by Edie Harris
Both Chandler and Pippa whirled on Keir, speaking in unison. “What Pinney thing?”
For a split second, Keir’s green eyes widened. “The investigator. The one Faraday decked earlier this week.” His mouth clamped shut as he caught sight of Tobias’s death glare.
Chandler’s gaze flicked to Tobias’s bruised knuckles, then his face, searching his expression for...something. “There was another investigator?”
“Yes. But it’s been taken care of. Lady Valsar won’t be told about the link between you two and Reggie.” He softened his voice. “I promised you, remember?” Nothing would happen to Pippa on his watch—her or Chandler.
“That you did.” Her mouth curved slightly before sobering again to focus on Pippa. “You can’t marry Cameron,” she said again, more firmly this time.
Pippa’s scowl blistered. “I absolutely can marry him. In fact, I’m going to marry him—tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Tobias squared his shoulders, preparing for battle. “Pippa, it’s your choice whether you stay with Cameron.” When Chandler made a noise as if to protest, he lifted a hand. “But I think it’s in your best interest to, at the very least, delay the wedding until we present him with the evidence we showed you. Because the truth is, like it or not, the Polnoch’ Pulya is bankrolling his business. That means there’s a good chance Cameron is in danger, whether he knows it or not.” As soon as Nolte became dispensible, he’d be dispensed of—no doubt by his faux-school-chum priest. “If he’s in danger, you’re in danger, and I’m afraid I can’t knowingly let you put yourself at risk.”
“Listen, I’m not calling off the wedding. Victoria doesn’t know about Reggie, you only have those words that I barely understand linking Cameron with the Russians, and Vogue bloody magazine is covering tomorrow’s ceremony and reception.” Jaw set, Pippa latched onto Chandler’s forearm and tugged her away from the footboard and marched toward the door. “Come on, Chan. You’re spending the rest of the day with me, in my room, absolutely alone, and you—” she shot Freya, Dare, Tobias and finally Keir, still looming by the exit, a ferocious glare “—are going to keep that mobster away from my sister. I’m bloody well getting married tomorrow, damn it.”
Chandler’s beseeching gaze as she stared at him over her shoulder branded itself on Tobias’s psyche. Silence fell on the room as the four of them listened to the sisters’ retreating steps down the hall.
Freya cleared her throat. “We’re not really letting her marry that poncy twat Cameron, are we?”
Smiling grimly, Tobias withdrew his phone from his pocket, pulling up Casey’s number. “No. No, we are not.”
Chapter Eleven
“This is the most depressing wedding day in the history of wedding days.” Chandler peered past the drapes guarding the windows of her sister’s suite into the garden below. The sky was overcast, rain threatening in the low-hanging clouds, and completely mirrored Chandler’s dour mood.
“Not helping.” Pippa stood in front of the large trifold mirror near the walk-in closet, wearing nothing but the structured lingerie necessary to fit beneath her custom-designed wedding gown. The hair and makeup artists had finished working their magic half an hour ago, and Pippa had dismissed the other bridesmaids to give her and Chandler some alone time—family in the final moments and whatnot. Chandler was to help her twin dress and then escort her downstairs to where all the guests were gathering on the east lawn for a ceremony that was only twenty minutes shy of starting.
Turning from the window, Chandler moved to the bed where the gown was laid out. “I love you, Pip, but helping you marry Cameron is not something I want to do.” Though she would do it anyway, because evidently the hours they’d spent curled up in Pippa’s bed last night, talking through everything under the sun, hadn’t dissuaded her from walking down the aisle.
And there was fuck-all Chandler could do about it.
Pippa rubbed her bare arms, studying her reflection blindly in the mirror. Heels and stockings, garter belt and ruffled panties and a satin bustier were no protection against the chill of the suite, no matter that there was a fire roaring in the grate on the other side of the room. “I can’t believe he has those passports.”
Ah, yes. The passports. Somewhere around two in the morning, Chandler had spilled the beans about the secret cache in the armory, which led to Pippa insisting on seeing it with her own eyes. Which had, in turn, led to Pippa staring at four passports, one hundred thousand in cash—Chandler had counted—eight charge cards and the array of handguns and assault rifles. “I hate guns,” Pippa had whispered after several long minutes of silence, her elbows propped on the trestle table. “I’ve always hated guns, you know that.”
