Authors: Lora Leigh
We've
missed you. Not
I
. Jaci caught that one quickly.
She ducked her head, hoping to hide her response to that statement as she inhaled with a slow, deep breath.
"You ran out on us, Jaci."
Jaci swallowed tightly, her head jerking up as his tone hardened.
"There was nothing to run out on." She kept her voice firm, steady.
The shadowed landscape lighting gave his expression a darker, more dangerous cast. His eyes gleamed in the low light, piercing into hers.
His fingers paused at the nape of her neck where they had been playing with the hair that drifted down from the clip. His expression became intent, determined.
He nodded slowly. "I guess you're right. There was nothing to run out on." His lips quirked humorlessly. "We still missed you like hell, though. Life wasn't the same without your laughter."
It hadn't been the same without them, either. She had been their friend, when other women were no more than novelties—she knew that. Until one night destroyed that friendship. She had never looked at Chase the same after that, and she had never seen Cam again.
The thought of Cam had her insides burning, rioting with fear and with need. She kept checking the shadows for him, kept expecting him to step into view. And the hunger to see him was growing within her in burning waves.
"I need to get back inside." She rose to her feet, her fingers tightening on the small purse that hung from her shoulder. "It's almost the witching hour for me. I have to get up early in the morning."
She needed to get away from him, to think. It had been too damned long since she had seen Chase or Cam, too long since she had allowed herself to think about the Falladay twins, either separately or apart.
"Let me take you back to your hotel, or are you staying here?" He nodded to the mansion.
"I'm at a hotel. But I'll be fine."
"We could talk—just talk, Jaci, I promise." He smiled. The charm and sensuality that was so much a part of him wrapped around her, encouraged her to join in, to let herself be seduced.
"I don't know."
"Just the two of us."
He said it so easily, with just a hint of amusement, a promise of sensuality. There was a shade of mockery in his tone, an acknowledgement of her hesitancy and the reasons why.
Jaci looked around the thick foliage of the grotto, the scent of summer, of sultry heat wrapping around her, the scent of the man sinking into her. And she weakened. He wasn't Cam, but he knew her. He wouldn't betray her or deliberately hurt her. And she was tired—tired of being alone and wishing for things she couldn't have. Tired of dreaming of one man and regretting one night.
Finally, she nodded. A slow, hesitant movement, a part of her holding back, the other part reaching out for him.
His smile was slow, confident, and for a moment Jaci wondered if she had somehow just stepped into something she didn't have a chance of handling.
"You can't change your mind." He caught her hand and drew her back along the path.
Rather than heading back into the ballroom, he drew her instead to a glass door that opened into the private wing of the house.
"I need to let Courtney know I'm leaving," she said as they moved through the short hall and into the kitchen and formal dining room, before turning into the foyer.
"Matthew will let her know." He drew her to the front door where the butler stepped from the small room that connected to the private wing as well as the main mansion.
"Mr. Falladay. Miss Wright." Matthew nodded his head politely.
"Matthew, please let Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair know we've left. Tell Ian I'll contact him tomorrow about those files."
"Of course, Mr. Falladay," Matthew acknowledged impassively. "I'll inform them immediately."
He stepped forward and opened the door for them, his brown eyes flickering with curiosity as they passed him.
Matthew was the scourge of Courtney's life, and the bastion of the male-only club Ian Sinclair owned—the one Courtney wasn't allowed in. The one Jaci had been hired to redesign, along with the private wing and main mansion. The Sinclair home was being turned over to the club itself, while Ian and Courtney would be moving into the new home they were building out of sight of the club, on the other side of the estate.
"Courtney's going to skin us both," she warned him as she lifted her dress and moved down the stone steps to the driveway beyond.
"I promise to protect you." He flashed a smile over his shoulder, his gaze wicked.
"Who will protect you, though?" She laughed, allowing him to pull her to the curb of the circular driveway as a vehicle's lights moved around the drive.
"Quick service," she murmured, as the Jaguar pulled to a stop in front of them and the valet driver jumped from the car.
"Matthew's a very efficient man."
He opened the door and helped her into the passenger seat before moving around the front of the car.
Jaci watched him move. He didn't hurry. He strode with determined steps, with powerful coordination. A wolf in elegant sheep's wool, she thought with a smile. And he did look elegant.
A second later he was moving into the driver's seat, pulling the door closed, and accelerating away from the brightly lit mansion.
"Where was Cam tonight?" She turned to stare at his profile, unable to forget that Cam was back at that party. She could have seen him. At least from a distance. Perhaps spoken to him.
He turned and flashed her a quick look. "He was looking for Ian when I caught sight of you. By now, they're likely deeply involved in a business discussion."
