Snow White Espionage (Barely a Fairy Tale Book 2)

by Maggie Dallen

  Bliss.

  He moved within her, slowly at first and then faster. She arched until her breasts were pressing against his hard chest, his hands pulling her even closer until breathing became difficult and she was panting for air.

  Pulling back, he never ceased his relentless rhythm as he moved his hands up so he could cradle her breasts. He pushed one up and leaned down so he could take her nipple into his mouth and suck.

  A shriek escaped her at the sweet torture and he moved up to capture the sound with his mouth, his tongue claiming the noise just as his hard cock claimed her body.

  She was his.

  The thought was unbidden and would have terrified her if she wasn’t so far gone. But that was exactly how this joining felt. Like he was claiming her for his own.

  And she was declaring him hers.

  The thought was there and then gone as another wave of pleasure swept her up and washed away all rational thought. She rode the wave—hell, she rode him—until the perfect pleasure was too painful to bear. Relief. She needed release.

  They’d twisted and rolled until she was on top and setting the pace. “More,” she panted against his lips. “I need more.”

  He gripped her hips and held her firm as rocked his hips, thrusting inside of her hard and fast until she couldn’t hold on any longer and she went toppling over the edge, with Hunter following in her wake.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Hunter awoke, it only took a second to take in his surroundings and realize what had happened.

  She’d run away.

  His jaded, terrified woman had snuck out in the dark of night. His woman. A slow, unfamiliar smile spread over his face as he stretched and let the words tumble through his waking brain. His woman—he liked the sound of that. It fit. He thought back to last night. She fit. Physically, obviously, she was his perfect match. But more than that. She understood him, clicked with him, in a way his ex never had.

  He knew her. Rolling over he stared at the empty space beside him where Jenna had been quietly sleeping in his arms when he’d drifted off. He knew her well enough to know that she’d needed her space. It wasn’t personal—if anything, it was a good sign.

  She’d felt it too. There was no way his strong, capable Jenna would run away unless she’d been terrified and only emotional intimacy would frighten her. He’d give her the space she needed. He glanced over at his nightstand clock. Well, for another hour, at least. Then she’d be forced to face him at work when they told Donald and Margaret who was responsible for their troubles.

  He ran a hand through his mussed hair as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and got out of bed. As he headed to the bathroom and into the shower, he couldn’t stop thinking about Andrea. He supposed Jenna had been right—her motives weren’t his problem. He’d found the would-be hacker, that was all he was being paid to do.

  But still, the cop in him didn’t like it. It didn’t add up. Why was she breaking into Donald’s office? And if she’d just wanted to hack Margaret’s personal emails, why join the firm as a receptionist? It was possible she’d been sent in as a spy from a rival firm, he supposed.

  His mind flashed on the innocent-looking blonde with the sweet, open smile. No one was that good of an actress, not around him at least. Her naïve sweetness had seemed so genuine. Either his gut was losing its touch or there was something more to this story.

  Maybe today he’d find out. Whether it was his job or not, he wouldn’t be able to let it go until he got to the bottom of this.

  An hour later he ran into a perfectly put together Jenna in the hallway leading to the conference room. Judging by the elegant skirt suit and perfect hair and makeup, one would be hard-pressed to guess that she’d spent half the night naked in his bed, wild and wanton.

  The normally quiet office was eerily silent as most of the employees were home on a Saturday morning. Jenna gave him a short nod of greeting. If her hello was cold, he shook it off. It was a good sign, remember?

  “They’re waiting for us in the conference room,” she said. “Are you ready?”

  He gave her a smile. “To put an end to my Mark Wayne charade and be able to date you in the open? Definitely.”

  He was inordinately pleased to see a flush creeping into her cheeks and a glimmer of laughter in her eyes. So she wasn’t as unaffected as she was trying to seem. He’d known that, but the proof was gratifying.

  “Let’s get this over with then,” she said, leading the way down the hall.

  He couldn’t resist. Leaning forward he whispered in her ear. “I missed you last night.” She didn’t respond but the flush deepened. He understood. For Jenna, there was intimacy and then there was intimacy.

  If he was being honest with himself, he found it hard to believe that he wasn’t the one who was running for the hills. He was the bitter divorce here. It was his heart that had been trampled and battered and up until Jenna he’d thought the damage had been permanent. But after last night, the terror had faded. Oh, there was still some fear but it had largely been replaced by excitement. Hope.

  For the first time in a long time he started to think that he might just have a future in New York City. Maybe he didn’t have to leave everything and everyone he knew behind to start new. He didn’t have to run away in order to get over his problems.

  He could stay there and tackle his issues head on with the help of the strongest woman he knew. And in return, he could do the same for her. It would be a slow road and one probably filled with potholes, but they could do it. They could help each other heal and start again.

  If his mind hadn’t been so caught up in romantic daydreams, he would have noticed a split second sooner that something was wrong with the scene before him. Jenna had come to a halt in the doorway to the conference room, so sudden he almost walked right into her.

  She blocked his view but he saw her spine stiffen and his instincts went on high alert. Gently moving her aside, he entered the room and saw immediately why she’d stopped.

