Her Christmas Surprise
Kristin Hardy
Mills & Boon Cherish
Which brother? For Keely Stafford this holiday season already left something to be desired. First, she’d caught her now ex-fiancé in the act with another woman. Then he – and millions of dollars – had gone missing, and the police thought she was involved. Talk about a blue Christmas!She needed help, and she was about to get it…from the most unlikely, if rivetingly handsome, source… From Lex Alexander, black-sheep brother of her ex-fiancé. Lex had left home at eighteen and has returned only to get the family fortune back.It looks like lovely, fragile Keely Stafford is the key to everything he is looking for. And money is just the beginning…
“What’s your hurry?” Lex asked, studying her.
Blonde, slender, almost luminous, there was about Keely a bit of that smooth elegance the women in Chilton always had, the result of salon pampering, expensive cosmetics, luxurious clothing. Amazing what money could buy.
And yet… Though she was thinner and somehow even more brittle than he remembered, she was more beautiful than ever.
Keely Stafford. His brother’s fiancée.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
Lex had known her as a kid, but she was all grown up. If she’d disturbed him then, he had a pretty good feeling she could send him right around the bend now. And besides her obvious attractions, there was something about her – a combination that caught a man’s imagination…a combination that might make a man do anything to try to unlock the secret.
Even steal millions, if he had to.
KRISTIN HARDY
had always wanted to write, starting her first novel while still in primary school. Although she became a laser engineer by training, she never gave up her dream of being an author. In 2002 her first completed manuscript debuted in Blaze®; it was subsequently made into a movie by the Oxygen network. Kristin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and collaborator. Check out her website at www.kristinhardy.com.
Dear Reader,
Last autumn I got to thinking about fate. I love the idea that the universe brings us to that perfect person, no matter how much we may fight it or how confused we may be. The concept stuck with me, and a week later I had the idea for Her Christmas Surprise. Both Keely and Lex are sure they know exactly what kind of person the other one is – and what they think of them. Watching their preconceptions fall away as they discover one another was fun. What a surprise when Keely finds out that the man she thought was the bad brother is the good guy after all!
I’d love to hear what you think of my tale. Drop me a line at Kristin@kristinhardy.com. In the meantime, stop by www.kristinhardy.com for news, recipes and contests, or to sign up for my newsletter to be informed of new releases.
Enjoy!
Kristin Hardy
Her Christmas Surprise
KRISTIN HARDY
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to Ellen Zimiles, Co-Founder and CEO of Daylight Forensic & Advisory, David Johnson of the National White Collar Crime Centre, and Carmella C. Budkins, town clerk of Greenwich, Connecticut
Dedication
To Gail and Charles,
for their infinite patience,
And to Stephen
All I ever wanted, all I ever needed…
Chapter One
“I think we should call off the wedding, Bradley. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I’m sorry, but I think it’s for the best.” Keely Stafford gave a brisk nod. Calm, matter-of-fact, decisive. That was the right tone.
Too bad she was saying it to herself in an otherwise empty elevator rather than to her soon-to-be-ex fiancé’s face.
Tonight, though, tonight at dinner she’d say it. She’d chosen a quiet, intimate restaurant where they could talk and where he was unlikely to protest too much. Do it in public, that was the thing.
In the meantime, stopping by to take her clothes and things from his midtown Manhattan apartment while he was at work would eliminate the need for any post-breakup visits. Not to mention keep her from chickening out, since the minute he noticed her stuff gone he’d have questions.
And Bradley always noticed everything.
She gave her head an impatient shake and pushed a strand of blond hair out of her eyes. She was twenty-five, for God’s sake. She had a life, her own apartment, a career. If she had second thoughts about their impending marriage, then she needed to pay attention to them. She was old enough to know what she wanted.
At least she hoped so.
Keely walked down the hall to the door of Bradley’s plush condo and reached into her purse for her keys. So she’d had a crush on him at twelve, back when they’d both lived in tiny, affluent Chilton and he’d been the golden boy of the country club. Back before he’d taken over his spot as top executive in Alexander Technologies, the company started by his great-grandfather.
And, yes, maybe she’d fallen for him hard when he’d walked back into her life when she was nineteen, but you couldn’t build a marriage on infatuation. Things had felt wrong of late. Nothing she could put her finger on, just a niggling sense that if they went through with the wedding, they’d both be sorry.
The key slid into the lock with a quiet snick. And then she heard it.
A noise.
A noise, a loud thump inside what should be an unoccupied apartment. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
Leaning closer to the door, she focused. Seconds ticked by. And she heard it again. This time, it wasn’t a thump, it was a human sound. Wordless, inarticulate. A groan.
Bradley.
Her heart began to thud. Had he fallen somehow, been hurt? Was he lying there alone, needing help and unable to summon it?
Swiftly, she opened the door and moved into the hall. Just as she opened her mouth to call out, the sound repeated, louder now that she was inside. And she stopped.
It wasn’t a cry of distress. It wasn’t the sound of someone in pain. It was the sound of a person in pleasure.
The sound of two people.
Shock paralyzed her.
“Oh, yeah, baby, like that, just like that,” a woman’s voice cried out with the now rhythmic thuds.
Keely stepped carefully on the marble floor of the entryway, trying to remain quiet. Not that it would matter, from the sound of things. They weren’t listening for noises. They didn’t care. They were completely caught up in one another.
She rounded the corner to the open door that led to the bedroom. And there, standing next to the bed with a woman’s ankle against his neck, was Bradley, sweat gleaming on his naked shoulders.
Limber, the woman was definitely limber, was Keely’s first distracted thought. She’d apparently perfected a position Keely hadn’t even realized the human body was capable of. And Bradley was coming up with noises Keely hadn’t ever heard from him—at least until he looked over and saw her standing in the doorway.
“Keely!” He pulled out of his partner and whirled around.
The woman cried out in protest.
Face hot, the blood thundering in her ears, Keely backed out of the room. The door. All she wanted to do was get to the front door and get out. Frantically, she snatched at the fingers of her left hand, struggling to pull off the engagement ring that now burned there. She didn’t want anything of his touching her. She just wanted away.
“Keely, wait.”
It was Bradley, wrapping his robe on.
“What, so you can finish?”
“It’s not what you think. I can explain.”
“You can explain?” She whirled to face him. “Explain what? Is this that special project you’ve been working on lately?”
“Keely, don’t do this. I love you.”
“I can tell,” she said bitterly, glancing up at the woman who now stood in the doorway, wrapped in the emerald-green silk robe Bradley had brought Keely from Singapore. Don’t let it bother you. Don’t let yourself care.
“Look, I made a mistake.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m the one who’s made the mistake.” It was like having battery acid running through her veins, burning, burning everywhere. The metal band of the ring slid off her finger, finally, and she slapped it down on the hall table. “I was feeling bad about doing this tonight but you’ve saved me the trouble.”
“You’re breaking up with me?” Bradley stared incredulously. “We’re getting married in a month.”
“No, Bradley, we’re not getting married ever.”
“Keely, don’t be like this.” He reached for her.
“Don’t you touch me,” she hissed. She wasn’t sure what expression he saw on her face but he backed away.
“Keely, come on. Think about it for a minute. You’ll be sorry if you walk out now.”
“I’m already sorry, Bradley. Marrying you would only compound it.”
Feeling light-headed, like she was in a dream—or a nightmare—she turned and walked out the door. She couldn’t feel her feet touching the ground. There was a ringing in her ears, even as she descended in the elevator and walked out into the gray December day.
The midmorning street looked normal, cars passing, bits of snow still left from the recent storm, only a handful of pedestrians out. Most people were at work, where she should have been. Where she’d been sure Bradley would be. Keely strode down the sidewalk, not toward the subway that would take her to work but back toward her home and sanctuary.
Back where she could weep and let it all out.
So she’d been planning to break up with him. That did nothing to diminish the betrayal and hurt and humiliation of knowing he’d been cheating on her. Of seeing him with another woman. Keely’s eyelids prickled and she sucked in a breath. She wouldn’t cry, not here on the street. Home. She just had to get home and she’d be all right.
Sometimes what you thought you knew wasn’t what you really knew at all. After all, she’d been certain when Bradley had walked into her mother’s florist shop the summer before her senior year in college that she was falling in love. They’d stayed together nearly every weekend that summer, every time he drove up from Manhattan to Connecticut, every time she’d taken the train into town. It had been so perfect she’d been sure she was dreaming. Nothing could feel so good as being twined together with the golden, laughing Bradley.
