BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books (23 page)

              "Lesher, look at me," she says. I turn to find her earnest face gazing up into mine, eyes searching. "You said before you don't need the money. So how wealthy
are
you? And remember," she continues as she holds up a finger. "You said you wouldn't lie to me. We made a promise, right?"

              I look for a long moment down at the woman whose life I've put on hold, if not ruined. She doesn't blink; she returns my stare—which I have been told all my life is unsettling and untrustworthy—with such openness that for a moment I can't believe she's real.

              She has to know without my saying it. She has to. And if she doesn't put two and two together, she'll meet the others soon enough, and just who I am and how far I've strayed will become all too apparent.

              I watch as her eyes narrow by degrees, before ultimately falling to stare at the patch of gravel between us. She turns from me. I'm not sure where she intends to go—if she intends to precede me up the stairs to the Clubhouse, or if she's simply walking away.

              "Nancy, wait."

              She whips around immediately at my call, and we nearly collide as I move to her. She is quick to mask the eagerness on her face at being addressed and tries to play it cool, but she isn't quick enough. The tight line that my lips have inhabited all during the ride up here thaws somewhat, but I don't have a smile for her. Not yet.

              I don't have ready answers, either, but I do have a gift for her. I pull a silver flash drive from my pocket and pass it to Nancy. I watch as recognition dawns on her face—not because she has seen it clearly before, but because she knows exactly what it is I'm handing to her now.

              She may not know the device's contents, but it's for the better.

              "I need you to hold onto this for me," I express. "You're used to working for an organization that protects people’s property, right? You safeguard assets for a living."

              "Are…are you sure?" she asks me.

I step closer to her. I can't help but feel that a burden has been lifted from me, even if it's only for the moment…and even if, at the end of the day, what I'm feeling isn't real.

I watch the sweet face beneath the tousled hair, so thin and pale, look up at me again. I watch her lips part, expectant of a response. I lean in.

              "Lesher."

              I was too wrapped up with Nancy to hear the telltale crunch of gravel. I withdraw, and note that Nancy pockets the flash drive inside my inverted jacket before turning.

              A man approaches us. He is tall, his legs long and strides swift. I register the dark hair and the overgrown stubble bristling his jaw, the shadows beneath his eyes that are indicative of lack of sleep. Unlike Nancy, I don't need to observe the studded leather jacket he wears to know who he is and what his relationship is to me.

              I take a step away from Nancy, intent on keeping her out of matters between us.

              The man hauls back, and punches me right in the face.

NANCY

Lesher goes down. Hard.

              I feel guilty that my first thought is:
finally!
If any man ever deserved to be hit, even knocked unconscious, it's Lesher. This vengeful stranger has accomplished exactly what I intended the first time I kicked my seemingly impervious captor in the face.

              My next thought is far more charitable to Lesher. Seeing him laid out on the ground causes a strange tenderness to rear up inside me. I raise my eyes from him to glare at his aggressor.

              "Well, don't just stand there! Now that you've gotten the dramatics over with, help me get him inside!" I exclaim.

The man blinks and takes a step back, rubbing the knuckles of his hand. No other remonstration comes; the damage has already been done. But like hell I'm going to attempt to drag Lesher's limp body up the stairs by myself, and I certainly don't intend to leave him here.

              The stranger grunts and drops to his haunches. I join him in helping to gather Lesher up, settling him on a pair of lean, powerful shoulders. The longer strands of Lesher's blond undercut fall forward to conceal his inert face; seeing this causes another pang in my heart. I step back as the stranger rises, bringing Lesher with him.

              "Who are you?" he grunts as we start up the steps. "This Clubhouse is members only. No one but the Robber Barons are allowed in here.

              Robber Barons. That's right. That's what Lesher said to me before, back when we were coming down the driveway. It must be the name of the motorcycle club he's involved with.

              I climb the steps beside the man, but hang back for a moment just to be sure. His jacket is different from Lesher's, but it bears the same insignia. I strip mine off and turn it right side out, before pushing my hands through the sleeves once more. I hurry to catch up with him; we're nearly at the front door.

              "I wear the patch, don't I?" I mention hesitantly. A pair of black eyes cut to me quickly; the man pauses as I walk by him to observe that what I say is true.

              "Not exactly what it means to wear a patch," he muses. "But since I just punched out your only real link to gaining entry in here, I'm going to give you a pass until he wakes up. You look like you could use a shower at least."

              "Thank you. I appreciate it, mister…?" I feel ridiculous in the wake of my prompt, but there's really no other way to breach the subject of an introduction that I can think of. The man crooks a dark eyebrow at me. He is
extremely
handsome, I realize, although he might as well be the photo negative of Lesher. He's taller and leaner, although obviously packs a powerful punch. He's tan from the road, and dark everywhere in contrast to where Lesher is lightest: complexion, hair, eyes. I can't help but wonder if they're the inverse on the inside as well, and if this man might be a little more trustworthy, a little more valiant, than I am prepared to consider Lesher to be.

