Uncovered: The Untangled Series, Book Three

by Layne, Ivy

  So close, and right on the edge of seeing all of it slip through my fingers.

  Chapter Nine

  Alice

  Since the day Knox's flowers arrived, Cooper had been the model of good behavior. In the office, he treated me just as always, maybe a shade cooler and more abrupt.

  That coolness might have made me worry if he hadn't been at my door every night backing me into my apartment, hauling me against him and fucking me until I could barely walk. In the mornings he set the alarm early and woke me with his mouth and hands, leaving me limp and breathless.

  Cooper said morning sex was better than any cup of coffee. I had to agree. I didn't need caffeine. I was on a Cooper high.

  I don’t know if it was all the orgasms or the fulfillment of such a long crush, but two weeks into this thing with Cooper and I was reeling. He wanted to tell people. I couldn’t get my head around that. If we told everyone, this wouldn’t be a fling. It wouldn’t be temporary. I’d never known Cooper to do anything but temporary.

  If he’d wanted more with me, he’d had years. Except he hadn’t. Not really.

  I’d been married until six months ago, and Cooper—unlike his father—was a man of honor. He’d hated my husband, but he’d respected our marriage. Every time I considered the idea that Cooper might have been interested in me all these years, my brain veered away from the thought.

  Wishful thinking, Alice.

  This is the man who dated an Oscar winner. Who dumped a pop star because she was too high-maintenance. After those two relationships, Cooper had sworn off women he met through his work. He seemed to have sworn off relationships entirely in the past few years. Why would I be any different?

  I trusted Cooper when he said this thing between us wouldn’t affect our jobs. The way he’d acted at work this week proved he could compartmentalize. He’d be fine when it ended.

  And it would end. I had to keep reminding myself of that.

  One day, probably far sooner than I wanted, Cooper would move on. My brain veered away from that thought, too. It had to, defense against the fractures in my heart every time I thought about the day Cooper would leave my bed—and me—behind.

  Until then, I was going to enjoy every minute, every second, that I could get. This was temporary, and no matter how much Cooper pushed, it was going to stay a secret. I wasn’t going to sit at that desk every day knowing everyone pitied me. Sad-sack Alice, who hooked up with the boss and ended up dumped, just like every other woman who’d spun dreams of landing Cooper Sinclair. At least I’d be in good company.

  I wouldn’t be an object of pity. If we told everyone we were together, I’d have to leave the company when Cooper moved on. I loved my job. I didn’t want to leave.

  I never bothered to consider that I’d end things before Cooper. I’d told him the truth. I’d never had sex like that in my life. I’m not a fool. The thing between Cooper and me? That wasn’t about his skills in bed, it was about Cooper.

  There would be someone after him. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone, but no one would ever be the same. There was only one Cooper Sinclair. I was going to keep him as long as I could. Maybe, just maybe, if we could keep playing it cool at work, I could keep him long enough to get over my crush.

  Fat chance, I thought, trying to focus on the order form in front of me. I could have millennia and I wouldn’t get over my crush on Cooper Sinclair. Still, crush or not, there was work to be done. On top of their normally heavy caseload, the guys had the situation with Maxwell to deal with.

  Knox was back from New Hampshire, and the brothers had been holed up for two days hammering out a plan to present to Special Agent Holley. Eventually, someone would run Maxwell to ground. Despite everything he’d done, no one wanted that person to be Andrei Tsepov. If Tsepov found Maxwell first, Maxwell Sinclair would end up dead.

  Maxwell's boys might be furious with him, but they'd prefer a living father on whom to vent their rage. Cooper had confided that they'd all agreed their best chance to keep their dad alive was to work with Agent Holley, even if that meant their father would end up in jail. At least in jail, he’d be alive.

  In honor of the FBI's visit, I dressed more conservatively than usual in a navy-blue dress with matching navy crinoline beneath. The boat neck of the dress showed my collarbone and little else, dropping into long sleeves tight at the wrist.

