by Lexi Blake
Sean sighed and surveyed the damage. Jake had a point. “Damn it, Jake, I didn’t think about it.”
Jake shook his head as he studied Adam’s eye. “No, but I can see you’re not doing a lot of thinking at all, Sean. Maybe you should take a step back. It wouldn’t be strange at all for Sean Johansson to get called back to corporate. It might give you both a little breathing room.”
Sean wasn’t going anywhere, but it was easier to just nod and mumble something about Grace’s fridge. Jake shoved Adam toward the kitchen.
“He’s not my sergeant anymore. I don’t have to follow his orders. I got kicked out of the fucking army, remember?” Adam complained as he walked out.
Jake’s voice was low and soothing. “I know, buddy. I know. Let’s get your eye fixed up.”
The duo shuffled off, and Sean was left with a strange sense of loneliness. Jake and Adam had each other’s back, and had for many years. Sean wasn’t alone, per se. He had his family, but no one who was always on his side, and now he felt that oneness. If someone punched him in the face, no one was going to take care of him. His brother would tell him he deserved it and send him on his way. Grace wouldn’t, though. Grace would probably try to baby him. If he’d been punched, she would have an ice pack in hand and stand there cooing over him trying to make him feel better.
Sean picked up Grace’s laptop and placed it back in her case. He crossed the living room to the foyer and put it back where she kept it, ready for her to dash out the door tomorrow. He’d make her think about going in late or maybe taking the day off. He liked the idea of just keeping her out of the office. He’d make her French toast and sausage. He’d cuddle with her and take a long hot shower for two and make love to her again. It would be nice to play hooky. They could shut off the cell phones and pretend the outside world didn’t exist.
A piece of paper slipped out of the briefcase and fell to the tiled floor. Sean knelt down to pick it up. His blood went cold. He recognized the paper. It came from the personalized stationary Matt Wright kept on his desk. Grace had shoved a pad of that stationary in Wright’s desk as Sean had walked in the office. This note wasn’t written in Grace’s handwriting. A strong, clean masculine style was on the note. How was Grace connected to this damn address? It was innocent. It had to be. It was something he would have to figure out later. He quickly took a picture of the note with its address and account numbers of some kind. He sent the photo in an e-mail to Eve.
A cell phone trilled, and Sean heard Jake talking quietly.
“Yeah, Tag, he’s here. Hold on, I’ll let you talk to him.”
Sean met Jake as he was walking out of the kitchen. Sean had turned his cell phone off before he’d joined Grace in the bedroom. He hadn’t wanted any distractions, but now he got to deal with big brother’s lecture. Jake shook his head as he handed Sean the phone. Adam sat at Grace’s bar, a bag of frozen peas over his left eye. In the course of forty-eight hours, Sean had punched both Liam and Adam. He really had to stop beating the shit out of his teammates. It was becoming a habit.
“Yeah, what’s up?” The only way to deal with Ian was to brazen his way through it.
“I need you to get your ass down here, Sean.”
Big brother sounded dead serious. He was in full-on CO mode, and Sean had been in the service long enough that a bit of obedience was ingrained. “Yes, sir.” But only a bit. “I mean no. Ian, just tell me what you need. I can’t leave right now. I had to give Grace a little sleeping pill. I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave her alone.”
His brother’s low growl pulsed into his ear. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You get your ass into Dallas. I want you standing at my desk in an hour. That is an order, Sean. Leave Jake behind if you can’t stand the thought of Sleeping Beauty being left alone.”
