Secret Pleasure Read online

  “Harvey, just let me leave—”

  “Let you leave? You fucking whore,” he snarled. “I put up with six years of marriage to you, letting you sleep in that cold little bed of yours, listening to you whimper and whine at night for your lost lovers. For what? What did I gain from it?”

  What the hell was he supposed to gain from it anyway?

  “I didn’t promise you anything.” Dropping the overnight bag, she backed into the living room. “You begged me to marry you, not the other way around.”

  “You coldhearted little cunt,” he hissed. “If I had time I’d spread you out and fuck you like a real man instead of one that needs his cousin’s help. But then you don’t know what being fucked by one man feels like, do you?”

  Just a few more minutes, she told herself as he advanced on her. Just a few more minutes.

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried out. “You know Dad will kill you. If you lay a hand on me, he’ll kill you.”

  “He’ll be too busy grieving for you.” He was on her before she could evade him.

  As he jerked her to him with one hand the other moved in a wide arc. A second later, Alyssa stiffened, a cry falling from her lips as she felt overwhelming agony pierce her side, ripping through flesh and burying deep.

  Shocked, she stared up at him, the betrayal so shocking she didn’t know what to say, what to do.

  “I tried to help you, Harvey,” she whispered, the feel of the knife lodged between her ribs agonizing. “Why? I tried to help you.”

  “Because I didn’t need your help, you fucking little bitch,” he snarled. “I never needed it. And now, all you can offer me is the life insurance policy I put on you. I’m not here, remember? Looks like you surprised a thief instead.”

  And was he so insane that he didn’t know Raeg would record every word caught on the line? This was Raeg’s job. Security. Anything that would affect his boss. And the panic mode on her phone wasn’t just answered by Raeg or her father, but it automatically recorded everything.

  “You won’t get a penny,” she promised, fighting to breathe as he released her.

  The strength left her immediately.

  Sinking to the floor, Alyssa lay there, her fingers holding to the phone so tight that when Harvey tried to pry it from her, he cursed her. As he straightened, his foot landed in her arm before he turned and left, slamming the door behind him.

  Alyssa lay there, feeling her blood ease from where the knife had penetrated her flesh. It hurt. It hurt so bad. It was so unexpected. She’d never imagined Harvey could become so angry. And she didn’t understand why he was so angry.

  Breathing was so hard. The slight sound of dampness with each breath wasn’t a good thing, she knew. Just as she knew she was dying. Just as she’d felt her baby’s life bleed from her, she could feel her own bleeding away as well.

  She’d hurt worse in her life, though. This pain wasn’t nearly as bad as the pain she’d felt when she’d lost her little boy. But she was just as cold, just as terrified. And just as out of it as she had been then, because she swore she felt Shane and Sebastian there with her. Their warmth, their rage spilling into her.

  They were there, their promise no longer broken. Bound to her, as she was bound to them. Their souls reaching out to touch.

  She smiled at the fanciful thought. Perhaps delusions were common before death. Because they were inside her senses so clear. So clear she could hear Sebastian’s voice.

  ’Lyssa? Sleepy and a bit confused.

  “I love you, Goofy,” she whispered, needing the warmth, needing the comfort. “Don’t let me die alone, Sebastian. Don’t leave me alone.”

  Rage exploded through her. Warmth surrounded her and fury rushed over her senses like a wave, striking at her, fueling her own.

  Don’t you leave me, siren. You will not leave me.

  Why did she feel that? What was it about death that made a person long for the one thing she knew wasn’t real? Because his voice wasn’t really there. Their warmth wasn’t really wrapping around her, shielding her, demanding she live.

  “I’m cold,” she whispered, as she heard her father screaming, heard Raeg barking commands and her doctor’s steady voice. “So cold.…”

  How had Dr. Brennan gotten there?

  “You promised to keep me warm…,” she whispered. “You promised.…”

  *

  Sebastian came awake with a suddenness he’d only experienced once in his life before.

  This time, the difference wasn’t the excruciating physical and mental pain he’d sworn Alyssa was feeling.

