Oh, God. What did she say? Nikki cleared her throat and wished with every fiber of her being that RJ didn’t look so much like Jack. But the two were definitely their father’s sons. Tough features, deeply scored by sophistication and experience, they both had a multitude of life’s lessons marking the striking blue brilliance of their eyes. Each was also tall and broad, their muscular builds delineated by the superb cut of their suits. Even the deep tenor of their voices was uncannily similar, which had caught her off guard more than once over the past two months.
“So far everything checks out,” she said. “I wish for all your sakes, that it didn’t. Carolina Shipping is a solid company with a sterling reputation. There have only been two lawsuits against Jack Sinclair. I’d classify them as nuisance suits, both settled in his favor.”
“What about on the personal front?” Matthew’s green eyes sharpened on her. “You’ve socialized with him, right?”
RJ looked momentarily startled by the question before making the connection and nodding. “Of course. The bachelor auction. Your dinner date.” He edged his hip onto the conference table and folded his arms across his chest. “The family has only associated with him at the lawyer’s office and in a business setting. His half brother, Alan, has surprised me by being downright friendly. Seems a decent enough sort. As for Sinclair… I couldn’t get a true personal read on the SOB. He’s much more self-contained.”
Laurel sighed. “Our meetings with Jack couldn’t be considered the best circumstances in which to get to know anyone, let alone our—surprise—half brother.”
RJ’s mouth tightened. “Assuming we wanted to get to know him.” At the mention of Jack’s name, his eyes took on an expression identical to Jack’s whenever the Kincaid name was mentioned. It was downright freaky, not to mention distressing. “Which we don’t. Maybe if he was as innocuous as Alan, it might have been a different story. But it’s clear he despises us. And equally clear he’d like to destroy TKG.”
“He doesn’t realize you work for us, does he, Nikki?” Matthew asked in concern.
She shook her head. “No. I’ve kept that quiet.”
“Give us your assessment of him on a personal level,” RJ prompted.
Nikki hesitated, choosing her words with care. “He’s more relaxed. I guess he would be all things considered. Still hard. Still tough. But if I were to attempt to describe him, I’d say…” Her gaze arrowed toward RJ and she shrugged. “He’s a lot like you.”
Insult spread across his face, spiked through his body and he straightened. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
She refused to back down from her assessment. “You know I call it like I see it. You’re both a lot like your father. You have boundaries and God help anyone who steps across those lines. You’re both brilliant businessmen. But when crossed you’re…” She forced herself to acknowledge the truth. “Ruthless.”
RJ took a moment to absorb her words before nodding. “No doubt Brooke would agree with that description.”
Matthew continued to watch Nikki with a sharpness she tried to ignore. He opened his mouth to speak, then much to her relief, reconsidered. “We need more information than you have so far. Insider information. Information that will help us by June.”
Now it was Laurel watching her, this time with a woman’s gaze and a woman’s understanding. “Are we done here, guys?”
The two men nodded. After thanking Nikki, they switched to a shorthand wrap-up on a business matter on the way out the door. Laurel lingered, touching Nikki’s arms with unmistakable sympathy. “Would you rather we assign someone else to research Sinclair?” she asked gently. “I can arrange it without raising any flags with my brothers.”
The offer tempted Nikki beyond measure. Even so, she shook her head. “I can do my job.”
“Is it serious?”
A smile wobbled across her mouth. “It won’t be when he finds out I work for TKG.” Normally, she wouldn’t have been so forthcoming, especially since she was concerned about how her affair with Jack would affect her job. But something about Laurel’s calm, understanding gaze had her opening up. “Of course, if he somehow manages to gain control of the company, working for him won’t be a problem since I’m sure his first act will be to fire me.”
Laurel’s laughter held a dry edge. “Right after he fires us.” Her green eyes turned defiant. “Not that that’s going to happen. Not while we have anything to say about it.”
“I wouldn’t do anything to betray your family,” Nikki stated, aware it needed to be said. “You know that, don’t you?”
Laurel nodded without a moment’s hesitation. “We all know it. My father once told me you took after your father. That one of the defining qualities you shared was an unswerving sense of honor. It’s part of what made him such an outstanding policeman and has made you such a valuable employee.”
The observation caused tears to prick Nikki’s eyes. “Thank you for telling me that about my father. It means the world to me that others saw him the way I did. As for me…” She closed her eyes. “Somehow I’m not feeling too honorable about the way I’ve handled all this.”
And she didn’t. She’d kept a secret from both parties, a secret she’d promised Reginald Kincaid she’d keep. But in order to honor that promise, it compromised what she considered her integrity and duty on another front. And then there was the lie she lived with Jack. She should have been up-front with him about who she worked for right from the beginning. She’d planned to tell him over that first dinner together after she’d placed the winning bid at the bachelor’s auction. Instead of alerting him to the connection, she’d slept with him. Granted, the next morning she had intended to confess the truth. Would have if he hadn’t said one small thing that had stilled her tongue....
