Jaci breathed in deeply as Moriah headed to the kitchen and she stepped into the study.
Annalee was as beautiful as ever. Long black hair that flowed to the middle of her back, gracefully arched brows and blue eyes. She was slender but not skinny. The soft, pale peach silk dress she wore emphasized the golden hue of her flesh. It also made her appear almost innocent. A far cry from the black leather, stilettos, and whip she had worn that night so long ago.
In contrast, Richard appeared confident, aloof. Almost aristocratic. The aristocracy was spoiled by the hint of nervousness in his eyes and the sheen of sweat on his brow.
“Margie isn’t here?” Jaci looked around, wondering where their secretary was lurking. The one who had been sheened with sweat and sex that night, her dark eyes wild with lust.
“Margie isn’t needed here.” Annalee leaned against the desk at the side of the room, her hands braced on the walnut top behind her. “There was no sense in upsetting her. Margie can be delicate sometimes.”
Margie was as delicate as a barracuda, but Jaci understood the other woman’s hardness as she thought about Moriah’s experience with the Robertses.
“Yeah, that happens when you mess with a kid’s head,” Jaci snapped. “Tell me, Annalee, did you choose Margie when she was a teenager, too?”
Annalee blinked at her in surprise. “Sorry, Jaci, but I don’t do teenagers,” she sneered. “Strange, I didn’t expect you to resort to lies after all these years.”
Jaci snorted at that. “I wouldn’t dare try to fight you on those grounds, Annalee. I can accede to the fact that you’re by far the best liar here. So I will stick to the truth. And if teenagers aren’t your style, then how do you explain Moriah?”
Annalee looked to Richard with an expression of confusion. That look sent her stomach sinking. Something was off, either it was genuine confusion, or they had to know they were being taped. Had Moriah given the game away somehow?
“Moriah is an adult, Jaci, and a very good friend of Annalee’s. There’s a difference between a friend and a lover,” Richard finally said. “And we’re not here to discuss the whys and wherefores of our personal lives. If that’s why you called this meeting, then we’re all wasting our time.”
Why she had called the meeting?
“What?” She stared at both of them in confusion. “I didn’t call a damned thing.”
“Look, Jaci,” Annalee’s delicate voice flowed over her protestation. “I regret we had to take the steps necessary to ensure that nothing you said against us was ever believed. I can understand it’s been frustrating to you over the years. But we’ve always made certain to compliment your design abilities, to send clients your way. There are rules to the little skirmish we’re involved in. Rules we’ve all had to abide by.”
That flash of regret had to be a lie, Jaci thought as she watched the emotion wash through Annalee’s eyes. Who the hell were these people, and what happened to Richard and Annalee Roberts?
“You two are certifiable.” She shook her head at the sight before her. “Excuse me, Annalee, you’ve told everyone for years that I tried to steal from you, that I was a home wrecker, but you say you regret it? Why don’t I believe that?”
Richard breathed out heavily. “Because you don’t understand the world you’re stepping into,” he told her impatiently. “We accept responsibility for the situation.”
Well now, wasn’t that just big of him?
“You tried to rape me, Richard. You, your wife, and your demented little secretary,” Jaci snapped, her voice full of fury. “Excuse me, but that’s a little more serious than you obviously want to accept.”
She felt as though she had dropped into the twilight zone, and she didn’t like it. She had come here with several certainties—one being that it was time for this “skirmish,” as they called it, to end.
Richard grimaced heavily at her declaration. “You misunderstood that night.”
“I didn’t misunderstand that damned scar on my hip from your wife’s whip,” she bit out. “For God’s sake, what the hell is this?”
“Look.” Annalee raised her hand to still the animosity rising between them all now. But there was no stilling it. Jaci had spent years being angry, years fighting their lies. “We’re aware your association with Cameron Falladay and his employer Ian Sinclair halts anything we could do to still your retaliation against us. We’ve already received our first warnings. I assumed you wanted to discuss the parameters of the truce that would evolve now.”
Jaci stared back at them in silence. She scratched at the back of her head, wondering at the niggling warning there, as she gave her head a quick shake.
Something wasn’t right here, and it didn’t make sense. She had never imagined, not in all these years, that this meeting would be conducted with such civility and rationality. Hell, she wanted to scream and yell and throw things. And they were being nice?
She stared around the room before shaking her head and turning back to the conversation.
“What warnings?” she finally asked.
Annalee smiled then. A soft curve of her lips, not a smirk or a sneer, merely an acknowledgment of Jaci’s disbelief.
“As I said, there are certain rules as you move up in society. One of those rules, once your relationship with Cam is cemented, is that your power here has the potential to match our own. There’s no hiding that from you, you’ll learn it in time. Courtney Sinclair’s power already outdistances my own. Richard’s position as congressman gives us only a slight edge. Because of this, we’re now willing to listen to your demands and put an end to our mutual vendettas. The gossip could hurt both of us if it continues, Jaci, and it could hurt the Falladay twins as well. So let’s end this now.”
