Hot Pursuit (15 page)

“All right,” Zoey said, closing her book. She was sick of being an ornament her father would parade around when the mood hit him. It was seriously becoming time to plot her escape. If only she could figure out a way without risking her life at the hands of his henchmen.

“I don’t suppose you would go downstairs and tell Dad I’m soaking in a hot bath and will be a while.”

Melba shot her a look that might have been wary or possibly daring. It was hard to say with Melba. She’d never let her guard down completely. There was that servant/master line that was impermeable, and Melba had never crossed it. Zoey was far from a master, but Melba was the perfect house servant.

“Why don’t you slip into this and I’ll help you with your hair?”

“Slave driver,” Zoey mumbled, and grabbed the outfit that was still on its hanger from Melba.

Zoey seldom undressed or changed clothes without a helpful audience. The few times she’d protested, it had gotten back to her father, who had insisted she live as the extremely wealthy did and not like a common whore who would grab her clothes, then strip without caring how she looked. Apparently, the extremely wealthy could be undressed and dressed, but they couldn’t undress and dress themselves.

Ever since that berating by her father, Zoey had absolutely refused to let any of the servants so much as undo one of her buttons. Melba stood behind Zoey as she stripped out of the sweats she’d been in all day. Zoey took the knee-length skirt and sleeveless blouse from her and put them on while Melba took the crumpled sweats to Zoey’s hamper.

“Let me ask you something,” Zoey began, and stared in her full-length mirror as she grabbed her hair and tried piling it on top of her head with her hands.

“What, miss?” Melba asked, then put her hands over Zoey’s and lowered them to Zoey’s sides so she could start brushing her hair.

“There’s this guy,” she began again, and shot a furtive look at the mirror to see Melba.

Melba stood behind Zoey with the brush to Zoey’s head. “Yes?” she prompted.

Zoey smiled, anxious to talk to someone about Ben. “I met him purely by accident. I was walking to my car and he was sitting on the steps at the bed-and-breakfast.”

“Nothing happens by accident,” Melba said softly, and lifted a portion of Zoey’s hair to focus on the ends.

“He actually got up and met me on the sidewalk.” Zoey remembered every minute of her time with Ben. It had all been so incredibly perfect. “He’s new in town and looking for work.”

There was no way to share the rest of the story without making herself sound cheap. Zoey knew that. She also knew she’d never spent time with a man where it had felt more right.

“Where’s he from?” Melba asked.

Zoey couldn’t really shake her head with Melba brushing her hair and holding sections of it at the roots. But Zoey smiled and waved her hand at Melba’s reflection instead.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But Melba, it was such a wonderful evening. It’s like the whole thing was some incredible dream. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.” And probably would never happen to her again. She loved her fantasies, but Zoey was a realist.

“You didn’t do anything—”

“No. No,” Zoey interrupted, then turned around, pulling her hair free from Melba’s hold. “He wanted me to show him around, you know, because he just got into town. And yes, I told him I was going home. But he was so persistent.”

“And so good-looking,” Melba added, mimicking Zoey’s tone.

Zoey stared at her, her stomach clenching. “I went on a ride with him on his motorcycle, and I kissed him.” There, she’d told someone. Unfortunately, it didn’t make her feel any better. She wished she could go to the bookstore, but she had just been there yesterday. Already her father suspected Zoey and Angel were friends, which would only mean he would make Angel’s life hell. A Cortez didn’t mingle with a common merchant.

Zoey walked purposefully to her closet and selected a pair of open-toe brown heels that would match the dark tan outfit she had on. When she turned around, Melba stood in the middle of Zoey’s bedroom with her hands clasped in front of her. Zoey had only seen Melba in her uniform, a plain black dress, with her light brown hair pulled tightly in a bun behind her head. She imagined Melba was very pretty with her hair down and in something more complimentary.

“I needed to tell someone,” Zoey whispered. “If you saw him, you would understand. He was so tall and muscular, with blond hair, and he rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I doubt there’s ever been a man in Zounds who could come close to how incredibly sexy Ben is.”

