Best Kept Secrets Read online

  “I’ll have my driver take her home. He can come back later to get me.”

  Leila turned to him. “That’s very nice of you.”

  When she beamed, something inside his chest warmed instantly. He shouldn’t still be reacting to her this way.

  Not after all these years. Not after what she did.

  Leila had long ago proven that she couldn’t be trusted.

  “I’m not being nice,” he answered firmly, so that there was no misunderstanding that he was a pushover anymore. He could tell from the look on her face that his tone had caught her off guard. “I don’t want her driving home and getting into an accident. Something like that would end up in the paper, probably on the front page. Paulette doesn’t need that type of drama around her wedding.”

  Leila’s smile disappeared. “Yeah, Ev, because it’s less important that the poor girl might plow into a tree and kill herself, than whether her accident might ruin the vibe at the wedding or”—she mockingly raised her hand to her lips and widened her eyes—“bring shame to the Murdoch name.”

  Sarcasm. He should have expected as much from Leila. It was a shield she had always used in the past. Well, he had a shield too—a formal blandness he reserved for business meetings and acquaintances he wanted to get rid of quickly.

  “Well, thank you very much for your help earlier. It was a pleasure seeing you again,” he lied, buttoning his suit jacket, then gesturing toward the double doors. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to the reception.”

  Just as he turned to head back to the ballroom, Leila grabbed his arm, making him pause. “Evan,” she said softly. “Evan, please . . . please wait.”

  Her touch ignited a small spark inside him that he hadn’t felt in quite a while. His pulse quickened, and his skin tingled on the spot where she touched him. He wanted to take her hand within his own, tug her toward him, and kiss her. Instead, he forced himself to pull his arm out of her grasp.

  “What, Leila? Look, I’m supposed to be hosting this thing. I can’t just disappear and—”

  “No one’s going to think you’re a bad host if you disappear for a few minutes! No one’s going to look down on you for taking time to talk to me . . . me, Ev.” She pointed at her chest. “Someone who used to be your friend!”

  “The operative words are ‘used to be,’” he said coldly, making her cower as if he had hit her. He began to walk away again.

  “What did I do?” she asked as she trailed him, taking fast steps to match the strides of his longer legs. “What the hell did I do to you to make you . . . you cast me out like this? You treat me like I’m some leper!”

  “Keep your voice down,” he snapped as he turned back to her. They were drawing stares from a few of the guests who lingered in the lobby.

  “No, I’m not keeping my fucking voice down! I’ve tried doing this quietly and privately! I’ve tried emailing you . . . calling you! But you never responded! I need your help!”

  Of course she does, he thought bitterly.

  Terrence owed him a hundred bucks! He knew Leila had shown up here because she wanted something, and he suspected he knew what that something was. But Leila had always needed his help. She had always needed him. In their friendship, he had been the one she would lean on when things went wrong: when her father walked away from her family, when her mother lost a job, or when one of Leila’s boyfriends broke up with her. But Evan would be damned if he’d be the shoulder for her to cry on or the shrink for her to drone on and on to today. He wasn’t that guy anymore.

  “My mother is going to lose her home! Look, I fell behind on the payments. I mean . . . well, Brad and I fell behind. I thought he had it covered, but he didn’t. Anyway, Murdoch Bank owns the mortgage now and—”

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” he said as he neared the double doors. “Not here. Not now.”

  “But all we need is one word from you! If—”

  “I told you that I don’t want to talk about this! This is a wedding, Leila. Not now!”

  “If you would just make one call—”

  “What did I just say?” he boomed.

  “But you don’t understand!”

  No, he understood perfectly well. He knew that her mother was in default of her mortgage and the bank was now taking her home. Almost more than two dozen other mortgage owners at Murdoch Bank were in the same situation.

  Evan had inquired about the loans when the stories first started to appear in the local newspaper about how several homes in one neighborhood in Chesterton with mortgages all owned by Murdoch Bank had either fallen into arrears or were in foreclosure proceedings. The neighborhood also happened to be on land that a major corporation wanted to purchase to build a new shopping center in town. The reporter shared a few of the homeowners’ conspiracy theories that the bank was in cahoots with the corporation to push them off the land to make way for the brand-new center.

