Bad Blood Collection

by Various Authors

  Jack couldn’t help but laugh, though it hurt to do so. “Stay away from Nice, and stay away from Bobby.”

  She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Did she realize, he wondered, that the towel inched up and revealed a hint of what lay beneath? His body turned to stone. He didn’t even care that it hurt.

  “I’m not your property, Jack. You can’t tell me what to do.”

  God but she exasperated him. Was she that obtuse or did she just delight in contradicting him? “I’m trying to protect you.”

  If anything, that statement only made her angrier. “Protect me? My God, if you hadn’t come barreling in like the Lone Ranger, it’d all be over with and I’d be on my way home again. I don’t need your help, Jack. In fact, I’d be better off without it!”

  Anger flashed through him. He’d taken a bloody beating for her, and she still insisted she’d have been fine. “Right. Because when Bobby’s boys needed a punching bag, they’d have just had to do without because you’re a woman.”

  “God!” She shoved both hands through her hair, whipping it off her shoulders and then letting it fall again, a silken waterfall down her back. “They hit you because you hit them. I’ve never seen Bobby abuse any of the girls. He was angry with me and he slapped me. But that’s the extent of it. Or would have been if you hadn’t shown up.”

  Jack reached for the watch he’d left on the bedside table—9:00 a.m. He was done arguing with her because it was pointless. She was determined to do her own thing—and maybe she was right.

  Maybe Bobby’s anger would have faded a bit since he’d gotten the jackpot after all.

  Some people were determined to keep flying into the fire, even when they knew they would get singed. Jack knew better, had always known better. And he had little patience with those who did not.

  “Fine, then. You go back to Nice. I’m going to London.”

  She didn’t think he would be able to do it, but Jack managed to dress on his own. Then he made a call on his mobile. She heard him ask for a Dr. Drake, so at least he was finally planning to get checked out. The knowledge relieved her, made her not worry quite so much about what he would do when she was gone.

  Twenty minutes later, there was a knock on the door. He opened it and took a package from a young man wearing jeans and a faded rock band T-shirt.

  Cara ran the towel over her freshly washed hair as she watched him open the package and take out a couple of bottles. She’d put her clothes back on, though they were still slightly damp. It was uncomfortable, but that couldn’t be helped. She had to leave, and she had nothing else to wear.

  Except she had no cash to go anywhere. How would she get back to Nice when she had no money, no credit cards and no ATM card? She had to ask Jack for money, and that galled her. She already owed him for the night in the hotel, and the phone call, and she hated that she had to ask for yet another loan. She was used to paying her own way, to taking care of herself, and to be dependent on this man she hardly knew for money to eat and sleep—and get back to Nice—bothered her more than she could say. She felt wrong asking, and yet she had no choice.

  She would pay him back. Even if he didn’t believe it.

  Jack took a couple of pills from the bottles and washed them down with water. Cara blinked. What kind of man could call a doctor and have painkillers delivered twenty minutes later? It forced her to reevaluate her assessment of him. He might be a gambler, but he was obviously a very good one. Perhaps he came from money and never really had to worry about what would happen if he lost everything.

  Wouldn’t that be nice? Cara thought wistfully. He looked up, met her gaze. His expression didn’t soften from the hard mask he’d donned when she’d told him she was leaving. Her heart flipped in response. She had to stifle an urge to go to him, to run her fingers through his hair, to caress his granite jaw and press her lips to his. He slipped a wallet from the tuxedo jacket he’d left lying on the bed. Then he took out some euro notes and tossed them on the bed. “You’ll be needing that,” he said.

  Perversely, her eyes filled with tears. Angry tears, tears of frustration. She’d been worried about asking for cash, and he’d preempted her. She wanted to tell him to keep his damn money, and yet she couldn’t. Without it, she’d be standing on a Lyon street by nightfall, singing a cappella and hoping she could earn enough coins to eat dinner.

  “Thank you,” she said instead, shame a living creature inside her belly. It roiled and twisted until she wanted to lock herself in the bathroom and heave into the toilet.

