Protecting the Enemy (The Protectors) Read online

  “Yes, I’ve got things covered here.”

  “And do something with your hair,” Cheryl added, giving me an assessing look.

  I raised my hands to my straight brown hair, which was pulled back in a low ponytail. It felt like it was still in place. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “You look like a schoolmarm.”

  I wasn’t offended. I’d known Cheryl too long to be bothered by comments like that. She was always waging a losing battle to add glamour to my life. I just didn’t have money or interest in beautifying myself. I wasn’t bad-looking—dark hair and eyes, classic features, average height. Sebastian had always said I was beautiful, and even after the way he’d treated me, I didn’t have any reason to doubt that he’d been sincere. I wasn’t gorgeous or drop-dead sexy, but I wasn’t repellant to the opposite sex. Today I wore a pair of no-nonsense black slacks and a gray twinset. I looked perfectly professional, like I would blend into the background in any context, which was exactly what I wanted. “What’s wrong with looking like a schoolmarm?”

  “Nothing, if you’re teaching in a one-room schoolhouse on the prairie. You’re in the big leagues now, and Ken likes attractive women.”

  “Well, you’re attractive enough for both of us. He’s not going to care about me.”

  Ken Gentry wouldn’t even know who I was, even though he and the Maxwells had destroyed my family.

  Cheryl rolled her eyes, but her phone rang just then, so she didn’t have a chance to object any further.

  While she chatted on the phone, I slipped out through the french doors so I could take pictures of the pool and garden areas. It really was a beautiful piece of property, and the Georgian architecture was formal and elegant.

  But every gorgeous spot I saw just intensified the bitterness in my mouth, in my chest. It was a palpable sign of a deep injustice in the universe. That Ken Gentry should live here, amidst beauty and luxury, while my family lived in a small rental house that sometimes felt like it might fall down around our heads.

  On that thought, I glanced down at my phone and saw it was almost four o’clock. I dialed Rosie, my fifteen-year-old sister, who should be home from school by now.

  “Hi, Ali,” she said when she picked up the call.

  “Hey, how is everything there?”

  “Oh. You know.” The words were mumbled in a familiar way—the way Rosie always expressed herself when she was upset or uncomfortable.

  “Is Tyler home yet?”

  “What do you think?”

  I thought Tyler, our brother, probably wouldn’t be home until after midnight—which had become his typical pattern. He had just turned eighteen and was always in trouble. He basically hadn’t had a parent for the past ten years, and there wasn’t anything I could do to guide him to better ways.

  I was just his older sister, and most of the time he didn’t even like me.

  “How was school?” I asked, changing the subject to something that didn’t hurt so much.

  “Fine.”

  “Anything exciting happen?”

  “No.”

  “Anything interesting in any of your classes?”

  “No.”

  I sighed, feeling a swell of helplessness as I searched for a question that might engage her. Rosie and I had been close for the first fourteen years of her life, but last year she started drifting away.

  Not into partying or drugs or boys though. She didn’t seem to have any real friends at all, and she spent most of her time buried in books.

  She was like me—quiet, reserved, retreating—but she’d pulled back further than I had ever been. Sometimes I was scared of ever getting her back.

  “What time will you be home tonight?” she asked.

  “I’m going to try to get back by seven. Cheryl has an appointment at five that I have to go to with her, but I don’t think it will last much more than an hour. I can stop by the store on my way home. Do we need anything?”

  It was a question I asked as a matter of rote. I knew very well that we needed groceries. A better question would be what didn’t we need.

  I made as much money as I could expect with only a high school education, but it wasn’t a lot for a family of four—especially since my dad drank away any money he could get his hands on.

  “Yeah.” Rosie’s voice sounded thin and wispy, not like the voice of a fifteen-year-old. “Get whatever you can. I’ll try to make some soup or something for dinner. We have some leftovers that might go together.”

  It hurt. It physically hurt. Rosie should be hanging out with friends and giggling over boys. She shouldn’t be scouring the pantry for something to cook for her family’s dinner.

  “I’ll bring something in,” I said. “Don’t worry about trying to make anything. I’ll be home around seven.”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  I hung up, feeling sad and sick and helpless.

  And as angry as I’d ever been in my life, looking around at the carefully manicured lawns and hedges of the formal garden.

  Bought with blood money, as far as I was concerned.

  The picketers outside the front gate thought the same thing. They were the normal anti-big-business crowd, and for the past few weeks a small, motley collection of them had been splitting their time between the company’s corporate headquarters in downtown DC and the public park across the street from the Gentry property, which was evidently as close as they could legally get to any of the bigwigs’ homes.

  They hated Maxwell Industries for their general business practices.

  My grudge was more personal.

  Ten years ago, Ken Gentry and the Maxwells had made the decision to close an entire branch office and lay off all the employees beneath a certain level. My father was one of those laid off.

