He glanced up and caught Ronan staring at them in the rear view mirror as they waited at a red light. The waves of hostility were palpable. Tough shit. Fair was fair, and besides, Cassidy had refused to hold hands with Diego when he’d tried as they drove off from the Malloy house. He supposed she didn’t want to fan the flames by giving him a right Ronan couldn’t enjoy. Understanding her motive didn’t make the smirk Ronan had given him through the damn mirror any easier to swallow.
This time on a Sunday night, it didn’t take long to go from working class Charlestown to upscale Back Bay. Ronan double parked in front of Cassidy’s brownstone and turned around to face them. Diego could see the question in the man’s face, so he beat him to the punch.
“Any chance we can come in for a cup of coffee?” he asked, twisting his body to face her.
Ronan glared at him. “Yeah, I could use some if you don’t mind.” His face broke out into a big smile that Diego had to admit was the epitome of charm itself. The fucker.
Cassidy’s eyes darted back and forth between them, eyes narrowed and wheels turning in her beautiful head. She didn’t look particularly happy about the idea. Finally, she sighed. “Okay, sure. Why don’t you turn at the next block and you can park in my garage.
“You have a garage?” Diego asked, his eyebrows raised.
“A two-car garage, yes,” Cassidy confirmed.
Diego whistled in appreciation as Ronan shifted the car back into gear. As little as he knew about Boston, Diego understood the fact that she had so much private parking in a location like this must have meant big bucks. His expectation was confirmed when they pulled into the tight space next to a sporty Mercedes.
As the three of them got out of Ronan’s car, Diego took a moment to admire Cassidy’s wheels. “This is beautiful. Do you get a chance to drive it much?”
“Not really. It’s mostly to make it easier to visit my parents and to go to our summer house in Maine.” As she said the words, she winced.
“You have a house in Maine?” Ronan asked as he, too, perused her impressive car.
“A family home,” she was quick to clarify. She seemed uncomfortable talking about her wealth. “In Kennebunkport.”
Diego knew less about Maine than he did Boston, but he remembered that the Bush family had a compound up there. Wow. Even though he could have easily spent the next hour drooling over her car, he didn’t like the idea of her being embarrassed or anything. “So, coffee?”
Cassidy rewarded his efforts with a slight smile that didn’t entirely reach her eyes. “Right. Come on in.”
She led them through a back entrance to her first floor and up to the kitchen level. He hadn’t had a chance to see this part of the house the two times he’d been there. Her bedroom had been his choice of destination. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Ronan appeared familiar with the room.
For a few seconds, he couldn’t control the images that popped up in his mind about what his partner and Cassidy might have been up to in this place of granite and steel. Jealousy, hot and strong, pumped through his nerves, a thing about himself he hated. There was more, though. Part of his reaction was simply the hotness of the idea. And that was disturbing on so many levels.
Cassidy looked perfect in the beautiful setting of her kitchen. She really was a classy woman and definitely out of his league and Ronan’s. Diego’s head told him as much, although his body didn’t care one bit. Even with the dampening presence of Ronan, Diego’s cock twitched in his pants as Cassidy bent over to pull something from under the island. Ronan’s watched her as well, a hunger in his eyes that had to match Diego’s. He wanted to slap his hand over Ronan’s face to stop him. It was a stupid, yet primitive impulse. A low sound passed his lips before he could stop it.
Cassidy popped back up. “Did you say something?”
Ronan shot him a smirk. “Yeah, Diego, did you say something?” His tone implied he knew exactly what had happened.
Clearing his throat, Diego lied smoothly. “Sorry, just a little cough. I have seasonal allergies.” Which was true if it had been spring and not the end of summer.
“Oh, well, I was thinking maybe you guys really would prefer wine to coffee given the lateness of the hour.” Cassidy held up a bottle of red.
“Sounds good.”
“Whatever you want.”