  Her father and Margaret were there…and so was Andrea. The pretty blonde looked up at them with impossibly wide eyes. Her face was tearstained and her eyes puffy and red. He bit back a groan. Oh shit. A pitiful, crying culprit had not been on the agenda this morning.

  “What’s going on here?” Jenna asked.

  Her father and Margaret exchanged a look that made Hunter’s stomach sink. Something was up. It was Margaret who finally spoke and when she did, it was to him. “Could you give us a moment alone, please? This is a family matter.”

  He turned to Jenna, silently asking what she wanted him to do. When she shrugged, he took a step back. “Call me if you need me.”

  She nodded and he headed out the door. He thought about sticking around. Hell, a little part of him actually considered standing by the door to see what he could hear. But that bordered on pathetic.

  Besides, Jenna would fill him in when she was out of there—that much he could count on.

  Jenna faced her father and former stepmother across the conference room table. She was still standing while they sat and somehow that made her feel like she’d been called to the principal’s office. Add a crying young woman to the mix and she was fairly certain she’d somehow time traveled to her teen years. A wave of uncertainty mixed with fear washed over her making her confidence waver. Maybe it was due to the weird tension in the room and the fact that she was clearly out of the loop…or maybe it was an emotional hangover from the night before. Either way, she wished she could get the hell out of there and get her head on straight before having to deal with this “family matter”—whatever the hell that meant.

  “What’s she doing here?” She nodded toward Andrea. Was it rude to talk about her like she wasn’t in the room? Sure. But this woman was the source of all their problems—the reason she’d been drawn into the firm’s mess in the first place.

  It was hard to hold onto that anger when the other woman raised her head and looked up at her with tear-filled blue eyes.


  Oh crap. She never had been any good with crying women. She turned to her father instead. “What’s this about?”

  Her father gestured to the seat across from them and she sank into it slowly.

  “What’s Andrea doing here? Hunter and I called you here so we could tell you…something.”

  For some reason, Jenna couldn’t bring herself to point the finger at the pathetic, trembling mess of a receptionist.

  Shifting closer to Andrea to awkwardly pat her on the back, Margaret said, “Andrea here has beaten you to the punch, I’m afraid. She’s come forward as our little troublemaker.”

  Our little troublemaker? What the hell? Andrea’s face turned a pretty shade of pink and she kept her gaze glued on the conference room table as if she was reading something terribly important in its faux wood pattern.

  After several beats, Jenna couldn’t take it anymore. “All right, what am I missing?”

  Margaret and her father turned to Andrea, who took a deep breath and released it on a sigh. Finally she raised her head to meet Jenna’s gaze. “Spencer told me that you spoke to him yesterday.”

  Aha. Well that answered the question of how she’d known she’d been caught. Not too surprising, considering Spencer had a framed photo of her in his apartment.

  “I wanted to tell them first,” she continued. “I needed to explain.”

  Margaret and her father were still watching the receptionist with uncharacteristic concern. Sympathy, even. Jenna’s patience snapped. “Explain what? That you broke into my father’s office, hacked Margaret’s emails, and followed me to my home?” The last piece is what really bothered her the most. Leaning across the table, she ignored the tears and faced Andrea like she would a hostile witness. “What was that about, anyway? I can see what you might have to gain with Margaret and my father—I’m sure a lot of competitors would pay good money for insider information. But why follow me? What did I have to do with any of this?”

  Her father and Margaret exchanged an unreadable look before turning to Andrea. “You followed Jenna to her home?” Her father’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Certainly softer and kinder than any tone he ever used with her.

  Andrea bit her lip as she met his gaze. “I’m sorry, I just…I realized she was my sister and I wanted to get to know her.”

  The words sister brought Jenna’s brain waves to a screeching halt. She managed to sputter, “Say what now?” before her mind went blank.

  Margaret never took her attention from Andrea. “I think you’d better start at the beginning, Andie.”

  Andie? What had happened to Andrea?

  Andie or Andrea—or whatever her name was—turned to face Jenna with a resigned look. “To make a long story short—I grew up in the foster system.”

  “Okay.” That was the best Jenna could manage. But really, she hadn’t expected to be hearing someone’s life story this morning and she certainly hadn’t been planning on finding out that she had a sister…if that was even the truth.

  “My adoption papers were sealed but with the help of a friend, I did some digging and found out that Margaret is my birth mother.” For someone who’d just recently been crying, Andrea’s tone was calm.

  Margaret, on the other hand, looked like she might start bawling at any moment and seeing that cold bitch emotional was disconcerting. Hell, it was terrifying.

  “Is that true?”

  Margaret didn’t look at her. Her eyes seemed fixed on Andrea. “It’s true that I gave a baby up for adoption almost thirty years ago. I never knew what happened to her. I was told she was placed in a good home, I was told—” Margaret’s voice broke and the unthinkable happened. Donald reached a hand out, past Andrea, and patted Margaret’s shoulder. So what, they were friends now?