She’d insisted on finding herself an apartment once she’d graduated and taken an accounting job with Briarson Financial in the city. She loved him, she was sure of it, but somehow, she hadn’t wanted to live with him then, even though they’d spent all their time together. She’d wanted something of her own.
And then he’d proposed. “Why should we keep wasting money on cabs all over town?” he’d asked, sliding the ring on her finger. “I want you to be mine.”
Keely had been so sure that they’d be deliriously happy the rest of their lives. And even though, nearly a year and a half later, she’d become increasingly certain that marrying him was the wrong thing to do, that did nothing to diminish the trauma of walking in to see him, to see him cheating with another woman.
Especially since they’d never had wall-banging, screaming wild sex like that. Their sex had always been quiet and, well, routine. Bradley had always seemed to enjoy himself and she’d enjoyed it, too. More or less. So it wasn’t transcendent. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for wall-banging sex. It hadn’t seemed nearly as important as the other time they spent together.
But now, still seeing the scene every time she closed her eyes, she felt suddenly uncertain. Maybe what was missing between them wasn’t something with Bradley. Maybe it was her. Did she not turn him on? Was she not woman enough?
Keely blinked hard and walked faster. Home. She just wanted to get home, call in to work and then have a good cry.
But when she mounted the steps of the tidy brownstone where she had a second-floor apartment, she found a crowd of uniformed police and other official-looking people milling about the lobby. That was the last thing she needed, news of a break-in or something in the building. Digging in her purse for her keys, she got into the elevator and stepped out a moment later onto her floor.
Only to see her front door wide-open.
It dizzied her. Her chest tightened so that she couldn’t quite get a breath. She half ran the few steps down the hall. “What’s going on?” she demanded. “What’s happ— Oh, my God!”
Her apartment was completely ransacked, books, DVDs and CDs strewn about the living room, plants knocked over, the television taken off its stand and upended. From her vantage point, she could just glimpse the kitchen, cupboards yawning open and canisters spilling flour and sugar on the counter. “Did someone break in?” She moved to step inside.
The man at the door raised his arm to block her. “You can’t come in here, ma’am.”
“What do you mean I can’t? I live here,” she snapped.
“Ah.” He eyed her speculatively. “If you’ll just wait here…”
She wished she were the sort who wouldn’t wait but would stomp into her apartment. That wasn’t her, though, any more than throwing her engagement ring at Bradley would have been her, however much she’d ached to do it. Mind whirling, staring at the mess with sick horror, she waited.
A fortysomething man wearing a navy jacket and khakis appeared. “Are you Keely Stafford?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Can I see some I.D.?”
With an increasing sense of unreality, she obeyed, getting out her wallet to show him the drivers’ license she seldom had use for. “Is anybody going to tell me what this is all about?”
“Come in and have a seat,” he said instead, inviting her into her own home.
Inside, the mess looked even worse. “My God, who did this? When did it happen? Everything was fine when I left here two hours ago.” Numbly, she moved toward the hall that led to her bedroom, where the contents of the linen closet lay in a pile on the floor. Thieves? She didn’t have much of value to steal, just her computer and her television, both of which were there. Vandals? But why?
“Miss, sit down. Please.”
“Sit down?” Her voice rose. “This my home.” She stalked over to the man on the couch, locking eyes with him. “If you or someone like you doesn’t tell me what’s going on in the next two seconds, I am going to pitch a fit the likes of which you’ve never seen before.” And she realized as she said it, that it was true. “What’s happened? Who broke in here?”
“We did.”
And her legs gave out and she sat. “‘We’? Who is we?”
“Federal agents. We’re investigating a Bradley Alexander and we have reason to believe that he may have left items here germane to our case.”
“Bradley?” she repeated incredulously.
The man flipped out a badge and a search warrant. “John Stockton, FBI. We have evidence that Bradley Alexander has not only been embezzling funds from Alexander Technologies, he’s been laundering the money through a matrix of limited liability corporations—LLCs,” he elaborated.
“I’m an accountant,” she said shortly. “I know what an LLC is.”
“I bet you do.” He watched her, eyes appraising.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you know anything about the operation, Ms. Stafford, it would be best if you cooperate with us. Mr. Alexander is facing criminal charges.”
Down the hall in the bedroom, something fell with a crash. Keely flinched. “Cooperate? Am I under suspicion?”
“Let’s just say you’re a person of interest. You’re his fiancée. You’re an accountant and he’s working a pretty complicated scheme. Even if all you did was give him advice, you need to tell us.”
“Give him advice? I don’t know a thing about any of this. And quite frankly, I find it hard to believe. Why would Bradley embezzle? He’s rich. His family, the stock, his salary… He’s chief operating officer of one of the biggest communications companies in the country. Why would he need to embezzle?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know,” she burst out.
“Funny, his bookie does. So do his poker buddies.”
“Poker? He plays in a home game, for fun.”
“With a ten-grand ante. Between that and the bookie and the high-roller game in Atlantic City, he’s lost millions over the past five years. Your fiancé’s in one hell of a financial hole.”
Her fiancé.
And immediately she was back in Bradley’s condo, staring at his bare back as the muscles flexed, as he made love with another. Betrayal of the most exquisite kind. Without thinking, she sought out her now bare ring finger. “Ex,” she said aloud.
“What?”
“Ex-fiancé.”
The gaze Stockton turned on her was flat, skeptical. “You’re due to be married next month. Tavern on the Green, according to my file.”
“Not anymore. We broke up this morning, you can ask Bradley.”
“We would if we could find him. Your…ex-fiancé has apparently skipped town.”
She’d seen them before on the television news, victims of disaster, people overwhelmed by a mounting series of calamities, unable to cope, their expressions vacant with shock. Keely knew how they felt. First Bradley, then the search, then the reality of what he’d really done.
Done and dropped in her lap.
She couldn’t say how long she’d been in the interview room, protesting over and over that she didn’t know anything. And feeling the web draw tight around her. She supposed she ought to get a lawyer, but getting a lawyer would be admitting that it was really happening and she hadn’t done anything.
But Bradley had.
He’d stolen tens of millions, they said. Alexander Technologies may have been family controlled, but it was still a public company. He hadn’t been stealing from himself. He’d been stealing from shareholders. He’d ported funds from Alexander to fake vendors, LLCs he’d set up himself, to pay fraudulent charges for services that had never taken place, goods that didn’t exist. That was just the start, though. Once the money was there, it had been funneled through a tangled web of corporations.
Corporations that listed her name on their boards of directors.
“I’m telling you I don’t know anything about it,” she’d protested.
“It’s in your own best interest to work with us, Ms. Stafford,” they’d said.
“I am.” After hours of questioning, frustration had taken hold.
“How did he get your personal information?”
“He was my fiancé, for God’s sake. He was in my apartment all the time. I didn’t watch him every minute.” And sometime when her back had been turned, when she’d been in the shower or kitchen, he’d found her social-security number and used it to link her to an embezzling and money-laundering scheme that might land them both in jail for a good long time.
Her saving grace was that they couldn’t show she had any of the money. Mostly because she didn’t. She’d known nothing about it, been no part of it, but the only person who could tell them that was Bradley, and sometime between the moment she’d stepped out of his door and the instant they’d simultaneously broken into her apartment and his, he’d disappeared. She’d been walking across town in that time. Bradley? Maybe some sixth sense had warned him. Maybe her walking in and finding him had gotten him out on the street sooner than he otherwise would have been.
She’d saved him from arrest. And in return, he’d slapped her in the face with betrayal. Then again, cheating on her was nothing compared with the scheme he’d embroiled her in. And now here she was, under investigation, her home invaded and ransacked, her life upended, her very freedom in jeopardy.
The door opened, startling her. It was Stockton.
“Ms. Stafford? We’re finished with our questioning for now.”
“I’m not under arrest?”
He shook his head. “You’re free to go, but we’d like to be informed of your whereabouts. Don’t leave town without telling us.”
Of course. They’d want to watch her, see if she contacted Bradley.
She picked up her purse and rose.
“Ms. Stafford.” Stockton held out a card. “If you find anything, if you think of anything that will help, call or e-mail. It’s in both of your interests.” His eyes watched her, unwavering.
“If I find out anything to help you, it’ll be as much news to me as to you, Mr. Stockton,” she said, and walked out without looking back.
* * *
Keely sat at her desk, staring at the parallelogram of sunlight that slanted in through the window and listened to the ringing of the phone held to her ear.
The way it hadn’t rung for her in the two days since the police had searched her home.
“’Lo,” said a laughing female voice.
