Exposing the Heiress Read online

  Ignoring that comment, something kicked in Hunt’s chest as Alyssa walked through the door. The girl he remembered had been filled with vibrant color, but the woman before him sucked his breath from his chest. Her dark hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail, her makeup-free face had carved away childhood roundness to sculpted cheekbones and full lips. Her round eyes were framed in sooty lashes. She wore a casual T-shirt that slid over tantalizing breasts, and jeans that molded to her hips and thighs.

  She looked nothing like the glossy photos of her that turned up in the media.

  No, this woman walked straight out of his dreams. Every single nerve twanged in reaction. His blood simmered. Hunger gnawed low in his belly, growing with every heartbeat into a shocking pool of need.

  Never had this happened. Ever. Oh, he’d had instant lust, but this… What the hell? Lyssie, well Alyssa now, was his little sister’s friend. He’d practically seen her grow up. Even with the air of tension and worry riding her, and the dark circles staining the delicate skin under her brown eyes, she was gorgeous. “Alyssa.”

  Her eyes scanned the office and landed on him. Her mouth curved in a smile he remembered so well, one side tilting up slightly more than the other. “Hunt.”

  Her voice took him back to those summers, tossing the girls in the pool because it’d made them squeal. Making s’mores with them in the evenings out at the fire pit. It reminded him of a lighter era. But in those days, her voice had never pulled at something low in his guts. Oh, he’d known she was pretty, but she’d been a kid. Now she was a beautiful woman.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”

  Coming to a stop a foot or two away, he resisted the urge to pull her into a hug and shield her from that troubled look dulling the specks of gold in her brown eyes.

  Sienna cleared her throat. “Miss Brooks, I’m Sienna Lorrey. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Nice to meet you. Call me Alyssa.”

  He focused on his job, not the slew of regrets seeing Alyssa stirred up. “What brings you here?”

  That spark in her eyes died out. She shifted her weight and twisted her fingers together. “I need help.”

  A warning shot fired in his brain. “What kind of help?”

  She glanced around. “Kind of hard to explain.”

  Only minutes had passed, and already the old feelings of protectiveness he’d developed when she was a kid tangled with a newer more complex reaction. Hoping to put her at ease, he touched her shoulder. “I told you once, if you ever need me, I’d be there.”

  “You remember that?”

  “I don’t forget promises.” It had been at her mother’s funeral, and he’d wanted to scoop her up and take her home where she could finish growing up with his parents and sister to look out for her, since Hunt had to go back to duty in the Marines.

  She’d been seventeen then, and her stepfather had been named her guardian. Alyssa seemed okay with that, or as okay as she could be given that she just lost her mom in a tragic accident. But now? Her eyes bled fear which pissed him off. Time to get to work. Laying his hand on her lower back, he glanced at Si. “We’ll be in the conference room.” He led her to a short hallway, trying to ignore her softness beneath his hard palm and her scent of vanilla and sunshine.

  He stopped at the door on his left and tugged his hand back. Gesturing to the oblong table that stretched across the center of the room, he said, “Take any seat you like.” After snagging his tablet, he took a place across from her. “Do you need anything before we get started? Water? Coffee?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know where to start. And telling you…” She looked up at the ceiling.

  “What?”

  Alyssa pulled her mouth tight, lowered her chin and faced him. “That summer when I was fourteen, I had a crush on you.”

  His mouth quirked. “I know.” He was a guy, of course he knew, but he’d been twenty then and careful to treat her like his sister. “But that has nothing to do with now.” She’d grown up.

  “It’d help if you’d gotten fat or were going bald.”

  That startled a laugh from him. Oh yeah, this was Alyssa. She’d always been funny. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “It’s okay, I’ll deal with it. I’m tough like that.”

  Was she? Because from where he sat she looked lonely, something he understood all too well. “I heard that you’re engaged.” He glanced at her finger. No ring.

  Alyssa rubbed her thumb over the bare digit. “Not anymore. I took the ring off last night.” She leaned forward, folding her hands together on the table. “Right after I discovered that my stepfather is paying Nate Madden to marry me.”