“Fine.” Sean knew when his brother had become an immovable object. If he didn’t get out to the office, Ian would come after him, and he couldn’t risk that. He would go to the office, take his lecture and be back to Grace long before she woke up. She would be a bit foggy in the morning, but he could blame the wine. It would be an excellent excuse to keep her away from the office. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
He left Jake and Adam in Grace’s kitchen with express orders to make sure she was safe. He didn’t feel right about leaving her unprotected. He’d been the one to put the drug in her system. He wouldn’t leave her alone. Sean hopped into his borrowed Benz and was glad he knew his way to the office with his eyes closed. He was fully on auto-pilot, his world narrowed down to one thing and one thing only—Grace Hawthorne. For the first time in his thirty-two years, he was in love. There was no question in his brain about it now. He loved Grace Hawthorne, and there was a ridiculous part of him that wanted to shout it to the world. He’d found his other half. He loved to talk to her. He adored how kind she was and how quick she was with a comeback. And God, he loved the way she submitted to him in bed.
He’d tried to hold himself apart, but he just couldn’t. He wanted her too much.
He thought about the note in her briefcase. Ian would make a big deal of it. Ian was a paranoid asshole. Sean loved his brother, but he was practical when it came to him. Ian had been through a lot. He didn’t trust anyone he didn’t have twenty-four/seven control over or a blood connection to. Ian held himself apart from everyone on the team. Ian was all about the job in a way Sean had never been.
Sean got on 183 driving east toward the building in downtown Dallas that housed McKay/Taggart. This was his last job. He knew it deep down. After this job was done, he was going after what he really wanted. He was going to culinary school. Everyone would laugh, but it was a goal of his. Grace wouldn’t laugh. Grace would support him. Grace would kick his ass when the going got tough and pick him up when he wanted to quit. Grace would be his taster, his cheerleader, his partner, his biggest fan. Grace would be the reason he reached for what he wanted. And what did he want? He wanted to cook, and he wanted a family with Grace. He wanted that stupid ass white picket fence and a couple of kids.
He wanted everything.
It was all too soon that he was pulling into the parking garage and sliding out of the Benz. He hoped Grace wasn’t used to the Benz. His real car was a classic 1972 Scout. He would trade it in for a minivan if she wanted him to. Well, maybe not trade it in, but he would buy a minivan if that was what she wanted.
The elevator ride to the fifteenth floor happened in the blink of an eye.
“Hey, Sean. How are you?” Eve stood waiting in front of the reception desk, her arms crossed over her chest. She was wearing jeans and a button down shirt, a sure sign that she’d been called in from home. Eve usually dressed to the nines for work. She was all about the power suit.
Eve standing there waiting for him put him on high alert. Eve was the PhD on the team. She was the freaking shrink. Sean stared at her, utterly wary of what she was about to say. “I don’t know how I’m doing. Why don’t you tell me?”
Her smile lit up the room. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail that made her look years younger than the thirty-eight she actually was. “Oh, dummy, I am so happy for you.” She threw herself into his arms. Sean found himself hugging her despite his confusion. “Grace is lovely.”
“I think so.” He pulled back. It looked like he’d seriously fucked up. Everyone knew he was head over heels for Grace. He’d need to talk his way out of this and fast. “What does the big guy want?”
She frowned and shook her head. Sean caught sight of the scar that started just under her right ear. It was a large pale scar from a knife Sean knew had to have been huge. He’d only seen it once. That scar ran a good length of her torso, a gift from the only time the former FBI profiler had really fucked up. Now Eve shifted self-consciously and tucked the collar of her shirt close to her neck. “You need to talk to him. I think he’s wrong, but he does have a point. Whatever happens, don’t give up on Grace. She’s not what he thinks.”
Ian stepped into
the lobby. His huge presence filled up the room in a way no one else’s could. Ian put his hands on his hips, every muscle in his body tense and shouting to Sean that he was in trouble. “My office, now.”
Without waiting to see if he was being obeyed, Ian turned on his heels and marched back down the hallway.
Sean felt like he was twelve again and getting called out by his brother/substitute father. He followed Ian down the long hallway. Growing up, his mother had conceded control of the house to Ian after their father had fled. Ian had been a teen, but he’d never faltered. He’d managed a job, high school, and helping his younger brother with homework without ever uttering a single complaint. Ian had been the rock they’d clung to. Ian had been the mountain he could never, ever climb.