  This time, it was her death.

  I’m cold.… You promised to keep me warm.… You promised.…

  They had made so many promises to her, only to have to break each one.

  Shane wasn’t the only one who had felt that connection snap back into place, felt her, the bond so fragile, almost non-existent now.

  As he jerked his boots on he was aware of the light switching on in the sitting room and knew Shane was hurriedly dressing as well.

  They had to hurry. God help him, they had to get to her.

  “I’m calling the pilot!” Shane yelled out, panic edging his tone, his certainty that they were losing Alyssa.

  Sebastian ran through the connecting door. “Call him on the way.”

  They’d been certain she was safe.

  Gregory Santiago, the neighbor who had once lived beneath Alyssa in Barcelona, had been killed in the raid on his apartment where they’d found the original videos he’d taken while Alyssa was at Landra’s apartment six years before.

  He’d finally moved to transfer the blackmail payments that had been made over the years by the De Loren family. Their CIA contacts had instantly traced the transfer, pinpointed Santiago, then with Shane and Sebastian rushed his Barcelona apartment.

  The cousins hadn’t trusted him six years before, but Sebastian had never suspected he was involved with the blackmail. They should have, he knew. Not many people had known they were more or less living with Alyssa there. Gregory had known, though. He’d known, just as he’d known their reputations.

  All the videos and digital files had been recovered, even the one addressed to a U.S. gossip rag, and left with his lawyer in Madrid.

  The operation had finished the day before. Would fate be so cruel as to take her from them now?

  Running from the house, Shane shouted directions to the pilot as well as the flight plan. He had twenty minutes to get prepared to take off.

  They were racing for the airport, that fragile, so very fragile connection they felt to Alyssa dimming by the second.

  “Don’t you die on me, siren!” Sebastian screamed as he pushed the little sports car as fast as it would travel on the winding roads. “Don’t you fucking die on me. We’re coming, baby. We’re coming.…”

  As fast as they could get to her. God, why hadn’t they left the day before? Why had they allowed their brothers to convince them to wait, to sleep first so they could go with them? They should have left for her immediately.

  They’d failed her again. And God help them, they might have failed her one time too many.

  *

  Ice formed in Margot’s veins. It chilled rage and froze out fury. It left only the steely determination and cold, hard vengeance cementing inside her.

  “Why didn’t you call nine-one-one?” she demanded as Davis and Dr. Brennan rushed through the foyer, following Raeg, and Davis’ bodyguard, Crane, as they carried Alyssa to the downstairs guest room rather than up the stairs to her room.

  The gurney they used was no more than a flat slat with handholds, and blood dripped from it, running from her daughter’s body in a long, slow rivulet.

  “Davis.” She grabbed his arm imperatively as he went to pass her. “She needs a hospital.”

  “Margot, let him be,” the doctor demanded, passing them as Margot held her husband’s gaze. “We can deal with this.”

  “Why?” She ignored the doctor. “Why isn’t
she in the hospital?”

  “Because we don’t know what the hell is going on!” he snapped, pulling her with him as he rushed for the guest room Alyssa had been taken to. “Summer called just before Alyssa’s panic call came through. She’s on her way home from Spain and told Raeg to make certain Alyssa was safe. That’s why Brennan was with us. I’d already called him. The only reason she’s alive is because we were already on our way there.”

  Standing in the doorway, Margot stared in at the rushed efforts being made to save Alyssa’s life. Raeg and Crane had placed Alyssa on the narrow bed and were hastily cutting her clothes from her.

  The hilt of a knife extended from Alyssa’s side. It looked so big, so lethal, the blade buried completely inside her small body.

  The doctor’s wife was unpacking the totes she and the nurse had carried ahead of Raeg and Crane. The RN attaching an IV to Alyssa’s arm, her expression grim as Mrs. Brennan placed several monitors on the bedside table, and attaching electrodes. They moved quickly, the monitors beeping, IV attached, and the doctor striding from the connecting bathroom, his sterilized, gloved hands held up as another nurse strode behind him, her own hands covered with sterilized gloves.

