by Jackie Braun
“Insubordination, among other things.” Her father’s gaze sharpened. “He accused Collin of spreading lies about him to investors. He admitted he couldn’t prove it, but he said he knew it was him. Security escorted him out of the building.”
She nearly smiled at the image. Perhaps she was being petty, but she would have liked to have seen that. As far as she was concerned, Collin had gotten what he deserved.
“Katherine, did you—”
“No! I didn’t say anything.” And it still bothered her that she’d had to tiptoe around the truth. “But I don’t think I had to say anything. Collin was your protégé, Dad. That was common knowledge.”
She fiddled with the belt of her soggy trench coat, stalling for time, but she had to know. “Please tell me you don’t condone what he did. He tried to tie Brody to the mob, for God’s sake. I was right here in this room when you told him that crossed a line.”
“No, I don’t condone what he did. There might have been a time when I thought the end justified the means—any means—but he went too far,” her father agreed with a heavy sigh. “My plans are going to be more difficult to execute now. At least you’re still there.”
Kate’s heart sank. “I’m not there for you, Dad.”
“You know what I mean.”
Sadly, she did. “I won’t be your spy. I won’t betray Brody.”
“You won’t betray him— Katherine, are you hearing yourself?” Then he paled. “My God, are you involved with him?”
“I…have feelings for him,” she admitted slowly. The tepid declaration mocked her.
Her father wasn’t fooled. He scrubbed a hand down his face. He looked weary. Older. “I should have known. This is what he’s after. It’s what he wanted all along. What better way to hurt me than to cozy up to you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Revenge. I hired an investigator who did more digging into Flynn’s past.”
Kate recalled Collin suggesting her father do that. She’d thought the idea foolish at the time. But the look in her father’s eyes gave her pause and she shook her head. “No, Dad. I don’t want to hear it.”
“You need to. For your own good.” He reached for her hand, and she realized she was trembling.
“For my own good? I thought you were done trying to protect me. I’m an adult. I can take care of myself. I’m not fragile. I’m not Mom.”
“I know you’re not your mother, but you can’t expect me to sit back and just let you be used, hurt.” He squeezed her hand. If only his expression hadn’t been quite so sincere, quite so full of regret. “Katherine, don’t let our differences blind you to Flynn’s agenda.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m not being blinded. He’s a good man, Dad. A better man than you think he is. You need to trust my judgment on this.”
Her father studied her for a long moment, his expression oddly circumspect. “You really like him,” he said at last.
It wasn’t an accusation bellowed so that it echoed in the two-story foyer, but a statement of fact that came in a hushed tone, and it carried all the more impact because of it.
“Yes, I do.”
She braced herself, but instead of arguing with her, he said, “I have something for you.” He left her standing, mouth agape, in the foyer, returning a minute later with a large manila envelope. “Here.”
“What is—” She saw Brody’s name written on the front. The investigator’s report. “No.”
She tried to hand it back, but her father refused to take it.
“I want you to have it, Katherine. Read it. Once you have, make up your own mind.”
“I have made up my mind,” she insisted. “I don’t need to read what some investigator who doesn’t know Brody has to say.”
Again, she braced for an argument that didn’t come. Her father exhaled slowly before nodding. She could only imagine what it cost him to say, “Very well. But take the report. This is the only copy. And it’s yours to do with what you will.”
Kate drove aimlessly through the rain for almost an hour before arriving home.
The cat wrapped around her legs as she stood in the kitchen and sipped a glass of her favorite chardonnay. It tasted bitter on her tongue. Between shorter days and the storm, it was fully dark outside, but she hadn’t bothered with the overhead lights, making do with the ones mounted under the cabinets. When her cell phone trilled, she didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Brody had said he would call. She sipped more chardonnay and picked up just before it would go to voicemail.
“Kate, hi. I was just getting ready to hang up. I didn’t catch you at a bad time, did I?”
“No, I’m at home having a glass of wine and unwinding.” Which was more or less the truth. “Are you at your hotel already?”
“Not quite. In the cab en route. Hey, I don’t think that it will come as a huge surprise, but I let Collin go today.”
“I heard.”
“Oh. Your father?” he asked grimly.
“Yes. I stopped by the house after work. He mentioned it.” He’d mentioned more than that. Her gaze cut to the envelope on the counter.
Brody made a sympathetic noise. “I’m sorry about that. I meant to tell you earlier.”
“But not before he was fired,” she guessed.
“No. I didn’t want your input on the matter. I thought it might put you in an awkward position given Collin’s close relationship with your father.”
That made sense. She relaxed a little. They talked for a few more minutes about inconsequential matters. She thought she’d done a decent job of camouflaging her emotions, but Brody must have picked up on something, because he said, “Hey, is something else on your mind?”
“No.”
“Kate, come on. Something’s wrong. I can tell.”
“How?” she asked.
“I know you.”
Three simple words that brought tears to her eyes. He certainly seemed to. Not just the places on her body to touch to make her burn and cry out with need. He seemed to know her heart. Her father was wrong. He had to be. Brody couldn’t be using her to exact some twisted form of revenge.
