Best of Temptation Bundle Page 36

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  GRANT PULLED PAST the tall brick gates of Wellesley Manor with only one thing on his mind—buying Harley a beeper. For the second time in just under four days, his phone calls to her went unanswered. He’d called three times since arriving at his grandmother’s house, but only reached his answering machine. When concern turned to worry, then to anger and back to worry, he decided to return home. She had been hit on the head a few days ago, he rationalized. She’d been kidnapped the night before. Who knew if she needed him, or if she was just basking poolside and couldn’t hear the phone?

  Gus encouraged Grant to leave, not bothering to cover an omniscient smile. His grandmother, only half-informed regarding who Harley was and why she was staying at Grant’s house, merely patted his arm and told him to follow his heart.

  For once, Grant would. His entire life, he’d chosen the path dictated by his logic or by his sense of responsibility. In the eighteen years of his adulthood, he rarely let his emotions rule his actions. Except for the one time he’d tried to save his marriage. He’d failed, mostly because listening to his heart instead of his brain would have kept him from marrying Camille in the first place.

  He wouldn’t make the same mistakes with Harley. They’d made love several times last night. In the pool. The hot tub. The pool deck. The stairs. His bed. Not once had he admitted how deep his feelings went for her—how completely he loved her—how he couldn’t imagine living another minute without her permanently in his life. He’d already asked Gus for the name and number of a specialist to help her overcome her amnesia, and he didn’t care who found out. She could never completely accept love and commitment from him until she remembered her past. If he lost his job for being in love, so be it.

  He turned onto his street, invigorated by his choice, fortified by his unbound love. He hardly noticed the bright blue pickup parked askew on his curb and driveway until he spotted his Mercedes blocked behind it.

  Then he saw Harley standing on the lawn, her right arm extended to protect a screaming redhead standing behind her. Harley swung her left arm fruitlessly at a thin man stalking them head-on. Grant threw his vehicle into park without hitting the brake, jerking himself forward and causing his seat belt to nearly choke him.

  Harley kicked the man, connecting with his kneecap, but not slowing his attack.

  “Buck! Don’t hurt her,” shouted the redhead, whom Grant guessed was Harley’s cousin, Moana. “She’s got nothing to do with us!”

  Buck grabbed Harley by the neck and yanked her forward, ignoring Moana’s plea. Mercilessly, Buck slapped Harley with the back of his hand, tossed her aside and clutched Moana around the neck.

  “Harley!” In seconds, Grant released his seat belt and maneuvered around the cars and through his security gate. He attacked without pause, striking Buck full force in the neck joint.

  Harley remained motionless on the grass. Moana screamed. Buck cursed, releasing Moana as he went sprawling onto Grant’s manicured lawn.

  Buck charged like an enraged bull, his head aimed at Grant’s midsection. Shifting, Grant shot a left hook to Buck’s jaw. Still standing, Buck roared, his black eyes slants of rage. Blood oozed from the corner of his mouth.

  “This ain’t your fight, rich boy. I just want what’s mine, then I’m gone.”

  Moana, who’d slid to the ground beside Harley, met Buck’s stare with equal fury. “I ain’t yours no more. You’re nothing but a low-life thief! And a dead one, too. That guy in Miami’s gonna slice your throat. And I’m gonna ask if I can watch.”

  Buck lunged toward Moana, who screamed and covered Harley with her body. Grant kicked Buck in the gut, sending him spinning like a top until he landed on the grass with a thud.

  Sirens wailed in the background. Grant glanced quickly over his shoulder, catching sight of Wilhelmina Langley shooting from her front door, her portable phone clutched to her ear.

  When Buck started crawling back toward the women, Grant stopped him by pressing his foot to the back of his neck. Buck growled as Grant increased the pressure.

  Grant suddenly gained a strong affection for his steel-toed work boots. “Looks like you made it my fight. Spread your arms out so I can see them.”

  A swarm of Citrus Hill police officers spilled onto the lawn, guns drawn and shouting orders. Only when a uniformed policewoman pressed the barrel of her gun to the back of Buck’s neck did Grant retreat.

