Suspicion (5 page)

  He took another drag on the cigarette. "Unfortunately no. At two o’clock this afternoon, the little bitch waltzes into my office, perches her ass on my desk and waves a videotape under my nose. Then, before I have a chance to ask what the hell it is, she sashays to my VCR and inserts the tape into it." He paused before adding, "Fin sure you can guess who the main attraction was."

  Kate’s eyes widened. "You mean she taped the two of you? In bed?"

  "She must have had a camera set up in the bedroom. I bet she does that with all her Johns. What a racket."

  "What does she want?"

  Eric met Kate’s inquiring gaze. "A lot more than the hundred bucks I left her."

  "How much?"

  "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  "What?"

  "My feelings exactly. I tried to tell her I didn’t have that kind of money. She didn’t want to hear it. I have one week to get it or she’ll send a copy of the tape to all the major tabloids. I can see the headlines now. Fiance Of Multimillionaire Heiress Beds Hooker." He crushed his cigarette in the saucer and immediately lit another.

  Kate felt sorry for him. He had a way of attracting trouble that was almost uncanny. Somehow he always managed to get out of it, partly because he was resourceful and partly because he was lucky. But this time, Lady Luck was nowhere in sight. And he had good reason to worry. Not about his fiancee, who might even forgive him, but about the girl’s mother, the formidable and very powerful Abigail Hollbrook.

  In a candid interview with the Washington Post a few months ago, the CEO of Hollbrook Industries had not concealed her displeasure at her daughter’s choice of a husband. Like any other loving mother, however, she had bowed to Megan’s wishes, given them both her blessing and promised to make Eric a junior vice president after the wedding.

  Eric was terrified of her. According to Rose, Abigail had warned him that at the slightest infraction on his part,

  he would be out of Megan’s life-and Hollbrook Industries-forever.

  "Well." Kate reached for the coffeepot and topped off both mugs. "Since I assume you came here for advice, I’ll give it to you. Tell Megan everything. She’s your fiancee, and should hear the grisly details from you, not from some rag."

  "What good would that do? Abigail would finally have an excuse to cancel a wedding she never wanted in the first place. That old broad hates me, you know. She thinks I’m nothing but a fortune hunter."

  At that remark, which she let pass, Kate almost smiled. "You’re marrying Megan, not her mother."

  "Megan will do what her mother tells her to. She always does."

  "She stood up to her when you proposed. What makes you think she won’t do it again?"

  "Because she’s going to be devastated. I slept with another woman-a hooker no less." His voice turned whiny, like that of a spoiled child. "I’m going to lose everything, Kate-my fiancee, my job, my future at Hollbrook…"

  Kate’s eyes filled with contempt. How typical of him to think of himself and not the woman he had wronged. "In that case, your only other recourse is to talk to Douglas. Maybe he’ll loan you the money."

  "Douglas?" Eric made a derisive sound. "That bastard wouldn’t raise a finger to help me if I lay in a gutter bleeding to death. After you left me last year, he wanted to throw me out. Did you know that? It took Mom three days to convince him to let me stay." He gave an emphatic shake of his head. "Trust me, my self-righteous stepfather would like nothing better than to see me being crushed like a bug. And Mom doesn’t have any money of her own, so…"

  He took a couple of quick, hard drags on his cigarette. then extinguished it. "’You want to know how desperate I am? I tried to borrow the money from a bank. The loan officer practically laughed in my face. Apparently, without collateral, there isn’t a bank in the world that will lend me that kind of money. And my upcoming marriage to one of the country’s richest women didn’t impress him. either. Unless, of course, I can get Megan to co-sign the loan. Isn’t that a blast?"

  "Well, don’t look at me," Kate said as he gave her a long, intense look. "A quarter of a million dollars is hardly the kind of change I keep tucked in the cookie jar."

  He continued to look at her.

  Kate raised an eyebrow. "What?"

  ‘"You have the money, Kate."

  "What are you talking about? You know perfectly well that the down payment on this house took nearly every cent I had."

