Enticed (25 page)

I sat at my dinky dining room table in my new, dinky apartment in Grand Prairie, poring over my checkbook one afternoon that following Mar
ch. I had sent Drew Fullerton a check to reimburse him for the second half of my contract I would not be fulfilling, which still left me with a fairly decent amount of money. If I budgeted well, I could last until fall when the new school year started. I had already been replaced at my old school, but I had several feelers out at various schools in the region. I was willing to move, again, if necessary. In truth Grand Prairie looked a lot smaller than it had a mere eight months before. If it hadn’t been for Nancy, I probably wouldn’t have come back to Texas at all.

But she was the only family I had now. She spared me any, “I told you so” speeches, and instead helped me pick up the pieces like she had all those years ago after Jason died. I used her lawyer to communicate with Drew, who still tried to contact me after I left. He used whatever excuse he could to coerce me back to California, but I was unmovable. He even threatened to sue me, to which my own
lawyer replied, “We’d like to see you try.” So far the dirty details of our failed engagement hadn’t been made common knowledge, as I still honored the NDA I had to sign when I first started working for Drew.

Now I understood why he wanted to keep our platonic relationship so ambiguous. He was setting the stage early for a concocted
romance supported by unchallenged rumors. I already knew that he used gossip to his advantage. I had no doubt he had hired the camera bug on the mountain that day that conveniently snapped a photo of us in a heated embrace.

The lawyer suggested if Drew insisted on taking the matter to court, these details would become a matter of public record. After that, Drew let the matter drop entirely.

He had too much to lose now with his powerful friends in Washington.

Every time I thought about it all, I felt like driving myself off of the nearest cliff. I was embarrassed, humiliated, heartbroken and more betrayed than I had ever been in my life. Worst of all, I still loved
the son of a bitch. It wasn’t like Zach, who had killed my love for him with years of slow poison. The revelation in the courtroom landed like an atom bomb out of the clear blue sky. I walked around in a daze like some ghost who hadn’t figured out she was already dead. I felt everything, as though I still lived in California, in that house, with the men I had grown to love.

I missed Jonathan like a piece of my body that had been torn off, and d
espite all he had done, my body still responded to thoughts of Drew. They were both imprinted on my very soul. I honestly didn’t know how I was going to get over it.

Only distance and time could help me now. I was online looking at travel websites, thinking maybe a trip somewhere tropical and across the world from
Fullertons would finally exorcise them from my memory, when someone knocked at my front door.

I figured it was Nancy, dropping by with lunch just to make sure that I ate something. In those raw days after I returned to Texas, I often went without sleep or food because I simply didn’t care. Life lost all meaning for me that day in that California courtroom. I had come back from the brink once before, but I didn’t know if I could do it again.

I didn’t know if I wanted to do it again.

I shuffled my feet as I walked to the front door. When I pulled it open, I gasped in shock. There stood a man with jet black hair, icy blue eyes and a neat beard that surrounded his supple mouth.

It was Alex Fullerton.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I breathed as I braced on the door, using it as a shield between us.

It was no use. He pushed through without waiting for an invitation to enter my apartment. “I guess you never expected to see me again,” he retorted with good humor.

“One could hope,” I hissed as I stood by my open door. “What are you doing here, Alex?”

He was dressed in jeans with a leather jacket and cowboy boots, every inch the family rogue I had come to know and loathe during my unfortunate stay in Beverly Hills. I fumed as he sat easily on my discount store couch. “Nice place,” he offered as he looked around.

“Fuck you,” I said as I slammed my door.

He held up a hand. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I swear.”

“And what’s the worth of that to me? The word of a Fullerton.”

He nodded. “Fair enough.” I crossed my arms and I waited. “I know you probably want my head on a platter,” he started.

“Try your balls,” I corrected.

“I get that. Okay? But you need to know that I didn’t produce that evidence to hurt you. He was trying to railroad Elise. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Ah yes. The star-crossed lovers.”

“It’s not like that,” he said as honestly and as genuinely as I’d ever heard him speak.

“Then what’s it like?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “All that matters now is Jonathan.”

As angry as I was, that comment stopped me in my tracks. “What do you mean? Is he OK?”

Alex looked sad as he shook his head. “No. He’s not.”

I sank into a chair and waited. I didn’t think I could bear hearing any bad news abo
ut my favorite boy, even if I was no longer his favorite adult.

“He’s in bad shape, Rachel. We can’t reach him. He’s angry and hostile and lashing out at everyone. He hates everyone, including me,” he added sadly.