The two men talked over each and ended on a mutual glare. With a barely audible sigh, Cassidy opened a drawer and, pulling out a cork screw, opened the bottle with practiced ease. She reached up to take down three glasses from an overhead cupboard. Once again, their eyes followed her. The graceful way she moved was enchanting, and her skinny jeans hugged her sweet ass alluringly. She poured a half glass for each of them and slid them over the island.
“Why don’t we go sit in the living room?” She didn’t wait for them to reply, picking her own glass up and sashaying out of the room.
Diego and Ronan jostled for position, each trying to be right behind her. It was so juvenile that Diego almost laughed. Almost. The need to keep Ronan from taking Cassidy away from him overrode what little sense he had left. They panted after her like wolves stalking a female in heat. Diego’s cock strained against his jeans. He didn’t bother to worry about it showing, however. He figured Ronan was in a similar state, and as determined as Diego was to avoid seeing his partner’s hard-on, he figured Ronan must feel the same way.
Cassidy didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder. She must have understood how things were between her guests, though, because she chose to sit in a winged backed chair, leaving the other chair and the sofa free. Diego was tempted to take the second chair to be closer to her. He picked the sofa instead so that he could look at her full-on. Ronan must have had the same idea given that he elected to slide in next to Diego.
They spent the next couple of minutes sipping their wine in awkward silence. Diego wasn’t so sure alcohol was a good idea given his state of mind and body. He drank sparingly, his gaze fixed on Cassidy. She didn’t look happy. Slumped against the chair with her legs crossed, she stared pensively at the ground while she toyed with her drink. He wanted to say something, what he didn’t know. Out of the corner of his eye, Ronan’s mouth opened, then closed without a sound coming out.
Finally, Cassidy broke the silence. “I’m not cut out for this. I thought I was, but I’m not.” She looked up at them. “I like you both. I mean I really like you both. Do you understand?”
Diego and Ronan both nodded dumbly.
Cassidy’s chest rose on a deep breath she let out as another sigh, this one louder than the one in the kitchen. “I thought I could date both of you, sleep with both of you, and somehow it would be okay. It’s not. I look at the two of you, sitting there, and I can see you both want me. And I want you as well, both of you.”
Diego’s balls tightened on the confession, and while the inclusion of Ronan in the statement should have deflated his interest, it didn’t. His desire for this woman was too strong.
“You don’t have to choose,” Ronan interjected, a note of pleading in his tone. Apparently, he was smarter than Diego or had a large enough supply of blood so that his brain worked simultaneously with his cock. He’d jumped ahead in Cassidy’s speech.
“Wait, what are you trying to say…Cassidy?” Putting his glass on the coffee table between them, Diego leaned closer to see her eyes more clearly. He saw pain there, and his heart lurched.
“I’m saying I don’t know how to make this work. The two of you have spent the day vying for my attention. You’re sitting there quivering like dogs waiting for a treat. It’s not fair to either of you.”
Ronan put his drink down and shot to his feet. “Damn it, Nieves, this is your fault.”
Diego stood as well and faced off with Ronan. “Bullshit! Just because you asked her out? There’s no calling dibs on women, Callaghan, you said it yourself. This is the twenty-first century. If Cassidy hadn’t wanted to go out with me, she would have turned me down. It’s just a game to you, anyway.
You don’t care for her, not really. It’s only a competition for you. Winning is what matters.”
Ronan’s eyes blazed with fury. He took a step closer to Diego. “Fuck you! You don’t get to say how I feel or what my motives are. Cassidy isn’t some notch for my bedpost, and I don’t want her just to screw with you, either, you egocentric asshole.”
“Stop! Please don’t fight. It makes everything worse.”
Diego and Ronan broke away from each to stare at Cassidy. She was on her feet as well, and oh, Holy Mother of God, there were tears in her eyes. An icy ball formed in the pit of his stomach. He’d done that to her. Ronan was guilty, too, but Diego only cared about his own role in causing her misery.
“Don’t cry,” he practically begged.
