Because she refused to tell him where Princess Gabriella was…
“If we figure this out, if I’m sure she’s safe,” Charlotte said, “I will consider revealing her location.”
He nodded. “So we’ll figure this out. If not the guard, who else would want to shoot at me?”
“And Whit,” she said. “He was hit in the administrator’s office.”
“You were shot at, too,” he reminded her.
“You stood between me and gunmen, kept me behind the filing cabinet,” she said. “So no one really shot at me.” But she had shot back.
If she hadn’t, he and Whit probably wouldn’t have made it out of that office alive. They probably would have wound up as dead as the administrator had.
“Just because you didn’t get shot, doesn’t mean you weren’t the target,” he pointed out. “But if you weren’t, the shooting seems like more work of the prince.”
Or was there someone else out there that Aaron had been too naive to consider? Just like he had been naive to think that Charlotte had finally started being honest with him.
“What about Trigger?” she asked. “Where has he been since he dropped us at that cabin?”
“Maybe the guard got rid of him like he had the reporter and the nurse,” Aaron said. But then why wouldn’t he have admitted it as he’d admitted to the other two murders?
Charlotte shook her head. “I doubt it. Trigger is like a cat with nine lives. He’s out there. Somewhere.”
*
CHARLOTTE SHUDDERED AT the thought. She hadn’t liked working with the older man. Mostly because he had been a first-class jerk and a male chauvinist. But also because she hadn’t trusted him.
Trigger had reminded her too much of her mother—both were totally concerned with their own welfare and no one else’s.
If he’d ever had a daughter, he would have sold her, too. She’d suspected he would have sold a witness’s location, and that was why she hadn’t told him where Josie Jessup had been relocated.
She had only told one person where Josie was—just in case something ever happened to her. And she’d thought the two women would be good friends.
Had Trigger figured that out? Had he figured out where she’d stashed Gabriella? And if they’d convinced the man that she was Gabriella, then he would think that Gabriella was Charlotte Green, his ex-partner.
“I have a bad feeling,” she said.
“You’re not feeling well?” Aaron asked, reaching for her arm to steady her. “We should get you back to the house.”
He led her toward the car and helped her into the passenger’s seat.
No matter how angry he was at her—and she suspected he was furious since she hadn’t told him she knew where Princess Gabby was—he was still courteous with her. Because of the baby?
“I may have put Gabby at risk,” she admitted, hating herself for what she’d done. “And not just Gabby but Josie, too.”
“What have you done?” he asked.
“I told Gabby where Josie is,” she admitted. “If Trigger finds her…” He wasn’t beyond torturing her to discover where the witness was hidden—especially not if he was being paid handsomely to find her.
“You’re the only one who knows where Gabby is,” he said.
Now she couldn’t tell him what she had done. Aaron would probably never forgive her for putting the life of the woman he loved in danger. And she knew better than to reveal a witness’s location to anyone. But she had never felt closer to another human being than she had her sister.
Until now.
To soothe herself more than her baby, she rubbed her hands over her belly. Aaron had given her this child, but yet she didn’t feel as close to him. Because one woman—a woman she herself considered a friend—had always stood between them.
“Josie’s fine,” Aaron said. “She’s safe.”
His empty assurances hung in the air between them as he drove the distance back to Stanley Jessup’s rental house. He pulled the car up next to the dark house and turned off the engine. “We’ll ask Whit to help us get to the bottom of who is behind the other shootings.”
After his taking a bullet for Aaron back in the administrator’s office, she now trusted the king’s other bodyguard—as much as she let herself trust anyone. But would Gabriella?
The man had hurt her…because he had let her go. He had just stood there, the morning after the ball, and had silently watched her leave for Paris, to design her wedding gown to marry another man. Like Charlotte with Aaron, Gabriella had hoped for more with Whit Howell.
“I’m not sure we should include Whit,” she said, remembering that Gabby had claimed to want nothing more to do with him.
