Winner Takes All (A Full Length Erotic Romance Novel) (20 page)

She stared up at him. “You do?”

He shook his head with the smallest of smiles. “I would be a poor
businessman indeed if I didn’t know how to send opportunistic rats scurrying
back to the dung heap they came from.”

Sudden tears started in her eyes and rolled down her face.
“I—really?”

“Really. You don’t have to worry about—”

A knock sounded on the door, interrupting the rest of what Damien
was going to say. He cursed softly. Looked at his watch.

“My office is damn lively for a Monday afternoon.” He kissed her
briefly on the mouth. “Let me see who this is so I can get rid of them and take
you out to lunch.” He lifted his head to face the door. “Come in.”

After a brief hesitation, the door opened and Michelle walked in.
The vet had her glasses perched on her nose, a collection of papers in her
hand, purpose in her stride.

“Sorry to interrupt, Damien. Sasha.” She greeted them with a brief
smile. “But we have a problem.”

As Damien crossed the room to take the papers from Michelle’s
hand, Sasha looked into her friend’s face, saw that whatever it was must have
been very serious indeed.

“I can go and leave you two to it,” Sasha said as she started to
walk toward the door.

“No, love.” Damien tossed the words casually over his shoulder.
“Have a seat for a few minutes would you, please. I’d like you to stay.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she went to the couch and sat down.
“Okay.” She pulled a magazine from the rack nearby and tried to pay attention
to the glossy pages.

The papers in Damien’s hands rustled as he read them. “This is
impossible,” he said. His voice was hard and tight.

“That’s what I thought too. But my office got an anonymous tip and
we had to follow up on it.”

Damien frowned at the papers as if he could incinerate them with
the power of his stare. “No one at Taylor Stables would do something like this.
I hire people with integrity. And everyone here knows the penalty I inflict for
dealing in this garbage.”

Michelle nodded, her glossy blonde hair moving over her shoulders
in a golden curtain. “I understand. Be that as it may, this report confirms
some details of the tip. Someone here at Taylor Stables had been doping
horses.”

Sasha gasped silently, unable to believe what Michelle had just
said. Even the most untrustworthy Taylor Stables employee would never do
something like that. They knew what was at stake. Their jobs. The stable’s
reputation. Their freedom.

“I’ll look into this, Dr. Wallace. Thank you for bringing this to
my attention.” Damien paused as he looked through the papers again. “Do what
you need to do as far as your reporting obligations. I’ll take care of this.”
He passed the papers back to her, instructing her to have copies made and put
on his desk as soon as she was able.

Tight-lipped, she nodded. Then after a slight wave at Sasha, she
left the office and closed the door behind her.

Damien’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “This doesn’t make any sense
at all. I can’t think of anyone who’d do something like that here.”

“There must be some sort of mistake,” Sasha said. “In all my years
here, that’s never been a problem. I can’t see any reason why that would crop
up now. Something is off about that accusation.”

“I agree.” Damien rapped his knuckles against his desk, staring
off into space. Then he shook himself. “We might not be able to have that lunch
after all,” he said.

“I understand. This is important.” She stood up and crossed the
room to press her lips briefly to his. “Maybe we can have dinner tonight and—”

She trailed off as the phone rang.

“Busy day. I just hope this isn’t more bad news.” Damien shook his
head, a tight smile on his lips. “Don’t leave yet,” he said as he picked up the
phone.

“Damien Taylor.”

Sasha tuned out the conversation as he talked, trying to decide if
she should take the pie away and put it in the kitchen for him to eat later.
Then something in Damien’s voice made her look at him. He was rigid behind the
desk, a look of disbelief on his face.

“Thank you, Mr. Davis.”

He said something else to the man on the other end of the phone
and then he hung up. He stared at Sasha. “That was one of the investigators
from the state police.” He paused. “They already know about the doping charges.
The same anonymous tipster probably contacted them the same time they reached
out to Michelle.”

Damien was talking but it seemed he wasn’t really paying attention
to the words coming from his mouth, but rather to something else. Like he was
trying to figure out a puzzle.

Something is very wrong.
Sasha crossed the room to
stand on the other side of his desk. Her fingers gripped the edge of the
polished wood desk. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it
again.

Damien frowned down at the phone before looking back up at Sasha.
“They’re looking into Taylor Stables as the source of the doping. The
investigation is focusing on you in particular, Sasha.”

Her mouth dropped open. “What?!”

Sasha stared at Damien, unable to believe
what he just said. They were investigating her for doping horses? Her? She
wanted to leap across the desk into his arms, begging him to believe that she
would never do something like that. But the sudden rise of an irrational fear
held her bolted to the floor across from Damien. She gripped the edge of his
desk as she sagged against it, staring at him.

“I—I’d never do something like that!” she
gasped. “You’ve got to believe me.”

“Of course you wouldn’t,” Damien said. “That
thought never even crossed my mind.”

He came to her immediately, pulled her into
his arms, and resting a gentle hand at the back of her head. His heartbeat
thumped loudly beneath her ear. Or was it the sound of her own runaway pulse,
frightened that the police would take her away simply for just being who she
was? Her brother’s sister. Her parents’ daughter.

Her lover’s tender caress didn’t wipe the
thought of her own tainted nature from her mind. She’d just confessed that she
had come from some of the worst kinds of people in the world. That her brother
was blackmailing her for nearly every dime she made, and she’d kept the truth
of these things from Damien and basically everyone she cared about. How could
he not believe she was guilty of the doping she was being accused of? Sasha’s
fingers curled tight in the fabric of Damien’s suit jacket.

