Imminent Danger (Adrenaline Highs) (27 page)

“You got it.” He poured her a Jack and water on the rocks.

“You remembered.” She hadn’t thought he’d been paying much attention the other night, but she’d learned that he always paid attention. It dawned on her that all the garbage she’d read about him might have been just that. Garbage. In a nutshell, he was a hard man to dislike. If this was how he acted with every female, it made sense why he had so many women in his life. Who wouldn’t want to be around a gorgeous guy who treated you well?

“Trust me. A man doesn’t forget a woman who drinks Jack and water.” He poured their drinks as she came forward, slapped the binder on the bar and sat on a leather stool. “Why so glum?” He handed her the drink. “Here’s to a decent tax return,” he said, knocking their glasses together then taking a sip.

If she could only drink to that. “Leo, come over here and sit down.” There was no easy way to do this and she’d never hesitated telling someone bad news before. Like years ago when she told her business partner they were out of money and couldn’t afford to stay in their building anymore. They’d gone from rags to riches and back to rags in under two years. What a ride.

Leo took the stool next to her, the playfulness gone from his blue eyes. “Nathan screwed me, didn’t he? I’ll bet I owe a truckload of taxes this year.” He eyed the binder. “No wonder he wouldn’t return my calls. I should’ve guessed. He mentioned putting in for an extension. How bad is it?”

Kim took the first long swallow from her drink, using the bite to push through. “I’m not going to sugar coat it. It’s bad, Leo, but not the way you think.”

He took another sip of his drink, his gaze never leaving hers. “Go on. I’m listening.”

God, how did she start? “Nathan paid all your bills.” She worked hard to say it as a statement and not a question. And though she knew it was fact, it still seemed so ridiculously obscene that she just had to make sure she got it right.

“Yeah. He’s been paying my bills for years. It frees me. I’m out of the state half the time on location and I need him to do that stuff. Do I need to fire him? Once I find him?” he added with a surly growl.

“More like you need to have him arrested,” Kim mumbled. “Look,” she said, before Leo could comment. “He stole from you, Leo. A lot.”

Leo laughed. “No he didn’t. Hey, I know he invested my money. He told me he takes out chunks at a time to invest, but he always puts it back with more. It’s what he does. I’m not worried about it.”

“You should be.” Kim took another long drink and told Leo to do the same. He did. “Here’s the deal,” she said. “Nathan liquidated every dime he could get his hands on. You’ve got foreclosure notices on four different properties and back taxes due from three years ago.”

Leo’s face drained of color and Kim’s stomach swirled with Jack Daniels. “But I’ve got money in the bank to cover all that,” he said. The panic in his eyes had her chest heavy with empathy. She’d been there. Lived it. It wasn’t fun. Watching everything you worked for disappear was one thing, but being sandbagged by something so shocking was bound to make anyone sick with fear and helplessness. At least she’d had a warning. She’d known when to call it quits when they had just enough money to scrape by on. But Leo had some fancy footwork ahead of him if he planned to stay above water.

Kim shook her head. “I’m sorry, Leo. You don’t have anything. It looks like Nathan wiped you out then disappeared off the planet. You need to contact your lawyer because you’re in some serious trouble. Real serious trouble.”

The seven and seven Leo had ingested threatened to come back at him so he moved away from Kim. “This has to be a mistake,” he said, even though his gut told him otherwise. Despite the queasiness, he grabbed more whiskey behind the bar and reloaded his drink. He kept the bottle out.

“I know it’s hard to hear and I’m so sorry I’m the one to break it to you.” She followed him, her new heels clicking on his hardwood floors. She seemed genuinely upset for him. “The notices from the IRS are filed in the binder. Doesn’t even look like Nathan tried to hide them.”

Because the bastard knew Leo trusted him. Knew he wouldn’t ever glance at it. Dammit. What the hell had he been thinking to trust his whole life to one man? “Look, there has to be something left,” he said, scrambling to find a tiny silver lining. Especially since he’d have to pay his high price attorney over four hundred dollars an hour to deal with this mess. Tom Cox had joked that since Leo had been staying out of trouble the last year, his vacations had been cut in half. Yeah. Haha.

