Reckless (Fractured Farrells: A Damaged Billionaire Series Book 2) (16 page)

“Well then, nice to meet you, Malia. How do you know Robert?”

She smiled. Alex felt bad and was trying to play nice. That was kind of sweet. “We met on the beach in Hawaii and he...swept me off my feet.”

Alex gave her a skeptical look. “Robert? He did sweeping?”

“Yep. Even tracked me down after that and made a very convincing argument for why I should go out with him.”

“Really?”

It gave Malia a little thrill to know that Robert didn’t chase after every girl he met. Sure, she knew he wasn’t in the tabloids as much as the youngest Farrell, Nathan, but she’d assumed all the brothers were womanizers. Was she really different to Robert? Though she hoped that he didn’t go around kidnapping women all the time.

“Trust me, I didn’t do it on purpose.” She debated starting to swim laps, but it seemed too strange to just ignore Alex. Instead, she tried to fish for more information. “So what did you barge into Robert’s house for?”

“I have a whole list of things he missed out on these past five days.”

So Robert had let his work suffer so he could con her into getting on a luxury boat.
Between the cost of that yacht and the anger of his family, he had really lost a lot by forcing her to come here. Considering that he said he’d only done it to keep her safe, that seemed rather decent.

Didn’t make it okay. “He seemed so work-focused back on the islands.” If he wasn’t in meetings, he was always on his laptop. The only time she’d really seen him relax was when he was around his sister.

“Obviously something changed.” Alex squinted in the sunlight as he looked at his watch. “Do you have a job that’s going to be missing you?”

Malia couldn’t help but smile at the question. She had about five jobs that would miss her, but she couldn’t help herself. “I’m kind of between gigs right now. But I have a lot of connections out on the islands.”

Alex, for his part, managed to keep a straight face. “That’s nice.”

Maybe his brother getting involved with some unemployed Hawaiian wasn’t a big deal when they had Farrell money. Wasn’t as if they were worried about a gold digger spending it all.

“So how long do you think you’ll be staying with Robert?”

Malia almost threw her head back to laugh. If only Alex knew how she felt about the subject. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose as long as Robert wants me here.”

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R
obert cursed as he saw a shiny BMW in the driveway. Alex didn’t own any cars in this part of the country, but it was his go-to rental. And if Alex was over, that meant he was alone with Malia.

He cursed again as his car screeched to a halt in front of the garage. He grabbed the papers and envelopes he’d picked up while he’d been out and got through the front door as quick as possible. “Alex!” he called, but there was no answer. He was halfway to the stairs when he saw his brother on the patio, looking over the pool.

And then he realized Malia was in the pool. “God damn it.” He set his documents on the stainless-steel island and got to the door as quick as possible. “Alex!” he called again once the door was open.

His brother jerked around and glared at Robert.

Fuck.
The last thing he needed was that sanctimonious attitude. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you for days. When I heard you were finally back on land, I came over as soon as possible.”

“Anything we have to talk about can wait.”

“We have to talk about Logan.”

Robert let out a sigh. That couldn’t wait. “Leave Malia alone and come inside.”

Alex turned back to the water. “It was nice meeting you, Malia.”

Robert glanced to the water and could see the outline of Malia’s tanned curves beneath the water. She raised a brow at him and smirked from her spot in the pool.
What exactly had she told his brother?
“Inside, Alex. Now.”

Alex gave Robert a questioning look as he walked inside the house, and Malia stayed where she was under the water.
Good.
He had a few choice words for Alex. Once they were inside with the doors shut, he let loose. “You can’t just walk into my fucking house, Alex. My private life is none of your damn business.”

Alex cocked his head at the outburst. “This isn’t the first time I’ve come over uninvited. You’ve never had a problem before.”

“This is the last time you’re doing it. Now tell me what you want and get the hell out.”

Alex glanced over his shoulder out the glass sliding door to where Malia swam laps in the pool. “She has you pretty messed up, doesn’t she?”

Robert moved to block Alex’s view. “Malia is none of your business. What did you want?”

“If you hadn’t had your head up your ass for the past week, you’d know that we have a date to talk with a judge about getting Logan released in two days, so we need to get our stories straight. Also, I wanted to go over the recent vandalism at the Hawaii location. I figured you’d want to talk about that immediately, but I had to find out from Colin Fucking Carter. So thanks.”

“I would’ve told you about the incident as soon as I got back—”

“Then you should’ve taken a plane. We don’t have time for you to go gaga over anyone. We need Logan out and we have deals falling through left and right. I need your head in the game.”

“The incident was directed at me.”

That gave Alex pause. “What?”

“Right after I got to Hawaii, I was sent pictures by someone. Someone who was watching me. They warned me to stay away from Malia and then they went after Jean and burned down Malia’s house. Now that I’m off the island, the incidents should stop.”

“Until you go back.”

“The police department knows how invested I am in the investigation. They’re going to find and arrest the culprit sooner rather than later.” And if they didn’t, he was going to see that there was a major shake-up in the police department. He wasn’t going to let whoever caused all this grief just get away with it.

“They burned down her house?” Alex stretched to look over Robert’s shoulder. “Fuck.”