  “Who did this?” Margot asked her husband, fighting to remain calm.

  She had to stay calm. She had to make someone pay for this.

  “Harvey.” It was Raeg who answered her as the doctor motioned them away from Alyssa. “We heard everything after she hit the panic button on her phone. And he knew about Barcelona. He knew too much about it.”

  Focusing on her daughter, Margot made herself watch as the doctor removed the blade, the size of it causing her breath to catch. How Brennan managed to do everything required to stabilize the pierced lung, take care of the wound to her side, and keep Alyssa alive she had no idea.

  Margot paced the hall, the ice freezing to the depths of her mother’s soul as she listened to the doctor and nurse talking to each other. Dr. Brennan barked out orders to both his nurse and his wife, while monitors beeped too fast and beeped too slow.

  “You will not die, Alyssa Paige,” Margot muttered, determined that her daughter sense the determination pouring from her. “You will not.”

  Margot watched the clock at the end of the hall as time passed. First one hour, then two. Just before the third hour struck, the door opened and the doctor stepped out, his expression somber.

  “She’s alive,” he told them. “And trust me, Margot.” He focused completely on her. “There’s nothing that can’t be done better here than I can do at a hospital. But it’s not good.”

  He went through the complications. The collapsed lung, the amount of blood lost, and, most especially, Alyssa’s lack of determination to live.

  “If her will to live hasn’t strengthened in the past six years, and I’m not convinced it has, then there’s no way we can keep her from giving up.”

  Margot heard every word the doctor said, and what he didn’t say as well. Alyssa didn’t live. She drifted through life as though waiting for a reason to give up and join the child she’d lost.

  “The hell she will.” Stalking into the bedroom, Margot paused beside Alyssa’s bed.

  She was too pale, her breathing too shallow. The doctor was right: Alyssa could easily drift away from them now.

  “Alyssa Paige, I’ve watched you suffer for six years and I’ve had enough of this fight I’ve waged to keep you alive. Do you understand me, girl?” She didn’t speak gently. Her voice was hard, the voice she had used before her daughter had returned broken inside.

  “Did you hear me, Alyssa Paige?” she yelled, causing the nurse to flinch at the sound of her voice. “Buck your ass up, girl. I have six of the meanest, best-trained Special Forces soldiers ready to head out the second I give the order. They will suffer, Alyssa. If you die, then I swear to you, they will suffer.”

  It was a vow she’d made to herself six years before. Shane Connor and Sebastian De Loren would suffer.

  But Harvey Stanhope would suffer first.

  Alyssa’s lashes fluttered, an almost silent moan leaving her lips.

  “Die on me. Leave me to face this alone,” Margot informed her daughter furiously, “and I will no longer have a reason to allow them to live.”

  Her daughter moaned again. The sound was faint and filled with such pain.

  “Understand me, Alyssa,” Margot snarled, “as you have never understood anything. Die, and before they take their last breath, they’ll suffer a hundred times more than you have before I’ll allow them to slip away.”

  Straightening, Margot turned to her husband. The moment Alyssa was no longer in danger Davis would go after Harvey. She would beat him to it.

  “Notify me immediately if she begins to worsen,” she told him.

  “So you can bully her?” Raeg snapped, his expression filled with contempt as he watched her.

  “Whatever it takes,” Davis answered for her. “Whatever it takes to keep her alive.”

  Margot nodded sharply and left the room. What she had to do next would require all the deceit she’d learned to practice over the years. All the lies she’d learned to tell.

  She was going to convince Harvey to come to her.

  Then she was going to ensure the little bastard could never hurt her daughter again.

  10

  FOUR DAYS LATER

  What happened?

  Why was she in her parents’ downstairs guest room? It made no sense. And why was Margot sitting next to her bed, texting? Margot hated texting.

  She hated texting worse than she hated e-mail. She could be convinced to do e-mail, but Alyssa had never known her to text.

  “Momma?” It slipped. She rarely called her mother Momma. She remembered doing it six years before, but until now she hadn’t done so again.

