GABE BLEW OUT HIS BREATH and tried to make sense of his cousin’s words. His security firm had dealt with infidelity in all its seedy permutations before. Their clients included rock stars and business moguls. As much as he hated to accept the stereotype as the norm, it went with the territory. But he sure as hell hadn’t expected it from Blake. Watching his cousins and even his sister Amanda fall in love, he’d come to expect that when a Southerland fell, they fell hard and fast. And for keeps.
Nothing he’d seen between his cousin and his wife had led him to believe they were anything other than head over heels for each other. He hated to think he’d misread the situation so badly and hated even more to think the cousin he’d looked up to had broken his vows. Gabe slept around and had every intention of continuing to do so, but he didn’t lie to the women he dated, and he kept the promises he made.
“I’m going to need more information,” he said, holding out for an explanation that made some kind of sense.
“I don’t have much.” Blake looked miserable and Gabe couldn’t help but feel for him. If he had screwed up, he was definitely paying for it.
“Start with what you do have. How could you not know if you’ve cheated on Samantha?”
Blake flinched at the word cheated, but they weren’t going to get any closer to the truth or to dealing with the stalker by sugarcoating things. At this rate, he wasn’t sure they’d ever get there.
“I went to Westport for a business trip a couple of months ago. I didn’t really think anything about it at the time. Not much anyway.” He paused and Gabe waited, not wanting to spook him. “The morning sickness was hard on Samantha so I went alone. Usually when I’m by myself, I do the obligatory client dinner then head back to my room to work. Sometimes I hit the gym before bed. I have a hard time sleeping without her.” For a moment, he looked so lost, and the incongruity of him cheating struck Gabe again. “The last night of the trip, I didn’t have a work dinner so I stopped at the bar on my way back to my room to grab a burger. I could have gotten room service. I should have gotten room service.”
Gabe nodded reassuringly and waited for Blake to fill in the rest of the story. Whatever happened obviously still tore at him.
“I got a burger and a beer, and I remember talking to someone, but not what they look like. It might even have been the bartender.” He rubbed a hand over his face, pressing on his forehead as if he could will the memories to the front of his mind. Or maybe will them away. “The next thing I remember was waking up in my hotel room the next day, late for my final meeting.”
“What makes you think you had an affair?” he asked, trying to sort through the questions hammering at the inside of his head. Whatever he’d been expecting Blake to say, that wasn’t it.
His cousin looked so uncomfortable. For a moment, he thought he might not answer. “I woke up naked. In my bed and I have no idea how I got there. Honestly, I only remember having the one beer. God. What if I...?”
He let the rest of his question hang in the air and something in Gabe’s stomach solidified into rock.
“I convinced myself I had some kind of temporary amnesia. Nothing was out of place. My wallet, watch, laptop. Everything was where I expected it to be. I convinced myself I was exhausted—I was, I usually am—and tried to forget about it. I went to my meeting and came home.” Blake ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in dark spikes. “I went on with my life. When the letter showed up, the feelings I’d had waking up that morning came rushing back to me. It felt like I was missing something. Then this showed up.” He tapped his finger on the folded letter in front of him. “And I knew something happened. I don’t remember anything, but I know it did. I got tested. I’m clean,” he said, his voice breaking on the last word. He closed his eyes and shook his head before meeting Gabe’s gaze again. “I couldn’t risk bringing anything home to Samantha. To the baby.” He swallowed hard and Gabe reached for his cousin’s arm, needing to make some kind of physical contact because he couldn’t do anything immediate to take away the pain. “I don’t know how to tell her,” Blake said, his eyes red-rimmed and haunted. “I don’t know if I can. If I lose her, I’ll lose everything. Nothing else matters without her.”
“You won’t lose her,” said Gabe, determined to do everything in his power to make sure that was true.
His cousin slumped, resting his head in his hands, everything in his posture telegraphing pain. Gabe dug his fingers into Blake’s arm until he looked up again.
“We don’t know what happened, but even if something did, it’s not an affair. It’s sexual assault. You didn’t cheat on Samantha. Look at me,” he demanded when Blake started to turn away. “Imagine Taylor in the same situation.”
Using Blake’s youngest sister had shock value—maybe too much given the way the pulse throbbed at his cousin’s temple—but it also made Gabe’s point for him. Hell, he couldn’t begin to think about what he’d do if something like what Blake described had happened to one of his sisters. He’d tear the world apart to find the animal who hurt them.
“It’s not different just because you’re a man.”