“Lara,” Keely said with a rush of gladness. “It’s Keely.”
There was a beat of silence. “Oh. Hi, Keely,” Lara responded, the laughter gone now.
Lara Tremayne, her closest friend in the city. Lunches and gallery openings, committee meetings for fundraisers, they saw each other once or twice a week. Lara didn’t, Keely noticed, ask what was new. She didn’t have to. The newspapers and television news had taken care of that. Still…
Keely swallowed. “The cancer ball is coming up and we need to get the planning committee together.”
“Oh, right. I meant to call you. The committee had a discussion—”
Keely’s fingers tightened on the phone. “About what? I’m the chairperson.”
“Yes, well, that’s the thing. The feeling is that with your, er… With what’s going on, well, we thought it was better if someone else took over.”
“I see.” Keely fought to keep her voice emotionless. “When did you make that decision?”
Lara hesitated. “The day before yesterday.”
“When, exactly, were you planning to tell me?”
“Soon, Keely. I’m sorry. It’s just awkward.”
It hurt, Keely realized. She’d thought Lara was genuinely her friend. It looked like she’d thought wrong.
Lara cleared her throat. “Look, for what it’s worth, I don’t think you would ever have gotten into this without Bradley.”
Keely bit back a reply as the phone line beeped and the caller ID panel flashed her boss’s extension. “Look, Lara, I have to go.”
“Me, too,” Lara said in obvious relief. “Bye, Keely. I’ll call you.”
Yeah. Keely would hold her breath for that one. She pushed down the hurt and punched the button by the flashing light. “This is Keely.”
“Keely, Ron. Can I see you in my office?”
Ron Arnold, her boss. Normally if he wanted to talk with her, he just stuck his head into her office when he walked by. This time, he was summoning her. With a sense of foreboding, Keely rose.
Since the day she’d walked in on Bradley, work had been the only part of her life that had been remotely normal. Normal, that was, if you discounted the crowd of paparazzi that camped out around the entrance of Briarson, snapping photos and shoving their microphones in her face. After all, it wasn’t every day one of the hottest couples on the social scene got busted for white-collar crime. They couldn’t find Bradley, so Keely was the next best thing, a photo to run next to the stories. “Fiancée and suspected accomplice Keely Stafford.” Only she and Bradley knew their engagement was off.
“Sit down, Keely.” Stocky and balding, Ron Arnold had been her department head ever since she’d been at Briarson. “How are you?”
“Fine,” she said automatically.
Arnold’s gaze wasn’t unsympathetic, though she wasn’t sure pity was any easier to tolerate than the judgmental or frankly curious looks she got from the rest of the staff. “I’m sorry for what you’re going through. It can’t be easy.”
Easy? Hounded by the press, watched by the authorities, returning at night to the shambles of her invaded home, no sanctuary anywhere? No, it hadn’t been easy. “I’ll survive,” she said.
“Have you seen this?” He laid a folded copy of the New York Post down on his desk. It showed Keely walking into the building amid a crowd of reporters, her head down, her coat bundled about her. And on the wall behind her, clearly legible, was the Briarson Financial name.
“I’m sorry, Ron. I’ve tried getting here early, staying late. They’re always after me, wherever I go.”
“Hard to escape. Kind of like ticks that way,” he said.
She gave him a grateful smile. “If it wasn’t for this place right now, I don’t know what I’d do. I think I’d go crazy.”
“Keely.” He hesitated. “There’s been some concern from higher up in the organization. We’ve gotten calls from clients who’ve read your name in the papers. Some of the accounts you’re working on.”
Of course, she thought with a sinking heart. Keely Stafford, accountant at Briarson Financial, the center of an embezzling scheme. Not exactly the kind of thing a client wanted to hear.
“Your work here the past three years has been top notch. All of your reviews have been outstanding, even with the high-pressure accounts. We can’t have our clients upset and doubting the organization, though. And every time you show up again in the press it only gets worse. I’ve been trying to keep things on an even keel but the higher-ups are demanding I do something. I think you understand.”
Her lips felt cold. “Are you letting me go?”
“Not now,” he said. “But we need you to take a leave of absence.”
To where? The confines of an apartment that didn’t feel like hers anymore? To the streets or a hotel, to be hounded by the press? “Ron,” she began helplessly.
“Don’t you have family in Connecticut?” Arnold cut in.
“Chilton.”
“Good. Go there. Take the rest of the month. Go home. After all,” he said, “it’s Christmas.”
Chapter Two
How had it happened? Lex Alexander wondered as he drove down the snow-bedecked main drag of Chilton, Connecticut. How was it he was back in Chilton, where everything looked just the same, from the herringbone parking on Main Street to the wrought iron arches that spanned the boulevard? The benches on the town common were green now, rather than the white they’d been twelve years before, but otherwise, little had changed in the time he’d been away.
Except him.
He’d hitchhiked, stowed away and knocked around the less savory parts of pretty much every continent on the globe since he’d turned his back on Alexander Technologies and everything that went with it. He’d sought out places most people in their right minds fled. And those who didn’t faced them armed with a hell of a lot more than just their wits. He was nuts, some said.
If anything he did showed he was nuts, it was coming back to Chilton.
He’d known he was in trouble when he’d heard his mother’s voice crackle over the phone. The fact that Olivia Alexander had tracked him down on the back side of nowhere was impressive in itself. In the places he frequented, he wasn’t Aubrey Pierce Alexander III, he was just Lex, the man he’d made himself into since he’d turned his back on the role of heir apparent, turned his back on his autocratic bastard of a father. Or non-bastard, rather, since nobody had more impeccable breeding than the late Aubrey Pierce Alexander II—Pierce, to nearly everyone who knew him.
As for Lex, he’d been dubbed Trey at birth. Trey. Version 3.0. He hadn’t even gotten a name of his own, let alone a life. Pierce had been relentless in his expectations and pressure. Any step outside the narrow box Pierce had defined earned discipline; the greater the rebellion, the greater the response. Aubrey Pierce Alexander III was by God going do what was expected of him.
What happened when an irresistible force met an immovable object? In Lex’s case, what happened was that he walked away with little more than the clothes on his back. Walked away from the expectations, the family, the eight-figure trust fund. Walked away to remake himself.
Forget about Alexander Technologies. He’d been happy to leave that to his younger brother, Bradley, who’d always seemed to relish being the corporate G-boy and society-column staple.
But Bradley had apparently dug himself a hole that was threatening to swallow him up—and their mother, too. Maybe there were guys out there who could have ignored that desperate call and gone on with their lives, but Lex wasn’t one of them.
No matter how tough he wanted to think he was.
God knew coming home was the last thing he wanted to do. If his father had been alive, it flat out wouldn’t have happened, but the old man was gone and Lex knew damned good and well that his mother wasn’t up to dealing with this on her own. Olivia Alexander might run the local DAR chapter and organize two-hundred-plate benefits with the efficiency of a general planning a military campaign, but she was unequal to facing the authorities and family ruin alone.
Lex pulled his rental car off onto a wide, quiet residential road bordered by stone walls, and felt the familiar sense of suffocation. Beyond the walls, at intervals, rose the stone and brick mansions of the Chilton ton, all decked out in their holiday finery.
The sudden urge hit him to just keep on driving. There were a dozen places he’d rather be, a dozen things he’d rather be doing. But first, he had to finish what he’d come here for.
And who knew how long that would take?
With a swing of the wheel that was as irritated as it was automatic, he pulled into the driveway that led to the Alexander estate and stopped at the intercom by the gates to press the button.
“Hello? Who is it?” A maid’s voice, unfamiliar, not surprisingly. What was he supposed to answer? Lex would draw a blank. Aubrey Pierce III wouldn’t do much better. “Trey Alexander,” he said finally, and the gate buzzed open.
Trey Alexander. The person he’d thought he’d left behind. The life he’d thought he’d left behind.
He passed up the drive and pulled the car to a stop at the front steps of the house. Might as well get it over with, he thought, raking his dark hair back off his forehead as he headed up the steps. He’d done far tougher things than this in the years since he’d walked out. At least here, no one was likely to shoot at him, not even verbal missiles now that the old man was gone. If he hadn’t known he was walking into a mess of trouble, he’d have even felt a bit of anticipation at seeing his mother again. Curiosity, at the very least. But there was trouble, he’d known it instantly by the tone of her voice. All she’d had to say was—
“Trey?”
She stood at the open door, staring at him. Twelve years had added some lines, but otherwise she looked the same, still trim, still stylish. Still richly, discreetly brunette—Olivia Alexander wasn’t the type to give in to the gray. Except for his father, Olivia had always remained firmly in control of her world. Or maybe not, Lex realized as he kissed her smooth cheek and felt the slight tremble in the hand he held.
