Internal Affairs (6 page)

This wasn’t ego at work. Sloan merely saw what he saw when he looked in the mirror, and knew what he knew. And when he snapped his fingers, the women came running as if they hadn’t had a meal in a week and were just dying to get a taste of Oliver Sloan.

But that Lisa, she was different.

No amount of good looks and charm could crack its way through that cement wall she’d built around her, and that aggravated Sloan no end. Yet she had gotten so deep under his skin that he felt an itch every time he was around her. A desire so strong that he lost control. Almost felt powerless in her presence.

And Sloan didn’t like feeling powerless.

Sloan despised feeling powerless.

As a consequence, at those moments—as rare as they were—he despised himself.

* * *

H
E HAD WANTED HER
the moment he met her, and could still remember the day with great clarity.

He had taken a field trip to the Chicago branch of his real estate firm, and the moment he walked in the door, he saw her, sitting there behind the reception desk. A fresh-faced twenty-three-year-old with a look of innocence that could only be measured in terms of what it did to his body.

Sloan had seen his share of beautiful women in his time, but the sight of Lisa had nearly stopped his heart—a reaction no woman had ever before had on him.

First, there was that face. Like an exquisitely lit photograph of feminine perfection, with flawless white skin, cobalt-blue eyes, and a pouty mouth that was made to do naughty things to naughty boys.

Then there was the body. He couldn’t see much behind the reception desk, but what he saw sent a rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins, and he knew he had to have her.

She smiled as he stepped off the elevator, and said, “May I help you?”

Apparently, she hadn’t gotten the memo that he’d be visiting today.

“I’m Oliver Sloan,” he said, thinking she must be new if she didn’t already know that. “I’m here to see Gary Orbach.”

She got to her feet then and held out a hand to shake. “Mr. Sloan, I’m Lisa Tobin, and I want thank you for giving me a chance here. This job couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Sloan didn’t do the hiring or firing—that was beneath him—but he was all too happy to take credit for hiring her. To his surprise, however, now that she was standing up, he could see a slight bulge in the front of her dress.

Was she pregnant?

Not that this killed the effect. In fact, in some odd way it made her even more attractive to him. Maybe because it meant she wasn’t a stranger to the kind of carnal activities he was imagining at that very moment.

To his further surprise, he found himself checking her hand for a wedding ring.

There wasn’t one.

So did this mean she was one of those unconventional brides who had decided to forgo wearing one in some lame attempt to show her independence? Or was she simply not married at all? And if she wasn’t married, was there a boyfriend in the picture? A biological father?

The fact that he even cared was a bit disconcerting. He had never hesitated to hit on a married woman. He was, after all, Oliver Sloan, and nine times out of ten such advances were successful. In fact,
eight
times out of ten even the husband knew what was going on and had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and stay out of the way.

But for some unknown reason, Sloan wanted this one—this Lisa Tobin—this specimen of perfection with the alluring pregnancy bump—to be unattached.

Because he knew the moment he saw her that he had to have her all to himself.

From now until forever.

* * *

T
HEIR COURTSHIP
had been short, but fraught with frustration. For Sloan at least.

He quickly discovered that Lisa wasn’t like other women. Was not impressed by his looks and his money and his standing in the community. And this, Lord help him, made her even more attractive to him.

It wasn’t until long after their separation that he realized that it must have been a ploy. She had manipulated him into wanting her. Wanting her to the point where he broke his cardinal rule and got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

They had been dating several weeks by then. Dates that had started out tentative and full of hesitation on her part. She had told him that she didn’t ever want him to feel that she was taking advantage of him because of the baby. And he had believed her. For no other reason than he was madly, head-over-heels in love with her—an emotional malady that he had always scoffed at.

The powerlessness he felt when he was around her niggled at him, worried him. Made him wonder if he was losing his edge. He remained on his best behavior around her because he didn’t want to upset her, take the chance of losing her.

In those first weeks he had even taken a hiatus on bedding other women. And when he finally got
Lisa
into bed, it was the most sublime experience he’d ever been part of. He didn’t know where or how she had learned to do what she did, but he didn’t care as long as it was with him.

And when she said “yes” to marriage, it was the happiest day of his life.

* * *

I
T WASN’T UNTIL
the baby was born, five months later, that things began to go sour. After Chloe came into the world, Lisa became less attentive and a lot less interested in taking him to bed.

At first he blamed it on postpartum depression, but he quickly grew impatient with her. A man should only have to put up with so much.

And her obsession with Chloe was relentless. Didn’t she realize she had a husband to tend to? Didn’t she understand that it was only his generosity that had allowed her to spend so much time with the child?

He had offered to get Chloe a nanny, so that Lisa would be free of the responsibilities of raising the kid, but Lisa had balked at the idea. Said she was only interested in raising Chloe herself, and wished that Sloan would be more attentive to the little girl he had promised to raise.

He didn’t remember making such a promise, but he supposed somewhere in the haze of bedding Lisa and asking her to marry him, he must have made noises in that direction. But surely she had to understand that such promises were never meant to be kept. He was all too happy to support the kid, but he didn’t have time to be developing a relationship with her, any more than his father had had time for him.

This seemed to be a sticking point with Lisa, however, and he soon realized that she didn’t love him the way she once had. That the freshness of spirit that was there in the beginning of their relationship had all but disappeared.

And this made him need her even more. He found himself constantly consumed by thoughts of her, wondering what he could to do to regain what they’d lost. He found himself taking out his frustration on the other women he bedded. Had even broken the jaw of one of them when she’d had the audacity to ask if Lisa cared that he had strayed.

And when Lisa found out about it and confronted him, he had been open and honest with her in hopes that she would realize what she was doing to him.

Instead, she had gotten crafty. She’d begun sneaking around in his personal files and had told him that if he didn’t grant her a divorce, he would pay the consequences.

