Dirty Little Secret (18 page)

“Damn, woman!” Allen bent over her, reaching for her mouth, and she forced her head back before she could reconsider. The back of her head met the front of his face, and the distinct
crack
of something hard giving way sickened her. The next moment, his weight was gone, and she could breathe again.

“Alex! Alex!”

Ian’s voice confused her. What was he doing here? Where had he come from? But she was too exhausted to care. All the strength she could gather was just enough to slide off the edge of the desk, down onto the floor. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. Her brain shut down. Nothing registered except the feel of the solid wood at her side, keeping her from lying down on the rich cushion of the plush carpet beneath her.

“Cailin!” Tammy’s voice, concerned, shaken.

“It’s all right. I’m all right,” Cailin reassured her, not wanting the woman to cry. She didn’t even really know what she was saying. All she knew was the hands were gone from her body, and now, in the aftermath, everything was fuzzy.

Thank God.

The next thing she knew, Alex was there, his arms surrounding her, his warmth sustaining her, his touch so very different from Allen’s. And God help her, but she was afraid she was going to do a very Southern thing and faint like some Scarlett O’Hara idiot. She fought it, fought the blackness. Instead she focused on dark, dark eyes, letting them fill her world, and waited for everything else to settle into quiet.

* * * *

Alex was still shaking as he showed the final member of the Atlanta PD out of his office. Who gave a fuck if it made him look weak? The sight of Cailin, pinned under that asshole, struggling to stop him from raping her—it was all he could think about. When he closed his eyes, it was seared into his eyelids. Even with his eyes open, it was hard to concentrate on anything else.

A soft touch on his forearm had him turning back to the room, realizing he was still standing, staring at the door.

“Alex, come sit down,” Sara Beth said.

His gaze flicked past her to the couch, where Cailin was huddled in a blanket. One side of her face was beginning to swell; no doubt a black eye would appear before tomorrow. The lump on the back of her head had concerned the EMT, but she’d refused to go to the hospital. From the way she’d shuddered at the slightest touch of anyone but him, Alex figured it was probably revulsion more than thinking she didn’t have a concussion that kept her away. He couldn’t blame her. She’d had enough hands on her this morning.

He crossed the room to stoop in front of her, lifted her stretched-out legs, and sat, settling her legs across his lap. He kept his touch gentle as he stroked her; the glimpses of the bruises on her thighs when the EMT had examined her earlier demanded it. Blowing out a heavy sigh didn’t relax the tension in his own body, however.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Everything.”

He turned to find her watching him. A shine gathered in her eyes, tightening his chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice still gravelly from screaming for help.

Alex shook his head. “For what?”

“For—” She nodded carefully toward the door to the outer office.

The rage that had finally settled after watching the police take Allen out of here in handcuffs flared again. He reached toward her chin, pain spiking when she flinched away from his touch. He ignored it. Having heard her tell her story to the detective, he knew it was instinctive: Allen had gripped her jaw so hard there where already purple shadows there. Instead he caressed the uninjured side of her face and stared fiercely into her tear-filled eyes. “Don’t you tell me you’re sorry. You did nothing wrong.” He leaned forward and swept his lips gently across her swollen mouth. “I’m so proud of you. You fought.” Settling his forehead against hers, he whispered, “You did good, sweetheart.”

Swollen lids closed over her anxious eyes, forcing tears to trickle down both cheeks. But the tension that had invaded her body melted like ice cream on hot pavement.

The door opened, and Sam entered. After closing the door carefully, she crossed to stand next to Sara Beth, wrapping her arms around her partner. “Doing okay?” she asked as her gaze swept the three of them.

“As well as can be expected,” Sara Beth replied. She leaned heavily into Sam’s body. “The detective said they’d get back to us on any further questions tomorrow, but it looks cut-and-dried. I just can’t believe… I mean, I know after Tammy…he hated you, but still, to be so blatant.”

“He was drunk.” Alex had smelled the alcohol on him from a yard away.

“He saw us in Nashville,” Cailin said, her eyes still closed.

Alex’s gut clenched, and for a moment he thought he’d throw up. He’d hurt Cailin enough; the guilt of knowing being with him had led up to this felt like a two-ton brick on his already heavy chest.

