by Brynne Asher
“Eli.” She moans my name and I’ve almost worked my way down to her hip when a ringing breaks into the moment. “Oh, no.”
I hook my fingers into the slip of material and say against her skin, “Ignore it.”
Her fingers tense in my hair, stopping me from stripping her naked. “I can’t. My staff knows not to call me on a Sunday unless it’s important. It’s my day and they know it. I need to get that.”
I sigh. She twists underneath me and reaches for the small purse she threw on the table last night as she stumbled through the room. I roll off and she grabs the bag, barely getting to it in time.
Her hair flips over her shoulder as she looks at me when she answers. “Patrick. What’s up?”
She pulls the blanket up to cover her bare chest as she listens. When I see her eyes suddenly change, she turns into Jensen Montgomery, CFO of an almost billion-dollar company.
She speaks into the phone and her eyes shoot to mine. “Really? He found this last night? Who is it?”
I lean up on an elbow and slide my hand under the covers to squeeze her thigh.
“Yes.” She goes on and her eyes fall shut as she exhales. “I’ll be there. Thirty minutes. I can’t wait to hear. Thank you.”
She tosses the phone to the bed and I give her leg a squeeze. “Good news?”
Her face relaxes and she fists the covers at her chest. A look passes over her I’ve never seen—relief. “Patrick didn’t go into detail but he’s had a private investigator working on things from inside MI.”
I don’t know whether to be surprised, impressed, or pissed she didn’t tell me. I sit up next to her and demand, “They have a lead?”
“Yes, but he didn’t want to say over this line. He said he’d rather tell me in person where he knew it would be safe. He’s worried my phones are still being tapped.”
“You’re meeting him soon?”
She leans in to kiss me fast. “Thirty minutes. Which means, I’ve gotta grab a shower and go. I’m sorry, but you’re welcome to stay.”
When she turns to move, I grab her hand. “Your lawyer knows you’re being framed, I know you’re being framed, and there’s other shit going on at my work. I know I was gone all week, but I intend to dig into that stuff tomorrow. Let me take you to your meeting. Tell your people how I’ve helped you behind the scenes. It’ll be fine but I want to be at that meeting. I want to know who to go after for trying to come at you.”
She winces. “I think it’s too soon.”
“What?” I ask and pull her to me. “Someone going to fire you for withholding this shit from them?”
She frowns. “No.”
“Right. Then it’s decided—I’m taking you.”
“Eli—”
I shake my head and press my thumb over her lips. “Jen. Your attorney might be pissed initially, but he works for you. It’ll be fine. And I’m done skirtin’ around in the dark.”
“Really?” She smiles. “You want to skirt around with me in the light?”
“Yes.”
She takes a big breath before biting her lip. “Patrick is going to chew my ass for about five minutes. But I’ll take it for you.”
“Good.” I pull her up to me again and put my lips on hers. “I’m also ready to have more than fifteen minutes with you at a time. Go take a shower and I’ll see what you have for breakfast.”
With her messy hair and smeared makeup, she smiles and pulls away from me. I don’t dare move so I can appreciate her walking the distance to her bathroom in nothing but the black lace thong she wore to bed last night. I should regret the fact we were interrupted but I’ll take it if it’ll set her free so I can have her all to myself.
When she gets to her bathroom door, she turns to peek over her shoulder. “I’m so relieved. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
I flip the covers back to climb out of her big bed. When I start for her, her eyes go directly to my cock, which woke up this morning excited and ready. I reach out, pulling her back to my front and lean down to whisper, “You can thank me later.” I drag my hand up her stomach to cup her tit and feel a chill run over her skin. “I have plenty of ideas how you can pay me back.”
Her eyes flare. “I can’t be late. We’re meeting at Lehmans and it’s a good fifteen-minute drive from here.”
I kiss the top of her messy-haired head. “Get showered and I’ll get dressed. I’ll meet you in five minutes.”
I let her go even though I don’t want to. I’m ready to get this shit over with.
*****
Jen
I don’t know what I’m more nervous about—finding out who’s trying to frame me or telling Patrick and the rest of my attorneys that I’ve been consorting under the covers with someone from the opposing team.
I know I don’t have to mention the under the covers part but they’re smart. They’ll know what’s going on the minute we walk through the room.
I could’ve said no to Eli but, honestly, I’m over it. Eli is right, Patrick will be pissed but he’ll get over it, he won’t have a choice. That still doesn’t make me any less nervous.