“He’s hurt,” I corrected. “He feels betrayed by every adult he trusted.”

Alex nodded again. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that. He’s hanging around older kids. I suspect he’s doing drugs, among other things.”

“He’s only ten,” I argued. He had celebrated his birthday in February, just days from mine. Both days had been unbearable this year.

“He’s ten going on thirty. You know that.”

I nodded. I knew. “So why are you here, Alex?”

He took a deep breath. “We need you to come back to California. To reach him, like you did before.”

I chortled. “You’re insane,” I informed him as I stood. He stood also.

“I’m desperate,” he clarified. “We could lose him, Rachel. For good. He’s running with these kids at his new school and they’ve already gotten him suspended twice. He’s going to end up fucking up his whole life if he doesn’t wind up killing himself first.”

His words terrified me, but I tried not to let that show. “And this is my problem how?”

“You love him,” Alex said. “You love him every bit as much as we do. And you’d never be able to forgive yourself if you didn’t do something.”

So now Alex was using my dead son against me? “You Fullertons have a lot of goddamn nerve,” I said with an incredulous shake of my head. “You’re still trying to emotionally manipulate me to get your way.”

Alex
steamed. “I’m nothing like Drew and you know it. I’m not trying to lie to you to get you to L.A. I trust you with the truth. And I think I know you well enough that you will do what’s right for Jonathan.”

“What’s in it for you?” I asked. “You never liked me. You always thought I was a gold-digging whore. Why are
you
here, Alex?”

He walked around my coffee table to stand right in front of me. “I admit I was wrong about you. I knew something
wasn’t quite adding up, I just didn’t know what it was. I had to be careful. I had no idea about the things you had been through. It was easier to assume you were like all the rest. I feel…,” he paused a beat before he went on, “I feel responsible for what happened. I should have known better. I know more than anyone else what Drew is capable of.”

I closed my eyes when I heard his name. “I need you to leave, Alex.”

“I can’t,” Alex said with tears in his eyes. “You’ve lost someone close to you, and I’ve lost someone close to me. I know you’ll understand when I tell you I can’t go through that again. I’ll move heaven and earth if I have to. I’ll do whatever needs to be done.”

“
Even if that means fraternizing with the enemy?” I asked. “You really think Drew is going to sit back and let me waltz right back into Jonathan’s life?”

“It’s not up to Drew anymore. Elise has full custody. And she’s willing to do anything to save her son. She loves him, no matter what Drew told you.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Take a job at his school?”

Alex shook his head. “We want to go back to home schooling, to get him away from his new friends.”

“Forgive me but I don’t think they have enough room for me in a beach bungalow in Venice.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “You’d come to live with me.”

I burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

“I have room. I live on a ranch
just north of L.A. You could teach both Jonathan and Max. I can’t compensate you like Drew, of course. But you would be comfortable.”

“I guarantee you that if I were to move in with you, the last thing I would be is comfortable.”

“Fair enough,” he conceded again.

I crossed my arms as I star
ed at him. “You realize moving me into your house will only make things worse between you and Drew, making it one more game of chicken with your brother.”

He shrugged. “You can think that if you wish.
But believe it or not, there are some of us who are what we seem to be, even in my brother’s world. Sometimes an uncle is just an uncle,” he added.

“So you want me to extend the same faith to you that you never could extend to me. Ironic.”

“You’re right,” he said. “And you can chew my ass out every day for the foreseeable future about it. As long as you can save Jonathan, I’ll do whatever you want. Just help us, Rachel. Please. We have nowhere else to go.”

“I need to think about it,” I said, though every fiber in my being screamed that I should tell him where to shove his idea.

He nodded. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said as he handed me an envelope with yet another one way ticket, only this time from Texas back to California. “If you don’t come, I’ll understand. I won’t like it, but I get it. You were run over pretty ruthlessly by the locomotive that is my brother. And I can’t guarantee you that it won’t get way worse before it gets better. He’ll be livid that you come back to live with me. He’ll see that as the ultimate betrayal, even if you can’t stand the sight of me, even if you end up saving Jonathan in a way that none of us have been able to. That’s just Drew. He has to win. Always.”

I nodded. I figured that much out already.

“I’ll do what I can to keep you safe, but there are no guarantees here, Rachel. It’s a sticky fucking web, and if you go back with me you’re likely to get just as entangled as the rest of us. You can say no. You can kick me to the curb where I belong. But you’re my last resort to save my nephew. I wouldn’t be here if there was any other way.”

