Chayton (15 page)

Some other lackey of Anton's had just pulled a gun on Chayton, and she couldn't get the images out of her mind. The flash of a muzzle, a hulking shadow, Chayton asleep in the bed where she'd left him, never realizing what was coming.

Two more men waited outside the back door as they departed under the cover of darkness. Kate squirmed and slithered in their hold, desperate to free her mouth from the smothering palm of a henchman. Hustled ten feet to a waiting limousine, Kate got into the back under duress, kicking a foot into someone's knee. A grunt sounded above her, but it didn't pause the progress.

Anton, still buttoning a hastily donned shirt, got into the back as his luggage went into the trunk. He ran a hand through his disheveled hair and, after all his guards were in place, ordered the driver to drive.

“Stop fighting, Kate. It's done and it's over. Just accept the inevitable and things will go a little more smoothly for you,” Anton said. He straightened the crease of his slacks and drew on a pair of sunglasses despite the early morning darkness.

Kate didn't stop fighting until the brute holding her wrenched her arm halfway up her back. Blinded by pain, Kate wilted into silence. Distraught, her last thought was of Chayton as the limousine departed the compound.

. . .

The distant echo of a gunshot played over and over in Kate's mind as the jet descended to the tarmac. Those few moments had been the most terrifying of Kate's life. Knowing she'd been responsible for bringing harm to Chayton tormented her more than what had happened
after
the shot.

Anton and his thugs had forced her into the rain, into a limousine, and ultimately to Anton's private plane waiting at the airstrip. All her wrenching and squirming and fighting had done her no good. With a smothering hand clamped over her mouth, any screams and protests had gone unheard in the storm, and so, Anton had simply absconded with her in the wee hours of the morning.

The smug bastard had gloated over his prowess in flight until Kate tuned him out, preferring to look out the window and fret over Chayton. For the first half hour, she convinced herself that a single gunshot didn't mean anything. Chayton could still be alive, perhaps knocked out cold or merely wounded, not dead. An hour after that, she overheard Anton on a private phone, making arrangements for the disposal of a body.

“Drive along the coast, find a rocky spot, and dump the body,” he'd said, keeping his voice low.

Who else could it be, but Chayton? Sick at heart, alternating between anger and distress, she'd tuned out the rest of Anton's conversation.

Now it was evening and they were back on the mainland, about to land on a different but no less private airstrip in upstate New York. She was home after being on the run around the world, fleeing a man who would now finagle her into a discreet marriage so he could plunder her fortune. Along the way she'd discovered several things about herself: she was more resilient than she'd given herself credit for; when it came down to it, she was willing to fight for her safety rather than cower and cry and let someone else use her; her heart
could
break over a man. She knew because her heart ached over Chayton.

Why oh why had she ever left the beach house? She should have stayed right there, curled against his side until morning. None of this would have happened and her heart wouldn't feel as if an anvil had landed smack on top, crushing all the feeling out.

Hustled from the plane to a limousine, Kate settled against the seat and stared out the tinted windows. Anton, busy on the phone yet again, spoke in rapid Italian, one hand gesturing madly.

She paid little attention to the language she couldn't understand. Instead, she battled through melancholy to figure out a new plan for escape. Just because Anton had gotten this far didn't mean he would get what he wanted in the end. Somehow, some way, she would keep him from obliterating her fortune and her future. It was exhausting, she thought as she watched the dark shape of tall trees whip by out the window, to think of being on the run again. But she would do what she had to do. It wasn't just her fortune on the line but her life. She still believed Anton meant to end her the second he had control of her empire, leaving him in charge of everything and with enough money to pay down all his debt. He could become the true playboy he'd always wanted to be.

The hell with that. The hell with
him.
She wasn't going down that easy.

