Jenna laughed. “Stalkers don’t typically bring food.” Her gaze dropped to the paper bag he was holding, the neck of a wine bottle protruding from its top. “Or wine.”
“Good point,” he said. “I thought you could do with a drink, but I see you’re busy. I should have called.” He started down the stoop.
“Don’t be silly,” Kate said. “I was going to take Lily for ice cream. And my sister could most definitely do with a glass of wine.”
Jenna wanted to die of embarrassment. “My god, Kate…”
Alex laughed. “It’s quite all right. I have two brothers. I know well their unique brand of humiliation.”
“You're not going to be so stubborn as to deny Lily ice cream, are you?” Kate asked.
“I suppose that wouldn’t do,” Jenna said.
“Then we’ll see you in a bit,” Kate said, leading Lily away from the house.
Jenna watched them go, then turned her eyes back to Alex. “Did someone say wine?”
He held up the bag. “That would be me.”
She suppressed a smile and met him at the door, inadvertently brushing up against him as she unlocked the door. There was no spark, no jolt of electricity, just a solid and comforting presence.
“Your daughter looks like you,” Alex said as he stepped into the entry.
She has her father’s eyes.
“She’s lovely,” he added.
Jenna felt a moment’s alarm. Was Alex going to make a pass at her? She hoped not. She liked him, but there was no room in her psyche — in her heart or soul — for anyone but Farrell right now. She needed time to get him out of her system again before she entertained the thought of being with someone new.
“Thank you,” she said, taking his coat. “Let’s get some glasses for that wine.”
“How is your mother holding up?” he asked as he followed her to the kitchen.
“My mother is an alcoholic.” She registered the surprise on his face and wondered if the revelation had been a mistake. But no. She’d spent her whole life trying to keep her mother’s secret — and she still had to keep it from Lily. Jenna wasn’t going to cover for her if she didn’t have to. “She has been for as long as I can remember.”
“I'm sorry,” Alex said. He took the corkscrew gently from her hand. Was the brush of his fingertips against hers an accident? He worked the cork while he spoke. “That must have been very difficult for you and your sister.”
“It was.” She felt a kind of lightening with the admission. It had been hard, but it had been hard for so long that it wasn’t something she or Kate ever said out loud. There was no point talking about it. It simply was. Apparently confession really was good for the soul. “We spent a lot of our childhood cleaning up after her, trying to hold things together.”
He nodded, pouring the wine. “Must have been difficult for your father, too.”
She drew in a breath against the pain that came with the statement. “It was. Although I suppose I feel guilty now. Kate and I were always so worried about our own trouble with it. We weren’t very supportive.”
Alex handed her one of the glasses. “I would be surprised if he expected that from you.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But now that he’s gone, I wish I’d been there for him anyway.”
“I think he knows that now, wherever he is.”
She smiled a little. “Are you saying you believe in an afterlife?”
He shrugged a little. “I have no idea, but I like to think we go on somehow, although I suppose it might be wishful thinking.”
“It would be nice to know that there’s a chance for forgiveness even after someone’s gone,” she said softly.
He tipped his glasses to hers. “To forgiveness. Of ourselves and others.”
She smiled and took a drink. “Let’s sit.”
They settled on the sofa, and she surveyed him over the rim of her glass. He was a good looking man. A man with presence. She willed herself to feel something for him. Even something simple like attraction. She made light of Kate’s teasing, but five years really was a long time to go without a shag. She should be horny, at the very least.
Farrell’s body behind hers, so close she could have turned and been in his arms.
The touch of his lips to her skin, like the warmth of the sun after a long, cold winter.
His fingers inside her, filling the void of his absence.
There was no doubt that she’d been worked up in Farrell’s office. So why, sitting across from the extremely handsome and interesting Alexander Petrov, could she summon nothing but friendship?
“Do you have plans to stay in London?” Alex asked.
She shook her head. “I need to get back to New York soon.”
“Work?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” She fell back on the easy explanation for what had happened to her last job. “The company I was working for went under. I’m afraid I’m between jobs at the moment.”
“Then why the rush?” he asked. “I could put a word in for you at the Institute. I’m sure there’s something that would fit the bill.”
“Thank you, but I couldn’t. I need to…” She took a deep breath. “I really need to get back. It’s not good for me to be here.”
“May I ask why?” His voice was soft and kind.
Because Farrell Black is too close. Because I want him all over again when wanting him is no good. Because he makes me forget all the reasons I left in the first place.
She tried to smile. “Too many memories.”
“Ah.” He nodded, took a drink of his wine. “Well, I’d like to see you while you’re here. If that’s all right.”
She chose her words carefully. “I’d like that…”
“But?” he prompted.
She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “But I’m not in a place to become involved with anyone at the moment, so we would have to be strictly friends.”
He didn’t say anything at first, and she wondered if maybe she’d overshot, if maybe she’d misread the signals and he wasn’t interested in her at all beyond doing right by her father.