              "Flint," he introduces himself. "Flint Carter. You gotta name?"

              "Nancy," I reply. "Cardigan. I would offer you my hand, but I can see you have yours full."

              Flint chuckles as he kicks the front door to the mansion open, and I wince at his show of force. The house is so beautiful that I can't imagine treating it with anything other than complete reverence; then again, I am a guest here, as everyone I've met so far has so kindly pointed out. I follow Flint into the foyer, fighting the urge to reach out and brush Lesher's hair back from where his head dangles close to the back of the man's waist. I should probably be ashamed of myself that these feelings for Lesher only come when he's knocked out cold.

              "Flint! What in God's name?" a woman's voice demands. We turn the corner into the kitchen, and a redheaded woman, taller and much more striking than I am, unwraps her legs from around the bar stool and runs to us. Between the three of us, we manage to lift Lesher right side up and deposit him on one of the expansive couches in the den.
"Lesher?"
the woman exclaims. "What is
he
doing here?"

"That's something I was hoping our new friend Nancy could explain." Flint crosses his arms and stares me down. I wave meekly to the redheaded woman.

"It's, um...it's a long explanation," I hedge tentatively.

"I wouldn't expect it to be short." The red-haired beauty, Ana, stands over Lesher's prone form with her fists settled disapprovingly in her hips. Taking her in, I'm more conscious than ever at just how road-weary I must look. Neither of them mentions it, or even appears to notice that I look like something the neighbor's cat dragged in. Maybe this sort of thing is normal to them, despite the uncomfortable amount of wealth and affluence evidently surrounding them.

Even though we have no reason to trust one another yet, I can't help but kind of like them for that.

Ana's first priority is to wordlessly return to the bar and pour a drink. When she holds it out with an expectant look, I realize that it's for me. I shuffle shyly to the bar, limping on one damaged heel, and take a grateful seat. Flint joins us, crossing his arms expectantly as I accept Ana's gift of welcome. His dark eyes never move from me; I'm not sure he's even blinked since we entered the mansion.

I take a long, deep swig, conscious of their eyes on me, and on the fact that I'm wearing Lesher's jacket in particular. I'm not sure it was a detail that registered with them before. "Okay. So, it's a long explanation," I repeat. I unwrap one finger from around the glass and point, before feeling distraction take over. "Wait, what is this?" I ask as I draw the drink back to examine it. "It's delicious."

"Focus," Flint advises me.

"Thank you," Ana expresses in almost the same instant, overriding Flint's order in what almost appears a purposeful move to an outsider like me. I watch his lean, handsome face tighten in disapproval, and realize I'm not imagining things at all. They must have an interesting relationship. I can't help but admire the easy way Ana seems to enjoy subverting him. If only things could be the same between Lesher and me...but then again, these two, from their body language, are clearly in a romantic relationship with one another. I'm not ready to admit the same for Lesher and myself.

"It's a hard Shirley Temple, and you're welcome to have as many as you need," Ana continues as she turns her back to busy herself at the bar once more. "They're Flint's favorite, although he would never admit it. He's probably just worried there won't be enough left for him."

"I have a lot of worries," Flint interrupts. "Chief among them is that a man I used to call 'brother', and the same man who sold you out to your father's gang, has managed to find his way back into our lives."

"But...well..." I struggle to keep up with what feels like an overload of incredible information. "Aren't you in the same club? I mean, motorcycle club? You both wear the same patch, and you said only members are allowed to enter the Clubhouse."

Ana and Flint exchange looks, and I'm given a new piece of information: Ana clearly isn't a member of the MC. They broke the rules long before Lesher decided to bring me here.

"Lesher and I are both Robber Barons," Flint continues carefully. "I assume he's at least given you some indication of what that means?"

"You're both billionaires." I'm thankful for the opportunity to fill in Flint's blank, because it helps the revelation of Lesher's hidden wealth sink in a bit better. As if the mansion wasn't revelation enough. "But maybe you didn't exactly come into your money by legal means?"

Ana snorts, but contributes little else to this vein of the conversation. Flint looks like he would cross his arms if they weren't crossed already; instead, I hear the material of his jacket creak as tensed muscles deepen the gesture.

"Of the five of us, Lesher is the one who has always been least likely to act within the law," Flint intones. "I don't know how the two of you met, or what you are to each other, but I feel some responsibility in letting you know that Lesher made his fortune as an arms dealer."

"I didn't know that!" Ana pipes up excitedly.