Twenty minutes later, after two turns off the main road, her mother's home came into view. Styled in a Grecian Revival theme, the massive structure sat right in the center of a manicured lawn consisting of no less than ten acres. A forest sat behind the well mowed grass, all a part of her mother's land holding. The driveway stretched toward the homestead, which glowed gold thanks to hidden lighting obscured in the hedges. A broad set of stairs ascended to a high porch that ran the length of the building, supported by pillars that always reminded her of the Pantheon in Rome. Her mother had loved the grandiose scale of the homestead, preferring this residence to all the others she owned. Kate had grown up here and had a love-hate relationship with the property.

Kate loved the memories of the times her mother baked cookies in the oven with her or decorated easter eggs on the expansive kitchen island. There were daffodils, hydrangea and jasmine planted in the solarium which had been done by both a mother's and daughter's hands. Those were just a few of the things she loved about the 'Grecian' house.

What she hated was how her mother changed every time company came over. In her younger years, Anna had gone from adoring mother to dismissive debutante the second a socialite stepped through the door. It grew worse when Anna brought Anton home for the first time. Although older and wiser, Kate had still experienced the same annoyance at her mother's ridiculous dedication to her lover. Anton had all but taken the residence over, moving into a spare office to do his 'work' during the day, while haunting her mother's room at night.

Exiting the limousine, caught in a well of memories, Kate watched Anton strut up the long staircase toward the front doors and realized nothing had changed. He still acted like he owned the place, owned
her
in place of her mother.

Kate greeted Jones, the butler, with a solemn smile. With a slight paunch and comb over, ruddy cheeks and bright, sparkling eyes, Jones was a staple of the household.

Anton ignored Jones with typical arrogance, strolling into the grand foyer while spinning his coat from his shoulders. He tossed it to a waiting maid and spun on a heel to eye Kate expectantly. Kate ignored Anton and strode right past for the double stairway leading to the upper floors. He could stew in his own self importance for all she cared.

“Kate.”

She didn't look back.

“
Kate.”

At the top of the landing, she set a hand on the elegant alabaster banister and turned to stare down at Anton and the small collection of staff gathered at the edge of the foyer. Anton's two guards hovered near the door, hands behind their back.

In a sudden fit of fury, Kate decided she'd had enough of Anton's terrorizing. “Jones, can I see you for a moment, please?”

“Are you just going to ignore me?” Anton said in an incredulous voice.

Kate turned from the railing and headed down the hallway toward the room she kept in the house as her own. The décor inside matched the outside: marble floors, gilt trimmings, neo-classic statues of half nude gods with slightly imperfect bodies.

She had another residence in Manhattan that served as her home base. Now the Grecian wonder was all hers, she reminded herself. Anton was in
her
house now, not her mother's.

“Kate!” Anton bellowed. His voice bounced off the walls of the hallway.

Jones bustled up the stairs and hurried in her wake.

At the bedroom door, she paused with her hand on the knob. “Jones, I want you to--”

“I won't stand for this. Jones, get back to your post,” Anton shouted as he ascended to the second floor, shoes pounding out a fast, hard rhythm.

Kate knew her time was limited. She met Jones's eyes. “Call the police. Immediately. Tell them there are intruders and two of them might be armed. Anton can't have bought off the
entire
police force. Even if he's got the chief in his back pocket, it'll buy me some time.”

Jones, with a shocked look on his face, nodded and spun away from Kate without another word. He passed Anton and disappeared down the stairs.

Anton glared at Jones, then turned his anger on Kate.

Stepping into her room, she closed the door and threw the bolt. All she needed was a few minutes lead time. Running to her closet as Anton tried the knob, then banged on the door with his fist, Kate pushed back a row of clothes on hangers and got into her personal safe. Fingers shaking on the dial, she recited the numbers under her breath.

“Open the door! Kate!”

After two tries, the safe opened. She grabbed two stacks of bills, a credit card from a bank no one knew about but her, and a set of keys. A hard kick at the door startled her. The lock and door frame held.

For now.

