Basically, Jake had the musical tastes of a painfully white, fourteen-year-old wannabe. It was kind of hilarious.
“He’s tough, but I promise he’s really nice,” Becca said, hoping to smooth things over. But Jake picked up his pace as they rounded a corner of the North Woods, leaving her struggling to keep up.
She imagined having a long-term relationship with this man would always be like that—one step behind, watching from afar, never quite his equal. It was probably why he’d managed to stay single for so long. Women knew, instinctively, that Jake Montgomery wasn’t for everyday wear. He was a couture ball gown, a lacy garter belt from La Perla, that pair of Valentino pumps you knew looked fabulous but would leave your feet aching before the night was through. You only brought him out for special occasions.
No matter how unsuitable he might be over the long haul, Becca was determined to count today as one of those special occasions. She trotted along after him, enjoying the sight of his ass, high and round, flexing under his loose-fitting track bottoms, and left it at that.
“How’d you get to be in such good shape anyway?” Becca asked, mesmerized by his body’s effortless movements. “You don’t run or work out or even walk all that briskly. Every time I see you, you’re standing around like some kind of predatory animal, conserving your energy for the kill.”
“That’s because I am standing around, conserving my energy for the kill. I just happen to prefer to do my slaughtering after dark.”
“Why, Jake Montgomery,” she purred, “is that a sexual innuendo I hear?”
“Not this time.”
“Then it’s a murder innuendo?”
“If by murder innuendo you mean a confession, then no. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
She pulled her lips into a pout. “Well, it’s some kind of innuendo. Those are the only kinds of conversations you’re capable of having. Innuendo or sarcasm or, when you’re feeling particularly witty, out-and-out insult.”
He hesitated. “I have normal conversations. We’re having a normal conversation right now.”
“Are we? In my experience, normal conversations engender intimacy, if only for the space of a few minutes at a time. And you’re the least intimate man I know. You won’t even tell me how you find time to exercise.”
Jake purposefully slowed his pace, allowing Becca an opportunity to catch her breath.
He didn’t know how she did it, but that woman possessed an uncanny ability to smack him flat with her observations. Not only was she painfully astute, but she spoke kindly and meant no harm—both of which made the underlying implication that much sharper. No wonder people turned to her to have their fortunes read. It was like sitting down with a child who’d been taught never to lie, who saw the world without prejudice.
“You really want to know how I stay in shape?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Hard work, just like everyone else.” He glanced at her sideways. “I run eight miles, three days a week—usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Every other Sunday, I push myself to do a half marathon.”
“That’s the best and most disappointing answer ever.”
“Don’t worry. There’s more. The reason you didn’t know about it—why no one knows about it—is because I always go for my runs in the middle of the night. And I usually do them in a part of the city where I won’t come across anyone I know, because even though my vanity requires that I keep up a rigorous regimen, my pride forces me to do it where no one else can see.”
“Are you serious? That’s the killing you do after dark?”
“Not so exciting after all, is it? I wasn’t playing with innuendo—sexual or otherwise. I’m just a mortal man who has to work hard to stay in shape, but I prefer that no one actually know it.”
He braced himself for Becca’s reaction—delight at being let in to his secret, mockery at the narcissism that drove him—but wasn’t prepared for what followed.
“Are you sure that’s safe?”
He had to laugh. In all the years he’d been running by cover of night, he’d never once given a thought to the physical dangers that surrounded him. The idea that he might be spotted by an acquaintance had always been the much more pressing of his concerns.
He didn’t have a chance to tell her, though, because she sucked in a sharp breath and skidded to a halt. His adrenaline—already moving swiftly—spiked, and he stopped next to her, shielding her body as he scanned the horizon for danger.
Trees. Running couple. Men drinking coffee. Squirrel. Becca tapping furiously on her wrist next to him. “What? What is it?”
“You lied. This tapping thing doesn’t work at all. I’m going to kill them.”
“At least you’re talking about the act of murder rather than performing it. I think that’s progress.”
Her expression filled with equal parts amused and irritated as all hell. “Do you intend to take credit every time I don’t physically assault someone for the rest of my life?”
“I should have set it up so I get royalties. Who aren’t we killing?”
“My not-so-adoring public. Look natural.” She let go of her wrist and pointed in the direction of the men drinking coffee. Gone were the paper cups and the air of casual camaraderie. Each man now boasted a long lens pointed their direction, the beaks of vultures getting ready to swoop in. “And you might want to smile and get that famous profile shot ready. We’re about to be immortalized in print.”
“Shit. They must have gotten wind of our engagement somehow.” Jake did his best to look calm, as if being caught running in the park with his fiancée at seven in the morning was a typical day for him. “Want to get out of here?”
“Yes, but it’s better if we give them what they want.” She blew the man on the right—a tall, gruff-looking man with a scar across his forehead—a sneering kiss. “If we don’t, they’ll just be back tomorrow or the next day or when you’re skulking along the streets at night running a half-marathon. I should have mentioned it earlier. Those three are my usuals. Gary, Barry and Greg. Greg’s the sweetheart with the scowl.”