The pity in Kim’s eyes held very little hope. “I’m assuming your other houses are filled with furniture and art. You could bring in Sotheby’s or Christie’s for an estate sale and auction off everything. That will help. I noticed you have a lot of collector’s items and movie memorabilia. All that should probably sell well. If we can get to the banks before they actually start foreclosure proceedings, you can possibly sell the properties yourself to help pay off your tax debt.”

Leo grabbed his glass and the bottle and paced in front of the comfortable sofa. A sofa he’d probably have to sell if everything Kim said was true. He stopped, took a long swallow of his drink and the whiskey burned as it went down. He’d worked like a dog for almost twenty years to build his fortune and he’d practically given it away to a man he’d considered a friend. His chest tightened to unbearable proportions and he sat down.

“I’m so pissed and mad for you that I can’t even imagine how
you
feel,” Kim said, moving closer, the anger in her voice giving truth to her words. She sat on the chair nearest him and her cinnamon scent filled his head. “Especially since this guy was supposed to be your
friend
.” Her eyebrows shot together in an angry line. “How long have you known him?”

“A long fucking time,” Leo murmured. “Since junior high. We were the odd couple at school. I played sports and he was the short, smart nerd. I needed a tutor for some of my classes and Nathan offered his help. You can’t spend all those hours with someone and not build a friendship. Then I needed help with a few advanced placement classes so we stayed connected through high school then college and into adulthood. Nathan went on to be a CPA and finance manager, and handling my money seemed like the natural progression of things. Nathan’s investments made me millions.”

Until now.

His dismay started a slow burn in his gut, which the liquor fueled very nicely. “What the hell happened?” he asked, needing another hit of whiskey.

“As far as I can tell, he was pulling a Bernie Madoff. He told you he was investing your money, but he wasn’t. Maybe he was doing this with all of his clients and one of them found out. Maybe that’s why he’s missing. He either took what he could and ran…or someone found him and…” She yanked her thumb across her throat.

Leo took another drink. He hadn’t eaten and the alcohol was already going straight to his head. So was the panic. His palms broke out in a cold sweat. If he didn’t have money, how the hell was he supposed to take care of Megan? He couldn’t afford the institution without money. A lot of money. He swallowed more alcohol.

“Maybe we should get something to eat before you have any more of that,” Kim said. But she took another hit of her own drink.

Leo leaned forward, set the bottle and his glass on the coffee table and rested his head in his hands. “I am so fucked.” Emotion welled up in his chest like a geyser ready to spew and he didn’t want Kim around. Didn’t want anyone around to see him crack. He shot off the sofa, grabbed the bottle and headed outside into the breezy summer night. He looked out at the sparkling pool with its underwater lights illuminating the blue and green tile on the edges and the fountain that ran into the Jacuzzi. He’d helped design all of it. It was his heaven from the crap the outside world dished on him on a regular basis. It was the place he’d banished himself to after he’d hit his own personal low last year.

Welcome to new lows, asshole.

Ditching a co-star who’d been an on-set fling had been his usual M.O. after a film, but he’d never driven anyone to kill until last year when Carrie Ann had gone off the deep end. That his radar hadn’t caught her serious personality disorder had shaken him up. Now he was left with an unfinished film because he couldn’t see releasing it and causing the woman, who had been institutionalized even more stress. She’d be bound to hear about it and if her reviews were as tough as they’d been in the past, it might affect her in a negative way. He didn’t want to be responsible for that. He knew casting her was a risk, but her audition had been so perfect, he’d had to go with his heart. He’d blown millions of his own money on that film and unless he did something with it…

Kim placed her hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

He appreciated her sentiment, but she had no clue what any of this meant. He pulled away from her grip and took a long painful pull of whiskey straight from the bottle. That shit burned going down. He needed space. Needed to think. Needed to figure out how the hell he was going to pull his life together.