Had they changed that much over the past seven years? Despite Chase's words, perhaps Cam had forgotten about the immature little virgin who had dared to tease him, then ran away from the truth she didn't want to face.
"He didn't even want to stop and say hello to me?" She didn't want to admit that it hurt, that he had known she was there and hadn't stopped to speak.
"I slipped away with you." There was no smile this time.
His jaw seemed to tighten, a fine sense of tension invading the interior of the car.
Jaci turned her head and stared through the windshield again. There were so many questions raging inside her, so many emotions.
She felt off balance, meeting Chase like this, unprepared for it, not expecting him.
"Courtney's been excited over the design project Ian approved," he spoke into the silence. "I bet it took her two months to talk him into those plans. He wanted to give the mansion over to the club, but I don't think he was certain about allowing a woman to do the designing."
She smiled at that. Ian had questioned her extensively, on not just her credentials, which she knew he had checked out, but also her ideas about a male-dominant domain.
"So you and Cam knew I was arriving?" She turned back to him as that thought hit her.
"We did the investigative check on you before Courtney was given the go-ahead to contact you."
Jaci's lips parted in surprise before she tightened them with irritation. "I'm surprised Ian approved me, then." And now she wasn't surprised Cam hadn't wanted to see her.
Chase was quiet for long moments after that. "If Cam and I hadn't known you, he probably wouldn't have," he revealed. "We were the deciding factor."
She turned from him then, anger stealing past the shield she had learned to keep between herself and the world.
One accidental misstep, one job she never should have taken, and it had nearly destroyed her career. The repercussions were like echoes, they never went away, even five years later.
"Do you want to tell me what happened between you and Congressman Roberts?" he asked, his tone harder now, slipping from curiosity to demand.
She hated being ambushed, and suddenly that was how she felt.
"No, I don't. And if this is why you insisted on returning me to my hotel, then you should have stayed where you were. Perhaps you should have allowed Ian Sinclair to make up his own mind about me while you were at it. I don't need your help."
"You're just as damned stubborn as you ever were," he growled. "It was a logical question, Jaci. Something happened, or they wouldn't have targeted you so heavily."
"So tell me, Mr. Investigator," she snapped, "what answers did you come up with? Why don't
you
tell
me
what happened with Congressman Roberts?"
She knew what rumors the Robertses had spread.
"Wait." She held up her hand before he could speak. "On second thought, let me guess. I was caught attempting to steal a large amount of cash that Congressman Roberts kept in the desk in his private office. When they caught me, out of the kindness of their hearts, they just fired me from the job they hired me for and sent me on my way, rather than calling the police. Did I get it right?"
He shot her a short glance. "There were rumors of an affair with the congressman, as well," he stated.
Oh yeah, she hadn't forgotten about that one.
Jaci propped her elbow on the door ledge, pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and breathed in deeply. For five years she had been dealing with this.
It had taken her years to save up the money to finance her dream of settling in one city and opening her own design shop, all because of one malicious, corrupt couple that didn't know how to keep their dirty laundry hidden.
"So, why did you vouch for me? So you could interrogate me?" She turned to him with a glare.
"You're no thief."
"But I could very well be a home-wrecking little tramp out to snag a congressman?" she sneered.
"Or Annalee Roberts could be staying true to form, and attempting to destroy someone who has managed to get in her way, or who knows something she's terrified of others knowing," he suggested. "What happened, Jaci?"
"I breathed," she gritted out as he pulled beneath the entrance to the hotel Ian Sinclair had placed her in. "And now I'm going to my room, alone. Thank you for the ride."
The door opened smoothly, the doorman extending his hand to her as she stepped from the vehicle and headed for the entrance.
She was furious and she knew she had no right to be. She had known in coming here that this would come up, that there was no escaping the past, once she stepped into the Robertses' territory.
Congressman Roberts was rumored to be making a bid to replace his father-in-law in the Senate. He had a lot to lose, and as far as she knew, only one person knew their dirty little secrets. Secrets she wished she didn't know.
"Dammit, Jaci. Hold up." Chase caught up with her in the lobby, his fingers wrapping around her arm, pulling her to a stop as she headed for the elevators. "Talk to me."
"I'm done talking to you," she bit out. "You're as overbearing as Cam ever was, and I'm not in the mood to deal with it. Go back home, Chase. Find a nice little woman who can put up with you and your brother, and leave me the hell alone."
"Dammit, you don't want Cam asking these questions," he warned her, his voice dark. "And he will ask them, Jaci. He's not the man you left behind in Oklahoma. And trust me, he hasn't forgotten that promise he made to you the night he took you home. Do you remember it?"