“And he thought you were fair game?” Sara Beth asked incredulously. Her green eyes were almost luminous as she glared at Alex. “Why the hell do we put up with this bastard?”

“Well, we won’t anymore. After Tammy, I contacted John, but he insisted Allen be kept on board.” His fingers clenched involuntarily around Cailin’s calf, causing her to flinch. He soothed her with a careful stroke. “I didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do. Now there is.”

“But why?” Sara Beth asked. “The man is obviously abusive toward women. Why would Dad want to keep him as an investor?”

“Money,” Sam said as if it were obvious. Which it was, but he hadn’t wanted to say it.

John’s loyalties had always been clear. Even his own daughter didn’t earn the respect and love he had for the company he’d built from the ground up. Alex and Sara Beth both had struggled with the decision to simply leave him to it, to walk away from Keane Industries, but in the end Sara Beth hadn’t been able to sacrifice the company she’d been raised to love and the good of the people who needed the company to survive. So she’d stayed, and Alex had stayed with her.

And the golden noose had tightened every single day around their necks.

“This has to stop.”

His words echoed in the silence of the room. When he raised his chin to look at Sara Beth, he saw acceptance staring back at him. It was time.

“Alex.”

The rough scrape in Cailin’s voice emphasized why he was right. They couldn’t let anyone else get hurt. But what could they do? How did you wrestle control from a man who rightfully owned that control, even if he wielded it like a sledgehammer, with no thought to the safety and well-being of those around him?

“Alex.” This time her voice was louder, insistent. He turned his head to look at her.

“Something…” She cleared her throat. “Maybe… Something Allen said made me wonder.”

“Wonder what?”

She glanced at Sara Beth, caution in her eyes. Red hair flew as Sara Beth shook her head. “Oh no you don’t. Out with it. We’re not sparing petty feelings anymore, Cailin. No more dancing around.” In Sara Beth’s voice, he heard the hard edge of determination. “The time for that is long past, girlfriend.”

Cailin watched her a moment longer, then nodded. Turning back to him, she said, “When Allen was talking, he said this was how the company was run, that there was only one place for a woman.” A shiver shook her frame, and her eyes glazed over as her focus turned inward. “This was how it had always been and always would be. What if—”

His brain ramped up at her words, and he didn’t like where it was headed. “What?”

“What if…this isn’t the first time?” Cailin rubbed a hand across her swollen cheek. “What if this has happened before?”

“But we’d—” Sara Beth’s voice cut off, probably with the same realization he was coming to. She wasn’t slow on the uptake, even if John was her father. “God, I think I’m going to be sick.”

Sam squeezed her waist and guided her to a seat. “So…are we thinking just Allen, or…?”

A hard lump settled in his throat. “John’s in charge. Always has been.” And his iron fist wouldn’t have let anything slip through his fingers. “The corporate culture of Keane Industries is what he made it. And there are an awful lot of his college buddies, men he’s known for years before Sara Beth was born, on the board of directors, investing, filling prominent positions. It’s why we knew it would take time to win the board over; we’d have to wait for at least a few to retire.” He might just join Sara Beth in being sick. “John would have known, even if he hadn’t participated himself.”

“But you think he did,” Cailin said. It was a statement, not a question.

Thinking back to the night of the party, he considered John’s warning. Why push Alex away from his secretary if John didn’t uphold the same standard? What would John have done if Cailin had brought a harassment suit against Alex?

“If something went wrong between us and you caused problems, John would have to step in,” he mused, working through the scenario in his mind. “How hard would it be for me to tell he’d done this before, either for himself or others? Maybe he didn’t want me knowing, guessing. Maybe he wanted to make sure their good-ol’-boy club stayed just that—no new members.” His gaze met Sara Beth’s. “Members who could use that knowledge against him if they chose to.”

Was John the instigator or just the cover-up man? Somehow the latter didn’t seem to fit. And when he remembered the way John had stared at Cailin that night, his gaze trailing the bare expanse of her back as she stood in the foyer, Alex knew. He knew, and the knowledge could be what he needed to find a quicker way out of this mess.

“Alex, how…? We can’t.” Sara Beth swallowed hard enough for him to hear it. “That would be blackmail.”

Resolve hardened his words. “Yes, yes, it would.” He looked at Cailin again, at her injuries. “And blackmail would be exactly what he deserves. That and a whole lot more.”