“I can’t say I’m happy about that,” he finally said. “I like you, Jenna Carver. You’re not like most of the women I meet.”
“How so?”
He seemed to consider his words. “You’re very… unaffected.”
She laughed. “Is that a nice way of saying boring? Plain?”
He met her eyes. “God, no. In fact, you’re rather fascinating. Not to mention ravishing. I simply like how yourself you are. It’s uncommon in this day and age.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Nevertheless,” he continued, “I accept your terms of friendship. I’d like to get to know you, and one never knows what the future holds.”
“That’s true.” Even as she said it she knew forgetting Farrell was a pipe dream. The most she could hope for was to lock him deep inside a corner of her heart, someplace that would leave a little room for someone else.
“Friends then?” he asked.
She smiled. “Friends.”
They clicked glasses again and spent another fifteen minutes chatting about this and that before he stood to leave. She walked him to the door and waited as he put on his coat.
“Thank you for the wine,” she said. “And the company.”
“I should be thanking you,” he said. “I rarely have an excuse to leave the office these days.”
“All work and no play…”
He grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
He bent to kiss her cheek. It was perfectly chaste, purely platonic. “Goodbye, friend.”
“Goodbye.”
She chided herself for the missed opportunity as she watched him walk to his car.
What are you doing, you fool?
14
Farrell opened the door to the pub and looked around. When he spotted the man he was looking for, he headed for the back of the room.
“
I suppose they’re letting just anybody in this place now,” he said, sliding into the shadowed booth.
The man surveyed him coldly. “Looks that way.”
They stared at each other silently for a few seconds before breaking out into grins. Adam Denman reached across the table. “Thanks for coming.”
Farrell shook the proffered hand, then waved away the thanks. “Don’t be a plonker. It’s nice to see you.”
Adam pushed a pint across the table with a smile. “You, too.”
Adam Denman was his oldest friend. The only friend he’d kept from the days before he’d joined the Syndicate, back when he was just a lonely kid trying to ease the pain of his mother’s death and his father’s absence. They'd remained friends even as Adam climbed the ranks of British government and Farrell turned to a life of crime. They had an implicit agreement not to talk business where it would create conflicting interests. The limitation had done nothing to dampen their friendship over the years.
Farrell took a drink of the beer. “How are things?”
“Things are good,” Adam said. “Got moved up to Senior Aid.”
“To Morse?”
Adam nodded.
Farrell let out a low, impressed whistle. “Nice.”
“It’s a big opportunity,” Adam said. “Rumor is Morse is going to take a run at the top job.”
Farrell stopped mid-drink. “Prime Minister?”
Adam’s grin widened. “You didn’t hear it from me.”
“That’s big,” Farrell said. “Congratulations.”
Bernard Morse was an up-and-comer in Parliament. A man young enough to have his picture in the gossip columns with a series of beautiful women and mature enough to garner the respect of Parliament’s more conservative establishment. Adam had gotten in on the ground floor with Morse, landing a coveted internship during university that had turned into a full time position when Morse had been a popular second-year Lord.
“Thank you.” Adam took a drink of his beer. “What’s new with you?”
Farrell turned the pint in his hand, surveyed the amber liquid. Adam was one of the only people he could talk to about Jenna, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“I saw Jenna.”
Adam leaned back in the booth. “Carver?”
“The one and only.”
“How did that come about?” Adam asked.
“Her father passed away. I went to the funeral.”
Adam shook his head, cursed under his breath. “Of course you did.”
“I thought it was the right thing to do,” Farrell said.
“Bullshit.”
Anyone else might be risking his life calling Farrell out. Now he could only nod in agreement. “And then she came to the club to ask me a favor.”
Adam covered his eyes with his hands, then let out a sharp bark of a laugh. “Of course, she did. The woman leaves you with a bloody letter and then shows up five years later asking for a favor. Brilliant. I hope it was a good one.”
“It was strange actually.”
“Strange how?”
“Her father was mugged,” Farrell explained. “When the police returned his belongings, she found his passport and a key card hidden in his coat.”
“And?”
“And she wants me to find out where the key card originated, how long he was abroad,” Farrell said.
Adam shook his head. “Sounds like an excuse to see you.”
“I don’t think so.” He said it even though he’d wondered the same thing before quickly shutting down the possibility. She’d left him five years ago, and she’d left him again after their moment in his office. A moment that had brought back all the love and desire he’d once felt for her. His cock got hard when he thought about how it had felt to plunge his fingers into her moist heat. She’d been dripping for him, her body wanting and ready.
But she’d still left. And that said all he needed to know.
Adam gave a shrug of his big shoulders. “Her old man was probably having an affair, sneaking off to meet the mistress.”
Farrell was glad to be moving off the subject of Jenna and onto her father. “That’s what I thought at first, too,” Farrell said.
“At first?” Adam prodded.
“The key card’s not from a hotel. It belongs to a bank.”
