A Collateral Attraction (24 page)

The ER doctor must have given me something to relax for when I open my eyes again, it’s morning, and someone is holding my hand. Actually someone is wiping flecks of mud from the back of my hand with a soaked cotton ball. It’s Heath and for the next few minutes, he isn’t aware that I’m awake — and I don’t want him to — for right now, all I want to do is watch him do whatever it is he’s doing.

It’s such a simple act, wiping traces of mud from someone’s skin, but there’s something about the simplicity of it that makes the act so powerful — so private and yet revealing a part of him that’s so vulnerable. I can’t help but remember the first time I met him, so cold and angry, demanding to know where Ethan was and threatening to take away everything that his brother loved.  Even I have to admit now that for such a corny line, it’s endearing,  for all Heath really wanted was to protect his mother at all costs, corny lines be damned.

He’s wearing jeans and a white henley long-sleeved shirt that does nothing to hide the lean and muscled torso it covers.  I can see the indentations marking the bandages along his side and I feel my belly lurch at the memory of the frantic voices I’d heard on the phone, where just minutes earlier we’d been saying sweet nothings.  The shouts, the screams, and that heart-wrenching groan of pain.

But what is he doing here when he’s been hurt?  But as he goes about wiping traces of mud from my skin, I don’t move, not when I can see that he’s all right.

Somehow he’s managed to persuade someone to give him a canister of cotton balls along with the brown bottle marked ALCOHOL, on which he’s busy pressing the cotton balls against its slotted tip, soaking it before rubbing it gently across my skin. Just like with everything Heath puts his mind into — he goes all in.

“That’s a freckle, you know  And as far as I know, not even alcohol can take that off,” I croak and Heath looks up, startled.

Before I can say anything else, he gets up from his chair, the chair legs sliding noisily against the floor and wraps me in his arms. I can feel him trembling as he buries his face in my hair that still clumped in places with mud.

“Fred told me what happened — about Brad and Richard,” he whispers hoarsely.

“I’m fine. It’s you that I’m worried about,” I stammer as push him away, inspecting the four scratches on his face and resting my hand over his shirt where I noticed the bandage earlier.  He winces but covers my hand with his.  “You’re hurt!”

“It’s nothing serious, just a shallow cut along the side.  One of the men was sitting in front of me and he managed to deflect majority of the blow,” he says, smiling sheepishly.  “The bandage just makes it look worse.”

I eye him suspiciously and he traces an X over his chest.   “Cross my heart, Billie, or I wouldn’t be here.  Everyone else is just in shock, but unhurt.  After the attack happened, my crew immediately turned the plane around-”

“What about Blythe?  And Ethan?  I know Fred told me they were safe but-“

“They are,” Heath says, taking his phone from his pocket and dialing a number.  “I know we’re on radio silence but she’s asked me to call her as soon as you wake up.  If I don’t, she’s threatened to sneak out.”

The moment I hear Blythe’s voice on the phone, the tears start falling, though there are no hysterics, at least on my end.  With Heath holding my hand, I manage to remain calm even as Blythe is screaming on the other end of the line, telling me how she’d almost snuck out of the hotel again.  She’d make her way to Nevada City on foot if she had to.

“I’m fine, Blythe,” I say. “Just a few scratches, that’s all.”

“They said Richard went after you, and one of the security people…Brad, something-”

“Well, they didn’t get me. That’s what matters.  I’ll leave the rest to my therapist.”

“Bee,” she whimpers, “What a fucking mess I got you in.  I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.  I’m fine, and Heath is with me.”

Heath squeezes my hand, a reminder that I need to hang up soon.

“When all this is over, Bee, I’m not leaving you alone anymore, you hear me?” Blythe says. “I don’t care if you have to move to New York but maybe it’s for the best, until after all this craziness is over.  I’ll never look at another Gucci again.”

I chuckle. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Blythe.  Besides, I really am okay.  How’s Ethan?”

“He’s freaking out,” she says. “He’s mad as hell that his whole office betrayed him.  I mean, they would have killed  him if they had the chance, and they had so many chances!  It’s scary, Bee.  I mean, Richard was his friend, and Jackson-” she pauses, sighing.  “I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore.”

“Hang tight, and do as you’re told, okay?  And no sneaking out like that last time,” I reassure her.  “I’ll see you in a few days.  I promise.”

