“I’m paying you to do what I say.”
And the gloves are off.
I perch on the side of the bed next to him. “No. You’re paying me to keep you safe. To find out who means you harm.” Whoever tampered with the vehicle has escalated the threat to involve more than just my husband—they must have known there would be a group of us using the Jeep to travel from the helicopter to the house, and were prepared to injure bystanders with this current attack. “If it hadn’t been for Stephen’s quick thinking, we could all have been badly injured. Or worse.”
“Have the doctors reported on how Benjamin is?” He tries hard to keep his voice steady, but Montgomery is badly shaken by the security man’s injury.
“He’ll be okay. He lost consciousness when he hit his head so they want to keep him in for observation. To ensure he doesn’t have a concussion.”
“We can’t tell the police.” Montgomery’s mouth has set into a thin implacable line. “If the perpetrator discovers the police are involved, they’ll just go radio silent. They’ll scale things down and act the part of loving relative, and I’ll have to live the rest of my life in fear. We need to draw them out, to force them to act and be caught doing it.”
It’s a dangerous plan. One I’m not comfortable being a part of, now I’ve seen how desperate they are to cause the old man’s death. “They meant me harm too. There may be another way to achieve what you want, while keeping you safe. Has anyone spoken to you about changes to your will since we married?”
My mouth is dry, and I pour a glass of water from the tray on the table and sip. Due to his advanced age, everyone’s attention has been firmly focused on Montgomery. And I’m working; I can’t be seen as anything but efficient. But the jolt in the car was bruising to both body and mind. I don’t want to be affected by the certain knowledge that I’m a target now too. A fully trained target skilled in the art of self-defence and backed up by a security specialist, but target none-the-less. This is a dangerous game. And much as I need to prove myself up to the task, I won’t hesitate to call a halt to the operation if needs be.
“They wouldn’t dare.” Montgomery is dismissive. “The contents of my will are no one’s business. They can find out what I’ve left them when I’m dead.”
“We need to know who has something to gain on your death.” We’ve all had this conversation with him, but he’s intransigent. “Would any of your heirs have access to the paperwork, even in draft form? Or might they have become aware of the details some other way?”
“No.”
“So we must presume that the suspects include anyone who might consider that they may inherit. That would be members of the family...perhaps special friends...”
Despite my best efforts, he’s not co-operating. Montgomery closes his eyes and effectively blocks me out.
Ten minutes later, a discreet knock on the door heralds Stephen’s arrival. “It definitely looks suspicious,” he confirms.
“So it wasn’t a chance breakdown. It was another deliberate attempt on Montgomery’s life.”
Stephen looks at my husband. “Maybe. It needs more investigation but I agree with Kristie, if the bolt was tampered with, it is likely that whoever is behind this is the same individual who attacked you before. They haven’t given up since your marriage. I’ve called in a friend of mine who does work for the police department. He’s a forensic mechanic. Marco is guarding the Jeep and waiting for him to arrive to retrieve it. We need to get as much evidence as possible, and have it verified by a trusted source, and using this mechanic in our investigations will ensure that.”
“So what’s next?” Marco fixes his attention on his chief of security.
“I want to keep you safe here in the hospital for a while.”
Montgomery opens his mouth to protest, but Stephen silences him with one look. “Their objective is to kill you, Sir. Letting them believe your injuries are worse than we thought will contain the situation. I’ve posted a guard outside to monitor the comings and goings and run interference if anyone tries to get to you and tamper with your drip or medication.”
“I’m not on a drip.” Montgomery scowls. “And I don’t need medication.”
Stephen smiles. “We’ll rig it up so it appears you do. And give them every chance to get themselves caught in the act.”
“What about Kristie?”
“I suggest she returns to the house and plays the part of distraught wife. The family isn’t aware of the increased security protocols; the work was done discreetly under the guise of improving the fire alarm system, so she’ll be perfectly safe.”
“I need to be briefed on what my firm has discovered digging into the suspects’ backgrounds in more detail.” I spoke to my father earlier this morning and he told me he’s sent a dossier by encrypted email. “Someone has a motive, and the easiest way to devine it is to follow the money.”
“I’m pulling the security footage and reviewing it to see if I can discover any unusual trips to the garage. Any behaviour that might be suspicious.” Stephen stands. “Once the Jeep has been taken into custody, I’ll send Marco to pick Kristie up.”
Good. It will give me a chance to talk to Marco in private. This situation is getting out of control fast, and I think I may have to bring him into the loop and let him know what we’re up against. There’s always the possibility he’ll spill to his client, but right now I don’t have any other options but to trust him. The life of an old man rests in the balance, and I can’t believe he’d be bastard enough to gamble with Montgomery’s life by speaking to Charles.
I keep silent because now isn’t the time to let Montgomery know that Charles is trying to bust us up.
“The hospital staff has been told that your medical details are strictly private—to be shared with your wife only, so discretion is assured. She’ll ask for a rehydration drip to be provided and that as she’s your ex-nurse, she’ll deal with inserting it herself. Of course, Kristie will rig it so it only looks as though it’s attached to your bloodstream, so if anyone manages to adulterate the solution it will have no effect.” He addressed Kristie directly. “Tell them you want Montgomery to receive his vitamins and painkillers every four hours. Don’t take any of them, Sir, we’ll just set it up as a lure in case anyone wants to try to switch them.”