“The doctor said the bullet didn’t strike anything vital,” Aaron assured her. “Once the painkillers wear off, he’ll be fine—determined to go again.”
“But maybe he shouldn’t…”
He studied her face in the darkness. “You still don’t trust Whit?”
She held her breath, unwilling to admit her real problem with Howell—sisterly allegiance.
“You trusted him enough to involve him in faking Josie’s death.”
And not Aaron. She needed no further assurance that he would never get over not knowing that Josie hadn’t really died.
“I can understand you not trusting me back then,” Aaron said, surprising her with his words and his closeness as he leaned across the console separating their seats. “You didn’t know me that well.”
She hadn’t known Whit then either, so she’d trusted Josie’s judgment on which one of her bodyguards to include in her plan. Josie hadn’t wanted to put Aaron in the untenable position of having to lie to her father. She’d said he was too nice to have to deal with that burden. They hadn’t realized that they’d given him a far heavier burden of guilt to carry in thinking that he’d failed to protect Josie.
“But you know me now, Charlotte.” His hands covered hers on her belly, and he entwined their fingers, binding them together just as their baby did. But then he leaned even closer, and his lips brushed over hers with teasing, whisper-soft kisses.
Her breath caught in her throat as desire overwhelmed her. The man’s kisses stole away her common sense as effectively as that blow to her head had stolen her memories. All he had to do was touch her and she wanted him, the need spiraling out of control inside her.
But it was more than want. More even than need. It was love.
Aaron pulled back and asked, “So why do you still not trust me?”
Because he could hurt her more than anyone else ever had. Because she wanted more from him. She wanted his love. But he wasn’t talking about their relationship.
“I get why you didn’t tell me about Josie,” he said. “But you should have told me about Gabriella.” He stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind himself.
Gunshots echoed the slam. The windows burst, glass shattering as bullets hit them.
Shards struck Charlotte, stinging her skin, but she didn’t duck yet. Because she was looking for Aaron. He’d disappeared. Had he been hit?
Her door creaked open, and a strong hand grasped her arm, pulling her from the car. Just like Paris, she was getting grabbed again. And just like Paris, she wouldn’t go without a fight.
Chapter Fourteen
Aaron grunted as her elbow struck his chin. “Stop it,” he said. “I’m trying to help you.”
It was probably too late for him to help Whit. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it before. He should have known…
Charlotte gasped in shock, and her struggles ceased. “You’re all right?”
He nodded, his chin rubbing against her silky soft hair. Physically he was fine. For the moment…
“Trigger must have followed us,” she said, whispering since the gunshots had stopped. “He must have found this place.”
“I’m not so sure it’s Trigger.” He had a horrible feeling that it was someone else.
She peered around the ca
r, looking for the shooter. “Who else…?”
“Maybe a man who lost his daughter…”
“The king?” She shook her head in rejection of that idea. “Rafael doesn’t care enough about either me or Gabriella to—” She gasped and turned to him with wide eyes. “Josie’s father?”
“I was a fool to ask for his help,” Aaron said. “It must have brought all those feelings rushing back—all his pain and resentment.”
“No…” She shook her head, her brow furrowing with confusion. “It doesn’t make any sense…”
“Stanley Jessup gave me the tip that brought me here,” he reminded her. Sure, Aaron had asked the man to flush out any leads to Princess Gabriella’s whereabouts. And in doing that, he might have given the grieving father the perfect opportunity to take his revenge.
Charlotte expelled an unsteady breath. “And he came, too.”