It wasn’t. He’d started to strongly suspect someone might have used Rohypnol or something like it on his cousin. It was called the date rape drug for a reason and if someone drugged Blake to have sex with him, then it was rape. Looking at the pain etched on Blake’s face, he didn’t think labeling it rape, especially before they knew what actually happened, would help. Getting his cousin to think about it as if it had happened to one of his sisters at least seemed to have stopped him from blaming himself. Imperfect, but he’d work with what he had.
“This changes the way we handle your security.” If someone had drugged Blake, they were likely willing to go a lot further to get what they wanted. It made whoever sent the letters more dangerous and gave the for now a far more ominous tone.
“I’ll pay whatever you need. Please. Do whatever it takes to keep my family safe.”
“Expenses only and I’ll take care of them as if they were mine. Don’t leave the building or let Samantha leave without letting me know.” The Southern Mark building wasn’t that secure given that someone slipped a letter onto Blake’s desk without anyone noticing but he’d get Liam and Jacob working to tighten things up. By the end of the day, they’d have what they needed in place, with more men on the way. The PR lady wasn’t going to like it but family was more important than photo ops. He just wasn’t looking forward to telling her. Especially when he couldn’t explain why.
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“YOU CAN’T JUST come in here and make decrees like that.” Berlin inhaled, counting her breath to keep from screaming at the infuriatingly cocky Neanderthal leaning against the corner of her desk like he owned the world. “There’s no way it’s going to work.”
God, it was like arguing with a wall.
“I’m not negotiating with you. I need six men on site for every event and the schedule at least twenty-four hours ahead of time.”
“That’s twice as many security people as we talked about.” The schedule wouldn’t be a problem. Aside from a few potential minor changes, she could give that to him now. She wouldn’t, but she could. What she couldn’t do was find a way to spin a full-blown security detail as normal, albeit overprotective, family man stuff. No way Edison would buy that. He already had a reputation for being notoriously jumpy. Seeing that kind of security overkill was bound to make him suspicious. Hell, it made her suspicious and she was on Southern Mark’s team.
They were at the touchiest point in the merger negotiations. Nothing had been made public and Blake and Peter didn’t have anything more than the owner’s handshake to go on. Southern Marks Tech was a good fit for Edison. It could be a great fit, but at this point Blake and Peter needed the car manufacturer more than he needed them. If Edison walked away from the deal, the only ones who’d be hurt were Southern Mark and her.
“Can you at least tell me why? What changed from two hours ago?” When she’d been dismissed in front of the arrogant twit. She was tempted to go directly to Blake, but he and the cretin were family. Despite her reputation, she didn’t think she had the kind of pull to overcome that and the last thing she wanted to do was try and get smacked down in front of the asshole.
“I can’t do that,” he said, looking uncomfortable for the first time since he’d walked into her office.
He took up too much space in the small room. He wasn’t as big as the other two of his men that she’d met, but he had a way of sucking the oxygen out of the place. She had to remind herself to breathe. In for four, out for eight so she didn’t reach over and try to shove him off the corner of her desk. Assuming jerk.
“Listen,” he said, holding his hands up in front of him like he was trying to soothe an angry child.
One quick push and she could dump his ass on the floor. He had fifty pounds and seven inches on her—three if she kept her heels on—but she had the element of surprise. One quick push and she could send him ass over tea kettle and knock that stupid king-of-the-world expression off his face. Indulging herself for just a moment in violent fantasies, she plotted the angle of force and resultant trajectory. His brow creased, and she figured puzzled and confused was a decent start.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, dragging her out of her fantasies.
“Nothing.” She couldn’t push him. He was her client’s cousin. She’d have to figure out another way to get back at him for ruining her carefully constructed visuals with his big head and his even bigger guys. “You were saying.” She made go-on motions with her hand and rocked back on her heels as if she was bored with him. She was a lot of things but bored wasn’t one of them. Again, he didn’t need to know that.
“My team are professionals. We will blend in.”
She couldn’t hide the eye roll. Something about this guy brought out her worst.
“We will,” he said, glancing heavenward himself.
Good. She didn’t want to be the only one giving in to childish tendencies.
“Southerland Security is one of the best private firms in the country. The world,” he added, and she bit her tongue before the oh please rolled off it. “We will be discreet because we are better at our jobs that way, but I will not compromise my client’s safety for your optics. Blake is my cousin. Family is more important than anything.”
She searched his face, looking for an angle, but from the outside at least, it looked like he believed what he said. Clearly her experience with family was different than his.
“I can handle your meet-and-greets and an evening of bowling. I’ll see to it myself.”
She knew better than to believe his plan had anything to do with pleasing her, but unless she was willing to resort to violence, she didn’t see much she could do about it. Taking her time, she circled around her desk, still irritated that he’d somehow managed to commandeer it. With his ass. She pulled a sheet of paper from the folder in her top drawer. She’d email him the schedule later, but something about printing it made it easier for her to see connections and the details she needed to attend to.
