To Have and to Hold (4 page)

I had never seen this side of Jus. It sent a chill down my spine. "Good, then." I paused. "Do you still play dirty?"

"When I have to." He paused. The muscles in his back tensed. It was as if he was tightly coiled. "I get what I want, Kayla. I
always
get what I want."

I shivered at the thought. There was a hint of a bad boy in this sweet, little nerd who'd blossomed into a hot guy with a to-die-for voice. For some reason, that both frightened me and turned me on. I leaned into him just close enough so the tips of my breasts brushed his hard back. "I'll have to remember not to get on your bad side, then."

I stepped back from him and turned and walked away. I knew he was watching me. I felt his gaze on me. I swung my hips, doing the catwalk walk again. But I felt breathless.

In the bedroom, I closed the door and leaned against it. What was going on between us? When I slipped out of the thong panties, they were wet.

J
ustin

Kayla came out of the bedroom dressed in one of my T-shirts and a pair of cotton boxer pajama shorts, clearly signaling no sex was going down between us tonight.

"I'm going to bed." She grabbed my face, tipped it up, and, to my surprise, pressed a light kiss to my lips.

"What was that for? There's no one here." I searched her face for some clue to whether she was teasing me again.

She shrugged. "Method acting. My parents always kiss each other goodnight."

I squeezed her hand. "Goodnight, Kay. Sweet dreams."

She smiled and walked away. I watched Kayla until she disappeared. Then I sat on the couch until I was sure she was in bed, waiting until I was confident she'd had time to fall asleep. For the record, my parents didn't kiss each other goodnight. There was no way in hell I was telling Kay that. I enjoyed that tiny peck way too much. As desperate as I was, it might even become the highlight of my day.

How was I going to survive the year? At the private conference Harry and I had at the divorce meeting, he'd asked me, "Why a year, Justin?"

Why? Three main reasons. I'd only given him one—there was something about giving anything a year that was entirely respectable. If you took a new job and hated it, but stuck with it a year, you could move on without a future employer questioning why you left so soon. Without them thinking you're flaky and uncommitted.
Hey, he gave it a year. How many pounds of flesh do you want?

Leases ran a year. School ran in years. Give anything a year and that was giving it a decent try. You were a hero.

The second reason, that I wouldn't tell him, or anyone, was simple—I figured I needed a year to catch that identity-theft bitch who'd duped me in Reno. I wasn't made a fool of lightly. Billions were at stake here. Sending me a text message had been that thief's first, and possibly fatal, mistake.

It came from a burner phone. So she wasn't totally stupid. She wanted something. Money was the logical assumption. And plenty of it. The threat of blackmail hung in the air, as close and dense as fog.

Since Saturday morning, I'd been racking my brain, trying to remember anything at all about that fateful night and the loss of my bachelorhood. Most of it was a blank. Bits and pieces were slowly coming back. Some on their own. Some with the aid of the private investigator I had secretly working for me. He uncovered little things that helped jog it.

Harry knew about the PI. Kayla hadn't asked, and I hadn't told her that I was still employing him. I was going to bring that identity-stealing bitch down. Silence her forever.

Until that text, I'd held out a small, irrational hope that I'd somehow married the real Kayla. As if she'd been mistaken about spending the night hugging the toilet. Or was lying to cover her mistake. The thought was no balm on my wounded vanity. But it would have made life simpler. Kayla, obviously, didn't want to bilk me out of my billions. She wouldn't take a hundred-thousand-dollar ring, even when I begged her and told her it would help my reputation.

I fantasized about having met up with her later that night, when she finally realized she was crazy for me after all. Yeah, me, the guy who sweeps girls off their feet with his sheer animal magnetism. I was confusing myself with one of my brothers. In my fantasies, being stood up by her was all a misunderstanding. She was too embarrassed, or too drunk, to remember it. That she was covering. That there was no crazy, criminal third party to deal with. Though that didn't say much for my prowess and magnetic sex appeal, did it? So much for false hopes and crazy fantasies.

There was another thing, something that Kayla had reinforced since we'd reconnected—she wouldn't have left me without a word. Or at least a note.

My memories of the event began with seeing Kay in the hotel lobby just after lunch last Friday. My heart lurched, like old times, at the sight of her. As much as I wanted to deny it, she still made my blood run hot. There was a part of me that wanted to show her what a big man I'd become. Not only physically. I was a frigging billionaire. I wanted to show off. I still had her number. So what the hell? Very few women could resist me now that I was a billionaire.