Leo set the bottle on a nearby table, took two steps, a deep breath and dove into the pool, jeans and all. The cold hit him like a punch and shocked his system. He swam to the bottom of the deep end and let the silence of the water surround him. Just the loud beat of his heart thundered in his head. It kept saying,
you’re fucked, you’re fucked.
Many long seconds later, his lungs began to burn and he heard the rush of a splash behind him, but didn’t care. In the next instant, a feminine arm reached around his shoulders and started pulling him back and up.

Kim must have thought he meant to commit suicide. Bubbles inadvertently escaped as he let out a harsh laugh. He couldn’t kill himself. He had to think about Megan first and foremost, but Kim didn’t know that. Instead of fighting her, he let her drag him to the surface for air then to the shallow end.

“Are you okay?” she asked. He hadn’t intended to put panic in her pretty green eyes. “What were you thinking?” Her brows slanted in a pissed-off line. He didn’t blame her. She’d just doused her new clothes with pool water. New clothes that now plastered to the soft, perfect curves of her body. It wasn’t that he’d overlooked this detail, but having all that bounty right in his face reminded him of what he’d been missing. So did the way her nipples poked out of the thin wet material clinging to her chest. She smacked his chest and his gaze returned to her face. “I’m serious! You can’t just give up because life gets tough. You have to stick it out and get to the other side.” She was serious with this. Almost yelling at him. “You are a very lucky man. Yes, you’re in some trouble, but you’ll pull out of it. You’ll keep working, you’ll pay off your debt and you’ll be fine. So what if you have to downsize or relocate or sell your car. So what if—”

“My car?” Had she lost her mind? “Stella? There’s no way in hell I’m selling Stella.”

After a tiny shake of her head, droplets fell from her lashes. A cool breeze whispered through the trees and she crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re not going to have a choice, Leo.” She pulled her shoulders in, her anger evaporating along with her body heat. “I’m sorry.” That look of pity crept back into her eyes. “But it’s no time to throw in the towel. It’s time to pick yourself up and fight.”

“You really thought I meant to kill myself?” True, they didn’t know each other well at all, but did he really strike her as a coward or someone with mental instability? He’d have to work on changing that.

She gestured to the deep end, her exasperation clear in her wide eyes. “You dove in with your clothes on and went straight to the bottom. And you
stayed
there! For almost a minute. You totally freaked me out!” She shook in earnest now and guilt grabbed a hold of Leo’s balls and hung on tight. Or maybe that was his jeans plastered to his legs. He took Kim’s arm and helped her out of the pool. At least she’d taken off her shoes before diving in. Smart lady.

The night breeze chilled their clothes to uncomfortably wet degrees. Leo grabbed two fresh towels from the small storage space under the outside ottoman and wrapped the first one around her shoulders. He smoothed some wet strands off her cheek and stared down at her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m a bit freaked out myself.”

“I know.” Her voice softened. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“I’m just so fucking mad. I just…” He wanted Nathan to explain, to look him in the eye and tell him why. He wanted the douche bag to come back and make it right, but he had a feeling that wasn’t going to happen. “I need to figure this out.”

“Maybe I can help you with that.”

“Why?” No reason to dance around the subject. “If I’m in the hole for as much as you say, then I don’t even have enough money to pay you for what you’ve done much less for what you might do in the future.”

She started rubbing the towel over her arms. “Maybe because I know how it feels. How’s that? Maybe because if I can help you, I’ll, I’ll—”

“Get your wings when you get into heaven?”

That got a smile out of her and he liked the smiling Kim better than the panicked or angry Kim. She rolled her eyes and that made
him
smile.

He liked her. Genuinely. How could he not? The woman just jumped in the pool to save his sorry broke ass without thinking about herself. That was another thing…how many women would’ve hung around after learning he’d lost everything?

Christ. He’d lost everything.

The weight of it hit hard, like a double whammy to the nuts.