  “Paying him? Why would he have to pay any man to marry you?” That didn’t make any sense. She was gorgeous, rich, and powerful. A thousand questions stacked up in his brain.

  Her shoulders sagged. “To keep me doing what I’m doing.”

  Hunt was trying to follow. “Aren’t you running your mother’s company?” He had to amend that. “Your company now.”

  “Not just mine, it belongs to me and Parker, but it’s my face, name, and perceived fame that keeps the company growing. I hate it, and both Parker and Nate know it.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “In the beginning, I did it for Parker. When my mom died, it all fell to him. He struggled for the first couple years. People were pulling away, unsure if he could carry the company. Without Jenna Brooks, the trust and faith that are so crucial in entertainment were gone. The company slipped into the red.” She sighed. “I couldn’t let my mother’s company fail so I began doing appearances representing Dragon Wing. By the time I finished college, I had a corner office at Dragon Wing Productions, the name president on my door, and a full itinerary of travel and events.”

  Hunt leaned back, studying her. What really drove her to stay doing something she didn’t like? “So walk away. You’re not trapped in a job trying to feed your kids or pay the electric bill.”

  She flinched. “That was my plan. Marry Nate, have a child, and then I’d fade away to work on my photography, but then I found out that wasn’t going to happen either.”

  There was a sadness about her that was like an itch on his skin. The only time Hunt felt much of anything was during sex or sculpting, but this girl… Something about her was getting to him. “Go on.”

  “I can’t believe how naive, how dumb I was.” She shook her head. “Dragon Wing became profitable again and rising. At that point I wanted out, to become a silent partner.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “Nate. Parker hired him as the vice president of business and legal affairs. It started small, Parker would ask me to go with Nate to a cocktail party. Nate would tell me how Parker had invested every last penny into the company, and if we worked together, we could help him succeed. How the company was everything to my stepfather since he’d lost my mom.” She bit her lip. “My mom left Parker a few million, but the bulk of her wealth came to me and I felt guilty. Responsible. Mom loved Parker…so I did it. At first, we set up these ‘dates’ for the media to catch us on. But before I knew it, Nate and I were truly dating.”

  Warning bells clanged in his head. Alyssa had grown up rich and sheltered, she was whip-smart, but all things considered, it wouldn’t be that hard for a skilled manipulator to get control. Hunt had seen it happen over and over.

  “Then we started talking about marriage and children, and I fell for it, never realizing my stepfather was paying him as part of some plan the two of them cooked up to keep me on as the face of Dragon Wing.” Her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared. “I overheard Nate the other day tell Parker he’d had a vasectomy years ago.”

  Talk about underhanded. “Okay, so you broke up with him. What is it you want from me?” It sounded more like she needed a lawyer.

  She leveled her gaze on him. “Protection. I’ve broken off our engagement and quit Dragon Wing. I need to get out of L.A. for a while and I want to hire you as my bodyguard
.”

  A buzz of fury lit up his veins. “Has Nate ever hurt you? Are you afraid of him?” She must be if she wanted to leave town.

  Her eyes clouded. “Not until last night. He shoved me in the elevator, and told me I will marry him and made threats. Not just against me, but also…” She sucked in her lips, angry color splashing over her cheeks.

  Hunt fisted his hands as adrenaline powered into his veins. What had the bastard done to her? He didn’t see any marks. But—

  “He threatened my son.”

  Chapter Three

  “You have a kid?”

  Alyssa immediately looked around, her compelling need to keep the boy safe and protected rising to the surface. All these years, she’d only told one person about him. But what did she expect—paparazzi to leap out from behind a hidden wall and hear this amazing scoop that Alyssa Brooks had a child and kept it secret? She took a breath and looked at the man across from her.