  When Evan’s father, George, had told him two years ago that Murdoch Conglomerated was acquiring the local savings and loan bank, Evan had thought it odd. Banking didn’t really fall under the company’s portfolio. Their company focus was usually foods and retail. Why did his father want to purchase a bank? But when the news stories came out soon after George’s death, all the pieces of the puzzle had fallen into place. His father wanted that shopping center so that Murdoch Conglomerated could open a new store there. The houses were an obstacle to his goal and he had found a sneaky way to get around it.

  But, of course, George wasn’t a stupid man. What he did may have been unethical, but it certainly wasn’t illegal. All of the homeowners were behind on their mortgages. The bank had every right to use its own discretion to try to reach some settlement or simply allow the homes to go to foreclosure. Evan had no desire to micromanage and tell Murdoch Bank what to do. He had enough to worry about with his own duties as new CEO of Murdoch Conglomerated.

  “Do you want me to beg, Ev?” Leila yelled, drawing more onlookers. “Is that what you want? Because that’s what I’ll do if it’ll mean you’ll—”

  Her words were cut short. This time he grabbed her arm. He practically dragged her across the carpeted foyer to a secluded spot near a trickling water fountain. He finally let her go with a shove.

  Evan glanced over his shoulder, making sure they were no longer being watched. “Are you trying to embarrass me? Are you trying to embarrass Paulette?”

  “No, I’m trying to make you listen, damn it! I can’t let my mother lose her house!”

  “So get your husband to take care of it. He’s the big shot. Let him pay off her mortgage!”

  Her face crumpled. That was a low blow and Evan knew it, but he couldn’t help himself. She had cast her lot with Brad and it had turned out ugly. Now she had gone running back to Evan like he’d always known she would.

  Leila crossed her arms over her chest. “If Brad had the money, believe me, I’d ask. Unlike you, I’m not too proud to humble myself to help a friend!”

  He fixed her with an icy glare. “You said what you had to say. You asked the question you wanted to ask and the answer is still no. So now I’m going to ask you as politely as possible to leave.”

  She raised her chin in defiance. “Or what? You’re gonna have someone come over here and toss me out?”

  “No,” he said menacingly, taking another step toward her, “I’ll toss you out myself.”

  “Yeah, right! Like you’d ever get your hands dirty, you self-entitled son of a bitch!” She shoved him aside and walked off. “Tell Paulette I said congratulations,” she muttered over her shoulder.

  Evan then watched Leila stomp toward the hotel’s revolving doors, leaving him both stunned and furious.

  Chapter 3

  DANTE

  “Oh, yeah! Yeah, baby! Oooo, yeeeees! Right there,” she moaned, making Dante Turner roll his eyes even while he continued to lick to ecstasy the woman bucking on the white satin sheets beneath him.

  He liked for a gal to be expressive in bed
, to let him know she was enjoying herself, but all this moaning, groaning, and yelling was starting to get a bit tiresome—even for a guy like him who was more than eager to please, who liked to have his ego stroked as much as his dick. Not to mention the fact that she was holding his head between her smooth, pale thighs so tightly that he was starting to get a headache.

  “Yes! Oooo, like that! Right there!” she shouted, squeezing her nipples as the death grip around his head tightened.

  Dante shoved her thighs open, raised his mouth to take a few quick breaths, then dove in again.

  He soldiered on despite the theatrics, despite the pain, because there was more at stake here than getting off the very loud and moderately drunk Charisse Murdoch. He had something to prove as he brought his sister-in-law to a fist-pounding, pillow-biting orgasm. He wanted to prove that he was a better man than his half brother, Charisse’s husband, Evan Murdoch.

  Because I am, he thought as Charisse continued to writhe and scream.

  Too bad his late father, George, hadn’t bothered to notice, or Dante would be the CEO of Murdoch Conglomerated, not his pampered pussy brother, Evan.

