Billionaire Decoded (13 page)

As soon as the mysterious man was
out of sight, Brecken hustled Heather downstairs. "I'm going to have my
guys take you down to Boston-"

"Brecken, my stuff is at my
parent’s house. I haven't even said goodbye!"

"You can call them later, can't
you?" He shook his head. "I honestly feel that it would be safer for
everybody, for now at least, if you just go back down to Boston."

She began to feel sick to her
stomach. Within the next minute, she had been hustled downstairs and was
climbing into the back seat of the crew cab truck with two complete strangers.
They were large, muscular, and quiet.

Brecken spoke to the driver.
"Take her back to her apartment in Boston. Watch over her."

Before she could say a word, Brecken
kissed her and then quickly shut the door. Her mind racing, she sat in her seat
as the truck pulled away from the sidewalk. She turned to watch through the
back window, as his silhouette grew smaller as they drove away. He disappeared
completely when they pulled around the corner.

What the hell?
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, thinking to
call her mom, let her know that she had an emergency and had to get back to
Boston.

"Don't call yet," the
driver said, glancing in the rearview mirror. "In fact, give me your
phone."

The guy sitting in the front
passenger seat turned to look at her over his shoulder. "Take the battery
out of your phone. You can put it back in when we get to Boston and call your
folks."

For a second, Heather hesitated, but
then she did as directed. If the battery was out of her phone, her phone
couldn't be pinged. She knew that much. What the hell was going on? In less
than two weeks, her life was no longer her own. And all because of Brecken? All
because she had gone in for that interview?

The journey back to Boston didn't
take as long as she thought it would. The entire way, her mind whirled with
questions and uncertainties. By the time they arrived at her building and then
entered her apartment, with two men behind her, she was beginning to have
serious doubts. Those doubts only increased when they walked to her windows and
drew the curtains.

To say that she was growing afraid
was an understatement. They had told her on the way down that they would stay
with her to make sure that everything was safe.
Safe from what,
she wondered. She had been wound tight the moment
she had seen the strange man outside of Mabel’s. She couldn't relax with these
men, either. She was afraid and readily admitted it to herself, her heart
pounding and her hands trembling.

"You guys are making me
nervous," she finally snapped.

The driver of the car just looked at
her. "It's not our job to keep your emotions in check, Heather, it's our
job to protect you."

“Protect me from what?” she
demanded. Neither answered. She sat down on her couch, staring at them as they
stared out her windows, standing off to the sides. She finally shook her head.
She reached into her pocket and retrieved her cell phone and the battery,
popping the battery back into place.

"Brecken already called your
parents, told them that you had to come home early for work reasons."

Heather stared at him in stunned
amazement. She wondered how that conversation would've gone, knowing her
father's reservations about Brecken. She didn't know how this had happened,
when everything had suddenly spun out of control. One minute she was working in
the billing department, and now she was embroiled in international intrigue,
secrets, and God only knew what else?

Despite her weariness, her emotions
and imagination ran wild. How long did those two guys think they were going to
stay inside her apartment? After what seemed like a couple of hours, but to her
surprise had only been fifteen minutes, she rose from the sofa and move toward
the window.

To her surprise the guy who had
driven the truck stepped in front of her and wordlessly pointed back to the
sofa. She stiffened her back, frowning, wondering what the hell was going on.
She sat like that for the next hour, but then she'd had enough. She stood. Her
blood boiled.

"I want you to leave,” she
ordered. “Now.” She didn't want them in her house. She didn't need bodyguards
or whatever the hell they were. In fact, she didn't want to deal with any of
this.

The other man turned to her with a
guarded expression. "Did Brecken say he was going anywhere?"

She stared up at him in amazement. “How
the hell should I know what Brecken is doing? I don’t even know what's going
on!"

She stepped to the sofa and
retrieved her phone, surprised to see a missed call from Brecken. He must've
tried to call when the battery was out of her phone. "He called me. I'll
call him back." His phone rang, but he didn't pick up. She glanced at both
men standing near her windows, both watching her. She didn't like this. In fact,
she was definitely regretting her decision to take the job at Shaw & Burks.
She could've kicked herself for being attracted to him, having sex with him –
on the floor, no less – no matter how wonderful it had been.

Again she told the men to leave, but
they merely stared at her, crossing their arms over their chests. What the
hell?
Were
they bodyguards or…or
something else? And then, thinking back to her interview, she recalled that
Brecken had only asked her a few questions. One of them had been rather odd,
but he said that he had learned everything he needed to know about her from
that one question.

"What are you like?"

The moment the truck bearing Heather
disappeared around the corner, Brecken was on his phone again, calling the
local airfield. Someone knew where he was, where Heather was. Had someone
followed Heather up here? How could they? She'd taken his private jet. So had
he, so who the hell was tracking him, and how?

"Get the helicopter
ready," he said as soon as his call was answered. He would take the rental
car and return it to the agency at the airport. By the time he got there, his
chopper would be there waiting for him. Before he left the picturesque street,
however, he took his cell phone apart, double checked it, and made sure there
was no tracking device in it. There wasn't. He put it back together with a
frown.

