by Lisa Childs
“And after you wake up we’ll come back with ice cream?”
She hesitated before offering him a slight nod. But instead of posing as the lawyer’s assistant again, she would talk to Charlotte.
Someone else had answered the woman’s phone at the palace on the affluent island country of St. Pierre where Charlotte had gone to work as the princess’s bodyguard after leaving the U.S. Marshals. That person had assured Josie that Charlotte would be back soon to return her call. But Josie hadn’t left a message—she couldn’t trust anyone but Charlotte with her life. Or her father’s. She would talk to Charlotte and see what the former marshal could find out about Josie’s father’s condition and the attack. Then she would come back to see him.
Her son accepted her slight nod as agreement and finally moved away from the door to his grandfather’s room. “Does Grampa like ’nilla ice cream or chocolate or cookie dough or…”
The kid was an ice-cream connoisseur, his list of flavors long and impressive. And Josie’s stomach nearly growled with either hunger or nerves.
She interrupted him to ask, “Do you want to press the elevator button?”
His brow furrowing in concentration, he rose up on tiptoe and reached for the up arrow.
“No,” she said. But it was too late, he’d already pressed it. “We need the down arrow.” Before she could touch it, a hand wrapped around her wrist.
Her skin tingled and her pulse leaped in reaction. And she didn’t need to lift her head to know who had touched her. Even after more than three years, she recognized his touch. But she lifted her head and gazed up at him, at his thick black hair that was given to curl, at his deep, turquoise-green eyes that could hold such passion. Now they held utter shock and confusion.
This was the man who’d killed her, or who would have killed her had the U.S. marshal and one of her security guards not diffused the bomb that had been set inside the so-called safe house. They had set it off later to stage her death.
Since he had wanted her dead so badly, he was not going to be happy to find her alive and unharmed—if he recognized her now. She needed for him not to recognize her, as she wasn’t likely to survive his next murder attempt. Not when she was unprotected.
If only she’d listened to that inner voice…
The risk had been too great. Not just to her life but to what would become of her son once she was gone.
Would her little boy’s father take him or kill him? Either way, the child was as doomed as she was.
Chapter Two
For more than three years, her memory had haunted Brendan—her image always in his mind. This woman didn’t look like her, but she had immediately drawn his attention when he’d stepped out of the stairwell at the end of the hall. Her body was fuller and softer than Josie’s thin frame had been. And her chin-length blond bob had nothing in common with Josie’s long red hair. Yet something about her—the way she tilted her jaw, the sparkle in her eyes as she gazed down at the child—reminded him of her.
Then she’d spoken to the boy, and her soft voice had hit him like a blow to the stomach. While he might not have recognized her body or face, he could not mistake that voice as anyone’s but hers. Her voice had haunted him, too.
Before he could recover, he turned his attention to the child and reeled from another blow. With his curly red hair and bright green eyes, the child was more recognizable than the woman. Except for that shock of bright hair, he looked exactly like the few childhood photos of Brendan that his stepmother hadn’t managed to accidentally destroy.
He didn’t even remember closing the distance between them, didn’t remember reaching for her. But now he held her, his hand wrapped tightly around her delicate wrist.
She lifted her face to him, and he saw it now in the almond shape and silvery-green color of her eyes. What he didn’t recognize was the fear that widened those eyes and stole the color from her face.
“Josie…?”
She shook her head in denial.
She must have had some cosmetic work done, because her appearance was different. Her cheekbones weren’t as sharp, her chin not as pointy, her nose not as perfectly straight. This plastic surgeon had done the opposite of what was usually required; he’d made her perfect features imperfect—made her look less movie-star gorgeous and more natural.
Why would she have gone to such extremes to change her identity? With him, her effort was wasted. He would know her anywhere, just from the way his body reacted—tensing and tingling with attraction. And anger. But she was already afraid of him and he didn’t want to scare the child, too, so he restrained his rage over her cruel deception.
“You’re Josie Jessup.”
She shook her head again and spoke, but this time her voice was little more than a raspy whisper. “You’re mistaken. That’s not my name.”
The raspy whisper did nothing to disguise her voice, since it was how he best remembered her. A raspy whisper in his ear as they’d made love, his body thrusting into hers, hers arching to take him deep. Her nails digging into his shoulders and back as she’d screamed his name.
That was why he’d let her fool him once, why he’d let her distract him when he had needed to be focused and careful. She had seduced and manipulated him with all her loving lies. She’d only wanted to get close to him so she could get a damn story. She hadn’t realized how dangerous getting close to him really was. No matter what she’d learned, she didn’t know the truth about him. And if he had anything to say about it, she never would. He wouldn’t let her make a fool of him twice.
“If you’re not Josie Jessup, what the—” He swallowed a curse for the child’s sake. “What are you doing here?”
“We were gonna see my grampa,” the little boy answered for her, “but we didn’t wanna wake him up.”
She was the same damn liar she had always been, but at least she hadn’t corrupted the boy.