It takes a few more minutes of calming Blythe down before I finally hang up and return the phone back to Heath.  The fear in her voice was real, and so was the way my voice shook while I spoke to her.  I can’t keep denying to myself what had just happened — that I’d almost been killed last night, but I also have to focus my energies on the fact that we’re all okay.

Then I remember that one of us isn’t okay.

“I’m so sorry about Wally.”

“He managed to call Fred…” Heath’s voice fades before he clears his throat. “He called Fred just before he was killed.  The way Fred sees it, Wally led Brad away from the car so you could get away.”

I nod.  “He did.  He told me to run.”

Heath pulls me to his chest and holds me tightly.  I can feel his heart beating against my cheek, and I allow myself a moment to just let him hold me before the memory of Brad and Richard return.

“And what about Brad…and Richard?” I ask, pulling away. “I hope to God they’ve been caught-“

“They’re in custody. Richard already wants a deal for full immunity.  He says he’ll tell us who is behind the whole thing — from the attempt to frame Blythe and Ethan for fraud all the way to the events last night.  He says he documented everything, from the moment it all began a year ago, right after I took over the board,” Heath says, exhaling.  “He said if I hadn’t changed my mind about staying in Nevada City, and then changed it again to head straight to New York after all, it would have been a done deal.”

“Brad said something like, if Richard wasn’t a Kheiron, he’d have killed him already,” I say softly as Heath stares at me. “Do you know anything about that?”

Heath shakes his head. “Brad said that?  That Richard’s a Kheiron?”

I nod, hugging my arms around me as I try to remember Brad’s exact words.   “It’s what he said.”

“Brad is one of the men in charge of security for the executives,” Heath says.  “Tyler, Harris, and the rest of the board members — and myself”

“Fred told me that you have your own men watching you now,” I say, “His own company.”

“Fredricksen Security,”  Heath says, nodding.  “He was my first choice to handle security when I started Ettinger Holdings.”

“He said Brad wasn’t his.”

“He’s right.  Just as Jeff isn’t one of his as well, the one who attacked me on the plane, and is in custody,” Heath adds.  “But as of last night, none of Kheiron Industries’ security is watching any of us anymore.  We have no idea how far the plan went, or who’s involved.”

“And are you sure that everyone in your security team now is trustworthy?”

“They’ve all been vetted by Fred himself,” Heath says.  “He called in the old guard, the ones he worked with when he first started.  They’re old school, but they’re reliable.”

“Was it all an act to fire him so he could come up here and spy on me?”

“I never said I fired him, Billie.  You did,” Heath says. “You kept insisting on it, and so I let you believe what you wanted to believe.  All he wanted was to vet you personally by coming here, especially after you pulled that stunt by pretending to be Blythe and breaking into their suite.  He didn’t take to that stunt too kindly.”

“Does he do that with all your women?”

Heath shakes his head.  “Only girlfriends I take along with me to Saint Lucia without any security escort.  And the ones who manage to sneak out from under his watch pretending to be someone else.”

“He’s quite fond of you, isn’t he?”

“He was assigned to watch my mother whenever my father was out of town, so yes, he’s quite familiar with me.”

“Where is he now?” I ask, trying to remember when I last saw Fred, which had been just before I had the CT scan to rule out a concussion, even though I kept telling him that I didn’t need one.  Unfortunately, that hadn’t been the only thing I was telling him, I remember now, my face coloring.

I must have been delirious, believing he was Heath’s real father, rattling off my big mouth about how he should tell Heath who he was, even though it was none of my business.  But Fred had remained patiently silent, and sure enough, tired of talking, I had shut up, closed my eyes and promptly fell asleep.

“He left for New York as soon as I got in two hours ago.”

“Why?  Is it to watch over your mother?”

“Not exactly. There are things he needs to take care of before the meeting starts.”

“So the meeting’s still going on?  Even after everything that’s happened?” I ask angrily as I bring my legs to the side of the hospital bed, ignoring the soreness that has now settled in all my joints.

“In order to gain control of a five billion dollar company? Yes, and probably even more so if unconfirmed news reports are to be believed,” Heath replies. “And you and I will help them by playing along.”

“How?”

“By playing dead.”