Snatching one of many purses off a line of shelves, she shoved everything in except the keys and zipped it closed. The purse was an over the body type, not too big and not too small. Placing the strap over her head, she let the purse dangle against her hip and ran to the french doors leading to the balcony.

“Kate!” Anton kicked again, the wood groaning under the strain.

She fled to a small iron gate at the far end of the balcony and flung it open. A small staircase led down to the ground, the banisters on both sides covered in thick, climbing ivy. Careful not to trip and fall—a fatal event, surely—she went down as quickly as she dared and hit the grass running.

A boom overhead told her that Anton had finally breached the bedroom.

Praying that Jones had called the police, and that someone was on duty who wasn't on Anton's bribery payroll, Kate ran alongside the house until she came to one of four doors leading into the garage. It opened freely under her hand.

Sweeping in, she forewent the overhead lights and used a penlight on her keychain to navigate through a single row of cars until she came to a shiny, new Camaro. Cherry red, the metallic paint in perfect condition, the car had been an impulse buy four months ago.

Climbing in, she used a remote on one of three garage doors and started the engine.

If Anton thought she was going to sit around and play the victim, he was crazier than she imagined.

Reversing out of the garage, she hit the lights and stomped the gas, veering away from the house. Anton swerved into view, running across the grass the same direction she'd just come from. He pointed a finger and shouted.

She sped along the drive without stopping and hit the brakes hard just before turning onto the main road. So far, she saw no other cars coming or going in either direction.

The police either weren't coming or were still en route.

She didn't plan on sticking around to find out.

Gunning the engine, she left the house behind, relieved to see that no other headlights were barreling out of the open garage. Yet. She knew Anton wouldn't give up that easy. His meal ticket had bolted, again, and by his actions already she knew he was too desperate to just let her go.

Living in the area most of her life, she knew all the short-cuts and back roads. Kate, glancing in the rear view mirror often, got lost as quickly as she could. In the dark, it would be easier for them to track her by the glow of tail lights and the thinner traffic night time brought.

Desperate to figure out where to run, she got on the freeway heading south and west.

The answer came as she merged into the fast lane, setting the cruise for seventy miles an hour.

She would drive across the country to Montana, where, as far as she knew, Chayton's staff still thought she was his wife. A widow now, if Anton's secretive conversation could be believed. She needed the security she hoped to find there while she tried to put her life back together again.

Some how, through lawyers or arrests or restraining orders, she had to get the upper hand over Anton. She couldn't quite claim to be a witness to a murder, but she knew enough information that
someone
would have to listen. If she was lucky, she would put Anton behind bars for life.

The grief she experienced over Chayton was a haunting ache that accompanied her across the miles.

Two days later, Chayton hung up from a call with his lawyer. Leaning back in his office chair, he pressed the pads of two fingers over his eyelids and rubbed the sting of exhaustion away. He hadn't slept since arriving home from Hawaii, and didn't think he would be sleeping any time soon.

Not after that phone call.

His situation was as bad as he thought. Without a pre-nuptial agreement, Kate could fight him and take a good portion of everything he owned. It was what she might do with his stake in the family business that bothered him more than anything. It could upset an already fragile system, and his father—Chayton didn't want to think about what his father would do when he found out. Skin him alive, for starters.

The waiting for Kate and Anton to contact him—or for their lawyers to contact his—was unpleasant to say the least. He wouldn't know exactly what they were going to try to leverage out of him until then.

Kate. He remembered the allure of her mouth, the fiery response to him in bed. The sweetness she'd displayed in the aftermath, curling against his body while skimming fingers over his chest. Her lips had found his jaw often, and he'd allowed himself to enjoy the feel of her pressed against him. He'd allowed himself the stray thought or two that he wouldn't mind doing it again. Seeing her again.

Not typically given to falling for women at a moment's notice, he couldn't deny that his heart was involved this time. The sweetness had turned into a bitter pill he found difficult to swallow. He prided himself on reading people, on trusting his instincts. Instincts that had apparently failed him spectacularly this time.