"Hey, you look kind of familiar. Have I seen you in a magazine or something?" I mention as I squint my eyes toward Flint. He doesn't say anything in response to this, but Ana locks eyes with me and taps the side of her nose with one finger. Whatever her signal means, I assume I can expect an answer from her later on that front.

"Did you hear me?" Flint prompts. "The man you're riding with is an arms dealer. While I won't pretend that anyone in the RBMC isn't dangerous, Lesher is exceptionally so. In fact, he's really only still a member by virtue of the fact that he hasn't been an easy man to track down in the last few months. Thankfully I've tranquilized him long enough to notify the others that he's here.

"You're fist was the tranquilizer?" I hazard. Flint nods grimly, and Ana's smile stretches in a silent laugh at the imagery. At least she appears to share my sense of humor. I think Flint is too naturally serious to notice.

"We're going to hold a club meeting in the next few days," he continues. "It may be breaking club protocol, but it's a good thing that you and Ana are here. Both of you know Lesher. You can feel free to defend him if you want at the hearing."

"What are you guys anyway?" Ana asks me. She leans against the counter and nurses her own drink. She crooks an eyebrow at me to punctuate her question, and that's when I realize her hair is dyed. Flint's earlier comments about her belonging to a gang, or at least growing up in one, make me wonder what her story is.

I cast my eyes back to the couch, but Lesher doesn't rise to interrupt me; he doesn't so much as move. I'm safe to tell them exactly what we mean to each other.

Well, maybe I'm not prepared to go that far.

"He kidnapped me," I state bluntly. "After robbing the bank I work at. He took me hostage, and then the warehouse he was holding me at exploded into a fireball, so…we came here."

Flint's arms fall to his sides as he stares at me. I watch Ana's grip slip from around her drink, and it crashes to the kitchen floor in a sugar-pink splash of booze and shattered glass. After a moment, Flint whirls on his heel to retrieve a broom from the closet.

              "Well. Anybody for Fireball?" Ana jokes weakly. I don't hesitate long at all. I raise my hand to volunteer.

#

After I tell my story, the three of us move Lesher upstairs to one of the mansion bedrooms. I have to monitor this procedure carefully, because I get the impression that Flint might really like to let his end slip and send Lesher's unconscious frame tumbling back down the stairs.

              "We'll put him in the room at the top of the stairs," Flint instructs.

              "Oh, not that one," Ana complains. "That one's the servant’s quarters. Not that I have a problem with it," she directs this toward me. "There are no servants in the house, and it's not like I'm so spoiled that I'd turn my nose up at a small room. But compared to some of the other rooms in the house, I personally think we can do better for you!"

             
"Nancy
won't be staying in the same room he is," Flint growls. "This isn't their honeymoon, Anastasia. He kidnapped her!"

              "It's all right," I say, trying to inject some agreeability into the proceedings…plus, the more they bicker with one another, the more of Lesher's deadweight is transferred to me. "I don't mind. He should probably have someone checking in on him. Which reminds me: what do we do if he doesn't wake up?"

              The thought hadn't occurred to me previously. Now I'm panicking, imagining a million and one different ways that Lesher could be concussed or brain damaged, or worse…

              "A punch from me isn't going to kill a guy like Lesh." Flint dismisses my concerns, but I can tell he doesn't mean to be cold; if anything, he's trying to cheer me up. I didn't think it was possible, considering the stressful circumstances surrounding the past few days, not to mention the uncertain situation I now find myself in with these two strangers, but I smile tentatively to let him know his words have relieved some of my burden. Speaking of, we manage to make it to the top of the stairs and pull Lesher through the open door to the bedroom.

              The room feels rather large to me, if sparsely furnished—almost like a freshly turned over, expensive hotel room, sans the coffee maker and other impersonal amenities. Everything is mahogany and warm, tightly tucked, and angled for economy of space.

              We deposit Lesher down on the bed. It's the most peaceful I've ever seen him look; I can't help but reach down to brush a disheveled strand of blond hair away from his sealed-over eyes. It amazes me how much tension he must hold in his default expression at all times. I've known since I first laid eyes on him that he was a stunning man, but there's something so much more natural about him now that I look at him with careful, patient scrutiny. I remember the one time I saw him smile, truly smile, at something I said while we were out on the road together, and think the same principle must apply here.

              At his core, Lesher is not an evil man. The revelation comes as something of a relief to me, but I can't help but wonder what it would have meant for me if he was. Did it matter to a heart that has been too confused all along to tell the difference? Would it have changed my feelings for him if he really
was
the career criminal, the seamless liar, the cold executor? Hadn't I started to fall for him under those conditions, with those exact impressions to inform the helpless formation of my feelings?