Chapter 11

It was as if her body only needed the suggestion of morning sickness to decide that was the course she needed to be on.

Piper started her day off face-first in her toilet, with Kit staring at her from the bathroom door.

Getting sick when there was nothing in your stomach to bring up was awful. Thankfully, the extra hour she had before meeting Chase at the Stone Estate gave her the time she needed to pull it together.

The herbal tea she’d switched to wasn’t possible to keep down. The Lucky Charms were out of the question. Which was probably for the best.

Dressed a little more casually than she was for the office, Piper bit off the edges of a saltine cracker as she drove through the celebrity mansions of Beverly Hills.

Piper pulled up to the security gates of Stone’s home ten minutes before nine. She rolled down the window and pressed the button on the intercom.

A few seconds later, she reached over and pressed the button a second time and wondered if she’d beat Chase there.

The speaker crackled, and Chase’s voice came through. “Hello?”

“I’m here,” Piper told him.

“Sorry . . . yeah. Shit.” His voice was frazzled.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know how to open the gate.”

“How did you get in?”

“The lawyer gave us a remote.”

“Oh,” Piper said. Gated homes were not something she was familiar with, but it struck her as odd that Chase wasn’t familiar with opening the gate from the inside of his father’s home.

“Wait.”

The sound of a telephone tone sounded from the metal box, but the gate didn’t open.

“Did that work?” he asked.

“No.”

More tones beeped through in what Piper imagined was Chase pressing random numbers on a keypad.

When the intercom went silent, she said, “It’s still not opening.”

“Okay, hold on. I’m walking down.”

The line went dead, and Piper sat in her idling car for several minutes until she saw Chase walking down the driveway.

Several yards from the gate, he lifted his hand, holding a remote control, and the double iron gate opened, letting her in.

Once inside, she stopped next to Chase, who had already turned around and started walking back toward the house. “Good old-fashioned remote controls.”

“Sorry about that,” he said.

Piper went ahead and parked behind Chase’s truck in the driveway.

The home never ceased to amaze her.

Two stories with a turret as the front entrance. Massive stone walls and huge windows. She knew the inside was just as impressive as the outside, at least in what she’d had the opportunity to see.

With Aaron Stone, she saw the entrance; the main living room, which was hard to miss from the foyer; Stone’s personal office; the kitchen; and one of the bathrooms. She’d seen the grounds from the living room windows but had never been out in the back of the house.

Piper brushed the crumbs from the two crackers she’d managed to keep down from her shirt and climbed out of her car.

It took a few moments for Chase to walk to her side.

“Getting your morning workout in?” she teased.

“I didn’t think to ask how to open the gate when I picked this up.” He waved the remote in the air.

“I could have sworn your dad had a housekeeper.”

“Melissa fired her the day she moved out.”

“Can she do that?”

“Apparently.” Chase stared up the steps to the house, where he’d left the front door wide open.

“Do you need to hire her back?”

Chase hesitated as they approached the front door and looked up at the house. “I’m not cleaning it.”

The image of him on his knees cleaning a bathtub amused her.

“Do you know her name . . . phone number?”

“Couldn’t tell you.” Chase lifted his hand to the door, suggesting she walk in first.

“Can you ask Melissa?”

One look at Chase’s face and Piper said, “That’s a no.”

“We’re not exactly on speaking terms.”

Inside the home, Piper blew out a breath. It truly was spectacular. Much as she hated to admit Aaron Stone had any taste, he had picked out a beautiful home. Or maybe that was Melissa. Although Piper doubted the latter. Melissa didn’t seem to exhibit any real taste of her own. She dressed in whatever the high-end fashion was, regardless of if the style suited her. She’d suggested a couple of decorative office changes at Stone Enterprises, which Aaron nixed the second his wife was out of earshot. And since the woman didn’t frequent the main office all that often, it was as if she’d forgotten her own requests.