“Why would they even try—when they could shove a pillow over my face and kill me?” Montgomery is trying to joke, but there’s no hiding his pain. How distraught he is. “I used to think that visiting me in hospital was a sign of familial devotion. Now, I have to treat every soul that walks through that door with suspicion. Wondering where I went so badly wrong that they want me dead.”
Chapter Eighteen
Marco
She looks like shit. That’s what I’m sure Amber would mutter to Jerry were she to be where I am right now. Waiting outside the hospital. Watching the world-weary, embattled Mrs. Patten walking slowing out of the automatic glass doors. There are signs of strain around her mouth. Dark shadows under her eyes. She looks the complete opposite of an ecstatic newlywed on honeymoon.
I’m supposed to prove she’s in this for the money, but I really don’t think she can be. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. Maybe I want to believe there’s some reason she’s married a dinosaur rather than the bloody obvious one.
Whatever the reason, I reckon I’m screwed. Because the moment she walks out of the hospital my body switches from relaxed to fully alert. I swear I can almost feel my heartbeat speed up.
I’m leaning on the convertible, but I straighten when I see her, and she notices me immediately. I like being on the receiving end of that smile.
“Nice car.” She casts it an appreciative glance.
“One of yours, madam.” I swing the door open. “I thought it would make a nice change of pace from the Phantom.”
We pull out into the traffic. “How is he?”
“He’s...” She stares straight ahead. “I want to know more about this company you work for.” She do
esn’t say she doesn’t trust me—she doesn’t need to, it’s written all over her face.
“You think I’m asking for Charles? That I’m reporting back to him?” I indicate and turn off the main road.
“Where are you going?” She darts me a glance. “What are you doing?” Her muscles tense, and a for a crazy moment I realize that maybe she thinks she’s in danger from me.
“Stephen sent me. Scores of people saw me pick you up at the hospital in a bright red sports car. I want to talk to you, that’s all. I want to know everything.”
We’re driving through farmland. A breeze catches her hair and whips it across her face. “Do you want me to put the roof up?”
She shakes her head, setting a cloud of amber gold alive again.
Finally, I spot a narrow lane leading up to a patch of rough dirt with an excellent view of the valley below, drive up to it, and park.
I might be playing the part of her employee, but that’s all it is—playing. The sooner Kristie faces the fact that I don’t answer to her or anyone else, the better. Seeing the Jeep veer off course, and her pale features earlier has shaken something loose in me. So no more Mr. Nice Guy.
“I’m through with this bullshit. You hinted that someone wants your husband dead, and after today I’m convinced of it. Tell me what you know.”
She opens the door and leaves the car, walking out to sit under the lone pine on the side of the clearing. I follow.
It takes a few minutes for her to start talking, but once she does, the words flow like hot coffee in a roadside diner. Fast.
She wrings her hands together. “There was an attempt on his life before we were married. Someone tried to smother him.”
The sun is behind me, causing her to squint at me. I sit down on the grass at her side. “Someone broke in? Did the police investigate?”
“No. Stephen told me there wasn’t enough evidence. The house boundary is alarmed at night, and none of the zones were breached, which means it must have been an inside job.”
A chill settles in my gut at her words. Someone in the house. Someone inside a very private man’s inner circle. “Family.”
Her head inclines slowly. Deliberately. “Family.”
“You suspect Charles?”
“Now you know why I was being cautious of you. No one is above suspicion. Except me, because this was before I met Montgomery, and Stephen, who arrived on the scene soon thereafter. We haven’t gone to the police because Montgomery felt he couldn’t prove anything.”
“And if he blows the whistle prematurely, he’ll never know who he can trust.”
“Yes.” She pulls her knees up to her body, and wraps her arms around them.
There’s something she’s not telling me. Something that doesn’t add up. I don’t know when she met her husband, or why they decided to wed so quickly. Or why he felt she could be trusted when there were so many other people in his life he should have been able to rely on. But I guess the experience of being attacked in his own home changed everything.
“Why now?”
Her forehead pleats at my question. “What?”
“Why would someone want him dead now? If it’s one of the family, and they’ve spent their entire lives living at Casa Nostra with unlimited opportunity to kill him, why decide to strike now?”
“That’s a good question.”
And from the way she’s digesting my words, working them through her mind, I reckon it’s one that hasn’t occurred to her before.
“Stephen fucked up royally in his protection duties.”
I can tell she doesn’t like my evaluation of the situation by the way a tiny frown creases her brow, but she can’t deny it.
“To be honest, he was alert to an attack or security breach from outside. He didn’t suspect the family. Security within the house has been significantly upgraded. Discreetly, of course.”
“So, Stephen is aware that I’m not who I say I am.”
“No. I haven’t had a chance to speak to him and besides, it didn’t seem important. No one will hurt Montgomery on my watch. The two of us are a team.”