  "There’s Alison’s trust fund. You can lend it to me. I promise I’ll pay you back after I’m married to Megan."

  Whatever pity she had felt for him until now vanished. "How dare you suggest something like that? Douglas set up that trust fund for Alison’s education. And you want to hand it over to a prostitute?"

  "I said I’d pay it back."

  "With what? Do you think Megan is going to let you have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars without wanting to know where it’s going?"

  "I’ll think of something."

  She shook her head. "God. you’re even more despicable than I thought."

  "Kate, be reasonable. I have nowhere else to go. You’re the only one who can get me out of this mess."

  "In case I haven’t made myself clear enough, the answer is no."

  "If you won’t do it for me, then do it for Alison. She would want you to help me."

  "You bastard." She uttered the two words under her breath, finding it more and more difficult not to shout at him. "Don’t you dare use my daughter as leverage."

  "She’s my daughter, too."

  Kate was no longer listening. Brushing past him, she marched to the front door, Eric behind her, and held it open. "Good night, Eric. And next time you find yourself in trouble, do me a favor and go cry on someone else’s shoulder. I have enough problems of my own without being burdened with yours."

  He stood in front of her, eyes pleading again. "Kate-"

  "Go." When he showed no sign of leaving, she gave him a hard shove and slammed the door shut.

  Standing in the foyer, she waited until his Corvette had roared off. Then, feeling suddenly bone tired, she turned on the burglar alarm again and went upstairs.

  Scotch, please. Straight."

  In the dimly lit Virginia tavern some ten miles south of Washington, Eric Logan waited as a surly bartender in a dirty sweatshirt poured his drink. Then, picking up his glass, he brought it to his mouth, tilted his head back and downed the contents in one gulp.

  The liquor brought tears to his eyes. He had never been much of a drinker. Even in college, when doing shots was all the rage, he had been the subject of constant ribbing about his "unmanly" drinking habits.

  But tonight, he needed more than the smoothness of a good martini or the tang of an imported beer. He needed something that would not only soothe his frazzled nerves, but drown his fears, as well. He needed complete oblivion. If there was such a beast.

  Before the bartender could put the bottle of Johnnie Walker away, Eric slammed his empty glass down on the counter. "Hit me again, will you? Make it a double this time."

  Glass in hand, he walked across the room and sat down at a water-stained table, not bothering to remove his coat. Except for two loudmouths in cowboy hats shooting pool, the place was empty. Which suited him just fine. He was in no mood for company.

  After leaving Kate’s house, he had driven south with

  no particular destination in mind. Then, as he had turned a bend, he had seen the sign for Joe’s Tavern. The dingy bar reeked of stale tobacco and cheap liquor, but it was open, and it was next door to a motel, which might come in handy a couple of hours from now. What more could a guy in search of oblivion want?

  With a sigh that sounded more like a groan, he propped his elbows on the table and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have risked all he had for a lousy, overused piece of ass?

  Dragging his hands down his cheeks, he tried to imagine the look on Megan’s face when she found out the truth. One thing was certain. She would never forgive him. To Megan, who had inherited her mother’s pride if not her strength, the soiling of the Hollbrook name would be as unforgivable a deed as committing high treason.

  His eyes on the pool players, Eric took small sips of his drink. He had met Megan at the company’s fiftieth anniversary party, an event that had been attended by some of the most famous people on the East Coast.

  Last May, two months into his divorce and eager for a little action, he had gone to the Four Seasons bash for only one reason-to get laid-preferably by someone sexy, free spirited and totally devoid of intelligence. He’d had it with brainy females.

  As his well-practiced eye scanned the room, he had spotted, and immediately recognized, Megan Hollbrook, Abigail’s twenty-seven-year-old daughter. And the only heir to the huge Hollbrook fortune.

  She stood in a corner of the room, a rather plain, slender girl with shy brown eyes, ash-blond hair shaped in a chin length bob, and a strong, square jaw that made her look more like her late father than her attractive mother. Not

  exactly what he would call a raving beauty, but with that kind of money, who cared about looks?

