The Billionaire Op

by Lori Ryan

  He was surprised when she didn’t try her usual negotiation with him. She didn’t put up a fight at all as he led her out of the office. He grabbed her purse and helped her out to his truck. She didn’t even try to argue when he left her car at the office or during the car ride to her house—he could see how worn out she was.

  He got her settled in bed with her Labrador, Zeke, babysitting her, and was walking down her front porch when it hit him. Something had been needling at Chad’s brain for weeks. He froze as he realized what it was.

  He knew Jennie’s body like he knew his own. And her breasts were larger than they used to be. His mind flipped back to the Sutton Capital softball team’s game over the weekend. Jennie drank water instead of beer when they all went for pizza after the game. He remembered starting to pour her a beer, but she shook her head and pointed to her water. She’d shrugged it off when he raised an eyebrow.

  Oh, Christ Jen.

  Chad closed his eyes against the pain of knowing what Jennie was hiding from him. Such a small handful of details shouldn’t be enough to tell him the truth, but he knew in his gut, he was right. Knew with certainty that Jennie was pregnant.

  And, she hadn’t come to him. Hadn’t told him.

  Oh, Jennie.

  He sank down on the porch steps, head in his hands. Part of him wanted to storm back into the house and demand that she marry him.

  But, he couldn’t do that. Not to Jennie. Chad knew even the suggestion of marriage to someone other than Kyle would kill her.

  Somehow, someway, Chad was going to have to come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to be with the woman who was having his baby. He wasn’t going to be able to share a life with her the way he wanted to. Hell, he’d be lucky if she’d let him be a part of things at all.

  Chapter 23

  Chad packed the last of the items in the extended cab of his truck. He was now ready to run with Jennie at a moment’s notice with everything they’d need to stay off the grid for months.

  He’d called some old friends and arranged for fake IDs for both of them. If anything came of this, and it looked like she was in danger, he’d keep her safe until she was ready to take the stand. If he had to, he’d relocate his whole life with her to keep her and the baby safe, both before and after the trial.

  He hoped like hell he was overreacting. In fact, there was nothing more than his gut telling him he needed to be ready. As far as they knew, the Masters brothers were feeding the FBI evidence and would continue to do so until all of the people involved could be arrested. There was no reason to think Jennie would be in much danger from this.

  But Chad trusted his gut. Listening to the creeping-finger feeling that walked up and down his spine had gotten him through a lot of tight scrapes in the military. He sure as hell wouldn’t ignore that feeling when it involved Jennie.

  At this point, his feelings for Jennie were a twisted mass of emotions he couldn’t begin to unravel. He loved her more than he could have ever imagined loving someone other than his family. But he also hated her for keeping his child a secret from him. No, that wasn’t true. It wasn’t hate. It was an anger that coursed through his veins like poison.

  When he was away from her, he seethed with anger. How could she be pregnant with his child and not tell him about it? He trusted that she would never do what Andrew’s ex-girlfriend had done to him.

  She would never abort the baby without telling him. He knew Jennie and knew she didn’t have that in her to do. But as the week dragged on, and Jennie didn’t come to him, his fury built.

  Until he saw her. Whenever he saw Jennie, the anger drained away and hopelessness took over. He didn’t know how to help her. She looked so lost. She was hurting more than he could imagine.

  Whenever he saw her, he realized that it must be killing her to be having a child with a man who wasn’t her husband. The husband he knew in his heart she still loved.

  And, so he waited. She would come to him eventually. He knew that. She just needed time.

  In the meantime, he planned. He had cash ready to go. Burner phones. Clothes for both of them. Dog food and a crate for Zeke. And a remote cabin. If the time came, Chad wouldn’t trust Jennie’s safety to anyone other than himself.

  “M-m-matt, w-w-w-we can’t keep doing this. Bandon knows something. I can f-f-f-feel it.” Alan looked down right miserable and his stutter became more pronounced each day.

  Matt knew his brother was right. Bandon hadn’t sent them any more money recently and he was avoiding all talk of business other than boat trips and dock rental on the phone.

  The FBI was pressuring them for more information, for evidence they could use to track the other people involved in the money laundering, but Bandon wasn’t falling for anything.

  “Don’t worry little brother,” Matt said, trying to calm Alan down. If Alan panicked, things would only get worse. Matt was always the one to take care of things. To fix things. He would do it now. He’d hold things together long enough for them to get the evidence they needed to get the FBI off their backs and then they’d move on.

  He had been stashing money here and there for years. He had enough money for him and Alan to start over someplace. They wouldn’t live the way they had been, living it up in the sun, but they’d be alive. And, not in prison.

  “I’ll figure out a way to get the agents what they need.”

  “H-h-h—” His brother stopped, his frustration palpable as he struggled to ask the question.

  Matt didn’t need to hear the question. Alan was going to ask him how they’d do that. Alan hated it when Matt finished sentences for him instead of giving him time to get the words out himself, but he couldn’t help himself right now.

  Alan wanted to know how. And, he had no idea how he would take care of things. How he would get the evidence they needed.