“And more than that, he told Whit that I was here—getting us both in the same place.” Another gunshot rang out, pinging off the metal roof of the sports car. “It has to be Jessup.”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, it has to be someone else.” She ducked low as shots pinged off the fenders. “Josie talks about her dad all the time.” Her voice carried a faint trace of wistfulness. “She told me what a good man he is…”
“Josie was the center of his universe,” Aaron said. “She meant everything to him.” His baby wasn’t even born, and he could identify with those feelings. Maybe because he already had those feelings for Charlotte. If something had happened to her…
She clutched her gun in her hand, but she seemed reluctant to aim it in the direction from which the shots had come. Maybe she was reluctant to take a shot and hurt a man who had already been through so much pain. “But I didn’t think he blamed you two for what happened—or what he thinks happened to Josie.”
“I blamed us,” Aaron reminded her. “I ended my partnership—my friendship—with Whit.”
For no reason. Whit had only been doing his duty—keeping Josie safe. And now Aaron might never have the chance to regain the friendship he had stupidly and stubbornly given up.
“I have to get in that house,” he said, fear and desperation clawing at him as it had when he’d stood outside that burning house over three years ago and thought he’d been too late to save Josie. “I have to make sure that Whit—that Whit is…”
She must have picked up on his hopelessness because she squeezed his arm reassuringly. “Whit Howell is resourceful,” she reminded him. “And he’s smart. Maybe he figured it out in time.”
“Whit was out,” Aaron said, and he hated himself for really doing what he’d thought he and Whit had done three years ago—leaving someone alone and vulnerable who had needed his protection. While he hadn’t actually failed Josie, he had failed his friend—the man who’d risked his life to save Aaron’s more than once. “He was out cold on those painkillers—a sitting duck for Stanley Jessup to take his revenge.”
The gunfire continued to come, bullets striking the car and the asphalt driveway near them. “But why is he shooting at me?” Charlotte asked. “Do you think Whit told him how I was involved?”
“No.” He shook his head. “If he knew his daughter was still alive, he wouldn’t be shooting at all,” he told her. “Maybe he’s using you to try to flush me out.”
Or maybe Jessup intended to take Aaron’s family from him the way that he thought his family had been taken from him.
“Let’s flush him out,” Charlotte suggested, raising her gun. “You need to get in that house. You need to check on Whit.” Even though she hadn’t always seemed to trust his friend and vice versa, she was concerned about him—enough to risk her own safety. She rose up and fired off a round of shots in rapid succession, giving Aaron the time and the cover to sprint toward the house.
Keeping low, he ran toward the windows of the den and, heedless of the glass, jumped through them. A hard fist struck his jaw, knocking him down onto the floor. He hit the hardwood with a bounce and popped up again to strike back. He swung his gun like a bat, hitting out with the handle. Blindly—because he couldn’t see anything but a big shadow in the total darkness.
The man’s eyes must have adjusted better to the dark because he caught Aaron’s weapon and tried to wrest it from his grasp. Aaron was stronger, though, and retained control of the gun. He twisted it around and pressed the barrel against the temple of the man.
“Just shoot me then, you son of a bitch,” the guy said with a snarl of rage and hatred.
Aaron uttered a deep laugh of pure relief. “You’re alive!”
“Yeah,” Whit grumbled, almost as if he wasn’t entirely convinced that he lived yet. “But I feel like crap from the painkillers, and then I get attacked. By you…”
“I didn’t think it was you,” Aaron explained. “I thought you got shot again.”
“The gunman’s out there,” Whit said, as more gunfire shattered the night. His voice dropped with suspicion. “Where’s Charlotte?”
“She’s not the shooter.” But he’d left her alone with him. Panic clutched Aaron’s stomach. “She’s out there. She covered me, so I could get in here to check on you.”
Whit snorted. “So you both thought I was dead? Some confidence—”
He grabbed Whit, inadvertently clutching his bad shoulder and eliciting a cry of pain from his friend. But he didn’t have time to apologize—not with Charlotte out there alone. “Where’s Stanley?”
“He went down to the police station to help you out,” Whit said. “He thought you guys might get booked no matter what his lawyer said to the authorities.”
“Are you sure he really left?” Aaron asked. “You weren’t still out of it?”