“I know,” Chandler had murmured, leaning over the other side of the table. Another long bout of silence followed before Chandler had packed up and hidden the envelope once more, then led Pippa back to her room to catch a few hours of sleep before the hair and makeup artists arrived to beautify the bridal party.
Now she gathered the gown from the bedspread and carried it draped over her arms to the mirror where Pippa stood. “Let’s get you dressed, love.” Worry sobered her voice as she helped Pippa step into the circle of the skirt, drawing it up over her corseted torso, Pippa’s slender arms sliding into the lace half sleeves. Chandler smoothed the chiffon overlay atop the satin skirt, adjusting the scalloped edges of the sleeves so they sat off Pippa’s fair shoulders before she started in on the dozens of buttons and loops climbing the open panels along the back of the gown. “You look gorgeous.”
“You’re not even looking at me.”
A sad smile tugged at Chandler’s mouth. “I don’t need to.” Then, “Good God, did you really require so many buttons?”
Pippa laughed, a wheezing sound that clenched around Chandler’s heart. “This is wrong.”
“Tell that to my aching fingers. Seriously, these buttons.”
“No, Chan.” With a handful of buttons left undone, Pippa turned abruptly, grabbing for Chandler’s hands and holding on tight. “This, this, is wrong. This wedding, this marriage, none of it is happening as it should.” Her complexion was pale beneath the subtle bronzing and blushing of her cosmetics, her eyes wide and wild as she searched Chandler’s. “My fiancé is...a criminal.” She heaved a shuddering breath. “He’s a bloody criminal. I know I should confront him with this, but I can’t. I...I can’t. Not after the passports and the money and the guns—oh, God, the guns.” Her breath hitched, shuddered. “And that email from Tobias...”
Secretly, deep inside, Chandler thanked Tobias for forwarding the file containing all the gathered information about Cameron’s investment firm, Polnoch’ Pulya and the shell company to Chandler’s phone, so that Pippa could read it again with a calmer head. Cameron’s guilt had been proven implicitly when Adam Faraday unearthed his signature on a buried form very clearly transferring all the firm’s assets to, lo and behold, the Accountant—the very man Chandler had been sent to Russia long months ago to handle, at MI6’s behest. “What are you saying, Pip?”
Pippa exhaled slowly. “I’m saying...I have to cancel my wedding. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.” She sank to the ground in a cloud of snowy white, shock written all over her face as she dragged Chandler down with her. “I have to cancel my wedding. And break up with Cameron. And move out of our townhouse in London and, omigod, Chan, omigodomigodomigod.”
Chandler disentangled her hands from Pippa’s and rested them soothingly atop her shoulders. “It’s all right. Pip? Pip, look at me.” Hazy brown eyes met hers. “Cancelling the wedding is easy. Breaking up with Cameron, also easy.” Chandler lied, but her panicked sister needed lies right now. “You have my key, so you can just move into mine until you find a new place, yeah? And I don’t know if you noticed—” she mentally crossed her fingers, hoping her Toby would support her on this “—but Tobias gets shit done.
Anything you can’t do, anything I can’t do, he can and will.”
A chime sounded from the vanity. Pippa’s phone.
They stared at it, unmoving from their spot on the floor. “Do you want me to get it?”
Pippa shook her head and stretched out to grab the mobile. “It’s...it’s Cameron.” She swiped at the screen, pulling up the message. “He says to meet him in the west garden immediately.” Her stricken expression lanced Chandler’s heart. “Come with me?”
“Of course.” No way in hell was Chandler letting Pippa face that lying bastard alone. In fact... “Give me one second.” Helping her twin to stand, she hurried to the closet where she’d stored her clothes from yesterday, along with her own mobile, and tapped out a quick text.
Pip calling off wedding. Nolte demanding mtg in w garden NOW. Meet us there + backup?