  He had already given the FBI the records they had, but they weren’t satisfied with that. They’d noticed the bigger numbers coming in lately, just as the brothers had. They wanted to know the same thing Matt had wondered himself.

  Who was the other money being laundered for? Mafia? Other government officials? Maybe other housing inspectors. Who knew? The possibilities were endless, really.

  “I don’t know, brother,” he said now to Alan, ignoring the unspoken rule not to answer questions his brother hadn’t managed to spit out. “I’ll think of something, though.”

  He’d tried telling Bandon he knew there was more money coming than Bandon himself could need laundered. He had demanded to know where the money was coming from.

  Bandon had acted like he hadn’t even asked the questions. He’d just kept right on talking about the boat business and refused to answer a thing. But, Matt would come up with something. He had to. He and Alan couldn’t go to prison over this. They just couldn’t.

  Chapter 24

  Chad got the call three days later. The FBI had lost track of the Masters brothers. They missed their last two check-ins with their handler and hadn’t been spotted since then. They were missing in the wind and no one had any idea where Rick Bandon had gone either.

  Something felt very wrong to Chad. And, he wasn’t going to wait around to see what happened. He made calls to Jack and Andrew as he headed over to Jennie’s. It was time to get her out of town. Time to be sure she was safe.

  Jennie opened the door to a very intense-looking Chad. He didn’t wait for an invitation or even for her to step out of his way. He pushed his way into her house and dropped his duffle bag on the floor.

  Zeke didn’t bat an eye at Chad’s pushy entrance. He knew Chad and apparently didn’t consider him an intruder.

  Jennie eyed her ‘faithful’ dog with a raised brow.

  Traitor.

  “Gee, Chad. Please, come in. Mi casa is apparently su casa,” she said with her typical bite of sarcasm.

  All she wanted to do was crawl into bed. It might only be nine o’clock at night but her body was done. She needed sleep. Jennie couldn’t get over how
tired this pregnancy was making her.

  Kelly had told her how tired she was when she was pregnant with Maddy, but Jennie had no idea it would be this bad. She walked around in a constant fog as though her head were a block of mush not a brain.

  “The Masters brothers are missing. I’m your new protection detail.” In a move completely uncharacteristic of him, he kicked off his shoes, dropped his large body onto Jennie’s small couch, and put his feet up on the coffee table.

  She didn’t know why he was acting so out of character, but she just wanted him to leave so she could go to bed.

  “Chad, I don’t need protection. My name isn’t even on the record with the FBI yet. They have a whole investigation to do before my testimony even becomes a possibility.”

  She crossed to the door and opened it, waiting for him to leave.

  Naturally, he didn’t budge.

  “Listen, Hulk, I’d love to have a slumber party and wax our legs, braid each other’s hair and all that, but that’s not happening tonight. I’m too tired. You need to go.”

  “The hell I do. You’ll have to get over this, Jennie. The Masters brothers know you heard something and when their uncle showed up with a lawyer a few days later I’m sure they put two and two together. I’m not taking a chance that they know about you or that they might have told Rick Bandon about you. Until we know where they are, I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to have protection whether you like it or not. Whether it’s me or someone else.”

  Oh, enough is enough. What the hell?

  Jennie was more than a little annoyed at this point. She sure as hell couldn’t share a house with Chad. Not now. Not until she figured out what to do about the baby. Not until she was ready to tell him what was going on.

  Never?

  “Chad, I told you––”

  In the split second before he rose from the couch, Jennie saw something she had never seen in his face before.

  Unbridled anger. Anger he wasn’t trying to cover or calm or neutralize the way he usually did. The man who was always in control was suddenly, very much out of control and coming at her full force and there wasn’t anything funny about it.

  She swallowed her words and stepped back as Chad filled the space in front of her.

  “You’re having my fucking baby, Jennie!” Chad bellowed. “I’ll protect you for as long as I damn well please in whatever way I damn well please.”

  Her heart stopped in her chest, frozen. She stood, eyes wide, speechless for several minutes as she watched him regain control.

  She could feel the tears coming and she clenched her jaw to try to stop them as she watched Chad coil back all of the rage he had let loose moments before, until his mask was back in place.

  A lump formed in her throat at the effort of holding back the tears and she knew she was seconds away from losing the battle. Regret was a tight ball in her stomach, making her sick with the what ifs and if onlies of the entire situation.

  When he spoke again he was quiet. Controlled. But the anger was there. She could feel it pouring off him in waves just under the surface.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? That I don’t know you better than you know yourself, Jennie?” Chad’s words spat from his mouth and Jennie recoiled.

  There was nothing she could say, she realized. Nothing to make him forgive her for this. He would hate her, and she honestly couldn’t blame him one bit. She hated herself right then.

  “How did you know?” Her voice sounded quiet, almost foreign to her own ears.

  His smirk was bitter. “I observe, Jennie. It’s what I do. You should know that better than anyone. I saw how tired you were. You’re run down all the time. Just like Kelly was.”

  His gaze fell to her breasts, and Jennie had to purposefully resist the urge to cross her arms over them. She knew they were slightly bigger than they used to be. But, how the hell could he know that?

  “At first, I thought you must be sick but then I noticed the difference in your body. I know every inch of you, remember, Jen?”

