Rand gives a chuckle and squeezes my hand. "You were already superior to her, Cat. That money didn't prove anything."
I squeeze his hand back. "Maybe not, but I couldn't say no. She was my mom, after all."
"Amazing," Rand murmurs as we fly down the highway. "That you would still have any empathy for a woman who treated you so badly throughout your life. I think that makes you absolutely and perfectly amazing."
"Or stupid," I mutter, and Rand laughs.
"Maybe a little foolish, but never stupid," he offers.
"I'll take that," I tell him with a grin. "Of course, she called the minute she heard Samuel had died. I'm sure she saw that in the paper. I figured I'd be hearing something from her, asking about my inheritance, and that's exactly why she called. You'd be proud. I put her off and told her I didn't have time to deal with her. Ironic it wasn't but a week later and I was all but homeless. Good thing she's not asking for money now, huh?"
"Yeah, well, you better not give her one dime of that money you got for your jewelry. You earned that the hardest of ways and that's for your future, not hers."
"Agreed," I say as I see a looming sign growing closer.
Las Vegas - 56 Miles.
Almost there.
And then I'll hopefully find out what my future really holds.
Chapter 13
Rand
"Big step up from my little trailer in the desert, huh?" Cat says on a low whisper as we stand before the front portico of one of the biggest houses I've ever seen in my life.
The house Cat shared with Samuel is monstrous. She had told me it was eleven-thousand square feet. To be that big, it comes in three chunks with a main center section and two wings that flank at a slight angle inward. Done in taupe stucco, brown brick, and red tile, it fits into the desert scenery well.
It's nine AM. We decided that if we were going to enter the house, we were going to do it as if she belonged there. Without really knowing what Samuel's will truly says, it's more than plausible that Cat has every right to be here. We thought it would look far less suspicious if done in the bright light of day.
Thus, we got to the hotel yesterday afternoon, a lower class, budget hotel Cat chose that sat on the outskirts of Vegas. Since she was insisting on paying, I had to let her choose. Rest assured, if it was in my hands, we'd be at the Bellagio, but I'm honoring her need to do some of this on her own. It's important to her pride.
"Ready to do this?" I ask as we stand side by side on the bottom step. Before us stands double doors made of solid wood, and either her key will work or it won't. Same for the security code.
"Ready as I'll ever be," she says firmly, and then reaches out with her hand to take mine. It feels natural. It makes me remember how much I missed being part of a unit.
Together, we walk up the steps.
Cat told me on the way here that Samuel bought this house about twenty years ago after his first wife died. Because she was the love of his life, he couldn't bear to stay in the family home where they raised their two sons. Since he moved in, Cat had been his fourth wife, the other two before her outliving their usefulness after they reached the age of twenty-eight. Cat told me she wondered if Samuel did to them what he did to her.
I didn't offer an opinion because I think we both know he did.
When we reach the front door, Cat releases her hold on me and digs into her purse slung crossways over her chest and resting at her hip. She pulls out a set of keys, flips through them, and chooses a gold-colored one that doesn't look much different from the others.
With a deep breath, she reaches out and slides the key in. Twisting her wrist, she lets out a huge sigh of relief when the lock turns. She looks at me, her lips peeling into a wide grin and her eyes sparkling with excitement. I smile back at her, relieved of course that her key still works, but knowing deep down that it doesn't mean shit. She may have still been cut out of Samuel's will, but the locks just haven't been changed yet.
Cat pushes the door open, and we both step into a cavernous foyer aglow with natural light from the huge, arched window above the door. A beep from the security panel beside the door catches my attention, and I watch as Cat puts in the code. It shuts the alarm off, and we both let out an audible sigh of relief.
The house is sparsely decorated--minimalistic. It would be easy to say that was so because Samuel was a bachelor for a long time and didn't care what his house looked like, but I'm going to guess it's because Samuel didn't get much pleasure out of life and didn't care what his house looked like. From what I know about the asshole, he derived pleasure from watching his wife be degraded, so I doubt fancy artwork and priceless knick-knacks would do much for him.
