It bothered Wes just as much; anger and pain dripped from his words.
“Wes…why did you come to me?”
“Because if anyone can figure out what’s going on, it’s you.” Wes stood, turned to pace, then sat again. “What if the guy comes back? What if I’m right and it wasn’t an accident and he tries something else?”
“The cops—”
“Don’t want to rock the boat hard enough to have an attempted murder become public knowledge!” Wes stopped, took a breath, obviously struggling to get himself back under control. “Her parents are too shaken to even realize the cops are just shuffling around papers. Charlotte needs someone who doesn’t care about reputation, and we both know you’re the perfect man for that job.”
King ignored the jab. “Even if there is more going on here than what they say, Charlotte is not going to want me involved.”
“King…” Wes leaned forward, his intensity pinning King to his seat. “I haven’t asked anything of you, ever. I supported you even when your parents cut you off. I gave you the distance you obviously wanted. But I’m asking you now, please, to help me keep her safe. Just…ask some questions. Investigate. If you say there’s nothing suspicious, well then…” He spread his hands. “You’re the only person I know to ask. The only person I know who can do this.”
The desperation in his cousin’s face couldn’t be ignored. Wes needed him—to protect Charlotte, the woman he’d walked away from a decade ago. The woman Wes obviously had strong feelings for, maybe even loved.
Could he do it? Could he walk back into her life?
He thought hard about the answer to that question. She might not welcome him or accept his help. And if she didn’t care, if she returned Wes’s feelings? He ignored the way his gut clenched at the thought. What mattered was her safety and Wes’s request, not his own feelings.
Finally he nodded. “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll come out and talk to her.”
Wes stood, reaching for King’s hand as he came to his feet as well. “That’s all I can ask. I appreciate it.”
King rounded the desk to pull Wes into a hug. “I know. I hope I can help.” He held his cousin a bit longer than he normally would, savoring the contact with his own flesh and blood. “I missed you, man.” And he had, more than he’d realized.
Wes drew back slowly, giving him a worry-tinged smile. “You too.”
“Let me talk to my team lead and I’ll let you know when I can be there.”
“As soon as possible,” Wes insisted. “I’ll go with you.”
Chapter Three
“Wes is meeting us at the house,” her mother said as she helped Charlotte settle into the wheelchair the nurse had pushed into the room. Charlotte ducked her head, hiding her expression. The topic of Wes was one she wasn’t up to discussing, not right now. She was too battered, physically and emotionally. There wasn’t a muscle in her body that didn’t hurt, but that was nothing compared to the fear crouching at the back of her mind.
“Such a good man,” Dale Alexander said from his position holding the door open. “When are you going to put him out of his misery and say—”
Charlotte raised her hand, noting that it shook the slightest bit. “Not now, Dad. Okay?” It was a common conversation, but not one she could deal with in her hospital room after coming too close to dying.
Her father’s sharp features softened. Coming to kneel in front of the wheelchair, he laid a big hand over both her knees. “Of course.” He squeezed slightly. “Let’s get you home. That’s the important thing.”
A rush of affection and sheer gratitude that she hadn’t lost them filled her a bit too full. “Right.” His stubbled cheek tickled her lips when she kissed it, just like it had since she was a child. “Let’s go home.”
She closed her eyes on the ride back to the house, not wanting to see the spot where her accident had occurred. She’d woken up multiple times last night, her heart in her throat, her body rigid with panic, always with that image of the truck grill filling her mind. The nightmare seemed to play on a loop in her subconscious. Between it and the constant nurse checks to see if her concussion was worsening, she’d barely rested, much less slept. All she wanted was a shower and her bed—and maybe one of the pain pills the doctor had sent home with her. If it would keep her sleeping deep enough not to dream, she’d take it.
The slowing of the car outside the gates of the house registered, the familiar creak of the wires as they drew the heavy wrought-iron panels back. The sound had signaled home since she was a little girl. Now they signaled safety, and her muscles went slack with relief and fatigue.
“Almost there,” her mom said beside her, almost as if she sensed Charlotte’s response.