His son…
*
JOSIE RESISTED THE urge to press her palm over CJ’s mouth. It was already too late. Why was it now that her usually shy son chose to speak to a stranger? And, moreover, to speak the truth? But her little boy was unfailingly honest, no matter the fact that his mother couldn’t be. Especially now.
“But we got out on the wrong floor,” she said. “This isn’t where your grandfather’s room is.”
CJ shook his head. “No, we watched the numbers lighting up in the el’vator. You said number six. I know my numbers.”
Now she cursed herself for working with the three-year-old so much that he knew all his numbers and letters. “Well, it’s the wrong room.”
“You said number—”
“Shh, sweetheart, you’re tired and must not remember correctly,” she said, hoping that her son picked up the warning and the fear in her voice now. “We need to leave. It’s late. We need to get you to bed.”
But those strong masculine fingers were still wrapped tight around her wrist. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“You have no right to keep me,” she said.
With his free hand, he gestured toward CJ. “He gives me the right. I have a lot of rights you’ve apparently denied me.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Why the hell would she have told the man who’d tried to kill her that she was pregnant with his baby? If his attempts had been successful, he would have killed them both.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Josie.”
CJ tugged on her hand and whispered loudly, “Mommy, why does the man keep calling you that?”
Now he supported her lie—too late. “I don’t know, honey,” she said. “He has me mixed up with someone else he must have known.”
“No,” Brendan said. “I never really knew Josie Jessup at all.”
No. He hadn’t. Or he would have realized that she was too smart to have ever really trusted him. If only she’d been too smart to fall for him…
But the man was as charming as he was powerful. And when he’d touched her,
when he’d kissed her, she had been unable to resist that charm.
“Then it’s no wonder that you’ve mistaken me for her,” Josie said, “since you didn’t really know her very well.”
She furrowed her brow and acted as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Josie Jessup? Isn’t that the daughter of the media mogul? I thought she died several years ago.”
“That was obviously what she wanted everyone to believe—that she was dead,” he said. “Or was it just me?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” You. Just you. But unfortunately, for him to accept the lie, everyone else had had to believe it, too. “I am not her. She must really be gone.”
And if she’d had any sense, she would have stayed gone. Well away from her father and this man.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “Are you visiting someone?”
Or knowing all this time that she wasn’t really dead, had he set a trap for her? Was he the one who had attacked her father? According to the reports from all her father’s media outlets, there was no suspect yet in his assault. But she had one now.
She needed to call Charlotte. But the phone was in her purse, and she had locked her purse in her vehicle so that if anyone was to recognize her, they wouldn’t be able to find her new identity.
“It doesn’t matter why I’m here—just that I am,” he said, dodging her question as he had so many other questions she had asked him during the months they’d been together. “And so are you.”
“Not anymore. We’re leaving,” she said, as much to CJ as to Brendan. As if on cue, the elevator ground to a stop, and the doors slid open. She moved to step into the car, but her wrist was clutched so tightly she couldn’t move.
“That one’s going up,” Brendan pointed out.
“As I said, we got off on the wrong floor.” She tugged hard on her wrist, but his grip didn’t ease. She didn’t want to scream and alarm her already trembling son, so through gritted teeth she said, “Let go of me.”
But he stepped closer. He was so damn big, all broad muscles and tension. There were other bulges beneath the jacket of his dark tailored suit—weapons. He had always carried guns. He’d told her it was because of the dangerous people who resented his inheriting his father’s businesses.
But she’d wondered then if he’d been armed for protection or intimidation. She was intimidated, so intimidated that she cared less about scaring her son than she did about protecting him. So she screamed.
*
HER SCREAM STARTLED Brendan and pierced the quiet of the hospital corridor. But he didn’t release her until her son—their son—launched himself at Brendan. His tiny feet kicked at Brendan’s shins and his tiny fists flailed, striking Brendan’s thighs and hips.
“Leggo my mommy! Leggo my mommy!”
The boy’s reaction and fear startled Brendan into stepping back. Josie’s wrist slipped from his grasp. She used her freed hand to catch their son’s flailing fists and tug him close to her.
Before Brandon could reach for her again, three men dressed in hospital scrubs rushed up from the room they’d been loitering near down the hall. Brendan had noted their presence but had been too distracted to realize that they were watching him.
Damn! He had been trained to constantly be aware of his surroundings and everyone in them. Only Josie had ever made him forget his training to trust no one.
“What’s going on?” one of the men asked.
“This man accosted me and my son,” Josie replied, spewing more lies. “He tried to grab me.”
Brendan struggled to control his anger. The boy—his boy—was already frightened of him. He couldn’t add to that fear by telling the truth. So he stepped back again in order to appear nonthreatening, when all he wanted to do was threaten.
“We’ll escort you to your car, ma’am,” another of the men offered as he guided her and the child into the waiting elevator.
