Girl Gone Wild

by Joanne Rock

  The sirens stopped as a police car pulled up out front. Red lights flashed into the room even from three stories up.

  Hugh’s jaw flexed. Hardened. “All I know is I trusted you enough to tell you what was going on today. Shared a confidence with you. And you used it to wage your own war. Put yourself at risk.”

  How could she tell him that he’d inspired her? She knew that wouldn’t go over well at all at this moment. But damn it, that was the truth.

  She abandoned her list of arguments and settled for a simple, heartfelt slice of vulnerable emotion. What did it matter that the whole room could probably hear her as they all waited for the police to find their third-floor position? She just wanted to be sure Hugh got the message before it was too late. “You make me want to be a better person. Someone I can be proud of.”

  She admired him for the way he crusaded his way through life. More than that, she loved him.

  The knowledge blindsided her, made all the elements of her scrambled recipe for life line up for her.

  Desperate to get all the right words out, she ignored the distant expression on Hugh’s face. Shut out the scoffing sound Robert made, followed by a pained gurgle as Lainie dug her heel into his back.

  She simply wanted to share this lightbulb moment, this amazing self-discovery before the police started asking their questions and crawling all over the building. “Now that I’ve proven I can take care of myself, I realize I don’t need to stay in South Beach forever. I could leave.” Ditch her overprotective clan and their penchant for sticking their noses in her business. “I could travel with you. Be a part of the mission.”

  Her brain registered Nico’s swift intake of breath in the background. And somehow, without even looking, she just knew Lainie was giving him the diva death stare that could silence a man at twenty paces.

  Right now, her full focus remained on Hugh. Hope simmered through her, percolating new ideas and dreams. Visions of a future together.

  Until Hugh shook his head, eyes wide and sort of shell-shocked.

  Only then did she fully absorb the moment of panic that flashed through his green gaze. The fierce denial of her new dream that included both of them. Together. As the police spilled into the apartment building, boots pounding their way up the stairs, she realized Hugh didn’t share her vision.

  “I couldn’t survive another day like this, Giselle.” Regret colored his words, but not enough to override the certainty that lurked in his eyes. “It would never work.”

  16

  AFTER AN HOUR OF QUESTIONING by the police and another hour of discussion with the FBI, Hugh watched through the apartment window as Giselle finished up her conversation with agent Aidan Maddock on the street outside. Although the sun had set, the South Beach streets were well lit and humming with activity.

  He lifted his hand to rest on the sill, his fingers hovering on her image reflected in the glass. If only that thin pane were all that separated them.

  Robert Flynn had been carted off to jail along with his matching, Panama-wearing friend. Nico and Giselle had fought over which one of them had actually turned in the wanted criminal, effectively deflecting attention away from Hugh. Both of them protecting his career, even though Giselle refused to look him in the eye and Nico had certainly never claimed any friendship toward the reporter who’d slept with his sister.

  Still, they both went out of their way to stick up for him. These Cesares had a strange sense of cantankerous loyalty, but Hugh had to admit he admired the way they defended their own. Too bad he’d opted out of becoming part of their lives. Their family.

  Fingers flexing on the glass, his hand clenched. Softly pounded the clear pane. Damn it, he didn’t want to be on the outside looking in anymore. He’d spent enough years spying, observing, absorbing details. When did he join the action? Participate in real life? Earlier when she’d asked to go with him, he’d reacted with his gut. Now he was going to use his head.

  And, yeah, even his heart.

  From somewhere behind him, Nico’s voice rose above the hum of the dispersing crowd of cops and reporters. “Are we almost ready to get the hell out of here?”

  Turning, Hugh took in his disgruntled frown. And as Nico stepped closer, he spotted an almost imperceptible limp that he’d never noticed before. No doubt a remnant of the injury that had cost him his career.

  “What’s the rush? You meeting some hockey groupie?” He shifted his gaze back to the scene outside the window where the Feds were closing their notebooks, adjusting their mirrored shades despite the fact that it was nine o’clock at night. Giselle and Flynn’s ex-wife shook hands with one of the guys.

  Nico seemed equally engrossed in the view. “I’ve decided hockey groupies pale in comparison to leather-clad crime fighters. With all the time I’ve spent at Club Paradise, I can’t believe I never noticed her.”

  Giselle’s brother practically fogged the window as he drooled over Lainie Reynolds outside, leaning her slender hip on a street lamp.

  Lainie and Nico? A cynical divorcée and a former professional athlete who thought women ought to be protected? Somehow Hugh couldn’t picture that particular combination working, but from Nico’s intense stare, he suspected the guy wouldn’t be dissuaded easily.

  “She certainly held her own today,” Hugh admitted.

  “Yeah. And so did my sister. I couldn’t believe how fast she had that bastard crawling on his belly.” Pride infused his words. “Did you hear her tell him she was going to gut him and then neuter him? I nearly swallowed my tongue.”

  “She sounded like she meant it, didn’t she?” Hugh had to admit he was damn proud of her, too. The first moment he’d seen Giselle she’d been contemplating a tryst, gathering up her courage to take a sensual risk. Now she’d faced off with her brother, wrangled her adversarial business partner into what looked like a true friendship and taken down her smarmy ex-boyfriend to boot. She had dazzled him when he’d first met her. Now she totally captivated him.