Chase moved in front of her and, thankfully, led the way.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” Piper told him. “This place always turns me around.”

“I know what you mean.”

Piper glanced over Chase’s frame and noticed for the first time that the man was wearing jeans and a pullover shirt. His casual clothing sat in contrast to the house.

When she realized her eyes had settled on the man’s ass, she snapped them away and looked past the bay windows. “Did you spend a lot of time here?”

“No.”

“I should have guessed when you couldn’t open the gate.”

Chase stayed silent as they walked through the house and down a corridor to Aaron’s personal office.

Unlike the man’s office at Stone Enterprises, this one had a more traditional look, with big wood pieces, built-in bookshelves filled with actual books, and built-in filing cabinets that took up one entire wall. The desk sat in the center of the room with two massive high-back leather chairs.

The computer was a top-of-the-line Mac, which always surprised Piper when she saw it, considering the PCs they used at the office. And Aaron had never really grasped how the thing worked. Hence the reason she’d been summoned to his home to fix a computer problem or two. If the issue wasn’t easily solved, she was the one on the phone with support, ticking away at the keys with a patience the senior Mr. Stone never had.

Chase stopped in front of the desk and lifted his hands to the computer. “Have at it.”

Piper dropped her purse on the desk and settled into the chair. She removed her phone and opened a note page that would help guide her through the backdoor boot that would bypass Stone’s password and allow her to change it. “This shouldn’t take long.”

Chase folded his arms across his chest and stared absently in her direction. It was as if he was looking at something but seeing nothing.

She reached for the button that would power down the computer completely since it was already opened to the password screen.

After the space of a few breaths, she waved a hand in the direction of Chase’s stare.

He didn’t flinch.

Eventually, the silence in the room seemed to snap him out of the trancelike state.

“Did you say something?” he asked.

She shook her head and placed both of her hands on the desk. “Are you okay?”

He nervously ran a hand over his jaw, their eyes met.

No, he wasn’t okay. Piper didn’t need him to say a word.

Instead of answering, he pivoted on his heel and started to leave the room. At the door, he asked, “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

Normally, yes.

Pregnant, no.

Nauseated . . . absolutely not.

“How about water?”

He exited the office about as fast as anyone could without running.

Palms on the desk, Piper looked around the room and wondered what it was that Chase saw. Did he see his father in this room? Was the reality of his passing hitting a cord in his brain . . . heart?

She shook off her questions and read the sequence of keys she needed to press to open the computer on an admin screen.

The process of logging in to the computer took less than five minutes. Once there, she moved to a new place to reset a lost password, which took a little longer. In the middle of that, Chase returned with the water she requested.

The color had returned to his face, something she didn’t realize he’d lost when he left the room.

“I’m in,” she told him.

He set the water down and circled around and looked at the screen, one hand on the desk.

“That was fast.”

“Like I said . . .” She clicked more keys. “Your dad constantly locked himself out.”

She paused on the new-password screen and glanced at Chase. “What do you want the new password to be?”

Chase was hovering, his eyes narrowed.

Sensing his hesitation, she moved the keyboard slightly as if offering him to type it in. “You don’t have to tell me what it is,” she said with a grin.

“Like it matters, you just hacked through without my dad’s.” Chase pushed the keyboard back to her.

Piper set her fingers over the keys and waited. “Considering the indiscretions I have on your dad, I doubt there is anything in here that will shock me.”

“You’d be surprised,” Chase said, deadpan.

For some reason, the statement snagged one of her brain cells and didn’t let go.

Chase rambled off a series of numbers, letters, and special characters.

Piper typed it in. “Do you want to write that down?”

“No. I got it.”

What was random to her obviously meant something to him.

She typed it in a second time, set the password, and opened the computer.

Chase stood to his full height. “Wow. Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

She leaned back in the chair. “Your dad did, but that didn’t prompt me to do anything illegal.”

“I’m not sure I could have held back if I were you.”

