OVERPROTECTED
by Jennifer Laurens
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments or locales is purely coincidental.
A Grove Creek Publishing Book
OVERPROTECTED
Grove Creek Publishing / April 2011
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright 2011 by Katherine Mardesich
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.
For further information:
Grove Creek Publishing, LLC
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Cover: Sapphire Designs
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photography by Sarah Mc Arthur
Book Design: Julia Lloyd, Nature Walk Design ISBN: 978-1-933963-00-6
$13.99
Printed in the United States of America
for Joe
OVERPROTECTED
by Jennifer Laurens
CHAPTER ONE
I saw him and my heart started racing. His dark hair gleamed in the crowd at the intersection of Lexington and 89th Street. His head was bowed, looking at the street. I had to see his face. Look up. I blinked twice, sure I was seeing a crazy dream. Lots of guys had dark hair.
The light turned green. I wanted to turn and walk another way, but couldn’t. I’d be in deep trouble if I wasn’t home in ten minutes, and home was a good twelve minutes away—at a run. I’d never make it in time. Sweat sprung to my skin.
My phone vibrated in the depths of my Burberry coat. Stuart. I hoped he hadn’t discovered that I wasn’t at the townhouse. He’d kill me when I walked through the door. I didn’t pull my cell out. I might miss seeing the stranger’s face.
I started across the street. So did the crowd sweeping the stranger along. Look up. I want to see your face. His cocky stride and confident posture caused my heart to plunge. It had to be him.
He’d always walked with a confidence that shouted he owned the moment and everyone in it. Closer. My pulse jumped. Twenty feet.
Look up. Curiosity tangled with an old fear, an apparition floating like ice through my blood.
His head lifted. His dark eyes focused on something ahead, something to my left.
My heart leapt to my throat and lodged. Look away before he sees you. But I couldn’t. As if no time had passed, his magnetism seized my attention. His wolfish gaze scanned and locked on mine.
Ten feet away. Six. The look in his eyes shifted to wonder. Intrigue.
Do I know you? Have we met before? Questions crossed his brown eyes and angular face like the wind shifting the taut planes of a sail in search of direction.
I lifted my chin, refused to look away. My knees shook but I held his inquisitive gaze and kept walking. Three feet. Bats fluttered in my stomach. One. As we passed each other, our shoulders brushed. The corners of his lips turned up in a smile, like he couldn’t place me, even though he searched my face. His deep dimples flashed.
Colin’s smile.
I looked away. Closed my eyes, swallowed. I opened my eyes, and stepped onto the curb, and continued up Park Avenue, curiosity gnawing at my bones. Had he recognized me? I was probably just another girl. Someone to smile at, to flirt with. He couldn’t possibly remember.
We hadn’t seen each other in over five years.
I glanced back over my shoulder. My heart froze. Colin stood on the corner of Lexington—crowds filing around him—watching.
His smile was gone.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, tore my gaze from his and started into a half-jog toward home. I’d lost two, maybe three minutes I didn’t have to spare. Fear shifted from the run-in with Colin to what awaited me when I got to the townhouse. In the depths of my wool coat, my cell phone vibrated over and over again.
<> <> <>
I tapped the security code into the panel beside our double front door, breath racing with my heart. Three minutes late. The green light shone and the bolt slid open. I pushed the doors and entered the townhouse.
Soundlessly, I shut the door, peering up the curved marble stairs to my left, then through the arched hallway in front of me for any signs of life. Mother was out with friends. Daddy was at the firm.
Gavin was either at the market or cooking in the kitchen at the back of the house. I sniffed. No scent perfumed the air.
That left Stuart.
When I’d gone, he’d been taking his usual “nap”—something he did every day between three and four o’clock—while I was supposed to be working on homework. From the moans and grunts I heard coming from behind his closed bedroom door, I doubted he was sleeping. The thought rammed a shudder down my spine.
I reached into my coat pocket for my cell phone. Twenty texts—
from Stuart. I opened one message. Then another.
WHERE R U????
U KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!!!
CALL ME!!
Sweat drenched my skin. He’d probably gone into my bedroom once he’d discovered I wasn’t there—my bedroom was off limits to him—who knows what he’d done once inside.
Hands shaking, I peeled off my scarf, gloves and coat, draping them over my arm. I tip-toed across the marble entry, heart banging against my ribs so violently, I was certain the thuds would bring Stuart from his hiding place. Invisible eyes pierced me from every direction. He was somewhere.