And then she was wrapping her arms around him, hard, in the warmest hug he could ever remember getting from her. “You came,” she murmured. “I wasn’t sure you would. It’s been so long.”
He hadn’t been sure, either, just found himself on a plane without ever having made a conscious decision. He’d always scoffed at people’s notions of family, at least when it came to his family. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t so foolish after all.
When she stepped away from him, he saw the sheen of tears before she blinked them back.
“Hey,” he murmured.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said quietly. “Twelve years without a word.”
“I’m here now.”
“You’re here now,” she agreed.
He’d been the one to finally break the silence two years before. Stuck at a godforsaken Somali airfield, flipping through an out-of-date English news magazine, he’d turned the page to see an obit on his father. “The financial world mourns,” the headline had trumpeted.
Lex hadn’t, not a bit. But he’d spent a long night brooding over a bottle of whiskey and when the day had dawned he’d placed a call to his mother. Granted, three-month-overdue condolences weren’t exactly timely, but better late than never. After that, he’d found himself with a strange compulsion to check in a couple of times a year. The conversations were awkward at times, full of silences during which they both groped for conversation, but he always found himself picking up the phone again.
And when the time had come, she’d figured out how to find him.
“Put your bag down and come sit,” she said. “I’ll have Corinne bring us something to drink.”
It looked different, was his first thought as they walked through the house. Lighter, brighter. There was less of the oppressive heaviness the rooms held in his memories. Perhaps it had been his imagination. Or the shadow of Pierce. “The place looks good,” he said as they walked into the living room, now inviting and airy.
She hesitated. “I changed a few things after your father passed away.”
Interesting. Pierce had always insisted that his family home be kept as it had historically been—dark, ponderous furniture, ornate wallpaper, heavy drapes. Left to her own devices, Olivia had recovered the dark walls with pastels, pitched the dark green velvet window hangings of his youth for something softer. Luxurious, sure, and still traditional, but there was an inviting feel to the room, an openness it hadn’t had before.
“I like it,” Lex said as they walked to the chairs that overlooked the grounds. “You’ve done a nice job.”
“It was time for something new.”
Boy, wasn’t that the truth? Too bad the something new involved legal action.
The maid brought coffee and for a few minutes the conversation was taken up by the safe and easy questions of cream and sugar; no, for him, in both cases. Then the maid bustled away and they settled back, watching one another in the silence.
“So.” Olivia took a sip of coffee. “How was your flight?”
He gave a wry smile. “Which one? There were four.”
“Any. All of them, I guess.”
“Uneventful. Which is a fine thing in a flight.” Especially the kinds of flights he habitually took. It had taken him days to work his way from the bush to Chilton, just one of the prices he paid for the life he led.
So different than here. He stared at the grounds outside the window, now covered with a light dusting of snow. “When did you get this?” He nodded at the drifts.
“A couple of days ago. A nor’easter. I lost two rose bushes. The gardener didn’t get them properly mulched in time.”
“Don’t you hate when that happens?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Maybe they’ll come back in the spring,” he said instead.
“Perhaps. In the meantime, we’ve got all this snow. I don’t know how much of it will stick, though.”
“Why, is it supposed to warm up?”
“For a few days.”
They both stared out at the snow as though it were the first time they’d seen it. The truth was, they didn’t know how to be with each other after all these years. It was worse than being with a stranger—with a stranger, what he said wouldn’t matter. Here, every word had resonance. The seconds ticked by. The silence stretched to the breaking point. Lex cleared his throat. “This is—”
“Is your—”
They stopped. “You first,” Olivia said.
He nodded at his cup. “Good coffee.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
“One of the things they do well where I go is coffee.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why you insist on going all these dangerous places.”
“You can get in worse trouble in some neighborhoods in New York.”
“I don’t know why a person would go there, either.”
He resisted the urge to say the obvious. Instead, he cleared his throat. “So how is the DAR?”
“Fine. We’re working on the Christmas gala. It’s only two weeks away.”
“A lot to do.”
“Oh, there is. Flowers, seating charts, music.”
“Sounds like a lot of meetings.”
“Always. I’ve had more cups of coffee in the past two weeks than you’d believe.”
“Coffee can be good.”
“It can. You always liked it, even when you were young. It’s so strange to have you here,” she blurted.
Out in the open, he thought. “It’s strange to be here.”
“You’re a man.” She shook her head. “When you left, you’d barely started shaving.”
“Once a week, whether I needed to or not,” he said ruefully, brushing his knuckles over his shadowed jaw.
“I guess time has a way of changing things.”
“Generally,” he agreed.
“I’m talking around it, aren’t I?”
“You’re allowed.”
“Not when you’ve come all the way from Africa to help me. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know who else to call.”
“So where do things stand?”
“I assume you’re referring to Bradley’s legal troubles.”
“Actually, I’m referring to yours.”
It took her a moment to reply. “We have an appoint ment tomorrow at two with Frank Burton, to discuss the details.”
Frank Burton, his parents’ lawyer for as long as he could remember. “He on the case?”
“He’s been in touch with the authorities and can tell us what they’re doing to find Bradley.”
“I assume you’ve tried the obvious stuff like calling his cell phone.”
“The service is shut off.”
“E-mail?”
“No reply.” She shifted in her seat. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”
“If there’d been a reasonable explanation, he wouldn’t have bolted.” And if she’d truly believed in it, there would have been no distress call. “Even if he’s innocent, running makes him look guilty.”
“I just can’t believe that Bradley would do a thing like this on his own. It had to be that girl pushing him into it.”
That girl. A wealth of disparagement in the words. “His fiancée? I thought you liked her. I thought she fit right in with this scene.” Which made her about as far from anyone he’d want anything to do with as possible, but, hey, it wasn’t his life.
Except for the fact that he was now thrown into the middle of it.
“I don’t think she was good for Bradley.”
He heard the obstinate denial in her words, knew that she wanted above all to avoid believing the worst of her son. “Mom,” he began, “I don’t think—”
She waved her hand, dismissing it. “There’s no point in speculation. Let’s wait for the details. They’ll find him and we’ll know everything soon enough.”
Or not. Lex, of all people, knew how easy it was to go underground when you wanted to.
Olivia stood. Conversation over. “Why don’t I show you to your room?”
They climbed the staircase, walked down the familiar hallways. And stopped at the door of his old room. “I hope it’s all right. It’s the only one that’s made up, except for Bradley’s. We turned yours into a guest suite after you left.” She gestured at the pale green walls, the color of spring.
New beginnings.
Old memories.
Lex walked slowly inside, ignoring the new furnishings, heading toward the window. It had been the view he’d liked best, even when he’d been shut in for punishment. He could look across the grounds and off in the distance see a slice of blue where the sea glittered under the sun.
And dream about escape.
He heard Olivia walk up next to him.
“I missed you when you were gone,” she said quietly, staring out at the sea on the horizon. “It’s a terrible thing on a parent when their child disappears.”
Guilt knifed through him. “Mom,” he began helplessly, not knowing at all what to say. Knowing only that leaving had been his sole choice.
“I used to wonder every night where you were. If you were alive, if you were safe…whether you were somewhere wanting to come home. I always hoped that if you needed help, you’d tell me.” Silence fell. And suddenly she was leaning her head against the cool window glass. “Why did he do it, Trey, why? Did we do something to him—to both of you?”
Oh, hell, he thought, and reached out a hand awkwardly to lay it on her back. “You didn’t do anything to either of us.”
“I let your father run roughshod over you.”
“That’s like saying you let the nor’easter hit. He did what he did. I did what I had to. Bradley made his decisions, too. None of it was anything you could have changed or stopped.”
She straightened and turned to him with eyes that were dry, he saw in relief. “I don’t know if that’s true. I think you’re being kind but I’m glad you’re here.”
“Not a problem.” And suddenly he found himself reaching out to give her a hug that felt right.
“I just… I didn’t know what to do,” she said against his shoulder.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find Bradley, we’ll figure it out. Everything’s going to be okay.”
He hoped like hell he was telling the truth.
“I can’t say I’m sorry to see the back of that Bradley Alexander,” Jeannie Stafford said to her daughter as she slipped a stem of baby’s breath into an arrangement of gerbera daisies.
“I could have done with a different exit.” With absent efficiency, Keely twisted ribbon together into a bow, added on an “Jeannie’s Floral Creations” tag and handed it to her mother to tie onto the vase.