"Come on. His office is this way," Cat whispers, reaching back for my hand to pull me toward the stairs.
I immediately place my palm against hers, but ask, "Why are you whispering?"
"I don't know," she rasps back with a giggle. "I guess because I'm not sure if I'm actually breaking and entering, or not."
"Let's assume not and talk in our normal voices," I prod her. Although she's cute as fuck doing that, it's also setting me on edge a bit, making me feel like we shouldn't be here, and I'd rather take the optimistic route that we are definitely allowed.
Cat had assured me there was no full-time staff who lived in the house. While Samuel employed a chef, housekeeper, and an attendant for his personal needs, none of those employees lived in residence. As far as we knew, Kevin was still back in Jackson, probably never suspecting Cat would come here to search the house. Richard was probably oblivious to everything but we didn't know that for sure. Cat decided not to reach out to him, mainly because she figured he wasn't going to help her. He may not have any clue what Kevin was doing from Jackson, but then again, he might have full knowledge. We'd never know, so why alert him any further that Cat was questioning the validity of the will?
Now, it certainly can't be helped she let Kevin know she was questioning it, but we're sort of banking on his ego and his complete underestimation of Cat to keep him happily in the dark. So if we're lucky, he's probably on a fishing trip right now on the Snake River. Cat says that's one of the reason's he goes to Jackson, and if there's a God above, maybe he'll fall out of the fucking boat and drown.
Cat leads me up a curved staircase done in deep mahogany to a large second-floor landing. Hallways branch left and right... entryways into the wings of the house.
"My room was that way." She points to the right, and then back to the left. "Samuel's that way."
I find it interesting she referenced her room in the past tense. Not sure if that's because she doesn't believe this house is hers or that she doesn't intend to come back here regardless. I'll ask her about that later, but for now, I follow her straight ahead from the landing to a set of double doors that she pushes open to a huge office.
It's what I would expect of an egomaniac, billionaire hotelier. Expensively paneled walls, luxurious silk rugs, ornately carved desk, and the faint musk of cigars in the air.
"Samuel spent a lot of time in here," Cat murmurs in a grateful tone as she drops my hand and walks in. Glad he spent time in here and not bothering her, I'm sure.
She heads straight for his desk and pulls back the massive leather chair on wheels so she can sit down in it. Turning to a side drawer, she pulls it open and starts rifling through. I walk up to her and stand behind the chair to the side, watching her progress. She pulls out a thick pack of stapled papers and hands them to me, saying, "Our pre-nup. The will trumps anything in the pre-nup as best I can remember, but we should take pictures of this as well."
Before we came in here, we agreed we wouldn't take any documents with us. Our main goal was to verify if the will cutting Cat out existed, and to look at the current will if we could find it. Because there's not a copier in Samuel's office, we'll have to take a picture of each page with her iPhone.
I hold the pre-nup without looking at it. I don't care what deal Cat made with her devil of a husband. I on
ly care about her not getting screwed over right now.
"Bingo," she shouts with glee and pulls out another thick document. She lays it on the desk, and I step in closer to look at it over her shoulder. It's titled "Revocable Trust Agreement and Pour-Over Will".
"Quite a fancy name for a will," I mutter.
She nods. "Trust agreement... will... I'm assuming they're just different names for the same thing; how to distribute his estate."
Cat starts to skim through it, her finger sliding down the page as she scans and flips pages.
"Kevin is the trustee, but I knew that. Just means he'll administer the estate. Blah, blah, blah, blah," she says as she breezes past paragraphs entitled Debts & Expenses and Administrative Powers of Fiduciaries. My eyes actually start to cross when her finger stops and she says, "This is the paragraph."