It was the morning after their bachelor auction dinner date. The morning following the first night they’d made love. Nikki woke to find Jack standing on the deck just off his bedroom, brought him a cup of coffee and a confession. But one look at the brooding starkness on his face made her hesitate a moment too long.
He held a thick envelope in his hands that reeked money and class, and tapped it against the railing as though the contents contained a terrible emotional burden. It was heavily creased and careworn, but still sealed. She caught The Kincaid Group’s distinctive logo decorating one corner, the ink blurred from frequent handling. “I’m taking them down, you know,” he announced.
Even though she guessed who he meant, she forced herself to ask. “Who are you taking down, Jack?”
“The Kincaids.” He turned, accepted the coffee with a hard smile, remained blissfully unaware her confession had slipped away like a forgotten dream. “Ironic, isn’t it? By giving me 45 percent interest in TKG, my own father handed me the very weapon I needed to destroy his family. Why do you suppose he’d do that?”
“Maybe he didn’t consider it a weapon,” she suggested hesitantly. “Maybe he hoped you’d realize they’re your family, too.”
“They’re not my family,” he instantly retorted. “They will never be my family.”
Nikki waited a beat so he’d hear the anger and defensiveness in his own voice before deliberately instilling a hint of calm in her reply. “Then maybe your father considered it an olive branch, an attempt to correct past errors in judgment.”
Jack drew a deep breath and gathered himself. “Could be. There’s one way I could find out.” Steam from the mug caused a curtain to form between them while he sipped, before parting again when he set the mug on top of the envelope, pinning it to the railing. “I can tell that startles you.”
“Only because your father’s dead, so I’m not sure how you can get any real answers.”
He flicked a corner of the envelope. “He left me a personal note. And no doubt a lengthy explanation for why he refused to acknowledge me all these
years. Why he never told the Legitimates that I existed. Why he felt it acceptable to betray his wife and take my mother for his mistress. I wonder if he asks for forgiveness or simply attempts to excuse his behavior.”
She glanced again at the seal. “You haven’t opened it. Why?”
“Because I’m tempted to burn it.”
“Unread?”
He turned to her, genuine amusement brightening the intense blue of his gaze. “You think I’d regret it if I destroyed the damn thing without reading it?”
“I…” She almost said, “I don’t know.” But she did know. There wasn’t a single doubt in her mind. “Yes. Yes, I think you’d regret it. If not now, at some point.”
He turned back to the letter, lifted the mug for another swallow of coffee. A bitter-dark ring marred the creamy white of the envelope. A dark smudge that reflected Jack’s birthright…or birth wrong. And yet, a ring that connected all the Kincaids within that unfortunate darkness. “I decided to give it more time for just that reason. First impulses aren’t always the best choice.”
“Bidding for you at the auction was a first impulse. So was sleeping with you.”
He leaned in, soothed the worry from her brow with a tender kiss. “The exception that proves the rule.”
Confession time. “Listen, Jack, there’s something you should know—”
“There are some who suspect—hope—I killed my father.”
Damn, damn, damn. “Did you kill Reginald Kincaid?” she asked evenly.
She asked the question deliberately, hoping to jar Jack out of his odd mood. And that’s when she saw it. The stillness. The flash of pain. The weary acceptance. Each expression reflected an emotion she knew—knew without a minute’s doubt—he’d experienced countless times in the past, a lifetime’s accumulation of slights and insults he’d absorbed, all of which had left scars. How many were due to his birth? How many to the fact that he was Reginald Kincaid’s son by blood, but never by name? How many were because his mother was Kincaid’s mistress? How many were because he’d lived his entire life in the shadows, unable to claim kith or kin, always living beneath a cloud of shame?
She went to him, took the coffee from his hand and set it aside. She wrapped him up in the warmth of her embrace, waiting for his instinctive resistance to fade. Little by little he surrendered to the comfort she offered. The instant he rested his cheek against the top of her head she knew she’d won him over, eased some tiny part of his burden.
She also knew she couldn’t tell him about her ties to the Kincaids, that to do so would cut him adrift once again. She couldn’t do that to him. Even more, she couldn’t do it to herself. She wasn’t ready to lose him. If she toed the line she always had in the past, the line that demanded she follow a certain code of honor, he would end things between them before they fully began. And she wasn’t ready for that.
Nikki cupped the back of Jack’s head and lifted her face to his, drawing him down and into a slow, lush kiss. Warmth flooded over them, capturing them within the brilliant rays of the sun, adding even more heat to their embrace. He ran his hands over the simple silk shirt she wore—his shirt from the night before. And then he swept under, tracing the naked curves he found beneath. It made her desperately grateful he owned extensive land around his home and had planted trees that blocked any possibility of being seen, other than from the empty stretch of beach.