“I know what you’re thinking.” He made
soothing motions against her back, kissed the top of her head. “Don’t,” he
said. “Where you come from does not determine where you will end up.”

Damien put a finger under her chin and gently
tilted her face up to look at him. “You’re a woman I’ve come to know and trust
in so many ways. The time we’ve spent together, the things we’ve done, the
person you’ve shown me to be, none of these things tells me I’ve placed my
trust in the wrong person.”

Tears started in Sasha’s eyes. Her lower lip
trembled and a wet tickle started behind her nose. Through the sheen of tears,
she saw Damien’s blue, blue eyes. The faith and trust that shone from them as
brightly as a beacon on the shore of a stormy, night-black sea. “I know you,
Sasha Cormick,” he said. “And you’d never do something like this.”

The tears fell. She sobbed and clung to him,
the stress of the last few weeks boiling over and spilling out through her
cries. In one swift movement, Damien lifted her into his arms and took her to
the couch. He sat with her on his lap, silent and patient as she cried into his
shirt front, the ugly and endless sounds falling from her lips.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a long moment.
She sniffled, wiped her palms across her damp face. “I don’t usually act like
this. I promise.”

“I know your strength, darling. You have
nothing to apologize for.” His hand soothed her back while he looked into her
face, his eyes piercing and unblinking. “We all have moments when we need to
lean on another person, if only for a little while.” A smile touched his lips.
“I’m honored that you have enough trust in what we have to lean on me.”

A steady warmth blossomed in Sasha’s chest.
Radiating out and through her until she was filled with it, comforted by it.
She sniffled again, settled back into Damien’s arms. “Thank you.”

“You have nothing to thank me for yet.” A
touch of amusement colored his voice. “I still need to find out who’s making
these accusations against you. And also who the hell is doping our horses.” The
humor left his voice, leaving it cold and hard. “Whoever this bastard is, he’s
going to regret the day he crossed me.”

Lying against his chest, Sasha shivered. She
almost felt sorry for whoever it was that dared to mess with Damien and his
business. Almost.

There were investigators crawling all over
Taylor Stables and all over Sasha’s life. Although they wore plain clothes and
were polite, she still felt as if they – the intimidating and stern men and
women who appeared on the grounds almost overnight – looked at her with
suspicion whenever she ran into them. Which, in turn, made all her co-workers,
who hadn’t so much as blinked when they found out about her and Damien, begin
to look at her with an unpleasant, speculating look on their faces.

She knew she hadn’t done anything, but that
didn’t stop her from feeling guilty about her past and thinking that it was
something about her that made the investigators’ suspicion gravitate toward
her. And even if there had been no real reason for them to suspect her, once
they found out about her past, they would be sure to look at her even more
strongly for the crime. They might even make up the facts of her guilt,
figuring that someone who came from such a poisonous tree obviously had to be
rotten to the core as well.

Because of this discomfort, this feeling of
constantly being under the microscope, Sasha only came to the stables to do her
job, work with Linc as needed, then quickly drive back to her little apartment
and wait for the suspicion to fall away from her. Damien was busy trying to
find out who the culprit was. Looking through paperwork, questioning the staff,
checking records of the horses’ feeding schedules, medications, and
performances. He’d discovered nothing, but he vowed not to stop until something
fruitful came to light. Because of his preoccupation with clearing her name and
the name of Taylor Stables, Sasha had barely seen him.

She’d spent the night with him just a few
days before, but he had been too distracted to lie in bed beside her, instead
going through stable files and records until nearly five o’ clock in the
morning. Even after he put the papers away, he’d only gone to take a shower and
get dressed, saying his mind was too preoccupied for him to sleep. Sasha knew
exactly what he meant. As he’d worked into the night, feverishly dissecting the
records on paper and on the computer, Sasha had envied the fact that he was
able to do
something
. She felt completely helpless in the situation,
able only to wait and see what another day would bring.

It was near the end of another long day. The
sweat still coated Sasha’s face and neck, dampened the line of her back under
her shirt and jacket. Bits of hay stuck to her face and arms, making her itch.
She left the practice track and walked heavily toward the locker rooms then the
stable showers. She was hot, tired, frustrated. The entire process with the
investigators was going so slowly. The pain of the investigation was just as
bad as James and his blackmail. Both wore on her nerves. Both made her question
how people would now see her.

She turned the corner in the large,
air-conditioned building, grateful for the blast of A/C on her skin. With a
sigh, she adjusted the bag over her shoulders while her booted feet sounded
against the wooded floors.

“There you are!”

She stopped short and looked up to see
Michelle walking down the hallway toward her. The vet was wearing her street
clothes. Jeans, a pink t-shirt, ballet flats. She had her glasses on properly
today, perched on her small nose, while her blonde hair, even at the end of the
day, was still elegantly piled on top of her head. She looked beautiful.
Relieved.

When Michelle reached Sasha, she quickly
pulled her into a strong hug. Sasha held onto her, feeling the prick of tears.
But she fought them away.

“Hey,” she said softly to her friend.

“I’ve been looking for you all week,”
Michelle said as she pulled back from their hug.

Sasha shrugged, the bag shifting on her
shoulder. “I’ve been here this whole time.”

“Of course, you always know how to find yourself.”
A small smile moved across her friend’s face. “But I’ve been trying to find you
ever since this whole thing started. I feel like you’re here but I never get
the chance to see you by yourself.”