“Who is it with this time?”
“He didn’t say, but whoever it is, they’re in the waiting room right now. He wants you to escort them to the conference room and stay for the meeting.”
Rachel threw up her hands. “Fine.” She snatched the jacket from his hands and pushed past him.
“What’s wrong with you? You seemed okay a half hour ago.”
Without turning around she said, “PMS.”
In front of the waiting room, she slid her arms into the jacket and buttoned it, hiding her gun and shoulder holster. She exhaled and tried to soften her demeanor. She wasn’t about to bite the head off some poor soul.
She opened the door to the waiting room, wearing her best false smile. The smile left her face when the man in the room turned around. “No,” she said.
“What is this room?” Jonathan asked.
She closed her eyes, hoping she could wish him away, but it didn’t work. He was still there, wide-eyed and smiling when she reopened them. She should have known Donovan was meeting with him, but she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about his kiss long enough to question why he had been on the grounds in the first place.
“This collection is incredible,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I guess he wants to unsettle me by having me wait in here. Is that how it works?”
Of course, she thought. By having her in the room during the meeting, Donovan figured he could distract Jonathan. Under her breath, she said, “Son of a—”
“I hope you aren’t directing that comment toward me,” Jonathan said. “I thought you liked me more than that.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I have a meeting with King. Every now and then we get together and argue for fun. Today seemed like a good time to do that again.”
The inner workings of Donovan’s security company never interested Rachel, and she had no knowledge of any meetings Donovan previously held with Jonathan. “What are you arguing about today?”
“Same thing we’ve been arguing about for over ten years. He wants to buy me out.”
“And you don’t want to sell,” Rachel finished for him. “Men and their toys.”
“Normally, we do this at my office, but we’re both tired of our lawyers doing the arguing for us. Plus, I’ve always wanted to see where King lives and now I’m glad I came. Lots of interesting things happening on his grounds.”
“Jonathan,” she said, but then changed her mind before she said anything more. Arguing would only succeed in irritating her while deepening her attraction toward him.
“What?” he asked, a childlike grin plastered on his face.
She lightened her tone. “Mr. Thomas, if you’ll please follow me.” She turned and moved toward the conference room.
The meeting didn’t last long. Rachel stood in the corner of the room across from Donovan, and tried to ignore both men. She resented Jonathan for being there, and she resented Donovan for forcing her to be there.
The competitive relationship of the two men magnified her discomfort. She suspected something else was being discussed below the surface of every spoken word, a hidden agenda she knew nothing about.
For over thirty minutes, Donovan highlighted his latest proposal for purchasing Jonathan’s company. Ten more minutes of heated argument ensued before Jonathan decided he had enough.
He stood to leave, then turned back around. “You know, King, I did a lot of thinking this morning before I came here. I’ve spent almost twenty years building my company, making it exactly what I’ve always envisioned. That company is my entire life. I have never had the slightest desire to sell to you because there’s nothing you could offer me that is equal or superior to what my company means to me. This morning, I decided I would sell to you.”
“You just rejected my offer,” Donovan said.
“I didn’t like your offer. I have a better one, and the terms are non-negotiable.”
“Name it.”
“I’ll give you my company in exchange for the permanent employ of Ms. Pettis.”
Rachel’s mouth dropped and her mind raced. She didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled, though she leaned toward the latter.
Donovan’s jaw set in anger and his eyes flashed hatred. “We tend to frown upon slave trading in these parts, Thomas.”
Jonathan shrugged. “Can’t blame a man for trying.”
“Get out of my home.”
Rachel left the conference room, and escorted Jonathan to the front door. She opened the door and turned to face him.
“Rachel—”
“Whatever it is, no. You need to leave now.” She didn’t like being so aware of him, of his eyes, his mouth, his hands. The unspoken emotion between them reared up again, a fire that shouldn’t be there. If she could sense it, so could Donovan.
He smiled and gave her a wink. “I’ll see you again soon.” He walked outside before she could argue.
Shutting the door, her impulse was to go to Donovan. She wanted to reassure him that she loved him, wanted reassurance from him. She decided against the idea, knowing that he needed time to cool down from the exchange with Jonathan. She couldn’t handle another violent outburst.
As she walked toward the basement stairs, she questioned if it was possible to still love Donovan while experiencing feelings for another man. The answer unnerved her and renewed her frustration with the situation.
She flew down the steps and almost ran over Paul as she turned the corner. “That was quick,” he said. “Who was the meeting with?”
“Jonathan Thomas.”
“You’re kidding. Anything get accomplished?”
She stopped and faced him. “Hell, no. Next time they should just duke it out on the school playground like the snotty little rich brats they are.” She stormed into her room, leaving Paul with his mouth open.
Chapter Fifty-five
Rachel emerged from her room later that afternoon, refreshed from a nap and ready for a workout so she could expel the rest of her frustration. As she walked to the gym, she decided she would erase Jonathan’s visit from her mind. The guilt over the kiss consumed her, and continuing to allow Jonathan to dominate her thoughts wasn’t fair to either her or Donovan. She owed everything to Donovan and refused to betray him a moment longer.