“Want to talk about it?” he prompted.
She eyed the investigator’s report on the countertop next to the open bottle of wine. The metal clip was still fastened securely on the back flap. She hadn’t opened it. She could. She could read all about Brody’s past, as her father had suggested. Make up her mind about the man and his motives based on whatever facts the private investigator had deemed important enough to include in the report inside. Or she could go with her gut. Her heart. She could trust Brody. Trust him tell her whatever secrets he had in his own time. With that, she made up her mind. She picked up the envelope and crossed to the sink. Opening the cupboard below it, she tossed the envelope in the trash can.
“You’re a most amazing man, Brody.”
“Yeah? What makes you say that?”
“Because I feel better just hearing your voice.”
“I’ve only been gone a matter of hours,” he reminded her on a laugh.
“It seems longer.”
This time his laughter was deeper, sexier. “Want me to tell you what I have planned for when I get back?”
“Yes,” she said. “In detail.”
Chapter Thirteen
Knocking woke Kate early Friday. She squinted at the clock. Groaned when she realized it was not quite four in the morning. Who would be at her home at this ungodly hour? Brody wasn’t due back in town for another six hours. She fumbled for her robe and staggered through the house to the door, switching on lights as she went and muttering an apology to the cat after stepping on his tail.
In the foyer, she hit the switch for the porch light and peeked out one of the small windows on the door. Brody stared back, a sight for sore eyes despite looking tired and rumpled.
She yanked open the door and launched herself into his arms before either of them could say a word.
&n
bsp; “Now that’s what I call a hello,” he murmured into her hair.
The chilly breeze and a belated sense of propriety had her ending the embrace and inviting him inside.
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she closed the door behind him. “When we talked yesterday, you didn’t say anything about getting back early.”
“I wanted to surprise you. My second meeting got cut short, so I canceled my hotel reservation and headed to the airport. If all had gone according to plan, I would have been here to tuck you in last night.” He lowered his head, kissed her before continuing. “Instead, my flight wound up delayed, something to do with mechanical problems. I spent three hours in an airport lounge in Detroit before I decided to rent a car and drive the rest of the way home.”
“You drove half the night just to see me?”
His expression grew serious. “I missed you.”
She took his hand. “I missed you, too. Let me show you how much.”
She led him down the hall to her bedroom. When she reached it, she pushed him toward the bed. Once he was seated on the edge of the mattress, she nudged his legs apart with her knee and stepped between his thighs.
“If I’d known you were coming, I would have put on something sexier than an oversize T-shirt,” she told him as she slipped off her robe.
“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
She chuckled, only to have her laughter end abruptly when he molded his hands over her breasts through the thin cotton. Then he covered the tip of one with his mouth. It was all she could do to remain upright as he leaned in and began to suck her nipple through the fabric. When he pulled back, the white T-shirt was wet and sheer where his mouth had been, her dusky nipple a rigid pebble peaking beneath it. She fisted her hands in his hair when he started to work on the other one, moaning as once again pleasure shot from the point of contact right down to her core. Afterward he tugged the shirt over her head and removed her panties.
“You’re wearing way too many clothes,” she complained as he stood, scooped her up in his arms, and settled her in the middle of the mattress.
“Give me a sec. I’ll remedy that.”
She watched him undress, admiring the economical way he did so. He shed the suit coat and tie, tossing them in the direction of the room’s only chair. He unbuttoned the broadcloth shirt only to the middle of his chest, then after undoing the cuffs pulled both it and his T-shirt over his head. He tossed those, too, missing the chair this time. His shoes, socks, pants, and boxers remained in a heap on the floor after he stepped out of them. As he joined her on the mattress, she caught a glimpse of the Virgo tattoo. She ran the tip of her index finger to the wheat the virgin held out. Then she lowered her head to trace the image with her tongue, using her hands to push him flat and then to his side and finally onto his stomach so she could finish the outline.
“You don’t strike me as the sort to believe in astrology,” she said between licks, enjoying the shudders that rocked his body from what amounted to relatively benign contact. It made her feel powerful.
“Generally speaking, I’m…I’m not. God, Kate!” He issued a strangled laugh.
“Keep talking. Tell me about the tattoo,” she said, working on the center of it now, with steady flicks of her tongue on the firm swell of one butt cheek.
“The woman…the woman who did it—”
“Woman, hmm?”
“Tattoo artist. She was like a-a g-gypsy. I was a little drunk at the time. Hey, can you… My front’s feeling neglected,” he told her.
Kate merely laughed. “I’ll get to that in a minute. You were telling me about this gypsy tattoo artist.” She lowered her head again.
“Right. She suggested the design. Actually, she sort of insisted on”—he groaned—“it.”
“And you just went with it?”
He turned his head on the pillow so he could look at her over his shoulder. “As I said, I was a little drunk. And she was very, very persuasive.”
