Dirtiest Secret

by J. Kenner

  "She's right," Brody agrees. "And you deserve better."

  "Better would be great," I agree. "How?"

  Brody's eyes flick to his wife, then back to me. He exhales loudly, then stands up and starts to pace. "He's become this thing to you." He holds a hand out in front of him, as if in illustration. "Dallas Sykes is your Holy Grail."

  I can hardly argue. "So?"

  "Get rid of the expectation. Erase the fantasy." He sits beside me and leans forward so that we are eye to eye. Slowly, his mouth curves into a wicked grin. "Fuck him out of your system."

  "What?" I say, even though I heard him perfectly well. So well that a little tremor runs through me simply from the suggestion. "All we've been doing for years is fighting this thing, because, hey, that road leads to stress, disinheritance, and a possible felony conviction."

  Not that I'm really worried that sleeping with Dallas would land me behind bars. Technically it's criminal incest--I looked it up, and New York law treats adopted siblings the same as full-blooded--but I can't imagine anyone would enforce that since we're not biologically related. But the rest of it is all true.

  And god forbid the media found out. That would be even worse than my father knowing.

  Brody lifts a shoulder. "Then don't," he says casually, as if this is all just meaningless banter and not a huge barrier that I have to get over or under or around if I'm going to ever manage to move on emotionally.

  "Don't?"

  "Just keep trying what you did last night. Go to lunch. Go to the movies. Do all those things that friends do together, and maybe it'll get better and you two can just be normal siblings. Best friends. Whatever you want to call it."

  I bite the inside of my cheek, anticipating where he's going next.

  "But if you don't believe that will work..." He trails off. He really doesn't have to say the rest.

  I glance up at Stacey. "He's serious. He really wants me--wants us--to do a complete flip?"

  "Sounds like it to me," she says, as she hand-dries a wineglass.

  "One hundred and eighty degrees, Janie." He nods with the certainty of a man who knows he's right. "You've been living with the memory of something that happened between you that saved you. You needed it then, and you're clinging to it now. And until you let yourselves relive those moments, you're not going to be able to get past the sex and move on to the friendship. Trust me, babe. Fucking Dallas is the elephant in the room, and there's no other way around it."

  "I don't think it'll be that simple. I told you what happened in the cabana. The way he made me feel. All that did was make me want him more." And now I'm afraid that if I sleep with Dallas just to get him out of my system, it would be like a condemned prisoner having one last, perfect meal, and then dying.

  I'm not sure I'd ever come alive again.

  Brody is shaking his head. "No. No, that's because you opened a door and didn't go through it. Go, Janie. Walk through with him, and see if it isn't all better on the other side."

  Stacey puts her hand on mine. "I think he's right. Besides, what have you got to lose?"

  Nothing, I think. At this point I have absolutely nothing to lose, and potentially everything to gain.

  Dallas watched as Damien Stark studied the schematic currently being projected onto the conference room whiteboard. He had, in fact, been studying the specs for a full ten minutes.

  The plans provided for a device that could be set up externally, but would monitor conversations taking place in a building's interior by sending a series of pulses through the pre-existing electrical system. Theoretically, a single device could allow surveillance of a building as large as the one he was in right now, and he was on the forty-third floor.

  It was a remarkable piece of engineering. And as far as the world of surveillance went, it was a game changer.

  Considering how long Stark had been studying the specs, it was clear that he knew that.

  Finally, he turned to face Dallas, then leaned casually against the wall. "I'm impressed," he said, and coming from Stark, that was high praise indeed. Unlike Dallas, the tech savvy billionaire hadn't inherited his fortune. He'd taken his winnings from the professional tennis circuit and built a multibillion dollar industry with fingers in all sorts of pies, including high tech.

  The men had met a few years ago, and now Dallas was an investor in one of Stark's vacation resorts. Today, Dallas hoped to convince Stark to invest in the cutting edge listening device that Noah had designed.

  "Impressed is good," Dallas said. "But what I need to know is if you're interested in producing and marketing it on the terms I outlined."