  When Cooper strode to the front of the office to greet Agent Holley, I wasn't surprised to see we matched, his navy-blue suit the perfect foil for those icy eyes. His glance flicked over me. I was the only one who saw the message in those frozen depths. Later, he promised.

  I hoped no one else could read him. Griffen had given me a few long looks since the day with the flowers but hadn't said a word.

  Agent Holley was joined by two agents I didn’t recognize. I gave them all a cool smile. “Refreshments are in the main conference room. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Cooper nodded in thanks and turned down the hall, the agents I didn't know tight on his heels. Agent Holley stopped at the desk and gave me a considering look. “You doing okay, Alice?”

  My eyes slid away from his before I dragged them back and forced a smile. “I'm okay.” It was the truth, kind of.

  Another long look. “If that changes, make sure you have Cooper set you up with someone to talk to.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  With another nod, Agent Holley made his way to the conference room. He'd been here before, didn't need me to lead him, so I sat at my desk and watched him go.

  I hadn't lied. I was doing okay, only waking in the night here and there with flashes of memory. The gun jerking in my hand. Tsepov's man raising his own. In my nightmares, he loomed closer and closer, my own weapon awkward and heavy.

  In reality, I’d raised my gun and fired smoothly, as if I did it every day. Cooper had a point about muscle memory. He made all of us train as if we’d have to fire that gun at any moment. I always thought it was overkill for the support staff, but it was a part of my job so I did it without complaint.

  Now I understood why. He drilled me so many times a part of my brain I never acknowledged saw the threat and handled it before I could process. Those drills had saved my life. Saved Adam’s life. In my dreams, those drills had done nothing. When I slept, I remembered being a disaster with the gun.

  Over and over, I saw Tsepov's man, saw the gun in his hand, and I was slow. Too slow. In my dreams, I couldn't get my weapon up in time. It was too heavy, my fingers sweaty. Clumsy.

  In my dreams, I didn't get hit from something falling in the explosion. In my dreams, I took a bullet to the chest, and I died. In my dreams, I didn't save Adam's life. In my dreams, everything went to hell.

  I hadn't told Cooper yet. I would if they didn't go away. However bad the dreams were, they must have been quiet because he never woke, never knew how often that scene replayed in my mind with a different ending.

  I'm not stupid. I’ve set up enough appointments for our own people after a job went sideways to know none of us should handle this stuff on our own. Counseling was mandatory when there was loss of life on a job. I wasn’t an exception, but since I made the appointments, it was easy to slip through the cracks.

  Things were just so busy in the office. I'd deal with it. I would. Once everything calmed down. Anyway, the dreams would probably go away by the time that happened.

  Agent Holley had been through the scene and all the evidence. He’d assured me I’d acted in self-defense. Cooper had told me I'd done the right thing. I knew I'd done the right thing.

  What was there to stress about?

  Nothing, that's what.

  The office was unnaturally quiet as Cooper and his brothers hashed things out with the FBI. They had no interest in trying to get their father off the hook. Maxwell had caused too much damage to too many lives. The Sinclair brothers h
ad honor. They understood justice.

  That said, there are layers to guilt once you hit the legal system. Maxwell had access to information the FBI could use to take down the Tsepov organization.

  No one was in that conference room arguing in favor of Maxwell's innocence, but there was room to negotiate once they'd all agreed he was guilty as hell.

  My heart hurt for Cooper. For all of them. Maxwell was an asshole. I'd known Maxwell was an asshole when he hired me, propositioning me pretty much the second I accepted the job despite knowing that I was married. My husband had been the one who'd sent me Maxwell's way, the two friendly through some connection that had disappeared in the mists of time.

  I’d turned him down firmly, expecting the job offer to be withdrawn, but he'd simply sneered and said he'd see me Monday. That was the first asshole move I'd witnessed, and it wouldn't be the last. Not by a long shot.