  Hunt. The years had carved away all traces of the boy into a hard man. His sandy-colored hair was longer than the military-short cut she’d last seen him with. But the careless, finger-combed length did nothing to soften the hard angles of his face, or the frost in his light blue eyes. She dragged her gaze over his shoulders straining the material of his T-shirt, and the muscles and tendons bulging along his biceps…and oh, there was beautiful script flowing out from the arm of his shirt.

  “Alyssa.”

  He snapped out her name like a command, yanking her stare up. “Not anymore.” Tell him. “I gave him up for adoption the day he was born.” Just saying the words swept her back seven years to that morning in the cold hospital room. She had held her newborn son in her arms and felt her heart breaking crack by painful crack.

  She hadn’t wanted to give him up, but she’d loved him too much to saddle him with a teenaged, grief-and-guilt-ridden mother. Beneath the conference table, Alyssa pressed her fist into her belly over the small heart and tear tattoo she had there. The silence grew so thick it was hard to breathe. “His parents know I’m arranging protection for him, well for all of them.”

  “You’re hiring us to protect a baby you didn’t want?”

  His voice shot down that tiny hope in her that he’d understand. Support her. That she wouldn’t feel so damned alone and scared. “Nate threatened to hurt me and Eli.” At Hunt’s confused expression, she said, “Eli is the name his adopted parents gave him, and I’m willing to pay anything to keep Eli and his parents safe.” She’d sacrificed part of her heart to give that boy a good life. “Disapprove of me all you want, but that boy is only seven years old.”

  “Seven. That would have made you seventeen when you had him.”

  Where was he going with this? “Yes.”

  “So when your mom died…”

  God. She didn’t want to go back to those memories. “I was two months pregnant.”

  Something flickered in his eyes, a streak of sympathy maybe? Or was she just reaching?

  “Oh, hell, Lyssie.” His old nickname for her slipped out. “Why didn’t you tell my mom? Or Erin. My sister was your best friend and you cut her out.”

  Tell them? She’d been in total shock from the accident that killed her mom. Gritting her teeth, she said, “None of that matters now. What is important is that Eli’s safe.” She repeated everything Nate had said, his ultimatum that she marry him, and ended with his final threat after showing her the picture of her son. “I know exactly where he is, every minute of every day. Play your part, and I’ll leave him alone. Fuck me over, and I’ll hurt him. Then you.” Taking a breath, she added, “I don’t want to go to the police. Nate will just deny that he made a threat. And once I make a police report about Eli’s existence, the media could pick it up and that would open a whole can of worms.” Looking Hunt in the eyes, she asked, “Will Once A Marine take on the case or not?” And if they didn’t, then what?

  “I have a few questions.”

  Fighting a wave of impatience, she nodded.

  “Does your stepfather know you had a baby?”

  She shook her head. “No. I was afraid he’d make me have an abortion, and he was too wrapped up in trying to save Dragon Wing to notice. Although Nate may have told him by now.”

  “Then how’d you give the baby up with no one knowing?”

  Focus on the details, not the painful memories. “Our longtime housekeeper, Carmen, figured out I was pregnant and took me to Arizona where we stayed with her family. Carmen told Parker she was getting me away from the media attention that wouldn’t let up after the accident and my mom’s death. He was glad to have me gone and never realized there was more to it.”

  He typed something into his iPad. “You gave him up in Arizona?”

  It was all a blur—until he was born. Those hours were vivid. “Yes, I hired a private adoption attorney, and through her found the couple, Mark and Janis. We screened a lot of people, but they were perfect.”

  “Did the kid’s father agree to the adoption? Or did you even tell him?”

  Alyssa studied the mahogany table. “I told him. He came over to break up with me because he was leaving on tour. He was in a boy band. His name is Scott Pierson. He was upset and wanted me to get rid of it.” She fisted her hands. “Anyway, he signed the papers and I haven’t talked to him since then. He doesn’t even know who adopted Eli.”

  Long beats of silence passed. “Did you tell Nate where the boy is?”

  The fear she’d lived with all night burned in her gut. “No, I only told him that I had Eli and gave him up after he asked me to marry him. Eli’s in my will, so Nate had to know. I never told him where Eli and his parents are now, but he obviously found out. I saw the picture of him.”