His voice roughened, as Jaci became aware of the odd looks they were getting from the hotel staff and the guests that loitered in the lobby.
"I don't know . . ."
"He said he would kill any man who dared to hurt you." His voice was soft, warning. "Did you think he was joking? Do you think for a moment he forgot that promise? Tell me, Jaci, do you want to be the cause of Congressman Roberts's death?"
Cameron Falladay stood on the stone patio outside the ballroom, his body braced against the brick wall, a drink in hand, head lowered. His head filled with a woman's face and the memory of a kiss that had burned through his soul.
Her. Jaci.
He ground his teeth together and fought against the need to leave the party, to race to her hotel room before Chase could touch her, before his brother could take the woman who had tormented Cam for so long.
He wanted to sink inside her with a hunger that had tightened his muscles to the point that they ached. His cock was iron hard, throbbing brutally with that need.
What had possessed him to refuse to go to her? He had known if he didn't, Chase would, and at that time, that seemed the better solution. It had been seven long years since he had touched the woman that tormented damned near every dream he'd had since she left the small Oklahoma town they lived in.
The first punch of clawing need that had struck him the second he'd seen her tonight had almost stolen his breath. He had stood there, staring at her, the way that dress draped down, baring her back, swishing sexily above her rounded ass.
It was enough to make a grown man go to his knees and worship that rounded flesh and everything above and below it.
Instead of going to her, he had left Chase to go after her instead, because he didn't trust his control. He didn't trust his ability not to demand things he knew she couldn't give.
But letting her go, risking his brother, even the brother he shared his women with, touching her, was fraying his control.
No one had ever tempted his control as Jaci did. Even seven years ago, a tender twenty-one-year-old virgin with stars in her eyes, she had tempted it. She made him want to forget the rules that had defined his life. Made him wish he was someone or something other than who he was.
"Hey, Cam, where's that brother of yours?" The false joviality in Congressman Roberts's voice had Cam tensing, his head lifting as he stared back at the smaller man with barely restrained violence in his heart.
Where he stood was shadowed, darker than the area around it, hiding the anger he had promised himself and Ian he would keep carefully restrained.
But it wasn't easy. Roberts was a maggot, and he was the maggot that had tormented Jaci for five years.
The investigative report they had pulled together on her over the past months had enraged him and Chase. Chase was more subtle; Roberts's financials would be an open book to them eventually—to them, as well as to the Feds. Cam wasn't much into subtlety, though. He wanted to ram his fist into the bastard's face.
"Congressman," he drawled softly, "I'm sure Chase is around somewhere."
Dark brown hair was layered to frame the congressman's face and lend it an "honest" appearance. The false sincerity in his brown gaze had always sickened Cam, but now it made him almost violent.
"I saw him with Ms. Wright earlier." Those eyes flickered with concern. "I was hoping to catch him before he left with her."
"Did he leave with her?" Cam drawled, his hand tightening on his drink glass as he thought of all the reasons why it was a very bad idea to rearrange this man's face.
"I hope not." Roberts sighed. "Ms. Wright is a perfectly acceptable interior designer, but a man in Chase's position should be careful of his reputation."
"And she can harm that how?" If he killed Roberts, he could hide the body really well. The Special Forces had taught him how. But he'd never be able to hide the fact that he'd done it from Chase. And Chase would just give him hell over it.
"Certain women always manage to do so," the congressman sighed. "Ah well, I'm certain he's well aware of her past. Being an investigator comes in handy," he joked, his laughter as false as the concern had been.
"It does indeed."
Roberts cleared his throat. "It's regrettable that Ms. Wright sometimes allows herself to forget her place. Some women"—he shrugged philosophically, with no idea how close to death he was stepping,—"some women aren't always willing to work properly for what they want."
Cam felt his hand curl into a fist.
"How
did
she work for what she wanted, then?"
If the bastard said the words, he was dead. As cold and dead as any enemy Cam had taken out in the military. All he had to do was say the words, and Cam promised himself, the bastard's death would be brutal. Bloody.
Roberts shook his head and sighed almost pityingly. Almost.
"I'm not a man to tell tales," he finally said. "Just tell Chase to be careful. I'd hate to see a friend hurt."
Richard Roberts turned on his heel and shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks and moved away, his head down, as though he felt sorry for Chase.
The lying, corrupt son of a bitch. That bastard and his wife had made Jaci's life a living hell for five years, and not even once, not once, had she asked anyone for help. Not once had she complained or attempted to defend herself. She had held her silence and tried to deflect their viciousness as much as possible.
Alone.