By the time I finish my shower in the hospital bathroom, I’m ready to find out how Heath and I are supposed to play this game. It’s the same reason why Ethan and Blythe remain hidden from the public, having disappeared halfway through a fundraising party at the country club the night before with only a statement released the next morning saying that due to personal circumstances, Ethan would be unable to play in the polo match that afternoon.

I see the headlines as soon as Heath and I get settled back in his private jet and they all send a chill right through me.  The news is everywhere — New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal — and they all say the same thing.

Unconfirmed reports state that a car crash off an isolated stretch along Highway 40 is believed to have claimed the life of Heath Kheiron, 28, son of Edgar Kheiron and Rosalie Marie Ettinger, heir to the Ettinger fortune that’s worth billions.  Another passenger in the car, Billie Delphine, twin sister to Ethan Kheiron’s fiancee, is missing, believed to have been thrown out of the car during the crash.

“How is this possible?” I ask, incredulous at what I’m reading. “Isn’t this news corroborated by reporters, police department, witnesses?”

“That’s why they’re unconfirmed,” Heath says softly. “With Wally’s body dragged near the SUV when it exploded and burned beyond recognition, his identity’s yet to be released pending notification of relatives.  And remember, that stretch is pretty isolated — just two lanes, and winding in places.”

Heath doesn’t have to remind me.  Three years earlier, my parents’ car lay in a ravine for hours before someone finally found us.  “So you’re using that to buy time?”

“It will be confirmed soon enough, and until then, we play along and make people that we’re dead.”

“But I was just at the hospital, Heath.  They know-“

“Fred had  you registered under a different name,” he says. “You came with no identification, and he paid the bill in full.”

“He also said I fell behind the house while admiring the rain,” I say wryly, remembering how Fred did tell the medical doctors that I was his niece and that I had stepped outside the house for a smoke, only to fall down the embankment behind the house, hence the state I came in with pine needles and leaves in my hair and cuts from branches and rocks.

“There you go.  You can’t blame Fred for being imaginative,” Heath says apologetically.

“And Blythe knows this, right?  She knows that I’m okay despite all the news.”

“Yes, though I would prefer that you speak after we arrive in New York,”  he says just as the flight attendants remind us to buckle our seat belts and get ready for take-off.

As I buckle my seatbelt, I can’t help but notice how quiet it is on the plane, so unlike how busy it had been just the night before, with Heath’s whole team flying with us from Santa Barbara.  It’s just us now, along with four other members of his security detail and the flight crew, for the rest of his office boarded a private charter two hours earlier.

“Is this your normal?” I ask.  “Is this why you’re so calm, even with everything happening around you, like it doesn’t even faze you?  Is that how you can look at your name on the paper, presumed dead, and me presumed drowned and swept away, and remain calm?”

“No, Billie, but it’s how I have to be right now, before I kill the person who’s behind all this,” he says and I see his jaw clench as he turns away from me.  It’s then that I see something else on his face — a loneliness that cuts right into me.

I reach for his hand across the table and squeeze it.  “I’m sorry…I’m just trying to understand what’s going on.  I mean…it all makes sense now, you telling me to get Blythe out of Santa Barbara because we were more expendable than others-“

He covers my hand with his other hand. “We were all expendable — even me.”

“So are we going to be okay now?” I ask, glancing up at the three men and one woman who sit close to us.  “Or do I have to sleep with one eye open from here on?”

“Everyone around us has been personally picked by Fred, and I trust them with my life, Billie.  So in a sense, yes, we’re going to be okay now and you don’t have to sleep with one eye open,” he says, grinning as his dimples make their reappearance.  “Besides, seeing you sleeping like that would seriously wig me out.”

Our flight back to New York is estimated at five hours — five hours where Heath could spend every moment working like he always does, but he doesn’t. Instead, when the painkillers the doctors gave me at the hospital start working too well thirty minutes into the flight, he helps me into bed in the rear cabin, shuts the door, and joins me.

For a few minutes, we just hold each other, my head resting on his chest as he plays with my hair. It feels like it’s the most natural thing in the world and I can’t help but feel good, as if the pieces in the puzzle of my life are finally starting to fit and I’m where I’m supposed to be – even if someone just tried to kill both of us.

With everything that’s happened in the last few days, it feels like I’ve spent a lifetime with him, and as much as I hate to say it for it just feels so new, I want to spend another lifetime more.

