“Jessa,” Cole barked in that voice that always let Burke know he was taking control and wouldn’t tolerate an argument. “Stand down. You’re safe, baby.”
“Cole?” Her voice suddenly sounded so small. “Burke?”
“Yes.” Burke breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s us. You’re safe. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
There was an ugly laugh from behind him. “Shows what you know, Lennox.”
The voice made his blood freeze instantly. Who the fuck would know his name without seeing his face? Unless this someone else had sent the text, not Jessa. And this someone had expected them to come running. Had they walked into a death trap?
“Give me some light on him, Jessa.” Burke thought his heart rate would slow once he knew Jessa was alive, but now his pulse jacked up all over again.
The light shifted and illuminated the man lying on the floor. There was an enormous gash on his head, blood dripping everywhere, and he held his hands over his eyes.
“Who the fuck are you?” Cole asked.
“I’m no one. I’m nothing now that this bitch beat me in the head and caught me. Doesn’t matter. I already planted the charges. This whole place is going to blow, and there’s not a damn thing you can do. I didn’t mean to go down with her. Fucking bitch.”
“Charges?” Jessa’s hand began to shake, the light bouncing.
“I recognize that asshole,” Cole snapped. “He worked for Ricardo Delgado. What the fuck is going on? Delgado died almost a year ago in prison.”
Burke’s stomach turned. He’d assumed the world would be a safer place without Ricardo Delgado. How was the asshole reaching out with his violent fist from beyond the grave?
“Later,” he snapped. “We need to leave before this house blows!”
The flashlight dropped, and Burke felt something whiz by him.
He picked it up and aimed the stream of light up the stairs. Fuck. Jessa was running. He didn’t know where she was headed, but they had to get her out of the house damn quick.
Cole turned, his body a ghostly shadow in the darkened room. “Who the hell sent you?”
“Don’t, Cole,” Burke snapped. He had no idea when the charges were set to go off. It could be right fucking now. He didn’t know if they were on a timer or a remote. The whole house could explode at any minute, and Jessa was running to god knew where. “As much as I’d love to interrogate this asshole, we don’t have time. We have to get Jessa out of here.”
“You’ll never make it.” The man on the floor groaned. “Bitch is going to get what’s coming to her. Well, what’s coming to you. Did you think you could fool anyone? You better pray my bombs kill her. If my boss catches her instead, he’s gonna have a real good time with her.”
Boss? His stomach turned. If this guy had been working for Delgado and was talking about a new boss… Fuck, this organization hadn’t died. It had more lives than a fucking cat. Was there a new boss out for revenge? How could the bastard know about Jessa and the few precious days they’d spent with her?
He had a million questions, but no time to ask. They had to get Jessa out. If the man on the floor wasn’t lying, they were all in grave danger. With a deep and angry regret, he turned and darted up the stairs just behind Cole, locking the fucker in the basement.
“Jessa!” Burke shouted.
“I can hear her going to the second story.” Cole took off after her.
The light was better upstairs. Jessa had left the drapes open, and moonlight drenched the hallway in an eerie silvery glow. Burke ran beside his brother. They caught Jessa at the top of the stairs, Burke’s arm going around her waist.
He’d dreamed of holding her again, touching her. Not once in those dreams did she kick and scream and fight like hell.
“No! Let me go, damn it.”
“Jessa, calm down.” Burke demanded.
“Let me go. I have to get him!” Jessa’s voice sounded strangled in her throat. He could feel her hot tears hit his hand.
Her husband. She was fighting for him. She was clawing at Burke, scratching and fighting to get to another man. His chest buckled. His heart fucking ached. Jessa was in love with someone else and willing to die to save this douche she’d married who’d left her alone to fend off an intruder in the basement by herself.
“I’ll get Angus, Jessa,” Cole growled. “Where is he? You let Burke get you the hell out of here.”
“Angus? Oh, god. He was in the living room sleeping earlier.”
“On it.” Cole turned and ran down the stairs.
“Oh, god. Please. Let me go. I have to get Caleb!” Jessa fought again, bringing her foot forward, knee up to her waist, and kicked back with all her might.
Caleb? Burke groaned as her heel met his cock with surprising force. He released Jessa and dropped to his knees.
She wasted not a minute. As Burke strained to get to his feet, she disappeared around the corner.
Goddamn it. Burke forced himself up. From downstairs, he heard a loud hissing and Cole swearing. Apparently his brother had found the damn cat again instead of Jessa’s husband. He let it go. If Cole couldn’t handle a kitty cat by himself, then all those years as a SEAL had been for nothing. Ignoring the pain, he ran after Jessa.
Who the fuck was Caleb? Another lover? Why hadn’t the investigator’s report mentioned him? And why did Jessa think he was worth dying over?
He lurched down the hall. There was no question where she had gone. Only one door was open at the end of the corridor.
Rage churned in his gut. She’d obviously never loved him or Cole. He’d tortured himself nightly with visions of her, sweet and warm and loving, while she’d run happily off and apparently found not one but two men. Well, he and Cole had shown her the pleasures of ménage. He guessed it was all their fault. She’d taken to it beautifully even though she’d been a virgin at the time.
Yet he couldn’t walk away. He was going to get Jessa, Angus, and this Caleb person out of here if it was the last fucking thing he did. Then he was going to find some way to get on with his life.
He stalked into the room, unwilling to take no for an answer. This time he would be ready for her struggles. He would drag her out, kicking and screaming if he had to. He opened his mouth to explain to her just how this was going to go. Then he stopped dead in his tracks. He’d expected to be in her bedroom. This room was filled with stuffed toy puppy dogs and smiling lions. And a crib.