  “Which is where? Are you sure it was Eli?”

  She couldn’t hold Hunt’s gaze and stared over his shoulder at the gray wall. “He’s in Scottsdale, Arizona. I get pictures and an email once a year, no other contact unless there is a problem.” She swallowed. “It’s him. I know his face better than my own. Nothing matters more than protecting Eli and his family. Nate has someone watching the family, and we need to find out who and make it stop. Nate left this morning for Europe for a week. I’m hoping that gives us a little time before he does something truly awful.” Alyssa dug her fingers into her palms as her desperation rose. “Will you help me? Keep Eli and me safe?”

  He pushed the iPad aside and stacked his hands. “Your ex fiancé is using the son you love to blackmail you into marrying him, and that kind of shit really pisses me off. We’ll get a team on Eli and his family.”

  “Thank you, that makes me feel better about Eli.” Alyssa admitted that she was scared for herself too. “But what about me? Will you be my bodyguard?”

  …

  Hunt got up and rounded the table, pulled to the girl he’d never forgotten. He was still reeling that she’d had a baby. And had then given him up.

  When he’d come home from the Marines, he’d seen Alyssa on TV and thought she’d taken to the rich and powerful life, leaving the remnants of her other life behind, that she’d forgotten them.

  But now? She took his breath away. A young woman who fought this hard to protect the child she hadn’t seen in seven years, other than in pictures, wasn’t shallow and vain. This woman touched places in him best left alone.

  No way would he let someone else protect her. Dropping into the chair next to her, he took in the dark shadows under her eyes. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

  “No. I was too worried and was trying to figure out what to do.”

  In her desperation she’d come to him. That sealed his decision. “You were my little sister’s best friend. You’re not a job and I’m not taking money to protect you.” Unable to resist, he touched her shoulder. That contact zinged through him, sending sparks into the cold darkness he’d been living in for years. “Instead, I’m taking you home to Sonoma. I installed the security system, and you’ll be safe there.”

  Hope lit up her eyes. “The vineyard? Wait,
maybe your parents won’t want me there. If anyone finds out I’m there, the place will be swarmed with reporters.”

  This was what she had lived all these years. “I own the place now. My parents stay there when they want to, but right now, they’re in Scotland.”

  Her expression softened. “There’s no place else I’d rather go.”

  In that second, with Lyssie looking at him like he was her own personal hero, he knew he was in trouble. No, he could do this. He’d treat her like he always had.

  Like a kid sister.

  …

  Alyssa caught her breath as they drove through the wrought iron gates into the small vineyard.

  It was like coming home. A sensation so powerful, her eyes burned and her chest ached. Here she’d been happy. Oh, she’d been happy with her mom too, but here in Sonoma, the stress and pressures of her mom’s fame never touched them. Even when Jenna came to visit Alyssa on weekends during the summers, the press didn’t bother them. Both her mother and Alyssa could just be themselves.

  Blinking away the sheen of tears, she took in the sinking sun casting a golden orange light over the green vines lining the narrow road. Unable to resist, she rolled down her window. The damp air carried a sweet, slightly citrusy and sensual fragrance. “Do you still sell the grapes to wineries?”

  “Yep.”

  They crested a hill and the one-story Mediterranean house came into view, looking very much as she remembered it. Once he parked, she jumped out and headed to the bottom of the stairs to touch the whale sculpture rising out of a left pillar. At the top and on the right was a lion guarding the terrace. Alyssa couldn’t resist tracing the details of the creature’s mane.

  “It’s not alive. It’s stone.” Hunt smirked at her as he carried the bags past her.

  “Ha ha. Don’t be mean. You get to see these whenever you want. Your dad’s amazing at carving stone into shapes that look so real.” She took in the gray flagstone terrace lined with low palm trees and flowers, then she rotated and holy crap, the stunning vision of gently rolling hills covered in vines captured her.