  Moana helped her cousin sit up. Harley’s enlarged pupils turned her blue eyes a frightening shade of black. A dark red mark shadowed the entire left side of her face. Grant knelt in front of her and took her hands, not certain which of them shook more violently.

  “Harley. Are you all right? Say something, honey.”

  She blinked. Once. Twice. The quick flutter of lashes seemed to finally clear the stupor from her eyes.

  “Grant?” She turned to the woman beside her. “Mary Jo?” She let go of one of Grant’s hands and grasped the redhead at the elbow. “Mary Jo! I remember. Good Lord—” her eyes, now glossy and beaming, sought Grant “—I remember!”

  The cops, directed by Mrs. Langley, descended on the trio like a ravenous horde. One policeman radioed for the ETA on the ambulance, another verified the location as the First Financial corporate mansion. Another officer pushed Grant aside, insisting Harley remain still until the paramedics arrived.

  Grant opened his mouth to argue when a rookie officer approached, his youthful eyes darting from Grant’s clenched fists to Buck, who still lay handcuffed on the grass. “We need a statement to make the arrest and get this creep off your lawn, Mr. Riordan.”

  Harley’s eyes, at first wondrously round, suddenly clouded, as if something terrible—perhaps that traumatic event Gus warned of—flashed into her mind.

  A few feet away, Moana—no, Mary Jo—Harley’s cousin, judging by her resemblance to the teenager in the photograph Harley had taken from the condominium, relayed her version of the incident to a policewoman. She seemed to be providing all the facts they needed to remand the cretin straight to the local jailhouse.

  “Not now,” Grant warned.

  The cop lightly placed his hand on Grant’s shoulder. “It’ll just take a few minutes. Mrs. Langley will take care of the young woman, won’t you, ma’am?”

  His nemesis already had Harley on her feet and her arm around her shoulder. With a careless wave, she bypassed the officer who insisted they wait for the ambulance. Mrs. Langley appeared genuinely concerned and, Grant had to admit, she did have law enforcement falling into step.

  “Go on, son. She just needs a minute or two to settle down. And that man’s presence,” Mrs. Langley said as she indicated Buck with a disdainful tilt of her head, “won’t help matters.”

  Harley’s gaze locked on Buck. A dark horror spread over her face, pursing her lips and squinting her eyes. Grant wasn’t sure if Harley was about to attack the man or run screaming in the opposite direction, but he wouldn’t wait to find out. He nodded his agreement to Mrs. Langley, who led Harley away.

  “Three minutes. That’s the limit.” Grant followed the officer to his cruiser. The sooner he got that jerk off his lawn, the sooner he could rescue Harley from Mrs. Langley’s dubious good intentions.

  Three minutes turned into fifteen as the officer embellished their interview with information about Buck’s criminal past. Law enforcement officials all over South Central Florida knew and had been looking for Mary Jo’s boyfriend—including Mac’s team at the Tampa Police Department. As the officer completed the report, Grant put in a quick call to Mac from his cell phone, then waited impatiently to sign the complaint.

  “We’ll contact you if we need anything else, Mr. Riordan, but I doubt we will. This guy dug a deep grave even before he attacked Ms. Roberts and her cousin.” The officer handed Grant a copy of the report and returned his driver’s license. “He’s a dangerous character. It’s a good thing you came along.”

  Yeah, he was a real hero. He may have saved Harley once again from physical harm,
but he’d abandoned her to the control and influence of Wilhelmina Langley for the past twenty minutes. With the news story of the year playing out just across the street from her, Langley had to be foaming at the mouth.

  Grant walked past the open driveway gate as a dark sedan with the license plate “PHIPP-1” maneuvered around the three police cars, ambulance and fire truck blocking most of Wellesley Lane. Moments later, Howell Phipps emerged from the sedan wearing pastel-colored golf duds and the most horrified expression Grant had seen since the market dropped over two hundred points in a single hour.

  “What the hell is going on here?” the old man barked.

