His girls. The harem his father had sent him.
"Those kids are going to be the death of you, Khalid."
Khalid shook his head. "I promised them Christmas shopping this weekend." He almost shuddered. "Six women under twenty, Chase. You should join us. Perhaps I will require you as my third this weekend."
Chase stared back at him. Khalid didn't have a sexual relationship with the girls his father had sent him for his harem. They were like cherished siblings that Khalid spoiled unmercifully. But a shopping trip with those hellions?
"Don't make me kill you, Khalid," he suggested with a hint of fear. Because Khalid wasn't above using blackmail, bribes, or threats when it came to procuring male company during those shopping trips.
Khalid grinned. "You will contact the judiciary committee then?" he asked as the limo pulled into the basement parking lot of the building where Chase had a large upstairs apartment.
"Yeah. First thing." Chase nodded. Anything to get out of that shopping trip. Anything to protect Kia.
Khalid chuckled as the chauffeur opened the door and Chase bounded out of the limo. Once the door closed and the chauffeur was pulling away, Khalid slid open the partition between the driver and passenger areas.
"Was the fuel bill sufficient to raise father's eyebrows, do you think?" he asked Abdul with a hint of amusement.
Abdul's smile flashed in the rearview mirror. "Not yet, Mr. Khalid."
Abdul always smiled.
"Hmm. Perhaps our next trip then."
Abdul laughed at the remark. Khalid headed through the snow toward the estate his father had deeded to him the year before.
The old bastard was desperate to get in Khalid's good graces for some reason that Khalid had yet to understand.
The girls who had arrived two years before still had the power to enrage Khalid. They had all been under eighteen, terrified, bought from their families and sent to a foreign land and a man who refused to do what they were taught was his duty. Take them to his bed.
He ground his teeth at the thought.
They were young women now, adjusting to their studies, their lives. Soon, perhaps, he could find them husbands. That was his duty, as though they were his children. And in many ways, this was how the relationship between them had evolved.
It wasn't his girls who concerned him now, though. It was his friend, Chase. The past months had been a nightmare. After the attempted murder of Cameron, Chase's twin, and Jaci, Cam's fiancée, by a friend Chase had been rather fond of, the other man had become darker, more apt to solitary pursuits than normal.
The Brockheims, parents of the girl who had nearly destroyed the fabric of Chase's life, hadn't taken her death well. Nor did they believe the fabrication the detective on scene had attempted to tell—that he himself had killed the girl after she shot Congressman Roberts.
The club members were still scrambling to protect Chase and Cameron against any measures the Brockheims would take against them. Not that they seemed to be taking any. But Khalid considered himself an intuitive man. And intuition told him two things.
One, Chase Falladay had never managed to rid himself of the fascination he had with Kia Rutherford. The second, and this one was by far the more worrisome, Moriah Brockheim could very well haunt Chase from the grave, in ways that could end up destroying Chase.
Moriah had been a friend, but she had also touched Chase's heart with her innocence and her air of fragility. Kia Rutherford had been off limits to Chase because she touched his heart. But Khalid knew that Chase had entertained thoughts of a relationship with Moriah because, despite his affection for her, Moriah wasn't the type of woman who could tempt his emotions.
It was saddening, remembering Moriah. For all her gentle ways, she had been insane. She had seen Cam and Jaci as a threat because Jaci had known what the Roberts were. That their sexuality was darker even than that of the members of the club, and Moriah's demented love for Annalee Roberts had driven her to attempt to kill, Cam and Jaci.
To protect his brother, Chase had had no choice but to kill Moriah before she pulled the trigger on the gun she had held on Cam. That death haunted Chase, and it had caused him to draw back from forming other attachments.
Chase had killed a woman he cared for. Now he was faced with a relationship with the woman he loved. Khalid knew that releasing that guilt and his emotions wouldn't be easy for Chase.
"Get decent, dammit. I'm getting hungry," Chase called downstairs as he opened the door that connected his apartment to the apartment his brother and Jaci inhabited now.
He heard Jaci's laughter and a few seconds of scrambling before she moved into view, smiling up at him from the foot of the stairs.
She had a robe tightly belted around her. He'd have to make do with that. For the first time in the two months since he and Cameron had silently come to the agreement that Cameron was no longer the sharing type, Chase hadn't gotten instantly hard at the memories of the women he and Cameron had shared so easily.
Well, perhaps not easily, Chase amended to himself as he moved down the stairs.
Jaci had managed to get under his brother's guard, though, now just as she had when they were both younger.
"Morning, gorgeous." He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and planted a kiss on top of her head. "Tell me breakfast is almost ready. Please."
She snorted at that and pushed him away from her playfully as she shot him a dark look. "That's the only time you come down here now, when you think there's food."
He grinned, finding his brother sitting comfortably on a new couch as he laced his boots and laughed at his fiancée.
"Pancakes would be really good," Chase told her, then ducked, dodging the dish towel she threw his way.
Chase moved to the counter, poured a cup of the fresh coffee, and smothered a yawn before moving to the couch to join his brother.
It was barely nine, and sleep had been a long time coming after Khalid dropped him off that morning.