Chapter Thirteen

Ten days later, Alex was lying on his bed, the stereo on, when Sara Beth knocked on his door. He’d considered going home with Cailin but, after the day they’d had, figured Sara Beth might need him tonight. Apparently he’d been right.

The door opened, and his best friend scampered across the room to pile up next to him. He squeezed her to his side, inhaling the fresh, wild scent of her red hair, and was surprised by a vague sense of regret. It wouldn’t be long and these moments would be gone. They would both be holding someone else, and as much as he loved Cailin, Sara Beth had been his anchor for eighteen years. His life would have been far different without her. And after the consortium this coming weekend, everything would change. The thought made him both hungry for Cailin and sad for Sara Beth and himself.

When he chuckled, Sara Beth turned her face toward him. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking we’re both about to leave the nest. ’Bout time, huh?”

Sara Beth’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yeah, about time.” She went back to staring at the ceiling.

He linked his hand with the one resting on her stomach. “I’m sorry about today.”

Another one of those unhappy smiles. “Me too. I mean, as much as I’d prepared myself for it to happen, I guess you can’t really ever be ready to find out your father’s a complete prick, ya know?”

No, he didn’t know. But he had seen what the knowledge cost her as they’d talked to Corrine Henderson today. It had been Sara Beth’s idea to contact John’s longtime secretary. They’d both known it was a risk. There were no guarantees that Corrine would tell them anything, nor that the woman wouldn’t run straight back to John. What they hadn’t expected was a complete chronicle of the life and times of John’s male-only “club.” Apparently John was no stranger to blackmail—Corrine had kept her job and protected herself by documenting everything she knew about John’s activities. When Sara Beth approached her, she’d practically handed them a gift-wrapped guide to taking John down.

For Alex, it had been like getting bashed over the head with a truckload of bricks; he could only imagine what seeing the proof of her father’s depravity had felt like to Sara Beth.

“So many women,” Sara Beth murmured. “They deserved better. Better than having their jobs depend on putting out. Better than having sexual harassment charges swept under the rug. I just can’t believe… What if it had been me? Would he have turned a blind eye on it then? Would he have actively helped a man who abused me?”

Wasn’t that what John had done all along? He hadn’t sexually abused Sara Beth, but he’d forced her into a marriage he didn’t really care if she wanted, attempted to control her life with bribes and demands, even to the point of pressuring her to have children whether she wanted them or not. The fact that John had both condoned the harassment and actively participated in it didn’t surprise Alex in the least.

Not that he’d say any of that to Sara Beth. He had a feeling she already knew it; she didn’t need to hear it.

Sara Beth finally turned and buried her face in his T-shirt. “Oh God, Alex, what if this doesn’t work?” She began to cry, and the sound of her sobs and the wetness of her tears on his skin tore his heart out.

“It will,” he whispered into her hair.
It has to
. The anger he’d fought all day rose to choke him. John had done this, and he had yet to pay. That was Alex’s responsibility—Sara Beth, Sam, and Cailin were his to protect, and he wasn’t about to fail them. John had a firestorm headed his way, and the satisfaction of bringing the trouble right back to his father-in-law’s lap was the only thing that could settle his rage over what they’d discovered today.

Sara Beth’s tears finally quieted to sniffles, then silence. When she finally spoke, she sounded more resigned than worried. “Were we wrong?”

“About what?”

“Getting married. Maybe there was something else, some way around it.”

“Why would you say that?”

Sara Beth shook her head. “I just can’t help thinking about the women they’ve hurt in the past two years. While I was feeling sorry for myself because I couldn’t live openly with Sam, there were women who couldn’t even go to work without… I married you to protect these people, and it was all for nothing.”

“Not for nothing.” His chest ached. “Look at me, Sara Beth.” When she lifted her gaze to his, he said, “Hindsight is twenty-twenty; isn’t that what they say? You can’t fix what you didn’t know, didn’t even suspect. None of us did.” He smoothed her bangs out of her tearstained face. “We did what we knew to do under the circumstances.” He thought about something Cailin had said to him the other day. “And honestly, hard as it’s been…I would never have traded this time with you.” He cupped his hand around her cheek and kissed her, right there on the corner of her mouth, the place she’d dubbed “his spot.”