Tobias would come, she had no doubt. She may not have seen him since Pippa pulled her from their shared suite yesterday afternoon, having skipped the rehearsal supper in order to avoid a chance encounter with the Priest, but there had been something in his gaze as he watched her leave. Something serious and aggressive and tender, all at the same time, and it liquefied her insides.
Her phone chirped, and her chest tightened because she knew, she knew, it was Tobias. Toby.
Five minutes.
Five minutes. She could do five minutes. Reaching for the item she’d pilfered from the armory this morning, the item she’d concealed beneath yesterday’s sweater, she shifted the flowy skirts of her tea-length lavender gown and hid the item underneath, with a minimum of contorting.
Her phone chirped again.
I’ve got your back, sweetheart. I promise.
Ah, fuck. Feelings.
Slipping her phone into the pocket added to the maid-of-honor gown at Chandler’s request, she hustled out of the closet and snagged a pacing Pippa by the elbow. “Come on, darling. Let’s get this over with, yeah?” Hurrying them out the door and down the stairs, she babbled pointlessly, her mind jumping from one outcome to the other. “After this, we’ll grab two bottles of champagne and the bottom layer of that pretty cake I know is hiding in the kitchen and make Toby drive us to London in his fancy car while we get drunk and pull a Marie Antoinette in our dresses.” Chandler led them through the hall and into a parlor, exiting onto the Spanish patio from which she had watched Tobias humiliate the groomsmen during the target contest. “We’ll book a room at the Savoy and order fish and chips and stay up all night watching Hollyoaks back episodes on Channel Four.”
“We’re going to need more than two bottles of champagne.”
Somehow, Chandler found herself laughing. “We’ll steal a case from the catering staff.” Stepping off the patio, they turned and found themselves face-to-face with Cameron Nolte and his pinched-mouth mother, both dressed to the nines in their wedding attire. Cameron’s trousers and tails were a soft dove gray, his waistcoat a pale pink to complement the decor color scheme, while Victoria wore an embroidered turquoise skirt and jacket, her wide-brimmed chapeau ivory with turquoise ribbons and feathers.
Pippa’s hand slid into Chandler’s and held on tight. “Cameron,” she said shakily as she moved across the green lawn until only a few meters separated mother and son from the sisters. “You asked to see me?”
A disgusted sneer twisted Cameron’s narrow features. “You lying little bitch.”
Flinching as if struck, Pippa tensed. “Excuse me?”
“You told me your parents died.”
Oh, no.
“They did die.”
“One of them died in prison. After slashing a bunch of whores to pieces.” Cameron lifted a hand to Victoria’s birdlike shoulder. “And I had to find out from my mother.”
“Goddamn Pinney,” growled a low voice threaded through with hints of Northern Ireland from behind them, and Chandler and Pippa turned as one to see a hulking Keir come to a halt just behind Pippa. “Told you we couldn’t trust him to keep his yap shut.”
“You were right. We’ll have to send him to that black site, after all.” Chandler swiveled her head to find Tobias at her other side, dressed in a tuxedo that rendered her momentarily—inconveniently—speechless. He was divine, his lean frame with its broad shoulders and flat stomach designed for nothing so much as rocking that motherfucking tux. From the black bow tie at his throat to the contrasting ebony sheen on his lapels to the shining toes of his Italian leather shoes, he was a living, breathing, walking, talking Armani advert.
And that was only from the neck down. Skin a delicious warm hue that spoke of days spent in the sunshine by a dazzling sea, jaw darkened by a night’s worth of rakish stubble, his face pierced the shield of her anxious emotions and stole the very breath from her lungs. He was more dashing than any man had a right to be, and the confidence in his clear gray eyes as he looked down at her did more to bolster her spine than she felt comfortable admitting.
A tug on her hand by Pippa brought her attention back to a scowling Cameron. “The arrival of your cavalry won’t change the fact that you’re the daughter of a serial killer. Deny it.”
Pippa lifted her chin defiantly, and Chandler didn’t think she’d ever been more proud of her twin. “I will not.” Pippa’s innate honesty would never tolerate the lie when directly confronted, no matter how much she might wish to conceal the truth of their connection to Reggie.