“I never liked him.”
“He’s not good enough for you, girlfriend. None of those Alexanders are, for that matter,” said Lydia Montgomery, Jeannie’s longtime clerk—and Keely’s good friend since they’d begun working together in the shop’s first days.
“He was always a little too pleased with himself. And now, look at what he’s done to you,” Jeannie fumed. “Look at the trouble he’s gotten you into.”
“And Olivia Alexander spreading rumors it was all your fault,” Lydia added. She set aside the arrangement and began another.
“You don’t know that she said that,” Keely countered. She hoped not, she really hoped not. Olivia Alexander had seemed like one of the few genuine people in the social whirl. Keely had always thought Olivia liked her, that she’d approved of the match.
Lydia put her hands on her ample hips. “Well, Sandra Maxwell told me she overheard Little Missy Olivia talking when she was waiting on their table at Petrino’s, and she usually tells me straight.”
“I’m sure Olivia doesn’t want to think that her son could do anything like that,” Jeannie said. “What mother would? You’d hope that you’d raised them better.”
“Well, she should wake up and smell the coffee.” Lydia shook her head so hard that her red plait of hair swung back and forth. “She’s been fooled. Everybody’s been fooled.”
Including yours truly, Keely thought. “Look, how about if I go get us some coffee and donuts?” she interrupted. If she didn’t get out, she was going to go nuts.
Lydia and Jeannie gave each other a rueful look. “We’re ranting, aren’t we?” Jeannie asked.
“Well…”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” She gave Keely a hug. “He just makes me so mad, that’s all.”
“You deserve better,” Lydia said.
“Why don’t you take a break and go get us some coffee,” Jeannie suggested. “We’ve got half an hour to finish the rest of these centerpieces for Lillian Hamilton’s tea and you’ll just distract us.”
“I’ll help when I get back.”
“You’re supposed to be relaxing.”
“I relax better when I’m busy.” Keely winked and walked out onto the street she could have navigated with her eyes closed.
Christmas garland festooned the trees, every shop was decorated, emphasis on quaint. Growing up, she’d always vainly hoped that her parents would move to the city, any city, just somewhere more exciting than Chilton. After all, they’d had the money to do whatever they wanted.
At least back then.
But Staffords had lived in Connecticut for decades, centuries, all the way back to the days of British rule. They weren’t budging now.
Of course, things had changed in that time. Maybe they still lived in the big fieldstone house her great-great grandfather Clement Stafford had built in 1891, but the family money was gone, eaten away by the crash of 1987 and the subsequent bursting of the Internet bubble. Her father had many fine qualities, but stock-market savvy was not one of them. He’d ridden some big losers right down into the ground.
Oddly, he seemed happier now that the bulk of their holdings had been lost. Instead of facing a self-imposed pressure to increase the family fortune by the thirty or forty percent his predecessors had managed, he went to work every day to the shipping company that had brought him on as CEO. The company’s stock kept rising and her father thrived.
As did the florist shop that Jeannie had launched right after the crash with the last of her own trust fund, hoping to keep the creditors at bay. She’d taken the skills that had won her Garden Club awards and parlayed them into a successful business. And if some of her DAR cronies looked down on her for working, she was happier being productive. So they’d had to sell off the houses in Provence, Vail and St. Bart’s, the pied-à-terres in Paris and Milan. They were happy and they were comfortable, and that was all that mattered.
I never liked him. How had Keely missed that? She hadn’t wanted to hear it, she acknowledged. Bradley had been her perfect golden boy, her teenage crush grown up, and she hadn’t wanted to lose that illusion.
Instead, she’d lost all of them.
And now, her parents would wind up being out money on deposits for the reception and the flowers and the music, money they could ill afford to lose.
Then again, if things didn’t go Keely’s way, they might find themselves spending a whole lot more helping her pay for a lawyer.
Keely shook her head. She wouldn’t think about that now. She wouldn’t think about the fact that she’d had to notify Stockton before she’d left Manhattan. A weekend. She’d work in her mother’s shop, maybe go out for lunch with Lydia and give herself a weekend of thinking about nothing more demanding than irises and poinsettias. Come Monday, she’d tackle the whole mess and figure out how the heck she was going to reclaim her life. For now, she’d let the future take care of itself.
A few feet ahead of her, someone walked out the door of Darlene’s Bake Shop, and the scents of fresh bread and coffee that wafted out after them had her mouth watering.
Some things never changed, Keely thought with a smile as she walked into the store. The same mismatched wooden and upholstered chairs sat around the same ragtag collection of tables in the café area. The walls were faded to the color of butter, still hung with the same antique pressed-tin signs and sepia photographs. The same wooden children’s toys, knickknacks and memorabilia still sat on the blue shelves. And Darlene still stood behind the counter, a little older, maybe, a little wider, but with the same broad smile. “Keely Stafford. I heard you were back,” she said.
“You heard right. I figured I’d come spend the holidays with my parents.”
“I bet they’ll like that,” Darlene said. “I’m sorry to hear about your troubles.”
It was a simple comment, casually uttered. How was it that it had her eyelids prickling? “Thank you,” Keely said, blinking. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I’m sure it will be. They’ll figure out soon enough you weren’t involved,” Darlene said comfortably. “You just be patient. Now, what can I get you?”
“Got anything fresh out of the oven?”
Back in the kitchen, a timer peeped. “You must be a mind reader,” Darlene said. “Give me just a minute.”
As she bustled into the kitchen, the front door jingled. Automatically, Keely glanced over to see who had come in.
It was a man, dark and unshaven, rumpled-looking in jeans and a black leather jacket. His build was rangy, his stride careless as he headed to the counter. His dark hair ran thick and undisciplined down to his collar, as though he didn’t much care about what it did. When he got closer, she saw the lighter streaks of brown on the top. Sun, maybe? It would go with the tanned skin. Who had a tan in New England in December?
It was his eyes, though, that caught her attention, an almost unnatural green, smudged now with fatigue. There was something disturbing in those eyes, that direct gaze, something that gave her a little shiver deep down.
“’Morning,” he said, coming to a stop beside her. “Can a guy get a decent cup of coffee here?”
Keely nodded. “You’ve come to the right place.” He definitely didn’t look like he belonged in Chilton. Just passing through, she was guessing. Or casing the joint. There was something about him, something unpolished and just a bit raffish that started a little buzz inside her. He reminded her of someone, an actor, maybe, with those cheekbones. That was probably why she kept finding herself sneaking looks at him.
He stared into the glass baked-goods case at the neat pyramids of croissants, scones, cherry Danish and doughnuts. “So what looks good here?”
You.
The thought came unbidden, just as he glanced up and caught her gaze on him. For a breathless instant, they looked at each other and she felt a sudden, surprising stir of heat. Her cheeks warmed. She would have known she was blushing even if she hadn’t seen the slow smile spread over his face. Fortunately, Darlene came bustling back out of the kitchen to rescue her.
“Here we go, a fresh pan of corn muffins,” she said. “I’ve also got carrot and blueberry and—” Her mouth fell open as she stared at the newcomer. “Trey? Trey Alexander? As I live and breathe. Just look at you!”
And recognition hit Keely with the force of a blow. Of course. Trey Alexander, Bradley’s older brother, the one who’d been disowned. The one Bradley always joked had been voted most likely to in high school—most likely to be arrested, that was. With his faint flavor of lawlessness, Trey had always made her uneasy when she was younger. Granted, she hadn’t seen him since she was fourteen, but still, she should have recognized him.
Darlene bustled out from behind the counter to hug Trey. “Look at you. You haven’t been eating enough,” she fussed. “Look how thin he is,” she said to Keely.
Not thin, exactly. You could see the muscle and strength at a glance. It was more that he was stripped down, as though something had worn away the inessential parts, paring him down to nothing but muscle and bone. The cleft in his chin ran deep, his face all lines and planes and angles, with the sharpness of cheekbones pressing against the skin. It was the face of a hard man who lived in a hard world. A smuggler, Bradley had said, and he looked it. Only his mouth held any softness. Maybe that was why it kept drawing her gaze. It was a mouth that could fascinate, a mouth that could make a woman forget her better judgment.
At least until one corner of that mouth tugged up into the sardonic smile she remembered so well.
She knew that smirk, oh, she knew that smirk. It was the same one he’d given her when she’d seen him at the country-club tennis courts or around town, that hint of disdain, the curve of his mouth as though he were enjoying some private joke at everyone else’s expense. Who was he to look down on her, anyway? What had he done that was so great, besides being disowned?