She shrugged, somewhat over the drama caused by a dead man.

“My father always says that ‘revenge digs two graves.’ He’s not wrong,” Piper said.

Chase paused. “Wise man.”

“He also hasn’t spoken to his brother in twenty years.”

Chase huffed out a laugh. “Do your parents live close by?”

“No.” Thank God!

“You don’t get along with them?”

“We get along fine. They’re just very . . . different people. Very old school.”

“What does that mean?”

It was Piper’s turn to stare absently at a wall. The thought of her parents finding out she was pregnant without a husband would put her on the “do not call” list with her uncle. “I grew up in Ohio. My grandparents live three blocks away from where I was raised. My mom and dad haven’t been more than fifty miles from where they grew up their entire lives.”

“Not even on a vacation?”

She shook her head, focused on Chase, and lowered her voice to mimic her father. “You can fish and camp close to home . . . no need to spend the money on hotels and plane tickets.”

“That sounds . . .”

“Ridiculous,” she answered for him.

“Quaint,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”

Chase leaned against the desk. “How did they feel about you moving to LA?”

“They hated it. They were certain I’d be on a milk carton for a missing person within six months.”

“Not with that dog of yours.”

“How do you think he came about?”

“Your parents?”

She nodded. “I graduated from college, Ohio State, and moved back home for the summer, knowing it was my last one there. I had to get my parents used to the idea of my move. They were relentless with fear tactics. Crime statistics became the topic of conversation over every dinner. Next thing I know, five-month-old Kit shows up, complete with a trainer to teach me how to control the dog.”

Chase’s lips were open in an O. “You have to give your folks some kudos. That’s dedication to keeping you safe.”

“On the surface . . . yeah. I can see how that looks. But do you know how hard it is to find an apartment that accepts dogs? Let alone a rottweiler? Not to mention, an apartment is no place for a big dog. By the time I left Ohio, Kit and I were a team, so it wasn’t like I was going to leave him behind. I’m sure my parents thought of that obstacle.”

“Trying to sabotage your move . . .”

“They’d never admit it, but yes.”

“Shows they care.”

That, Piper couldn’t deny.

“Why move?” he asked. “Why not settle down close to home?”

Her eyes widened. “Have you ever been to Ohio?”

He started to nod, then shook his head. “No.”

She lifted a hand and patted his forearm as if she were twice his age with a lesson that needed to be taught. “Once you’ve visited my hometown, you’ll completely understand why I needed to get out as fast as I could, or risk never leaving.”

His smile was warm. So unlike the expression he wore at the office. “I’m grateful you left, or I’d be on the phone with tech support for hours.”

Chase Stone truly was a beautiful man. So much softer than his father. The random thought flashed in her head faster than she could stop it.

Piper’s fingers warmed, and so did her cheeks when she realized she’d left her hand on his arm.

She snapped it away and cleared her throat. “Is there anything else I can do here?” she said, looking at the computer screen.

Chase shifted off the desk and took a step away. “Yes, actually. Can you identify any files that are affiliated with Stone Enterprises? Apps. Any passwords you might know. Open any bank links, business or personal.”

“Didn’t you get the personal bank logins when he died?”

“Not yet. Takes time. This will help us manage his life faster. Besides, Alex and I would like to know if any of the extra women in his life are being supported by him.”

“Like a sugar daddy?” Piper cringed.

“Sadly, yes.”

She turned back to the computer. At least she had something to focus on other than her good-looking boss. She pushed away and opened a drawer in the desk, looking for a pad of paper. “I can do that.”

“You sure you don’t want coffee? I could use some coffee.”

She pointed to the water as he walked away. “I’m good with this.”

Chase left the room, and Piper released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

Chase made it to the kitchen and placed both hands on the cool countertop, trying to get his shit together.