“There’s a reason I brought her with me.” He decided not to mention just how much of it was his idea, but Alex, probably more so than any of his brothers, knew that sometimes hard decisions had to be made.

“I have some other connections on the island. I’ll give them a call and see if they have any idea who is behind this.”

Robert nodded, doubting his decision to keep this from Alex in the first place. The whole thing had seemed so personal, and asking for help wasn’t something he was used to doing. “That’s great. I’ll send you the emails I received, and the police have a copy of the note that we received.”

Alex pulled out a pen and opened the folder he had with him to flip a sheet of paper around to get to the blank back side. “Tell me everything that happened.”

Robert gave Alex an abbreviated version, trying to leave out Malia as much as possible. But it was impossible to leave her out completely. Especially when Alex asked, “What was happening in the pictures you were sent?”

Robert clenched his jaw. “The first batch of pictures was of Malia and me.”

“You two were...”

“We weren’t fucking, okay? We were just in the pictures.”

“Got it. You can tell me anything, Robert.”

“I’m not hiding anything.” At least not for his sake. “What else do you need?”

“Give me Malia’s name so I can tell my guy. I’m sure he can take a look at the burned house and give us his opinion on it.”

“The police said it was gasoline that started the fire.”

“Damn. She’s lucky she wasn’t inside.”

Robert closed his eyes for a second as he waited for the rage to pass.
If Malia had been in the house, he would’ve—
He didn’t want to think about that. “Her last name is Martin. Malia Martin.”

Alex dropped the pen and stepped back from the island. “Are you shitting me?”

“Why would I joke about that?”

“You’re trying to figure out who’s making your life hell and you’re fucking Malia Martin?” He pointed at the door toward where Malia was still in the pool.

“She has nothing to do with this. The only reason she’s in danger is because she got involved with me.” Something he’d forced her into. One more thing adding to his guilty conscience.

“You have no idea who she is, do you?”

“She’s no one. A tour guide from the islands who I ran into on the beach.”

“Did she mention that she used to live in New York?”

“That was years ago.”

“Right up until Walter destroyed her entire family.”

Robert felt as though he’d just been punched in the gut. “What?”

“Shit...” Alex pulled out his phone and typed something in. “I can’t believe you don’t remember this. Here, look familiar?”

Alex handed his phone off to Robert and he stared at the image on the screen. It was a woman and a young child. The woman had tan skin and black hair severely pulled back. Her outfit was nice, but he could tell it wasn’t high end. The little girl held fiercely to the woman’s hand. The young girl had wide, brown eyes, and she looked terrified in the flash of the camera. It was a candid shot on the steps of a courthouse.

There was no caption, but Robert would recognize those eyes anywhere. The young girl was Malia. “What is this?”

“That’s the last court hearing of Theresa Martin vs. Farrell Enterprises. The one where the judge ruled in favor of Farrell Enterprises taking over the land the family house was on. It was in all the papers for months. Everyone felt bad for the family, but Walter was paying off all the lawyers and judges so there was never any chance of them winning.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Walter bought up two buildings and planned to tear them down to make Farrell Tower in New York City. Except he needed the third building in the middle to do it and the owner, Theresa Martin, wasn’t budging. So he took her to court under eminent domain. The whole thing was sketchy at best, but with everyone on his side, it was child’s play to get it. In the process, he ran a huge smear campaign against Theresa Martin. She ended up with no property, a reputation in shreds, and probably a massive pile of legal debt. If you want to know who’s trying to ruin your life, she’s swimming in your pool right now.”

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M
alia’s arms burned as she continued her laps, but she didn’t mind. It was just so nice to be able to use her muscles instead of being cooped up in a tight space for days on end. Maybe she could get some good hikes in. Her mother had mentioned how pretty it was on this side of the country. Might as well try to get some enjoyment out of it.

She reached the edge of the pool and started to flip around to push off the side when she noticed the dark figure standing above her. She stopped mid-stroke to tread water in the deep end as she looked up at Robert. “You scared me.”

His eyes were intense and guarded. She tried to get a read on his mood; something was wrong.

“Was Alex bothering you?”

Malia shook her head in the water. “I think I scared him more than anything. I hear you don’t bring a lot of random women back to your place. I’m almost flattered.” His expression didn’t change at all.
Okay, something was really wrong.
“What did he say?”

“He told me who you are.”

Her body went cold at the words, and Malia felt the sudden need for solid ground beneath her feet. She twisted in the water and did a medium pace front stroke until she reached a part of the pool she could walk and made her way to the stairs. Robert slowly walked around the pool as she swam, and he met her at the top of the stairs.

“I don’t see what difference it makes.” She reached for the towel she’d brought with her.

“The fact that your family hates mine doesn’t make a difference?”

She scoffed. “You knew I had my reservations about you right from the beginning. Don’t act like I fooled you somehow.”

“I had a right to know.”

“No. You had a right to back the fuck off, which you refused to do time and time again.” She worked on drying her hair with the towel as she turned to face him. “At what point should I have brought it up? Back on the beach when I had no idea who you were? Maybe when you forced your way on my boat and I was stuck with you for five hours straight with your sister and her boyfriend. Or maybe when my house burned down and I was so distracted I could hardly remember my own name. So tell me, Robert. Tell me how I betrayed you.”