by Lisa Childs
Blake’s bodyguards had covered all the rooftops close to the airport, so the killer hadn’t been able to get within range for a bullet to actually hit her or her suspect this time. No matter how angry she was with him, she couldn’t deny that Blake had saved her life many times—personally and with that security agency he’d hired to protect her and their daughter.
While she appreciated that—or maybe because she appreciated that—she needed to talk to him. He’d been so worried at the airport, so scared that she’d been hit.
Juliette needed to make him back off, to keep him away from the danger and herself. Just as she’d known five years ago, they were too different. They had no future together—besides coparenting their daughter. And she wasn’t sure he really even wanted to do that.
But she couldn’t think about him now. She couldn’t think about anything but getting this kid to talk. Fortunately, because he thought she’d saved his life, he’d agreed to speak to her without a lawyer now.
“He tried to kill you,” she told him as she settled onto the chair across the table from him.
The room was small and stark with just plain concrete block walls. There was a solid steel door behind the kid, and a mirror on the wall behind Juliette’s head. She knew the chief stood behind that mirror, probably with Carson Gage. The detective and the boss knew she was the right one to question the kid, though.
Getting shot at together, her seemingly saving his life, had forged a bond between them. One she intended to exploit. “He’s no friend of yours...”
“I don’t know who he is,” the young man said. His hands were cuffed to the table, so he had to lean forward to wipe away the tears that had leaked from his eyes. A strand of greasy black hair flopped over into his face. He blew it away and said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“He’s a hired assassin, right? Hired to take out the dealers who’ve been skimming from your boss or bosses.” Everyone thought the Larson twins were behind the drug problem in Red Ridge. But the RRPD hadn’t been able to prove it—despite having them under surveillance.
Was that why the killer had looked familiar to her even though he’d never been arrested? Had she seen him one of the times she’d been doing surveillance on the Larson twins?
“I work at a fast food place, lady,” the young man replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
She shook her head. “The drugs in your duffel bag—there was too much for your personal use.” He was likely a dealer working for the Larson twins. But Red Ridge PD hadn’t been able to get any evidence against them because they probably hired people to clean up after them. People like the man from the park...
She rose from the chair. “It’s fine if you don’t want to help yourself. We’ve got enough to put you away for a long time...”
The room was small, so she was already at the door, reaching for the knob, when he called her back. “Wait, wait, wait!”
She paused, hesitated for a long moment before turning back toward him. “What?”
“What if I give you something?” he asked. “Could you make that stuff go away?”
“Are you bribing me?” The kid really was an idiot.
He shook his head. “No, no...not that. If I give you some information...”
“About him?”
“I told you I don’t know who you’re talking about...”
And she was beginning to believe him. She uttered a weary sigh before asking, “What have you got?”
“Do we have a deal?”
“I need to know what you’re offering,” she said.
“A big shipment,” he said. “It’s coming in on Friday at midnight...”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “We’ll have to see how big. Where’s it coming in?”
He paused for a long moment, as if trying to determine if he could trust her. “Train station...”
On the midnight train...
It made sense—more sense than this kid trying to move drugs through the airport during the day.
She turned for the door again.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “Do we have a deal or not?”
“I’m not the one who makes deals,” she said. “That’ll be up to the district attorney’s office.” She’d already booked the kid on possession with suspicion of distributing. Someone would be picking him up soon to bring him to jail. She stepped out and closed the door behind herself.
And found the chief and Carson waiting for her in the hall. “Good work,” Finn Colton praised her.
Carson nodded in agreement.
She felt no pride, though. She’d gotten some information out of him. But it wasn’t the information she wanted. She was no closer to finding the man who was trying to kill her and her daughter.
“You’ll be working that midnight shift,” Finn told her.
She nodded, knowing he needed her and Sasha to find the shipment. Maybe whoever was bringing it in was high enough in the drug organization to know who the killer was. It wasn’t a direct lead to him. But it might bring her closer to finally ending this nightmare.
First, she had to end something else, though.
* * *
Blake was shocked to open the hotel door to Juliette. After she’d overheard the conversation with the lawyer a few days before, he’d thought she might never come back.
She held out one of the room key cards to him. “I took this that morning...”
She’d snuck out of his arms, out of his bed...
His arms ached to hold her again, and his body ached for hers. She looked beautiful—as always. Tonight she wore some kind of loose dress. It was short and showed off her toned legs. He wanted to pick her up and carry her off to the bedroom. They never argued there.
But he knew they were about to argue. She’d been too furious that day she’d stormed out of here—too furious to give him a chance to explain before now. Not wanting to lose that chance, he rushed into his explanation. “That was not my lawyer,” he said. “That was my father’s lawyer.”
But Blake never should have agreed to take the meeting with him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said.
