“What if he showed up and said he wanted to see Dylan? Said he’d turned his life around?”
“If he had truly pulled himself together and wanted to be a permanent or at least semi-permanent part of his life, I would let him. And of course it would be up to Dylan, too. As he gets older, he could get curious, or he may not want anything to do with his real father. And I have to do what’s best for Dylan.”
“And what’s best for you,” Colin said.
“Well, that part I’m still working on. But it’s all coming together.”
“What is?”
“I’m finally getting away from my father.”
“Getting away?”
“Moving out of the mansion, getting my own place, my own job. I should have done it a long time ago, but I was so scared to screw up again. But I can’t stand it anymore. When I found out what he said to you, about me being off-limits, something just…snapped. So I’ve been making plans ever since. Having a father in government, you would think that I would have known about all the assistance programs available, but because of the senator, I thought I wouldn’t qualify.”
“Why would you need assistance?”
“I blew my entire trust fund on Dylan’s medical bills and now my father pays for everything. But the second I show a shred of independence he threatens to cut me off. Me and Dylan. He’s even threatened to take Dylan away from me, said he could prove I was neglectful because of my addictions.”
“But you’ve been sober for over three years. How can he do that?”
“Well, he can try, but the lawyer I talked to said he probably wouldn’t get too far with it. But he can cut us off financially. Dylan’s medical bills are staggering. There’s no way I can afford them on my own. But there is help out there. I think it all just seemed too hard, too much to handle on my own. Maybe I didn’t think I was strong enough.”
He tilted her chin up so he could look in her eyes. “Rowena, you don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“I’m trying to. It’s all really scary. But exciting, too.”
He turned so he was facing her. “I think I already know the answer, but I’m going to say it anyway. If you need anything—”
“I can’t. I have to figure this out on my own. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the offer.”
“And the offer still stands. If you need anything, you can call me.”
She touched his cheek, smiled up at him, and he felt an odd twisting sensation in his chest. The sudden and unexpected instinct to take care of her and keep her safe was so intense his head spun.
Room service knocked, and Colin pushed himself up off the couch to answer the door, so many different emotions knocking around inside of him, he could hardly make sense of them all.
He told the waiter to leave the tray by the door and tipped him so handsomely, the man’s brows rose in surprise as he said, “Thank you, sir.”
With a simple gesture, he had just made the guy’s day. He wished there was some way he could do the same for Rowena. He wished she would let him help her, but he understood why she couldn’t. And he respected her for finally having the courage to take charge of her life. Too many people would take the easy way out.
“Well, I guess we should enjoy this while it’s hot,” Rowena said from behind him, but he wasn’t hungry anymore.
He pulled her into his arms instead, kissed her, lifted her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom. As he laid her down on the mattress, there were no protests or bids from her to have the upper hand. She didn’t try to dominate him as he undressed her and touched her. At a time when she normally couldn’t restrain herself verbally if her life depended on it, she didn’t say a word.
Colin whispered that she was beautiful, told her how much he wanted her, gave her pleasure time and time again, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing he could do or say would ever make her see how special she was.
As he settled between her thighs, he pinned his eyes on hers and slowly thrust inside her, waves of pure emotion rising up and peaking, then crashing down over him. Skin against skin, their bodies moved in perfect rhythm. Pleasure coiled tight in his belly, pulling him under, drowning him in its inky depths. Rowena cried out and shuddered beneath him and the coil snapped, spilling over with a liquid heat that burned him from the inside out.
“Thank you,” Rowena said breathlessly, clinging to him as if he were her lifeline.
He kissed her, stroked her hair, held her as she drifted off to sleep, yet it still wasn’t enough. And it occurred to him, as he watched her sleep, that tonight was the first time in his life that he had truly made love to a woman.
And it bloody well was not enough.
Thirteen
Cara walked into the restaurant at 11:15 a.m. the next morning. Rowena waved to her from their table in the back, and as she approached, Cara jumped up to give her a hug.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Cara said, giving Rowena a squeeze, then stepping back to look at her. “It’s so good to actually see you in person! And you look fantastic!”
“And you’re glowing.”
Cara smiled and touched her cheek. “That’s what Max keeps saying.”
“He’s right. You look gorgeous. Pregnancy agrees with you.”
“So does having a less stressful job.”
They sat down and Rowena signaled the waitress. She scurried over and took Cara’s drink order, which was seltzer with lime, and they both ordered a Caesar salad, dressing on the side. Cara’s with double chicken.
“Speaking of glowing,” Cara said, grinning knowingly. “You’re looking rather luminous yourself. Are you in love?”
Rowena smiled. She wanted to save the best for last. “We’ll get to that. First, I wanted to show you this….” She pulled the yearbook out of her bag.
Cara gasped. “You found it!”
“I spent the past two hours in my storage unit digging around for it. It was literally in the very last box.”
“Have you looked at it yet?”