What the hell was going on? He
didn't like the fact that someone had been following him. Could it be the
Bolivians? He didn't put anything past them. Again, he realized that he had
made many enemies, and many people who wanted to take him down. Still, he
always tried to be careful. He made sure that his security team had the latest
equipment and technology at their disposal to ensure that he was protected.

He was out in the middle of nowhere
in New England. How the hell had anybody managed to track him up here? He’d
left his jet and rented a car. Nobody knew what car he was going to rent.
Someone would have had to follow him out to the parking lot to place a tracking
device on it. No one had. So how had he been found? He decided then that
someone must have been tracking Heather's movements. He wasn't sure how. He was
not about to call her. If someone had put a track and trace on his line, or
hers, he didn't want to say anything or even imply that he and she were in any
way connected.

Then again, if somebody were up here
watching them, they would have seen her go into the Bed and Breakfast. They
would have been watched afterward when they ventured to the park, and then
back. He wasn't happy.

On the way back to the airfield, he
called his head of security. "How the hell did someone managed to track
me?" he demanded.

"Sir, I don't-"

"Find out, and fast." He
disconnected the call and slid his phone back into his pocket.

Despite his concerns and his
annoyance with his security team, he kept thinking back to Heather. Making love
to her had been glorious. She had given as well as she had received. While not
as experienced as his former fiancée, what she did offer was honest and
heartfelt. Just thinking about her got him hardening again and he forced itself
to focus his thoughts on the winding road that wound its way through the New
Hampshire wilderness on the road back to Manchester.

He wished he could have stayed up
here longer. It
was
beautiful, just
as she had told him. It was also peaceful and serene. While he never would've
thought of coming up here on his own, visiting the region and spending time
with Heather was certainly something he would do again if he had the
opportunity – hopefully sooner rather than later.

If only he had made a few different
decisions. If only he could somehow be rid of Alyson. He had a sinking feeling
that she would hang like an albatross around his neck until he figured out a
way to get her to move on. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought
that Alyson could turn into such a pain in the ass. She was close to the stalker
stage, but because she was a half-partner in the business, he knew there was no
way in hell he was going to get rid of her.

The thought left him feeling
depressed. He wouldn't be able to move on, not really, not with Alyson in the
picture. She would drive away any woman he was interested in. Just because
Heather had held her ground the first time she butted heads with Alyson didn't
mean that she would be willing to put up with her crap indefinitely. Who would?
He knew that if she weren’t a half-partner in the business, he would've kicked
her to the curb a long time ago. And then there was the baby.

He pushed his thoughts away from
Alyson and back to his Bolivian issues. Had they been involved in following him
or Heather up here? He contemplated the thought, tried to figure out a reason
for it, and then decided it couldn't be them. They had no interest in him,
other than to make sure he keeps his end of the deal. He had agreed to that.
That wasn't to say that other contacts didn't have an interest in putting a
stop to his activities. He had business dealings with people from around the
world: Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and a few in Africa. He also had
dealings with numerous contacts in Western European countries.

He sighed heavily. Was it time to
get out? Was it time to reinvent himself? When he first started trading and
selling secrets, he thought he had been doing what was right. Now, he wasn't so
sure. Why the sudden change of heart?

He knew why. Heather. While Alyson
had egged him on and encouraged him to get involved in such activities, he knew
that Heather didn't approve.

He thought a moment. Why the hell
did he care what Heather thought? He still didn’t know her very well. But he
cared about her, about her opinion of him. He had been telling her the truth
when he told her that he didn't care to indulge in one-night stands. If he were
thinking of getting involved with someone, he would take that connection
seriously. He had slept with dozens of women, but that was in the past. Before
Alyson. Besides, as the years passed and things got so complicated, he had less
time for indulging in sexual encounters than he had enjoyed when he was a SEAL.

Now, unfortunately, he was
suspicious of everybody. He trusted no one. Did he trust Heather? He hoped to
God he could because he had divulged his secret to her. Or one of them, at
least. As he neared the airfield, he realized that he shouldn’t have told her.
That had been unfair. But there was something about her that compelled him to
try, for once, to be honest. Then again, he hadn't been completely honest, had
he? He hadn't told her about the baby. He hadn't told her how threatening
Alyson could be when crossed or how dangerous.

The truth was he didn't want to drag
Heather into his messes. He didn't want to see her disappear. He didn’t want to
see the disappointment on her face, to watch her turning her back on him. He
felt drawn to her in a way that was not just sexual, but intellectual and
mental.

He couldn't understand it, but
wasn't about to waste time trying to figure it out. Was there really such a
thing as a soul mate? It sounded corny even as he thought it. The same went for
the phrase
falling in love at first sight
.
But he had to admit that the moment he laid eyes on Heather, he'd wanted her.
Not just sexually. No doubt she was incredibly attractive, but attractive women
had come and gone through his life in the past and none of them, not even
Alyson, had the effect on him that Heather did. It went deeper than the
physical. She touched his core, his soul. He made a face.
More corny thoughts.

He drove onto the airfield;
carefully checking in his rearview and side view mirrors to make sure no one
was following him. He walked casually up to the rental desk to return his car
and then carefully checked the few people seated inside the main terminal
waiting for their flights. Nothing suspicious.