Jessa stood, tears coursing down her face as she grabbed a swaddled, slightly fussing baby to her chest. She’d slung a big tote bag over her shoulder.
“I’m ready. We can go,” she headed for the door. “As soon as Cole gets Angus. You should warn him. Angus gets twitchy around new people. He scratches. Uhm, and he throws up. He’s really a terrible cat.”
Cat? Angus wasn’t her husband, but a cat. And Caleb was… Even in the dark, he could tell the baby was small and very young. He came to one stunning, jaw-dropping conclusion.
Caleb was their son.
* * * *
One year earlier, Christmas Eve – New York City
Jessa Wade eyed the ladder.
“Ah, my nemesis. We meet again. Don’t think you’ll best me tonight. This time, I will use you and put you away and come out of the experience unscathed.”
Fat chance of that happening. And, awesome, she was all alone on Christmas Eve, talking to a ladder. Nothing said “pathetic” quite like that.
She glanced around the bar of the Hotel DuMonde. Her aunt owned the place, but she was off in Barbados, her usual holiday haunt. Jessa had been invited to go, but she’d had the ridiculous dream that her parents would get into the Christmas spirit and call her home.
Clearly, that wasn’t happening. So she was alone in the hotel bar, cleaning up and doing inventory. And dealing with a ladder that had it in for her.
She picked up the martini glasses. They belonged on the highest shelf. The DuMonde’s bar was a magnificent concoction of glass and silver and mirrors that reached to the top of the twelve-foot ceiling. On a normal night, she wouldn’t have to climb up there. Those glasses on the highest level were almost decorative, but the night before had been a blowout of the highest order. Some corporate party. Every damn glass in the place had been used, and the cleaning crew had only just finished with the dishes.
She sighed. She’d sent the bartender and the waitress home. She’d always heard that Christmas Eve was a big night for bars, but she didn’t have any customers. It hadn’t seemed right to keep those two away from their families when the money would be crap.
“Miss, a Scotch, please? Single malt.”
She nodded, grateful for the distraction. Working would keep her mind off the fact that her mother and father had turned her out, and the only relative still speaking to her in the world was currently windsurfing in the Caribbean. She turned to look at her new customer and practically forgot to breathe.
He stood at the bar, six feet four inches of pure sex. Dark hair, vibrant blue eyes, shoulders that seemed to go on forever.
“Miss?” He stood there with a knowing smile on his sensual mouth.
Jessa forced herself back to reality with an inward sigh. He knew how ridiculously hot he was. And she knew she was a waitress who needed to lose a couple of pounds. Her mother’s admonitions came back to haunt her. She would never land a man at a size 12. Her mother, the bulimic. She viewed throwing up as a socially polite way to stay thin. Why had she wanted to go home for the holidays?
Jessa turned on her best sassy-girl smile. “There’s no poor single malt. So you get your choice of expensive or even more expensive.”
“Oh, a sarcastic one. Cole, we hit the jackpot.”
There were two of them? A second wretchedly hot man walked up to the bar, identical to the first. This one shrugged out of his coat. It took all Jessa had to not fan herself despite the cold.
Cool blue eyes assessed her. She stared back. The two brothers weren’t totally identical now that she really looked. There was something more reserved about this twin. The first had a sensual ease about him. She found nothing gentle in Cole. He was pure predator.
So why didn’t she want to run? Why was she wondering what it would be like to be caught by him?
“Saucy, huh? Well, I know how to fix that.” His smile was razor sharp, dangerous. “Now, we’ll both take two fingers of the Glenlivet, fifteen year.”
So richer. Even more expensive. She reached for the bottle, catching two of the heavy crystal glasses the bar reserved for premium beverages. She poured the Scotch out, measuring carefully before sliding them toward the men.
“Here you go. Feel free to sit anywhere. It looks like you’re my only customers tonight.” She tried to give them a friendly but dismissive nod. She might be inexperienced, but she wasn’t an idiot. If they weren’t with family, one or both of them might be looking for a lonely heart to share the sheets with tonight. If so, they would hit on her because she was the only woman available here. Best to sidle away now. “Just yell if you need a refill.”
The first man leaned forward, smiling. “Why should we yell when we could sit right here and talk to you?”
Yep, they were definitely going to hit on her. She opened her mouth to shut them down, but Cole put out a hand to stop her. He looked at his brother, and she could see them having a whole conversation with small facial tics and raised eyebrows. She stared in fascination.
Finally, they looked back at her. Cole seemed to have won the silent argument. He nodded her way, his hand on his glass. “Thank you, Miss. We’ll let you know when we’re ready.”
She watched as they walked to the corner of the bar. Damn, their back sides were just as nice as their fronts. Each man wore tight jeans that molded to perfectly formed butts.
She sighed. They were way, way out of her league. She didn’t even have a league anymore. Once it had been the debutante circle, but she’d hated the wealthy social whirl she’d been brought up in. She’d hated it so much that she’d turned down a job with her father after the prescribed years at Wharton Business School. She’d played the dutiful daughter, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of working in big business. She’d just wanted to paint.
And her parents didn’t want an artist for a daughter. They had cut her off with the ruthless precision that had gotten her father to the top. They wouldn’t take her calls or allow her on the grounds of their estate until she came around and accepted a job with the corporation. They had thought she wouldn’t last two weeks on her own, but a year later, she could see the end of the tunnel.
In a few months she would turn twenty-three, and her trust fund would kick in. Her parents couldn’t stop it, couldn’t touch it. Thank you, Grandmere.
Jessa turned away from the hotties. They weren’t for her. She had a job and a life. That would have to be enough. Well, she had a job anyway, and right now it involved the hated ladder. She could see herself grimacing in the mirror. Yeah, that was attractive. She grabbed the last of the martini glasses and prayed for grace.