Leaning into her son, Victoria pointed an accusatory finger at Pippa. “There will be no wedding to my boy, you dirty little cunt.”
Gasps erupted from both Chandler and Pippa, alongside an actual growl from Keir. Tobias cleared his throat. “That language is unbecoming a woman of your station, Lady Valsar. Apologize to Pippa.”
“I will not,” the older woman hissed, her lined face pinched. “Neither will I permit my son to marry such a deceitful—”
“Deceitful?” Pippa snapped, dropping Chandler’s hand and pointing her own accusatory finger at Victoria. “You want to talk about deceit, you’d best look to your precious son, my lady. His lies far outweigh mine.” Then she clapped her hands over her mouth, as though she couldn’t quite believe what she’d said.
Cameron had stilled during her brief tirade. “What lies?”
“The lies you told to hide the fact that you’re the Russian mob’s bitch,” Tobias answered succinctly for her sister, causing Chandler’s pulse to flutter in gleeful admiration. “And you are their bitch, aren’t you, Nolte?”
As if summoned, from around the side of the house came Rolan Kuznetsov, black cleric’s robes whipping around him with each long stride that brought him closer to their tense party. Chandler’s stomach lurched when his gaze locked with hers, though no flicker of recognition lit his expression. It didn’t matter—she knew he knew her.
The Priest might be at Val Manor because of Cameron’s perfidy, but he would not leave without Chandler. The truth of that lived in Kuznetsov’s dead stare.
She tensed to run, grabbing Pippa’s arms as she did so, and only the steadying weight of Tobias’s hand between her shoulder blades kept her in place. Glancing up at him, though tearing her eyes from the enemy went against everything in her defensive nature, she spoke low, for his ears alone. “Don’t let him get to Pip.” She had spent enough time with the Priest to know he had zero qualms about using family members against a target to force said target to bend and, eventually, break. If Kuznetsov got his hands on Pippa, he would start with her dainty fingertips and work his insidious way in.
Tobias merely nodded, and together, they watched Kuznetsov pull even with Cameron. Thunder rumbled ominously in the not-too-far-off distance. Shifting to subtly position his body between her and the Russian enforcer, Tobias took charge, and Chandler decided she was thankful.
Especially when the Priest opened his mouth and rumbling foreign words spilled forth. Words that were most definitely a mes
sage for Chandler, from someone who was decidedly not Rolan Kuznetsov. “Dobryy den’, koshka.” Hello, kitten.
Thank God Chandler hadn’t eaten anything yet that morning, or she would have cast up her accounts.
Something of that sentiment must have infiltrated Tobias’s senses, because his voice, when he spoke, was colder than she’d heard it in weeks. “You speak to me, Mr. Kuznetsov, not her.” His body shadowed her more fully, protective and irritating at once. “Never her.” Ah, fuck, that voice, those words—they made her knees weak.
Kuznetsov said nothing.
Wisely—in Chandler’s opinion—Tobias returned his focus to Cameron. “I believe the presence of the svyashchennik requires no deeper explanation, Nolte. We know about the firm, the shell company, the Polnoch’ Pulya.” His voice deepened with what Chandler thought might be satisfaction. “You will be brought up on charges of money laundering, fraud and treason before the British government, and you will not breathe a goddamn word about Pippa or Chandler or Reggie McCallister if you want any hope of landing in one of the nicer prisons available to criminals of your ilk.”
“You can’t prove a thing,” Cameron scoffed, making Chandler want to roll her eyes. “And you have no authority to arrest me in my own country, Faraday, no matter how many American presidents you have bent over a barrel.”
Tobias kept his tone casual. “I suppose I shouldn’t doubt your idiocy, considering what you’ve been up to for the past year, but that you question my ability to do something as simple as have you thrown in jail is a true mark against your intelligence.” He paused meaningfully. “The Russians won’t protect you. No matter who stands beside you right now.”
Pippa’s body stiffened, drawing Chandler’s attention away from the Priest. From beyond the Noltes and Kuznetsov, Chandler noted what must have set her on edge—Freya and Dare approaching swiftly and silently, sidearms raised and ready to take on the opposition that Tobias continued to distract with each biting syllable.