The Danforths: Wesley, Ian & Imogene: Scandal Between the Sheets / The Boss Man's Fortune / Challenged by the Sheikh

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Wesley was shocked. What he thought was a “he” had turned out to be a “she.” He saw the panic in the woman’s eyes and knew she was about to take off running but he couldn’t let her go without first offering her something. A part of him wondered what had happened in her young life to leave her this destitute.

“Wait! Don’t go. I want to help.”

He watched her eyes widen and thought she had the most incredible dark brown eyes that he had ever seen on a woman. A scarf completely covered her head and here in the darkened corner of the yard where only the moonlight shone through, he could see that her features were just as incredible as her eyes. Her skin tone was the color of rich cocoa and she appeared to be no more than twenty-five; the same age he had been when he had made his first millions.

She was wearing what appeared to be a well-worn jogging suit and surprisingly, she smelled good. His practiced nostrils recognized the fragrance, one that had an alluring scent. This particular brand would normally be too costly for a penniless person’s taste. Evidently, she’d hit gold in someone’s garbage and had come upon a half-empty bottle of some woman’s expensive perfume.

He blinked, forcing his mind to concentrate on the situation at hand and not on the possibilities, since, as far as he was concerned, there weren’t any. “How old are you?” he asked quietly, not wanting to scare her and wanting to assure her that he meant her no harm, although she was trespassing on his property.

He watched as she took a step back and when she did so, he was able to see more of her and suddenly, he could barely breathe. There was something about her that pulled on his heartstrings deeper than before. There was no way she should have to resort to this type of life for herself.

“I’m twenty-six,” she finally said, regaining his absolute attention. “Why?”

“I just wanted to know. Here’s some money,” he said, offering the wad of cash he held in his hand. “This is probably about five hundred dollars. Take it and go get something to eat and keep the rest to take care of yourself,” he said, thinking she wasn’t doing such a bad job of that anyway. She managed to look a lot more decent than some other homeless women.

“And since you won’t find too many fast-food places open this late at night, if you’re real hungry I can fix you something to eat.”

He watched her lips twitch into a smile when she said, “A microwave spaghetti dinner?”

Wesley blinked, then comprehended what she had said and why she had said it. He couldn’t help throwing his head back and letting out a hearty laugh. Evidently she had discovered that hitting his garbage cans had been a complete waste of her time. It was a known fact among his friends just how much he liked spaghetti. When he wasn’t dining at some elegant and expensive restaurant, the microwave dinners were pretty damn satisfying, as well as filling.

By the time he had brought his laughter under control he saw she had taken off, and the only thing he could see was a flash of her jogging suit as she sprinted down his driveway and slipped out of the decorative wrought iron gate. “Hey, stop! Wait! Don’t leave without taking the money!”

Too late, he thought, as he watched her fleeing back. Careful of his bare feet, he walked part of the way down his driveway to see what direction she had gone but didn’t see anything. It was as if she had totally disappeared. Feeling disgusted that he had scared her off before she had taken the money he’d offered, he was about to turn to go back inside the house when he happened to glance down. There was something lying on the concrete and glittering in the moonlight. Reaching down he picked it up and saw it was some sort of a locket the woman had evidently dropped. Clenching it firmly in the palm of his hand, Wesley went back into the house.

The moment Jasmine was inside her apartment she leaned against the door and tried to slow down her heart rate as she let out a deep sigh of relief. That had been close, too close, and the very thought that Wesley Brooks had assumed she was a homeless person was almost too much.

What was he doing home on a Saturday night?

Ronnie had tipped her off that Wesley Brooks had repaired Abraham Danforth’s computer rather recently, and Jasmine had decided to go through his garbage just in case he had tossed out anything of interest on Abraham. Abraham Danforth had announced his candidacy for senator a few months ago and since then she had been trying to get a breaking-newsworthy story. No one could be as squeaky clean as Abraham Danforth wanted everyone to believe he was, and if there was dirt to be found, she intended to be the one to find it. She desperately needed to break a big story if she wanted to advance her career as a newspaper reporter. By making a name for herself she could pursue bigger opportunities.

Wesley Brooks hadn’t had a clue why she had been going through his trash and she was grateful for that. Had he known she was a newspaper reporter, he could have charged her with trespassing among other things, especially since he had a sign posted on his property that clearly said, No Trespassing. She was glad she had parked her car around the corner, a good distance from his house. Although by the time she had reached her vehicle she had been out of breath, at least he hadn’t tried following her.

And to think he had offered her five hundred dollars! She shook her head, shocked. The playboy millionaire had a heart. A big heart. He had even offered to share his food with her, and Jasmine knew she had seen a side of Wesley Brooks that very few people saw. It appeared that when it came to the less fortunate, he had a caring spirit and a part of her couldn’t help but be touched by it.