And now, here he was, popping up at the worst possible moment. She was already neck-deep in trouble, coping with the mess Bradley had made of her life. The last, absolutely last thing she needed was to deal with another Alexander. The last thing she needed was to deal with that smirk. Next, she’d walk out the door to run into Bradley’s mother, Olivia, and her misery would be complete.
“A coffee, two lattes and three crullers,” she said to Darlene. “To go.”
“What’s your hurry?” Lex asked, studying her.
Blond, slender, almost luminous, there was about her a bit of that smooth elegance the women in Chilton always had, the result of salon pampering, expensive cosmetics, luxurious clothing. Amazing what money could buy.
“I’ve got to get back.”
“To where?”
“Her mother’s florist shop,” Darlene broke in. “Although I guess that all happened after you left. You’re behind the times, Trey. Or I guess it’s Lex you go by now, isn’t it?”
“Lex?” the blonde repeated. “That’s new.”
“Short for Alexander,” Darlene explained. “Our Trey grew up.”
And he saw. Older than he remembered, thinner and somehow more brittle, yet more beautiful even so.
Keely Stafford, his brother’s fiancée.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
Lex had never deluded himself that he could come into town and avoid everyone but Darlene and his mother. He’d never expected to run into Keely Stafford, though. Olivia had babbled about her leading Bradley astray. Lex wasn’t so sure of that. Bradley was quite capable of getting into trouble on his own; he didn’t need Keely to help him.
Which didn’t mean Lex hadn’t always found her irritating on general principles. She was part of the perfect plastic world he’d walked away from, one of the twin-set-wearing, country-club tennis players headed off to get their Mrs. degrees at college. He didn’t want to remember seeing her at the club when he was almost eighteen, just before he’d left home for good. She’d been maybe fourteen if she was lucky, on the court in a little white skirt, a disturbingly innocent sexuality in her coltish legs and unself-conscious strides.
She might have been a kid then, but she was all grown up now. And if she’d disturbed him then, he had a pretty good feeling that now she could send him right around the bend. There was something about her, not quite beautiful but interesting. She’d photograph well, he thought. At first glance, she seemed cool, controlled—smooth blond hair, brows perfectly arched above soft gray eyes, slightly tilted cheekbones that threw just enough shadow to be intriguing.
But there was something else about her, something hovering in her gaze, something about the way her mouth managed to be both delicate and enticing at the same time. It was a combination that caught at a man’s imagination, a combination that might make a man do anything to try to unlock the secret.
Even steal millions, if he had to.
Maybe Olivia wasn’t so far off base after all.
“I thought you were supposed to be in New York,” he said, without realizing he was going to.
“And I thought you were supposed to be smuggling in Outer Mongolia,” she replied coolly.
It amused him. Almost. “I came home to help my mother with this whole legal mess. I guess you’d know something about that.”
Her chin came up at his words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing more than it sounds like. I’d hope you know about it. Bradley is your fiancé, after all.”
“Ex-fiancé,” she said, with a bit more of an edge.
Interesting. “Ex? When did that happen? Before the feds showed up or after?”
She flushed and turned to take the bag and the coffee carrier Darlene handed her. “I’m not sure it’s any of your business.”
“This entire mess is my business whether I want it to be or not. You and Bradley are the whole reason I’m here.”
Her stare was bland as she walked over to the ledge that held sugar and creamer and spices. “For what, our wedding? How touching.” She sifted a bit of cinnamon over her latte before taking a drink of it.
“Don’t be cute. There’s trouble and you know it. My mother called me to help out.”
“Who, Bradley?”
“Both of them.”
“The only way to get Bradley out of trouble is to find him.” She put the cover back on the cup.
“So why don’t you?”
“Find him?”
“You’ve got to have an idea where he is.”
“I haven’t a clue. Anyway, you’d probably do better at finding him than I would. You’re another one who knows how to leave and stay gone, from what I hear.”
“And now I’m back.”
“So you are.” She set the muffin bag in the middle of the carrier and turned toward the door. “And now I’m gone.”
He followed her outside. “Back to New York? Doesn’t seem like it would be too much fun right now.” He’d caught sight of the lurid headlines in the airport. Contempt had had him ignoring the scandal sheets with their blurred paparazzi pictures or he probably would have seen Keely. That was where the brittleness came in, he was guessing.
“It’s none of your business where I go. The engagement’s off. I’m done with Bradley. And the rest of you. If it weren’t for your brother, I wouldn’t even be back in this town.”
Just as Bradley was the reason he was back. Irritation pricked at him. “Tell me where Bradley is and we can all go home.”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“You can’t really expect me to believe that.”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
She moved to turn away but he captured her free wrist in his hand. Her skin was smooth under his fingers, and impossibly soft. “Not so fast. We need to talk.”
She turned on him. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Oh, I think we’ve got plenty.”
For a breathless instant, they stood, toe to toe, gazes clashing. The seconds ticked by, then abruptly, surprisingly, her eyes darkened. Desire punched through him, sudden and unexpected.
Deliberately, she glanced down to where he held her. “Let me go.” Her voice was icy calm.
He wondered if she had any idea how hard her pulse was thudding against his fingers.
Well, well, well, he thought, Keely Stafford wasn’t nearly as cool as she tried to pretend. It hadn’t been his imagination. There was heat under that calm, composed exterior.
“All right.” He was surprised at the effort it took to make his fingers release her. “For now,” he said.
“For good,” she countered. “I’ve had enough of you Alexanders to last me a lifetime.”
“You haven’t had me.”
“You’re the last one I need.” Her voice was low.
“Maybe,” he said, leaning closer and brushing one fingertip over her chin just to feel her skin. “But don’t think you’ve seen the last of me.”
“Go to hell,” she snapped, and walked away.
And he stood and watched her go.
Chapter Three
It was infuriating, Keely thought the next morning as she did a flip turn at the end of the lane in her parents’ indoor pool. He’d put his hand on her and she’d just stared at him like some idiot. Not like some idiot, like some ditzy thirteen-year-old staring at the football captain. So maybe Trey Alexander—excuse her, Lex—exuded a rough kind of charm, but she wasn’t about to let it work on her. One Alexander brother had been enough.
One Alexander brother had been too much. Men, in general, were too much for her just then. She stroked rhythmically, trying to let the soothing slide of water wash away the tension. There was nothing to put a person off relationships quite like walking in on their fiancé in flagrante delicto. Every time she closed her eyes she could see it. How long had it been going on? How long had he been running around behind her back, making love with another woman? Or other women, plural. How many of them had there been?
And had he ever come to her bed from another’s?
In a swift, fluid movement, she pushed up out of the pool. It would be a long time before she trusted her judgment again when it came to men. It would be a long time before she gave herself a chance to.
Keely rose to walk toward her towel and found it held by a tall, sandy-haired man with a bemused smile. “Need this, pumpkin?”
She grinned at her father. “I’d give you a hug but I’d get you all wet.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Carter Stafford said, wrapping the thick, white towel around her and giving her a quick squeeze. “I’m working from my home office today.”
“Is that why the khakis?” she asked, squeezing him back. Above them, light danced on the ceiling where it was reflected by the surface of the water.
“Nope, I wear those pretty much every day. The perks of being the boss.” He winked.
“You still like it, don’t you?” She stepped away to towel off her hair.
“Beats working for a living.”
“Speaking of work, I should get over to the shop and help Mom.”
“You could just relax, you know. You’ve been here less than a week.”
“And this is one of the busiest seasons of the year.” She hung the towel around her neck. “Especially with her being out tonight.”
“Can I help it if this is when my company scheduled the Christmas party?”
Her lips twitched. “You are CEO.”
“You think they ask me about these kinds of things?” He snorted. “Besides, I know your mother and her business. There’s never a good time, especially at the holidays.”
“It’s a good thing that I’m here to fill in, then, isn’t it?” Keely said over her shoulder as she walked through the French doors that led into the main house.
He followed her. “Why don’t you come with us, instead? Give me a chance to show you off.”
She shook her head. “The town tree lighting is tonight. People will be in a buying mood, so we’ll want the shop open.” Not just for flowers, but for the gift area where they sold ornaments and cards, jewelry and the kinds of foolish, pretty things that made Christmas morning surprises.
“All for the sake of the shop, eh?” Carter asked. “Nothing to do with the fact that you’ve never missed a tree lighting yet?”
“Nothing at all.”
“I see. Maybe we should stay here and go with you. After all, I am CEO, as someone just pointed out to me.”
