by Tawny Weber
“All hail the king,” Savino said with a quiet smile before he slid out of the conversation like smoke from a flue. Quick, silent and barely noticeable. Diego knew he’d leave the room the same way. Hero worship was a sad and pathetic thing in a grown man, but admiring class wasn’t. Nor was appreciation. Everything Diego was he figured was due to Savino. To his drive, his vision and his unswerving loyalty to those he believed in.
“Dude.” Diego laid a hand on Savino’s shoulder, waiting for the other man to meet his eyes. “Thanks.”
Savino’s eyes lit with appreciation.
“Don’t party too hard” was all he said. “You’re going to want to be one hundred percent for the briefing.”
That was all the warning Diego needed to know he’d be nursing a single beer tonight and heading to bed early. The only thing more important than his gratitude to Savino was the success of his career.
“C’mon, Kitty Cat,” Lansky said to Diego when Savino turned to leave. “Let’s blow this joint. Find a place where we can be people instead of military machines.”
“You mean a place where you’re fawned over by civilians who’ll be impressed when you tell them you are a military machine.”
“Curvy civilians. Sexy ones in short skirts and high heels.” Lansky’s Boy Scout smile flashed, a little blurry around the edges from the back-to-back whiskeys. “Gotta love them all, right?”
“Couple more drinks and the only thing you’re gonna be loving is the toilet seat.” Shaking his head, Diego headed for the door.
“Yo, Torres,” a voice beckoned before he’d made the exit.
Diego glanced over to see Prescott waving from a prime table next to the dart board. As usual when he wasn’t on duty, the man had a pencil in hand and that engrossed look in his eyes.
Seated with Prescott was another SEAL and one of the team’s support members. Petty Officer Dane Adams kicked back with his feet on the table and gestured with a dart, making as if he were aiming it at Diego. Next to him, Lieutenant Brandon Ramsey just smiled and murmured something under his breath that made the other man laugh.
Both IP officers, or Information Professionals, they specialized in tech. Adams had a solid rep as a Special Warfare Combatant Crewman, while Ramsey was on his third tour as a SEAL. They’d transferred to Coronado eight or so months ago after deployment in Afghanistan. It hadn’t taken more than a couple of weeks to realize that Ramsey was used to being top dog and not only expected to stay on top but expected everyone to kiss his ass while he was there. Since SEALs didn’t kiss ass, he’d had a little trouble adjusting at first. But Prescott had taken the guy under his wing, showed him the ropes. And made him one of the team.
“How about a few games of pool,” Ramsey suggested with a wink as Diego and Lansky drew near. “We’ll play for shots.”
“I hear you’re good with the cue,” Diego said.
“I hear the same about you,” Ramsey acknowledged with an assessing look. Even in digies, the guy came across as a movie star with his blond hair spiked in casual disarray, intense blue eyes and his perfect smile. “Why don’t we see who’s better?”
“Ego still bruised over Torres busting up your record on the range?” Lansky asked, a sneer creasing his face. “I warned you he would.”
Something ugly flashed over Ramsey’s eyes, but it was gone just as fast. As a man with a temper of his own, Diego had to respect a guy who could reel it back that quickly.
“Then it’s only right that you give me a shot at redeeming my rep,” Ramsey suggested mildly, his hands spread wide in invitation. “What do you say, Torres? You willing to go head-to-head on a universal field? Say, a pool table?”
The taunt “Or are you afraid?” went unspoken, but they all heard it. Insults like that went hand in hand with the dog tags the men all wore. Years of training, both as a SEAL and as a man, had taught Diego to think before he reacted.
“You think I need to stack the deck to win, you don’t know me.” Diego rocked back on his heels to offer a smile. A very small, very effective smile that mocked the idea. And, of course, the man asking it.