He cupped her buttocks, lifting her against the rigid line of his arousal, aligning her more acutely to sheer masculinity. Then upward still further to cup the fullness of her breasts. His thumbs traced the tight peaks of her nipples and he inhaled her groan of pleasure, incorporated it into their kiss.
“I want you.” He backed her toward one of the large, cushioned deck loungers and came down on top of her. “I can’t seem to stop wanting you.”
“Make love to me. Here and now.”
“Not my usual venue.”
She laughed, filled with a recklessness she’d never experienced before other than with him. Only with him. “I have a confession.”
“You’re secretly a Kincaid?” he teased. She stiffened, unable to help herself, her shock communicating itself to him. His eyes narrowed in abrupt suspicion. “Tell me you’re not somehow related to the Kincaids and are secretly on their side in our little war.”
“I’m not secretly related to the Kincaids,” she answered without hesitation, the truth of her modified statement reflected in her eyes and voice.
“Swear it.”
“I swear it.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head and released a gruff laugh. “These days I’m seeing Kincaids lurking behind every tree. Maybe because half the time they are.”
She ran her hands over his chest, hoping to distract him, tracing the ridges of power that rippled across the impressive expanse. It worked like a charm. He shuddered beneath the gentle caress. One by one he opened the buttons of her shirt—his shirt—and spread the silk wide. She lay beneath him, utterly exposed, so bared she worried that he could see straight through to her heart and soul and those tiny secrets that hid there. He cupped her breast, lowered his head to nip, to pleasure. She surrendered to him, helpless to do anything less. All he had to do was touch her and she was his for the taking.
He took his time, exploring where the sun dappled. Somehow making them one with the give and take of the sea. The pounding surf that echoed the kick of her heart. The swish of water dragging across sand that matched the movement of his mouth and tongue across her body. The desperate, helpless drive of salt water against shoreline that mirrored the desperate, helpless drive of passion that sent her climbing, climbing, climbing. The relentless rush that couldn’t be stopped before the break of wave, the powerful tumble that nature demanded.
Her cry of climax joined with that of the sea, with that of the man whose body mated with hers. And in that moment she realized there was no going back. Not now. Not ever. No matter how this ended. Slowly they subsided, the crash easing to bliss. They held and clung for untracked time.
He turned his head to meet her stunned gaze. “Still think I killed my father?” he asked.
She winced, aware she’d hit a serious hot button earlier. She rolled onto her side and snuggled in. “Considering you just sent me straight to heaven, I may have to rethink my original opinion.”
He chuckled, tucking her closer still. “You asked me that question deliberately, didn’t you? Not because that’s what you believe, but rather to watch my reaction. Did you learn that technique from your father?”
“Guilty,” she confessed, her voice muffled against his shoulder.
“Quite effective. I’ll have to try it sometime, maybe with the Kincaids.”
“Oh, Jack.” She tilted her head back and looked up at him. “How will ruining the Kincaids solve anything? It won’t make Reginald any more or less your father. It won’t change how you were raised.”
“Let’s just say I’ll find it satisfying.”
“To ruin The Kincaid Group?”
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Who said anything about ruining the company? That would be counterproductive, since I now own 45 percent.”
She relaxed ever so slightly. Maybe she’d misread the situation. “Oh. Well, okay then.”
“No, I want TKG to prosper when I take it over and one by one take each and every last Kincaid down. They’ve had their reign. They’ve spent their entire lives at the top. Reginald Kincaid’s sons and daughters. The Legitimates.” Ruthless intent burned in Jack’s eyes, carved a pathway across his features. “Now it’s my turn. Now the Kincaid bastard takes over.”
And that’s when Nikki realized she was in serious trouble, that she’d put herself in an impossible situation, one in which she felt honor-bound to protect both sides in a war no one could possibly win. The only thing she knew
with dead certainty…
When this war ended, she would be the ultimate loser.
* * * * *
The Royal Cousin’s Revenge
Catherine Mann
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
One
Javier Cortez walked onto the private jet as coolly as he’d walked out of Victoria Palmer’s life a year ago.
Seeing him, Victoria gripped the armrests, her short fingernails digging into the butter-soft leather. If only there were other passengers inside the luxury craft. If only the pilot wasn’t behind a closed door to the cockpit.
If only she’d had some warning Javier would be on this flight, too.
But he’d caught her unawares and unprepared. And without question, she needed all her defenses in place around this man.
He noticed her then and his eyes locked on hers, his expression as enigmatic and unreadable as always. Javier rarely showed emotion.
Except when he’d made love to her.
Her eyes tracked her former lover as he strode toward her.
What was he doing on this flight? Why was he even in Boston instead of at home in Martha’s Vineyard?
She’d contracted to be a private nurse for his uncle on his family’s private island off the Florida coast—the post she’d had when she’d met Javier more than a year ago. She’d agreed to work for his uncle for only a week this time, balking at stepping back into this family’s world. But the old man had offered her quite a sum…and she couldn’t afford to say no. She needed the money to pay her brother’s lawyer.
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