The whole time Piper shared her story about the efforts her parents went through to keep her close to home, Chase stared into her doe eyes and felt the need to protect her in her parents’ absence. Then his thoughts shifted the second she touched him, and those doe eyes turned to sultry and seductive, and brought warmth to parts of his body that had no business heating up.

She was his assistant. A paid employee, and worse, his own father had hit on her. That thought made Chase want to punch a dead man.

He needed to shut this attraction down fast and hard.

Two words that quickly morphed into even more inappropriate images in his brain.

Chase crossed to the massive freezer and yanked the door open. And like a fifty-year-old menopausal woman, he shoved his head into the cold space, hoping to chill his body.

After several unsteady breaths, he closed the door and moved around the kitchen.

He eyed the built-in espresso machine with dread. The baristas of the world had no worries of Chase taking their jobs. Fancy coffee was beyond his skill set.

In the walk-in pantry, he found a traditional coffeepot and set it up on the counter. After more digging, he found coffee . . . the bean kind, and a grinder, which he managed.

While the coffee brewed, he rummaged around the kitchen to determine where things lived. Not that he planned on spending much time there, but it gave his mind something to think about other than the woman in the next room.

A good twenty minutes later, he mustered a stiff back with a hot cup of coffee and went back into the office.

Piper glanced his way briefly and went back to the computer screen before writing something down.

“Getting somewhere?”

She tapped a pen to the pad of paper. “Yeah. Your dad was not worried about someone getting in here. Most of his passwords are saved internally. All you have to do is click on the bank site and press ‘Log in.’ The passwords are hidden, but you can get around that by resetting using his email.”

By now, Chase was beside her again, looking at the screen.

She pressed the email icon, and his father’s email instantly opened.

“Is that a work email?”

“No,” she said. A few clicks later, and Piper sat back. “That’s the work email.”

The private email was much more important when it came to finding the long-lost brother. “This is going to save some time.”

“Full disclosure,” she said. “I clicked on his bank site, fully expecting a need for a password, and it opened right up. I saw the balance.”

Aaron Stone’s net worth on the day of his death was front-page news, so Piper seeing the numbers wasn’t that big of a concern.

“Well . . . let’s see it,” he said, hoping to put her at ease.

“You haven’t?”

He shook his head. “Even with everything set up in a trust, the wheels spin slowly getting our names on accounts.”

Piper shrugged and clicked into the banking account.

She sat back as they both looked at the number.

“One point two million in a personal bank account is obscene . . . right?” she asked.

Chase leaned over her, set his coffee down, and took control of the mouse. “That depends on your monthly nut.”

He scrolled down, and they both took in the numbers of his father’s monthly personal bills. Nearly everything was on autopilot. Utilities, groundskeepers, pool service . . .

Piper pointed at the screen. “Is that the mortgage payment?”

Chase skimmed past the entry she referred to, looking for the more personal entries. “Not high enough. It’s probably an escrow account for the property taxes.”

“Holy shit.”

Chase looked at the number again. Yeah, it was holy shit worthy. “Crazy.”

“I should have asked for a raise.”

He twisted her way, their heads only inches apart.

Piper was glued to the monitor, and his coffee cup was in her hands as she sipped the brew.

Without looking at him, she pointed to the screen again. “Do you think that’s the housekeeper?”

Turning back to the monitor, he kept refreshing the page until the woman’s name showed up again. The amount was the same. “It could be.”

She put his coffee down and wrote the woman’s name on the pad of paper. “Here,” she said, pushing away from the desk to stand. “You keep scrolling, I’ll see if I can find any information on this person. You can’t let a beautiful house like this grow dust.”

Chase took her place, and she started to leave the room.

“Where are you going?”

“My work laptop is in my car. While I’m at it, I’ll find the name of the gate system and see if there is a standard manual online with information on how it opens.”

“That would be very helpful.” And unexpected.

She smiled, narrowed her eyes. “We’ll discuss that raise later.”

He wasn’t sure if she was teasing or not, but he liked her free attitude about spending his father’s money.