I texted her, asking her for a drink. Two old friends catching up. No big deal in case she shot me down. Old insecurities died hard.

Like a balm on my vanity, she texted back immediately. As if her thumbs couldn't fly fast enough to type a message back to me. She was impressed. Clearly. And I was high on it.

She asked me to meet her at a bar up the street. She specified the time, seven p.m. Thinking back, I'd been euphoric. I was no longer the scrawny kid she remembered from college. I even fixed up. Combed my beard. Put on a decent shirt and some cologne. I waited, eagerly, impatient for her to show up. The minutes ticked by. Kay wasn't usually late. She didn't power-trip on guys like that, by making them sweat waiting for her.

I was sitting alone at the bar, looking for a table to open up. A blond woman took the stool next to me. My memories of her were hazy. She reminded me of Kay, in a cheap, gauzy way. I could almost still smell her overpowering perfume. My stomach clenched.

As hard as I tried, I couldn't conjure up a clear image of her face. Maybe I'd intentionally tried to forget her. It was clear now that her similarity to Kay had been intentional. She'd set out to con me.

I clenched my jaw, suppressing my growing anger. How much did she know about Kay from her phone? What the hell had Kay stored on it? What could her impersonator use against her and us? Kayla seemed unconcerned. But shit, that woman had had her phone for hours.

I stared at the phone in my hand, wishing I'd been able to get my hands on it earlier. My pulsed quickened at the thought of dissecting this thing. I hoped to see that imposter bitch's prints on it somehow. If not literally, then figuratively. Digitally.

I'd already had Magda bag up everything I'd taken with me on my trip and give it to the PI to dust for prints. So far, nothing.

Had the ID thief worked alone? Did she have an even greedier, more dangerous partner? Whatever the case, she was the only one who would have known to send that threatening text. I had to find her. Shut her down and keep her from talking.

First, I had to string her along as long as I could. I had to erase any evidence of marrying a phony. Any evidence that the girl I'd married wasn't the sweet, beautiful girl in my bed. The one I could barely keep my hands off.

I had to be sure there was no photographic or video evidence. No surveillance video of us anywhere. No way anyone could prove I hadn't married the real Kayla. I was reasonably certain my little thief was savvy enough to avoid as many cameras as possible. She was undoubtedly a professional. She would have kept her face hidden from the cameras.

Storing surveillance video for more than thirty to sixty days, ninety at most, was prohibitively expensive. I had to keep this under wraps for a
minimum
of thirty days. String her along if I had to. Ninety days and I would be golden. Totally in the clear. Any surveillance video would be overwritten by then. No business stored it longer than that. Then it would just be Kay's word and mine against this whore's. I hoped that ID thief didn't realize the same thing. Just what kind of IQ was I dealing with? Not a genius. She'd already screwed up.

But then, so had I.

I shuddered. Just what the hell had I done with that woman? Had I slept with her? Was she laughing at my inexperience? Should I be checked for sexually transmitted diseases? Would she suddenly reappear claiming to be pregnant with my baby?

Another month and I would be in the clear there, too.

The thought of her being pregnant with my kid made me sick. I leaned forward and put my head in my hand. She had to know that was a crazy plan. I would insist on a paternity test. Use every resource I had against her. She'd have to be insane to sleep with marks and not use birth control. Unless she'd known who I was. Then she might have tried to get pregnant. But that didn't seem like her MO.

If she'd wanted to catch me with a baby, why hadn't she stuck around? Why hadn't she married me under her real name? No, she had to have seen the news and realized her mistake in letting a big fish get away.

I kept thinking, I kept hoping, she'd just wanted to get into my room that night and steal what she could. She'd lifted ten thousand dollars from me. Money I'd won in the casino. I had a very good memory. I could count cards and read faces. Spot a tell a mile away. If the casinos knew, they would ban me. So I always played it carefully, losing a few times on purpose, and not getting greedy. Gambling was fun sport for me. I didn't want to lose the ability to play now and again.

Stealing from me? Whatever. Ten grand was chump change to me now. It was more the humiliation, being played for a fool, that sent me into a dangerous slow burn. I'd been bullied too much of my life to put up with any shit now. This bitch wasn't going to get away with pushing me around and trying to take my money. She wasn't smart enough to fool me again.