“Stay with me in New York, Billie,” Heath murmurs as he brings my hand to his lips before resting it on his shoulder. “I know it’s so different from Nevada City, but New York has a lot to offer as far as nature and wildlife. That is, if you count the 23,000 trees and 280 bird species in Central Park.”

I chuckle. “Go on. What else?”

“There’s fishing, maybe in Montauk – striped bass, fluke and porgie. We can even fish with a pole if you want.  And you won’t have to leave Nevada City for good. We can fly back a few times a month if you want-”

I raise my head from his chest.  “Are you trying to sell me on New York?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“That’s alright, you’re forgiven,” I say, laying my head back down and tracing circles on his chest, where my fingers have slipped between the V of his henley. “Keep going.”

“You can go to school,” he says. “Blythe told me you dropped out of college to help your parents at the store. There’s Columbia University and NYU. That’s where Jessica went to study business.”

I lift my head up again and peer at him. “She went into business, too, like you?”

“She did, and she even graduated first in her class,” Heath says, stroking my hair, his gaze on the gentle burls of the eucalyptus panels above us.

“Did she ever work, like, before she got married?”

“Of course. I was a senior in high school when she started working at Kheiron Industries,” Heath replies. “Then she started dating Daniel and by the time I was a junior in college, they got engaged.”

“Daniel,” I say out loud, trying to remember when I first heard it.  Then I remember the man I’d met the day Heath shut down the store for me for five hours so I could shop.

Heath lifts his head up to peer at me. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Daniel is Harris’ son. He’s the same age as Ethan so he’s younger than Jessica. He was interning at the company for his final year in college when they met and-”

“I met them both,” I say and Heath stares at me, surprised. “On the day you left me to shop for five hours.  She came in to pick up a purse she ordered and Daniel in after.  They were on their way to some recital.”

“How come you never told me?”

“Has it ever occurred to you that with you, it’s one thing after another?” I ask as Heath chuckles. “Literally, it is.  I mean, the moment we got the plane to go to Saint Lucia, I passed out from the-“

“-Xanax, that’s right,” Heath says, nodding his head. “And then we got off on the wrong foot from then on.”

“I should have told you but it never occurred to me…and even when we were in Santa Barbara, I completely forgot to tell you then either.”

“Well, there was Blythe-“

“Anyway, what position did Jessica have with the company then?”

“She worked for the VP of Marketing first before taking over that position two years later,” he says slowly, as if trying to remember. “Then she stepped down.”

“Why?”

“After she had her first child, father didn’t want hormones interfering with business decisions so he asked her — no, told her — to step down. I do know it was contentious and she hasn’t worked for the company since or any company for that matter, especially now when she has three children.  Though she is a member of the board, it’s not anything close to the position she held then.”

“Why is that?  Is that your choice?”

Heath thinks for a few moments, his brow furrowing. “She never applied for her position back, and in the midst of restructuring, I never thought to ask her.  I did remove Daniel from his position after I took over and had him assigned to another position that I felt suited his abilities more.  Marketing.”

“What was he before the restructure? I’d assume this was when Ethan and Jackson had to step down as well?”

He nods. “Yes, it was major, and it didn’t make me very popular-“

“-or popular at all for that matter.”

“That would be Ethan, my dear,” Heath says.  “But why the questions about Jessica?”

I push myself up and sit cross-legged facing Heath as he props himself up over the pillows. “Did you ever consider Jessica for a position in the company after you took over? Given that she had experience-”

“Not recent,” Heath says, though I can see him frown as he watches me.

“Ethan has no experience, yet he was elected to head the board, which must have pissed her off,” I say. “He doesn’t have a degree in business, does he?”

Heath shakes his head. “Ethan’s degree is in Marketing, unlike her which was Business and Economics, the same majors I pursued.”

“Yet no one thought to hire her despite her having worked for two years-”

“Just because Harris and the rest of the board elected Ethan despite his clear lack of qualifications right after father died didn’t mean I was about to do the same to Jessica,” Heath says. “She hasn’t worked in eight years-”

“Yet she’s seen every man in her family take a position that she’s probably qualified — even overqualified — for,” I say. “Let me play devil’s advocate, alright?”

“Alright.”