From the way his face tightened, Ramsey understood just fine. Not surprising. He was a smart guy. He was also after Diego’s spot on Poseidon. A useless goal, since it was known that Poseidon was made up entirely of graduates of BUD/S class 260. But like everything else, Ramsey apparently figured that he’d be the exception to that rule. It had to be the rich boy in him, used to being number one, always the top of everything. From his rich parents to his perfect son, according to Brandon Ramsey, he had it all and expected more.
Not a problem for Diego, since he respected someone who aimed high. Except Ramsey was going to have to get whatever he was looking for from someone else. Because Diego was keeping his share.
“I’ve already got plans, so pool is out. But I’m happy to buy you a beer instead.” Diego ignored Lansky’s look of disgust. Ramsey wasn’t all that bad. And any time spent with Prescott was time well spent. Besides, for all they knew, it was Ramsey’s relentless focus on competition that’d pushed Diego to step it up and do better. To be better. He definitely had to push past 100 percent to beat the guy. As far as Diego was concerned, that made Ramsey a good man to have on the team.
“You’d rather share a beer than go head-to-head?” Ramsey laughed. “Sure. Why not? You might as well toast my success, too.”
“Success?” Diego waited until Lansky was through rolling his eyes before waving a hand toward the bartender. He circled his finger, indicating another round, then grabbed his own chair. “You finally score with that pretty little redhead you were hitting on so hard?”
“Dude, have you seen pictures of Ramsey’s old lady?” Adams blew on his fingers as if they were on fire, then shook his head. “You’d be so lucky if a woman that hot even turned you down.”
“Can’t say as I have,” Diego said with a shrug. Looking at other guys’ wives had never been a favorite pastime of his.
“Show him that picture you just got, Brandon.” Adams let out a low whistle. “The one where she’s wearing the bikini.”
“You’re a sad, sad man,” Ramsey told his friend with a laugh, even as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and swiped through the screen. He shot Diego a look. “You want to see?”
Not really. He figured if you’d seen one guy’s old lady, you’d seen them all. But Diego was trying to build a bridge here. So he was already trying to think up polite comments as he took the phone.
Hellooo.
Diego was pretty sure there was an ocean in that shot somewhere. He was vaguely aware of a kid on the screen, but only because he was blocking the view of the blonde.
The woman was stunning. Hair more gold than blond blew in the breeze, the long strands covering part of a perfectly sculpted face. Full lips smiled wide, accented by cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. But it was her eyes that grabbed him. Too dark to tell the color in the photo, they were round with an exotic tilt echoed by the dusky gold of her skin. And oh, man, that skin. It covered a body meant for hot fantasies. She was made up of long, lean lines and lush curves.
For the first time, he envied a man his woman.
“She’s a looker” was all he said, though, as he handed the phone back.
“I’d do her in watercolor. She’s got that mermaid thing going there,” Prescott murmured, his attention on the paper he was scrawling on. It took a second for the silence to hit him, then another for him to realize what he’d said. “I meant I’d paint her. Not, you know...”
They shared a good-natured laugh as Prescott grimaced.
“I just do her,” Ramsey joked, slapping Prescott on the shoulder. His smile turned possessive as he looked at the picture again before tucking his phone into his pocket.
“Thought she was your ex,” Jared chimed in, taking his beer from the server wit
hout taking his eyes off Ramsey. “Isn’t that the way of it? She took your kid and split? Dumped you, right?”
Really? Diego’s attention perked up at that bit of news, his body doing a happy salute to the idea of a woman that hot being free and clear. Except she wasn’t, he reminded himself. As much as it might suck—and oh, boy, did it—Ramsey had staked prior claim. Whether he and the gorgeous blonde were a couple or not, she was still his.
Ramsey clearly thought so, too. His blue eyes chilled to lethal ice, his sneer blade sharp.
“As usual, Lansky, you’ve got your details wrong. I left Harper because my career had to be a priority, not the other way around. And given that I can’t take my kid with me while I’m out saving the world—and because I’m a hell of a nice guy—I let her take care of him. She appreciates that, and is pretty damned good at showing just how much on my visitations.”
