Page 19 of Tamed

She nodded slowly. “I can do that. As long as you come with me on Friday.”

I sighed for the third time. “I’d love to, but you don’t know the rest of the story.”

“So, tell me the rest of the story.”

Briefly I explained the text I’d gotten three weeks earlier and about how I thought it was the Hamiltons reaching out. Then I told her about Dad beefing up my security and Caleb taking responsibility for it, and my own fears that I’d never find out about my mother and her life if I didn’t take matters into my own hands. Also, how it was imperative not to draw the attention of Dad et al if I was going to investigate the Hamiltons myself.

It ended up being kind of a lecture. Luckily, Zara was a patient woman.

“If you come with me, I’ll help you escape your minders,” she said when I’d finally finished. “And I’ll help make sure no one knows you’re gone.”

I stared at her in surprise. “You will? How?”

She tapped the side of her nose and grinned. “It’s a secret. Leave it to me.”

A tiny burst of excitement went through me. It had been far too long since I’d been anywhere or done anything that wasn’t going to work or seeing Dad, which if I thought about it too much, was just straight out depressing.

I was sheltered, there was no doubt about it. Dad had hired tutors for me when I was a kid, effectively home-schooling me from the Pre-War brownstone he’d inherited from Sir George. Then I’d gone to an eye-wateringly expensive girls’ school for a few years to ‘socialize’ me — which hadn’t worked. I’d lost my temper with one of the bullies on my first day, effectively ostracizing me not only for the rest of the school year, but for the rest of my school life. After that, while college had been great for me academically, my social life was still a disaster. How could it have been anything else with security dogging my every footstep?

In the end it was easier not to go anywhere or do anything and tell myself I was happy with the status quo. But I wasn’t happy with the status quo. I was twenty-three and I wanted a normal goddamn life. I wanted to go out with friends, see movies, concerts, go traveling, and hell, maybe even have a boyfriend. Because of course if I hadn’t had any friends, I hadn’t had a boyfriend either.

Maybe you could find one at the club?

The thrill inside me got more intense. Finding a boyfriend at the club didn’t seem likely, but I perhaps I could find myself a one-night-stand. Get rid of my stupid virginity and get myself some experience. Shit, I hadn’t even been kissed before let alone anything else, and you know, that was justanotherthing I hadn’t done.

You’re five years older than your mom when she had you.

A strange electric shock joined the thrill sitting in my gut. Mom had me when she was eighteen. She’d been in love, had a boyfriend. No, she’d beenmarried.And here I was, her daughter, at twenty-three more sheltered than your average nun.

Suddenly, I couldn’t stand it. I wasn’t going to sit here wishing I could do all the things I’d been denied for so many years. I was going to go out and do them. My mom had done more in her eighteen years than I had in twenty-three, and who knows what she could have achieved if she’d lived? Well, she hadn’t lived. She’d had me and then she’d died, and here I was moaning about my life and how I was stuck not doing anything.

Enough was enough.

I was going to go to that club with Zara and maybe find some guy to go home with, lose my virginity. Then I was going to find out all about my mother from the Hamiltons, and to hell with Dad.

And to hell with Caleb too.

“Excellent,” I said to Zara and downed the rest of my coffee. “Then I’m in.”

6

Caleb

Thursday night I watched Isabel stalk around my penthouse apartment high above Central Park. I’d decided to stay in another apartment I owned downtown while she stayed here so at least she had the illusion of privacy.

She hadn’t uttered a word of protest when I’d picked her up from the shitty little apartment in the Village that she’d insisted on living in since moving out of Ten’s brownstone, so of course I was suspicious.

She hadn’t wanted to come here, and I knew it, no matter that she hadn’t argued when I’d laid down the law in my office the day before. The expression on her face had fooled no one, least of all me. It had been so determinedly neutral that it was obvious she’d been seething inside.

I knew her far too well, that was the problem. I knew she’d hate coming here, that she’d hate anything cramping her already cramped lifestyle. Too bad, though. Keeping her away from the Hamiltons was too important and I was with Ten on this.

What did surprise me was that it had soon become clear that she hadn’t told Ten that I’d informed her about her mother. Because if she had, Ten would have shown up on my doorstep ready to punch my face in.

I’d mentioned it to Atlas, but he’d only sighed and said I was asking for trouble and good luck to me. But that was Atlas. He avoided confrontation where he could, and not because he was afraid of it, but because he just couldn’t be fucked dealing with it. Laid-back, everyone called him. Showed you how much they knew.

I wasn’t laid-back. Everyone knew where I stood, and it wasn’t on the side of the angels.

Except one of those angels was now in my living area, looking aroundas if she was in a seedy motel that reeked of cigarettes and rented rooms by the hour, trying to mask her annoyance, and failing.

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