I wished I could remember something more. If the money hadn't been missing, I wouldn't have even been certain she'd been in my room.

There was another thing I was pretty sure of—she'd drugged my drink. I had all the classic symptoms, including memory loss.

How many other people had she tricked and stolen from? I had to find this woman. She had to have an online presence. I wasn't giving up until I found her. And then…I would put a stop to her.

I took a deep breath and stood. My home office had a secure server. Whatever I did there would be private. No one would know what I was up to. I would recognize the woman if I saw her again.

I took a deep breath and tried to think. I remembered flashes going off in the bar. People snapping pictures. There was a chance I'd accidentally photo-bombed someone's picture. And another smaller chance they'd caught both me and the woman in the same shot. With a clear enough view of her face to identify her. And posted the picture online somewhere. Okay, very long odds. But I was desperate.

My pulse raced as I thought through the implications. I calmed down as I realized that a picture of a girl and me sitting next to each other in a bar didn't prove I'd married her. She couldn't use that to convict me.

I would use my picture and facial-recognition software and see what I could find. If I could get a clear enough picture of her, I could use the same facial-recognition software to find her. I
was
going to find her. If I had to scour the entire Internet.

And when I did…

I turned my attention to Kay's phone.

K
ayla

I woke up at three a.m., cold from the blasting air conditioning, startled to see Jus in bed next to me. For an instant, before I spotted the beard, I thought he was Eric. It was almost instinctive to curl up to him for warmth. And yet part of me knew I was mad at Eric and he shouldn't be next to me in bed. I stopped myself just in time, temporarily confused. It was like that feeling you have sometimes when you're on vacation and you wake up in a strange room. And it takes you a sec to remember where you are. Now add in strange room
and
strange guy.

It took me a second to wake up enough to remember I was married. To Jus. I was startled as I realized I wasn't as disappointed that he wasn't Eric as I should have been. I'd spent the last six years thinking Eric was the love of my life. It was odd, but being with Justin was almost comforting.

His face was relaxed in sleep. He slept with his arm over his head. And his phone on the mattress between us? I did a double take. That was carrying staying connected a little too far. I leaned over and suppressed a laugh. Jus was running one of those sleep apps. He was such a data nerd.

His breathing was slow and even, not at all gasping, like I'd heard people with sleep apnea do. And he didn't snore. Why did he need this data?

The bed was big. Jus had been keeping to his own side. I slid closer to him and stealthily picked up the phone. What would it hurt to have a little fun with him? I shook the phone several times before returning it and sliding back to my side. Jus was a sound sleeper. He didn't even stir.

In the meantime, I was still cold. His bed had every amenity, including temperature control. I hadn't bothered learning how to operate it. I made a mental note to give it a try in the morning. To set the firmness of my mattress. My angle of repose. And the temperature, which I could set to come on and warm up the bed so it would be all cozy at bedtime. Since when had beds become so complicated?

I sighed and fell back on my pillow. Every aspect of life with a billionaire was complicated. I didn't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, Jus and his phone were already gone.

I got up, showered, dressed, and checked my phone out of habit. Two messages. First one from Jus:
At work. Didn't want to wake you when I left, sleepyhead. Left an envelope with some cash and ideas about a household/personal budget with Magda. We need to take care of some administrative things. Talk tonight. Have a good day. I love you, babe.

Babe? Did I hear sarcasm in that? He was taking this fakery to a whole new level by infiltrating my phone with sweet gushiness and ordinary, mundane domestic life details. And professions of love. Then again, it was probably smart and added authenticity to our deception. If a court ever subpoenaed my phone, we were good.

He had a good point—I needed a budget. Billionaire's wives didn't go around dressed in cheap clothes without a penny to their names. How was I supposed to jet-set without working capital?

I texted him back.
I love you more! Miss you already! Have the best day ever, sweetie. XOXO

I added a pair of kissy lips and three emoticon hearts and smirked at the utter junior highness of it. Jus would get the humor. I wondered if we could work out a code using hearts and sweet nothings. I laughed at the idea of my phone being full of beautiful love messages that really meant things like
Pick up a loaf of bread on your way home
.

The second message was from Brittany.
Free for lunch? You'd better be! Meet me at noon at…
She named one of our favorite restaurants near where she worked downtown. It would be crowded with her coworkers at lunch, but that was life.