“Edison’s staff arrives on site Thursday. They’re paving the way for their boss so Blake and Peter won’t be involved with them, but Samantha might.” Despite her condition, Blake’s wife still handled at fair bit of the day-to-day details of running Southern Mark. Aside from the fact that her husband appeared to have a fidelity problem, they made a good team. Stupid men, she thought, channeling her ire in Gabe’s direction.
“What?” he asked, clearly exasperated.
“Nothing.” She shook her head to clear it and turned her attention back to the schedule in her hand. “John Edison flies in with his family Friday morning. They’re touring Southern Mark with all the principals after lunch and then it’s dinner and bowling in the evening.”
It was what Edison’s people requested and what the eccentric manufacturing titan wanted, he got—even if it meant she’d be wearing rented shoes. She’d never been bowling, but she was determined to keep her eyes on the prize—a seamless merger between one of the country’s most important auto manufacturers and a cutting-edge tech company. It would be a feather in the cap of her fledgling PR firm, and if she performed to her standards, her ticket to even bigger jobs.
“Here,” she said, handing him the paper with the itinerary. “I gave you seventy-two hours. See that you don’t screw it up.”
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GABE MET LIAM and Jacob at the hotel to make sure they had what they needed and to go over Liam’s recommendations for securing the building. It bothered him that someone had made it as far as Blake’s office without being noticed, but in all fairness, until the letters showed up, R&D had been a much bigger security concern for the company than the executives’ offices. They’d change that, he thought, rapping once on the hotel door.
A moment later, Jacob flipped open the latch and let him into the extended stay suite. Decorated in a nondescript beige, the suite was a far cry from Emerson’s bungalow at the Bali Four Seasons but it was serviceable and better equipped than plenty other places they’d stayed. They’d booked the suite next door for the rest of the team, who should be arriving within the hour.
Gabe was using his connection as family to stay with Blake and Samantha. With the new information his cousin had given him, he wanted to have a man close to them. If it was him, Samantha wouldn’t ask any questions they weren’t ready to answer.
“Hey,” said Jacob, stepping aside so he could enter.
Liam sat on a rolling desk chair at the small breakfast table, his face partially hidden by his laptop.
“You want to go over this now or wait for the others?” asked Liam, not bothering to look up from his work.
“Let’s do it now. We’re going to have to make some changes to the original plan. The threat level has escalated.”
Liam’s head snapped up and his inky gaze met Gabe’s. “What happened? Something show up after we left?”
“No, it’s new information, not a new event. I’ve got reason to believe the stalker previously made physical contact with the Southerlands.” He had to convey the increased threat level without telling his men what he suspected happened to Blake. He might have to tell them eventually, but for now he was counting on the fact that they’d worked together so many times as a team. They trusted each other without having to explain everything.
“What kind of contact?” asked Liam. The time in Afghanistan had sharpened his friend. His gaze held a new intensity, a tighter focus. It saved their asses on more than one occasion.
“I’m not ready to share that yet, but it was physical and aggressive. There’s reason to believe the threat will escalate from here. I’ll stay with Blake and Samantha whenever possible, but I want you on them the rest of the time and for anything public.” Liam was a better bodyguard than Gabe would ever be. “We need increased security on the building, but I also want to augment our surveillance and video capture size. We have a couple of days before the team from Edison shows up. I’ll determine final staffing levels as soon as I know who they are bringing.”
He needed to ask Berlin for a contact to see if Edison was bringing their own security. He grinned, imagining how she’d react to him actually wanting to talk to someone from the other company. Yanking her chain shouldn’t give him so much pleasure, but with the way she challenged him at every turn, he couldn’t help but enjoy messing with her carefully controlled plans.
He wouldn’t mind messing with her carefully controlled appearance. The tailored suit she’d worn that day practically begged to be rumpled, and her purple-tipped hair hung in a sleek, smooth curtain he itched to tangle his fingers in. Everything about her was polished to a high shine. The only time he’d seen her lose her icy calm had been in her office when he let her know about his new staffing requirements. Then she’d looked like she’d be happy to go a couple of rounds with him. If she could shoot daggers from her eyes, he’d be dead already.
At one point, he could have sworn she was contemplating actual physical violence, and there were a couple of moments where he thought she might go over the edge. He’d seriously considered pushing her there, but none of that would help Blake. That remained his focus; not the infuriating, surprisingly sexy control freak he needed to find a way to work with.