Adam was visibly surprised. “Which one?”
“Some bank in Madrid,” Farrell said. “Which is even stranger. John Carver was a janitor at the Stafford Institute. Had been for thirty years. He wasn’t exactly flush.”
Adam sat back in the booth. “What do you make of it?”
“I don’t know,” Farrell said. “He wasn’t the type of guy to do anything illegal.”
“Could he have been stashing family valuables?” Adam suggested.
“In Madrid?” Farrell continued before Adam could say anything. “Jenna’s mum is an alcoholic. A serious one. John stood by her, took care of her. I don’t see him traveling out of the country to stash a family heirloom when he could have done it right here in London.”
“Do you have a theory?” Adam asked, drumming his fingers on the table.
“I wish I did,” Farrell muttered.
“Well, it’s not your problem,” Adam said. “You did the favor. Give Jenna the information and let it go.”
Farrell nodded, taking another drink from his pint.
Adam leaned forward. “You are going to let this go, aren’t you, mate? Because we both know Jenna Carver is no good for you. Don’t give her another chance to break you.”
If it had been anyone but Adam, Farrell would have bristled at the implication that anyone could break him. But Adam had been there in the days following Jenna’s disappearance. He had watched Farrell engage in street fights, allowing himself to become bloodied and beaten just to feel something, anything, besides the pain of her abandonment.
“I’ll never let anyone get that close again,” Farrell said, hardening his voice and his resolve. “But I am curious.”
Adam shook his head. “I’m telling you, she’s trouble. Let her go.”
He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like it didn’t kill Farrell to think of living his life without her. Like he’d ever stopped loving her.
15
Jenna dropped Lily off at Mrs. Hodges' and made her way to Farrell’s neighborhood in Kate’s car. She’d expected to meet him at the club, had been both surprised and terrified when he said he’d rather talk at the loft.
Surprised because she didn’t think he’d want her there.
Terrified because she didn’t know what would happen between them if they were truly alone.
But he said he had information about the key card, and she didn’t want to make a fuss about their meeting place. Better for him to think it didn’t matter to her one way or another. That she was so over him that being alone together was no temptation at all.
Of course, her body had given her away the last time they’d been together. She hadn’t been able to control the hardening of her nipples as he’d kissed his way up her neck. Hadn’t been able to help the pooling of desire between her legs as he’d ground his cock into her ass.
Which was all the more reason to act unaffected now.
She pulled up outside the loft and peered up at the familiar building. She wasn’t surprised he lived at the same address. He’d never been motivated by things. Had always been comfortable living simply. Still, according to Kate, Farrell was very wealthy now. Surely there was something he enjoyed spending money on.
She checked her face and hair in the rearview mirror, then cursed herself. It didn’t matter how she looked. She was here to get the information about the key card. That was it.
She buzzed the intercom at the new metal door. It was a subtle upgrade but it told her that Farrell had become increasingly concerned about his own security. That while he still didn’t covet nice things, his work had become dangerous enough to require protective measures beyond the weapon he usually carried, t
he ability to kill someone with his bare hands, and the contingent of cold-eyed men who were more than happy to kill on his behalf.
It was proof that she’d made the right decision. Is that what she wanted for Lily? To be under lock and key? To live in a home with an armored door because she was Farrell’s daughter?
She waited for the door to buzz, then reached for the handle and stepped inside. The entry was exactly the same, the staircase still covered in peeling blue paint, and she started up the first set of stairs with her heart racing. It had nothing to do with the physical exertion of climbing four sets of stairs to Farrell’s loft. It was him. The fact that he was here. That he was close. That there would be nothing to keep them apart except her own willpower, notoriously weak when it concerned Farrell Black.
But this would be different. She was a grown woman now, not a weak-willed girl straight out of college. She was a mother, and she would put her child first, whatever the cost.
She reached the landing and stopped at another metal door. It seemed like only yesterday that she’d stood on this threshold with Farrell’s key in hand and a positive pregnancy test in her pocket. Who could have predicted all that had changed since then?
Who could have predicted all that had stayed the same?
She knocked before she could change her mind. She needed to know what had been going on with her father so she could go back to New York, and Farrell was the only one who stood a chance of finding the answers.
He opened the door, and she drew in a deep breath, his beauty like a knife through her ribs. His feet were bare, and he was wearing torn, faded jeans low on his hips. They were loose, but not so loose that she couldn’t make out the bulge between his legs. Not so loose that she couldn’t remember the length and width of his cock, the way it had stretched her to the limit, filling her so completely she was sure she didn’t have any more room for him until he went deeper, harder.
His chest was bare, the sculpted peaks and ridges of his pecs leading to the corded muscle of his abs. The prominent “V” that led under the waistband of his jeans pulled her gaze downward, dared her to follow it to its conclusion, made her fingers itch to lay her palm against the hard stomach and slide it into his jeans. To take him, hard and pulsing, in her hand.
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