Quinn (The Waite Family) (8 page)

“He went to get me a list of qualified applicants. I told him to take his time.”
Quinn sat up and stared at Alyssa.
“You want to talk about it?”

Did she? No. Yes.
Hell, she didn’t know.
Quinn got up to pace.

“He kissed me,” Quinn blurted out, then couldn’t seem to shut up.
“Well, I kissed him first then he…I didn’t think he wanted me.
Then he did. Then I don’t. Now…we didn’t have any protection and you knocked on the door.”

“I see.
Well, not really. Did you want him to have protection?”
Leave it to Alyssa.
“I mean, is that why you’re upset with him?”

“No. I didn’t want him to have pro…I didn’t want him to have a reason to…damn it, I don’t know what I want.”
She started to cry and felt stupid.
“He’s so beautiful, isn’t he? And smart too. Why would he want—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Alyssa snapped before Quinn could finish.
“Why would he want you? Well, let’s see, you’re beautiful, both inside and out.
You’re reasonably smart. I thought you were smarter until you started saying crap like you just were. Then you’re sexy.”
Quinn snorted at her. “And you have the manners of a trucker.
Will you look at yourself?
You’re probably too good for him.”

Quinn giggled, which is what she was sure Alyssa meant for her to do. “I hate him most of the time.”

“And the rest of the time,” Alyssa asked with a laugh.
“Don’t answer that.
Quinn, you’re an adult he’s an adult.
If either of you or both of you want to have monkey sex on your desk, I say go for it. Cain and I certainly do it often enough.”

Quinn looked at her.
“So did not want to hear that.
The thought of my brother…well, let’s just say that I can think of millions upon millions of things I’d like better than to think of sex and Cain.”

A knock at the door had them both turn to it. Drew walked in and looked at her.
Quinn blushed at the way he just stared at her and all she could think about was sex on her desk.
Lots of sex on her desk with him. She blushed again.
Damn, she wanted to kill Alyssa for putting that thought in her head.

Quinn’s phone twittered, signaling she had a text. Excusing herself, she went to see what her department wanted now.
She probably could have taken it there, but needed to get out for a few minutes.

Shannon sat in the lobby, looked around, and didn’t see a clock.
She glanced at her watch again and decided that her daughter was the rudest woman she’d ever known.
She had to know that her mother was down here waiting and was being facetious about it.

So what if she didn’t have an appointment?
Not that anyone would let her make one anyway.
This was as far as she ever got when she came to this building to see her—the lobby.
Trying to look as bored as possible when she wanted to stand and scream, Shannon thought about what Guinevere suggested at the restaurant this morning.

She didn’t agree with the woman. Only an insane person would believe that kidnapping their children and demanding ransom was going to work.
But some of what she’d said of the other plan had made sense.

Suing her, demanding that Alyssa pay her for pain and suffering had its merits.
And Shannon had suffered, she thought.
She had gone from an endless supply of money to being reduced to begging for table scraps to get by.
She didn’t have her driver and her car, there were no more trips to the spa when she needed them, and forget the luncheons she would host for all her friends.
All that was a thing of the past, but not anymore.

And then there were no credit cards, no cash in her pocketbook.
Not that she ever used cash, but knowing it was there was the point.
Her hair wasn’t done by a stylist anymore that came to her house, but one that she had to go to.
And she was still wearing last year’s castoffs, or they would be as soon as she could buy this year’s style.

Shannon looked at her watch again.
She’d been here for three hours now and she would wait her out if it killed her.
She wanted to stick her tongue out at the people at the security desk, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid they’d toss her out again like they had every other time she’d come here.

She thought about her son Nathan. He was adjusting to this forced life style, she supposed.
He was in a rehab center that specialized in his type of sickness.
Shannon refused to think of it as an addiction.
He was just going through some issues and would soon be up on his feet.
That was another thing that Alyssa had taken from her.
Nathan wasn’t in the posh place he’d been before, but one that actually followed the rules. She hadn’t seen her son in over three months.
And when she’d gone there demanding to see her baby, they’d called the police.
She wasn’t even sure when he was going to be released.

And if she thought Nathan was living with her and Samuel then she had another thought coming.
Their house wasn’t large enough for him as well as his friends.
She loved her son, but she had to draw the line sometime. Having Robert there was bad enough with his temper, but the two of them…no, she wouldn’t have that.

That would have to change too.
The living arrangements were just too cramped and too beneath them all.
Shannon pulled out her little notebook and noted that in it. Shannon gave an indelicate snort.
House indeed.
It was barely more than a hovel with its
f
ive
bedrooms and three-car detached garage.
The dining room was hardly big enough for twenty guests when she entertained—which hadn’t been much.
Her friends were just too busy this time of year and frankly, she was ashamed to bring anyone there.