“Make it three.”
“I told you to leave.” She speaks quietly, as though she doesn’t want me to go at all. “Everything is getting very complicated; it would be better if you left.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” I take out my cell and make a call that will change the direction of my career forever. I’m about to lie to my boss. “Brian. It’s Marco.” My gaze doesn’t waver from Kristie’s for a moment. “There’s been a development on the Patten case. Mr. P. has been taken into hospital. If she’s going to cheat, now is the time.”
Kristie’s eyes widen.
“I’m giving it another few days. Yes, I think she’s weakening.”
“There’s a line, Marco,” Brian warns.
“I’m aware. I won’t cross it. If Mrs. Patten wants me, she’ll have to make the first move.”
“Five days.”
“Five days,” I repeat, then terminate the call.
“We’ve bought ourselves some time, at least. Charles is determined to lure you away from his father, but at least he won’t send someone else while I’m in place.”
“Better the devil you know.” She tilts her face up to the sunshine and closes her eyes. “If I want you, I’ll have to make the first move?”
“You’re married.”
She’s so still I’m not sure she’s even heard me.
“I’m making the first move, Marco.” Her eyes open, and she turns to me. “Make the second.”
Chapter Nineteen
Kristie
Shit shit shit.
What is it about this man that makes me so fucking insane? His gaze didn’t leave me once when he was talking to his boss. When he was describing how I was ready to fall into his hands like a ripe fruit. I can’t even keep up the pretense of being a faithful wife—not with desire snaking through my body, driving me wild. So I deliver my challenge, and wait, holding my breath, to see what he’ll do in response.
Tire tracks have formed a dirt circle a small distance away. This is a makeout spot. A place where horny teens steam up the windows of their parents’ cars. There’s no one here in the middle of the day. The sun is high in the sky, and the only sound is the keening screech of hawks wheeling in the updrafts above.
He doesn’t speak. Just reaches for me, and moves me onto his lap. I wore a dress for the trip back to Casa Nostra in an attempt to impress my so-called stepchildren. It’s dusty, dirty, and smeared with blood I must have picked up somewhere, probably the Jeep.
I got hurt today. And it could have been a hell of a lot worse. In the shock I almost revealed how I feel about Marco. He came straight to my side and I wanted nothing more than to be held in his arms, to be comforted and protected. It took a lot to keep from betraying myself.
Now, his body is pressed against mine. I’m surrounded by the forcefield he projects that nothing can penetrate, safe in the circle of his arms.
I don’t need protection, but it feels good that someone has my back.
My hands are shaking. I curl my fingers into my palms and breathe in and out a couple of times to try and steady myself. I can do this job. I must. I know once my father hears that the Jeep has been sabotaged, he’ll be trying to pull me off the case, funnelling me toward a desk job. But I’m more than capable of standing on my own two feet. I don’t need babying.
I follow the instructions my mother always told me: fake it ’til you make it, and plaster on an I’m-just-fine smile.
Marco’s thumb brushes the soft cotton at my waist.
Echoes of a story I was told as a child—of Lancelot and Guinevere, her belonging to another but giving herself to the man she couldn’t resist—resonate. In the bright sunshine, his hair isn’t black as I supposed, but bitter-chocolate brown. The breeze has tousled it, emphasizing the curl. He’s so fucking gorgeous I can’t catch my breath when I look at him.
Buttons down the front of my dr
ess. Ones that have never been opened or closed by anyone but me. His habit of staring into my eyes while he does other things is such a turn on, I wriggle on his lap, pressing my bottom against the cock I can feel hard beneath me.
“Wait.” He undoes one button. Two. As his fingers move to the third, he leans close and swipes his tongue over my bottom lip.
He’s moving so infuriatingly slow, I’m dying. I want to rip off my clothes, unzip his trousers, climb on and ride him to heaven.
“Delicious.” A teasing glint in his eye. His mouth curves in a pirate smile—Marco Vitale knows exactly how to move a woman.
“Tease.” I’m not above pouting to get what I want.
With a laugh that warms my insides, he opens my dress, slides his palms over both sides of my ribcage, and pulls me close. He kisses me. Fuck, how he kisses me. Deliberate and forceful, gentle and tender. With tongue and teeth, fanning the flame of desire into a raging inferno that threatens to consume me from the inside out.
Every promise I made to myself to never mix business and pleasure is on the point of being irretrievably broken, and I don’t care.
His hands cup my breasts. I look down to see, feeling heat pool between my thighs at the contrast of his tan against the palest part of my body.
His gaze tracks mine. The sound he makes, a deep groan, goes straight to the heart of me, instantly understood. We have to be one. When I made the first move, when I issued the challenge, I thought to goad him into kissing me. Thought that would be enough. I’ve never felt like this before. Have never been consumed with the need that ripples through my veins.
The need to be thoroughly fucked.
I reach down, to the spot where our bodies will join. Catch the tab of his zipper between my thumb and forefinger.
Then his hand is on the side of my face, and his breathing is evening out.
“Stop.”
The Gold Digger Gambit: A Honeytrap Inc. Romance Page 7
