Great Exploitations: Sin in San Fran

GREAT EXPLOITATIONS (Sin in San Fran)

Copyright © 2014

Nicole Williams

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events of persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without express permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

Cover Design by Sarah Hansen of
Okay Creations

Editing by Cassie Cox

Formatting by JT Formatting

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Beginning

The Meet (Take Two)

The Sheets

The Sweet (Finally)

REVENGE. IF I didn’t realize some of it soon, I was afraid I would be overwhelmed by it. I was already possessed by it, so there was no place further to go than to be crippled under the weight of it.

For the first time in years, more than one person’s name was on that revenge list. The name that had dominated my list wasn’t even in the number one spot anymore. No, the number one spot was held by the devil himself, also known as Rob Tucker.

After beating me unconscious, he’d visited me at the hospital every day, his arms overflowing with elaborate flower arrangements or boxes of hand-dipped chocolate truffles. Yesterday, he’d brought me a sapphire bracelet. I guess he wanted his gift to match the color of my bruises.

He always showed up with a wide smile and warm eyes, stroking my hair as if I was more pet than person. He discussed the extravagant weekend trips we could take together once I was healed up. After the first day he’d visited, Rob hadn’t mentioned what he’d done to me—beat and kick the shit out of me—and the only thing more disturbing than that was the way I’d catch him scanning my bruises as if he was proud. It was sick. The whole damn thing.

Yet there I was, still deep in the Errand I should have abandoned the instant I woke up in the hospital. But I didn’t quit. More like I
couldn’t
quit. I’d apparently rather risk death than quit something I’d fully committed to, and I’d rather die a hundred gruesome deaths than let a snake like Mr. Tucker get away with what he’d done.

I was contemplating how quickly and succinctly I could close the Tucker Errand—although pouring a vat of hot oil on him was almost as appealing—when my door opened and in slipped my faithful and punctual daily visitor. The
other
daily visitor. My face lit up when Henry Callahan meandered in with his messy hair and easy smile.

“You’re looking a million times better today,” Henry said before kissing my forehead.

His kiss held the comfort of a parental kiss but the heat of a lover’s. My hands twitched to pull him back before he sat in the chair beside my bed. Whether the drugs they were pumping into me were messing with my head, or Rob Tucker had knocked some wiring loose, or I’d woken up in an alternate reality, my confusion about Henry had increased two-fold. Or three-fold. Or whatever-the-hell-fold it was that left me unable to tell up from down.

“And you’re still a bad liar,” I replied as I sat up.

I’d only been in the hospital for four days, but we’d developed a ritual of going for a walk together. The first day he’d had to push me in a wheelchair, but on the second day, I was too stubborn to let him do it again. So we’d been walking together—slowly—to the hospital courtyard ever since.

“I’ll take being a bad liar as a compliment.” Henry grabbed my hands and helped me up before finding my slippers.

“You take everything as a compliment.”

He grinned at me as he slid my second slipper into place. “Life’s a lot easier to wade through when I live in a state of delusion.”

“That’s the secret?” I shrugged into my robe. “I thought the secret was sustaining on a Prozac cocktail.”

“When all else fails, that’ll do the trick, too.”

Henry wove his arm through mine as we made our slow journey to the hall. When we passed it, I glared at the wheelchair tucked into a corner. Walking a few halls might take me twenty minutes, but I hadn’t gotten as far as I had by taking the easy road. Henry was patient and never mentioned the wheelchair. He knew me too well for that.

“I’ve been thinking, Eve . . .”

I took in a breath and steeled myself. As much as I enjoyed his visits, I didn’t enjoy our conversations. At least most of them. The ones centering around what had happened to put me in this sterile environment in the first place most of all.

“Tomorrow I’ve got a board meeting, which means I actually
have
to be at work. No more playing hooky unless I want to get fired from my own company.”

“Get to the point, Henry. Enough trying to ease me into it. I’m a big girl—I can take it.” I nudged him as we crept down the hall at a snail’s pace.

“Now that you’re stable, why don’t you fly back with me? We’ll get you set up with some in-home care and rehab. There’s nothing they can do for you here that you can’t get back in San Francisco, in the comfort of your own home.”

I’d probably spent as much time in the hospital as I had in my condo in California. It was a far cry from comforting or home. “Thank you, really, but the thought of sitting in a cramped airplane for five hours makes me want to projectile vomit.”

“And thank you for that vivid picture,” Henry teased with a shudder. “But I wasn’t suggesting that I’d pack you in a commercial jetliner. We’d take my private jet, of course.”

“Private jet, eh? Aren’t we the big boy now,” I teased right back. “But really, Henry, there are starving children in the world. I don’t think I could live with myself if I took a private jet across the country when those thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars could be better used elsewhere. Like for food. For the starving kids.”

Henry let out a sigh. “Yet what you fail to realize is that yes, I might have to spend a large amount of money on my mode of transportation so I can get where I need to go, when I need to go, in order to keep my business healthy and strong. In turn, my business allows me to donate an
obscene
amount of money to starving children.”

I pretended to ignore him, but I didn’t miss the wide grin he shot my way.

“You can check out the company’s balance sheet if you’re so concerned with how much money we give to charities around the world,” he continued, “but I can assure you it’s in the neighborhood of a thousand times more than I spend on personal transportation each year.”

I knew with certainty that money wasn’t on the top ten list of reasons why Henry started Callahan Industries. If I doubted it, I just had to look at his choice of attire: a faded old band shirt, a pair of worn-in jeans, and a pair of casual sneakers. Henry was probably the only billionaire in the world who would be caught dead in an outfit that could have been pulled from a second-hand store.

“It’s a weak excuse, Callahan, but I’ll let it slide,” I replied with a smirk.

“So you’ll take the jet home with me?” His voice rose a note.

“That’s a nega—”

“Come on, Eve. It’s big, private, and it has a bed. What more could you ask for?”

I tried to keep a straight face as we waited for the elevator. We’d made it there a minute faster than yesterday. Score. “A bed? What kind of indecent proposal are you making?”

I’d mucked my way through enough Errands to know when I was close to getting a Target “nailed.” Henry wasn’t there yet, but that didn’t mean I would pass up giving him a reason to think about climbing into bed with me. A bed on a private jet included.

“The only proposal I’m making is offering a friend who can barely move without grimacing the use of a soft, comfy bed for a five-hour cross-country flight. If that’s indecent, then so be it.” Henry punched the first floor button and glanced at me.

“That’s indecent if I’ve ever heard of it,” I said under my breath.

“I’m loving this fun game of back and forth, but really, Eve, will you come? I hate the idea of leaving you here after what happened, and it’s not like you have any family or friends around to keep a close eye on you.”

My eyes narrowed at the shiny elevator doors. “How do you know that? You haven’t seen me in years. What makes you think I don’t have friends or family here, or in any city for that matter?” My tone wasn’t quite biting, but it was pretty damn close. Too close. I was supposed to be seducing the man, not alienating him.

Henry was silent the rest of the ride down. When the doors opened, he sighed. “You’re right. I don’t know if you’ve got anyone here.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders as we made our way out of the elevator. “But if you do have someone here, or a million someones, they can’t be very good friends. I haven’t seen a single one here checking on you.”

Why the hell couldn’t he just back off and leave it alone? Why did he have to question everything? Why—
why
—did Henry Callahan still get under my skin when he shouldn’t get under or around or through anything of mine anymore?