  “Take care of yourself, Cara.” He watched her for a long moment, as if he wanted to say something else—or maybe he was waiting for her to say something—before he turned and walked out the door. He didn’t walk with the fluid grace that he had when she’d first seen him, but he still moved like a man in control of his life and destiny.

  She heard the roar of the engine start after what seemed like forever. And then the tires were squealing out of the parking lot and she was alone.

  Cara let out the breath she’d been holding. He’d left her. Oddly, it hurt that he had. But she’d told him to go! Cara pressed her fingers to her temples and sucked in a sharp breath. What was wrong with her? She’d wanted him gone, wanted to be on her own again so she could think and plan and breathe without Jack Wolfe taking up all the oxygen in the room.

  She clutched the bills in her hand, only now realizing that she’d not gotten his address or phone number so she could pay him back. He’d given her five hundred euros, and now she felt as if she’d opened his wallet and taken them herself. Because she had no way to ever repay him.

  But is that really the problem, Cara?

  It wasn’t, and she knew it. She could track him down again, no matter how difficult the task. But the real problem was that Jack Wolfe had sparked something inside her, something she’d never quite felt before. She didn’t know why that was—he was too arrogant, too entitled, too much of a good-time guy who worked the casino racket and made a living off the cards. He wasn’t the kind of man she liked at all.

  But the physical attraction to him had been off the charts. As if that were a reason to feel so forlorn that she’d never see him again.

  Cara took one last look at the room. It was time to go, time to get a taxi to the train station. She didn’t have the luxury to remember Jack’s nude body, his raw male beauty and power. She only need step through the door and close it behind her and Jack Wolfe would be a memory.

  Resolutely, she did just that. The hotel reminded her a bit of one of those cheap chain motels in the States, an industrial box of a building close to the autoroute. She looked at the traffic moving on the highway and imagined Jack was several miles away by now. He wasn’t thinking of her anymore. He was thinking of home and how long it would take him to get there.

  She hoped he would be okay, that he wouldn’t push himself too hard when he was still recovering. Maybe she should have gone along with him, if only to drive him to his destination. What would another day or two matter? Perhaps Bobby’s temper would have cooled even more by then.

  Cara walked toward the front office. Jack was gone and that was the end of it. She would ask the desk clerk to call a taxi for her and then she, too, would be on her way.

  Before she reached the office, however, a familiar engine revved and she turned as Jack whipped into the parking lot and stopped beside her. Ridiculously, her heart leaped into her throat. Why was she so happy to see him?

  “I have an idea,” he said, that delightful accent rolling over her, making her shiver.

  “I’m listening,” she replied, keeping her voice as cool as possible in spite of her pounding pulse.

  “I have to go to a wedding in a couple of days and I need a date.” Cara frowned. “You want me to be your date?”

  “I’ll pay you. And I’ll make sure you get your passport and bank cards back.”

  She was conscious of the cash he’d given her burning a hole in her pocket. “But why would you want to pay me to
go to a wedding with you?”

  He raked a hand through his dark hair. He looked tousled, sexy, and she found herself wanting to repeat the motion with her own fingers. No way on earth did this man need to pay for a date.

  “You need a job, I need a date. Seems the perfect solution.”

  She stiffened as her throat felt suddenly tight with emotion. He thought she was the kind of woman who needed money so badly that she would do anything to get it. “I’m sure you know plenty of willing partners who don’t need to be paid.”

  She felt cheap, dirty, disappointed in a way she hadn’t when he’d given her the five hundred euros to get home. Now he was offering to pay her, as if she were a professional escort. It hurt.

  She took the money from her pocket and thrust it at him. “I’m not for sale, Jack. I told you that before.”

  Jack groaned. “Cara, for God’s sake, I’m trying to help you. Whatever bonus Bobby was planning to give you, I’ll double it.”

  “How can you say that? You have no idea how much—”

  “So tell me.”