“I didn’t have time. I had to run a few boxes to the post office to ship home, then catch a cab here. I’m still all dusty from crawling around in there.”
“Well, then, let’s take a look,” Cara said, rubbing her hands together in anticipation.
They opened the book and paged through it until they found the B’s. But as they went down the line of photos, Madeline wasn’t there.
Cara slumped back in her seat, perplexed. “She did exist, right? I mean, we didn’t make her up in our heads.”
“No, she definitely existed.”
Rowena was beginning to wonder if they’d both lost it when Cara bolted upright. “Oh! I know, look after the Z’s. Where they put the names of the people who weren’t photographed.”
They flipped all the way to the end, after Deirdre Zimmerman, and there Madeline Burch was, in the “Not Pictured” list.
“Well, shoot!” Cara sat back in a huff, then suddenly brightened. “Hey, maybe she’s somewhere else in here. Did she play in any sports? Participate in any extracurricular activities? Debate Team? Drama Club?”
“I recall her being a total loner, to the point of being completely antisocial, but it can’t hurt to look.”
They went through the entire book, page by page, carefully skimming for anyone who even remotely resembled Madeline, which was no picnic, considering that every girl pictured was dressed in the same school uniform.
After all that searching, they came up empty. She wasn’t in the yearbook anywhere.
Cara sighed. “Darn it. Looks like you came all this way for nothing.”
No. She was glad she’d come. She and Colin needed this time alone.
“So,” Cara said, and Rowena knew exactly what was coming next. “What’s his name?”
Rowena couldn’t suppress a sappy, lovesick smile. “His name is Colin Middlebury.”
Cara blinked. “Oh. Would that be the Colin Middlebury who has been lobbying a certain senator to support the Internation
al Tech Treaty?”
“I didn’t know you knew him.”
“I know of him. I know that he’s an earl and he’s loaded. I also know that you’ve met men like him before. Men who needed Daddy’s help.”
Rowena’s heart sank just a little in her chest. “He’s different,” she said, the protest sounding hollow and pathetic.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
Knowing exactly what Cara would think, she said, “A couple of weeks.”
“So how well could you really know him?”
Cara’s obvious suspicions tanked her warm, fuzzy feelings from last night. “I know what you’re thinking. But it’s not like that. We’re not even a couple. We’re just having some harmless fun.”
“Oh, honey.” Cara reached across the table and grabbed her hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m just worried about you. I know you’ve had it rough. I don’t want to see you hurt again.”
“When you meet him, you’ll know he’s different.”
“Is he coming?”
“He should be. He’s in a meeting with my father right now.”
That fact had Cara looking even more suspicious. But Rowena knew she would feel differently if she met him. Not that it mattered what she thought. By the time Rowena saw her again, her fling with Colin would be long over.
Their salads were delivered and they ate in awkward silence for several minutes; then Rowena’s phone chimed that she had a text message. She pulled it from her bag and checked the display. It was from Colin, saying he was held up and wouldn’t make it to the restaurant, but he would see her at the hotel later.
“He can’t make it,” she said, shoving her phone back in her purse, hating that she could be so easily persuaded to doubt him. When it didn’t even matter in the first place. They were having sex. She had no claim on him. They had never, ever agreed that it would be exclusive. For all she knew he could have another woman right here in Washington. Or maybe one in England. Or even two or three.
“Rowena, I’m sorry,” Cara said. “You obviously really like the guy, and I’ve made you feel terrible. What do I know, anyway? I’ve never even met him. I’m sure he’s as wonderful as you say he is.”
Rowena appreciated the apology, but Cara had already burst her bubble.
*
When she returned to the room to find that Colin hadn’t come back yet, Rowena was even more depressed.
She knew she was being ridiculous. It didn’t matter what Cara thought, because she hadn’t met Colin. Maybe he wasn’t the settling-down type, but that didn’t make him a bad person. He was a soldier, a war hero. But given Rowena’s track record with men, could she blame Cara for worrying? Why would she have faith in anything Rowena said?
Or maybe it had nothing to do with Cara. Maybe the real problem was that Rowena had no faith in herself. But she was definitely working on that.
*
The meeting with Senator Tate was just what Colin had expected: a formality. And frankly, an enormous waste of time. He’d been subjected to a thorough grilling from the senator and his colleagues, including a top adviser to the president. But most of the questions he had no answers for, which he supposed only solidified the need for an investigation into ANS and the accusations of hacking. He was told they would discuss it further and have a decision soon. Which he knew in Washington, with all the red tape, could be months. He was disappointed, but not surprised.
As he was leaving, the senator gave him a list of nearly one hundred possible suspects he intended to investigate—just in case. In the cab on the way back to the hotel, Colin went over the list, surprised to find that it included everyone from aides to ANS employees to celebrities. Paranoid much? This reeked of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, when everyone was guilty until proven innocent, and suddenly Colin began to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. Because unlike McCarthy, Tate had years of experience and influence to legitimize his suspicions. Colin would have to tread lightly—the last thing he wanted was to become involved in was a witch hunt.