It was only then that Sloan realized he had been used. That she had only pretended not to care about his money. That there was undoubtedly another man out there telling her what to do. How to manipulate Sloan.

Yet, oddly enough, none of that mattered.

He still wanted her, more than ever. The year of separation had been sheer torture for him and he couldn’t convince himself that it was over.

No matter what it took, he would get her back. And this time, it would be on
his
terms, not hers. He was, after all, the man in this relationship and it was time he made her realize that.

This morning may have backfired with that nosy maid of hers brandishing a shotgun, but there would be other days. Other mornings.

And sooner or later, Sloan would have what rightfully belonged to him.

Chapter Eight

It wasn’t a surprise that Sloan didn’t live in a house. No, a guy like him only
owned
houses. Living in one would be far too conventional for him. He was a mover and a shaker who considered himself to be movie-star cool. So what better way to prove it than to live in a hotel suite?

But not just
any
hotel. Sloan lived in one of the most luxurious establishments in St. Louis. The one with a five-room penthouse suite priced at four grand a night, with a name fit for a king.

The Palace.

Rafe had only been here on a couple previous occasions. Callouts in the middle of the night when some of the guests had gotten unruly. The hotel staff usually handled such matters in-house, with their private security squad, but sometimes things got out of hand and the Sheriff’s department was called in to clean up.

Rafe had always been a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Not one for fancy trappings and over-the-top displays of wealth and power. So when he stepped into the Palace lobby, he took in its stark, postmodern decor with a jaundiced eye, thinking about how much meat and potatoes you could buy just by auctioning off its contents.

You could probably feed a small, developing country.

Rafe had no problem with wealth—people deserved to be rewarded for their hard work—but such displays got him wondering about the world’s priorities. And it didn’t surprise him that Oliver Sloan would choose a place like this to live.

What better cover for his thuggery?

But then Sloan was a new kind of thug. One who used money and power and influence rather than guns—unless, of course, they were absolutely necessary. He wore the finest clothing, dined at the most popular restaurants, smiled for photographs with the elite of St. Louis, pretending to be an upstanding citizen, as he worked his shady deals in back rooms and private offices.

Rafe knew that if he tried to go through channels to see Sloan, if he went to the front desk and sent up a message, he would be turned away. And if he pressed it, if he insisted on being seen, then Sloan’s cronies would be alerted, management and security staff would appear out of nowhere and Rafe’s boss would be dragged out of bed by a call from someone on high asking how some insignificant sheriff’s deputy had the audacity to show up on Sloan’s doorstep at six o’clock in the morning.

That was a scene Rafe would just as soon avoid. So the moment he walked into the hotel, he turned to the bellman on duty and gestured abruptly.

“Follow me,” he said.

The bellman’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Rafe’s uniform, but he didn’t balk, didn’t resist. Instead, he nodded politely and came around from his desk and followed Rafe straight to the bank of elevators on the far side of the lobby.

Rafe pushed the button, waited for the doors to open, then gestured the bellman inside. “After you.”

As they turned to face the closing doors, Rafe said, “Take me to the penthouse.”

He had known that getting there would require special access and only a bellman or the hotel manager would have the key.

But now the bellman balked. He just stood there without moving.

So did the elevator.

“Well?” Rafe said.

“I, uh, I’m not supposed to let anyone up there.”

Rafe had been expecting this.

“I feel your pain, but you’re just going to have to steel yourself and make an exception.”

“But we have strict orders from Mr. Sloan to—”

“You see this uniform?” Rafe said.

“Uh...yeah.”

“You think I’m wearing it just for fun?”

“Uh...no.”

“I’m a deputy with the St. Louis Sheriff’s Department, and I don’t care what Mr. Sloan ordered you to do. When I tell you to take me to the penthouse, you’d better take me to the penthouse or you’ll find yourself facing a possible obstruction of justice charge. Do you want that?”

The bellman swallowed, said nothing. He just reached into his pocket, took out a key card and slipped it into a slot on the elevator panel, punching a button with his index finger.

The elevator glided into motion. Rafe put his trust in the numbers that lit up the panel above the doors to be sure they were actually moving.

When they reached the penthouse, a faint bell chimed and the doors slid open again. Beyond them was a long, richly appointed hallway, bathed in white. There was another set of doors at the far end, two dark-suited guards keeping watch in front of them.

Rafe thanked the bellman and started down the hall, wondering if he should have brought a pair of hiking shoes for the trek. He once again marveled that Lisa had been married—if only briefly—to a guy this far out of touch with reality, and decided he’d definitely have to get that “long story” on record.

Not that she owed him any explanations. But he was curious, and hoped she’d be willing to share.

He was about halfway down the hall when one of Sloan’s guards said, “Excuse me, deputy, but we weren’t informed of your arrival. Do you have an appointment?”

“It’s six o’clock in the morning,” Rafe said. “Who makes an appointment at six o’clock in the morning?”

“Then I can only assume you got off on the wrong floor.” The guy may have looked classy and all in his suit, but the tenor and tone of his voice betrayed him as just another thug.

“You can assume all you want,” Rafe told him. “But I’m here to see Mr. Sloan about his early-morning activities. So wake him up if you have to.”

The thug smiled as Rafe came to a stop in front of him. “I’m getting the impression you don’t know how this works.”

“You
should
be getting the impression that I don’t care. Tell Sloan I’m here.”

“You aren’t too smart, are you?” the other guard said.

“Smart enough to make it through college, for what it’s worth. What year did
you
drop out?”

“Hey, Frank,” the first one said, apparently addressing his partner. “We got ourselves a comedian.”

“I think you’re right,” Frank said.

“Remember that funny guy out in Vegas? The one who kept cracking jokes about your crew cut?”