  Margot lifted her head, the smile that curled her lips so hard and cold that for a moment she thought her mother was angry with her.

  “I love you, Alyssa,” Margot said then.

  “I know.” Sadness sank inside her; the confrontational relationship she and her mother had was as much her fault as Margot’s. She knew that. “I always knew.”

  God, she was so tired. She just want to sleep, to drift away on the warm currents she could feel reaching out to her. She was always so cold. Margot couldn’t understand that; neither could Summer. Alyssa was always so cold except when she slept. When dreams of Shane and Sebastian wrapped around her and warmed her.

  “I’m so tired, Momma,” she tried to explain, but it was so hard to focus. “Please just let me go.”

  “Will you be back, Alyssa?”

  She wanted to lie to her mother, but lying to her was something Alyssa was always loath to do. Margot never lied to her. She was always honest, even when it hurt.

  Alyssa forced her eyes open, forced herself to stare back at her mother. “Let me go,” she whispered.

  She’d heard her mother’s voice, even in her dreams, demanding she live or Shane and Sebastian would be hurt. Why should she care? Why did their suffering bother her? Why did she dream that they already suffered so deeply?

  “Well then,” Margot’s voice hitched. “Sebastian and Shane just arrived in town and they called your cell. I’ve been texting for you, sweetie.”

  Texting for her? Trepidation shot through Alyssa then. Why would her mother text Shane and Sebastian for her?

  “No.…” They weren’t there; they didn’t want her. They were afraid she would be a nuisance.

  “Oh yes.” Satisfaction filled Margot’s voice then. “When you take your last breath I’ll direct those sons of bitches straight to the men awaiting my order. They’re here for you, you know? Can you believe they came for you after betraying you so cruelly? Do you think I’ll have any mercy on them, Alyssa? I swear to you, I will not.”

  Came for her? Was she a pet, some toy they thought they could play with, toss aside, then come back for? She’d be damned if they would.

  Life flared in Alyssa’s eyes in ways i
t hadn’t since she’d returned from Barcelona. Then anger. Margot wanted to shout in victory, but the realization of what she was about to do was too heartrending.

  “Good then. I’ll just text them back. As you of course. Ask them to give me a few days to think,” she said, returning to the messages she’d been exchanging with Sebastian. “We’ll not discuss this again.”

  “I’ll win the next argument,” Alyssa promised her, though she was already drifting off back to sleep.

  “When you wake, Alyssa, I put something in your wish box,” Margot said softly. “Find it.” Brushing back the heavy strands of her daughter’s hair, she whispered a kiss against her brow. “I love you, girl. I always loved you so very much.”

  Sitting back, she read the text reply to the request for a few days.

  Do you think we’ll accept that? You should know better!

  Oh, how arrogant, she thought, rather pleased by the reply, though she wasn’t certain why.

  Go to hell [she texted in reply].

  Where the fuck do you think we’ve been? We live there, dammit.

  Poor babies, she thought caustically. Didn’t she just feel so sorry for them?

  Alyssa, ignoring us is not a good idea! You know it’s not! Alyssa, damn you, answer me!

  She placed the phone next to Alyssa’s hand.

  “Good-bye, girl,” she whispered.

  Picking up her purse, she left the room. She had a date with Harvey, and she would be taking him straight to hell.

  Summer would have to care for Alyssa now.

  MARGOT’S FUNERAL

  FIVE DAYS LATER

  Margot Hampstead’s funeral was attended by damned near every politician Senator Hampstead knew and their family. They might not have liked Margot, but many had respected her. Most had feared her, but they had known they could depend upon her to keep her word.

  Sitting in the limo that had joined the procession to the grave site, Shane and Sebastian watched for Alyssa. Whoever stood next to the senator resembled Alyssa enough, considering she was hiding behind a black veil. She was the same height and build, but it wasn’t Alyssa.

  Just as whoever was texting from Alyssa’s phone wasn’t her, either. At first they hadn’t been so certain; now there was no doubt.