I knew what she wanted—details. Ordinarily I would have jumped at the chance to lunch with her. Don't get me wrong. I wanted to see her. I just wasn't certain I was ready. Then again, there was that old saying,
There's no time like the present.
I was going to have to face her eventually. I texted back that I'd be there.

When I came out of the bedroom, Magda was banging around in the kitchen. Jus had been up late in his office. I was naturally curious about what he'd been doing in there. I had my suspicions. I hadn't been home much in our two days of married life, but when I was, the door was closed. Which, of course, made it all the more intriguing. What was he hiding in there? It was the one room he'd barely given me a glimpse of. It was closed this morning, too.

Magda smiled at me. "Mrs. Kayla, what can I get you?"

I hesitated. I wasn't used to being waited on. And though it was supposedly the most important meal of the day, I generally dashed off without eating breakfast. "Coffee. Caramel or hazelnut. Something flavored. And frothed milk and sugar. A piece of toast, maybe?"

She rattled off a selection of breads that would have given a restaurant a five-star rating.

"Whole wheat." I was trying to be healthy.

"Mr. Justin left an envelope for you on the counter." She pointed, ground her coffee fresh, sliced a hunk of bread, and popped it in the toaster.

I grabbed the envelope and tried not to gasp when I glanced inside and saw a thousand dollars in cash and a shiny new credit card. Not a black card, unfortunately. Jus evidently thought I needed a much lower credit limit. Maybe he was right to be cautious, haha. There was a sticky note attached to the credit card:
I added you to this account.

It was written in block letter print, like engineers use. Fairly neat. Legible, which was all that mattered. The sight of it made my pulse race and brought a smile to my face. There was something about Jus…

The toast popped up. Magda buttered it and set it before me on the counter along with a crystal bowl of fresh, homemade strawberry jam.

"Mr. Justin said strawberry is your favorite. The strawberry crop is good this year. I just made a large batch last week. Now that I know this, I'll make another this afternoon." Magda set a cup of coffee in front of me while I marveled that Jus remembered I loved strawberries, and strawberry jam was an absolute weakness of mine.

"Speaking of Mr. Justin," Magda said, "you need to take better care of him."

I looked at her, startled. Magda apparently held an old-fashioned view of marriage. Like somehow Jus was my charge. "How so?"

"He left the house wearing that ugly brown shirt of his and the greenish jeans he likes. It doesn't go together. Mr. Justin has no sense of color. I can't argue him out of wearing those colors together. Believe me, I've tried. He gets defensive. I know my place and value my job, so I keep my mouth shut now." She gave me a sly look. "You have more pull with him and a good sense of style."

She was obviously offering the olive branch, bonding with me by worrying over how Jus dressed and looked. She was so cute, almost motherly in her concern for his image.

"I can't change him." I meant it.

She arched an eyebrow.

I laughed. "
Much
. He was wearing mismatched colors?" I frowned.

"Yes, and after he looked so nice yesterday when you dressed him." She sighed. "You know what I think? I'm tempted to sew little tags in his clothes so he knows what goes with what. Like that children's clothing line from years ago when mine were small." She chuckled.

I didn't exactly dress him. An image flashed through my mind. Sliding an expensive, perfectly tailored shirt over his broad shoulders. I knew exactly the cut. Round armholes instead of the standard oval, for a slimmer fit across the chest. Buttoning mother-of-pearl buttons one by one up his hard chest. Lingering just enough to touch and tease him. An "accidental" touch here and there. Zipping the fly of handsewn slacks…

I felt myself flush. Great clothes and a good body were my weakness…

"It will be bad for his new image, and yours, if you let him slip out like that again." She sighed heavily.

Magda startled me out of my fantasy. Her tone was scolding. Clearly she thought I needed to get up and see him off properly. To take care of my guy. Living in a sorority house had taught me many things. Rule number one—never alienate the help. I needed Magda on my side.

"You're right!" I smiled at her. "We can't let him go out looking like…usual."

She smiled, pleased and satisfied with herself, as she nodded. "His business is known for its fashion and flair, and there is Mr. Justin in his sad, mismatching colors…" She shook her head.

Obviously unfashionable. I flashed her a conspiratorial smile, knowing full well I was being manipulated.

"You've shown me the light, Magda. Attacking his closet and, for lack of a better word, streamlining his wardrobe is now a priority on my list of things to do."

"You should go shopping for him, too." She busied herself wiping down the milk frother, tossing the comment off nearly under her breath.

She was good.