  The terms were extremely favorable to Stark, while still providing Dallas the equipment he needed for Deliverance, and a nice royalty to Noah for the design.

  "I might be." Stark crossed the room and pulled out a chair, then sat with his legs extended and his fingers steepled under his chin. "I've been intrigued by the concept since you first pitched it. Now, I'm curious as to why you don't use your own resources to build and market it. You have manufacturing capabilities in Asia. And your security division could not only make use of this equipment but could license it to law enforcement."

  "I told you before I have my reasons," Dallas said, hoping that he hadn't misread his friend. That Stark wasn't going to push. The truth was that Dallas couldn't run the device through Sykes channels--not without raising the kinds of red flags that would make it impossible for Deliverance to safely and anonymously use the tech. Farm it out to Stark and license it back, though, and there was no trail.

  Stark nodded slowly. "I'm sure you do. And I'm sure that you know I have the resources to learn those reasons."

  "You do," Dallas said, and the truth was, he'd never gone outside of the circle of Deliverance before. For one thing, it wasn't practical. For another, Dallas didn't trust easily. But for this project they needed the help, and he believed in his gut that he could trust Stark. "But I think you're a man who understands discretion. And who realizes that a man's secrets are his own."

  For a moment, Stark simply held his eyes. Then he nodded slowly and stood. "I'll take a look at your terms and get back to you within the week. We'll shoot for a prototype within sixty days."

  "Good." Dallas stood, surprised at the extent of his relief. He liked Stark, and although he feared he was being naive, he believed that even if the other man learned about Deliverance, he'd keep the knowledge to himself.

  When he returned to his office after walking Stark to the elevator, he found Gin Kramer, his secretary, standing beside his desk holding a clipboard. She held it out for him, then tapped the end of her pen on a signature block he'd missed that morning despite the red flag that clearly ordered him to sign here.

  He whipped off another signature, then passed the contract back to her.

  She tucked it efficiently into the portfolio she'd carried for every one of her twenty-plus years with the company. "Your mother wanted me to let her know when you would be arriving at the island. Tonight or tomorrow?"

  "I'll fly to Norfolk tonight, and hire a helicopter to take me to the island in the morning. Can you arrange that for me?"

  "Of course."

  "Did she say when everyone else was coming?" He wondered if he should ask Jane if she wanted to travel with him. Then again, he wasn't sure he was up to being in such close proximity to her for an overnight jaunt.

  "I'm sorry, sir, she didn't. Shall I ask?"

  "No. It doesn't matter."

  "And I'm supposed to remind you to bring a gift. Shall I pick something up?"

  "Already done." He often let Gin pick out corporate gifts, but this was Poppy, and he wasn't about to let someone else select a gift for his great-grandfather. "Anything else?"

  "Mr. Foster asked that you call him when you have a moment."

  "Will do. Thank you, Gin."

  She reached over to straighten the papers on his desk, then turned and slipped out his door, shutting it behind him.

  Alone, he stood and stretc
hed, then went to the window and looked out at lower Manhattan and, beyond that, the Statue of Liberty, still majestic despite his perspective from so high above the city.

  They were coming up on the end of the fiscal quarter, and before Stark had arrived, he'd spent the morning catching up on Sykes business. Although his father still retained his position as chairman of the board, Dallas had taken over as CEO of the retail side of the Sykes empire five years ago, and he genuinely enjoyed the work. And, because there were Sykes Department Stores all over the globe, the job provided a nice cover for his work with Deliverance.

  From the moment he'd stepped into his office this morning, he'd been inundated with contracts, reports, and columns of numbers. But at least the flurry of paperwork had kept his mind off Jane. Because Jane was very much where his mind wandered lately.

  He hadn't seen her since the night he'd gone to her house. The night he'd wanted to touch her. To kiss her. To rip off every stitch of her clothing, press her against the wall, and do all sorts of dark and dirty things to her.

  He hadn't, and he considered that a victory.