She smiled at her decision to forget Jonathan, and the tension in her shoulders released its hold on her. She entered the gym and stopped walking. Eric laid on the bench press, lowering the barbell toward his chest. Her pleasant mood deflated. “I’ll come back later,” she said, and turned to go.
“I don’t understand something,” Eric said.
Knowing he was baiting her, Rachel turned around to face him. “What’s that?”
He grunted as he lifted the weights back up, and lowered the bar onto the rack. “How you can screw up everything you do.”
Her eyes narrowed and she stepped toward him. All of the anger and frustration from the day flooded back into her muscles.
Eric pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Dancing with Jonathan Thomas in front of King?” His patronizing laugh filled the room. “How stupid can you get?”
Rachel moved further into the gym. “I’ve had enough of you, Eric. I think it’s time we finish this.”
He rose from the bench and picked up a nearby towel. “What are you rambling about?”
She gestured at the mat. “I may not be able to take care of you out there, but in here I have every right to spar with you.”
Eric leered. “You’re on.” He wiped the towel across his flushed brow and stepped on the mat. Sweat glistened off the rough stubble on his head.
Paul walked into the gym. “Rachel, what do you think you’re doing?”
Rachel shrugged. “Just practicing. Right, Eric?”
“Just practicing,” Eric said.
“Damn it, Rach,” Paul said.
Eric threw his fist at her. She dodged to the side and caught his hand. She whirled around, grabbed his wris
t and arm, and flipped him over her shoulder, but he anticipated her move. He landed on his back and swept his arm under her legs, knocking her down.
He jumped to his feet seconds before she did. His wrist bounced off her arm as she blocked his punch. She misjudged the next one, and his knuckles crashed into the side of her face, landing on the existing bruise. Her neck whipped to the side, and she looked back at Eric in time to see his fist again. This time, it clipped her jaw.
Rachel backed away from Eric to give herself a moment to recuperate. She touched her cheek, stinging not from Eric’s punch, but with the reminder of Donovan slamming her into the wall. She realized that Eric could only cause superficial pain; Donovan had secured all rights to really hurt her.
Eric held his fists in front of him with an arrogant grin, ready to strike again. She raised her fists and bent her knees in response to his challenge. He moved toward her, and she expected him to throw his fist again. His hand jerked, enough for her to raise her arm up to block, leaving her abdomen exposed.
His foot landed in her stomach, but she folded with it as Paul taught her years earlier. Though the pain was minimal, she covered her stomach with her arm and remained bent at the waist. Paul took a step toward them, but she held up her hand to stop him.
“Is that all you have for me, Rach?” Eric asked, laughing. “You can do better than that.”
Seconds passed like minutes while Rachel stared at Eric. She kept her breathing uneven to maintain the pretense of an injury. His shoulders dropped and his facial muscles relaxed.
She whirled around and kicked the side of his face, stunning him. She drove her fist into his mouth, once, twice, three times. Blood flowed from his mouth in response to the sharp blows. Her foot connected once more with the side of his face and he hit the ground.
Rachel crouched beside him and thrust her knuckles into the hollow of his neck. She pushed against his windpipe to cut off his air supply. “Don’t ever mess with me again,” she said.
Paul picked her up from the mat. Eric rolled to his side and grasped at his neck, coughing and wheezing. Rachel stalled to watch Eric’s temporary suffering, and Paul dragged her out of the gym. He pulled her into her bedroom, his anger apparent in his tone. “What is going on with you today? And don’t pull that ‘time-of-the-month’ crap on me.”
“Nothing’s going on,” she said. She rubbed her tender knuckles. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“You’re agitated as hell. I want to know why.”
She didn’t answer.
“Listen, I have to go with Donovan to check out this job we’re doing in a couple weeks. We’ll be back in an hour or so. I want you to go take a bath or stay in here and read, whatever it’s going to take to keep you out of trouble. When we come back, you and I are going to talk and you’re going to tell me everything. Promise me you’ll stay away from everyone until we return, okay?”
“Alright,” she said.
“One hour.” He kissed her forehead. “By the way, you did great in there. Serves him right.”
Chapter Fifty-six
Jonathan paced the floor of his office, as he had off and on all afternoon. He had stirred up trouble that morning at King’s estate, and he didn’t know if he should be worried about upsetting King or excited about the developments with Rachel.
Seeing Rachel brought back every feeling he had while dancing with her. He had no control over his emotions or actions when he was with her, so it had been no surprise he kissed her, even if he didn’t know he would do it until it happened. Kissing her had been everything he expected, and he never wanted to stop.
When he did let her go, he saw the bruise on her cheek. The bruise was not the result of an accident, of falling down, or of being clumsy. The purposeful and angry discoloration was also recent.
As he snuck back to the house to wait for his meeting with King, he came to terms with the idea that he might have been the cause of the bruise. That dancing with her at the dinner pushed King over the edge and he had hurt her. Yet he also knew that with a bruise like that, it was not the first time she had suffered at King’s hands.