Sean entered Ian’s perfectly kept office with his spectacular view of the Dallas skyline. It was a power office that screamed out the owner’s success. “What’s this about?”
Ian sank to his chair. His big hands were on the top of his desk clenched into fists. He took a deep breath before he began his assault. “You love her? You fucking love her? She is a suspected terrorist, and you spend your time telling her how much you love her?”
Sean felt every muscle in his body go tight as though Ian were pounding him with his fists rather than mere words. “She’s not a terrorist. This is completely ridiculous. She’s a secretary. God, Ian, if you spent two seconds with her you would see it.”
It was obvious to Sean that Ian didn’t see past his file folder. He’d made his decision. “She’s in this up to her neck. You can’t expect me to leave you in after what you did tonight.”
Sean’s blood went cold. While he didn’t believe that Grace was involved, he was damn sure that something was going on with her boss. “You can’t take me out. She’s in danger. I won’t leave her.”
“You are coming in. She is the fucking suspect, and you told her you love her. You are compromised in every way possible. You’re coming in, and you won’t see her again until this mission is over. If she isn’t in jail or some fucking foreign country being questioned by the Agency, then feel free to take her to the movies and share a bag of popcorn.”
Sean wasn’t even going to argue with his brother’s distaste for normal dating rituals. Ian had his kinks, and Sean wasn’t going there. Sean tried another tactic. “Have you ever heard of lying? I told the lady what she wanted to hear. She’ll comply with what I say. She’s a sub, Ian. Imagine that bit of luck. She’s a sub, and she’s accepted me as her Dom. I put a collar on her this afternoon. She’ll do what I tell her to do.”
She wouldn’t. Grace would fight him every inch of the way if she thought he was wrong, but Ian didn’t need to know that. If Ian thought she was compliant, maybe he would leave them alone.
Ian studied him. “Bullshit.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Ian’s arms crossed over his chest like a shield. “It means you’re coming in.”
He felt his teeth grinding together and that need to punch someone rising again. “I am not coming in.”
Ian took a long breath. He sat back in his chair, and his hands came up to his chest, steepling together as he regarded his brother. Sean could see plainly that Ian was trying to decide the best way to “deal” with him. Sean was a problem to be solved, and Ian’s brilliant brain would come up with a way to fix him. Ian had obviously decided that intimidation wouldn’t work, so he was changing tactics.
“Could you be logical for one minute, Sean?”
Not where Grace was concerned. Logic didn’t have a place where Grace was concerned. “Of course.”
“Think about what you’ve been doing, Sean. Have you conducted yourself in a professional manner?”
Ah, the voice of reason. Well, he could be reasonable, too. “If you’re talking about sleeping with Grace, we all knew that was probably going to happen. You sent me in because you wanted me to get close to her. Well, I got close. I couldn’t possibly get much closer. I brought you some info we wouldn’t have gotten if I hadn’t been sleeping with her. Did you get the picture of the note I found? The one with the address? You wouldn’t have touched that laptop of hers tonight if I hadn’t made it happen.”
Ian didn’t look particularly convinced. “You gave me one address. It’s hardly a revelation. I’ll send Liam to check it out tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother. I want to see it for myself. There was a series of numbers on it, too.”
Ian flipped open his computer. He quickly found what he was looking for. His blue eyes stared at the screen for a second. “They are account numbers. Cayman numbers, I suspect. Where did this come from?”
Why had he mentioned that? There was nothing else to do but tell him the truth. “I found it in Grace’s briefcase.”
Ian’s fingers ran roughly through his long blond hair. Normally it was pulled back in a queue, but tonight it was around his shoulders. Sean often thought his brother had let his hair get long for one reason and one reason only—to distance himself from the soldier he used to be. “So let me get this straight. Grace controls the money at Wright Temps.”
“Sort of. She writes out the checks. She’s not the accountant.”
That single eyebrow arched, and Sean got the feeling he was being herded. “According to Jake, accounting reports to her. She writes the checks, and she’s walking around with a bunch of account numbers for banks in the Cayman Islands. Your girl is laundering money, Sean.”