  “Twenty-five thousand,” she ground out, certain he would laugh in her face at the sum.

  He shrugged. “Fine, we’ll make it fifty, then. What do you say?”

  Cara’s lungs refused to work. He couldn’t be serious. And yet—

  My God, she’d be able to take care of everything, be able to pay off the remaining debt on the house, pay the insurance premiums and make sure that Mama never had to worry again. Remy could get the extra therapy he needed without Mama sacrificing so much to do it. Evie could have a normal life.

  Did it really matter if her pride stung or if it made her feel cheap that Jack had offered to pay her to be his date? She’d been willing to throw a card game for money, even if she hadn’t actually done so, so why couldn’t she be Jack’s date?

  It was much less onerous than cheating, after all. But still …

  “Don’t be stupid, Cara,” Jack said. “This is a far better deal than working for Bobby Gold.”

  Oh, God, was she really thinking about it? She was. The fact her feet were glued to the spot and she hadn’t yet spun on her heel and walked away told her she was.

  But it was more than the money. So much more.

  She hadn’t spent much time with Jack, but she’d spent enough to know that she was wildly attracted to him. More than that, she could trust him to deliver on his promise. He wouldn’t leave her in the lurch the way James had. He’d live up to his end of the bargain.

  All she had to do was go to a wedding. How hard was that?

  She had to do it, regardless of the pinprick to her feelings.

  “I know you don’t think so,” Jack continued, “but I’m not convinced Bobby won’t hurt you if you go back. He’s a small man, Cara, and he holds grudges. You crossed him—”

  “Yes,” she blurted before she could talk herself out of it.

  Jack blinked. “You’ll do it?”

  Oh, God.

  “Yes, I’ll be your date.” She went around and climbed into the passenger seat of the shiny silver beast. Her heart pounded with adrenaline and recklessness. “But don’t you get any other ideas, Jack Wolfe,” she said once she was belted in. “You’ve bought a date, not a bed partner.”

  Jack caught her hand and lifted it to his lips.

  The touch of his mouth against the tender inside skin of her wrist sent a shiver prickling over her. “I know that. Because when you do come to my bed, it won’t be because I’ve paid you to do so.”

  “Someone needs to prove to you that you aren’t irresistible,” she forced out, though her body was already beginning to sing from that single touch. Belatedly, as if just remembering, she yanked her hand from his grip.

  “Maybe,” he said with a grin. “But I’m hoping it’s not you.”

  The kilometers ticked by in silence. Jack glanced over at Cara on occasion, but she seemed as lost in thought as he was. He’d been about to make the turn onto the autoroute when he’d realized he had to go back for her. She was stubborn and determined to be independent, and though he understood that, he couldn’t allow her to return to Nice. Because there was no doubt in his mind that Bobby Gold would hurt her.

  He didn’t know Cara Taylor’s story, but he wanted to. And, selfishly, he wanted to avoid any confrontations with Jacob or Lucas at Nathaniel’s wedding. He’d almost decided not to go to the wedding, simply to avoid the unpleasantness of any conversations with his two older brothers, but it would hurt Nathaniel if he didn’t show up. Having Cara with him seemed a perfect solution. With a beautiful woman by his side, his brothers wouldn’t dare try and talk to him about things he had no interest in discussing.

  What was there left to say?

  He was still angry, still bitter. He knew it.

  Jack’s fingers tightened on the wheel. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to think about those dark years when everything had fallen apart. He’d once been so close to his older brothers, especially Jacob … and now there was nothing. Nothing but an empty void.

  “Do you want me to drive?”

  Jack glanced at Cara. Her long dark hair had dried in a tousled mess of spiral curls. It made her look so sexy and touchable when combined with the low-cut shirt and tight satin mini. He wanted to pull the car over to the side of the road and tug her onto his lap. Golden-green eyes gazed back at him coolly—but there was a hint of fire she couldn’t quite hide. It gratified him, buoyed him. This attraction between them was mutual—and he knew they would act on it soon enough, even if she didn’t. It was inevitable.