“Is that how you want to tell it?” Jared’s expression called bullshit.
“That’s how it is.”
Jared leaned forward, that schoolboy face looking for all the world as if he were about to call out what he saw as a lie.
“So what particular success are we toasting?” Diego interjected, wanting to end this before Jared escalated the conversation into something that required everyone to drop their fatigues to prove who had the biggest dick.
“Nominations for DEVGRU are coming up, pal. And I’m going to be on that list.” Ramsey leaned back, crossing his hands behind his head and offering a big smile. “I’ve got Captain Jarrett’s support. And my father’s golfing buddy, Senator Glassman, is gonna make sure of it.”
He waited a beat.
“You got anyone pulling for you, Torres? You know, someone on the outside with influence?”
His first thought was, Yeah, right.
His second was, Seriously? It wasn’t that he begrudged Ramsey the success. But did they have to compete for everything? There were only a few slots offered each year.
He felt like a jerk for coveting the nomination, but he couldn’t completely shake the feeling. After all, DEVGRU was top of the line. A counterterrorism, special missions unit made up of the most elite operatives in the Navy. Once upon a time, some people had called it SEAL Team 6. It was a unit filled with mystery, power and prestige. And Diego wanted in.
So he tilted his chair onto the back two legs, making as if he were carefully considering the question. He pulled off his cap, rubbed a hand over his short, spiked hair, then tugged the hat back in place. Then, giving Ramsey a look of long-faced regret, he shook his head.
“My old man rolled with the Hells Angels as a Nomad. That’d be king o’ the hill to you and me. But he was shot down in ’91 during what turned out to be a rather heated discussion,” Diego mused, tapping his fingers on his knee as he pretended to think it through. “He did leave behind three brothers, though. The ones that are still alive are serving time, one in Quentin, another in Pelican Bay. They probably have the better access to politicians than a golf course, but I guess we’ll see.”
Diego barely kept from offering his own sneer when he caught the looks on their faces. Disdain-covered horror with a barely concealed side helping of fear. Typical.
“Is your mother doing time, too?” Adams asked, his usual smirk sliding back in place.
“Dude,” Prescott protested.
Diego’s smile dimmed.
His momma had been shot dead three years back while sweeping the floor in the little bodega where she’d worked. No matter that he’d bought her a house, set her up so she didn’t have to slave day and night like she had most of her life, she’d insisted on keeping that job out of loyalty to Manny Cruz.
While Diego didn’t mind using his father to get a reaction out of others, he never shared his momma. That’d be disrespectful.
Besides, it was nobody’s business.
But Adams’s comment required a response. Instead of going with a smart-ass comment, or better yet the brutal slap down he’d prefer, Diego figured he’d channel Savino.
“See, here’s the thing.” Diego leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his expression as serious as a howitzer. “I figure you had no say in your upbringing. And maybe it was awesome, or maybe it was pure hell. But whatever it was, whatever you brought with you from your past, it made you the man you are now. A solid officer, an outstanding IP tech and in your case, Ramsey, a damned good SEAL.”
Diego took a swallow of beer before continuing.
“Bottom line, we fight for the same thing. We have the same goal, and we serve the same team.” He had to dig deep for the rest, but, picturing Savino giving him that impatient, just-bullshit-if-you-have-to look, he managed. “I’m proud to serve with you, man.”
It was a toss-up who looked more shocked at Diego’s words. Adams, who appeared to have swallowed his tongue. Lansky, whose expression warned that he’d puke at any minute. Or Ramsey, who tried to hide his surprise with a frown but didn’t quite succeed.
Prescott simply grinned as he dashed his name over the bottom of the piece of paper before tearing it from the sketchbook. He handed it to Diego with a wink.
Diego snickered. His own face stared back at him, finger pointed like a gun, cocked and ready to rock. The caricature emphasized Diego’s dark eyes, his large head teetering on a slender body weighted down with fat muscles.
“You’re all right, Torres,” Ramsey said, his frown shifting into a grin. “I’m proud to serve with you, too.”