  “I think I’m going to have to ease up on her a little.” Nico stepped back from the window. “I don’t know when she learned to kick butt so well, but there’s no two ways about it. She can take care of herself now.”

  Hugh was glad for Giselle, knowing she’d enjoy the elbowroom her brother obviously seemed to be offering. But how could he take any pleasure in knowing her increased freedom would only clear the way for her to be with someone else? Someone who didn’t have a job that would put her in dangerous countries, expose her to men more desperate and violent than Flynn the embezzler. Yeah, he was afraid of taking her with him, but he sure as hell didn’t like the idea of leaving her behind. He’d never be able to stop thinking about her, wondering what might have been.

  “I guess being a Sister of an Ass-Kicking Older Brother taught her a thing or two.” Hugh realized the apartment building was beginning to clear out, the last few officers heading for home or back to the streets.

  “What can I say? It was a damn good convent.” Nico shuffled toward the door behind the last two detectives. “And although I realize you haven’t solicited my advice, I think you’re making a dumb-ass mistake by letting her go.”

  Hugh hung back in the apartment, not ready to face Giselle again. To say goodbye. “How the hell can you tell me you think it’s a good idea for me to cart her around to every godforsaken country with zero respect for human rights—especially when applied to women and children? It’s a bad, bad freaking idea.”

  Nico paused at the door, pivoted on his heel. “So let her hang out in Naples when you hit the worst places. She’s got more family there than she’s ever had here. And my brother Vito is always somewhere in Europe. Besides, you have family in South Beach, too, right? You can come back here a couple of times a year. You’ll figure it out.”

  Was Giselle’s menace-to-society brother actually starting to make sense, or was that Hugh’s wishful thinking?

  “Okay, what did I miss here?” Hugh shook his head. He obviously wasn’t hearing well. “Ea
rlier this week you wanted to string me up by the nuts for getting near Giselle. Now you’re ready to pack her damn bags so she can travel the world with me while I put her neck in danger over and over again?”

  Nico cracked the front door and looked out at the street. Hugh could see Lainie and Giselle out front, talking, crying, hugging. Chick stuff. Maybe Giselle had been right to bring Flynn’s ex-wife along and exorcise a few demons for both of them.

  “I’ve been watching out for my sister a long time.” Nico allowed the door to fall closed then leaned back to sit on an old-fashioned cast-iron radiator. “And in all that time, I don’t remember ever seeing her look so frigging happy as the moment she told you she wanted to be with you. I’m not going to tell you I’ll break your legs if you don’t do something about that, Duncan, but I can say I think you’d be stupid to walk away from someone who cares about you like that.”

  Hugh closed his eyes just long enough to see her face in his mind. To remember the hope in her voice. Had he been too quick to dismiss the possibility of them being together?

  What if, like Nico said, they could work around the danger thing? What if he could keep her safe and keep her with him, too? He was a man of details, after all. His whole job had been about observing what other people didn’t see. If he could put that much attention to detail into a damn job, then surely he could do the same for a woman. This woman. Giselle, who meant a hell of a lot more to him than any job.

  As Nico levered open the door and walked out into the street, Hugh caught another glimpse of Giselle talking with her hands, her body acting out the drama of her current story. And just like that first night he’d seen her, he couldn’t help but think she was so full of life she bubbled over with it. She was adventurous and daring, loyal to the people she cared about and fierce in defense of what was important to her. He didn’t just admire her. And he didn’t just find her sexy as hell.

  He cared about her in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to care about anyone. Ever.

  Amazing that it took a conversation with her guard dog big brother to make him see as much.

  Damn it, he knew a way he could be with Giselle. A surefire plan to keep her safe and still allow them to be together. And now that he understood how much he loved this woman, he realized he had no choice but to take the step that would ensure they could make it work. The loner thing would be tough to shake, but Giselle was more than worth the effort.

  He’d call his editor tonight and finalize the details. Find a way to stick closer to home for his work. Right now he needed to take a page from his aunt Pauline’s book and put his heart on the line before it was too late.

  TOO LATE.

  Giselle saw the door to the apartment building swing open as Hugh made his exit, and knew she’d missed her chance to escape an awkward scene. But after a year of tense relations between her and Lainie, there was no way she could have walked away from her business partner once the FBI guys had left. In an astounding moment of warmth, normally cool Lainie had offered up forgiveness in the form of a bear hug. Now they sniffed and wiped stray mascara streaks from one another’s eyes as Hugh neared them.

  She wasn’t ready to face him. Couldn’t handle looking into his eyes and knowing he didn’t reciprocate the wealth of feelings she had for him. How ironic that she’d finally found the inner strength to take a few risks, to thumb her nose at her family’s overprotectiveness. And yet the guy who’d inspired her to be so daring wasn’t willing to take any risks with her.

  Ironic and painful.