  I didn't like Lacey Sinclair, but I felt for any woman who’d tied her life to Maxwell. I’d paid too many hotel bills with itemized lists of champagne and pornography, seen too many charges at lingerie stores I knew Lacey would never patronize.

  Maxwell cheated on her flagrantly and often. If he didn't bother to hide it from me, I doubted he bothered to hide it from his wife. She was a bitch, but no woman deserves that.

  My own parents had been married since their early twenties, and while they might bicker occasionally, I still turned the corner and caught them making out like teenagers. They backed each other up, presenting a united front to the world. Sometimes I marveled at the men the Sinclair brothers had grown into, knowing their parents as well as I did.

  As if my mind had conjured her up, Lacey Sinclair pulled open the door to the office.

  Crap. I’d planned for everything this morning—except for Lacey Sinclair.

  Chapter Ten

  Alice

  Lacey had shown her face in the office once or twice when one of her boys took her to lunch, but for the most part, she'd avoided me, and I'd avoided her.

  Today, it appeared our mutual détente was over. Her frosted blonde hair perfectly arranged, diamonds at her ears and pearls around her neck, she stormed to the front desk wearing a cream linen suit more suitable for lunch at the club than hanging around her apartment.

  I knew she wasn't cleared to leave the building since all of her available escorts were currently meeting with the FBI. I like to dress up—obviously, since I did it every day of the week—but even I didn't go full makeup, heels, and stockings when I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Lacey turned a hard right in front of the desk and headed down the hall for the conference room. Bolting out of my chair, I dashed to block her, propping my hands on my hips to take up as much space as I could. Lacey isn’t a big woman, but almost everyone is bigger than me, and the Sinclair boys came by their height honestly. Neither of their parents was short. Lacey towered over me, clearly thinking she could use her height to intimidate me. Not likely. I had a crew of badasses to corral every day. I’d long gotten over feeling small just because I was small.

  “Get out of my way, slut,” Lacey hissed, only loud enough for me to hear. The scent of lime and gin hit my face. Lovely. Not long after noon, and Lacey had already sucked back her first gin and tonic. Given the open use of her pet name for me, I’d bet more than one.

  Where she got off calling me a slut, I didn't know. I was married for eleven years and I never once stepped out on my husband. I'd been tempted, sure, especially when we’d stopped sleeping together, but I'd never so much as kissed another man since the day we'd met. Not until Cooper, and that was more than six months after my long-overdue divorce.

  I tried to let the slur roll off. This was Lacey, after all. She wasn’t one to let the truth get in the way of a good insult.

  She darted to my left, trying to slide by. I blocked her, putting my hands up to grab her shoulders and hold her back. How a woman who lived on cocktails could be so strong, I didn't know. I was fit, dammit. Okay, maybe I wasn't cross-training every day, but I was at the gym three or four nights a week. Dancing, not pumping iron, but still.

  The alcohol Lacey had consumed worked against her and she lost her balance. I pushed her back, setting her on her feet before propping my hands on my hips again and giving her my best glare.

  “Mrs. Sinclair, go back upstairs. I'll have Cooper or one of the guys come see you when they’re out of their meeting. You're not cleared to go past the front desk. Cooper told you that.”

  My words couldn't penetrate Lacey's haze of gin. Shoving her shoulder into mine she tried to push past me again, sneering when I sidestepped her and kept her from making her way down the hall.

  “I know they’re in a meeting, you idiot. That's why I'm here.”

  In a burst of strength fueled by alcohol and rage, Lacey threw her body into mine, knocking me against the wall. I stumbled and she was off like a shot, headed straight for the conference room.

  Dammit. Dammit. The last thing they needed was Lacey butting into that meeting. She reached the door ahead of me and yanked it open, bolting through and trying to tug it closed behind her before I caught up.

  Gin slowed her hands and I managed to slip in behind her, already apologizing to the room. No one heard me under Lacey's irate shout.

  “I don't know what you boys think you're doing, but this meeting is canceled,” she announced. “You can't make any agreements on your father's behalf. None. You might as well just pack it up and go home.”