Seeing Rachel in the same room as King worried Jonathan, as he remembered her saying she lived in the house with him. The longer she lived with King, the more chances he would have to hurt her. The offer of giving up his company to get Rachel out of harm’s way came out of Jonathan’s mouth without thought.
After he said it, he knew he meant it. This woman had infiltrated his heart to the point that he would give up everything he had to be with her and whisk her out of the hell she lived in. No man had the right to treat her like that, to put his hands on her in a hurtful way. Somehow, Jonathan had to get her out of there.
A knock on his office door told him that Walt had arrived with the information about Rachel. “Come in,” he called.
Normally, Rita would conference him to tell him his guest was waiting for him, but Jonathan gave her the day off, much to her dismay. Rita had not taken a day off in a decade of working for Jonathan, and she had not accepted his offer to take one off now without a fight. He ended up giving her double time on her salary to get her away for the day. The expense was worth it. Having her around would raise questions as to why he had gone to King’s estate that morning, and what Walt was digging up for him.
Walter Sykes strolled through the office door, clutching a briefcase at his side. As they shook hands, Jonathan noted Walt had lost more hair from his already frail comb-over.
“Thanks for getting this to me so soon, Walt,” Jonathan said. He led Walt to the conference room on the other side of his office.
Walt took a seat opposite of Jonathan and set his briefcase on the table. “I’m not sure what you’ve gotten yourself into, but this has to be one of the strangest cases I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some strange ones,” he said.
Jonathan narrowed his eyes, curious why Walt would say that about a simple background check. “What do you mean? What about it is strange?”
Walt opened the briefcase and took out a thin manila file folder. He flipped open the cover of the folder. He picked up a single piece of paper from inside the folder and waved it in the air. “This is what I have on your girl.”
“That’s it?” Jonathan asked. “One page?”
“Not even half a page. Your girl is what you’d call ‘off the grid.’ In fact, she’s so far off the grid, that she was quite difficult to find in the first place.”
“What did you find on her?”
“She was born in San Diego and lived there until she was ten. Then her parents were killed in a drunk driving accident. They weren’t drinking, someone else was. Her dad, Luke, had one brother named Paul. There was no other living family, so Paul retained custody of Rachel. That’s where the trail ends.” Walt leaned over the table in dramatic fashion. “There is no record of Rachel Pettis after age ten.”
At first, Jonathan thought he might have misunderstood. “Age ten? How is that possible?”
Walt tossed the paper on top of the folder. “You got me. I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
“Did you find out anything about this uncle that took custody of her?”
“Paul Pettis was actually a pretty prestigious doctor in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai until eighteen years ago. That’s when his wife was raped and murdered.”
“Let me guess. He fell off the grid soon after he lost his wife.”
Walt cocked a finger at him. “You got it.”
Jonathan rubbed his forehead and tried to put the pieces together. “So the uncle falls off the grid, then a few years later Rachel does the same after he takes custody of her. How does she get from San Diego to working for Donovan King, but remain invisible?”
“She must be working under the table. I would bet good money that the uncle works there also, and that’s how she met King. If she’s working in that capacity for King, she’s not involved in anything good.” Walt closed his briefcase and slid the report over to Jonathan. “You have a check for m
e?”
“No check. You get an envelope this time.”
“Cash, huh? I like it, though it makes me feel a little shady. I take it you don’t want Rita to know about this one.”
“I don’t want anyone to ever know about this case, but it’s not like it matters. You gave me more questions than answers.”
“I don’t make up information to give you your money’s worth,” Walt said, as he rose from the table. “You get what you get and do with it what you want.”
Jonathan smiled and walked toward his office desk to get the envelope for Walt. “You gave me a mystery, and I don’t have the slightest clue what to do with it, but it was still worth the price.”
Walt stopped walking and caught Jonathan’s eyes. “This girl must be important for you to go through all this trouble.” He did not wait for a response. “You’ll take the mystery and you’ll solve it. Figure out what you have to do to get the results you want. That’s what you’re best at.”
“You’re right,” Jonathan said. He opened the top drawer of his desk and took out the envelope for Walt. “She is very important to me and she is worth the mystery.”
Walt accepted the envelope. “Be careful,” he said. “Something stinks about this, and if you keep poking around, you need to tread lighter than you ever have before. If you need anything else, give me a call.”
Jonathan thanked him, and Walt walked out of the office. He scanned the report on Rachel. Everything Walt told him was in writing, so he put the page through the cross-cut shredder next to his desk. He couldn’t risk Rita finding the document and questioning him on who Rachel was and why he paid Walt to run a background check on her.
Walt’s report only added a layer of mystery to Rachel Pettis. A young woman, living off the grid at Donovan King’s estate. She was not only working for him, she was with him. In return, she had sustained at least one bruise at his hands.
Jonathan was sure of two things. One, he fell in love with her the moment they met. Two, he couldn’t allow her to stay with that monster for one more minute. He had already made quite the mess at King’s residence that morning. Treading lightly wasn’t exactly an option at this point.