Kept (3 page)

A delicious thrill had shot through her the moment realization had dawned in the study. When he walked into the room, all her senses had gone on high alert. Not only was he a strange man, he was an
attractive
strange man. No. Scratch
that. A smoking-hot-set-the-skin-of-your-inner-thighs-on-fire man. The last thing she wanted was for him to notice her reaction to his dark, sun-streaked hair, chiseled jaw, and acres of muscles.

So when he’d tried to hustle her back to the party, she’d done what she always did in those situations. Put on her “don’t you know who you’re dealing with” act and tried to shoo him away like the insignificant insect she pretended to think he was.

But he wasn’t having any of it. He didn’t care who she was. Because he didn’t know who she was.

He hadn’t so much as quivered an eyelash when she’d told him her name. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Derek, who was already a blatant ten, had shot up to fifteen on the hotness scale. When he shook her hand she’d felt scorched all the way down to her red toenails.

And he felt it, too. She could see the surge of awareness in his eyes, the blast of desire, quickly shuttered by his dark gaze. But he couldn’t hide it. Not completely.

The thrill shot through her again, and it was all she could do to keep still as another socialite held Alyssa’s arm so the woman’s husband could admire the platinum cuff. Derek wanted her. And not like other men wanted her. He didn’t want the crazy-sexy party girl or the notorious heiress.

He didn’t want to fuck her so he could brag to his friends and the media about how he’d nailed Alyssa Miles and it really wasn’t all that great after all.

He didn’t want to fuck her so she could introduce him to a producer, a director, or a record-label executive.

Derek Taggart looked at her and saw a gorgeous girl he’d met at a fancy party and wanted to get with. As simple as that.

Sure, he probably saw her as a rich bitch—her initial response ensured that, much to her regret. But she could get
past that. Her public persona was another beast entirely. It wasn’t an image she cultivated, but once established she used it to her advantage and had thought she’d made peace with the fact that it would forever taint every interaction she had with another human being.

But she felt a gut-deep thrill from knowing a man like Derek wanted her. Not the image. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had wanted her for herself.

There was nothing to be done about it, though. As the night wore on, Alyssa didn’t have another opportunity to speak to Derek, even though she knew he tracked her every move. She considered sneaking back to the study, just to see if he’d chase her down, but as the silent auction drew to a close she was surrounded by guests who all wanted one last look at Van Weldt Jeweler’s exquisite designs.

“I’m going to walk Mother and Daddy out.” Kimberly leaned down to speak quietly into Alyssa’s ear.

“But they haven’t even done the auction yet,” Alyssa said, frowning. She knew her father would want to stay and find out how much his donated jewels had fetched.

“I know,” Kimberly replied, her voice lowering so no one else could hear. “But I’m afraid Mother is about to lose it.”

Alyssa looked across the ballroom, where Grace clung to Oscar’s arm. As Alyssa watched, Grace weaved, barely noticeable to the untrained eye. Her social smile was gone, and her mouth was pursed tight.

“Oh, and I reminded Bryan to pick you up in the back by the servants’ entrance so you won’t have to deal with the photographers.”

Alyssa nodded, grateful her sister had remembered. In the past six months, Alyssa had done a complete one-eighty with the press. Now, unless she was with her family or doing publicity on behalf of the company, she avoided reporters like the plague.

Which only served to make her a more tempting target. She knew that along with the hired photographer there were dozens of paparazzi outside the Bancrofts’ mansion in Atherton, waiting for a glimpse of Alyssa, hoping she’d do something stupid like slip and fall and lose her top or show her underwear.

Finally the auction was over, and most of the guests were milling around the front door, waiting for their cars and limos to arrive.

Alyssa did another scan of the room, tamping down her disappointment when she didn’t see Derek.
Stupid. What do you think is going to happen?

She closed her eyes, memorizing his face, taking that memory of desire in his eyes and curling it close.

She retrieved her coat from the coat check and slipped out the back entrance, down the short driveway that led to the street on the side of the house opposite the front door.

And waited. She looked at her watch. It was still early, not even ten. But the crowd at these things always skewed older, and Alyssa figured they all needed to get home and tucked into bed before midnight.