I lean over closer and see the word Residuary. Cat reads out loud, "Upon my death, I direct my trustee to transfer five-million dollars to my wife, Catherine Lyons Vaughn. Pursuant to our pre-nuptial agreement, she will have no ownership rights or interests in any of my real property at the time of my death, with the exception of the house in Jackson, Wyoming. I further direct my trustee to ensure transfer of title and deed of said property to my wife."
"Did you know that was in his will?" I ask her.
She nods. "Not the exact details, but he told me he would leave me with enough money to sustain me as well as a house. I didn't know it would be the Jackson house. I suppose that was his way of reminding me in death how much he loved taking me there."
I wince at the bitterness in her voice. There's no way she'd ever want to stay in a place that held such terrible memories for her.
Cat flips quickly through the rest of the document to the very end, where I can see the original ink of Samuel's signature as well as a notary public seal.
"He signed this two weeks after we were married," she says, still looking at the document.
"We need to go through the rest of his stuff," I tell her as I squat down at the drawer that's still open and start rifling through the contents. "If there's another will or trust agreement or whatever the fuck you call it dated after that one, you're screwed."
"But if there's not, Kevin's screwed," she says, and my head turns toward her because of the icy tone in her voice. She narrows her eyes at me and in a voice bristling with anger, she says, "That asshole kicked me out over five million dollars and a house? When Samuel's estate is worth billions? What a fucking douche bag."
I give her a wry smile. "I think it was more about controlling you than the money. The fact he wanted you to stay at the house tells me all I need to know. He was banking on you crawling to him for help."
"Bet he was stunned I didn't," she says quietly.
Nodding in agreement, I turn back to the drawer, eager to get this over with and get the hell out. I start flipping through hanging folders containing tax returns, bank statements, and deeds of trust. Folder after folder of the story of Samuel Vaughn's wealthy life.
"Thank you, Rand," Cat murmurs. It's so soft I barely hear it, yet my entire body feels like it's been punched by the depth of emotion in her words. My head rises and turns to her as she sits in the massive leather chair that swallows her up. "If you hadn't have taken me in, I might have gone to Kevin for help."
"No way," I say with a soft smile. I don't reach out and touch her like I want to, because I don't want to give any credence to her suspicion of what she might have done. I know Cat. She's stronger than that and would have never given Kevin the ability to control her. So I stay reserved so she knows it's a ludicrous thought. "The Cat Lyons I know wouldn't have ever done that. You would have figured another way. Hell, you did figure another way. You sold your jewelry and you came to Vegas to find the truth. So fuck you very much, Kevin Vaughn. This woman doesn't need you."
Her beautiful, brown eyes crinkle and she can't help the deep laugh that erupts. "Yeah. Fuck you very much, Kevin Vaughn."
Now I laugh with her and totally can't resist reaching out to wrap my hand around her neck, pulling her forward. I kiss her hard and knock the laugh right out of both of us. When I pull back slightly, I nip at her lip and ask, "Would it be bad form for us to fuck in this house?"
She snickers. "I don't think I could get wet for you in this house."
"Then I insist when we leave here, we head over to the Bellagio. My treat. We're getting a nice suite with a view over the lake, and I'm going to fuck you on a bed stuffed with feathered down and covered in silk."
She sighs and her eyes are closed with a dreamy expression on her face when I pull all the way back. That look... right there. I want her to have that on her face all the time. Regardless of where this creature lands in life, be it here or back in Jackson, I want this woman to walk through the rest of her days with that look on her face.
I step up behind Cat as she looks out the window at the Bellagio lake below us. It's timed water show set to music is quiet right now, and besides, it's better to see that stuff at night. Of course, she's from Vegas so she's probably seen it a hundred times before. But I'm glad we're staying here. It's a good way to celebrate.
Celebrate that we didn't get arrested.
Celebrate we found the signed trust agreement leaving her money and the house.
Celebrate we didn't find the one that supposedly cut Cat out.
Of course, it didn't mean there wasn't one, but it wasn't in Samuel's house. We had to figure out our next move, but we could do that later, and besides... I want Bridger's input on that. He always has a cool head and a chess-like mind, and this is all about maneuvering into the right spot at the right time.