He needed to know what happened in Westport—for his cousin’s sanity and so he had a clearer idea of what they were dealing with. He’d already called the hotel’s security, but they weren’t going to tell him anything over the phone. The Southerland name had been enough to find out they kept surveillance footage far enough back to cover Blake’s stay, but that’s all he knew for sure. The Westport Regency cared about his cousin’s business—a lot—just not enough to send him the footage without at least shaking his hand.
Which meant a trip to the hotel. He couldn’t delegate the job to anyone else, not until he had a better idea what they were up against. He’d have to make time to go himself, preferably before Edison’s team arrived on Thursday. He’d leave first thing in the morning, after Blake and Samantha were safe with his team at the office. If he worked fast, he’d know before the end of business what, if anything, happened in Westport. Liam could cover security at the house until he got back that night. That would give him time to look at the tape—assuming there was one—and either put his cousin’s mind at ease or at least generate a lead they could use and be back before Berlin missed him. He didn’t realize he was smiling until Liam gave him a look.
“Show me what you’ve got,” he said, schooling his face before he got called out for acting like a chick.
“They’ve got card readers at all entrances and exits,” said Liam, pointing to the schematics on the laptop screen. “They just don’t use them anywhere but R&D.” He pointed to the section of the Southern Mark building where manufacturing and new product development took place. “It’s easy to get the system up and running but it’s going to be a bitch getting the employees to use it. They’ve gotten pretty accustomed to propping doors and going wherever the hell they want and they’ve gotten really lax with their ID cards. I could have pocketed half a dozen on a quick walk through the building.”
They could impress upon the staff how important the security measures were, but there was no way they could count on them using them with any kind of consistency in their timeframe. Edison’s people would be on site before the end of the week.
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BERLIN CLOSED THE email Gabe sent her about the new security measures and wondered if there was any way to bump off a security guy and get away with it. She wasn’t being cavalier with her client’s safety. If there was a real danger, she wanted it taken care of, especially if it threatened Samantha. The young woman had been nothing but kind to her, and had a way of getting the staff to do what she wanted without ever having to raise her voice or give orders. Plus her British accent made everything she said seem somehow more civilized.
Berlin just didn’t see how she was going to pass a small army’s worth of hulking men off as civilized and the whole thing seemed like overkill for a couple of letters. Blake had to have gotten unsolicited attention before. The first time she saw him, he’d been on the cover of Wired with a photo that made him look like a young, Southern Christian Grey. She imagined the letters overwhelmed the mail room after that. Rich, sexy, and an environmentalist: he was a millennial’s dream.
So what made this time different? Unless there was something in the letters that made them somehow more legitimate. Or there was reason to believe the stalker had personal contact with him. Like a disgruntled mistress. She pushed those thoughts aside. She’d never been a big believer in happily ever after but if she was going to believe it about anyone, she wanted it to be Blake and Samantha. They seemed so completely in love with each other. She didn’t want to think she’d so completely misjudged them. And she’d do it either way, but believing the happy family story made it easier to sell.
Determined to get through the heaps of email that had piled up that morning, she opened the next one and started working her way down the list, beginning with confirming times and dates with the photographer she’d hired for the Edison events. She had two interviews scheduled with trade magazines that needed directives and there was a request for a press kit from one of the larger media outlets. She’d put out feelers to all of them and she’d loved that it had started to pay dividends. By the time she was finished, Blake Southerland and his company were going to look so phenomenal, Edison would be dying for a piece of it.
She saw the next address on the list and sucked in a breath. She’d started courting Unitypharm months before the job with Southern Mark appeared. They were a small—tiny by industry standards—drug manufacturer but they had a great story. They used proceeds from their popular anti-inflammatory medication to fund their philanthropic efforts in the parts of the country hardest hit by the opioid epidemic. Places where the cost of the lifesaving drug used to mitigate the effects of an accidental overdose were out of reach. It was classic Robin Hood, but instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, they made no bones about the fact that they were using sales from one product to support the other. It made taking their headache medicine feel even better.
The problem they had, aside from the logistics of what they were doing, was the fact that precious few people knew about them. And with them competing against some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, that kind of exposure was unlikely to occur any way but organically—or rather, organically with a nudge. She wanted to be the nudge. Unitypharm had a story she wanted to tell. She read through the email twice, tucking away the important details to call upon later, but assuming the timetable for the Southern Mark merger went close to plan, she’d be looking for a new client around the same time the tiny drug company with the big heart was ready to take the next step.
Weeding through the last handful of emails, she closed the tab and grabbed her tablet with the schedule of events for the Edison visit. She had some details to work through with Samantha and if she was lucky, she could get through them before the sexy security guy who tested the limits of her patience showed up again.