“You don’t know that. Besides, the fact that accounting reports to her is just for show. As far as I can tell, she simply sends that on to Matt. She’s just the gateway to the boss.” But even he was starting to think now.
Ian’s fists slapped against his desk and he stood, his tense body a testament to his rapidly declining patience. “How naïve are you?”
“Hey, he’s not naïve, he’s just studying all the angles like you taught him to.” Eve stood in the doorway. She leaned against the door frame, her lovely face the only calm thing in the room.
Ian frowned at her. “I didn’t request your presence at this meeting. I merely called you in to discuss your profile of Grace.”
“Understood, Ian, but you’ll be grateful for my meddling when you don’t completely alienate your brother.” Eve sighed as she looked at them. “Sean, Ian is worried about this case. There are several things that don’t add up, and he would rather you came in. That sixth sense of his is working overtime.”
Ian’s instincts tended to be impeccable. He had an eerie habit of knowing when things were going bad and being able to dodge the bullets that came his way. It was what had made him the Army’s go-to-guy for tough ops, and the nation’s intelligence gatherers still kept him on their speed-dials. When Ian said something was up, Sean listened. “What’s wrong, bro?”
His face opened slightly as he put a hand on a stack of file folders. Sean had the feeling he’d been pouring over them all night. “I don’t know. Some things don’t add up. Why is an ecoterrorist laundering money? Eve’s profile reads like a biography of the Unabomber, so why is he hanging out with corporate types? I just don’t like it. Something else is going on, and I don’t trust Black.”
Sean didn’t either. He never trusted anyone who came out of Langley. Unfortunately, Mr. Black was the client. Ian seemed calmer now that they were talking about the case again, rather than Sean’s involvement with Grace. The situation was deflating. “Have we rechecked all the information we got from Black?”
“Of course, and it all checks out. But you know that’s meaningless, too. If Black wants to hide something, he has the resources to do it. When Adam gets a minute or two, he’s going to run a deep trace. He’s going to look for any trace of someone tampering with Patrick Wright’s records. Of course, that is if I can get him to stop talking about how amazing Grace Hawthorne is.”
Sean groaned inwardly because he knew exactly where Ian was going. He was not the most trusting of souls. “She’s not some Mata Hari, Ian. She’s not trying to s
educe your team.”
Ian’s mouth became a stubborn, flat line. “That’s not what it looks like from where I’m standing. I’m just glad Jake seems to be able to retain his common sense around the woman.”
Sean could be stubborn, too. “The only way to figure this out is to stay close to Wright. The way to stay close to Wright is by staying close to Grace. I’m the closest one to Grace. I’m in the best position to watch her.”
Ian turned to Eve. “Tell me, Eve, if I leave Sean in, will he be able to behave in a professional manner?”
“Of course.” There was no hesitation in Eve’s manner. Sean relaxed slightly. At least he had someone on his side.
But Ian wasn’t done. “Around Grace? Will he be able to make logical judgments concerning his own safety and the safety of the members of his team when weighed against the welfare of Grace Hawthorne?”
Eve’s shoulders slumped forward slightly, and Sean knew he had just lost the battle. “No. He meant what he said. He’s in love with her. You should pull him.”
Ian nodded slightly. “Jake is erasing all traces of him at that woman’s house even as we speak.”
“Fuck you, Ian.” Sean felt his face go stubborn, his jaw clenching, his eyes narrowing. That woman? It was utterly insulting, and he wasn’t about to put up with it. “I quit. Now I’m not your employee. Try keeping me away from her now.”
Sean turned to walk out the door, no thought at all except to get back to Grace. Ian’s next words made him stop in his tracks.
“Then I’ll call in the cops and have her arrested now. With the evidence Black already gave us on the company combined with those accounts that I’m sure Grace writes checks from, she’ll spend some time in jail, just being questioned if not actually arrested.”