Figuring Lansky really would gag if this kept up, Diego stood.
“Congrats on your shot at DEVGRU,” he said, offering his hand. “Enjoy the beer. Lansky and I are heading out.”
He exchanged the team’s hand slap with Prescott. To Adams he gave only a nod. Just as well, seeing as Diego and Lansky didn’t get ten steps before they heard the asshole comment, “Bet he’s full of shit about his father. He just said that to make himself sound tough.”
“Let it go,” he muttered to Lansky, who’d started to turn back with his fists ready.
“But—”
“You might want to learn to watch your mouth,” they heard Prescott warn, his easy tone not disguising the threat beneath.
“Let it go,” Diego said again, shoving open the door and stepping into the sun’s heat. He’d come to terms with his history. When he’d first joined the Navy, he’d kept his past under lock and key. Not out of shame—out of concern that he’d be thrown in the brig for giving someone a serious ass kicking over their comments about it.
But after a while, he’d come to realize that his past was as much a part of him as his height or his skill with a knife. It made him who he was.
A success, dammit.
“We’ll hit Olive Oyl’s, and drinks are on me until ten-hundred hours when I head back to base.”
Lansky frowned. “You can’t be serious. Things will just be heating up then. The hottest women don’t hit the bar until after dark, my friend.”
“Yep, totally serious. You want to wait for women who look better in the dark, you’re gonna have to get yourself a ride back to base. Me, I’ve got a briefing in the morning, and I plan to be sharp.” Then, because Lansky was a good friend and deserved a little payback, he added, “This operation is going to shoot me to the top, buddy. A dozen of Daddy’s senators won’t help Ramsey get ahead of me after this.”
As his friend whooped and hollered, Diego accepted the fist bump with a laugh.
He was within kissing distance of the high point in his career. No way some blowhard like Adams, or even a rival like Ramsey, were going to mess it up for him.
No way in hell.
CHAPTER TWO
GOOD THINGS CAME to those who focused on what they wanted, then worked their butts off to get it.
That was Harper Maclean’s life motto, and she figured that she
was living proof it was true. As she sautéed the mushrooms, onions and garlic with an expert hand, she looked around her kitchen with a smile of delight. From the glossy planks on the floor to the custom glass-fronted cabinets to the granite countertops, the kitchen—like the house—screamed luxury.
Holy crap, she was living in luxury. Harper added a giddy two-step as she added a dash of garlic salt to the vegetables. Six months ago, she’d been in an apartment so small, she’d had to put her desk in the coat closet. Now she was cozied up in a house five times as big and ten times as fancy.
It was all she could do to keep from doing a butt-wiggling happy dance as she pulled a golden piecrust from the oven. But butt wigging wasn’t ladylike, and Harper had spent the last seven years transforming herself into a lady. So she settled for a tiny shoulder shimmy.
“If I knew making me dinner would give you such a thrill, I’d have hit you up a week ago.” Andi Stamos strode into the kitchen in a wave of Black Opium, reaching around Harper to snag a mushroom out of the pan.
Used to greedy fingers trying to sneak food before it was ready, Harper tilted her head toward the center island. “If you’re hungry, eat an apple.”
“I’d rather have chocolate,” Andi muttered.
Who wouldn’t? “After dinner.”
“Fine, I’ll wait,” Andi agreed before snagging another mushroom.
“Hey,” Harper warned with a laugh, automatically shifting the springform pan out of reach.
Most people wouldn’t recognize the untidy waif with her black hair in a messy ponytail and her jeans ripped at the knees as Andrianna Stamos, thrice-divorced estranged daughter of Greek tycoon Maximillian Stamos, society darling and trust-fund baby. Andrianna wore leather and silk, spoke five languages and had a reputation for starting her day with a martini instead of coffee. Whereas Andi was happy wearing jeans to eat in a friend’s kitchen, handed out hundreds to the homeless and adored a small boy named Nathan.