He pushed the fingers of one hand through his hair and blew out a hard, control-fortifying breath. He was not going to follow Congressman Roberts and beat his brains into a bloody pulp. Cam would not tell that viperous woman Roberts had married what a lousy excuse for a human she was.
And he would not, by God, destroy the hard work Jaci had put into keeping her reputation intact. But she would belong to him. To him, as well as to Chase. She had run for seven years, and now, by God, the running was over.
He had no idea what had actually happened between the congressman, his wife, and Jaci. Even Courtney Sinclair, Jaci's friend, had no clue what had caused the Robertses to target her. Jaci simply hadn't talked. The Robertses had, though.
He remembered that about her. Jaci wasn't into gossip or telling tales. Tell her something, it stayed with her. And she never had been the sort of female to run to others for protection. Whatever the Robertses had done to her, it had caused her to retreat inside herself, to restrain the fiery nature that he had always been drawn to.
He glanced toward the doorway Roberts had used to reenter the house. It was one of the side doors. The congressman was known for retreating to Ian's private study and his better booze, rather than joining the Sinclair parties for long.
Ian allowed it, though Cam knew he didn't particularly like it.
Cam thought of all the ways he could hurt the other man without leaving a mark. How easily he could warn him that Jaci was off-limits. That her name would never pass his lips again.
He took a step toward the doorway, when Ian Sinclair stepped out on the patio. The other man watched him suspiciously, his dark green eyes glowed with knowledge as he slid a cigar from inside his jacket and smiled back at Cam.
"These parties suck," Ian said as Cam retreated, leaned against the wall once again, and cocked his brow mockingly.
"I wouldn't have hurt him too bad," he murmured with a tight smile.
Ian snorted at that before extending an extra cigar toward Cam. Cam took it as Ian lit up his own. Seconds later, the sweet scent of imported tobacco filled the air, and Ian leaned against the stone balustrade of the patio.
"A woman can mess up a man's mind sometimes, Cam." He sighed. "Make him rethink things."
"Don't start on me, Ian."
Ian had been full of wise little comments since he learned Cam had a weakness, and that weakness was a woman. For some reason, the other man had seemed surprised that Cam could care either way.
"Ms. Wright left the party with Chase awhile ago," Ian stated. "Did you know about that?"
"I knew." Cam shrugged. Chase knew the limits, he had always known them, where Jaci was concerned.
Ian watched him for another long moment before staring out at the garden. "Sometimes a man can accept the need to share his woman's pleasure. Sharing her heart is another thing. They can be separate."
"Let's cut the shit," he told his employer coolly. "I don't tell you how to conduct your marriage, or your business. Refrain from giving me advice here, if you don't mind."
He didn't need it. Jaci belonged to him and Chase would know it. But his fist curled at his side and the need to leave the party, to rush to her hotel, was nearly eating him alive.
"Agreed." Ian sighed. "But stay away from Roberts, Cam, until you have proof of whatever you think he may have done. I can handle violence if there's reason for it. Otherwise, stay back."
"I'm well back," Cam mocked.
Cam didn't need proof, no more than he needed proof of Jaci's innocence or her guilt. He understood the world. Sometimes a woman stepped into things she shouldn't—that was always possible. But Roberts had threatened her, and that wasn't acceptable.
He stared into the night once again, a frown brewing at his eyes. The investigation they had done on her had been too damned sketchy for seven years of a woman's life.
There were rumors, here and there, of lovers, but none of those rumors had panned out. For seven years, Jaci had worked her ass off at her career, but she hadn't put much into making friends or developing relationships.
Whatever had happened with Roberts had happened five years ago. After that, even less effort had gone into filling her life with anything other than work.
She didn't party, except for business occasions. She was known for her restraint and cool purpose, her stubbornness and determination. She was outspoken in her design work, but rarely discussed personal issues with her clients. She had only a few friends, and pulling information from two of them had been like pulling teeth.
Courtney Sinclair and the manager of Ian's men's club, Sebastian De Lorents, had been less than forthcoming about anything they might know about her. Such loyalty wasn't common, especially within the society they moved in.
"What are you going to do?" Ian finally asked.
"About what?" Cam turned back to him.
Ian shook his head. "If she's going to design the club, then she's going to have to understand the rules she's working under. I expect you to take care of that."
"It's your club," Cam growled.
"And your woman. See it's done before she leaves tomorrow. Then we'll decide if this job is truly hers or not. I'd rather lose the deposit I paid her than the reputation my wife is building in this community, Cam. You understand the rules and you know the woman. Take care of it. And make damned sure you and Chase know this woman you vouched so strongly for. I'd hate for either of you to be wrong."