Maybe I could make it up to my room before he saw me, lock the door and—
“Are you out of your mind?” His hot breath hissed in my ear. I whirled around. The presence of his towering bulk pressed me into the entry wall. My pulse tripped. His green eyes glared into mine.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing running off like that without me? You know the rules.” His spit dotted my face and I blinked. Rage sizzled off his muscles, sinews bunched like bowling balls ready to roll and strike out beneath his blue sweater and jeans.
“It’s not safe out there.”
It’s not safe in here. “I just went for a walk,” I sputtered, hating that my voice trembled.
He inched closer. “No walks, Ashlyn. No opening that door, taking a breath or blowing your friggin’ nose without me.”
“Get away from me.” I jerked to my left, toward the safety and freedom of the stairs. His meaty palm wrapped around my arm, holding me in place.
“Do you understand?” he growled.
I wrenched free, didn’t answer. I shot him a parting glare and fled upstairs, tears rushing up my throat.
I hated him. Hated my life.
After storming into my bedroom, I slammed the door. Tears sprung free. My shoulders buckled in a sob. I crossed the room, ignoring the temptation to dissolve into an emotional puddle on my bed and went instead to the window overlooking Park Avenue, giving me a view of the street below and the apartment buildings sheltering the townhouse.
My secret escape walk had turned into another humiliating slap meant to keep me on my knees behind brick and mortar and glass.
Safely protected.
Below, people dressed in black, gray and plaid coats walked freely on their way like storm clouds passing through sky. No hound dog bodyguards followed them, breathing down their necks, watching their every move.
Even Colin Brennen enjoyed freedom.
Sighing, I swiped away tears. How unfair that a jerk like him walked the streets doing whatever he pleased while I lived under a magnifying glass.
The door flew open. I turned, heart pounding. In my distraction, I had forgotten to lock it. Stuart heaved in the jamb.
“You’re not allowed in here,” I shouted.
; “I haven’t crossed the line. But you did, sneaking out like some friggin’ dog off a leash. Don’t ever do that again or I’ll tell your father.”
“Go ahead.” My bones quaked at the very idea. But I knew what Stuart was after, and he’d never tell my father about my outing.
Stuart wanted this job too much.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “If this was the first time, I’d consider cutting you a break. But it can’t happen again.”
His icy gaze chilled me. He backed from the room, closing the door. I blew out a shaky breath. The sweat on my skin started to cool. Two storms raged within me, fear and desperation combining, both angry for release.
I turned, gazed out the window at the steady stream of freedom below me, and I vowed to make a change. For now, I was home, in the townhouse with the same familiar options I’d grown up with: free to do anything I wanted in the house—reading, studying, playing the piano and talking to my friend Felicity.
I headed out the bedroom door, down the dark hall to the light pouring out of the music room. In the corner of the empty music hall sat our black baby grand piano. I crossed to it and sat. My fingers danced on the ivory keys. I closed my eyes, the vigorous melody of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in G filling the room, my head, and senses. Stress tightening my neck and shoulders gradually seeped away. It always did when I played.
When my father’s suffocating grip tightened around me, the piano took the pounding I inflicted as I searched for the answer to my most desperate question: why? I’d never understand what drove him to protect me the way he did, and the question left me unsettled, lost in a dark forest with no light to show me the way out.
The echo of Mother’s heels on the wood floor alerted me. The day’s luncheon was over. A second set of footsteps told me that Stuart was right behind, and a flash of panic raced through me. Had he told her about this afternoon?
I didn’t stop playing. I never stopped until a piece was over; everyone understood that. One of the few things I controlled. When I finished, I turned and looked at both of them.
“How was the party?” I asked.
Mother waved a dismissive hand to Stuart, who nodded at her, then proceeded to shoot me a slit-eyed look of warning. “Ashlyn.
Mrs. Adair.” He left the room and I took in a deep breath.
Tucking a sable fur under her arm, Mother sat next to me on the piano bench. Countless emerald beads and gemstones glittered like stardust across the bodice of her designer dress.
“Boring luncheon, darling. You didn’t miss a thing.” She stroked a strand of hair hanging at the side of my face. “I should have been as lucky to have stayed home. I would have saved my ear from Mrs.
Jacobsen bragging endlessly about her son, Adam. Honestly, did she really think I cared? I must have yawned—discreetly of course—ten times. Did that stop her? Absolutely not.”
Eyes focused on the keyboard, I remained still. “I’m sorry it wasn’t what you expected.”
“Oh it was precisely what I expected—a brag session.” Mother rose, leaning briefly to place a kiss on my head. “Well. I’m completely exhausted. I’ll see you at dinner, hmm?”