Colin was so preoccupied with his thoughts as he walked into the hotel room that he almost stepped on the thick manila envelope lying on the carpet just inside the door. He stopped and picked it up. It was sealed, and there was no writing on either side.
Could it be something Rowena had dropped?
He closed the door and shrugged out of his coat, draping it across the arm of the sofa. “Rowena, are you here?”
She stepped out of the bedroom a second later, wrapped in a towel, her skin rosy, her hair damp and a little messy.
“Hey, you’re back,” she said, her eager smile warming him from the inside out, and as it did, the stress of his morning, the feelings of frustration and uselessness, began to leak away.
The envelope forgotten, he crossed the room and tugged her close, circling her in his arms. Her skin was warm and soft and a little damp. She let out a soft moan of pleasure as his lips covered hers. She looped her arms around his neck and a feral-sounding grumble erupted from his throat. Every time she touched him and he put his hands on her, he wanted her even more than the last time.
“You know we have a flight to catch,” she said between kisses.
“I know.” He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. If they didn’t he would already have her out of that towel, himself out of his clothes and both of them back in bed.
“How was your lunch?”
“Fun. How was your meeting?”
“Not fun. More like a big, fat waste of time. They want to drag me into this congressional investigation. All I’m here for is the treaty.”
“But he won’t back the treaty without the investigation.”
“Exactly.”
“What the senator wants, the senator gets.”
That was becoming infinitely more clear.
He held up the envelope. “Is this yours?”
She shook her head.
“It was on the floor by the door. I thought perhaps you had dropped it.”
“Nope, not mine.”
“It wasn’t there when you came in?”
“Not that I noticed.”
“Could someone have knocked, and maybe you didn’t hear them, so they slipped it under the door?”
“It’s possible, I guess. Maybe while I was in the shower.”
So who did he know who would be sliding things under his hotel room door? There weren’t that many people who even knew he was in town.
“Could be anthrax,” she said thoughtfully, and he shot her a look. “Letter bomb?”
“Funny.” He shook the envelope and something slid around inside. He felt the outline of the object and recognized the shape. “It feels like a disc. A CD or DVD.”
“Why don’t you open it?”
He opened the envelope and pulled out a single, unmarked CD. Puzzled, he said, “I wonder what it could be.”
“Is there a note?”
He checked the envelope again and shook his head. “Nothing. Perhaps it was slid under our door in error and it belongs to someone else.”
“Or it’s something someone wanted you to find.”
“Doesn’t this sort of thing only happen in movies?”
“Colin, we’re in Washington. Where do you think the ideas for those movies come from?”
In that case, if it was for him or Rowena, whoever had slipped it under the door had taken care not to be seen.
“Should we listen to it?” Rowena asked.
“I don’t see why not.”
He walked over to the television cabinet and slid the disc into the DVD unit, and what they heard as it started to play stunned him. The disc was most definitely for him, and it was clear why whoever left it preferred to remain anonymous.
Rowena gasped. “Is this what it sounds like?”
“I think so.”
It was a recorded phone call between two men whose voices weren’t familiar, and they clearly had no idea their conversation was being record
ed. They were discussing plans to hire hackers to record phone and computer activity of certain relatives and old friends of Eleanor Albert.
ANS was mentioned repeatedly, and when they indicated the network’s ruthless owner, Graham Boyle, by name, the hair stood up on the back of Colin’s neck. Whoever put this under the door had handed Colin exactly the proof he needed to get an investigation going. And the sooner it did, the sooner he got his support.
“Do you think this is real?” Rowena asked, looking as stunned as he felt.
“I have no reason to believe it isn’t. What I don’t understand is why they gave it to me.”
“Probably because of your work on the treaty and your connection with my father.”
“And I need to get this disc to him right away.” He ejected the disc and turned to her. “I think I might be taking a later flight.”
Fourteen
Rowena flew back to California that afternoon. But Colin’s later flight, which should have landed at 8:00 p.m., was pushed to the next afternoon when another meeting was called, and when even more evidence began to spring up in the ANS hacking scandal, he was forced to stay yet another day. And because it was pulling him away from working on the treaty, he decided to extend his stay in L.A. another week.
He swore he would be on a plane Sunday, but then he called to say that a storm had hit the entire East Coast and all planes were grounded.
Though she hated herself for doing it, Rowena turned on the Weather Channel, then opened her laptop and checked flight statuses for all the airlines. She was starting to act like a paranoid, possessive girlfriend. And all for a relationship that was never supposed to last.
He was finally able to get a flight out late Monday afternoon, but until the limo pulled up to the mansion that evening and Colin emerged, Rowena wasn’t completely sure that he was coming. That he would want to come all the way back here when he could have just as easily finished his work on the treaty in Washington.
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