“Miles?”
“Miles Basson. Head of security. He explained the steps to me in detail. He walked me through changing my ID and my appearance, and how to drop out of sight.” She drained her glass. “But I’m not a fool, Cruz. As much as I trust him, I wasn’t going to be led anywhere. I left San Francisco and found people in various places who made me false identities. They went from mediocre to damn good. And I kept moving until I figured I’d diffused my scent. Then I did a U-turn and bought this house from a broker via the Internet. Nobody knows where I am, and nobody will until it’s safe for me to go back home.”
Too damned bad. I know where the fuck you are.
“Has it occurred to you that the two people you trust the most could be the ones trying to kill you?”
She gave him a pained look. “Miles worked as my father’s personal security for thirty-five years. He’s on point and one hundred percent trustworthy. I’ve known Todd, my cousin, from the day he was born. I trust both men with my life.”
“Literally. Because these two men are the only people who know you’re in hiding, right?”
Rubbing the glass over her cheek absently, she nodded. “But don’t know where. And everyone else has been told I’m taking a long-overdue vacation.” She smiled slightly. “My stepmother thinks I’m getting plastic surgery.”
“On what, for God’s sake? Your tits are amazing, your ass is prime, and you’re too damn young to need any face work.”
The press thought she was having plastic surgery, too. Hadn’t they looked at the thousands of photographs they’d taken of her? And had this stepmother leaked that factoid?
“Anyone else in this close inner circle? This stepmother? Does she have any axes to grind with you?”
Mia shrugged. “It’s hard to tell with Candice. Her face doesn’t move, so it’s hard to read any nuances.” She smiled. “She’s two years younger than I am. We’re not BFFs, but we’re not enemies either. She’s quite extraordinarily beautiful, so she’s certainly not jealous. And my father left her extremely well-off, so I doubt she has an issue with money. She was kind of pissed at me a few years back, but that wasn’t about me per se. Our advertising agency didn’t want to use her as the face of Blush. They chose Amanda Dupris, a sexy twenty-year-old redhead with amazing skin. Candice was not happy, and let everyone know it. But that was two years ago. I doubt anyone would carry a grudge that long, or intensely enough, to hire a hit man.”
“Depends on how badly she wanted it. How about someone in your office? Your assistant?” She shook her head. “Board of directors?”
“No. But I’m sure they’re speculating. I’ve been orchestrating a leveraged buyout behind the scenes for several months, and the paperwork is almost ready to sign.”
Bingo. It would’ve been good to have this vital piece of information before he’d accepted the job. “Who’s handling the buyout?”
“Davis and Kent.”
One of the biggest investment firms in the country. “Top-notch players. Does anyone at Blush know about this?”
“Only Todd is in my confidence about the LBO.”
“It doesn’t take much cross-referencing to figure out that this cousin is the only one of two people to know you’ve gone into hiding, and he’s the only one of the two people also in on the LBO.” She was shaking her head. “Are you sure you’re willing to trust him with your life?”
“Yes. One hundred percent. But, that said, not even Todd knows where I am right now. No one does.” She gave him a small smile that did weird shit to his heart. Cruz ignored the sensation. “Except you.”
Fuck. “Someone doesn’t want you to own the company outright. What’s the family dynamic here?”
Absently she stroked her thigh. Self-soothing. Cruz wanted to do it for her. Mesmerized, his gaze followed the path of her fingers on her smooth, pale skin. “Great-grandfathers Duncan Wellington and Christopher Wentworth started Blush together almost a hundred years ago. A member of each family has been on the board for all those years with equal shares. It’s made for interesting family dynamics.”
Her palm cupped her knee, then slid to her calf. Cruz’s attention snagged on the path of her fingers, and the glide of her small hand on her own silky skin made his dick pulse.
“In the late eighties, my mother, Sonya Wellington, married Richard Wentworth in a wedding extravaganza to rival royalty. People still speak about the spectacle—or, as I later saw it, a brilliant business merger. Sonya was my father’s second wife, and he was in his mid-sixties when she got pregnant with me.