Another ten minutes passed, and Bryan, the driver from the car service, still wasn’t there. Annoyed, she flicked open her cell phone and called.

Bryan’s town car had been clipped on the freeway. Another car was en route, but it would be at least a half hour before it arrived.

Alyssa bit back a curse.

“What’s up with you going where you’re not supposed to?”

The deep, gruff voice slid around her, grabbed her, and wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t have held back her smile if she’d wanted to.

His eyes were hidden in shadow, but his mouth curved
into a half smile, and a dimple creased the left corner of his mouth. His lips were firm and full, and she knew they’d be hot against her skin.

“Do I even want to know why you’re hanging out at the servants’ entrance looking like you’re about to stick your thumb out?”

“I didn’t want to have to deal with the crowd on my way out. And now my driver got into an accident, so it looks like I’m stranded for a while.”

He was silent for several moments, and though his eyes were shadowed she could feel him studying her.

Ask me.

“Can I give you a ride home?” He almost looked shocked that he’d asked.

She didn’t let that stop her. “Sure,” she said without hesitation.

A slight frown creased his forehead, but he gave her a curt nod and left without another word to get his car.

As she waited she shifted on her sky-high heels, restless, alive with anticipation. After so many months on her best behavior, a reckless urge was pulsing through her. Uncontrollable, unstoppable. She needed to forget the consequences and do something outrageous.

But this time it wouldn’t be for attention, publicity, or her father’s censure. This time it would be all for herself. She’d been so good, watching her every move for so long. Surely she deserved a little treat?

A silver Audi rumbled up to the driveway, and Alyssa wasted no time sliding into the passenger seat. The leather was cool against her bare thighs, and the interior of the car was full of his cedar and soap scent.

He backed out of the driveway and turned the corner, passing the snarl of limos and guests crowding the circular driveway of the Bancrofts’ estate.

“Where to?”

Nerves warring with desire, Alyssa rummaged in her bag and dug out her lip gloss, slicking on a coat to give herself something to do.

Derek stopped at a stop sign. “Where are we going?”

She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly bone dry. What she was about to do was crazy. Stupid.

Necessary.

“You know, it’s so early,” she said and turned to face him. She kept her eyes locked with his and placed her hand deliberately on his thigh. “And I’m not quite ready to go home.”

He stared at her hard for what felt like an eternity. His thick, dark brows drew together in a harsh scowl.

Her stomach bottomed out as she realized he was about to turn her down.

“You want to get a drink somewhere?”

The moment of truth. She slid her hand farther up his thigh, delighting in the swells and ripples of rock-hard muscle hidden beneath wool gabardine. “I’m not much for crowds. Why don’t you just take me back to your place?”

Outside Mbuji-Mayi, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Martin Fish checked his watch again and peered around the corner of the abandoned shack. Fifteen minutes. Marie Laure was fifteen minutes late. Martin dug a bandanna from the pocket of his cargo shorts and wiped the sweat already beading his brow. Though it wasn’t even seven
AM
, the equatorial sun was already brutally hot, shimmering on the tin roofs that sent rusty streaks down the brightly colored shacks they sheltered.

The smell of cooking fires and jungle rot permeated the air, mingling with the stench of human waste. Nausea boiled in his stomach, mingling with tension as he nervously fingered the silver oxide batteries in his pocket. He was down to the last two disks, and Marie Laure was supposed to meet him
here at six thirty to take them in exchange for a one-pound bag of lentils Martin had stolen from the nearby Population Services United mess hall.

Another bead of sweat trickled down his cheek, itching its way through his scruffy beard growth. He wondered if this was the day Mekembe had turned his wrath on Marie Laure.

And God help them both if Mekembe found the hidden camera and microphone. Mekembe would torture her until she gave him Fish’s name, and then he’d kill Fish and whomever was unlucky enough to be in the vicinity.

The sound of footsteps and low conversation approached, and he shrank farther back into the shadows. In this part of the world, it wasn’t safe for anyone, much less a white man, to be off on his own, skulking around the makeshift living quarters surrounding an unsanctioned diamond mine.