  I really think I could have accepted that. Business, after all, was business. But Ken and the Maxwells did more than that. They cheated some of their faithful employees out of the pension and benefits they’d earned by arguing some sort of loophole in the contracts. So after working for twenty-four years for Maxwell Industries, my dad got nothing but a kick out the door.

  He’d been utterly crushed. He’d gone into a downward spiral of alcoholism and depression. My mom died when I was fourteen, so I was the only one left to take care of Tyler and Rosie. Any hope I’d had for a future was gone. I had to bring in a paycheck, and that meant there was no time to take college classes or do anything much for myself.

  If bad things just happened, there wasn’t anything you could do about it. Sometimes hurricanes hit or cancer was diagnosed or lightning struck, and no one could be blamed.

  But there was someone to blame for my family’s situation. Maxwell Industries—headed up by John Maxwell and his ruthless family. Also Ken Gentry and the decisions he’d made as COO. They were to blame. They had done this to us.

  So when, several months ago, Cheryl mentioned that Gentry wanted her to plan a big charity event but she was thinking of not taking it on—since events like that were more trouble than they were worth—a plan had come fully formed in my head. I knew exactly what I was going to do.

  Maybe it was crazy, but it made perfect sense to me.

  If a decision had been made to cheat my father and all the other low-level employees out of benefits that rightly belonged to them, then there might be some evidence of it. And that meant that justice could still be done. The only way I could find it was to get into the house. And the only way I could get in the house was if Cheryl took the job.

  So I began a subtle campaign of convincing her that taking this job would be good for her business, and a week later she had decided to take it on, thinking it was her idea.

  We’d started to plan the event months ago, but now—just over a month before the event date—we had to really buckle down and take care of the on-site work.

  So here I was on the Gentry estate, and no one had any idea how much I hated him. Not even Cheryl, who had known me forever. No one knew what I was planning to do here, wh
ich was exactly what I needed.

  Since there was a lot of preparation to be done, I’d have plenty of opportunities to look around during the next few weeks.

  I wasn’t going to do anything dangerous since Rosie still needed me. But if the chance arose to find information, then I was sure as hell going to look for it.

  Not that anything compromising would be found in the garden here, but I still needed to snap the location shots so we’d have them for reference in planning.

  I’d made my way past the pool and terrace area and down one of the walks through the garden when I saw an outbuilding I wasn’t expecting.

  It didn’t look like a garage or a workshop, and it was too far away to be a pool house, so I peeked into the window to see what was inside.

  Through the window, I saw a glimpse of a couch and a desk.

  It looked like an office although this was a strange place for it. An office.

  I admit it. My first thought was that this might be some sort of secret office hideaway, which might mean it was holding secrets.

  Now, I rationally knew it was highly unlikely that I would find incriminating evidence so easily, in the first outbuilding I stumbled on, but it really did look like an office inside, so it would be stupid not to check it out.

  That was my rationale in the thirty seconds I stood peering in the window.

  I walked to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. Of course.

  I checked under the doormat and the flower pot next to the door since rich people were sometimes stupid that way, but there was no key there.

  So I walked around and checked the windows. They were all locked until I got to the one in the back. That one was cracked open about an inch.

  Feeling pleased and victorious, I pushed the window up.

  It really wouldn’t be that hard for me to climb inside.

  I stood for a minute, trying to decide whether I should do it or not. No one was around. What harm could it do? If I was caught, I could always say I was checking out the building for possible use in the charity event.

  It wasn’t dangerous. And it would be a first step toward seeking justice, restoring my family’s honor.

  Feeling a rush of determination, I leaned in and saw that the window opened to what definitely looked like an office. My heart raced as I started to climb inside.

  “What are you doing?”

  I froze, halfway in the window, when I heard the unexpected male voice from behind me.

  My mind whirled with fear, embarrassment, and desperation as I tried to remember the excuse I’d just thought up a minute ago.

  This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

  I’d started to ease myself down from the window, when I felt a pair of strong hands on my waist. They startled me so much that I jerked and turned around too quickly.

  I bumped my head on the window and stumbled into the man who was now right behind me.

  I would have fallen had he not caught me. I found myself looking up at the face of the only man I’d ever loved.

  Sebastian Maxwell.

  Of course it was him.

  Who else would catch me in this humiliating position?

  I hadn’t seen him since I’d graduated high school, and I hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d stomped on my heart like it was trash.

  I knew the rough strokes of his life since then. He’d quit college after only a year and a half and had joined the Marines instead of getting an MBA and working for his father’s business like he’d always planned.

  I had no idea what had prompted the change. The Marines didn’t seem to fit Sebastian at all.

  But I’d learned the hard way that I hadn’t known Sebastian as well I thought.

  I stood, completely frozen, as I stared at him.

  He was just as handsome as he’d always been—about five or six inches taller than me, with a fine, athletic body. He had vivid green eyes and strong features that were almost startling in their attractiveness, and he wore a pair of expensive tan trousers and a black T-shirt. His expression was just as shocked as mine was as he gazed down at me.

  “Ouch,” I said stupidly, rubbing my head where I’d hit it on the window.