Still, he had a niggling feeling
that he was being watched. Who it was that was doing the watching and why, he
wasn't sure, but he didn't like it. He pulled out his cell phone and speed
dialed.

"Are we ready?"

"Yes, sir," came the
reply.

He walked outside of the airport
terminal and made his way to the private hangars. It was quiet and he was the
only one walking around out here. About one hundred yards away, past two
private corporate Leer jets, he saw the helicopter emblazoned with his logo. What
he needed to do was get back to his office and try to coordinate with his
security team to figure out who in the hell was behind this latest unpleasant
episode in his life. The problem was there were at least half a dozen contacts
that he could think of just off the top of his head that would benefit if
something happened to him.

But why drag Heather into it? That's
what he didn't understand. She was a relatively minor cog in the workings of
his business. She wasn't at all involved in any of his less-than-legal business
dealings. So, who would want to target her? Of course, his mind instantly
veered back to Alyson, but he doubted that she would waste her energy on
Heather, either.

He climbed into the helicopter, put
on his headset, and gestured for the pilot to take off whenever he was ready.
In a matter of minutes, the helicopter was airborne and heading back south to
Boston. Brecken knew that he could go around and around trying to figure out
how he or Heather had been followed, but decided that he couldn't do anything
about it until he got back to his office, anyway.

He closed his eyes with a sigh. He
felt so tired. And why shouldn't he be? His spur of the moment trip up to New
Hampshire had been decided without a good night's sleep the night before, and
last night he had laid awake beside Heather for most of the night, just
relishing the scent of her hair, the feel of her body next to his, remembering
over and over again how wonderful their love making session had been. He had
been aroused most of the night, and just before dawn had quietly left the
bedroom and stepped into the bathroom to take care of his horny dick on his
own.

He had returned to the room just as
dawn began to brighten the eastern sky, enjoying just watching her sleep before
he had moved to stand by the window. He didn't know how long the man had been
standing out there, but as the sun rose and separated shadows from trees,
shrubs, and telephone poles, he had seen him. The sight of him had gotten his
heart rate going. Heather
had
seen
the same man following her. He was tall and wore a dark suit. It had taken all
of his self-control not to race downstairs and confront him. He had learned
that lesson a long time ago. Often, patience was the key to reaching his goals.
The end game. His impetuous days were over, or so he liked to think.

Once again, his thoughts veered to
Alyson. She had come close to ruining him. Not financially, but in the way he
thought about things. The way he acted. To say that Alyson had taught him a
lesson was an understatement. The thought that somebody could alter his
personality, his behaviors, and his attitudes so completely was staggering.

Come to think of it, though, wasn't
he feeling much the same way about Heather? Just a little while ago, he had
wondered whether it was time to move on and that was something he wouldn't have
contemplated before he met her. He hadn’t been interested in looking for
another woman, another affair, or another relationship. He shook his head. What
the hell was going on? He wasn't old enough to be hit with a midlife crisis. First
Alyson and now Heather, but at two different emotional spectrums. Since when
did a woman, any woman, have that much influence over him?

By the time the helicopter landed on
the top of his building and he made his way down to his office, he had
developed quite a foul mood. He had to think about his next actions. He had to
concentrate and focus. Someone was sending him a message. The tall man that had
been following Heather was meant to serve as a message. But what was the
message? Someone had called Heather, given her the warning about working for a
traitor. Someone had doctored the photograph to show Heather with a broken arm,
her eyes crossed out. What did it all mean? Why focus on her?

The only possibility that he could
think of that would make anyone focus on Heather was his own attraction to her.
Maybe someone thought he was sharing secrets with her. Secrets that they didn’t
want to get out. But who would know about his clandestine activities? Alyson?
His security team? Why would Alyson bother? She could just drive Heather out of
the office like she had his past two relatively recent female employees. Still,
what she would she have to gain from it? Alyson made no bones about threatening
him in public, verbally, and with text messages. Why go to all this trouble to
ward him off? To ward Heather off?

That was the bottom line. What would
Alyson have to gain? The truth was, nothing. Why should she care about an
employee in the billing department? Heather didn't have access to his other set
of books – the set of books that he alone controlled. Alyson hadn't even had
access to that other set of books. Or his hidden computer files. They were
hidden deep in disguised packets in his computer, accessible only by a retina
scan. So what in the hell would Alyson have to gain?

He finally came to one conclusion.
Alyson didn't need a reason for anything she did. Still, this latest series of
events, coupled with the situation down in Bolivia, had Brecken worried. As far
as he knew, Alyson was no longer aware of exactly with whom he did business.
Then again, she could pretty much finagle information out of anybody. All she
had to do was flash a tit, lick her lips, or rub up against you, and you were
pretty much at her mercy.

Was she going behind his back? Was
she following him and making contacts of her own? Alyson might be crazy but she
wasn’t stupid. She had been involved with his nefarious business dealings with
certain clients from the get go. If she was really pissed at him, why didn’t
she just blab to the authorities? He knew why, because she was still involved,
in some capacity.