Whit shook his head. “No. I was clearheaded—even offered to go with him, but he said no.”
“He wanted you here,” Aaron said, “so that he could take his revenge on us together.”
Whit snorted again. “Revenge?”
“Because of Josie.”
Whit lifted a hand to his head, as if trying to clear it of the aftereffects of the painkillers. “But Josie’s not dead.”
“Her father doesn’t know that,” Aaron pointed out. “He thinks she’s dead and he probably blames us. He hired us to protect her, and we failed.”
Whit opened his mouth again but only a groan escaped. And Aaron hadn’t even grabbed his shoulder again. “But it doesn’t make any sense…”
“In his eyes we failed,” Aaron said.
“In your eyes, too,” Whit admitted. “It was what you thought. You don’t think that’s really Stanley Jessup out there?”
Aaron was afraid that it was, and he was afraid that he had left Charlotte out there alone with the madman.
*
WITH ALL THE shots flying, Charlotte had no way of knowing if Aaron had made it safely inside the house. She had heard breaking glass. Was it from bullets or from a body flying through a window?
It was too dark for her to see anything. And tonight there wasn’t even a sliver of the moon that had been out the previous evening. She could see nothing of the house. Or the gunman.
Was it only one? Was it Stanley Jessup?
Josie had been so convinced that her dad was a good man. But he had made enemies—with the stories he’d run on all his media outlets. Good men didn’t make enemies, did they?
But then even if he was a good man, he could have let his grief and loss drive him over the edge. If all that mattered to him now was vengeance, he wouldn’t rest until both Whit and Aaron were dead.
Maybe Whit was already dead.
Aaron would be devastated if he was. Just as he had blamed himself for Josie’s death, he would blame himself for Whit’s. Maybe even more so because they had been estranged, their friendship destroyed because of her.
She was the one whom Aaron needed to blame. Not himself. The burden of guilt should be hers to bear—not his.
If he wanted to kill the person responsible for him losing his daughter,
Jessup should be trying to kill her—not them. She moved around the back of the car and kept low behind the hedges that lined the driveway. She made it to the garage. Her foot struck some shells, sending them skittering across the asphalt.
This was where the man had been standing when he’d fired round after round at the Camaro. And at her and Aaron. Where had he gone?
She clutched her gun in her hand and spun around, looking for him.
“Over here, Charlotte,” a gruff voice murmured.
Whose voice? Whit’s? It wasn’t Aaron because her pulse didn’t quicken. Charlotte’s heart didn’t warm with hope and love. And the baby didn’t move in her womb in reaction to her father’s voice.
“You looked.” The voice was closer now and clearer as the man taunted her. “When I said your name, you looked. I knew it was you.” He hid yet in the shadows. “Just from the way you held a gun, I knew it was you.”
“Trigger.”
All of her lies had destroyed Aaron’s trust so much that he had begun to suspect everyone of having ulterior motives. But her gut—and maybe the baby moving inside it—had convinced her it was her old partner.
“That Timmer guy made me doubt myself though,” he admitted. “So I went back to Serenity House and talked to the administrator—flashed my U.S. Marshal badge to get her talking.”
“She wouldn’t have told you anything,” Charlotte said, remembering how stubborn that woman had been.
“She didn’t realize she was telling me anything,” he said, his voice still taunting her from the darkness. “She just answered my questions about your scars. Well, her face answered them with her reaction. She just confirmed what I already knew though.”
She didn’t bother trying to deny who she was. She just asked, “Did you hurt the man inside the house?”
“What man? The old, rich guy left a while ago,” he said.
So maybe he didn’t even know about Whit. Maybe that could work to their advantage. If the men realized she needed help in time…
Before it was too late…
“I waited here for you and Timmer to come back,” Trigger said. “My source with the state police department told me that they let you two go but arrested some royal subject and his goon bodyguard. So I figured you two would be heading back.”
Protecting the Pregnant Princess Page 15