“Aren’t you doing what you love, Marcus?”
I took a slug of my beer before I dropped back onto the sofa. I didn’t mind running my father’s multinational conglomerate, but I couldn’t say it was really my passion. “I didn’t have a lot of choice. Once my father died, I had to step up to the plate as soon as possible. I was the oldest.”
Once we’d lost our dad, I’d felt compelled to take care of my father’s legacy. Unfortunately, once I was old enough, dealing with my dad’s conglomerate couldn’t be accomplished without a hell of a lot of travel. We’d had management in place until I finished school, but the company hadn’t been as solid as it had been when my father had been alive. So I’d traveled, making sure things were done the right way, handling all of the problems myself.
Except, sometimes I felt like by doing right with the company, I’d somehow lost track of my family. Having been gone so much, there were so many things I’d missed. Chloe had been in an abusive relationship, and I hadn’t discovered it until after she was out of it. I’d slowly drifted away from my identical twin, Blake, who was now a US Senator. Tate and Zane had been through their own hardships, too, and once again, I hadn’t been there for them very much.
Truth was, I missed them like hell, but because I’d been absent for so long, I wasn’t sure how to be back in their lives again. Considering my work with the CIA, maybe it was for the best.
“Well, it’s not like you don’t have time to pursue anything you want to,” Jett finally answered.
Right now, the only thing I wanted to pursue was his gorgeous, stubborn, redheaded sister. But I couldn’t tell him that.
“Yeah,” I agreed noncommittally. “I’ll hang out here for at least a few more days and keep an eye on Dani. I want to make sure she doesn’t cozy up to Becker again.”
Jett was quiet for a moment before he said, “You know, if she does, there isn’t much we can do, short of kidnapping her. I want to protect her, but she deserves her space. If she wants him, I can’t exactly stop her.”
“I will stop her,” I grumbled, purposely not mentioning I’d already technically kidnapped Danica. “She’d fuck up her entire life if she ends up with Becker. He’ll go down eventually.”
“You okay, Marcus?” Jett asked carefully.
“Yeah. Why?”
“I guess I’ve never really seen you take a personal matter this seriously.”
“Just trying to help,” I told him awkwardly.
He was right. Very rarely did I give much thought to personal stuff that didn’t involve my businesses or CIA intel.
She was my downfall when it came to being emotionally distant. Danica had been through so much, not to mention the fact that I had some kind of odd, animalistic possessiveness toward her that I couldn’t explain or understand. For a very long time, all I’d wanted was to get her naked, and then pin her against the wall while we both got our fill of each other. And I was pretty certain it would take me one hell of a long time to get rid of the primitive drive I harbored to make Danica mine. I wanted to fucking hear her scream that she belonged to me while I pounded into her tight, warm heat.
However, after she’d shared some of the pain she’d had to bear during her confinement with the rebels, I was driven to make sure she never suffered again.
“Let me know how it goes,” Jett requested. “And thanks, man. I owe you one.”
We ended our call, and I stood up, restless from being at loose ends for the first time I could remember. I’d asked one of my top executives to fill in on my travel for me, and I’d headed for Florida specifically to let Dani know that she couldn’t keep seeing Becker.
Something isn’t right. I can feel it.
My logical brain was telling me that there was no way she wanted Gregory Becker. Dani was too damn smart to end up with a man like him. Not only that, but she was a reporter, a woman who could read people extremely well.
Meanwhile, my irrational, primal, carnal response wanted to move Dani completely out of harm’s way immediately and completely.
I wish I could say that my logical mind was going to seek out answers, but I was afraid that for the first time in my life, I might very well be unable to completely ignore emotion.
Dani
The following day, I’d had to make up an excuse for Greg as to why I wasn’t at the bar to meet him.
I really wanted him to trust me, so letting him down like that wasn’t exactly a step forward for our relationship.
Fortunately, he’d accepted the fact that I hadn’t been feeling well and had fallen asleep. The really bad part was that he wanted to come over and see me here at my condo to make sure I was feeling better.
He thinks I’m sick. He probably won’t stay long.
I’d dressed in a pretty, casual, yellow sundress, and then put on some makeup. I left my hair down in a sleek bob that barely touched my shoulders. Somehow, the style seemed to fit my natural redheaded color.
My phone rang, and I hurried to unplug the cell phone on the living room coffee table so I could answer before the caller got my voice mail. “Hello,” I answered. I hadn’t looked at the caller ID, so I was half expecting the call to be from Greg, saying he was going to be late or that he had to cancel his visit.
“Dani?” a panicked female voice asked in a nervous tone.
“Ruby? What’s the matter? What happened?” I asked breathlessly.
I stressed out over my young friend on a daily basis. After a childhood and adolescence of abuse, she’d ended up running away and had landed in Miami at the age of eighteen. She’d been here and homeless for almost four years, a fact I hadn’t learned about until after she was picked up off the street right after we’d met a month or two ago. She had a home in a crappy hotel room now, but everything about the arrangement that had taken her off the streets worried me.
“The guy who rescued me says I owe him. This isn’t what I thought it would be, Dani. They promised me I’d have a job, and that hasn’t happened. Now they’re telling me I owe money for the roof over my head and food. Since I don’t have money to pay them back, they want to do some kind of auction thing for my services.”
My stomach rolled as I thought about just what kind of auction Ruby was going to participate in. “Did they say what kind of auction?”
“T-They didn’t s-say,” she stammered. “But the woman who comes to bring me food asked if I was a virgin, and I admitted that I was. At first, I was thinking some kind of live-in housekeeper or something. But I’m starting to think they want me to sell my body since it’s really all I have to give.”