Mekembe and his men were savages, less civilized than the animals that ruled the jungle around them. Hopped up on palm wine and cocaine, they’d hack him to death with rusty machetes for the pure fun of it.

The shanty village surrounding the mine was just coming awake, workers scraping together a meager breakfast to fuel another day of backbreaking labor. Sipping from their canteens, they looked uneasily over their shoulders as soldiers for the People’s Freedom Movement—some of them no more than twelve years old—emerged from their shacks, brandishing Kalashnikov machine guns as casually as they would a coffee cup.

If she didn’t show up soon, he’d have to bail. He needed to get back to the relative safety of the PSU before anyone got a bead on him.

Fuck.
He needed to pass off the batteries and retrieve the latest footage from Marie Laure. In the past three weeks since he’d set her up with a pinhole camera hidden in an unremarkable bead pendant, she’d provided him with some
amazing footage of life in the diamond mine controlled by Mekembe.

But it still wasn’t enough to make people care about the horrors of life in this godforsaken part of the world. Not enough to make people care about Martin Fish and what he was doing hiding out in the civil-war-torn DRC, disguised as a caseworker with Population Services United, an NGO with operations all throughout the DRC. He was aiming to be the next Bob Woodward, and he wasn’t going to get that from a few hours of footage showing men slaving in horrific working conditions and women and girls being abused by their captors.

Heartbreaking though it was, these days it didn’t rate more than a single column buried in the back of the world news section.

Meanwhile, Bernstein, AKA Charlie Farris, had long since sold out. When he and Martin had met in journalism school a hundred years ago, they were going to revolutionize the media. Bring it back to real news; show the world the truth about what was happening in the world.

Unfortunately all the world cared about was bimbos like Alyssa Miles and whether they were going to flash a beaver shot as they exited a cab. Charlie had accepted that years ago and left Martin and their self-run hard-news Web site in the dust.

Now Charlie lived in a house in the Hollywood hills, thanks to an awesome money shot he’d scored three years ago. It was of Alyssa Miles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, IV in her arm and a tube down her throat as the doctors struggled to save her life after she’d done one too many lines and gone into cardiac arrest. Charlie had had the only pictures of her in the hospital, and every fucking news outlet in the country had wanted them. With one picture, good old Charlie was set for life.

At the time, Martin had been in Afghanistan, trying to
avoid land mines as he sent daily dispatches buried three layers down on
Newsweek
’s Web site.

Over the years, Charlie had kept prodding him to give up the hard news, take the easy way out, but Martin knew he wasn’t cut out for that. Charlie could still turn on the charm, make nice with the brainless contingent that populated the entertainment elite. But after years observing and chronicling the most godforsaken people and places on earth, that kind of life had sunk into Martin’s pores, never releasing its clutches on his consciousness even when he got back to the first world. When he was in some third world hellhole, he couldn’t wait to get back to working sewers, running water, and good whiskey that wouldn’t ruin your guts like the local brew. But when he was home, he couldn’t squelch the disgust he felt with people, their bloated white, ignorant faces. Sitting on their fat Wal-Mart–clad asses watching Alyssa Miles make a fool of herself on TV, with no fucking clue what was really going on in the world.

They’d have a clue soon enough. Alyssa Miles was about to make his career, just as she’d once made Charlie’s.

Martin knew that to make his name he had to tie this operation to something—or someone—big. Van Weldt Jeweler was definitely big. And so was Louis Abbassi. While the press went crazy talking about that famous-for-nothing Alyssa Miles and her latest campaign for Van Weldt, they ignored the fact that Van Weldt had entered a supply agreement with Abbassi, a man who had made his fortune in the late nineties and two years ago had purchased a diamond-cutting operation headquartered in South Africa.

But no one seemed to care where Abbassi’s diamonds came from, including Oscar Van Weldt. Martin had interviewed the CEO of Van Weldt right before he’d left for the DRC, under the guise of doing a fluff piece about marketing fine jewelry to the youth market. When Martin had probed Oscar about the deal with Louis and suggested some of his
rocks were sourced from unsanctioned mines, Van Weldt had clammed up quick, threatening Fish with a libel suit if he so much as hinted that Van Weldt diamonds were dirty.