  “I’ve got it for now,” he said.

  “You seem tense. I thought maybe your ribs were hurting.”

  Jack rolled his shoulders. He was tense, but not because he hurt. “They hurt, yes, but not too badly I can’t drive awhile longer.”

  “Just let me know when you need me to take over, okay?”

  “We won’t go much farther. I have an apartment in Paris. We’ll stop there for the night. Besides, we need to go shopping.”

  She folded her arms over her breasts in a self-conscious gesture. He wondered what had happened to the bow tie. She seemed to have lost it somewhere along the way.

  “I’m sorry I’m not better prepared,” she said.

  “How could you be?”

  She turned to him again, her face both serious and eager at once. “I don’t dress like this all the time,” she said. “I do have decent clothing.”

  “I never doubted it.”

  She waved a hand over her body. “This isn’t even my usual uniform. Bobby said it was something special for the game, something to keep the men playing for high stakes.”

  “It certainly worked for me,” he told her. “I kept hoping to get a glimpse every time you bent over.”

  Her face reddened—and then she laughed. “You lost fifteen million euros because you wanted to see down my shirt? Wow, and here I thought a guy like you could get a woman naked whenever he wanted.”

  “Can I get you naked?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve seen me. I think I deserve a turn.”

  The blush on her creamy skin was intriguing. She crossed her legs, those impossibly long sexy legs, and he grew instantly hard. She wanted him, no matter how she tried to pretend otherwise. He knew enough about women to know that—even if Cara Taylor was proving surprisingly difficult to read for the most part.

  “This is business, Jack. Don’t forget it. And whatever clothes you buy for me, please take them out of the money you’re planning to pay me.”

  “Fine, if that’s what you want.” Jack shook his head. She was unlike any of the women he’d ever dated. Most women would leap at the chance to have a designer wardrobe added to the pot, but not Cara.

  “It is.”

  “So why were you working for Gold in the first place?” He was truly curious about how a sweet girl like her ended up with a shark like Gold.

  She sighed and turned her head on the seat. In the
distance, villages perched in the center of rolling vineyards. Fields of sunflowers blazoned against the landscape at regular intervals. It was beautiful and peaceful, and he suddenly wished he could just keep driving, just the two of them in the car alone, talking and watching the scenery flow by.

  “You may have heard of Hurricane Katrina,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “My mama lost her house in the flood. It took months to clear the land and rebuild everything. In the meanwhile, we lived in a trailer provided by the government. It was tiny, cramped.”

  She hesitated for a few moments, and he wondered if she would continue. Then she cleared her throat.

  “There were some things that happened, things that Mama wasn’t expecting, but we finally got the house rebuilt enough to live in. Then I went to Vegas,” she said, shrugging. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time. I was seeing someone, and he lost his job. He said we could make a lot more in Vegas, because tourism was strong, and I definitely needed extra money to help out at home. Tourism had dried up in New Orleans, you see …” She took a breath, turned to look at him, almost as if she were daring him to say anything negative about her choices. “I waitressed for a while, but when one of the casinos announced they needed dealer trainees, I applied. The money was supposed to be better, and I wanted to send more home.”

  She shrugged again, as if it meant nothing—and yet he was certain it meant everything. “I worked for someone else for a while, but Bobby offered me more money. So I took it.”

  Jack’s grip tightened on the wheel instinctively. He understood the drive to help family only too well. The need, the desperation, the necessity. They were more alike than she knew.

  “So what happened to the boyfriend?”

  Her fingers clenched in her lap. “We parted ways.” She turned to him, fixed him with the full force of her wounded stare. He didn’t think she could possibly be aware of all she revealed in that look. “He stole my money and ran off with an exotic dancer.”

  Jack wanted to grind his teeth. But he said, “Then he wasn’t very bright, was he?”

  She gave a little laugh. “You’re too nice. But you don’t really know me. Maybe the dancer was a better choice. Maybe I’m horrible or something.”