“Please, don’t,” Ronan chimed in. Diego heard the pain in the other man’s voice.
Cassidy swiped at her cheeks with impatient strokes. “I’m sorry. I cry easily, and this situation is hurting me too much. I don’t like setting you two against each other.”
“You aren’t,” Diego rushed to assure her.
“This is all on us,” Ronan added.
Cassidy shook her head almost violently. “No, it’s not. This is my fault. I guess I kind of went a little crazy after being engaged for so long. But I’m not cut out for stringing two guys along, and there is no way I can choose between you. If I had a clear preference over you, then yes, I could cut the other loose with a lot of regret for taking it so far.”
She lifted her face to them and sincerity as well as misery shone through. “I’m like the donkey standing between two stacks of hay. If I don’t do something now, it will end badly for all of us. As hard as this is, as painful as this is, I know it’s the right thing to do.”
In a fit of near panic, Diego started babbling about why she didn’t need to break up with both of them. He made incoherent promises that he knew he likely couldn’t keep. Although it was all white noise to him. Ronan was doing the same. Like supplicants, they had their hands out to her, begging her to reconsider. She kept shaking her head, the tears falling down her cheeks.
“Please, just stop!” She practically screamed her plea. It shut both men up. “I need you to go now. I’ll lock up after you’re gone,” she said in a quieter voice.
Diego hesitated as did Ronan, both staring back at her and hoping, what? That somehow she’d change her mind even knowing she wouldn’t. Finally, Diego moved to leave. He hesitated a fraction of a second to make sure Ronan was doing the same. When it was clear the other man was following him, Diego trudged out of the room and down the stairs. He was weighed down with misery, and his foolish mind still worked for a solution that didn’t involve giving up Cassidy. There was nothing, of course. She called the shots, and he felt guilty for his role in making her miserable.
When they reached the foyer, Diego stopped, wondering how he was going to get home. For sure, he had no intention of getting into a car with Ronan, even if the fucker wanted to give him a ride, which he undoubtedly didn’t. Ronan must have had a similar notion because, grabbing Diego’s arm, he whirled him against the wall. Caught by surprise, Diego couldn’t stop it.
“What the fuck!” he hissed between clenched teeth. He didn’t want Cassidy to hear this.
Ronan got into his face. “You’re going to have to find your own way home, asshole. I don’t trust myself in your company right now.”
Standing up straight, Diego clenched his fists. The urge to clean Ronan’s clock was almost overwhelming. The way Ronan flexed his neck, he obviously had the same impulses. The last thing the shitty evening needed was to bloody Cassidy’s beautiful marble floor.
“Fine by me.” He started for the front door. “I’ll put in a request to change partners as soon as I get in tomorrow.”
“Feel free, but I may beat you to it.”
And, with that final taunt, they split company. As soon as he left Cassidy’s home, Diego started to shake. Part of it was unspent adrenaline. The other part was something he thought he’d put behind him. Unbearable sadness and regret and a keening need to turn back time and make different choices. Except unlike with the shooting back in New York, he couldn’t muster regret for his actions. Pursuing Cassidy may have been a bad idea. It certainly hadn’t ended well. Being with her, though, had been special. He would carry those memories as happy ones. Knowing that difference existed helped him to calm down and ease his body into a steady state.
Besides, he needed to get his shit together if he was going to manage to get a new partner without his lieutenant marking him down as a complete loser. He would be blamed for the partnership with Ronan not working, of course, he would. He was the new guy, the outsider, while Ronan was a Callaghan.
Shit, and they hadn’t even found O’Malley’s killer. A busted partnership coupled with an unsolved case was not the way to restart a career. Just one more reason to be mad at himself.
Chapter Six
Ronan kept the smile on his aching face as he walked into the station. He’d learned to hide his feelings throughout the long years after his parents’ death. He’d hated the looks of pity thrown his way, and Daire frankly had dour down enough for all the brothers, so Ronan cultivated the carefree whenever he could. The ability served him well this morning.