  Grant pulled in a deep breath and released the air with deliberate slowness. He wondered if today was Friday the thirteenth. Maybe April Fool’s Day. He couldn’t imagine the situation getting worse.

  “Nothing you need to be concerned with, Mr. Phipps. The fun’s over and everything is under control.” Except me. “Why don’t you return to the country club? We’ll discuss this in the morning.”

  Grant started up the drive when Phipps, surprisingly spry for a man his age, caught up to him. “Now, see here, Riordan. The police chief summoned me off the course with the report of a disturbance at my CEO’s home. A home my company owns, I should remind you.”

  “You don’t need to remind me. Every slick surface and piece of sterile furniture reminds me.”

  His boss halted, his eyes round and red with rage. “My wife decorated that house herself. How dare you insult her. What’s gotten into you lately?”

  Grant slung his hands into his pockets and faced his employer, not entirely contrite. Suddenly, Grant hated every square foot of the grand house behind them, mostly because the structure mirrored him so accurately—pretentious, impersonal, soulless—at least, until Harley had stepped through the doorway. “I didn’t intend any disrespect to your wife. But I really don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with you right now. Two women were just attacked on my front lawn. I’d like to go make sure they are both all right.”

  Phipps’s cheeks puffed, making him look like an outraged blowfish. “Deal with me? You seem to have forgotten quite a bit in your tangle with that miscreant. I am your superior.”

  Grant continued toward the house as he spoke. “You are my employer, Mr. Phipps, not my superior. And under the circumstances, you’ll have to settle for my undivided attention during work hours.”

  Phipps stopped Grant’s forward motion by clamping him firmly on the shoulder. With adrenaline still surging through his veins, Grant’s will alone kept him from meeting Phipps’s interference with the same rage he’d unleashed on Buck.

  “What’s gotten into you, Grant? That woman is nothing to you. My sources haven’t positively identified her, but I know she’s no relation. And this incident illustrates her unsuitability. This fiasco will make grand fodder for Langley’s column. Thankfully, it’s Sunday and this week’s edition is already delivered. We have an entire week to exert some damage control before the next issue.”

  Grant chose to ignore Phipps’s “nothing to you” assessment. This wasn’t the time to open a dialogue on his personal life. In fact, there had never been a time. Disgust filled him as he realized how much of his pride he’d swallowed in the name of professionalism and success. How much he’d nearly sacrificed in his attempt to hide the magnitude of Harley’s presence in his life—both from his boss and from himself.

  Well, not anymore.

  “You do that, Mr. Phipps. Exert away.”

  “Of course, that won’t take care of the local editions of the Tampa Tribune or Orlando Sentinel. This is, after all, a criminal matter now. Perhaps if I speak to the police chief…”

  While Phipps mused, Grant stalked away. He couldn’t care less if the fight on his lawn made front-page headlines, as long as Harley wasn’t hurt. She’d said something about regaining her memory before the police officer dragged him away. Just how much did she remember? Enough to at last feel confident about their relationship? Or would the truth about her past end the glorious four days he’d discovered in her company?

  Harley sat alone on the front steps, her knees drawn up to her chest, cradling her forehead. Something about her position alerted him to exercise caution. He balanced one foot on the bottom step and clutched the inner lining of his pockets to fight his impulse to touch her.

  “Harley? Honey, are you okay?”

  She rocked her head on her knees, her face hidden beneath a curtain of tangled hair. “I’m not sure.”

  He bit the inside of his cheek. “Are you hurt?”

  When she looked up, her eyes, determined and stoic, glistened with moisture. “I’ll be okay. I may have a shiner by morning, but…”

  “That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

  “It’s not your fault.” She slapped her thighs for emphasis. “None of this is. If you only knew who I was, what I’ve been through, you wouldn’t say that. You’d know not to ever, ever say that!”

  The time for caution elapsed. A single teardrop slipped down her cheek, still mottled red from Buck’s handprint. Unwanted and unbidden, he pulled her into his arms.

  She struggled against him, beating his chest. “No. You can’t fix this for me!”