“Yes, it does,” he replied. “The guy’s an ass.”
“He’s right about the paternity test,” she said. “You will need one—especially if you have any intention of fighting me for custody.”
“I don’t!” he assured her.
“That’s good,” she said, “because you’d lose. And I know you hate to lose.”
He did. That was why he didn’t want to lose her.
“I would never try to take you from your daughter,” he said. “That’s why I’ve been following you around, making sure nothing happens to you.”
“For her sake?” she asked, and her body was tense, as if she was bracing herself for a blow.
“Yours too,” he said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. That’s why I think you should quit your job.”
Her blue eyes widened with shock. “What?”
“I’m rich,” he said. “I can support you and Pandora. You don’t need to work. I can take the two of you out of the country—back to one of my places in Singapore or London or Hong Kong.”
The color had drained from Juliette’s face, leaving her pale but for the dark circles beneath her eyes. “You don’t know me at all,” she murmured.
“Of course I know you,” he said. “I know that you’re a good mother who wants what’s best for her daughter. This is what’s best. You quitting the Red Ridge PD.”
She gasped. “I’ve worked my whole life. And you just expect me to stop?”
“You don’t have to work so hard anymore,” he said. “I will take care of you and our daughter.”
She shook her head. “I won’t be your mistress.”
He chuckled.
“You won’t be my mistress. I’m not married.” But maybe he should be...then he wouldn’t have to worry so much about her and Pandora. He could always be with them.
He waited for the panic he’d felt that day he’d carried Juliette over the threshold to this suite. But it didn’t come. Yet...
“I won’t be a kept woman,” she said with a shudder. “Then your father and his sleazy lawyer will be right to think I’m some kind of opportunist.”
He snorted. “If you were an opportunist, you would have told me when you found out you were pregnant. You would have wanted me to financially support you.” Instead of fighting him over it...
“You just made this a whole hell of a lot easier,” she murmured.
And he tensed now. “What?”
“I came here to tell you it’s over...” She shrugged. “Whatever it was...whatever we were doing...it’s over... I don’t want to see you anymore.”
She’d made that pretty clear the past couple of days. But he’d thought she’d just needed to calm down after that horrible conversation she’d overheard.
“If you’re still mad about the lawyer, I told you he’s not working for me,” Blake assured her. “I’m not going after custody...”
“Just leave us alone,” she implored him. “You told me five years ago that you had no intention of ever being a husband or a father. So stick with that. Don’t make the mistakes your father made.”
He flinched as she struck that nerve he’d exposed to her so long ago. “Now you don’t want me in her life?”
“Not if you’re going to hurt and disappoint her,” she said. “And you will when you leave Red Ridge and focus on your business again. So just go now—before she gets any more attached.”
“What about you?” he asked. “Are you attached?”
Color rushed back into her face. But she shook her head. “No. No, I’m not...”
“You don’t want me?” he asked. He stepped closer, hoping to call her bluff. But what if she wasn’t bluffing?
What if she really didn’t care about him?
He pressed his lips to hers. But she didn’t move. She didn’t kiss him back as he brushed his mouth over hers. Then finally she gasped, and her lips parted on a moan.
She was bluffing.
But why?
* * *
“So you met her?” Fenwick asked Patience the minute she stepped into his den at home.
“She’s a K9 cop, so I already know her,” his daughter replied.
“Did you know she had your brother’s kid?” His hand trembled on his liquor glass when he thought of it, thought of being a grandfather.
No. It wasn’t possible.
“Of course not,” she said. “I just found out myself.”
“How could she have kept this secret for so long?” Fenwick wondered. Especially if she was after the Colton money. Had she just been waiting for Blake to be as successful as he was now? Until he’d become a billionaire?
Patience shrugged. “She didn’t think he wanted to be a father.”
Fenwick flinched. He knew why. Blake didn’t want to be like him. But in staying away from his kid, he was acting more like him than not. Fenwick knew he’d never paid enough attention to his children—especially Blake.
He’d been busy. He’d provided for them, though.
Until now...
Now his livelihood was being threatened. Hell, his entire life was being threatened—if he lost his business. But for some reason he wasn’t as worried about the business as he was Blake.
“You don’t think he’s going to do something stupid like propose to her?” he asked, speaking his greatest fear aloud.
He knew how grooms wound up in Red Ridge. Shot through the heart with a cummerbund stuffed down their throats. He grimaced as the image of his handsome son as the Groom Killer’s next victim flashed through his head.
“Even if he does...” Patience began.
And Fenwick’s heart stopped beating for a moment. His sister—who’d admitted to seeing them together—must have considered it a possibility.
“I don’t think she’d accept,” Patience continued.