  But the desire wasn't fading, and that was a goddamn fail. If anything, he wanted her more. Thought about her more. The scent of her perfume lingered on his clothes. He sipped sparkling water, and she filled his thoughts. Any bus with a videogame ad plastered on the side made his cock ache for her.

  And, damn him, in the last week he'd listened to one of her voicemails, then closed his eyes and jacked himself off.

  Pathetic.

  He pressed his forehead to the glass and counted to five, then stood upright again. Done. Finished.

  Pity party over.

  Time to get back to work.

  He returned to his desk, pulled his personal laptop and Wi-Fi hotspot out of his briefcase and set them both in front of him. Then he swiveled his chair so that he could reach the control panel on the credenza behind him, and pressed the button to lock his door.

  He fired up the computer, then shot the team a quick summary of his meeting with Stark. After that, he pulled up the most recent reports from his men, pleased to see that the card key he'd cloned to access the Lopez property had worked perfectly and that early that morning the team had breached Ortega's security at the weak point and then accessed the residence.

  That was good news, yes, but nothing more than what he'd already anticipated. And since the report was in progress and didn't say what the team had found, he pulled out his phone and dialed Liam.

  "What did you find?" he demanded when Liam answered.

  "Just writing that up. The place was mostly a shell--we're looking for the real base he used right now--but we found a hidden safe and it had a netbook in it."

  "Anything useful?"

  "Potentially useful. That's where you come in."

  "Tell me."

  "The hard drive's encrypted, so we're still working through it, but we found a name--Peter Crowley. You know him?"

  "I do." Dallas frowned, thinking of the forty-something real estate developer he'd worked with once or twice before. The man was married with a roving eye and enough money to support at least two mistresses at a time.

  He also threw a cocktail party in his Fifth Avenue apartment at least once each month. Ostensibly to meet and greet potential clients. In reality, Dallas was certain he was scouting his next lay.

  "Are you telling me he's in bed with Ortega?"

  "Undetermined. Ortega leaned toward kidnapping and white slavery, with an occasional side trip to drug trafficking. That sound like the kind of thing Crowley would be into?"

  "Not on the surface," Dallas said. "But you and I both know that no one's who they appear to be."

  "Yeah, well, Crowley might be squeaky clean. Ortega's vineyard was a viable enterprise, with clients around the globe including restaurants and individuals. Crowley could be in the system as a legitimate client. Until we hack the drive, we can't know, and the encryption is protected. A wrong move, and the data's erased. So we're taking it slow. In the meantime, we'll take a look at Crowley the old-fashioned way."

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "Get into his house and drop a bug or two. We'll listen. Maybe we'll get lucky."

  Dallas chuckled. "And here I thought you were going to hand me a challenge."

  Since Liam and his mother were both attending Poppy's birthday celebration, he promised to bring the listening devices to Dallas on the island. They ended the call, and Dallas drew a breath, hating the thought that Crowley, a man he'd done a few real estate deals with could have a hand in that kind of shit. With a frown, he buzzed Gin and unlocked the door.

  A moment later she opened his door and popped her head in. "I was away from my desk. Did you need something?"

  "Peter Crowley. Have we received any invitations from him lately?"

  "There is an endless stream." A smile touched her lips. "I've been regretfully declining. Isn't that what you asked?"

  "It was. I've changed my mind. Could you RSVP yes for the next one?"

  He thought he saw a flicker of disapproval in her eyes, but she said nothing. Gin Kramer used to be his father's assistant. She'd known Dallas for much of his life, and though she was far too professional to comment, he knew that she disapproved of his extracurricular escapades. With anyone else, Dallas wouldn't care. But he liked Gin, and so he tried to play down the role of womanizing, spendthrift fuckup when he was at the office.

  Sometimes, though, it was hard to avoid the reminders.

  "Will there be anything else?"

  "No. Thanks. Just let me know the date and time."

  "Of course." She turned to go. "Oh! Hello, Ms. Martin!"

  Jane?

  Instinctively, his hand went to shut his laptop, then he tucked it and the Wi-Fi router into his desk. Gin would either not notice or not ask--most likely she assumed he was circumventing the office network so he could surf porn sites.