  Agent Holley pushed his chair back but didn't stand, narrowing calculating eyes on Lacey.

  “Mrs. Sinclair. Nice to see you. Saves us a trip. So, you're aware that Maxwell is alive, yes?”

  “I'm not aware of anything,” she protested, blustering.

  Agent Holley raised an eyebrow. “If that's the case, then you're free to excuse yourself. If you don't know anything you're of no use in this meeting.”

  I could have kissed Agent Holley for that. He looked unassuming in his brown suit, the cut ill-fitting on his tall, lanky frame. The kind eyes I was used to were nowhere in sight as he examined Lacey Sinclair like a bug under a microscope.

  “Mrs. Sinclair, you're interrupting. If you have nothing to add, then your presence here is unnecessary. Do I need to have one of my agents remove you?”

  “You have no right—”

  “I have every right,” Agent Holley said smoothly, “and if I learn that you have knowledge of your husband's whereabouts, knew that he faked his death, you can be charged as an accessory. At the least with obstruction of justice. Do you understand that?”

  Lacey did what she always did when faced with something she didn't like. She ignored it. Turning her attention to her sons, she spat out, “After all he did for you, you betray your father like this. You should stand by him. You should back him up. Instead, you're throwing him to the wolves, treating him like a common criminal—”

  “He is a common criminal,” Knox said, his eyes hard.

  Knox never had much to say to his mother. As long as I've known him, he was the one brother who never played his mother's game, never let her get away with anything. He was a good man, a good friend, and a good brother, but he lacked his siblings’ charm. Knox didn't talk unless he had something to say, and he always cut straight to the bone. This was no exception.

  Lacey's face went white. “How could you say something like that? He is your father! Your job is to protect him—”

  Knox stared her down, his eyes black granite. “—and what, Mom? Should we go to jail for him? Take responsibility for his crimes and do his time in prison? Is that what you're saying? Just so we’re clear.”

  Knox appeared impervious, but deep in Cooper's ice-blue eyes, I saw agony. The pain of a child betrayed again. Betrayed by one of the two people on this planet who should put him first and never had. His finger tapped on the surface of the conference table, the burn of
pain in his eyes turning them to blue fire. That tapping finger… Cooper was about to lose it.

  I snapped.

  That's the best way I can describe it. I just fucking snapped. My hand shot out, grabbing Lacey's upper arm. Using moves I hadn't practiced in months, not since my last mandatory training session, I wrenched Lacey's arm behind her back, pulling her hand up between her shoulder blades until it twisted her arm in the socket enough to drag a yelp of pain from her lips.

  Unable to look at Cooper, I met Knox's eyes. I could have sworn I saw a glint of ironic amusement in their black depths as I said, “Please excuse us, gentlemen.”

  Using my leverage on her arm, I turned Lacey around and frog-marched her out of the room. Her shoulder was going to hurt like hell later. I couldn't find it in me to care.

  She'd hurt Cooper enough. Hurt all of them enough. Lacey swore at me, calling me every name in the book. I closed my ears as I shoved her through the office door to the elevator. Every time she tried to squirm out of my grip, I wrenched her arm higher until she squeaked with pain.

  I didn't enjoy it, I swear. If I thought there was any way I could have gotten her out of the room without manhandling her, I would have done it. The elevator took an eternity, the ride to the floor above just as long.

  I pushed her through the door of her apartment, watching impassively as she stumbled into the kitchen counter. She had the loose limbs of a habitual drunk, and while her arm might hurt tomorrow, the rest of her would be fine.

  She spun to face me, and the sound of her voice came into focus.

  “You little whore. You think because my son is fucking you that makes you special? Who gives you the right to lay your hands on me? Your days here are numbered. When my husband gets back—”

  “When your husband gets back,” I interrupted, “he's going to prison. Unless Tsepov kills him first. I doubt staffing is going to be on his list of concerns.”

  “We’ll see about that,” she flung back.