Any Way You Want It (Brand Clan #2)(17)
“Since when did peddling prostitution become legitimate?”
Zandra clenched her jaw. “You know nothing about me or my agency—”
“I know plenty.” He sneered at her. “I’ve seen you being chauffeured around town, showing up at all the ritzy parties and rubbing elbows with the rich and famous. You think those people admire you? Respect you?” He snorted contemptuously. “Everyone knows you’re nothing but a high-priced whore masquerading as an entrepreneur.”
Zandra let out a caustic laugh, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing how deep his words cut. “I can’t believe you have the audacity to lecture me about respectability when you slithered your way into society by seducing an heiress just days after she’d buried her husband. You may not approve of the way I make my living, but at least I earned everything I own. It seems to me that the only whore in this room is—”
Landis shot from the chair, banging his fist on top of her desk.
Suddenly the years evaporated, transforming Zandra into that terrified little girl who’d cowered in the kitchen doorway watching as he brutally punched and kicked her sobbing mother.
“You ungrateful little bitch,” he snarled, his face twisted with hatred and fury. “Who the hell do you think you are? You should be down on your knees thanking me for everything you have. I’m the one who went out every day and worked my ass off to provide for you while your pathetic excuse for a mother could never keep her head out of the clouds long enough to tend to our home. You and that goddamn woman robbed me of the best years of my life! The only thing she ever did right was tie a belt around her neck and hang herself.”
Zandra gasped. As grief and fury seared her from gut to throat, she lunged to her feet and screamed, “You bastard! Get out of my office and don’t ever come back, or I swear to God I will kill you!”
He sneered. “Your empty threats don’t scare me, little girl.”
As he took a menacing step around the desk, Zandra snatched open the top drawer, reached inside and grabbed the pearl-handled pistol she’d received as a gift from Remy.
Her father blanched as she pointed the gun at his face, her eyes narrowed with lethal promise.
“Does this look like an empty threat to you?”
He stared at her, nervously licking his lips. “I always knew you were as crazy as your damn mother.”
“Take one more step,” Zandra warned, lowering the nozzle to his chest, “and I will blow your f*cking heart out. Assuming you ever had one.”
Landis hesitated for a moment, then jabbed a trembling finger at her. “This isn’t over,” he vowed before turning and storming from the room.
Zandra stood there frozen, her heart knocking painfully against her ribs.
Distantly she heard the rapid staccato of high heels on the tiled floor, then her receptionist appeared in the doorway. Her brown eyes widened with alarm when she saw the gun clutched in Zandra’s hand.
“Oh, my God, Zandra. Are you okay?”
She jerked her head in a nod. “I just need a minute.”
“Do you want me to call Rem—”
“No,” Zandra said sharply. “Don’t call anyone. Just close the door.”
Christine frowned, eyeing her worriedly. After another moment, she pulled the door shut behind her.
Slowly, finger by finger, Zandra released her grip on the butt of the pistol, then set it down on her desk and took a step backward, then another, until her back hit the window.
That was when the tremors began, starting deep in the pit of her stomach and spreading outward until she shook all over.
Closing her eyes, she wrapped her arms around her midsection, bowed her head and wept for the mother she’d lost, and the innocence she could never reclaim.
Chapter Five
Remy roared down West Grand Avenue astride a sleekly powerful MTT Turbine motorcycle, weaving through Monday morning traffic with a reckless aggression that would have made Zandra curse and shriek at him if she were riding shotgun.
He grinned at the thought. He couldn’t wait to meet her for lunch that afternoon. With any luck, they could just skip the meal and feast on each other instead.
At the next traffic light, he whipped the motorcycle around the corner and sped down a narrow street that ran through the warehouse jungles of Chicago’s manufacturing district, an area untouched by the gentrification efforts that had shined up the West Loop.
As Remy reached a nondescript brick building perched at the end of the block, he slowed down and swung onto the ramp that led into the underground parking garage. Pulling up to the security gate, he lifted his helmet shield to have his retinas scanned.
As the metal garage doors slid open, a smoky female voice intoned from the speaker panel, “Welcome back, Mr. Brand. You were missed.”
“Thanks, Magna,” Remy drawled with a lazy smile. “Who needs Siri when we have you?”
The simulated voice responded with warm laughter as Remy rumbled through to the parking garage. Swerving his motorcycle into his reserved spot, he silenced the ignition, removed his helmet and climbed off the bike.
As he strode to the elevator, the camouflage-clad security guard pressed the call button for him and offered a deferential “Good morning, sir. Welcome home.”
“Thanks, Erwin,” Remy said, clapping the man on the shoulder. “It’s good to be home.”