“And as such you have responsibilities.” She grinned. “You’re just going to have to tough it out and go swill champagne and caviar with the other swells. I’ll hold down the fort.”
“You’re supposed to be taking a rest cure,” he scolded.
“If I just sat around, I’d go nuts. I’m kind of like my parents that way. Got to be useful.”
“You had to start working too soon,” he said, his smile fading a bit.
“Dad, everyone works in high school and college.”
“You, of all people, shouldn’t have had to.”
She flashed a smile and rose on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “It was good for my character.” She waggled her eyebrows and did her best Groucho Marx imitation. “And I am nothing, if not a character.”
“She could lose the house?” Lex stared across the smooth, polished ebony of the desk and into the eyes of Frank Burton, his parents’ longtime personal attorney.
“That can’t be possible.” Olivia spoke up from where she sat by Lex in a powder blue suit and pearls.
“You’re listed on the boards of five of the LLCs Bradley set up. The shell corporations, I mean, the ones he used to funnel the money away.” He glanced at the sheet before him. “Correction, five that they know of. They’re quite certain there are more.”
“But I don’t remember any of this,” Olivia said positively. “And I would have. I don’t just sign things without reading them, you know.”
“He wouldn’t have needed to have you sign, not if he had access to your social-security number and your passport. Did he?”
That stopped her. “I don’t know. He had access to my office. I suppose he could have found anything if he was looking for it.”
“At any rate, that’s only part of the trouble. The most damning fact is that he funneled money through your bank account. He deposited five million dollars on ten occasions over the past two years.” Burton held up a thick manila folder. “It’s all documented.”
Olivia stared. “Five million dollars?”
“Times ten. Fifty million, all told. The question is, why? Do you have something to show cause? A receipt, maybe? Records of business transactions? It’s important that we demonstrate the transfers were legit.”
“I didn’t… I don’t know anything about it,” she said helplessly.
Burton frowned at her over his glasses. “They were five million dollar deposits. Granted, the sums you receive from your quarterly dividends and real-estate holdings are as big, if not bigger, but still, where did you think it came from? And didn’t you wonder when it was transferred out?”
“A bank error?” she suggested.
Burton gave her a skeptical stare. “Ten times? Olivia, if you know something, now’s the time to tell us.”
“I don’t… I can’t…I—” She turned to Lex, a thread of desperation in her voice. “Your father always did our finances. You know how he was. When he passed away, I was just…” She firmed her lips. “There was so much to see to, the funeral arrangements, notifications, wills. Bradley offered to take care of things. It was a relief to hand it over to him. And then it just became habit,” she trailed off.
“You played right into his hands,” Burton said. “He used his access to launder money through your accounts, bringing it in from his shell corporations and porting it out to an accomplice.”
Olivia closed her eyes for a moment. “I can’t believe he’d do it.”
“The feds can.” Burton’s expression was grim. “They’ve got enough evidence to consider you involved. That means all of your possessions and holdings are subject to seizure.”
“All of it?” She paled. “Everything?”
Lex leaned forward. “But she didn’t keep the money.”
“Not at that step. They don’t know where it eventually wound up, though. She could still have it somewhere.”
“And on those grounds they can take her house?”
“They can take it all,” Burton assured him. “Not right away, of course. First, they’ve got to get to the bottom of the whole scheme, and it’s tangled enough that it could take a year or more. Quite frankly, that’s the reason they’re sure his fiancée is involved.”
His fiancée? Keely? Lex frowned. “What do you mean?”
“She’s an accountant, didn’t you know? Worked for Briarson Financial. It’s unlikely someone like Bradley would have known enough to carry off this kind of scheme on his own and get past his internal auditors. With someone of her background helping him cook the books, though, it would be a cakewalk.”
“She’s an accountant?” Lex had assumed she’d majored in something like English literature or art history, one of those degrees for the ladies who lunched. Clearly, he’d been mistaken. “So they think she had something to do with it?”
“They’re almost certain of it. Mind you, they haven’t got any evidence yet, but they will. Trust me, they will.”
“If she’s involved, she’s in a position to clear my mother’s name, right?” Lex asked. Forget about vulnerable mouths and shadowed eyes. If she had the answers, he’d worm them out of her.
“Any testimony you can get from someone who’s involved would certainly help Olivia’s case,” Burton answered. “What we really need is to find your brother but he seems to have gone into the wind.”
Keely, though, Keely was right here.
“We should talk to the fiancée,” Burton said.
Lex felt a slow-burning anger awake. “Leave it to me.” And this time he’d get some straight answers, before his mother lost everything she had.
Olivia took a breath and straightened her posture in a move Lex recognized. No tears, no weakness here. “What happens next, Frank?”
“Nothing immediately. They’ll keep investigating until they’ve got it all worked out, put their case together. Then it’ll go to trial. With or without Bradley.”
“So we have time,” Lex said.
“Some. The sooner you can get the fiancée to come clean, the better off your mother will be.”
And the sooner he could go back to his life, escape the morass that was already beginning to suck him in.
Abruptly, he rose. “Then I guess I’d better get on it,” he said, holding his hand out to Burton.
“You hear from Bradley, you let me know immediately,” the lawyer said as he walked them out.
“You know it.”
The carpet in the hallway outside Burton’s downtown Stamford offices was thick and plush underfoot, the color of the brandy Pierce had favored. Ahead, light streamed through the glass walls that surrounded the ten-floor atrium lobby.
“I just can’t believe it was Bradley,” Olivia said as they waited for the elevator. “She must have pushed him into it.”
She might have been involved, but Lex had a pretty good idea nobody pushed Bradley anywhere. There was one trait they’d both inherited from their father, his stubborn single-mindedness. It had fueled Lex’s rise to the top of a difficult and dangerous field. It had also helped Bradley take a controlling position in Alexander Technologies, the position that had let him get away with his crimes.
For a while.
“Mom,” Lex said gently, “no one made Bradley run.”
But if Keely Stafford had helped him, then she knew how to untangle this rat’s nest. And she damned well needed to start talking.
“Bradley doesn’t know what to do with the mess she’s gotten him into,” Olivia maintained, but her voice was uncertain.
“Have you ever, in your entire life, seen Bradley do anything he didn’t want to do?”
“He couldn’t have done this on his own. I won’t believe it.”
Translation: she didn’t want to.
She had to face it, though, or she’d never get past it. “No one made him gamble, Mom.” Lex kept his voice gentle. “You saw the statements from the pit bosses. Brad got in trouble, he wanted out, and he wasn’t too concerned about how.”
Abruptly, the starch went out of Olivia’s posture and for just a moment she sagged against the railing that looked down over the lobby. “What am I going to do?” she whispered. “They’re going to take it all. How could he do this? How could he leave me with nothing?”
And now she did cry. All he could do was gather her against him and stand there, helplessly patting her back. No. Not helpless, never helpless. There was a way to fix this and he would find it.
Starting with Keely Stafford.
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right here tonight?” Jeannie stood behind the counter at the flower shop, buttoning her coat.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got Lydia coming in later to help.”
“The mistletoe for the novelty hangers is on the table.”
“I know. I was the one who put it there, remember? Now git.” Keely draped her mother’s scarf around her neck. “You’ve got a party to primp for. How else are you going to get to dissect the centerpieces if you’re not there?”
“What would make you think I’d do such a thing?” Jeannie asked.
Keely grinned. “I know you too well. Have a great time.” She kissed her mother’s cheek.
“Thank you again. And don’t spend the whole night working. Go out and watch the tree lighting. You should have some fun.”
“Out,” Keely ordered, pointing at the door.
“I’m going,” Jeannie said hastily.
Keely watched the door close behind her. In a while, Lydia would show up and their gab fest would begin. For now, Keely had the shop to herself. She breathed in air scented with roses, carnations, hyacinths, and remembered.
The shop had defined her life in so many ways. One minute, the Staffords had had money, country club memberships, prestige. The next, she’d found herself pitching in to help pay the bills, filling out reams of scholarship and loan applications to cover college. The long, hot, lazy summers she’d grown up with had been replaced by cool days in the shop, wearing the tailored black shirt and trousers that were the uniform at Jeannie’s.
Then Bradley had come through the door to buy a bouquet for his mother. And Keely had fallen as deeply into infatuation with him as she had at fourteen, when he’d been the star of the country-club tennis court and she’d prayed for him to ask her to play doubles with him.
Now, five years later, she was back at the florist shop, tying a ribbon on an arrangement of mums. All those years of study, the internships, the work at Briarson, blown apart by Bradley. She struggled to push down the surge of anger as she carried the vase into the glass-fronted, walk-in refrigerator that held orchids, roses, daylilies and the other exotics.