A small smile played at Melba’s lips, and her expression relaxed. Was that pity in Melba’s eyes? Zoey’s father’s opinion of how his daughter should live her life was no secret to the household. He was quite fond of screaming at the top of his lungs, and he had an uncanny knack of making his voice bellow off the walls when it came to correcting his insolent daughter. Melba looked at Zoey for a moment as if she might say something but instead nodded once toward the door.

“Best not to keep your father waiting,” she whispered.

Zoey slipped into her shoes. “Right, of course,” she said dryly, but then exhaled. Melba’s position in this house was based on how well she impressed Zoey’s father, not Zoey. If Zoey didn’t appear in a timely manner downstairs, it would go badly for Melba as well as Zoey.

“Thanks for listening,” she added, and hoped her smile showed her sincerity.

“Of course, miss,” Melba said, not moving. More than likely the moment Zoey left, Melba would fluff Zoey’s pillows and make sure her bedroom was in immaculate condition before leaving. “And miss, I hope you get to see him again.”

Zoey grinned until her cheeks hurt. “Me, too.”

Once downstairs, Zoey wished she were back in her bedroom. Or better yet, she just wanted to leave. Her house could kill the soul of a saint.

Leon, their butler, was at the side of the foyer near the dining-room doors talking to two maids when he noticed Zoey descending the main stairs. He looked just the same as he had when Zoey had been a child. He used to bounce her on his knee and give her hugs when she cried from a scraped knee. Today the most she got from him was a warm smile like the one he gave to her now.

“Mistress Zoey,” he announced in his deep baritone. At the same time, with the slightest wave of his hand, he dismissed the two maids. “As always, you are absolutely stunning.”

“Thank you, Leon.” Once Zoey would have laughed at Leon’s comment or waved it off with a snide comment. Her father had reprimanded her enough, which more than once had meant humiliating her in front of the staff, on how young ladies didn’t treat the household servants as if they were drinking buddies. “Where is my father?”

“He’s in his den, miss.”

Zoey reached the bottom of the stairs and walked across the large foyer. Her father had purchased the most extravagant Victorian home in Zounds when they had first moved there ten years ago. At the time Zoey had been confused, then angry, that her dad had taken her from the excitement and thrills of the big city to a quiet, uneventful life in a small town. She had been thirteen at the time. Today she begrudgingly accepted her boredom but dreamed of escape and once again living in the city.

The parlor off the foyer was large, with long, narrow windows making up two of the four walls. Zoey used to love this room most when it rained. She would sit on the cushioned chairs by the windows and imagine buggies and trotting horses outside her home. That was when she still believed her imagination could rescue her. It would take imagination but also a lot of shrewd planning to get out of the clutches of Emilio Cortez.

She glanced at one of two matching chairs on opposite sides of the windows. They weren’t gold but more like a light burnt brown. She spotted the flecks of gold. This wasn’t new furniture, but the servants cleaned the chairs as regularly as they shampooed the thick Persian carpet that ended a foot from the walls. Glossy wooden floors were waxed on a regular basis. She lived in the most pretentious house in Zounds. None of this made it a home. Glancing around, she would admit that if someone was to enter her house who had never been here they would think it beautiful. But hang around for ten minutes and the ugliness would seep toward them. The place disgusted her. She looked away from the chair, not interested in sitting and waiting patiently to be yelled at.

A long hallway came after the parlor. Zoey stopped when she entered it, spotting Julius standing with his back to her father’s closed door. She found it rather pretentious that her father believed one of his henchmen needed to stand guard outside his den when he was inside.

“If you wish to sit in the parlor, I’ll have JoAnne bring you some hot tea.” Leon was right behind Zoey when he spoke.

Zoey pictured herself marching up to Julius and informing him that her father had pulled her out of her reading to come downstairs and see him. If he wanted to speak with her, he could do it now. She stared at Julius’s scowling expression. His hands were clasped together in front of him just as Melba’s had been upstairs in Zoey’s room. Julius looked a lot more dangerous. And it wasn’t just appearances. Zoey knew Julius had killed for her father.

She imagined Catherine the Great marching down the hallway and demanding that Julius move. Ben probably liked women who were aggressive and didn’t allow anyone to tell them what to do. If he knew Zoey lived in a home full of servants who all told her what to do instead of the other way around, he would be disgusted. Hell, it disgusted her.