  His expression transformed to one of concern. “Ali?” he breathed, taking two steps toward me. “Are you all right?” He reached out like he was going to touch my head.

  Touch me. After all these years. After everything that had happened.

  I sucked in a breath and shrunk away from him. “I’m fine.”

  His face changed as he processed my reaction. He looked guarded, wary. “You hit your head?”

  “It’s just a bump.”

  “That’s what happens when you try to climb in somewhere you don’t belong.” He was relaxing now. He’d evidently had time to come to grips with his surprise and figure out how he felt about it.

  He clearly didn’t feel very much—not nearly as much as I did—since he was almost smiling now in that clever, dry way I remembered so well. His lack of concern helped me get a hold of my own riotous emotions.

  This didn’t matter. Sebastian didn’t matter. What happened between us was ancient history now, and I wasn’t going to let it affect my state of mind or what I was planning to do.

  “I wasn’t trying to climb in,” I lied, thinking as quickly as I could. “I was just looking inside to see what was in there.”

  “Why would you need to see inside the guest cottage?”

  A guest cottage. Oh. That was what this place was. Not a secret office hideaway housing tempting secrets. Definitely not worth the embarrassment of getting caught like this. “I didn’t know what it was,” I said, speaking the truth in this at least. “I’m working as the assistant of the event planner. I was just checking out what the building was to see if we could use it somehow for the big charity gala.”

  Sebastian’s green eyes had been running up and down my body. His gaze looked appreciative—as if he liked how I looked—so maybe he didn’t think I looked like a schoolmarm.

  He’d always liked how I looked.

  But at my words his eyes shot back up to my face. “You’re working for the event planner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” He sounded genuinely shocked.

  I could understand why. He knew what my career plans had been in high school. College. Graduate school in anthropology. A job in a museum. I was as far away from that as was possible.

  But his surprise just made me angry. I tried to suppress the feeling and act as cool and casual as he was. “Because I need a job.”

  “But why this one? Didn’t you—“

  “Didn’t I what? Go to college and graduate school? No. I didn’t. Not after my dad lost his job.”

  I knew Sebastian well. At least, I’d always assumed so. And I could see confusion and concern fighting for control on his face.

  I suddenly realized he hadn’t known what happened.

  He didn’t know his father had fired mine and then cheated him out of his pension.

  I’d always wondered how Sebastian had been okay with that. Sebastian would always be—first and foremost—a spoiled rich boy and a Maxwell. He’d proven that when he had dumped me just because his father told him to. But I’d never believed he was as ruthless as his father, and his confusion now confirmed it.

  He hadn’t known.

  “Oh,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

  He might never be the guy I’d hoped he was back then, but it was a relief to know he wasn’t entirely heartless. It eased something in my chest I hadn’t known was tight for all these years. I gave a little nod and dropped my eyes. “Uh, yeah. It happened my Freshman year, so I couldn’t finish college like I planned.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  My heart was beating like crazy, and I even started to feel a few flickers of soft feeling I thought had been entirely extinguished. I forced them down as I cleared my voice. “So anyway. I wasn’t trying to sneak in here. I was just looking inside to
see if we could use it.”

  Sebastian seemed as relieved to return to normal conversation as I was. “I guess you could use it for couples who want to sneak off for sex. Maybe reserve it by the half hour so you can offer it to as many horny couples as possible.”

  He spoke with such a deadpan expression that it took me a minute to realize he was joking. When I realized it, the clever humor hit me so hard that I burst into laughter.

  His expression changed as he watched me, and I sobered, feeling suddenly self-conscious.

  Like he could see me. All of me. Even the parts I didn’t want anyone else to see.

  He’d always been able to do that.

  “You still have the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen” he murmured, his voice softer, something almost awed in his husky tone.

  Okay, I admit it. I blushed even hotter. I could have said the same thing to him. He had the warmest smile I’d ever seen. And the most beautiful eyes. And the best shoulders. I didn’t say any of that though. I’d always been quiet. Just a little shy.

  I’d opened up to him back in high school, and I’d soon regretted it. I might be relieved that he wasn’t as heartless as his father, but that didn’t mean I was going to make the same dumb mistake.

  To distract myself—even more than him—I glanced back at the guest cottage and said, “Well, maybe I can charge a fee for its use and make a little extra money.”

  He blinked for a minute, as if it took him a minute to process my words. Then he leaned his head back and laughed.

  I had to look away since his attractiveness—and all the memories I’d been trying to forget that were now rushing through my consciousness—were just not good for my mental health.

  “Anyway,” he said at last, “I don’t think there’s anything over this way that’s going to help you with that gala, so you probably should get back to the main house.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” I looked down at the paver stones beneath my feet, feeling a strange jittery excitement that was completely irrational.

  “I’m not sorry at all.” His voice was warm, almost but not quite flirtatious.

  I gave him a quick look up from beneath my lashes, and then I started walking toward the house again, telling myself that there was no reason to linger. No reason to keep talking to him. Even if I wanted to.