  A fact she was achingly reminded of with every moment she stared into his mossy green eyes as they faced one another on the neon-lit sidewalk. People passed by now and then, the street neither deserted nor particularly busy. A heavy metal bar a few buildings away already blared some serious guitars even though nightlife in South Beach was only just getting underway.

  “Maybe I’d better be going,” Lainie blurted out of left field. “One of us should at least make an appearance at the resort tonight and I’m still riding an adrenaline high. Don’t worry about coming in, Giselle. I’m sure you’ve got enough on your mind.”

  The only thing on her mind was the fact that her heart was breaking. Any moment Hugh would announce his departure for Timbuktu and she’d be left to sort through the rubble of a relationship he’d abandoned to self-destruct.

  Damn him.

  “I can take her home.” Hugh seemed to speak to Lainie, but he never took his eyes off her.

  Her heart did a little flip inside her chest, apparently unaware that being near Hugh when he didn’t want her was bound to be torture.

  “That’s okay.” She refused to be his obligation. Wouldn’t stand for him watching over her with the same protective B.S. she’d put up with for too many years. “Nico can drop me off.”

  But even as she said it, she realized Nico was already halfway up the street, following in Lainie’s footsteps. Her brother had no idea what he was in for with the queen of all divas who unapologetically ruled everything under her domain.

  Still, Nico tossed his car keys down the street with an arm that had routinely deflected hockey pucks across two hundred feet of ice. “Take my truck, Duncan. I won’t be needing it.”

  Like hell.

  Lainie Reynolds had sworn off men a year ago, and Nico would probably be the last man on earth she’d ever go for. Except for Robert, of course.

  Then again, what did she know about affairs of the heart? She obviously sucked at conducting her own.

  “I really need to talk to you anyway,” Hugh told her, neatly snatching the keys out of the air. “Would you hear me out for a minute?”

  A reasonable request. Except that Giselle didn’t feel like being accommodating. She’d offered up a big, fat compromise to this man already. What more did he want from her?

  Other than to say goodbye.

  “I’ll spare you the trouble.” She talked around the lump in her throat. “You’re rolling out of town now that your story is finished, aren’t you?” She didn’t wait for his confirmation. “I knew all along this was temporary, and despite what I said before, I’m okay with that.”

  Liar.

  She hated the thought of him leaving, but she’d bared enough of her soul to him today.

  He pocketed Nico’s keys and braced a hand on the lamppost. “What if I stayed?”

  Amazing how she could talk for an hour and not make as much impact as Hugh managed with four simple words.

  “What?” She searched for hidden meanings and ulterior motives. Surely he didn’t mean he wanted to stay with her. For her.

  “What if I write the stories without actually traveling to the potentially dangerous countries?” He jingled the keys in his pocket. “I haven’t tried that before because I’ve always been too stubborn to change my approach, but there are plenty of writers who make it work.”

  Even as her heart leaped at the concession, her head knew it wasn’t the right answer. That kind of distance from his work would never fulfill him. “You’d miss out on those details that set your stories apart. Your readers would lose out on something wonderful that they don’t find in the average feature article anymore.” She shifted on the pavement, her feet protesting the crook-catching workout in high heels. The ache was minor compared to the yawning hurt within.

  “But we could be together.” He reached for her hand, enveloping her fingers in his. “And I’m only just starting to see how much I need to be with you.”

  Her ears perked up. Hope tap-danced impatiently in her breast. “You do?”

  “It’s the damnedest thing.” He tugged her closer, oblivious to the occasional passersby on the South Beach street. The glow of street lamps, neon lights and the brightly-colored buildings favored by the Art Deco district all conspired to keep the streets well lit even after dark. “But I don’t think I can leave you.”

  Her heart stalled for a long moment, then picked up a high-speed thump like a kneading machine set at full blast. “I told you already, you do
n’t need to leave me. I want to go with you.”

  His hands smoothed up her spine as he turned her away from an oncoming knot of picture-snapping tourists. “You’ve got a business here. A career you busted your tail to dominate. How can you even think about walking away from Club Paradise?”

  “I wouldn’t walk away. I’d keep my shares and let the restaurant be an investment. I created the menu and all the dishes myself, so no matter who cooks the food on a day-to-day basis, there will always be the stamp of Chef Giselle.” She liked the sound of that, liked the idea of knowing her recipes would continue to win fans even if she lived halfway around the world. “And in the meantime, I could study abroad, cook all around the globe, maybe start a few other restaurants to build my own little culinary empire. Every few years I could revamp the offerings in the Club Paradise menus to reflect whatever I’ve learned. That way I’ll keep the restaurants sort of chic and cutting edge.”

  Assuming, of course, she hadn’t already fried her own bacon by walking away from the Herald’s food critic tonight. Maybe she could make nice by sending him a basket of her best PG-rated pastries tomorrow morning. Bottom line, she believed her food would carry her even if she wasn’t at the restaurant to schmooze.

  “And you’d do that just so I could keep writing?” He didn’t look skeptical so much as…astonished.

  Men! If he was willing to make a few changes for her sake, why should it be so tough for him to accept that she would do the same for him? Then again, maybe no one had ever put him first before. Certainly not his mother who didn’t get him out of that hellish country, instead leaving her son to take care of them both.