“I’m not thirsty, Leon,” she mumbled, half-turning when she answered him.

“I’m sure your father won’t be long,” he said, as if he knew her thoughts.

“It doesn’t matter.”

It did matter, and she wanted to scream it loud enough to make her father come running to her for a change. Leon moved to the side, allowing her to leave the hallway and go where she wished, as long as it wasn’t far from her father’s office.

She returned to the parlor, knowing if she were insubordinate it would be even harder to get out of this house. Zoey would wait until the moment was right to make her escape. She heard her father’s den door open when she paused in front of the parlor windows.

“I want insurance the first one is taken care of,” her father barked, and didn’t glance in her direction when Zoey reappeared at the end of the hallway. “You say he never showed up?” Emilio Cortez pulled a pocket watch out of his smoking-jacket pocket and frowned at it. “That was two hours ago,” he mumbled. “And he’s not at the bed-and-breakfast?”

“No, sir.” Brutus moved around Julius and faced her father.

Zoey tuned in at the mention of the bed-and-breakfast but kept her expression from revealing how she suddenly felt inside. Her father was a criminal, a thief, a murderer, and the destroyer of people’s lives. If he didn’t kill them, he abused them. He took money from the rich and the poor. Her father was the lowest of all forms of life.

Brutus and Julius did a lot of his dirty work. Zoey hated both of them as much as she did her father. She swore the two large men seemed to thrive on carrying out her father’s instructions to ruin people’s lives, or worse.

Her insides twisted painfully when she guessed why her dad wanted to see her. Be presentable, her ass. Her father was a prick, and now he would scold her as if she were still a child. It shouldn’t surprise her that he knew she’d been with Ben. But having his henchmen go after Ben simply because he gave her a ride on his motorcycle and kissed her pissed her off so much it was all she could do not to fist her hands at her sides. Or, worse yet, march down the hall and inform Brutus and Julius that they would ignore her father’s orders and leave Ben alone.

“Where would he be for two hours?” her father mused, his voice contemplative.

When he looked up, finally piercing her with his soulless black eyes, Zoey didn’t think he really saw her. He looked away from her after a brief moment and focused on his men. “Find him. It can’t be that goddamn hard with him riding that fucking noisy motorcycle. Do whatever it takes. And that other one!” he bellowed, the full energy of the demonic man that he was coming to life. “No one pulls a gun in my town and lives to see the end of the day!” he yelled.

His voice bounced off the wide hallway walls. Zoey didn’t hear Brutus or Julius acknowledge her father, but both men left by a side door halfway down the hallway, which took them through rooms that would take them outside, behind the house. Her father once again glared at her, which was her cue that it was her turn to be under his scrutiny. Her stomach no longer twisted with nerves when her father wanted to see her in his den. She’d grown numb to his insults and ridicule years ago. Thinking of Ben, she wanted to race out of there and warn him to watch his ass.

Pedro, a short, slimy-looking man, closed her father’s den door behind Zoey. She was pretty sure Pedro took notes on everything said in this room so her father could mull over it later. It better allowed him to twist what was said and use it against whoever was misfortunate enough to have been in her father’s company.

Emilio walked around his massive desk and took his time pouring a drink for himself from his personal bar before sitting. He sipped, stared at the thick cut glass in admiration, then slowly placed it next to him on his desk. Pedro promptly appeared and moved the glass so it was on a coaster.

“Zoey,” her father began, and leaned back in his chair. He clasped his hands behind his head and studied her with those cold black eyes of his.

Zoey was pretty sure her father hated her more than he did most of his adversaries. He looked up and down her as if she were no more than a piece of furniture that he couldn’t decide whether to keep or get rid of.

“We’re flying to San Diego in an hour,” her father announced, and picked up his whiskey.

“San Diego?” Zoey asked, confused. “Why?”

Her father grinned as if he’d just done something that he knew would please her. That was so far from the truth.

“We’re meeting the Isleys, sweetheart.” He leaned back in his chair, still holding his drink and tapping one finger on the edge of the glass as he stared at his daughter. “I know you’re anxious to see Hector. The two of you had fun last year at Christmas, then you spent quite a bit of time together this spring when we were in Hawaii.”