She sighed, thinking she had really gotten desperate to be going through people’s garbage. With her inability to uncover dirt on Abraham, she had decided to delve into the personal lives of the second generation of Danforths to see what muck she could dig up on them, as well.

Last month, she thought she had just the story on Abraham Danforth’s nephew, Jacob Danforth. She had discovered that a woman, Larissa Neilson, had given birth to his baby two years ago. However, the woman had decided to tell Jacob the truth before he found out about his child by reading it in the papers. When Jacob had found out he had a son, he had quickly done the right thing by stepping in and marrying Larissa. As a result he had destroyed the opportunity for Jasmine to blow the story wide open. So now she wasn’t sure just what angle she wanted to use to get the most effect when she eventually wrote the story.

She crossed the room and stopped beside the telephone, tempted to call Ronnie and chew her out for giving her wrong information. Evidently, Mr. Brooks had changed his routine and decided to stay in tonight. But then Jasmine couldn’t discount the possibility that a female friend could have been waiting for him in bed. She wouldn’t put anything past someone who was as gorgeous as he was, and tonight, even with just the moonlight overhead, she had managed to get an eyeful.

Wesley Brooks was a good-looking man. She had seen his photographs a number of times but tonight was the first time she had seen him in the flesh, and, boy, what flesh it was.

She blushed, not believing where her thoughts had gone and decided, what the hell, she might as well get it out of her system, although she knew that would be impossible. The sight of him barefoot and wearing nothing but a pair of jeans would be permanently etched on her mind.

He was sexy as hell, powerfully built and had a body like male bodies were supposed to look. His shoulders were muscular, sleek, and his chest was broad, muscled with a patch of sparse dark hair that trailed all the way past the waistline of his jeans.

Instead of taking off when she had first seen him, she had stood rooted in place, her mind frozen, and her heart thumping so strongly she’d been barely able to catch her breath. Her body still burned thinking about it. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. For the past few years she had been too busy trying to make a name for herself as a reporter, chasing leads to possible breaking stories, that she had forgotten that she was a woman who could appreciate a good-looking man when she saw one.

Too bad the man had been Wesley Brooks. She wondered if he saw her again as Jasmine Carmody, newspaper reporter for the Savannah Morning News, would he recognize her? If he did, he would definitely be angry when he put two and two together, but she couldn’t think about that now. The only thing she wanted to think about was taking a shower and going to bed.

Once she got to the bathroom, she turned on the water full blast and began stripping out of her clothes and removing the scarf from her head. Moments later, she pulled the mass of braids that flowed to her shoulders, back away from her face and stepped beneath the shower. Her head fell back as the warm, pulsating water ran down her face, throat, neck, pounding her shoulders and loosening her muscles as it flowed down the rest of her body, washing away her tension. She slowly began to feel relaxed, clean and soothed.

Stepping out of the shower a while later, she quickly grabbed a huge towel and began drying off, appreciating that tomorrow was Sunday, the only day she kept for herself. She would attend early-morning church service and then as expected, she would put in an appearance at her father’s home and tolerate her stepmother, Evelyn, and stepsisters, Alyssa and Mallory’s, unpleasantness.

She wondered what aspect of herself they would pick on tomorrow. Would they still harp on the fact that in their opinion she was too thin and needed to gain weight? Or would they discuss her inability to find a man just because she never brought one to dinner?

That both Alyssa and Mallory never invited a man to dinner, either, was beside the point. Her life was the one that got scrutinized and criticized. Both her stepsisters were spoiled, but Evelyn seemed to overlook that. At twenty-four Alyssa was still living at home and Mallory, at twenty-two, had moved into an apartment that Jasmine knew for certain her father was paying for since Mallory was unemployed. Jasmine was the only self-supporting one in the bunch yet she was never good enough.

She remembered how things had been before Evelyn and her daughters had entered her and her father’s lives. Her mother had died when she was nine and for five years there had been just her and her father. Then one day Dr. James Carmody announced he was remarrying and that his new wife was a single woman with two young girls. He had excitedly exclaimed that the five of them would become a happy blended family, just like on The Brady Bunch.

He had been dead wrong. No sooner had Evelyn changed her name and moved in, than things began changing for the worse. She made it obvious that Alyssa and Mallory came first in everything, except chores. They had been the ones pampered and Jasmine had been the one left doing anything and everything they didn’t want to do. It never did any good to complain. It only made matters worse for her.

Sadly to say, her father had always spent a lot of his time at the hospital taking care of patients, and when he’d finally noticed what was happening in his home, it was too late. The damage had been done. The only good thing was that Jasmine knew her father loved her. He had immediately tried to set matters right and at one time had gone so far as to threaten to divorce Evelyn if he ever discovered she was mistreating Jasmine again.

