“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?”
2
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.