She opened her eyes, her gaze sweeping the wooded lawn until it snagged on the front door. Two cars, one Wes’s silver Mercedes, the other a sleek electric-blue sports car she’d never seen before, waited in the circular drive. Her father passed them to stop at the bottom of the steps leading to the front entrance. “Wait there,” he said. “I’ll carry you inside.”
The snort that escaped her made her head hurt. She rubbed at it gently. “You’re not carrying me inside, Dad.” But he was already out the door and coming around. “Tell him he’s not carrying me, Mom.”
Her mother patted her hand. “We almost lost you. If carrying you makes him feel better, let him.”
Which was how she found herself entering the foyer in her father’s arms. When he turned toward the sitting room, she protested again, knowing it was as futile as the first time. “I’m really not up to company.” She wanted her room and her bed. Why was that so hard to get?
“Wes isn’t company,” her dad grumbled in her ear. “You need some food in you before you take any medicine. Let him see you, just for a few minutes.”
He’d always been Team Wes. She couldn’t make him see that Wes was a friend, not husband material. No one was, not for her. Not after—
“Charlotte!”
She glanced in Wes’s direction to see him hurrying toward her, worry lining his handsome face. “I’m fine, really. I can walk. Dad wouldn’t let me.”
“I seconded the motion,” her mother said, trailing them into the room. “It’s not every day we get to baby you...” The last word trailed off, only to be followed by a sharp, “What are you doing here?”
Charlotte glanced at her mother, who stared somewhere across the room. Her dad settled her on the long couch, blocking her view. “What is it?”
Wes sat at her feet and pulled her shoes off without asking, and she caught a glimpse of what she swore was guilt in his eyes. Guilt over what?
Dale Alexander straightened, turned, and a rough growl left his throat. “What—”
“I asked him to come,” Wes said.
“Asked who?” Who in the world could make her parents react this way?
The who stepped into her line of sight, just beyond Wes. A sharp gasp choked her. Of course. Only one man could decimate her parents’ manners, and that man was standing in their sitting room.
Kingsley Moncrief.
For a minute the sense of unreality blocked out everything else. The room spun, and she worried she might faint. It was too much on top of everything else—the fight at Becky’s, the wreck, almost dying, her parents, and now... “King.”
His face was inscrutable, those eerily light blue eyes blank, revealing nothing. “Charlotte.” He nodded toward her. “I trust you really are fine. What did the doctor say?”
“What business is it of yours, Moncrief?” her father demanded.
“I asked him to come,” Wes said again. The why was what escaped her.
Her parents too, obviously. The tension in both their bodies screamed anger, but it was her mother’s mottled face, the glint of tears burning in her eyes that hurt Charlotte the most. Wes might’ve meant well, but...
“I don’t think—”
Wes cut her off. “I’ve spoken with the police.”
Her fathe
r’s hands tightened into fists as he angled himself to face off with Wes, cutting King out of the discussion. “And?”
Wes shoved a hand through his thick blond hair. “And despite what they might have assured you, Dale, they aren’t going to pursue this very hard.”
She would’ve doubted his words, but Wes could get behind the official reports to the truth. She and her parents couldn’t.
Where did that leave them?
The cry that left her mother ripped through Charlotte’s head. “It wasn’t an accident! Why is that obvious to everyone but them?”
“You know why,” Wes said. “A possible attempted murder, here in Peachtree City?”
“That would tarnish the city’s reputation,” her father said, the rough edges of the words showing exactly how he felt about the idea.
“That doesn’t explain why he is here.”
Her mother had managed to ask the question Charlotte found impossible to voice. She swore she saw a wince in King’s expression before he turned his attention to her parents.
Wes squared his shoulders, determination in the lines of his body. “I’ve asked King to help us investigate.”
Her mother rounded the couch to sit at Charlotte’s feet, placing a protective hand over her chilled flesh. The hand gripped her firmly, steadied her. “How could he help us? It’s ludicrous.”
They didn’t know who King was now. Not that Charlotte would tell them. That would mean revealing her secret: that she’d never stopped following his career, following him. She understood exactly why Wes had gone to his cousin, despite their history.
