by Jaycee Clark
So here she was in Scotland, dressed in jeans and a thick cable-knit sweater, trying to keep warm while a light snow dusted the ground.
A sound drew her attention and she turned, looking at the man who was talking on his mobile as he shuffled through some papers.
Heading to the study near the back of the house.
She looked around at the dark wooded antiques, crystal vases, and priceless works of art. There were no photos here. Not that she’d seen.
He’d hardly spoken to her all week. Men came and went. John Brasher, Tanner, Snake, who kept checking on the little girl, and Gar. She remembered Gar. A complete computer geek. Pushing away from the wall, she turned and followed Ian.
“I don’t care. I want the tickets. This week. The sooner the better,” he said into the phone.
Rori noticed his shadow trailed after him as she always did. The little girl was never far from him. And he seemed to be the only one that could calm her after her nightmares, of which there were plenty. Nightly, the girl visited demons and woke up screaming. Every night it broke Rori’s heart and every night she couldn’t make herself go to the girl, to see, to recognize and remember that pain.
The thick rugs hushed their footfalls in the hallway. Darya looked at Rori over her little shoulder. Dressed in an ivory sweater and jeans, her teddy bear clasped to her chest, she stopped, darted around Rori and ran down the hall toward the kitchen.
Gar the nerd was also an excellent cook, as was—surprisingly—Ian. There was a never-ending supply of biscuits. She didn’t ask who made them, in fact, it would ruin her image of Ian if she found out he’d baked the chocolate chip ass-widening delicacies. Better to think of him as the badass assassin. Agent, covert operator, assassin, whichever. Semantics as far as she was concerned. She’d seen the man in action. She knew a fellow eliminator when she saw one.
She watched as the child disappeared around the far corner. This house was a child’s hide-and-seek paradise or nightmare, depending on one’s point of view.
Rori turned around and followed him to his study. The door was shut. To hell with this. She’d played nice for almost a week. She wasn’t one to be put out. If he wanted her help, fine, but she could find something to do other than play shadow to Ian Kinncaid. And he could bloody well start talking to her.
Without knocking, she opened the door, then shut it behind her. He looked at her, the phone held between his shoulder and jaw as he flipped through the file in his hands.
She walked to the chair and flopped down, leaning back.
He frowned at her.
She frowned back.
“Yeah,” he said. “Who was she? Yes? Yes? Get me a name. Thanks.” He flipped the phone shut and clipped it to his belt to hang with the other three he had.
She herself had two. One for personal use and one for work.
Nikko had called so many times she’d lost count. On both phones, she simply wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. Though she should probably ring him back soon before he started his own search for her.
“What?” he asked, walking around the desk to lean back against it. Today he wore his normal black trousers, matching black sweater, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows.
She could see just a bit of black hair peeking out of the vee of his sweater.
“I would like to know what the hell is going on. I’m not one of your lackeys or followers or—”
“Employees?” he supplied, crossing his feet.
“Employees?”
“As co-owner of KB Securities I would have employees,” he said, one side of his mouth kicking up on a grin.
“KB?” she asked.
“Kinncaid-Brasher.”
“Should have chosen another name,” she muttered. Sounded like a jolly toy shop.
His expression didn’t change at all. Still a smirk, those dark blue eyes holding a question—what question she wasn’t certain, nor did she want to know.
“I’m not a bloody employee, thank you.”
He scratched the side of his mouth. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you about that. Any ideas yet on who hired you to off me?”
“Off?”
His gaze didn’t change.
“No. B-Widow hasn’t contacted me since before all hell broke loose.”
“Well,” he said and waved a hand. “We’ve enough people working on the threat as it is. Doesn’t matter. What matters now is my family.”
The way he said it. My family. So definite. So bloody real. For a moment she wondered what it must be like to be considered that possessed. That taken, that owned.
Owned?
Family.
What the hell did she know about family, then? Family to her was either buggered or Nikko. She preferred Nikko.
Nikko. Perhaps she did know about family. Ties that held people together weren’t always forged in blood.
“And then you’ll get to meet them,” he said.
His words pulled her back. She frowned.
“As my wife you wouldn’t want to seem not to know a thing about them, and I believe I should show you something.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
He sighed as if annoyed. “My family. You’re to meet them. As my wife.”
“Like bloody hell.” She shook her head and wanted to stand, but didn’t. She tapped her foot. “Do you really think it necessary?”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
She frowned and watched him thrum his fingers on his thigh.
“Do you think it wise?”
“What?”
“Well, you’ve people out looking for you who, I’m quite certain, would love to put a bullet in you. Why would you go to your family?”
He took a deep breath and ran a hand over his hair. “One, I don’t want to lead anyone to my family. But, they have no idea about any of this, any of what I do. The least I have to do is make certain they are safe and things are as they should be. And two, Darya.” His eyes narrowed on hers. “I know this is all . . .”
“Buggered?” she supplied.