Jasmine knew that one word from her and Evelyn and her daughters would be history. And as much as they weren’t her favorite people, she didn’t want to think of them being put out on the streets. Without her father’s name and money, the three women would be like fish out of water. So the majority of the time Jasmine never bothered to tell him how Evelyn and her daughters continued to mistreat her. Instead, she tried to make the best of the situation and only went to visit them once a week on Sundays for dinner.

Jasmine smiled when she thought about her mother and what a warm, loving individual she had been. After her mother’s death, there had been Aunt Rena, her mother’s sister who had always been there for her until she had died the summer Jasmine turned twenty-one. It was that summer when Aunt Rena had given her a box containing her mother’s personal belongings. They were items that Jasmine’s father had given Aunt Rena for safekeeping. Evidently, James Carmody had known that if Evelyn ever got her hands on any of it, she would have given them to her daughters instead.

Jasmine had appreciated her father’s thoughtfulness in looking out for her that way and in protecting the precious gifts her mother had wanted her to have. Most of the items had been jewelry that had been passed down through at least four generations—rare, expensive jewelry.

The piece that had caught Jasmine’s heart more than anything had been the beautiful gold-domed embossed locket she always remembered her mother wearing. From the day her aunt Rena had given it to her, the locket had been a constant companion around her neck. She never took it off and it served as a reminder of a time when she had been deeply loved by both of her parents.

Automatically, she reached for it, where it usually rested between her breasts and suddenly went still when she discovered it wasn’t there. Frantically, she went to the laundry hamper to pull out the jogging outfit she’d been wearing tonight, in hopes the locket may have slipped from around her neck and fallen inside her clothes. She had gotten the clasp on the locket repaired just last year.

When Jasmine couldn’t find it in the house she then slipped on a bathrobe and went outside to retrace her steps to her car, as well as going through every inch of her vehicle. She still found nothing. Jasmine knew the only other place it could possibly be was somewhere on Wesley Brooks’s property. She became distraught at the possibility that it could have fallen in his trash while she’d been going through it.

Reentering her house, Jasmine slumped back against the door as tears filled her eyes. That locket meant everything to her and now it was gone. If it were on Wesley Brooks’s property, how would she get it back? If he thought his property was open to trespassers after what happened tonight, chances were he would take precautions and lock the security gates the next time he was out.

And what if he found her locket? Would he think that perhaps it belonged to one of his lady friends and assume that no homeless person could own anything of such value?

Crossing the room, Jasmine slumped down in a chair wondering what in the world she was going to do? The last thing she wanted was to encounter the likes of Wesley Brooks again, but now it appeared that she had no choice.

The next day Wesley stood on his terrace and inhaled the fresh morning air with a cup of coffee in one hand and the locket he had found the night before in the other. He frowned as he carefully studied the piece of jewelry. He wasn’t an expert but he’d bet anything the item was worth a fortune. As he took a sip of coffee he knew there was only one way to find out. Bruce Crawford.

He and Bruce had met a few years ago and the man’s expertise in unique custom jewelry sales and designs was well known. Wesley had a feeling the piece of jewelry he was looking at was a very rare piece. He had pondered why a homeless person would have such a piece of jewelry in their possession without exchanging it for money to buy food for most of the night. Then he had opened the locket and found his answer when he saw that the picture inside bore a striking likeness to the destitute woman who had been going through his garbage. He had quickly surmised that the woman in the locket was the young woman’s mother and she had kept the locket for sentimental reasons. He couldn’t help but admire her for making such a sacrifice and was determined to see that the locket was returned to her.

He shook his head, not understanding his need to see the woman again and to make sure that she was all right. The shadows beneath his eyes indicated he’d spent a sleepless night thinking about her. It had been a long time since any woman had made him lose sleep. But there had been something about her, something he couldn’t put his finger on that had appealed to him on an emotional level. He couldn’t push from his mind the memory of the smile that had touched her lips when he’d offered her food, and couldn’t help wondering what had brought her to such a poverty-stricken state.

Hearing the telephone ring, Wesley went back inside and, after placing his coffee cup on the counter, picked up the phone. “Yes?”

“You haven’t forgotten about the card game tomorrow night, have you?”

Wesley chuckled upon hearing the sound of Ian Danforth’s voice. Ian was Abraham Danforth’s oldest son, and since Abraham and Harold Danforth were brothers, Ian was also Jake’s cousin. When Abraham had declared his candidacy for the senate, Ian took over the reins of the family company, Danforth and Danforth. Since Ian had been in charge of things, he had significantly increased the company’s profits by creating a coffee import business. Ian was also a silent but equal partner with his younger brother Adam and his cousin Jake in a very successful joint venture—Danforth & Danforth’s chain of upscale coffeehouses.

“No, I haven’t forgotten. Have you talked to Jake and the others?”