  “I just wanted to see who my mother was and figure out who was the father.” Andrea’s eyes flicked from Margaret to Donald before settling on her hands. Jenna heard the truth in the girl’s voice but she would bet good money that there was more to this story. But that would have to wait, because for now, her mind had started making a distinct buzzing noise as all the pieces fell into place.

  Her father was this woman’s father? No, it couldn’t be. But one look at her father’s drawn features and tense posture told her that it was true. Or a possibility, at least.

  He met her gaze and she raised her brows, unable to form words.

  With a slow nod, he said, “I didn’t know.”

  She looked back at Margaret who was staring at the conference room just like Andrea—her daughter. “When Donald and I first got together, we were in law school.”

  Jenna knew that much. Margaret was the great on-again off-again love of her father’s life.

  Margaret’s voice grew alarmingly high-pitched. Oh crap, she couldn’t handle it if another woman burst into tears right now.

  “Donald broke up with me before I had a chance to tell him about the baby.” She sniffled and shot Donald an accusatory glance, presumably for breaking up with her almost thirty years ago.

  “I wasn’t ready to have a child. I had a career that was just getting underway,” Margaret continued, looking everywhere but at her birth daughter, Jenna noted. Finally, she brought her gaze to her daughter and that was when the waterworks truly started. “I’m so sorry. They told me you’d be in a good home, they told me—”

  She broke off with a sob and Andrea patted her hand comfortingly. For the first time, Jenna realized that the other woman looked young but was older than her. Though not by much. She did a quick calculation of when her father graduated law school, when he married her mother… Hell, this woman couldn’t be much more than a year older than her.

  Her father’s face was still remarkably impassive—a sure sign that his brain was working a mile a minute. She could only imagine how he was feeling right now. Hell, she could barely process her own emotions.

  When she turned her attention back to Andrea, she found that she had been watching her warily.

  She forced a small smile. “Nice to meet you, sis.”

  Jenna didn’t typically drink in the morning, except for the occasional mimosa brunch with Mack, and never at the office. But this seemed like the perfect situation to break that rule.

  Andrea sat across from her. Andie. She’d told Jenna she preferred to go by Andie.

  After Jenna had been fully caught up to speed it had become readily apparent that the “grown-ups,” so to speak, needed some time alone. The tension between Margaret and Donald had been so intense that with one shared look with her new half-sister, she knew they were both on the same page.

  She’d stood up abruptly and announced that she’d like some time alone with her sister to get to know one another and had gotten looks of relief all around, but none more grateful than Andrea’s.

  And now her new sister looked ready to cry all over again with gratitude as she accepted the tumbler glass filled with whiskey. At her questioning look, Jenna explained. “Whoever had this office before me left their stash. My guess? One of your illustrious parents fired him and had him escorted out too quickly for them to pack it up.”

  “My parents.” Andie’s voice sounded hollow as she echoed that phrase. She gave Jenna a half-hearted smile. “Sorry, I guess I’m still adjusting to all this. I’ve never heard anyone else refer to them as my parents, it threw me for a loop.”

  “You?” Jenna gave a short laugh. “You’ve at least had some time to get used to the idea. When did you find out about Margaret?”

  “A few months ago.”

  “Spencer?” Jenna had guessed the connection but had it confirmed when Andie’s blush deepened.

  “This isn’t his fault, I swear. He’s an old friend—we were in the same foster family for a while back in the day. He helped me get access to the sealed records, but that’s it, I swear. He had no idea what I was doing here.”

  Jenna nodded. “I believe you. But he’s why you’re here this morning, right?”

  Andie nodded. “He called me last night, after
you and Hunter left his place. He told me it was just a matter of time before you told your father—our father—about what I’d been doing here.” She shrugged and gave Jenna a strained smile. “Sorry to ruin your moment but that just wasn’t how I wanted them to find out, you know? I needed to be the one to tell them…to explain.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” Jenna sat in silence for a moment trying to process everything she’d heard. “So what were you doing here? Aside from being a receptionist, I mean. What were you hoping to find?”

  Andie shrugged and her soft laugh bordered on hysterical. “I don’t know. It was a ridiculous plan. I just…” Again, she shrugged as she threw her hands up in the air as if gestures might suffice in lieu of words. “I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I got this information that this woman—this stranger—was my mother. But I had no clue if she was a good person, or if she ever wanted to get to know the baby she gave up. For all I knew, she’d forgotten all about me.”

  Jenna remained quiet. What could she say? She might have grown up in a dysfunctional home with a deceased mother but she still knew who her parents were. “So you wanted to get to know her.”

  Andie nodded. “And I was curious about my father. I thought maybe if I could get access to her private information I might be able to dig a bit. Get his name too.”

  “So you didn’t suspect that it might be my dad?”

  She shook her head. “Not at first. Not until after I started working here.” Andie’s eyes widened. “Do you have any idea how much people gossip in this office? Margaret and your father are a hot topic.”

  Jenna let out a snort. “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah.” Andie tossed her hair back and gave a real smile and for the first time Jenna saw the family resemblance. Holy shit.

  Andie continued on, unaware that Jenna’s mind had just been blown. “I swear, Margaret and Donald are like the Ross and Rachel of this office.”

  Jenna laughed. “Get out.”