  Jane would ask.

  "Gin, it's so good to see you. And I've told you a million times to call me Jane."

  From his perspective at the desk, Dallas could see Jane give the older woman a hug. When they pulled apart, Jane stepped into the room.

  She wore a tight black skirt that hugged her hips, red stilettos, and a low cut sleeveless blouse that showed off her more than adequate cleavage. The outfit alone put him on notice that something was up with her. She looked hot. Like head-to-a-bar-pick-up-a-guy-and-fuck-him-in-the-hallway hot. She never dressed that way when she knew she was going to see him. Too dangerous, as evidenced by the way parts south of his brain were springing to attention.

  "To what do I owe the pleasure?" He kept his voice light, but he was a little concerned by the look in her eye--a combination of terror and fierce determination.

  "We need to talk." She shut the door, locked it, then turned back to look at him.

  He sat down slowly. "All right," he said evenly. "Talk."

  "Right." She sat, then smoothed her skirt, the motion probably camouflaging her nerves. "Right," she said again. Her throat moved as she swallowed, and he found himself remembering that the indentation at the base of her throat had once tasted as sweet as honey. "It's just that--"

  The buzz of the intercom interrupted her. "Mr. Sykes, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Crowley's party is in one week. Next Friday."

  "That's fine, Gin. Just put it on the calendar." He frowned. She didn't usually trouble him with the details.

  "I would, but you have a conflict. You're supposed to be in Montreal with your father. You're completely booked Friday through Sunday for a number of events related to the opening of the new hotel and retail center."

  "Of course," he said and silently cursed. He'd promised his father he'd make this trip, and while his irresponsible heir routine worked well as a cover for Deliverance, the truth was he loved his dad and really didn't want the last ounce of respect the man had for him to be washed away.

  But about this, he had no choice. This wasn't just a Deliverance job, this was about
Ortega. This was about the kidnapping. This was about Jane.

  "Tell my father I won't be able to make the trip," he said, then watched as Jane's eyes widened.

  He waited for Gin to answer. "Gin?" he prompted.

  "I'm sorry, sir," she said after a moment. "I'm afraid that's something you're going to have to tell him yourself."

  The connection broke, and Jane tilted her head, as if trying to get a read on him. "You're blowing off Dad in favor of a party?"

  "Crowley throws excellent parties," he said. "You never know who you might meet."

  "Right. Of course." She dragged her fingers through her hair, mussing it a bit and making him think of what she'd look like with her head against a pillow and her dark hair spread wide.

  But those thoughts vanished when she looked back up at him. All he saw was disappointment, and he wanted so badly to tell her that he wasn't the asshole bad boy she thought he was.

  Instead, he said, "So are you going to tell me why you're here?"

  For a moment, he thought she wasn't. Then she gave a sad little shake of her head. "Sometimes I wonder why I want so badly to be close again, you know?"

  "Jane--" The word came out strangled.

  "No. Let me finish or I'll never get this out. I don't know why sometimes, but that doesn't matter, because I do want it, Dallas. I miss you so much it hurts. And I'm not even talking about the sex, although god knows I miss that, too."

  Her cheeks took on an adorable pink tone and she didn't quite meet his eyes.

  "But mostly I just miss you. Every day. All the time." She stood up, clearly uncomfortable simply sitting still. "Maybe it's just me--is it just me?" She cast pleading eyes on him. "Because if it is, I'll let it go. But I can't ignore this--I don't know--this need between us."

  "It isn't just you." He got up and moved around the desk to her side. He reached out and did what he'd been wanting to do for days. Very gently, he took her hand.

  And it felt so damn right. So goddamn right.

  "It isn't just you," he repeated. "I feel it, too. Hell, I can taste it. I'm aware of everything about you, from the scent of your shampoo to the rhythm of your breathing. All I can think about is kissing you."

  "Dallas--" Her voice came out ragged.

  "But we can't." He forced the words out, because it was either do that or pull her into his arms. "We both know why we can't."