More history than King or even Wes knew.
King cleared his throat. “I work for JCL Securities now.”
Her parents exchanged a glance. JCL was a renowned firm, one of Atlanta’s pride-and-joy corporations. Anyone who was anyone in the city knew the owners, Conlan James and Jack Quinn, by reputation if not in person.
In the silence following his words, Charlotte peeked from beneath her lashes toward King, let herself examine the man who’d left her behind ten years ago. To take him in. He’d aged, no longer the fresh-from-college young man she’d loved back then. Unfortunately for her, the years only added to his appeal. Still tall, he’d filled out, muscles riding the expanse of his shoulders, broadening his chest. Even through the button-down shirt and sport coat he wore, she could tell he was strong, fit. The tension of leashed energy added to his aura of capability, leaving no doubt that he could handle himself in a fight. He was more bad boy than tender lover now.
Lines gave character to his face instead of taking it away, the edge of his jaw and cheekbones somehow harder than before. Or maybe time had made her forget. She couldn’t forget those lips, though, soft when he wanted, hard when he needed them to be. And those eyes, the ones that used to see into her soul...
His penetrating stare met hers through the crowd between them, sending a stroke of lightning down her spine. Taking her breath. Stopping her heart. Dredging up emotions that threatened to push her over the edge of control.
Her mother felt the jolt and glanced at her, a frown deepening the vee between her perfect brows. “I don’t think—”
Her father held up a hand, forestalling her mother’s protest.
“Dale, you can’t possibly be considering this,” Kim Alexander said.
A wealth of emotion that had nothing to do with Charlotte’s accident filled the words. And based on the roller coaster the few minutes in the same room with him had generated, Charlotte agreed. She didn’t need this right now.
But who else could help? Not just her, but Becky.
Guilt that she hadn’t considered the girl till now swamped her. “Mom—”
“What’s your plan?” her father asked.
“For now,” King said, “nothing official.” His glance skipped off Charlotte’s quickly. “I’d like to get more details, and then a friend and I can go check out the guy Charlotte met with.”
“Becky’s still there,” she said. “She’s alone with him. If he did this to me, what...” But she couldn’t force the question out. What had happened to her in the time Charlotte had been in the hospital?
This time King’s gaze latched on to hers. “I won’t leave until I make absolutely certain she’s okay.”
The promise eased the tight knot in her stomach. She shouldn’t trust any promise from him, she knew that—he’d promised her forever, after all—but here, now...what choice did she have? “Okay.”
Her mother’s protests scraped along her nerves, making her remember exactly how much her body hurt, how much her brain just wanted to shut down and forget about all of this. She wanted escape so badly she could barely stand to sit here and not scream. But Becky didn’t have an escape. The girl needed her.
“Mom.” Charlotte let her fatigue peek through. “Would you get me something to eat? I really need that pain medicine.”
The request did what a hundred arguments couldn’t do, kick-started that mothering instinct. Her mother’s lips tightened. After a sharp glance in King’s direction, as if to assure herself he wasn’t coming any closer to her precious daughter, she stood. “I’ll be right back.”
One down, one to go. Although she thought her dad was already halfway to agreeing. When he took her mom’s place on the couch and circled her ankle with a warm hand, she felt something settle inside her. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to meet King’s gaze head-on.
“What do you need to know?”
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∞
“Ms. Sheridan writes suspense that grabs you and won’t let go.”
~ Tea and Book
About The Author
Ella Sheridan never fails to take her readers to the dark edges of love and back again. Strong heroines are her signature, and her heroes span the gamut from hot rock stars to alpha bodyguards and everywhere in between. Ella never pulls her punches, and her unique combination of raw emotion, hot sex, and action leave her readers panting for the next release.
Born and raised in the Deep South, Ella writes romantic suspense, erotic romance, and hot BDSM contemporaries. Start anywhere—every book may be read as a standalone, or begin with book one in any series and watch the ties between the characters grow.
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Assassin's Heart (Assassins Book 4) Page 21