“British euphemism. Yeah, buggered.” He sighed and watched her. “If you have something else, other plans already in place, let me know and I’ll figure something out. But I need to know that if anything happens to me, Darya has a place to go. A safe and secure place where she will be loved without question.” Those eyes hardened, burned a cold fire. “She’s been through too damn much to deserve otherwise. So we could use your help in carrying off this cover. If you’re interested.”
She thought about it, tapped her finger on her thigh and watched him. “How long?”
He shook his head. “Not a clue.”
“Basically, I play the little wife indefinitely. Why doesn’t that appeal to me?” Nikko would have a fit, probably laughing his arse off.
“I could keep Darya safe,” she heard herself say.
He nodded. “Undoubtedly. But she needs more than safety and I don’t know that either of us can effectively give it to her.”
She studied him for a moment and felt again his loneliness brush momentarily against hers.
“We’re very fucked-up creatures, you and I,” she muttered.
He half laughed, half grunted. Instead of answering he walked to the door and through it. She waited in the chair until he came back and looked back around the doorway.
“You coming?” His hand slapped the door facing.
She stood and rolled her neck. “I need a workout,” she muttered.
The smirk widened.
“Not that.” She took a deep breath and stretched her right arm by crossing it over her chest and pulling it to her by the elbow with her left hand. “I’d love to take your arse to the floor.” Damn the man and . . . “You practice any hand-to-hand combat? Martial arts?” She stopped, realizing how the entire exchange could be construed into sex.
His grin might be deadly if she cared. And of course, she didn’t. He was just . . . a man . . . His gaze raked over her. Maybe a rea
lly handsome, lickilicious type of man. A slow rainy day, make love in the bed all day kind of man, but still . . . A man all the same.
“Want to find out?” He smiled even more, those brows rising.
She shook her head and stretched her other arm.
He just stared at her, his head tilting slightly. “Yeah, I think it would,” he said softly.
“What would what?”
His eyes narrowed a wee bit. “I’ll show you later.”
She only cocked a brow at him and motioned for him to go as she joined him in the hallway.
Again they walked down the long corridor. Such a lovely, filled . . . house. Big, wealthy house. An aced des res. She couldn’t live here, but it was without question fabulous.
“You bring lots of rescued kids, people, whatever here?”
He kept walking. “I’ve never brought anyone here. John knows it exists, but that was all.”
“Oh.”
The feeling that the house somehow reflected the owner wouldn’t leave her. Here he was, all shades of any man he wished to become, and his home could have been anyone’s.
Upstairs the soft winter light did little to brighten the darkened antique-lined hallway. They walked passed Darya’s room, then passed her own room to the master’s suite at the end of the hallway.
“The master’s domain. Men are such insecure creatures,” she muttered.
He didn’t look at her as he opened the double doors and walked into the room.
She paused at the doorway.
What did the bloke think? “Look here, boyo.”
He halted and turned. There it was, that wicked grin again. “I didn’t ask you here to make love to you.” Again his gaze ran over her, as caressing as a hand. “Though I’m quite certain it would be more than enjoyable.” He shook his head, a chuckle gravelling out across the room. “I wanted to show you my family so that you would know who was who, what they do.”
“A briefing.” Of course that was it. Bloody hell. What was she anyway? A complete ditz? Not that the idea of his didn’t have some lovely merit.
Then she actually looked around the room.
In dark blues and grays it could almost be dreary in such a setting, with the dark woods and clouded, fog-laden days, but here, it seemed to suit him somehow. Wealth, tangled with sensuality and the knowledge that this was his domain.
Where the rest of the house did little to let her see into this mysterious man, here things were different. The rest of the house was without a doubt a façade. Everywhere she had looked nothing was answered, no clues were given as to who he was.
Not so here.
Dark-canopied bed that she was sure very few could honestly afford, large enough for an orgy. Blinking, she looked around the rest of the room, two walls covered in windows letting in the soft afternoon light. Comfort and quiet wealth.
A fire burned in the fireplace and on the mantel were photographs. Rori walked over to study them.
Ian and another dark-headed man with a single dimple in his cheek. The two had their arms around each other and she could tell from the coloring and facial features they had to be related. Other photos of Ian and a redheaded woman, the woman and an older man with white hair and the same cobalt eyes as Ian. There were other people, twin men, candid photos, as if the photographed had no idea anyone was taking a picture. Photographs showing people’s lives.
She looked around the rest of the room as she held a photo of the redheaded woman years ago holding a baby. Pictures were everywhere.
For some reason the site of all those framed photos on the mantel, on the dresser, the armoire, the side table, the end tables, on basically anything that stood still, left her feeling sorry for this man.
He picked up the first one she’d seen of him and another man, their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders.
“This is my brother, Aiden.”
He held the photo out to her and she looked from it to him, noting the way his features had changed. Not so much the face or the expression, but more an easing of tension that always surrounded him.
So alone.
She knew the world he lived in. A world of grays and shadows until everything was night and nothing seemed real. Deep crevices waiting to swallow souls and jagged mirrors that never really reflected the person within.
And here was yet another facet.