Then was no pool either. When she’d pointed that out to her ungrateful daughter, Alyssa claimed that Shannon didn’t swim so it would be a waste of money.
Everyone who was anyone had a pool, but Alyssa wouldn’t budge.
She told her if she wanted one, then to pay for it herself.
Of course she would…and pigs would fly.
But Robert was not happy and when he wasn’t happy then he was—

“Mrs. Howard?
Mrs. Waite said to tell you she isn’t going to see you today.”

Shannon startled when the man touched her arm to get her attention.

“She suggested that you make an appointment like everyone else.”

“But I’ve been here for three hours. I need to see her. Tell her that as her mother, I demand that she come down here this instant.
I’ve been put off—” Four men in security uniforms and guns stepped up behind the man speaking.

“As I was saying,” the man said with a smirk, “you need to make an appointment.
These gentlemen will see you out.”
The man walked away, leaving the others standing there.

Shannon didn’t say anything. She’d been literally tossed out on her ass before by these “gentlemen” and she wasn’t going through that again.
She tried to hold onto her anger as well as she could and not give these men any reason to grab her, but it was difficult.
By the time she had been escorted to her car and she got buckled in her head was pounding.
She’d had enough.

~~~

Alyssa stood at the window and watched her mother be escorted out. It hurt her to see this, but she’d had no choice.
When a woman tried to drug her own daughter to make her have sex with her uncle, things were a lot harder to forgive and forget. Her mother made her own bed and now she had to lie in it.
Turning away from the window, she sat back at her desk.

Her mother and uncle had drugged her when she’d been seventeen. Her father had only been gone a few short weeks, having died of a heart attack, and they had just read the will.
Alyssa had inherited everything. All the money—billions of it—the houses, over a dozen of them all over the world, and her family, but all she wanted was her daddy back.

Shannon was mad because Alyssa’s dad had known about the affairs and that neither Nathan the fourth nor her other brother Robert were her full brothers.
She was his only child and the only one to inherit.
Alyssa was also responsible for her mother and brothers’ wellbeing.
She was to provide them with so much money a year for twenty years; a crock of shit, Drew had called it.
But that hadn’t worked the way her daddy wanted.

She had met them at the restaurant when her mother asked and had been drugged.
Their plan had been to have her uncle Samuel get her pregnant and she would have no choice but to let them continue on the way they had been.
But Alyssa had run away from the restaurant to be hidden away for nearly ten years.

If it hadn’t been for Cain and his sisters Alyssa wasn’t sure how much longer she would have stayed away.
Alyssa reached for the bottled water and went through the ritual of checking it.

The drugs had been in her tea glass.
And to this day, she could only drink bottled water after she checked for pin holes and broken seals.
It’s not that she didn’t trust anyone, but old habits die hard.
She smiled when she thought of her husband and his inventive ways of trying to get her to drink out of a glass again.
He was a wonderful, sexy man.
Alyssa’s phone ringing had her reaching for it before she remembered her secretary.

“Howard Corporation, how can I help you?”
She winced when she saw Quinn come in the door with her hand on her hip.
With a whispered “Sorry,” she listened to the voice at the other end.

“Who is this?” the caller demanded.
“I’m looking for Alyssa, that rich woman. Can you tell me how to contact her?”

Alyssa put the phone on speaker and waved Quinn over.

“I’ve been trying for a damned month. I got an appointment with her and I’ve not been able to speak to her about it.”

Quinn shook her head and pulled out her cell while Alyssa talked.
“I’m sorry, sir, did you say you had an appointment?
If you would just tell me your name then I could see where to direct your call.
I know for a fact that appointments are—”

“What you should do, girly, is put the president on the line. I’ve got an appointment with her and she won’t be none too pleased to know that I’ve been put off.”
He huffed at her.
“As I’ve said, she’s expecting me to call her.”

Drew came in the door and he was on his phone as well. He was talking in hushed tones and handed Alyssa a note as he continued.
“Keep him talking,” was all it said. She raised a brow at him. Seriously, this was his advice?
She rolled her eyes and spoke to the caller.

“Okay, tell me your name so that I can put the call through. Alyssa doesn’t just let me put calls through to her unless I give her a name.”
Drew gave her a thumbs up. She was going to break it off when she got off this call, she decided.
“And if you can give me a little information about what you had the appointment for, maybe that’ll narrow it down for me.”