  Sipping his drink, he took in the expensive designer gown, the huge emerald drops dangling from her ears and the matching choker encircling the aristocratic neck. What would it be like, he wondered, to marry into such wealth? To have unlimited funds. Every wish fulfilled. Twenty one years ago, when his mother had married Douglas Fairchild, he had come close to finding out. But the old man had hated him on sight. Other than allowing him to live in his house and eat his food, Douglas had never done one damn thing for him.

  "There won’t be any free ride where you’re concerned, boy." Douglas had told him the day after the wedding. "You want pocket money, you’ve got to earn it."

  That from a man who had inherited everything he owned-the law firm, the Potomac mansion, even the house in Bermuda.

  Well, maybe he wouldn’t have to grovel to Douglas anymore. Maybe he had found a bigger fish…

  Drink in hand, Eric approached the heiress and introduced himself. Five minutes later, they were on the dance floor, chatting like two old friends. Sensing that candor was a quality a woman like Megan Hollbrook would appreciate, he told her about his recent divorce, improvising a little as he went.

  "My ex- wife was always very career-oriented." he said as they moved slowly to the music. "And I was more of a family man. The marriage began to go sour when she went to work for my stepfather. You may know him. Douglas Fairchild? Anyway." he continued as Megan shook her head, "when Kate told me she wanted a divorce, I didn’t fight her." He allowed his voice to drop.

  "I suppose I should have, for my little girl’s sake, but I just didn’t have it in me anymore, so I agreed."

  Megan’s gentle eyes filled with genuine sorrow. "I’m sorry," she said in her well-bred, finishing-school voice. "It must be difficult for you, being separated from your daughter."

  All of a sudden, those millions Eric had thought out of reach no longer seemed so inaccessible. Unlike her mother, Megan Hollbrook had a tender heart. With a little ingenuity, he might be able to make that work in his favor.

  "It still is. Do you know that this is the first social affair I’ve attended since my divorce? I almost didn’t come." Tightening his hold around her waist, he gave her his killer smile. "Now I’m glad I did."

  The blush on Megan’s cheeks and the look of sheer pleasure in her eyes as she looked up told him that the old Logan charm had worked its magic once again.

  Making her fall in love with him in the days that followed was easier than he’d thought. For all her millions, Megan Hollbrook was remarkably unsophisticated when it came to men. Except for a couple of boyfriends in college, she had never had a serious relationship.

  Winning her mother’s trust, however, was another matter. Abigail Hollbrook, who had headed her two hundred-million-dollar company with an iron hand since her husband’s death nineteen years ago, was not a woman one could fool with sweet talk alone.

  "Don’t mind my mother," Megan told Eric after a particularly chilly first meeting. "She tends to be overprotective at times. She’ll come around."

  She never had. When, a month after meeting Megan, Eric had asked her to marry him, Abigail had immediately summoned him to her office.

  "For reasons I can’t possibly fathom," she told him,

  her sharp blue eyes piercing through him like a laser, "my daughter has fallen in love with you and wants to marry you. I, on the other hand, am very much opposed to this marriage."

  Ignoring the trickle of sweat that was running down his chest, Eric held her formidable gaze. "I assure you that-"

  "I’ve had you investigated, Eric." Her voice snapped at him like a whip. "It seems that when you told Megan about your fourteen-year marriage to Kate Logan, you conveniently forgot to mention that you cheated on her. Repeatedly."

  Although the "repeatedly" part was something Kate hadn’t been able to prove, it seemed pointless to deny it now. Obviously, the woman had done her homework.

  "My wife and I had problems I’d rather not go into at the moment, Mrs. Hollbrook," Eric replied, trying hard to keep his voice from shaking. "Still, my behavior was inexcusable and not something I’m particularly proud of. That’s why I didn’t tell Megan." He paused as he tried to read the woman’s face. When he couldn’t, he asked, "Did you tell her?"

  "Of course I told her. What would be the point of conducting an investigation if not to open my daughter’s eyes? I regret to say, however, that it didn’t do any good. She’s naive enough to believe that adulterers can be reformed."