Fenwick shook his head. “She’d be a fool to turn down a proposal from a billionaire.”
“She would be in love with him,” Patience said. “And I think she might be. She doesn’t want Blake getting hurt any more than we do.”
Fenwick should have been relieved, but he knew his son too well. Blake was a billionaire because he worked hard and stopped at nothing to get what he wanted.
If he wanted Juliette Walsh, there was no way she would turn him down. The only reason they probably wouldn’t wind up married was if Blake got killed.
And that was just too great a possibility.
Chapter 21
Juliette was supposed to be cutting him loose—not clutching him closer. But once Blake had kissed her, she’d lost all control. The passion between them burned too brightly, too hot to be denied. She had tried to keep her lips still beneath his—had tried to resist.
But her pulse had quickened, her skin had tingled, and her heart had begun to pound so fiercely—that she couldn’t fight it anymore. She cared too much about him.
So she would make him leave her alone.
Just not yet.
She gripped his shoulders as he lifted and carried her. He didn’t carry her to the bedroom, though—just to the couch. He sat down with her straddling his lap, and he tugged her dress up and over her head. It dropped to the floor behind her. Then her bra quickly followed. It wasn’t as if anyone else could see them on the twenty-first floor. No other building in Red Ridge was as tall as the Colton Plaza Hotel.
He held her breasts, cupping and massaging them while brushing his palms over the taut nipples. She moaned again at the sensations racing through her. She needed him. Now.
So she dragged off his shirt and tossed it aside before reaching for the button of his jeans. He caught her hand, though. Then he lifted her and stood. He undid his jeans and kicked them off. But he leaned over and pulled a condom from the pocket. He must have been as desperate to be with her as she was to be with him, because he sheathed himself quickly.
Then he sat back down.
Before she straddled his lap again, she pulled off her panties. His hand moved between her legs, stroking over her mound as he made sure she was ready for him.
She was more than ready. She was about to go out of her mind with the tension winding so tightly inside her. It had been only a couple of days since they’d made love. But it felt like it had been years again.
How was she going to give him up forever?
She had to be selfless—for his sake.
To keep him safe...
He pulled her down onto his lap, carefully guiding his shaft inside her. She adjusted and arched, taking him deeper. He felt so damn good—filled her so perfectly.
They moved perfectly together, too, in absolute unison. They were in sync like soul mates.
But Blake was not her soul mate. While he understood how to please her physically, he had no idea how to please her emotionally. It was probably because he’d never been given love that he didn’t know how to give it—to her or to their daughter. So she would take only what he could give her now—the physical pleasure.
His hands moved over her breasts again, stroking, caressing...
And his mouth mated with hers, their kisses hungry and intense. Their lips clung, their tongues tangled—their kisses alone brought her to the first peak of pleasure.
Then he thrust harder and moved faster, and another orgasm overcame her, making her body shudder with the intensity of it.
He moved her then, so that he was on top, she lying on the cushions. He made love to her all over again, lifting her legs high as he thrust inside her. And she came again...
Th
en he tensed and groaned as he joined her in ecstasy. “That was incredible,” he murmured.
It was goodbye. But before she could tell him that, he slipped away from her, and she heard water running in the bathroom.
She needed to get dressed and get out of there. But she felt too boneless, too satiated, to move. She forced some strength into her limbs, though, and rose from the couch. She’d just pulled her dress back over her head when he reappeared. All he wore were his jeans, low on his lean hips.
She wanted him all over again.
Then he spoke. “See how good this could be for us? You don’t need to work. You and Pandora can live with me.”
And suddenly she felt sick rather than satiated. He had just cheapened what they’d done, making it sound like an arrangement rather than a relationship. She shook her head. “I told you I won’t be your mistress.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he said. “I want to take care of you and Pandora.”
“You want to take us away from Red Ridge,” she said. “This is our home. We’re not going anywhere—especially not with you.”
He reached out. “Juliette, you’re blowing this out of proportion—”
“I was already trying to tell you that this isn’t working,” she reminded him. “That we have no future—”
“We have a daughter.”
“You need to get your paternity test to prove that.” Maybe she could tie him up in court or bluff him into walking away from them.
But the last time she’d tried bluffing—about her attraction to him—he’d called her on it. He’d proved that he affected her.
Too much. But not anymore. All he’d offered her was money and sex. Not his heart.
She wanted his heart. But even if he’d offered it, she might have refused—for his safety. Because she cared more about him than herself. He had her heart. He’d probably had it since that night nearly five years ago.
“What’s going on, Juliette?” he asked, his brow furrowed with confusion.
He probably wasn’t used to not getting what he wanted. But she had yet to stop working no matter how many times he’d asked her to go into hiding with Pandora. So he should have been accustomed to her not giving him what he asked for.