"I should go shopping for him," I said, as if it was all my idea. "Fun!"

"It will be a nice break from all the paperwork to change your name." She gave me a smile of complete sympathy.

I froze. "I—"

She waved a hand at me. "No one looks forward to it. I have seven nieces. One of them has been married three times. Changing your driver's license, your social security card, your passport, it's all a pain in the ass." She nodded. "But worth it, completely worth it in the end. The name Green carries weight. Opens doors. Mrs. Justin Green means something in this town. Any woman would be proud to take it." She puffed up her chest.

Magda was barrel-chested to begin with. I almost laughed at her puffery. She had a good point. I'd been so shocked at being married, I'd wanted to keep my name almost as a reflex. As if I needed to hang on to my identity. Only a few days in, though, she had me rethinking things. Damn! That woman was a master manipulator. A shiver slid down my back. Had she been a fly on the wall and heard me tell Jus as part of our agreement I didn't want to change my name?

"Um, yes." How erudite of me.

"You should get on it right away. No use putting it off. It doesn't get any easier. Dealing with government offices never does. The sooner you're officially Mrs. Green, the better for you."

Yes, she was right! Crap, she really had a good point.

Two could play the manipulation game. I wanted in to Justin's office, and she was my ticket. "Yes, you're right. I should tackle that after lunch. I'll be out for lunch. I'm meeting a friend."

She nodded.

"I'll need our marriage license, won't I? I think I left it in Justin's office."

I felt her watching me as I walked across the room and tried his office door. "It's locked."

She shrugged, as if she wasn't surprised. "It's always locked."

"You must have the key." Housekeepers always had the key.

She shook her head. "Sadly, no."

"But how do you clean in there if you can't get in?"

She wrinkled her nose. "I don't. He has valuable, delicate equipment in there. He doesn't like
anyone
touching it. Not even to dust it."

So
. A mystery. What was Jus hiding in there?

Magda smiled like she had my number. "Good news, though. I know where the license is, and it isn't locked up!" She opened a cupboard in the kitchen and pulled out an envelope. "He keeps his bills and important papers here." She handed me the license.

I took it back to my bedroom and held it in my shaking hands while I stared at the signature. It looked nearly identical to mine. Would it fool a handwriting expert, though? I wondered whether I should start trying to copy this fake.

I
met
Brittany at a combination pizza and biscuit place near the corporate campus where she worked. The restaurant concept sounded weird, but basically it was two, two, two restaurants in one. You could go to the biscuit half and get a biscuit topped with just about anything. Gravy. Ham and cheese. Fruit. You name it. Or the pizza half and have one of the best, and most unusual, pizzas in town. The place, as always, was packed with staffers from Britt's office. The crowd was mostly our age to early thirties. Some of the brightest, most ambitious people in the city.

Britt was a merch buyer for one of the world's largest online retailers. Housewares. They paid well, but they were demanding. You either performed or you were fired. A-minus performance was unacceptable. Every year after performance reviews, the lowest-rated workers were let go.

Britt had already lasted three years. The company had once been known for its innovative startup environment. That had faded before Britt joined. Now they were becoming mired in established business mentality. It wore on Britt. And housewares weren't really her thing. Like me, she was dying to get her hands on a young, trendy designer fashion brand. Both of us had majored in fashion merchandising in college, though at different universities. Rival cross-state universities. Somehow our friendship had survived it.

Britt was waiting for me. She had managed to grab a small table off the main aisle. She waved to me. I waved back and waded through the crowd to her. When I got to the table, she jumped up and hugged me with exuberance reserved for major happy life news.

"Look at you!" She held me at arm's length, studying me closely. "The beautiful new bride!"

I laughed. "Do I look married? That's a shame. How's life at the world's biggest store?"

"Hectic. Stressful. As always." Her smile was big. "But enough about me. Look at you! I want to know
everything
. And I mean every detail. I want the truth and nothing but." She gave me the same truth-piercing gaze she'd used since we were baby high school frosh. "First things first. Show me the ring!"

I held my left hand out and flashed Justin's Order of the Engineer ring at her as if it were a mega-carat diamond monstrosity, holding back a laugh.

"What the crap is that?" She grabbed my hand and pulled it to her face for a closer look. "Is that pot metal?"

I laughed. "Steel, I think."

She shook her head. "It goes without saying—I expected better from a billionaire. It looks like those rings engineers wear on their pinkies."