Kate nearly asked him about the tattoo on his arm. Would he tell her the story behind it? Reveal his secrets? She tucked away her curiosity, pressed his side until he rolled on his back. Then she eyed his erection with smug approval. “I can be very persuasive, too. You don’t look so tired any longer.”
“I got my second wind.” His voice was strained, and his breath came in short puffs when she ran her fingers down the line of dark hair that arrowed from his navel. She took his sex in her hand, stroked its length. Then she straddled his prone body and they both moaned in pleasure as she eased down over him.
She moved slowly, rotating her hips with deliberate precision and refusing to speed up even as the pressure to do so became excruciating. His hands left her hips to cup her breasts. Using the pads of his thumbs, he stroked her puckered nipples. She murmured her approval.
“I thought about this the entire drive,” Brody managed in a ragged whisper. “Made it here in record time, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
She lifted her hips, slid back down over him hard. His breath rushed out.
“Like that?”
“I like everything you do.”
She lifted up again, came down. Up. Down. Their bodies slapped together twice more before he grabbed her bottom and held her still.
“Do that again and only one of us is going to be happy.”
“Thanks for the warning.” But she did it again anyway, watching his jaw clench and his pupils dilate.
“Kate! I’m not kidding.”
“I know. But you’ll make it up to me later,” she told him, lifting up and lowering back down one last time before he lost all control.
Her alarm clock went off just as Brody finished making it up to her. Kate hit the snooze button and snuggled up to his side. The emotions bursting inside her were every bit as intense as her orgasm had been.
“In case I forgot to say it, welcome back,” she told him.
He’d been in the process of yawning, but now he chuckled. She felt as much as heard the rumble of his laughter. “I’m going to go away more often if that’s how I get greeted.” He levered up on his elbow. His tone matched his serious expression when he added, “I meant what I said about missing you, Kate. And it wasn’t just sex that I missed.”
Brody swallowed hard after making the admission. His feelings for her were unexpected, even a little inconvenient. That didn’t change them. She’d gotten under his skin. Into his head. Inside his heart.
Her alarm went off a second time as he debated telling her. It could wait, he decided. Now wasn’t the time for declarations. He’d taken her to bed but never on a proper date. He’d remedy that soon.
“I guess we should get up.”
“You can sleep longer, if you’d like. No one’s expecting to see you at the office until around noon. Unfortunately, I have a meeting first thing.” She rose with a sigh.
He was exhausted, but Kate’s bed wasn’t nearly as tempting without her in it with him. He threw back the covers and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. “Any chance I can talk you into making me a cup of coffee from that fancy machine of yours?”
She smiled over her shoulder as she headed to the bathroom. “I’ll even throw in breakfast.”
Half an hour later, she was freshly showered—he’d resisted the urge to join her, knowing she’d never get out of the house on time if he did—and dressed in her usual conservative work attire. They were in her kitchen with her at the stove making an omelet. He was manning the toaster and doing a piss-poor job of it, he realized, when the first couple slices popped up burned nearly black.
“Where’s your garbage?” he asked, glancing around.
She motioned with a spatula. “Cabinet under the sink.”
The envelope caught his eye despite the coffee grounds scattered over the top. His name was on it. His full name typed on the front. That wasn’t as damning as the return address label in the corner with the words “Discreet Private
Investigations” glaring back at him in red ink.
“Hey, you need to pick up the pace on that toast,” Kate teased from her post at the stove.
He barely heard her. He reached for the envelope, wiping off the debris as he pulled it from the trash. Give her the benefit of the doubt, he told himself. But when he turned with it in his hand to ask her what it was, her expression was all the answer he needed.
Panicky guilt, which she underscored with the words, “I can explain.”
He didn’t wait for her to try. He opened it and shook out the contents on the countertop. The police report, accident photos reproduced in grainy black-and-white press clippings that failed to do the horror justice, snapshots of his happy family before it had been destroyed. All of it there and more that he couldn’t catalog in his current state. His dread grew into rage.
“You knew all along,” he accused.
Kate stood next to him now, her brows pulled together as she stared at the papers. He would give her this—she looked baffled. “Knew what?”
“Stop pretending!” His voice echoed in the kitchen, startling the cat from its perch on top of the refrigerator. It hopped down and raced out. Kate, meanwhile, stared at him blankly.
“What’s gotten into you? What are you talking about?” She reached for him, but he shook off her hand.
“You knew my reasons for targeting Douglass all along.” He picked up the accident report, shook it in her face. “You knew about my parents.”
She grabbed the report from his hand, scanned it. “They died in an accident caused by a Douglass truck driver?”
“Don’t act surprised. You knew all along. Tell me, did your father ask you to run after me that first day and beg for a job?”
“I didn’t beg you for anything,” she retorted. Fire shot back into her eyes and she straightened her spine. In her bare feet the top of her head barely reached his chin, yet he was left with the impression she was looking down her nose at him.
“That’s right. An heiress never begs.” To think he’d almost told her he loved her. How stupid would that have been? How stupid was he for falling under her spell when she only had been operating under her father’s orders. “And I thought I had to worry about Collin. It was you all along.”