Although instinct urged him to start jogging again and get her out of there, Jake found himself glued to the spot, studying the trio through narrowed eyes. “Do you mean to tell me they’re here every day?”
“Not here, specifically. But you can find them hanging around my regular haunts. I should probably warn you that Greg might jog along after us for a ways, but he usually gives up after about ten minutes—he has asthma, so he has to take it easy.”
Jake could only stare at her, words flitting about five feet above his head, out of reach and colorful enough to paint an entire naval yard. These scumbags actually had the audacity to stand there and wait for Becca to run by, three grown men chasing down a woman who weighed less than a punching bag? In what world was this okay?
She spared him the necessity of a response by pitching him a look of supplication. “Would you mind if we played this whole engagement thing up a little? I know I’m already in your debt a thousand times, but my opportunities for positive press are so rare. It seems like a waste not to use it.”
“You want to give these assholes a reason to keep following you? No way.”
“They’re going to follow me no matter what. They always have. It’s what they do.”
He didn’t know how to handle that. Yes, he’d had more than his fair share of run-ins with the paparazzi, but it was usually restricted to events and situations where their presence was expected. Nightclubs, private parties that got out of hand, anywhere expensive shoulders rubbed. It was the price he paid for having fun.
But this wasn’t fun. This was everyday life. This was Becca pushing her body to the limits of its endurance so she could find a way to move past her grief. Who the fuck did those men think they were, chasing her down, wa
iting for her to fall?
He found himself halfway across the grass to where the men stood before he realized what he was doing and stopped. His hands had formed fists at his sides, and he looked at them curiously, surprised to find how natural they felt. He had never hit another man in anger. He had never hit another man, period. There was something so primitive and unnecessary about pugilism. He’d always found it much cleaner—and far more satisfying—to bring a man down through slow, careful plotting, bringing his whole world down with him.
Where was the fun in it otherwise?
With a deep breath and four careful taps on either wrist—Becca was right, it was a waste of fucking time—he turned on his heel and walked carefully back to her side. Not bothering with preliminaries, he brought his mouth to hers and gave those bastards exactly what they wanted.
This was no prim and proper kiss for the cameras. This was him staking his claim and leaving no room for doubts. They wanted sordid tales to carry to the gossip magazines, did they? They waited in the distance for Becca to show a moment of weakness, a single human failing so they could immortalize it in print, huh?
Well, here it was. They could have pictures of his arms crushing her body to his. They could take as many shots as they wanted of his lips moving firmly over hers, forcing her to open up beneath him. They could walk away with the falsely solid belief that this woman was his, and all of the shit they got away with before was about to come to a screeching halt.
And if he maybe got carried away in the middle, softening his assault so that the kiss turned deep and slow, well, that was only to be expected. He’d denied himself the pleasure of this woman’s mouth for days now. He was going to take a minute.
It was a hell of a minute.
“How was that?” he asked, ending the kiss long after it passed the bounds of decency. He felt rather than heard the hitch in his own breath. “Good? Or should we give them some more? Because I can do that again if I have to.”
After a slightly perplexed look up at him, Becca released a shaky laugh. “There’s no need to go to such lengths. I think that one did the trick—but that wasn’t what I had in mind when I asked you to play the engagement up. We could have given them a quote.”
He waved her off. Maybe it wasn’t what he had in mind either, but it was done now. Done and enjoyed and not fucking likely to happen again. Not if he wanted to rebuild the crumbled remains of his self-control.
“How are they taking it?”
She transferred her gaze over his shoulder to get a better look at their audience. “Oh, how sweet. They’re so excited. It’s like Christmas morning over there and each one of them just unwrapped a pony.”
I’ll bet it is. Wrapping an arm firmly around her waist, he turned them both so they faced the rapidly clicking cameras, and actually gave a goddamn wave. He felt like a politician parading his affection for his wife in order to secure the conservative votes, but he was in it now. When he gambled, he gambled hard. All in.
“Well, there it is,” Becca said under her breath. “My mom is going to have a heart attack when she realizes we just made this thing officially official.”
And that was it. She didn’t wait for a response or thank him for his sacrifice or ask him to go ahead and punch the cameramen after all. Nudging him back toward the trail, she picked up her earlier pace and resumed her run.
This time, Jake trailed slowly, reflecting on what he’d done. He was all in, resolved, officially official. His relationship with Becca had become about more than winning a bet with Monty, moved beyond a well-meaning urge to keep his step-aunt from harm. He was part of the village keeping her from the cliff’s edge now.
No—scratch that. He glanced back at the cameramen, now zeroed in on the movements of her ass as she departed, and scowled. He was going to lead the fucking village, rallying the peasants in an uprising to protect and serve.
Chapter Eleven
Jake knocked on the window of the limo, startling Liam into spilling his coffee. With a rolling gesture, he stood patiently by until Becca’s driver got himself under control and dropped the window a fraction of an inch. The scent of leather, coffee and suspicion wafted out the crack.