“Don’t let her leave,” Brendan advised. Because if she left, he had no doubt that he would never see her and his son again. This time she would stay gone. He moved forward, reaching for those elevator doors before they could shut on Josie and their son.
But strong hands closed around his arms, dragging him back, while another man joined Josie inside the elevator. Just as the doors slid shut, Brendan noticed the telltale bulge of a weapon beneath the man’s scrubs. He carried a gun at the small of his back.
Brendan shrugged off the grasp of the man who held him. Then he whirled around to face him. But now he faced down the barrel of his gun. Why were he and at least one of the other men armed? They weren’t hospital security, and he doubted like hell that they were orderlies.
Who were they? And more important, who had sent them?
The guy warned Brendan, “Don’t be a hero, man.”
He laughed incredulously at the idea of anyone considering him a hero. “Do you know who I am?”
“I don’t care who the hell you are,” the guy replied, as he cocked the gun, “and neither will this bullet.”
Four years ago Brendan’s father had learned that it didn’t matter who he was, either. When he’d been shot in the alley behind O’Hannigan’s early one morning, that bullet had made him just as dead as anyone else who got shot. Even knowing the dangerous life his father had led, his murder had surprised Brendan.
As the old man had believed himself invincible, so had Brendan. Or maybe he just remembered being fifteen, running away from the strong, ruthless man and never looking back.
But Dennis O’Hannigan’s death had brought Brendan back to Chicago and to the life he’d sworn he’d never live. Most people thought he’d come home to claim his inheritance. Even now he couldn’t imagine why the old man had left everything to him.
They hadn’t spoken in more than fifteen years, even though his father had known where Brendan was and what he’d been doing. No one had ever been able to hide from Dennis O’Hannigan—not his friends or his family and certainly not his enemies.
Which one had ended the old man’s life?
Brendan had really returned to claim justice. No matter how ruthless his father had been, he deserved to have his murder solved, his killer punished.
Some people thought Brendan had committed the murder—out of vengeance and greed. He had certainly had reasons for wanting revenge. His father had been as cruel a father and husband as he’d been a crime boss.
And as a crime boss, the man had acquired a fortune—a destiny and a legacy that he’d left to his only blood relative. Because, since his father’s death, Brendan was the only O’Hannigan left in the family. Or so he’d thought until he’d met his son tonight.
He couldn’t lose the boy before he even got to know him. No matter how many people thought of him as a villain, he would have to figure out a way to be the hero.
He had to save his son.
And Josie.
Four years ago she must have realized that she was in danger—that must have been why she’d staged her own death. Had she realized yet that those men in the elevator with her were not orderlies or interns but dangerous gunmen? Had she realized that she was in as much or more danger now than she’d been in before?
Chapter Three
Fear gripped Josie. She was more scared now than she’d been when Brendan wouldn’t let go of her. Maybe her pulse raced and her heart hammered just in reaction to his discovering her. Or maybe it was because she wasn’t entirely certain she had really gotten away from him…even as the doors slid closed between them.
“Thank you,” she told the men. “I really appreciate your helping me and my son to safety.”
“Was that man threatening you?” one of them asked.
She nodded. More threatening than they could possibly understand. Brendan O’Hannigan could take even more from her now than just her life. He could take away her son.
“H-he’s a b-bad man,” CJ stammered. The little boy trembled with fear and the aftereffects of his physical defense of his mother.
“Are
you okay?” she asked him, concerned that he’d gotten hurt when he’d flung himself at Brendan. She couldn’t believe her timid son had summoned that much courage and anger. And she hated that she’d been so careless with their safety that she’d put him in such a dangerous predicament. Dropping to her knees in front of her son, she inspected him to see if he had been harmed.
His little face was flushed nearly as bright red as his tousled curls. His eyes glistened with tears he was fighting hard not to shed. He blinked furiously and bit his bottom lip. Even at three, he was too proud to cry in front of strangers. He nodded.
Her heart clutched in her chest, aching with love and pride. “You were so brave.” She wound her arms tightly around him and lifted him up as she stood again. Maybe a good parent would have admonished him for physically launching himself at a stranger. But it was so hard for him to be courageous that she had to praise his efforts. “Thank you for protecting Mommy.”
She hadn’t been able to shake Brendan’s strong grip. But CJ’s attack had caught the mobster off guard so that he’d released her and stepped back. She released a shuddery breath of relief that he hadn’t hurt her son.
CJ wrapped his pudgy little legs around her waist and clung to her, his slight body trembling against her. “The bad man is gone?”
“He’s gone.”
But for how long? Had he just taken the stairs to meet the elevator when it stopped? CJ had pushed the up arrow, so the car was going to the roof. She doubted Brendan would waste his time going up. Instead he would have more time to get down to the lobby and lay in wait for her and CJ to leave for the parking garage.
And if he followed her there, she would have no protection against him. Unlike him, she carried no weapons. Just a can of mace and that was inside her purse, which she had locked in her vehicle.
But these men had promised to see her safely to her car. Surely they would protect her against Brendan…