She took the small photo from him, her fingers brushing his on the wooden frame.
“Aiden,” she repeated. “He looks a bit like you.” Her gaze scanned some of the others. “Actually, most of the men do in some form or fashion.”
“Family genetics.” He grunted. “Aiden is the oldest, a year and a half older than me.”
She studied the man, noted the shared features, the differences. Same coloring, different lines around the eyes, and Aiden had a dimple. Something different about the chin. “Aiden the oldest. Tell me about Mr. Aiden.”
“He’s the CEO of Kinncaid Enterprises.”
“What does Kinncaid Enterprises do?”
He looked at her, his eyebrows rising. “They own hotels.”
They, not we.
“Ah. A Kinncaid of those Kinncaids. So your brother owns the hotels.”
“Brothers.”
“They all own it?”
He shrugged. “It’s a family business.”
She set the photo back down and picked up another. “So if it’s a family business, what are you doing working undercover as one of the most feared enforcers in Eastern Europe?”
He picked up another photo, running his fingers over the man’s face. He set it back with the others.
“Aiden’s wife’s name is Jesslyn,” he said, continuing as if she’d never asked a question.
Man didn’t like to discuss some things apparently, but then she never discussed what led her to where she was, so that was fine with her.
“Jesslyn.” Rori picked up the photo of Aiden with a blonde-haired woman. She was smiling, but there was something in her brown eyes. Worry? Pain? Something.
“They have two boys, twins. Ian and Alec.”
“Awe. Named after his uncle, was he?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the photo of two babies. Babies confused her. She had no idea what she would do with one should she ever have one. Which would never be an issue with her, so it hardly mattered.
The next photograph showed the couple in a garden, or as the Yanks called them, yard, with the twins now walking. A two-story house with a deep porch. Nice. “Proverbial suburban family?”
He chuckled. “That would depend on your definition of suburban.” He tapped the woman’s face. “Jesslyn isn’t the normal society wife. Widowed from a car accident that also claimed the lives of her children, she wasn’t really interested in my brother at first. Then there was this . . . problem.” He frowned. “But it was straightened out and everyone lived. They decided to marry.”
“And happily ever after?”
He shrugged. “As far as it goes, I suppose.”
“Next?” She took a deep breath and for the first time smelled him. Sandalwood, or something like it. Not quite, much more subtle, maybe just soap. Whatever it was, it smelled bloody wicked.
“These are the twins.” He pointed to two different photos. Though the men looked identical, there were subtle differences, hairstyles and expressions. One looked . . . jolly. The other more somber and serious.
“Brayden and Gavin. Gavin here is the family doctor. Obstetrics-gynecology. He married a social worker and adopted her adopted son, Ryan.” He showed her another photo of a smiling family. A lovely woman with long red hair, freckles, and a son who smiled from ear to ear. He looked about nine or ten.
“What’s their story?” she asked, looking at him.
His face hardened. “Found each other, went through hell, battled evil and are living their happily ever after.”
“And that’s the reason to look like you want to kill someone?”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. “No.”
/> “What evil did they battle, then?” She set the photo she’d been holding back on the mantel, watching him.
His nostrils flared on his deep inhale. “The woman who gave birth to Ryan broke out of prison and came after him. Kidnapped him and my niece, Tori.”
Oh, hell. She swallowed. “Did she hurt them?”
“She almost killed Taylor, Gavin’s wife, who spent weeks in the hospital after taking a bullet to the lung. The woman roughed them up a bit, terrified the kids more than anything. Could have been worse.”
Bitch.
“She won’t be terrorizing anyone else,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact, as if he merely spoke of the fact it was cool out.
“Good.” Rori didn’t need to ask to know the woman was dead.
A fleeting confusion flashed in his eyes as he looked at her. She stared back.
She finally broke their staring contest. It was either that or she might do something stupid, like stare longer, or kiss him, or who knew what. This was what happened when she thought about retiring—or had retired? Went barking mad.
He turned back to the photos. “And for the next lesson.”
“What was the nephew’s name again?”
“Gavin married Taylor and they adopted Ryan.”
“Ryan. Got it.”
He nodded. “We’ll go over it again.”
“How lovely.”
“This is Brayden, antiques dealer, one daughter, Victoria, though family calls her Tori. Last year he married Christian.” He pointed out photos of each person. The daughter had the same coloring as all the Kinncaid men. Dark hair, blue eyes, strong angles. Though she shared a dimple that Rori had seen in the oldest brother and in the matriarch. Christian looked quiet with her short dark hair and smoky gaze. Pale complexion and a seriousness from her that spoke even through the stillness of the photograph.
As Rori scanned, she saw the woman was in some of the other photographs. Not many. She was never posed in any that seemed to be professional photographs. Hers were candid, caught usually in the company of the little girl. “Brayden’s Christian has been around for a while.”
“Nanny.”
She pulled back. “Your brother married his daughter’s nanny?”
Doctors, hotel owners, antiquities dealers. Nannies. She’d come from . . . who the hell knew.