  He always said ‘Jen’ so playfully, almost intimately. This time, it shot out of his mouth like the taste of it was bitter on his tongue and she winced.

  “You’re not gaining weight yet, but your body has changed.”

  She shook her head, trying to clear the fogginess she felt all the time now. Trying to make this all go away.

  She raised her chin a notch. “What makes you think the baby is yours?” It was probably the wrong tactic to try to deny what they both knew was true, but she wasn’t ready to share her secret yet. She wasn’t ready for anyone to know, even him. She hadn’t even told Kelly yet.

  His face fell. With a sad defeated voice, he spoke what they both knew couldn’t be denied. “Because you haven’t been with anyone but me, Jennie.”

  She shook her head, hanging on to the denial as long as she could. “You don’t know that. You don’t––”

  “I do, Jen.” He reached out, brushing his fingertips down her cheek, causing a shiver of longing for what she couldn’t have. “I do know, Jen, because it damn near killed you just to be with me.”

  Chad let his hand drop to his side and stepped back from her. He crossed to the couch and lay on it, arms behind his head, feet propped on the arm because they wouldn’t fit on the couch itself.

  He didn’t look at her. Only closed his eyes. She knew he was done talking.

  “Go to sleep, Jennie. Just go to sleep.”

  Chapter 25

  Special Agent Burke of the FBI, the agent in charge of the Bandon investigation in Florida, called Chad at seven the next morning to let him know the Masters brothers had been found. They were both dead and neither death had been easy.

  Rick Bandon was spotted on video at the airport in Hartford, Connecticut. They didn’t have a clue where the man had gone after that.

  Chad threw off the aches and pains from his night on the couch and sat up. Hartford was much too close to Jennie for his comfort.

  There was no way in hell it was a coincidence the guy was here. As he called quietly to Zeke, luring the dog out of Jennie’s bed with sausage treats, he dialed Jack’s number.

  When Jack answered, Chad could hear the sound of a crying baby in the background. He felt a sharp pain as the thought crossed his mind that Jennie might not let him raise his baby with her. She might not want him to be a part of their lives.

  Screw that. I’ll raise my child with her no matter what.

  Chad shoved aside those thoughts. He needed to get Jennie out of there. He snapped a leash on Zeke and took the dog outside as he talked to his cousin.

  “Jack, I’m taking Jennie away for a while. The Masters brothers are dead. Tortured and shot. Rick Bandon is missing but he was last seen in Connecticut.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that. Could he have found out about Jennie?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not taking any chances. The Masters brothers knew someone had found evidence that forced their uncle to come to them and get them to turn themselves in. It would be easy for them to narrow it down to Jennie and me after they ran into her outside their office.

  “When their uncle showed up two days later with a lawyer, they had to suspect it was us. We used our real names for that trip. I’m not taking any chances. I’ve got everything set in place. I’ll call you from a burner phone when we get where we’re going. But, listen, Jack, I don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”

  Chad and Jennie worked with three others in the small investigations department at Sutton. If they were both out for months, that could really screw things up.

  “Don’t even think about that. Keeping Jennie safe is your only job right now. And, make sure she knows her job is secure no matter how long she’s gone. We’ll manage until you get back.”

  “Can you send Andrew out to Jennie’s parents’ place to let them know what’s going on? I don’t want her to tell them by phone but they need to know she’s safe.” As he sp
oke, Chad opened his truck to let Zeke, who had now had a potty break, jump into the cab. He took off the leash, shut the door and walked back into the house.

  “Yeah. I’ll send him out there this morning. Kelly knows where they live.”

  “Go in the bottom drawer of my desk at the office. There are two bags of burner phones. The top bag is for you and Kelly and the bottom bag is for Jennie’s parents. I’ve got the numbers for all of them so we can reach you when we need to. Make sure Jennie’s parents know they need to throw the phone away in a dumpster or public trash can after they use it. We’ll only use each phone for a week or two at a time and then get rid of it,” Chad instructed.

  “Got it. Be careful, Chad,” Jack said.

  “Always,” Chad said with a grin he didn’t feel and then he ended the call.

  He tossed his phone on the kitchen counter and grabbed Jennie’s purse. He dug for her phone and pulled it out. She had several missed calls from a number Chad recognized immediately. Agent Burke.

  Shit.

  He was willing to bet Burke would be pushing for Jennie to make a statement now and Chad didn’t want her talking to anyone about what she saw until Rick Bandon was in custody. He tossed her phone on the counter with his. He had five burner phones waiting for them in the car.

  They were taking his truck but he had an extra set of plates that couldn’t be traced back to him. They’d get out of town and then stop and put the new plates on. He had everything in place.

  Now to deal with the little hellcat in the bedroom who probably wouldn’t go with him willingly.

  Chad stood at the foot of the bed and watched Jennie sleep. He hated to wake her, but they needed to get on the road. He pondered how to get a pregnant woman to the car.

  He’d normally toss her over his shoulder but that was out since he didn’t want to put any pressure on her stomach. She wasn’t showing yet, but he had no clue what could or couldn’t hurt the baby at this stage, and he wasn’t taking chances.