I watched her saunter across the expanse of dark wood flooring, the fur coat dragging behind her.
Frustration sunk its teeth through my soul. I turned back to the piano and pounded out Beethoven. Again. As usual, the day was Mother’s: packed with shopping, lunch excursions, trips to the spa while my freedom was carefully meted out, moment by moment.
I finished the piece, then settled for an abusive banging that rang chords into the air. Even with the inflicted abuse, the piano would be there in the morning, like it had been since I was eight years old.
Always in the same place—just like me.
Weary, I stood and crossed the large wooden floor before making my way down the hall to my bedroom.
Before my full-length mirror I stood for my daily ritual. Though nearly eighteen, I looked too young for my liking. Mother repeatedly promised that being petite was what men preferred, but I never knew if that applied to me because I rarely saw men. The only men in my life were “companions.” That’s what my parents had called them when I was younger. My bodyguards were always adult men who carried weapons. I often wondered why Daddy didn’t just call a bodyguard a bodyguard. I guessed the word choice made confinement easier to live with—for him.
I’d been told over and over again that I looked like a character in a fairy tale—Sleeping Beauty. Nothing was more ironic. My life consisted of our five thousand square foot townhouse, my piano, and my music. There was no Prince Charming, not even a cat or dog or frog for company.
There, in front of the mirror I stood. And there, in the mirror I remained.
Daddy’s concern for my safety began after my nanny, Melissa, kidnapped me when I was five years old. She had a crush on Daddy.
It wasn’t until years later when I spent hours Googling the incident that I knew what really had happened.
Melissa hadn’t had a crush at all—she’d turned into a stalker.
When Daddy threatened to fire her, she took me, and threatened to kill me unless Daddy ‘saw the light’ and left Mother for her.
Daddy moved us from our beautiful home in Southern California to the townhouse in New York City after that. My parents spoke in hushed whispers that left Mother in tears. I knew life would never be the same. That was when Kent came to live with us. There had been numerous “companions” since.
When I’d asked about it, Daddy had told me I was his special princess, that there were bad people in the world who might hurt me. But he would never let that happen—never.
The vow sent my spine crawling in every direction.
Why hadn’t he done anything about Colin Brennen when I was younger? He’d hurt me plenty of times. Of course, I’d been too terrified to tell Mother and Daddy—or even my companions—
about Colin’s brutal teasing, afraid Colin would find out I’d snitched and make my life more miserable.
I pulled my long blonde hair up into a knot at the top of my head and brushed blush on my cheeks. Circles shadowed beneath my blue eyes. Before I could stop, tears slid down my face. The moment, the feeling, was too familiar. I blinked them back, swiped the tracks from my face and took in a deep breath. There were more tears these days, something deep inside of me reached out with a need that wouldn’t be ignored or suppressed any longer.
I wanted things, yearned for experiences. My own apartment. A job I could give my heart to. Freedom to come and go as I pleased.
Someday I wanted a man. All of that and more.
I dressed for dinner in black slacks and a white blouse. I couldn’t allow my parents to control me any longer, no matter the cost.
I took the stairs down to the first floor, cold from the black and white marble reaching up my legs, chilling me in spite of the velvet designer flats on my feet. The majestic curved stair curled from the main floor to the top, framed in a half-circle cylinder-like room where Mother hung her collection of tapestries from around the world.
On the first floor, hung a portrait of me Mother had commissioned a year earlier. I hated the pretentious display. In my black dress, pearls and hair done up I looked like I was ready for prom. What a laugh. I’d never go to prom.
Stuart stood gaping at it. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen him drooling over the massive image. He turned when he heard me coming down, and his lips slit in a grin. He clasped his hands behind his back and his eyes raked me from head to toe.
“Stunning, as usual,” Stuart said.
My stomach rolled. I went to pass him on my way to the dining room, but he stepped in front of me. I stopped. His face inched toward mine. “Your sneaking out is our little secret.” His hawk-like gaze traveled over my face, neck and lower, shooting hot fear beneath my skin.
Without answering, I stepped around him and opened the French doors to the dining room. Mother sat at her usual spot at the foot of the dark mahogany tab
le, Daddy at the head. Both looked up when they heard the doors swing open.
“There she is.” Daddy set aside the papers he was reading and gleamed. He wore a designer suit in deep charcoal. He had dozens made for himself, tailored to show off another of his obsessions: his manicured body. As frustrated as I was with my circumstances, his sky blue eyes melted my heart. Adoration swamped me. The moment he and I were in the same room together, the mood was as if nothing and no one was more important than me.