"We didn't hear you come in last night, Chase." Jaci was pulling ingredients out of the fridge and cabinet as she spoke. "Did Khalid keep you out at the bars all night long?"
"Not too late." He shrugged, sitting back to drink his coffee. "The sheik threw a fit over the new limo languishing in the garage, so Khalid took it out to see how long it would take to run out two tanks of gasoline."
"All of an hour?" Cameron snorted.
Chase almost laughed. "It took him a while."
"I thought you would show up at the party last night," Jaci announced, still putting together the pancake batter. "The charity auction made quite a bit for the women's and children's shelter."
The same party Kia had been at, Chase knew. Khalid had mentioned seeing her when he picked Chase up at the apartment.
"Not me." Chase shook his head. "I donated to the cause, though."
"The Brockheims were there." Cameron kept his voice low as he stared back at Chase. "They stayed with a very small group of friends and left the group as Jaci and I came through. They didn't stay long."
Everyone was watching Harold and Margaret Brockheim at the moment. Especially the members of the club. Harold Brockheim was the president of a major bank in the city, and he had taken his daughter's death hard. He was accusing the Roberts of corrupting her, but so far there had been no mention of Cameron or Chase.
Chase didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. He had killed Moriah. It had come down to killing her or allowing her to murder Cameron as he watched.
"Carl will deal with it," he finally said. "The detective has filed his official report, as has the coroner. The detective's bullet was ruled the cause of death."
"Annalee and Richard Roberts have attempted to smooth it over as well." Cameron nodded. "But Margaret Brockheim, it seems, has disowned her stepsister, Annalee. The notices were in the papers the other night."
Chase's jaw tensed. For all the trouble Richard and Annalee had caused them personally, he still felt sorry as hell for the woman. She had loved her niece Moriah.
Chase glanced back at Jaci. She was quiet, her head bent to the preparation of the pancakes, her expression somber. Chase's lips thinned at the look on her face. She hadn't deserved the working over Moriah had given her over the years or the deceptions used in the attempt to destroy her.
He stared back at his brother, his expression hard. He would talk to a few members of the club when he went to the mansion this weekend. He needed to speak to them about Kia anyway. Protecting Jaci and Kia was paramount.
"I also had a call last night after the party." Cameron suddenly grinned.
Chase's brow lifted.
"You were seen leaving that little corner bar. Someone says you carried Ms. Kia Rutherford right into Khalid's limo. I thought you had better sense than that, Chase. She nearly brought the club down single-handedly when she threw Drew out."
Chase finished his coffee before leveling a silencing look at his brother.
"Someone was misinformed, I'm sure," he finally growled.
Cameron grinned as Chase rose and moved back to the coffeepot.
"I'm going to kick your boyfriend's ass again," he warned Jaci.
She gave her boyfriend a hooded, sexy look. "Don't hurt him too bad, huh? I'm still enjoying that tough body of his."
He grunted at that, took his coffee, and moved to the sliding doors that opened onto the deck. It was still snowing. The white fluff had piled on the ground, snowplows were reported to be already working overtime, and still it fell.
It had been six months since Chase had learned how easily a woman could fool him, and still he wondered if he had learned that lesson clear to his soul. Because the more he stood there, staring into the cold, the more he wished he had stayed with Kia and kept them both warm.
He turned and stared at the brightly lit, decorated tree, sipped his coffee and called himself a thousand kinds of fool. He should have stayed. He should have wrapped himself around her, and maybe then he wouldn't be staring into the swirling snow this morning and wondering if she was warm. And maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have been cold himself.
Could the girl, Kia Rutherford, be the tool?
He watched through the binoculars from the window of a nearby apartment with a view at Chase Falladay's living room. There Chase stood, staring pensively at the snow that fell outside, snow that thickened and had once filled his own world with magic.
There was no magic left in his world, though. All the pleasure had slowly been sucked out of it, and Chase was to blame.
His gaze narrowed as he watched Chase and he knew it was Chase. Cameron was slightly broader, his walk slightly different. He could understand why the Rutherford girl was so fascinated with him. Or was it him? He would have to watch, wait, just a little longer. He had to be certain before he made his move. As much as he hated Khalid, still Khalid had done nothing to invoke his wrath. He was a despicable creature, but still, beneath notice. If the woman belonged to Khalid, then she wasn't a tool.
But it had been Chase who had carried her to the limo. Chase had walked up to her apartment with her. It was Chase now staring into the snow as though some problem weighed on his shoulders. A man only had such a look when a woman was involved.
No, the Rutherford bitch had to belong to Chase.
Watch. Wait. He cautioned himself to do this properly. There was no room for error. One mistake would tip off Falladay, and he couldn't afford that. Just a little warning, he cautioned himself. Just a little longer, and vengeance would be his.
Chapter 4
A week later, Kia stood with her parents, Timothy and Celia Rutherford.
Her father's company was one of the major benefactors of the charity function. Rutherford Logistic Solutions had joined Delacourte-Conovers, an electronics research and development firm, to throw a benefit party for several of the organizations they contributed heavily to.