  While Dante had had to fend for himself most of his life—dodging bullies and bullets in the rough D.C. neighborhood of his childhood, and working his way through college and law school—the little Sun King known as Evan Murdoch had grown up in a mansion high up on the hill with tennis courts, swimming pools, and nannies. And why had the two men grown up so differently? Simply because Evan, Terrence, and Paulette had been born to a woman George chose to marry, while Dante had the unfortunate luck of being born to a woman George had accidentally knocked up during a clandestine one-night stand.

  In fact, Dante hadn’t known who his real father was until about two years ago, when his dying mother had told him the truth on her death bed. His entire life he had thought his dad was one of her junkie live-in boyfriends, some forgettable bum that no one but his kind-hearted mother would want anything to do with. But no, instead he found out his sire was esteemed local businessman and millionaire George Murdoch. His mother had also revealed that for years George had sent her hush money to ensure she would never tell his wife or anyone else the truth.

  “Your father . . . is a . . . is a very proud man,” Mary Turner had said between coughs in the hospital room after pushing aside her oxygen mask so that Dante could hear her more clearly. She was in her last throes of emphysema and lung cancer at the time. The diseases had winnowed her down from her hefty two-hundred-and-ten-pound frame to a mere hundred pounds. “George thought a . . . a baby by a girl like me would ruin his . . . you know, his reputation. Plus, he was . . .” She paused to let out another chest rattling cough. She smacked her parched, blood-encrusted lips. “. . . was married at the time. He had a-a lot to lose, honey.”

  But even more to gain if he would have accepted me and taken me under his wing, but he was too dumb to realize that, Dante now thought bitterly.

  He had turned Dante away when Dante had finally gone to see him at his office and had introduced himself. He had insisted on continuing to pretend that Dante wasn’t his son long after his wife had died and no one else would care. It had been Dante’s siblings who had finally acknowledged him after his father died. They had found out his name when he was mentioned in George’s will—a line item where Dante was given a measly two hundred and fifty grand when, as the eldest son, Dante felt he was owed more . . . a helluva lot more!

  Why hadn’t George realized that Dante was a son cut from the same cloth, carved out of his own image? Couldn’t he see that Dante was as shrewd, cunning, and ruthless as he?

  “Oh, God,” Charisse moaned as she flopped back against the mattress, shuddering all over. She raked her fingers through her tousled blond hair while Dante pushed himself off his elbows and sat upright at the foot of the bed.

  “Damn, you’re good,” she whispered.

  Tell me something I don’t know.

  He grinned. “I just love to please a beautiful woman.”

  “Yeah, I bet you do,” she drawled.

  Charisse gave a throaty laugh, then shifted onto her side to turn on a nearby crystal table lamp. She fumbled around woozily—undoubtedly still feeling the after-effects of the glasses of champagne she had downed at Paulette’s wedding—and opened one of her night table drawers. She pulled out a dainty silver cigarette box that could have been made in the early last century, and accidentally dropped it to the hardwood floor. She let out a few snorts and giggles, laughing at her clumsiness. Dante reached for it and handed it to her.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled before pulling out a cigarette. She fished for a lighter in the same drawer, fumbling again. He sighed and found the lighter for her, then handed that to her too. When she made several attempts to light the cigarette that dangled from her lips but didn’t succeed, he lit it for her.

  Dante gazed at Charisse as she smoked. Usually, Charisse was a woman whose gorgeousness made men do double takes, but at this vantage point, with the harsh light of the lamp playing on the angles and planes of her face, her “cracks” were starting to show. Maybe it was the years starting to catch up with her, carving away at her youthful beauty, or the alcohol or the smoking, but she was beginning to look a bit haggard. The first signs of crow’s-feet were at the corners of her baby blues, despite her monthly Botox injections. Wrinkles were around her puckered lips. Red capillaries were etched like spider webs along the edges of her nostrils and pale purple circles were under her eyes.