My hands go to Cat's waist, and I press the front of my body against the back of hers. She didn't give me any argument about coming to the Bellagio for the night and letting me pay.
That's progress.
Her head falls back and my chin drops to rest on her shoulder. "You know, I think feathers and silk are overrated. I'm perfectly fine just fucking you up against this window right now."
Many women would laugh, blush, and coyly banter with me.
But not Cat.
Taking one of my hands, she drags it across her stomach and pushes it down in between her legs. She chose to wear a pair of camel-colored pants with wide legs and matching heels to our scouting mission at her house. Her ivory-colored blouse and pearls made her look every inch the rich wife, and she quipped that if she were going to get arrested, she was going to look damn good doing it.
I agreed. She looked damn good, but now I'm bemoaning the fact she's not wearing her simple floral skirt she had on yesterday for the ride. It would make things so much easier.
Still, I remain undaunted and because her hand insistently pushes mine right to where she wants me, I reward her with a hard press of my palm against the bottom of her zipper. I estimate her clit is right about there and I know I'm on the money when she moans and tilts her hips into me.
"How about we get these pants off you?" I ask her, but I don't wait for permission. Instead, I bring both hands to her button, where I easily open it and pull the zipper down. I push the material, making sure to grab her panties with my fingers on the way down and squat right alongside. Pulling past the smooth, silky skin of her thighs until it's pooled around her feet, which are still encased in four-inch heels.
"How far can you spread your legs?" I ask her.
She turns her head over her shoulder, eyes at half mast, and tries to kick one leg out, but the constraint from her pants doesn't give. My eyes slide to her bare ass and just a peek of her pussy below, and I know that's not enough for what I want to do.
"Lift your leg," I tell her, tapping her left calf. She lifts that one up, so I can pull the material of her pants and underwear free. Before setting her foot back to the ground, I kiss the inside of her thigh.
I don't worry about the other leg, because now she's free enough to spread wide. Cat doesn't even wait for my command but pushes her left leg out about a foot. Now
her pussy opens up to me. I surge upward, bringing my hands to her ass and peeling her cheeks apart so I can have better access. Tilting my head back, I bring my mouth to her and slide my tongue in as deep as it will reach.
"Oh, God... Rand," Cat moans.
She's wet and tastes amazing. My tongue is drenched with her need, and while my thoughts were to get her off with my mouth, my cock is so painfully hard that I want to give it relief. So I pull my mouth free of her and stand up, my hands working at my belt, button, and zipper. Cat's ready for me as she bends forward, placing her hands against the window glass and tilting her ass outward.
"That's a good girl," I murmur as I pull my cock out.
Step right up to her.
Dip my legs.
Slide my way home.
"Mmmmmm," I groan through tightly closed lips and gritted teeth. Because fuck, that feels good.
She responds with a low moan of her own, rotating her hips... trying to draw me in deeper, but that's impossible. I'm rooted.
"Hard or slow fucking?" I ask her because I want Cat to start realizing she has choices. I might take control most times and lead the way, but I want her to know she has the right to choose otherwise.
The right to ask for something she wants.
"Slow," she whispers, and I have to smile. Usually when we go at it, it's as if we're in overdrive, both racing as fast as we can to the climax because we know we can do it all over again. But yeah, she's right. I think, for right now, we go slowly. We have all day and night, as we're not leaving until tomorrow morning to head back to Jackson.
So I fuck her very slow and while at times it's almost torturous to hold back on blowing, in the end, it's a fucking stellar orgasm that actually drops both of us to our knees when we come together.
Chapter 14
Cat
I put in my earrings, the only pair I kept that are sedate gold hoops, and check my watch--which I also kept. I kept it because I'm constantly checking the time and will go nuts without it, but also so I could have something else to pawn should I need to down the road.
Walking back out to the kitchen of Rand's apartment, I look down once again at the note he left me when he jetted out early again before I even woke up.