“My demands? Fine. Why? Why did you do it to begin with? What the hell made you think I’d play those games with you?”
Forget the confusion, she’d get the answers first. She wanted to know why she’d had to battle this couple for so many years, and then they’d move on to a few other questions.
Annalee sighed and stared at the floor for a moment before lifting her head and staring back at her. “That, my dear, was your own fault. If you hadn’t belonged to a gigolo and a man known for his ménage lifestyle, then I would have never considered it.”
Jaci froze. She could feel her heart beating sluggishly, fear slamming inside her mind. She felt weak, torn, she didn’t want to hear what she feared was coming.
“You’re lying!” She threw the accusation back at them. “And you have no idea the hell he’ll bring down on the two of you for it.”
“Cameron Falladay, for all his power in this town, is still a product of his unsavory roots.” Richard sighed regretfully. “We do have proof, Jaci. Being a man-whore at age fifteen isn’t something to be proud of, but he did rise above it. His sharing with his brother, and your nearly lifelong association with them, led us to an erroneous conclusion that you would be agreeable to our lifestyle as well. We apologize for that.”
Chase stood still outside the study, every bone, every muscle in his body tightening as he heard Richard Roberts’ statement. He felt a howl of rage, felt agony sear through his body as that twin bond opened just enough for a glimpse into his brother’s soul.
It only added to his own rage, to the pain that sliced through his guts and opened his soul to reveal the raw, aching center of agony.
His gaze jerked to Cam’s, where he stood on the other side of the doorway. His brother was staring into the study, his expression frozen, but his eyes enraged. Chase could see the rage, and he could see the grief.
How had he allowed that to happen to his baby brother? Cam had been his responsibility, his brother, all he had left to hold onto in the world at that time. And he had allowed that to happen.
He saw Cam shake his head. A quick little jerk as he flinched, a betraying flicker of raw agony as the truth was revealed to the woman his brother loved more than life.
“You’re lying.” Jaci wanted to scream the words, but could barely manage a whisper as she forced the words past her lips. “Cam never sold himself. He would never do anything like that. Not then and not now.” For a moment, something like compassion flickered in Richard’s eyes, and he turned to his wife.
This wasn’t the couple she knew. Cold, hard, all icy distain and superior disgust. They had to be monsters. Pure evil. Only monsters could stand and lie like this with such convincing compassion. They couldn’t be real. This had to be a game being played out for the camera.
“No, actually, his aunt was the pimp.” Annalee shrugged, sympathy flickering in her eyes as she continued for her husband. “I have it all in the investigative report we had made when you came to work for us. Richard, Margie, and I were very attracted to you, Jaci. We felt you would have fit in with our circle of friends because of the information we found on you, Cameron, and Chase. But once the mistake had been made, we were forced to control any damage it could have caused to Richard’s political career and my own place in society.”
Jaci needed to sit down, but there was no place to sit, no way she could sit and still stay strong before them. But grief was tearing through her. Cam had fought to hide his past, and these two had known all along. They had known and they had used it to hurt her.
“Jaci.” Annalee shook her head gently. “Were we the monsters you believe us to be, then we would have used that information, rather than controlling any retaliation you could make, as we did. We aren’t completely unfeeling, simply a bit self-serving, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not a fool, Jaci,” Richard said then. “Cameron Falladay would have no problem killing a man who threatened his place in the world, or his woman’s. We assumed you called this meeting to discuss your demands.”
She was in shock. Disbelief and pain were raging through her. This explained so many things, but more than anything it explained Cam’s refusal to discuss the pain in his past. Fifteen. Such a vulnerable age anyway, and he had been exploited in one of the worst ways. Exploited and nearly destroyed.
“I didn’t call this meeting.” She finally shook her head, disbelieving, filled with grief.
Oh, God, Cam. She wanted to rock back and forth in agony. She wanted to race to him, to hold him, to scream in rage that anything so vile could have been done to him.
“What do you mean, you didn’t call this meeting?” Annalee straightened and looked to Robert. “We didn’t call it.”
“No. I called it.”
Jaci turned and stared at Moriah in shock. It wasn’t Moriah so much that shocked her, as the gun in her hand and the hatred in her eyes as she glared at Jaci.
“Moriah?” Annalee’s voice softened strangely, despite the confusion and fear in her voice. There was genuine affection, genuine caring in her tone. “Darling, what are you doing?”
“I called this meeting.” Moriah slowly screwed a silencer onto the end of the handgun as Jaci stepped back, shaking her head, fighting to make sense of what was happening. “You see, Annalee, I can’t let her tell that nasty Cameron what happened that night. And she will. I know she’s going to tell him the moment she leaves here, no matter what you agree to. She told me she would. He might hurt you. I can’t let you be hurt.”
Jaci’s lips parted as she fought to breathe. This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t make sense. The Robertses had terrified her, brutalized her as a child—hadn’t they?
“Moriah?” Jaci fought to believe what she was seeing. Moriah, her face pale, her eyes blazing with madness as she smiled calmly.
“I warned you, Annalee,” Richard said then, his voice hardening.