  He wondered if it was her good looks that had drawn Evan to her in the beginning, or maybe it was her pedigree. Charisse was the granddaughter of a former governor of Virginia and had a family history in the state that went as far back as the antebellum South. The fact that a white woman like her had married a black man such as Evan was a major coup for him and showed how far the Murdoch family had come. Of course, now that she was a sloppy drunk, Charisse wasn’t quite the prize that she may have been a decade ago.

  She noticed him staring at her, but mistook his gaze for admiration. A smug smile slowly crossed her collagen-plumped lips. “Want one?” she slurred, offering him the silver case.

  He nodded.

  The two sat and smoked in silence, gazing at the dark landscape outside of Charisse’s bedroom window.

  The first time Dante had fucked Charisse at her home, he had rushed the deed like he was on a stop clock, wanting to get it done before Evan came home and walked in on them. It wasn’t that he was afraid of confrontation with his brother. Dante just had a few things he wanted to accomplish before Evan figured out he was boning his wife. He had to keep up the pretense of the friendly brother who was eager to please his long-lost relatives. But Charisse had later assured him that the rush wasn’t necessary.

  “Evan hasn’t set foot in my bedroom in more than a year. He sleeps down the hall . . . when he is home,” she had muttered, making Dante stare at her in disbelief at the time.

  “What do you mean, ‘when he is home’? Are you saying he doesn’t come home anymore?”

  She had shrugged in response. “Maybe twice a week, if that.”

  “He isn’t fucking around on you, is he?”

  She had smirked before sipping from her glass. “Yeah, with a mistress called ‘Murdoch Conglomerated.’ Please! Evan is a total workaholic. He wouldn’t find the time to screw around on me unless his secretary typed it into his Outlook calendar for him!”

  Since then, Dante took his time whenever he and Charisse hooked up. Hell, he had even gone downstairs naked to make himself a ham sandwich once—that’s how bold he had gotten! He had just missed the housekeeper, who had stumbled into the kitchen to make herself a late-night snack.

  He now eased back on Charisse’s bed and continued to stare out the window. From this vantage point and with the help of the floodlights hanging along the mansion’s brick exterior, Dante could see most of the grounds: the paved stone circular driveway, the sculpted hedges, the neatly trimmed rose bushes, and the garage that
housed Evan’s four cars, ranging from a Range Rover to a 2014 Maserati GranTurismo convertible.

  Dante slowly took it all in, admiring it and envisioning that one day, it would all be his.

  Just give me time, he told himself.

  “I wonder if the fireworks have started yet,” Charisse murmured as she reached for the glass of bourbon on her night table.

  “What fireworks?”

  “For Paulette’s wedding. They’re supposed to have some . . . I don’t know. Some big fireworks display at the end.”

  Dante tried to recall his own marriage—a quick, understated ceremony with the justice of the peace. The bride had wanted to celebrate with a small reception with family and friends afterward, but Dante had thought it a waste of time and money. Instead, he had headed back to the law office where he was clerking to finish the work day. It didn’t seem worth making a big deal about it. It was just a wedding, after all.

  Maybe that was why they got divorced three years later.

  Her priorities were obviously out of whack, he thought.

  “Fireworks,” he repeated, blowing smoke out of the side of the mouth. “It would have been better to set stacks of hundred-dollar bills on fire. What a waste of damn money!”

  Charisse chuckled, cocking one leg and absently tugging down the bedsheets, revealing her bare breasts and pert pink nipples. “Yeah, but it’s the Murdoch way. They like to do things big.”

  “It’s because they’ve never had to work hard for anything. They’ve had everything handed to them on a silver platter so they can just throw money around like it’s nothing.”

  “That may be true about Terrence or Princess Paulette, but not Evan.” Charisse tapped the ashes of her cigarette into a glass ashtray near the lamp on the night table and stretched. “They live off their trust funds, but he doesn’t. He’s definitely a hard worker . . . always has been. He’s just like that—all sense of obligation and what? I don’t know the word . . . duty, I guess. That’s how he’s made.”

  Dante narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, so we’re sticking up for Evan now?”