“If she’s been watching everything along the sidelines, with everyone bypassing her — from her father, because she’s a woman who shouldn’t be working when she should be home raising her kids, to her brothers who are so busy fighting each other to realize that there’s a sister who’s probably much smarter than they both are-“ I hold up my hand as I see that Heath is about to object, “-devil’s advocate, remember?  And yet she’s bypassed, too. Is it because she’s a woman?”

“No,” Heath replies, annoyed. “In my case, it’s because she had no experience, not after eight years of not working in any company, and she never told me that she was interested.”

“Yet there’s Ethan, who has no experience running anything, as his recent close call to being charged for fraud clearly shows,” I say, bringing my hands to my sides. “I’m sorry, but if I were Jessica, I’d be pissed as hell, too.”

Heath sits up across from me, his frown growing deeper.  “So what are you saying, Billie? That my own sister is behind all this?”

“Well, you haven’t been able to talk to her since Ethan took the letters, have you? And like you said, she probably already knows that you’re not a Kheiron which I’m sure doesn’t help matters either, for here you are, the chairman of the board-”

“I was elected for my qualifications and accomplishments in my field,” Heath says.

“-as I’m sure Ethan was, too,” I say sarcastically, before resting my hand on Heath’s arm. “Look, I’m not itching for an argument, Heath. But whether or not she’s behind all this, I’m just asking you to see it from her point of view. And whatever you do, don’t blame her being a woman like her father did, or her lack of recent expertise, like you and the rest of the board are doing. Just because her experience now involves the PTA or mediating fights between her kids doesn’t make her any less qualified to hold a position in a company, especially when she has the qualifications on paper when it comes to her education — even experience — even if was just two years. Eight years being a mother and a wife should not be used as an excuse to leave her out of the company.”

Heath is glaring at me but I keep going. “She’s been bypassed by her own family more times than she can probably count — by your father, her brothers, even her mother, who handed you all the shares of the company even if it was only to save it.”

Heath is silent for a few moments, and I can see his jaw clenching as he looks away from me. He reaches for the phone on the panel and dials a number.

“Tyler, who else is going to be at the meeting?” he asks and I can hear Tyler’s voice on the phone, remembering the proud woman who told me she’d been hired to add diversity to the board though she had worked just as hard as everyone else.

Heath thanks her and hangs up the phone, though he doesn’t speak to me right away.

“Jessica is going to be there, as well as Daniel,” he says as I remember the bearded man who had come into the shop telling her the girls were waiting in the car.

“Has Ethan been able to talk to her since this all began?”

“No, he hasn’t.  It’s like she’s shut him out, too,” Heath replies, shaking his head. “But I’m afraid you’re right, Billie, though at the same time, I hope to God you’re wrong.”

“I hope I’m wrong, too, at least when it comes to the length she’s had to go through to get her point across.”

“But you are right about one thing,” Heath adds, his brow furrowing.

“What’s that?”

“She has been bypassed so many times, even by me, when I should have known better,” he says, shaking his head as he looks away. “Maybe I am just like my father after all.”

“Oh, come on, Heath, you are so not like your father at all!” I scoff.

“Family is not just about bloodlines, Billie,” Heath says. “Edgar Kheiron still raised me-”

“Oh, he did?” I ask, looking at him incredulously. Something makes me feel bold enough to keep going, bolder than I’ve ever felt before, and I take my chance. Even if I’m wrong about it all, if it makes Heath start to think beyond the misogynist that is Edgar Kheiron, I’ll take the chance. “Why don’t you answer me this, Heath. Who taught you about Orion? The constellations? Was it Edgar?”

He shakes his head.

“Who taught you how to fish — and I mean the first time, like, with a fishing pole and worms for bait. Was it Edgar?”

“He would never-” Heath pauses, his frown deepening.

“When Edgar was busy with his mistresses — your aunts — and your mother was committed to the mental institution, who kept an eye on you?” I ask, even though I know I’m pushing it for Heath’s scowl deepens even more. “Who was there for you when you struck out on your own, taking the subways, and the buses to get where you were going when you could have had the planes and the chauffeured cars?”

Heath raises a finger to stop me from continuing, his gaze turning cold.  “If I were you, Billie, I’d quit while you’re ahead,” he says and before I can offer an apology for butting into business that’s not my own, Heath gets out of bed and slips out of the rear cabin, shutting the door behind him.