Terra Little - Road To Temptation

Her parents had built the house five years ago, after her father decided to give up his thriving Clayton law practice and retire early, and, for a while, decorating it had kept both Lance and Yolanda Carrington busy. It was a showplace, something tangible that they could both appreciate and enjoy after years of hard work. It wasn’t until after it was finally completed and each room had been meticulously appointed that her parents had suddenly decided that they didn’t want to live there, after all. Almost thirty years of living in the States was long enough, her father had said. He was homesick for London, where he’d been born and raised. Leaving the house to their daughters, they had updated their passports, packed up their personal belongings and left the country seemingly in the blink of an eye, a decision that hadn’t surprised Olivia at all but that had finally confirmed for Elise the origin of Olivia’s flighty tendencies.

True to form, Olivia hadn’t wasted any time ditching her South County condo and moving in, but Elise hadn’t been quite so eager to let go of her Clayton town house. Her sister had already been living in the house a full six months before she sublet her town house and joined her.

After showering and moisturizing, she paired a cream-colored cashmere sweater dress with a wide chocolate-brown belt and matching suede boots. The steam from the shower had completely wrung the life out of her hair, so she brushed it until it was smooth and caught her wild, curly locks at the crown of her head with a jeweled clip. As a finishing touch, she added mascara and gold-tinted lip gloss before tossing her cell phone and iPad in her red Kate Spade tote and slipping her favorite Chanel sunglasses over her eyes.

Downstairs in the foyer, she grabbed a red vintage leather coat from the coat closet and then swiped her car keys from the entry table on her way out the door. With just about forty-five minutes to spare, she could just barely make it to Joel Barclay’s Waterloo, Illinois, estate on time.

Chapter 2

Half an hour later, Elise’s Jaguar was stuck in rush-hour traffic on Interstate 40, sandwiched between an ancient bright green Beetle that had obscene bumper stickers plastered all over it, and a snarling black Hummer with tinted windows and aggressive tendencies. Every few minutes, the Beetle crept forward a couple of feet, putting her that much closer to the exit she wanted, which, thankfully, was only about a half mile up ahead. Thanks to the pushy Hummer that had been riding her rear bumper nonstop for the last twenty minutes, a half mile seemed more like a million. The thing practically growled every time she hit the brakes and forced it to stop on a dime barely an inch from her bumper, as if her car and her car alone was responsible for the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Jerk. She eyed the idling bully in her rearview mirror steadily. The windows weren’t just tinted, they were also reflective, making it completely impossible to see who, or, in this case, what was inside, behind the wheel. But she didn’t need to actually see the face of evil to know that it existed, did she? He—and she was convinced that it was a he—was probably one of those corporate types, with a string of vengeful ex-wives, dangerously high blood pressure and out-of-control anger issues. He probably laughed maniacally every time that his rolling bully narrowly avoided tagging her bumper because driving like a maniac and terrorizing everyone else on the road made him feel powerful.

Elise docked her iPod into the dashboard, scrolled through her music and selected her Marsha Ambrosius playlist. Turning up the volume a couple of notches, she sat back in her seat and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel in time to the rhythm. She couldn’t remember the last time that she’d been nervous about anything.

Before Carrington Consulting, she’d been a police officer for two years and then a US marshal for seven, and, by now, there was very little about criminal behavior that surprised her. She’d dealt with bullies every day on the job, and most of them were men who were on the same side of the badge that she’d been on. Compared to that particular brand of chaos, this maniac and his souped-up Hummer were child’s play. Still, his theatrics were starting to get on her nerves, especially since she was in just as much of a hurry to get where she was going as he apparently was.

I’m stuck in traffic, she texted Harriet. Please contact the Barclays and advise them that I’m going to be—

A car horn blared behind her, calling her attention to the fact that the Beetle had moved forward in front of her just about a fraction of an inch. She rolled her eyes at the culprit in her rearview mirror, then slowly caught up to the Beetle, with the Hummer riding her rear bumper the entire time. Its tires squealed when it suddenly stopped behind her and she sighed long and hard.

—a little late, she finished texting. She was this close to her exit. Another fifty yards, give or take, and she could ditch the Hummer from hell for good. Waiting for the moment that she could escape was like watching paint dry.

Done, Harriet texted back a few minutes later.

As soon as Elise was close enough to maneuver her Jaguar into the exit lane, she did, stirring up roadside gravel in her wake as she gratefully left the standing traffic on the interstate and took off down the exit ramp. Resisting the urge to flip the bird to her rearview mirror as she went, she rolled to a stop at the red light at the bottom of the ramp and reached for her cell phone, intending to reactivate the GPS.

She didn’t see the Hummer bearing down on her until it was too late to do anything except stare up at her rearview mirror in disbelief. “What in the world?” She heard tires squealing and then a sharp bump from behind sent her Jaguar hopping forward on the pavement and her cell phone flying out of her hand. Her car shuddered to a stop dangerously close to the Buick in front of it and vibrated with indignation for several seconds afterward.

Oh my God! I’ve just been hit by a stalker! Frantic, Elise threw her car into Park and quickly dived at the passenger-side floorboard in search of her cell phone.

The light changed, and, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred, the line of cars to her left moved forward and merged into traffic, while the Hummer behind her pulled into the tow lane to her right and its driver shut off its engine. It took a second for the gravity of the situation to sink in, but when it did, she joined him in the tow lane, leaving enough space between the two vehicles to make a quick escape possible.

It didn’t occur to her to be afraid. What she was, she suddenly decided, was completely and thoroughly pissed.

* * *

Hidden behind tinted one-way glass, Broderick Cannon saw the woman coming, closing the distance between her sophisticated little gold car and his Hummer with long-legged, angry strides. With every step she took, her leather coat flapped open, giving him an enticing glimpse of nipples hard enough to cut glass underneath her dress and a generous hourglass figure. He sat back in his seat and lazily watched her come, wondering what the Jackie O–style sunglasses covering half of her face were hiding and if she was packing something other than lipstick in the ridiculously large purse dangling from the crook of her arm. She had to be, he decided, pressing a button to disengage the electronic locks and then releasing his seat belt. Either that or she was certifiable.

The pretty ones always are, he thought as his gaze momentarily settled on the rhythmic sway of her hips, then slowly traveled back up to her face. The fact that she could be, this very second, walking into a dangerous trap either hadn’t occurred to her or she simply didn’t care. Either way, the chances of her being completely nuts were looking better and better.