“Impossible. I saw pictures of her entering the building on auction night. She was never seen afterward,” he said, remembering he’d bribed the janitor from the storage unit across the street to get screenshots of the surveillance camera footage.
“Maybe she had a change of heart and left.”
He shook his head. Why would she go to the auction location just to give up? Didn’t make any sense. If she wanted to give up, she could simply not go or call Alexa. Going there in person would only make things awkward for everyone. “Did you try to contact her?”
“Yes. I called, texted, but if they’re not in the building within a certain time before the auction, we have policies in place to make sure—”
Anger skated through him, sizzling his insides. Did she expect him to believe she knew nothing about his sister’s disappearance? Surely, even with a different woman ready to go, Pamela’s alleged flakiness must have caused some inconvenience. “To make sure the hungry rich men have a virgin to fuck.”
She erased the remaining distance between them, swiftly lifted her hand, and slapped his face. “Bastard,” she cussed at him, and her cheeks flushed. “You used me. You betrayed me. What was your plan? To destroy me and my business because of what you think I did to Pamela?”
He touched his cheek, the flesh warm and tingly from her smack. “I need to find out. I know that accident didn’t just happen. They said she was tired and got distracted, but she was a great driver.” Images of her riding next to him, while he learned to get his driver’s permit, popped in his mind. Pamela’s infectious giggle rang in his ears, cementing his resolve.
“If she was killed, wouldn’t she have some marks on her body or some type of poison in her system that would debunk the car crash?”
“She supposedly drove into a gas tank on a country road. It exploded. They couldn’t salvage enough of her for an autopsy,” he said, his voice thickening with sadness. Worse, his father hadn’t even attended the mass her mother had planned in her memory. He’d acted like she’d never existed, which hadn’t been much different than what he’d done when she’d been alive.
Craig Taylor was a pig.
Alexa’s arms dropped to her sides, a flicker of compassion in her eyes. “I’m sorry about your loss. But I don’t have anything to do with it.”
“Then prove it. Let me talk to people who worked for you back then. Let me check your files or interviews with my sister. Maybe she got involved with someone from your staff, and that person didn’t want her to go to the auction. Maybe she had a change of heart like you said, and a faithful employee of yours got mad at her, and things got out of hand.”
She lifted her chin. “My people would never kill anyone. I’m not the mafia, no matter how little you obviously think of my business.”
“That’s beside the point. I need to have access to information. I need to find out the truth, if that’s the last thing I do for her.”
She lifted her hand in denial. “Don’t drag me into whatever mistakes you made in the past. Truth is, you seduced me and created this bullshit idea of a male virgin auction to get close to me. You lied to me. I bet that guy we signed a contract with today is a paid actor.”
He paced the room, agitated. Calm down, man. The initial suspicion he’d had about her and her business warred against the woman he’d come to know in the past few days. A woman who had been hurt and had overcome a terrible past. She hadn’t, at any point, forced Scott into joining the auction. His blood pressure spiked. “He is not. I promise you that.”
“Too bad, because that deal is off. I’m leaving for Vegas and hope to never hear from you again.” She moved to walk past him, but he outsmarted her and blocked her way out of his room, standing in front of the door.
“Nope. I’m going with you,” he said.
“No way.”
Say it, a voice inside him shouted. Or he’d lose his chance to learn the truth about Pamela’s death. “Yes way. Otherwise, I’ll go to the police, and will have to tell them everything—including my ludicrous attempt to get information from you,” he said, his gut contracting. The fear in her eyes almost made him change his mind. “How long do you think it’ll take them to dig up your real identity? Allison?” He only hoped in doing right by his sister, he didn’t ruin Alexa’s life.
…
Alexa grabbed a small decorative vase, the sweat in her palm slicking the smooth surface. She lifted it, every fiber of her demanding she throw it at Brooks Taylor. The man who could bring to light who she’d once been—who she’d spent her entire life trying to forget. The tabloids would love to expose her story, and she’d never be able to reinvent herself. Not even in another country.
She bit her inner cheeks, angry and betrayed. He’d used her—how come I didn’t see this coming? Her chest tightened so hard, she let the vase escape her hold and fall on the carpet.
Hands at her waist, gathering her wits, she was unwilling to give him the upper hand. “Fine, I’ll help you,” she said through her clenched teeth. “But I’m going ahead with the male virgin auction. You’re not taking that away from me.” Why should she give up on that excellent idea to make money? She needed financial security now more than ever. “And after you get whatever you need from me, you disappear from my life. Are we clear?”
“Clear.”
“Good. Well, since there’s nothing else to do here—”
“I’ll call the pilot and have him start the inspection.”
“I know you said you wanted to come, but