  “I don’t want to fix it,” Grant lied. “I just want to help. Tell me what you remembered.”

  He loosened his grasp. She calmed. After a moment, she slipped from his embrace and resumed her seat on the brick steps. She toyed with her shoelaces, taking deep, cleansing breaths. Mrs. Langley emerged from a side door with a glass of water in one hand and the iced gel pack in the other. After catching sight of Grant, she placed both items on an outer windowsill and silently retreated into the house, closing the door behind her.

  “My parents died when I was twelve.” Harley’s admission arrested Grant’s attention from Mrs. Langley’s oddly compassionate behavior. “My brother, Sammy, and I went to live with my Aunt Gracie in Miami.”

  Grant hesitated, then decided to sit beside her. He allowed a safe distance between them, leaning his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together to keep from reaching out to her while his touch remained unwelcome. “Sammy’s the child in the photo?”

  A tiny smile curved her lips, reassuring Grant of her strength. “He’s sixteen now. A real computer whiz.” The grin disappeared, leaving Grant to wonder if he’d seen it at all. “Anyway, Gracie wasn’t too thrilled to have two more mouths to feed. She was raising Mary Jo alone as it was.”

  “But she kept you with her.”

  Harley smoothed her hands on her shorts, as if she itched to touch him, but fought the impulse. “She liked playing the martyr, vying for everyone’s sympathy. Mary Jo wasn’t a cooperative child and I was eager to please, to make sure Sammy and I didn’t go to foster care or get separated. When she found out I could dance, she decided to turn my talent to her advantage.”

  Harley briefly recounted her childhood of daily dance classes, weekend recitals and grueling contests. When she turned fourteen, Grace set her sights on ballroom dancing, where the atmosphere proved classy and winning competitions became financially lucrative. When Harley turned fifteen, Gracie had paired Harley with a dancer named Paul, the eighteen-year-old boy who would later become her fiancé.

  “He bailed for a job in New York just before the biggest contest of our career. The prize was a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship. I was already in graduate school and I needed the money to finish my internship, which was the only way for me to earn my certification as a dance therapist. But Paul didn’t care about that, or our engagement. He conveniently forgot how I helped him land that job in New York—the agent who placed him saw us dance on television. I found out later the agent was interested in me too, but Paul convinced him I wouldn’t be willing to relocate.”

  “Would you have?”

  Harley paused, then shook her head. “No, but that wasn’t the point. He knew firsthand how manipulative Grace was—and how badly I wanted to get
Sammy away from her. He promised to take care of us, and I loved him for that. Then he betrayed me. He almost wrecked my future. And I almost let him.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Harley waved his comment away. “I decided then and there that I wouldn’t let myself rely on anyone else ever again. I found another dance partner and won that contest. And several others. I finished school and signed a contract for a studio in Tampa, away from Gracie and her manipulations. I even contacted hospitals and clinics that were interested in dance therapy for their patients. I had everything under control. Planned out. Then Grace drained our joint checking account in a snit over my newfound independence.”

  “She stole from you?”

  “She said I owed her for all the years she’d clothed and fed us. Paid for my dance lessons and Sammy’s computer equipment.” The lines around Harley’s eyes hardened at the memory. “But my parents didn’t leave us destitute. Their life insurance policy paid for nearly all of our expenses. Except the dancing, which was Grace’s idea anyway. And Sammy’s an industrious kid. He’s mowed lawns and washed cars to pay for whatever computer gadgets he’s wanted. But no matter what we did, we were always a burden. Trouble. That’s why I can’t let him stay with her.”

  Grant shook his head. He inched his hand nearer to her, hoping she’d accept the gesture. “She took so much from you. Not just money.”

  Harley folded her arms across her chest. “But she didn’t get everything. She forgot the fifteen-hundred-dollar CD I’d won a few years before. I cashed it in and planned to use five hundred for the first month’s rent on the studio and the remaining thousand on furniture, equipment and expenses until business picked up. I figured I could send for Sammy as soon as school let out for the summer. We’d be on our own. We might struggle, but we’d be happy.”