“Don’t worry,” Jake said. “This isn’t a carjacking.”
As Becca’s houseguest—and betrothed—he’d made fairly quick work of winning over the rest of the people who worked for her. The doorman in her apartment building already accorded him a smile and a nod when he asked to be let in. Her maid, a shy, overworked woman in her late twenties, had gone so far as to stammer out an incredulous thanks when she arrived to find that Jake had hung Becca’s discarded towels and lined up her enormous collection of boots by the door.
But Liam hadn’t yet decided what to do with him. It turned out her chauffeur was slightly begrudging with his respect—which wasn’t going to work for Jake at all. If he was going to be leading this village, everyone needed to be on his side. It was a dictatorship or bust.
“I’m supposed to take Ms. Clare to her manicure,” Liam said warily.
“Ms. Clare decided she’d rather paint one of the walls in her apartment today.”
“By herself?”
Jake appreciated the chauffeur’s incredulity. He’d had a hard time coming to terms with it himself. They’d enjoyed a Max-free morning only to be beset by Becca’s sudden urge to become a painter and seven different shades of paint delivered to the door. He hadn’t yet decided which was worse.
“She appears to have convinced her cleaning woman to help. It looks like the scene of a recent murder in there, so I thought it might behoove me to entertain myself elsewhere.”
Liam gave a reluctant chuckle and popped the locks up. Recognizing it as an assent, Jake moved to the front passenger side and took a seat, his movements only slightly stiff. While Max hadn’t been able to coax a tear out of him yesterday—or vice versa—Jake’s abs weren’t too pleased with the recent turn of events. Nor was his pride, to be honest.
“You want to ride up here?” A horrified expression crossed Liam’s face at the sanctity of his front seat being broken. “Next to me?”
“I’m not riding anywhere at all,” Jake explained. “I was hoping you and I might have a conversation instead.”
Liam grew even more uncomfortable. He wasn’t like the Montgomery family’s chauffeur, a man who moonlighted as a stunt driver and knew his way around sports cars, a man Jake considered his friend. Liam looked as if he’d rather get out and push the car than give in to the lure of racing. Or camaraderie.
“If Ms. Clare isn’t in need of my services...”
Jake dug into his pocket and extracted his phone, his finger poised above Becca’s speed dial. “You can call her if you want. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind you taking me where I need to go.”
“But you don’t want me to go anywhere.”
“Is that what’s bothering you?” Jake buckled himself in. “Then let’s make it a tour, shall we? We can start at Battery Park and head to the Lower East Side from there, maybe even swing by Times Square. That should make this a nice, long drive. We can chat. Get to know one another.”
A ghost of a grimace crossed Liam’s face, but there was little he could do about the situation, so he pulled the car out with a sigh. No wonder Becca regularly attacked people. If Jake had been saddled with intrusive cameramen and a condescending driver and a personal trainer with a death wish, he’d probably start punching anyone who pissed him off too.
“So, Liam.” Jake feigned an interest in the passing scenery—the too-close brick townhouses, the shops with striped awnings, New York at its finest. “I don’t believe I thanked you for the quick getaway the other night.”
“There’s no need. It’s my job.”
Ah, job. There was that word again. For thirty-one years, he’d successfully managed to avoid any and all conversati
ons related to employment. Now he was practically running his own human resources department. “And it’s a job you do well,” he said. “Do you mind if I ask how long you’ve been driving her around?”
“Five years or so.”
He was suitably impressed. Being at Becca’s beck and call for that long couldn’t be an easy task. “Our family driver has been with us about half that. You’d like him. He fixed up a Triumph TR250 for me over the summer, though I didn’t bring it with me. I don’t care for driving in the city.”
“There is a certain amount of skill to it,” Liam agreed begrudgingly. Then, when Jake didn’t make a move to continue the conversation, he asked, “Is there a point to all this? No offense, but there are things I could be doing.”
“Things like sitting outside Becca’s apartment, watching everyone coming and going?”
Liam’s mouth lifted at the corner. It was more of a twitch than a smile, but Jake figured it counted. “It never hurts to have an extra eye on things—and she knows I’m out there, if it makes you feel any better.”
“It does.”
“Technically, it’s half my job description,” Liam said, loosening up even more. “There was an incident right before I got hired with some jerk trying to sneak past her doorman.”
“Of course there was. Let me guess—he had a camera?”
“They’re nothing but scavengers, every last one of them. They call her The Paycheck. Did you know that?”
“No.” Jake looked down, curious. There were his hands, formed into fists again. “No, I didn’t know.”
“And I’m pretty sure they have a system of sharing—a kind of stalking schedule, if you will. They all want the night shift, but they’ve devised a way to take turns. I’ll see them moving in rotation sometimes.”
Jake forced himself to breathe in and out, concentrating on the motion of the tires over the pavement. A stalking schedule. For a single woman living alone.
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