.”
“You don’t get a vote.” She sat on the bed and Cash crawled out of the bag and over to her lap as she undid her strappy sandals.
Her bare legs were paler than he’d ever seen them, but they still held the sexy toned muscle and elegant curve of her calves that always distracted him. He’d love to spend an hour just running his hands up and down those legs. And after having her feet in heels that high, she’d do almost anything for a foot rub. It would be a great way to get her to sit down and listen for a change.
“Nice, Brandon.” She tilted her head towards him as she rose from the bed and went into the closet.
He blinked and looked down, realizing he’d risen to the occasion as well. He grit his teeth against the physical reaction and stalked into the closet. “Would you just be reasonable? You have to stop running away like this. You could be pregnant.”
She turned slowly, holding two tiny clutches in each hand. “I don’t want you to think you can hold that over me as some way around your indiscretions. I am not pregnant.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I haven’t had a period since this whole mess started. I’m not exactly the goddess of fertility right now.”
He felt his eyes widen at the shock. His mind spun back a year and a half to the only other time she’d been late. They’d both sat outside the bathroom, holding hands and waiting for the longest three minutes of his life. He knew they’d both been disappointed at the negative result.
His entire perception of Megan and their future together had changed that day. It was in that moment that he went from sure to absolutely certain he would marry Megan, to have her be the mother of his children. In his mind, it was as if it had already happened.
The sweat still clinging to his body chilled his skin as he stared at her. “You’re three months late? My God, Megan, have you taken a pregnancy test?”
She closed her eyes and rolled her lips in as she huffed a breath out her nose. When she looked up at him, fire lit her blue eyes. “Four, thank you very much. I’m not pregnant, just under a lot of stress, and not sleeping or eating enough.”
“But now you could be.”
“I’m not.” She held his gaze with such determination it snuffed out the part of him that wanted to believe she was.
He held up his hands. “I give, Meg. I’m done.”
“Hallelujah.” She tossed the clutches out of the closet and grabbed more handbags from the shelf and did the same.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought you were done pestering me.” She continued until she’d cleared off all three shelves.
“I’m done fighting with you. I’ve spent all night trying to think of a way out of this hole, and the only thing I can think of is to stop digging it.”
She let out a bright peal of laughter before she swallowed her smile and gave him a serious look. “That is the smartest thing you’ve said in months. Now go take a shower and leave me alone.”
“You should get some sleep instead of playing with purses.”
“I’m organizing them.”
“Yeah, it looks like it.” He stepped out of the closet and had to duck to dodge a Berkin he knew had been meant for his head. “For what that bag cost, you shouldn’t toss it.”
“Crap, you bought that one.” She snatched it off the floor and stuck it on the highest shelf she could reach. “That was the only one, right?”
“What are you doing?” He leaned on the doorjamb and peered into the closet once more.
“I’m working. Since you had me fired, twice, I had to find a new job.”
“Purse throwing is lucrative?” She shot him a glare that should have made him turn tail and run, but he couldn’t help the grin. This spitfire was his Megan, and God help him, he found her determination and tenacity as sexy as ever.
“Ava really believes this handbag rental company she’s launching is going to hit big. But don’t worry your pretty little head, there aren’t any shares on the open market, so there’s nothing for you to buy up.” She emerged from the closet and placed her hands on her hips as she stared at the handbag mountain.
“So you’re selling these to Ava?”
“No, just adding them to her collection.” She wrinkled her brow like she was thinking hard about something. “I need to borrow your camera.”
His eyes widened as she marched out of the room as if he wasn’t even there. “Wait a minute.”
He caught up to her and gripped her arm, spinning her around. “We’ve been up all night, and I am willing to table this so we can sleep on it. But if you’re going to work, then we’re going to talk.”
“This is when I work, Brandon. My shift at the coffee shop starts at four in the morning. I am wide awake. If it bothers you, Cash and I can leave.”
“Not a chance.”
“Fine. You don’t have anything to say I want to hear, so leave me alone.”
“That’s not happening, either.”
“Then you’ll have to launch your diatribe while I’m working.” She shook off his arm and climbed the stairs to his office with a determined sway to her hips.
He followed, more than happy to watch her climb the stairs. When they reached the top he held back, watching as she walked to the closet and opened it as if she knew everything inside. It seemed she did because she emerged with a pocket-sized camera moments later.
He cocked his head to the side and caught her gaze. “What are these pictures for?”
“The website.” Megan tried to move past him, but he stayed in her way.
“Then you’ll want a better camera, a tripod, and natural light if you’re not going to do them in a studio. Which means you need to wait until the sun comes out and normal people are awake.”
“I’ll make do.”
“Don’t be stubborn for sport. This is Ava’s chance. She needs every advantage she can get to make this work. Her website photos need to look as professional as possible, or this will flop, trust me.”
“I don’t trust you. You’re just trying to stall me so you can brainwash me into becoming some Stepford girlfriend. No thank you.”
“Megan, you know how many times I’ve been able to turn a company around with an image facelift. You can be as annoyed with me as you want, but my business instincts are spot on. The other images for her website were done professionally, so yours need to be on par or she’ll wind up having to redo them and you’ll be wasting your time and effort.”
She quirked a brow. “How do you know what her website looks like? It’s just a coming soon page.”
“I met with Jack when I was in New York.”
Her eyes widened and blazed with fury. “Tell me you are not invested in Ava’s business.”