Taking Control (Kerr Chronicles #2)(2)
Author: Jen Frederick

There’s a danger that she’ll wake up from her grief-induced fog and realize that I’m a manipulative ass**le who is more trouble than he’s worth, but I have time and proximity on my side. I’ve bought my way into her heart and life. I’ll lie, steal, and cheat to stay there because nothing is worth more than her.

She might not want my money, but she wants me. And I’m completely devoted to seeing that she is replete with satisfaction during every waking moment. I simply don’t know if that is enough—for both of us.

She finds me there in the pre-dawn hours, still staring blindly in the mirror.

“What’s wrong, Ian?” she asks, wrapping her arms around my waist and pressing her face into the valley of my spine. “And don’t say nothing because someone who’s perfectly at peace doesn’t stand in his bathroom looking into the mirror for hours. Is it Richard Howe?”

A sharp, bitter laugh escapes me. “I hate that you even know his name. His existence should be unfamiliar to you. He shouldn’t be allowed to breathe the same air, walk the same streets, eat at the same tables as you.”

Her hand squeezes my shoulder in reassurance. I need to pull it together. It is Tiny’s mother who passed and she is in need of comfort, yet here she is trying to saturate me with the warmth and solace of her body.

“Is it me? Am I preventing you from taking action?”

Pulling her arm around my waist, I struggle for the right answer. “It’s not you. It’s never been you.”

“Why have you waited so long to pull the trigger on him? Metaphorically speaking,” she rushes to add. “I’m not suggesting you should have murdered him or something, but why the kid gloves? The man embezzled money and blamed it on your father. He…hurt your mother, and because of him you had to grow up on your own. You’ve had the power to ruin him for years.”

Her explanation of the horror my life turned into after my father’s death is laughably euphemistic. My father had a heart attack after being blamed for a seven figure embezzlement orchestrated by Richard Howe, my father’s protégé. My mother killed herself in an Atlantic City jail after prostituting herself to Howe. I’d left that jail with her few effects, vowing revenge…and then I met Tiny.

Somehow the need to have her in my life has superseded my desire for retribution. At least momentarily.

Tiny is correct. Richard Howe is the scum of the earth. The ironic thing is that he is also the one that brought us together.

Until I met Tiny, I’d been good at compartmentalization, putting each person or activity in its own separate mental file drawer. Trying to ignore the strength of my developing feelings for her, I thought to use her against Richard. But she wouldn’t remain in one area; instead, her influence crept into every aspect of my life.

I was wholly unprepared for the depth of my feelings for Tiny. Or, more likely, I had been denying them. I wanted her but hadn’t realized until the moment I saw them together, not even touching, that I’d rather burn the whole world down than have another man lay a finger on her.

I tried to swallow down the rage and allow Tiny to lure him in, but as each minute ticked by and he stood close enough to touch her, my anger was stoked hotter and hotter. And when he took her on the dance floor and placed his f**king hands on her, my restraint was ripped to shreds. There would be no joy in my life without her. I wish I had realized it earlier.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Kaga, one of my few friends, had asked me at the time. “If you walk out there, he’s going to know what she means to you.”

“If I watch him try to touch her ass one more time, you’ll be visiting me in prison,” I’d said.

That he even knows her name is my own goddamn fault.

I rub my forehead. “When I first returned to the city, I had these grand ideas that I’d storm his townhome and wrench a confession out of him. It didn’t take long to realize that he’d never confess. I kept making money, and in the meantime, I started to buy up his debt. About eight years ago, I had enough of his debt that I could have made it difficult for him but then at a party, his wife approached me. I don’t think she remembered me or knew who I was. She just came up out of the blue and started telling me about how she volunteered at a women’s crisis hotline and how life changing it was. She asked if I would be interested in donating.”

“So she stayed your hand?”

“Yes. Every time I was in a position to do something to Howe, I’d see her at an event. She’d share her latest charitable activities with me. She was doing things that could have helped my mother. She would mention how much she missed my mother.” I clenched my fists in frustration. “Could I be the instrument of her ruin as Howe was for my mother? I found I couldn’t. And I felt sorry for her because Richard cheated on her regularly. She had to know about his infidelity. Discretion wasn’t important to him, although he rarely hunted in their social circles. He preferred the working class, like waitresses, models—which are often one and the same in the city. Women he viewed as disposable. Possibly worse, she loves him. Even now, after all these years, her eyes follow him across a room. Now that I have you, I recognize her longing even more acutely. How deeply devoted she is to him.”

“You thought that a scandal would separate her from him.”

“Yes, even if it would be painful, if I could decouple her from him before I struck, then I wouldn’t have her wounds on my conscience.” I shake my head. “I’ll think of something else.” She presses her face close to my chest. I feel her trembling. “What is it?” I ask urgently.

“You’re amazing, Ian Kerr. Your compassion is inspiring. I don’t know if I could be that generous in the same situation.” She rains kisses on my shoulders and at the base of my neck.

“If you were another woman, I’d say you were buttering me up for something. But since you won’t even take what I’m willing to give you without argument, I’m going to have to ask: Are you on drugs? Because I distinctly remember you calling me an arrogant ass**le more than once.”

“That was before I realized that you needed me help to correct your character flaws. I’m here now.”

“You’re like a missionary then, to save me from myself?” I’m only half joking.

“That’s right and from all the other women in New York City. I’m sacrificing myself on the altar of Ian Kerr’s pleasure in order to prevent heartbreak and sorrow across the city.”