Behind her, a jingling signaled the entry of a customer. With a sigh of resignation, Keely turned.
Only to see Lex Alexander.
Suddenly, abruptly, the shop felt very small. And very empty. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t look around at any of the arrangements. Just headed straight for her.
Keely met him at the door to the refrigerator. The shallow space in front of the tiers of flowers was far too small for two. “Looking for some flowers?” she asked.
“Looking for you.”
He was taller than she’d realized the day before, topping her five ten so that she found herself staring at his chin. In defense, she raised her own. “I’m working.”
“The shop’s empty. We need to talk.”
His eyes were dark, turbulent as he stared down at her. She felt that same stir of awareness she had before. Her pulse thudded in her ears. He was too big, too strong. Too there. She took a breath and pushed past him. “I have things to do,” she said without turning.
“Fine. I’ll talk with you while you do them.”
Keely made a noise of frustration and walked to the counter. “I don’t see what we’ve got to talk about.”
“How about this little scheme you’ve got going with Bradley, for a start.”
She did look at him, then. “I don’t have any scheme going with Bradley.”
“The feds say you do.”
“The feds don’t have a shred of evidence.” Because there was none.
“They’ve got your name on the boards of some LLCs.”
“They’ve got your mother’s name on those boards, too,” she countered.
“Why do you think I’m here? I need to know what you know.”
“I don’t know anything. I already told you, I’m not a part of this. Bradley was on his own.” She walked into the back and told herself she wasn’t fleeing.
It didn’t matter. He followed her. “Oh, come on. You’re his fiancée, you’re an accountant. You know as well as I do he couldn’t figure this out alone.”
“Nice that you have such a high opinion of him.” She didn’t look at him, just picked up some scarlet-berried holly off the counter and jammed it into a small vase to get it out of the way. Lex still made her as uneasy as he had when she was a teen, only now it was overlaid with something else, a humming tension she didn’t want to think too much about.
“My opinion doesn’t matter,” Lex said. “What matters is that my mother could lose everything because of what he’s done. I need to get her out of this and to do that, I need you.”
Keely snatched up one of the branches of mistletoe that lay on the worktable and began snipping off sprigs. “What you need is Bradley, and no, before you start in on it again, I don’t know where he is.” The snap of the clippers punctuated her words. “I don’t know anything about any of it.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“And I don’t really give a damn.” She slapped down the clippers. “I’ve got the feds on my tail, a boss who told me to get lost and an apartment that’s been torn apart, thanks to your brother. I could give a hang what you believe.” Jaw clamped, she snatched up the scissors and began chopping off hanks of red ribbon to bind the mistletoe. “Now, either buy something or get out of this store.”
Lex studied her for a minute, arms folded. “All right, let’s say you didn’t have any part of it. If that’s true, then it’s in your interest as much as ours to get to the bottom of this thing.”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that. Let me just find my magic wand.”
“Look, you’re an accountant. Even if you didn’t have anything to do with it, you should still be able to follow the trail. Maybe you’ll find something the big boys missed. Clear your name and my mother’s. As his fiancée, I’d think you’d want to get to the bottom of it.”
“He’s not my fiancé,” she said tightly. “I told you, we broke up the morning of the raid.”
“Perfect timing.”
“No, perfect timing would have been two years ago when we first started dating,” she snapped. “Forget it, okay? If I want to play detective, I can do it on my own.”
“Not if you want access to my mother’s papers.”
“What for?”
He shrugged, toying with a piece of mistletoe. “He used her accounts as part of his scheme. You might just find the key to something.”
“Your mother is never going to give me access to her papers. From what I hear, she blames me for the whole thing. First her, then you. What could possibly make me want to work with people who don’t even believe me?”
“Change her mind,” Lex suggested. “Change mine.”
“Why should I? Why should I care what either of you think?” Keely reached over for a sprig of mistletoe.
And his hand landed on hers, stopping her dead. “It’s in both of our interests.”
Heat bloomed up her arm. For an instant, she didn’t move, couldn’t. His fingers were warm, his palm hard. And all she could do for a helpless instant was wonder what it would feel like on her naked body.
“Think about it,” he suggested.
For a bewildered second, Keely wondered how he could possibly know what was in her mind. Then she realized what he meant, and swallowed. “Thanks, but no thanks. And like I said, it’s time for you to go.”
He removed his hand. “Let me know when you change your mind.”
“If,” she corrected.
“When.”
“Try never,” she retorted.
He laughed, his teeth very white against his dark skin. “I’ll be around when you’re looking for me.”
Chapter Four
Lex stepped out onto the sidewalk into the late afternoon. The last bits of snow from the nor’easter crunched underfoot. The setting sun stained the sky ruddy.
And he could still feel the softness of Keely’s skin against his palm.
She hadn’t told him anything he needed, he reminded himself. What she’d told him was to take a hike. He should have been frustrated, but somehow all he kept focusing on was how she’d felt, fragile yet strong.
And the way that mouth of hers might taste.
He gave an impatient shake of his head. There were many dumb things he could do, but getting involved with his brother’s fiancée—or ex-fiancée—pretty much landed at the top of the list. He didn’t even like the woman. He’d never had any use for her or her Junior League kind.
So why did he find himself distracted by wondering whether if he kissed her, the Junior League girl would turn into a woman, hungry and urgent?
Ridiculous. He’d kissed plenty of women in his time. He didn’t need to kiss one more, no matter how much she kept popping up in his thoughts. What he needed to do was get his mother off the hook and get gone, because the longer he stayed, the more bound he felt—by the need to help Olivia find someone to run her finances, by the questions about her estate. The maid had shown up in his room that morning with his father’s old tux, to measure him for alterations so Lex could wear it to the Christmas gala as Olivia’s escort.
Charity balls and investment advice weren’t him. Servants and tuxedos weren’t him. He was about tramping through bush and desert and jungle, looking to capture that elusive moment that could encapsulate a place and time, giving people an immediate, gut-level understanding of what was happening in their world.
And maybe after fourteen years, he was starting to get tired of the dirt, the exhaustion, the crappy beds and food, starting to get soul-deep tired of man’s seemingly endless capacity for destruction. That just meant he needed a break, that was all. It sure as hell didn’t mean he needed to come back to Chilton and take up where his father and Bradley had left off.
He stared at the fading light on the horizon and thought of sunsets along the equator, where the transition from dark to light took place in the blink of an eye. Where the sunsets and sunrises hit at the same time every day, no matter the season, because the seasons were just warm and warmer and you slept naked in the heat. And that quickly, images of Keely were back dancing in his head.
To derail his thoughts, he pushed open the door to Darlene’s.
Darlene stood behind the baked-goods case with a white bag in her hand as she filled the order of a harried woman trying to buy muffins and manage the children hanging on to her legs.
“Two corn, four blueberry— Tommy, stop,” the woman snapped. “Two bran and two…” She paused for thought, studying the baked goods in the case.
Darlene shook the bag a bit. Impatient, Lex thought with a smile. “Apple banana?” she suggested. “Carrot?”
“I’d go with carrot,” Lex said, stepping forward. “They’re the best. I swear, I could smell them all the way over in Tanzania.”
The woman stared at him. “Cranberry,” she muttered.
Darlene raised an eyebrow at Lex. “About time you came back. You hardly even said hello yesterday,” she complained, dropping the customer’s final two muffins into the bag. “And what’s this about Tanzania? The last postcard I got from you was from Chechnya.”
“I thought I’d head somewhere warm for a while.” Darfur, to be precise, at least until he’d seen all he could take. Taking photographs of endangered species being slaughtered was a hell of a lot harder to stomach when they were human beings.
With an almost physical effort, he turned his thoughts back to the present.
“Well, I still think you’re too skinny, wherever you’ve been. Here, take one of these. No, two.” Darlene shoved a pair of carrot muffins to him before she went back to her customer.
Grinning, Lex watched her hand the woman change. Back when he’d lived in Chilton, Darlene had been one of the rare adults he could tolerate, one of the few who hadn’t treated him like either a brainless clone of a previous generation or a felon in training. So he’d broken a few rules; that made him a misguided kid, not a criminal, whatever anyone had said. Darlene hadn’t cared. She’d just treated him like a person and he’d adored her for it.
“So what’s Tanzania like?” she asked, pushing a cup of coffee toward him.
“Beautiful. So open and gorgeous it takes your breath away. You’ve got a postcard coming.” With a pair of smooching baboons on the front, he recalled.
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