He’d slept hardly at all, tossing around in his bed, seeing the heartbreaking sadness on Cassidy’s face as she’d reluctantly, yet firmly cut him and Diego off at the knees. Or the balls maybe. His cock had shriveled up at the sight of those damn tears, that’s for sure. Seeing a woman cry, knowing he’d made her cry, was worse than facing down a perp with a gun.
He took a long pull of iced coffee. This morning was going to suck way too much for even caffeine to fix. He had to face Diego and their lieutenant, because he wasn’t going to be able to continue working with the guy. God, it was like being back in high school, moving seats in class to get away from someone who’d pissed you off. He felt stupid, and in hindsight, the whole fiasco was perfectly predictable.
The problem was that the only way to have avoided it was to have given up seeing Cassidy at all after Diego, the dick, had horned in. It would have been the sensible course of action, except when he’d told Diego last night that Cassidy wasn’t merely a conquest, he’d meant it. Right from the start he felt something for her that was different, more than other women.
Now, he’d lost her and the man who was at least fifty percent responsible for it was sitting at his desk, brooding over his own cup of coffee. Ronan put a sneer on his face. Before he could think of a suitable opening line, his phone pinged. Pulling it out, he saw the text. He blinked a few times to make sure he was reading the message right. A string of swears flew out of his mouth as he sped up to Diego.
“We need to get to forensics,” he barked out.
His still-partner looked up at him in surprise. A second later, he was on his feet, following Ronan. “What’s up?”
“Frankie just texted me.” Ronan headed for the elevator without missing a step “There’s trouble with O’Malley’s laptop—netbook—whatever the fuck it is.”
He didn’t say more because he didn’t know any more. They went in silence, although Ronan had put aside any grief over Cassidy in the face of the investigation and figured Diego had done the same. They were professionals, and the job came first. They raced over to Frankie’s station the moment they arrived.
The tech guy looked up at them and blinked behind his glasses. “That was fast.”
“What’s the problem?” Ronan barked out. The computer they’d recovered from O’Malley’s apartment was open, the screen blank.
Frankie gestured toward it. “The thing’s fried.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Diego. “You’ve been digging into the files all week.”
Frankie pushed the bridge of his glasses with his forefinger. “Yeah, I was. Now, I can’t ’cause it’s fried.”
“How did that happen, exactly?” Ronan asked, his patience dwindling.
“T
hat’s a good question. I don’t know.”
“Frankie!” Ronan put some mean in his voice. These tech guys could be maddeningly sanguine about stuff.
“I’m telling you, I don’t know. I left for the weekend, and it was fine. This morning, it’s fried.” He shrugged.
A torrent of Spanish rushed out of Diego’s mouth, no doubt the same words Ronan had said when he’d received the text. “Somebody came in over the weekend and did this deliberately, didn’t they?”
“I can’t say for certain that it was deliberate, but I can say it was thorough. I might be able to retrieve bits of data off it, but it will take a lot of time.”
Ronan turned to Diego. “Son-of-a-bitch, looks like Mahurin not only took the bait, he took it a little too well.”
“Yeah, but I don’t see him doing this. He didn’t strike me as the type to know computers well enough, and it would be strange for him to come to this station on a Sunday night, or any night really. There must be other cops involved,” Diego added quite unnecessarily.
Ronan had already done the math. “When Finn went undercover, it was because Michael said there was a leak in the department. The fucker nearly got Finn killed.”
“You think it’s the same person?” Diego seemed skeptical.
“Who the hell knows? There’s at least one dirty cop around here, that much is certain.” He turned his attention back to Frankie. “Can you get started right away on trying to recover files?”
“I don’t have to.” Before Ronan could bare his teeth, the technician pulled a black plastic box out of his desk drawer. “I backed up all the files on this hard drive.”
Ronan was speechless for a second. Then he broke out into a wide grin. “Frankie, you are the first man I’ve ever considered kissing full on the mouth.”
Double The Risk Page 10