I nodded again. I knew.
For Alex Fullerton to ask for my help, things had to be dire indeed. And I may not have had much use for either Fullerton brother, but I knew Alex loved Jonathan and only wanted the best for him. “If I go back, it’s not for you. It’s not for Drew. It’s for Jonathan. I don’t want my motives questioned. I don’t want my methods questioned. I want each and every one of you to trust me to do what is right by that little boy and stop treating me like the enemy. You understand?”

It was his turn to nod. “So you’ll come
back?”

I hesitated for a long moment as I looked down at the ticket in my hand.
I had just escaped the beast’s lair. But I knew Alex was right. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do everything I could to save Jonathan from himself… especially since I was partially to blame for his downfall. I broke my own rules, and Jonathan paid the price.

I owed him. Not Alex. Not Drew. Not Elise.

Jonathan was a ten-year-old kid who needed me.

And I wasn’t about to let him down.

I looked up at Alex. “Yes.”

END OF BOOK ONE

I sucked in a breath as I looked up into those piercing blue eyes that held me captive in their gaze. I hadn’t seen him in months, but his effect on me was no less devastating. My body still burned from his possessive imprint as his eyes traveled over my face and down across my body, which was firing to life just from the echo of his touch. “So you are here,” he said as he pushed his way into the house. “I thought it was a joke.”

I stared after him helplessly. “Drew, I really don’t think you should be here. Jonathan is due any minute…,” I started, but he was quick to cut me off.

“Jonathan’s not coming. I’ve petitioned the judge to prevent Jonathan from being educated here in the home of the man who blew his life apart. Twice,” he added bitterly. “If you want to teach Jonathan, you need to do it either in Elise’s home or in mine.”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “That’s not happening,” I told him.

He sneered at me. “So you’ve switched teams, is that it?”

“No,” I answered. “I’m on the same team I’ve always been on. Team Jonathan.”

Drew chortled. “You really are a piece of work,
Miss Dennehy
,” he emphasized spitefully. He glanced around his mother’s family home with pained nostalgia on his face. “But I suppose one Fullerton brother is as good as the other. He’s got the fancy home, the big bank account. Nothing as big as mine, of course, but few things are,” he added with an evil grin. “And of course, a motherless son. That’s the most important piece of the puzzle, is it not?”

I glared at him. “Get out, Drew.”

He stalked toward me. “Truth hurt?” he asked when he stopped a mere inch apart from where I stood.

“You wouldn’t know the truth if you tripped over it,” I gritted between clinched teeth. “Your jealous ranting is wasted when I know you never really wanted me in the first place.”

“You think not?” he asked in a low voice. His eyes were lethal as he closed the gap between us, until his massive, rock-solid chest was pressed against my tightly clenched arms. “Did it only take three months to forget what it felt like to have me inside you?”

I gasped slightly, taken aback by his bold comment. He took advantage of that opportunity to grasp my wrist in one powerful hand and yank me against his body, which was both hard and forbidding. His mouth hovered over mine by a mere breath. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said as his other hand ran down my back and over the curve of my hip. “I dream about you every night. I still feel you wrapped around me, pulling me in deeper and deeper inside of you until I lost myself in all that you are.”

My resolve slipped under the assault of his seductive words. I shook my head. “Drew, please.”

His eyes glittered. “I’ve heard you beg me before. Remember?”

I shuddered in spite of myself. As mad as I had been, as hurt and betrayed, Drew still haunted my dreams. I hadn’t forgotten how I came alive at his touch. Just being this close to him had me flushed with forbidden excitement. I wanted him despite past history and despite my better judgment. I had to remind myself that this was likely another game.

But the hard, insistent bulge pressing against my leg suggested otherwise.

I opened my mouth to protest, and his lips crushed mine. I could taste strong bourbon on his tongue. It was early in the day for him to be drinking. Clearly he had been in a downward spiral similar to his son. It fueled his possessive kiss with anger and entitlement. I began to struggle against him the minute his hand clamped over my breast. “No,” I murmured against his mouth as I tried to pull away, but he held me fast.

“Tell me you don’t want me,” he demanded. “I can feel it in the way your body responds to mine, like it knows whom it belongs to.”

“I belong to no one,” I insisted as I tried to pull away, but he swept me into his arms.

“You think not?” he challenged again as he carried me toward the staircase.

“What are you doing?” I squealed, too afraid to kick myself free and send us toppling down the stairs.

“Claiming what’s mine,” he informed me coldly as he reached the landing.