“Take this exit and then a sharp left.” As I give Eli directions, I do what I’ve perfected when I’m nervous. I play it cool, calm, and collected. I learned early on, my biggest weakness is letting others see my weaknesses, so I’ve learned to mask it. I had to. Too many people at MI wanted me to fail. Apart from this shit situation I’m currently in, I haven’t done too badly.
Eli captures my hand and hauls it across his console. “Everything’ll be fine.”
I roll my eyes. If I ever hear that again, I may shoot someone.
After I took a quick shower, I barely had time to pull my hair back and throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Eli came in and helped himself to my toothbrush. When I frowned, he just shrugged and went about his business of making himself at home in my bathroom, washing his face and running a wet hand through his hair to straighten it. He had me out the door in record time which meant there was no time for coffee or breakfast and my stomach is complaining.
“It’s up here to the left,” I say as Eli rounds the last corner. Even running out the door, we’re a few minutes late. “When we get in there, I’ll introduce you and explain vaguely that we knew each other before I was served but I didn’t know you were an agent. Patrick is going to flip—it’s his nature but I know how to handle him. Just follow my lead and it’ll be fine. At least my dad won’t be here since they’re still entertaining guests at the ranch. Patrick said he didn’t want to bother him and we’d fill him in later.”
Eli parks on the street, down and across from the building. When he flips off the ignition he turns to me and hitches a brow. “Basically, you want me to shut up.”
I tip my head. “I put it nicer, but yes. Until I get the chance to lay it out for him. Oh, there he is.”
Patrick is parking his BMW in front of the building.
Eli grabs his keys. “This is your party. Just give me the signal when it’s okay for me to speak.”
I grab my purse and get out as he rounds the front of his truck to meet me. He’s beeping his locks when I ask, “What kind of signal would you like?”
He takes my hand and shrugs again. “A wink, blow me a kiss, grab my ass—you pick. But if you go for my cock again, I’ll have to take you down.”
We’re waiting on cars to pass before we can cross the street, so I turn to look up at him and have a hard time keeping the stupid grin off my face. “That would not be a good first impression when introducing you to a man I’ve known most of my life. His daughter and I were friends growing up—”
I don’t get another word out. Just like that day in his warehouse of a gym, Eli does what he threatened and takes me down, but this time he doesn’t do it carefully. I’m thrown against the grille of his truck before we hit the pavement. The side of my head slides across the ground before he has a chance to tuck my face into his neck as he wedges us both under the front of his truck.
/>
This is because, out of nowhere—on this quiet Sunday morning on a midtown Dallas street—gunfire pierces the air like a bolt of lightning, but one that doesn’t stop. I’m no stranger to guns, but hearing bullets ricochet off buildings and cars is something different altogether. People are screaming and cars are crashing.
Eli moves against me as he mutters a string of curse words. He produces a gun of his own and only then do I realize I’ve got a death grip on him. When he tries to untangle himself from me, he growls, “Do not fucking move.”
“No!” I scream but it doesn’t do any good. He’s up and around the back of his truck despite my efforts to hold onto him.
I’m not sure how long the gunfire goes on but, when it finally stops, an eerie aura blankets us. Alarms are going off, screams become shrieks, and there was no need for Eli to tell me not to move.
I can’t.
I can’t even find my breath.
I hear feet hitting the pavement around me and voices shouting in the distance, adding to the chaos.
Oh, shit.
Where did Eli go?
I make myself roll and use the bumper of his truck to pull myself up, my legs wobbling like jello. But when I see where the commotion is, all the air rushes from my lungs.
Not seeing Eli anywhere, I make myself move and inch around a smoking car that rear-ended another. I have to push my way through a wave of people rushing me—moving away from the chaos as I wade into it.
When I get to the sidewalk, my breath catches.
That’s when the crowd parts and I see him.
Oh, fuck.
Fuck.
And my heart stops.
Chapter 17
Don’t Look Back
Jen
My dad started Montgomery Industries from nothing. From that one drilled well on our property that he refused to outsource, he got into the industry. He had the ranch to fall back on, so every penny he made trading barrels of oil, he reinvested into the company.
Even when purchasing small refineries, he always did things differently—better. Kipp Montgomery is a cowboy at heart. He loves the earth and went above and beyond EPA regulations, paid top dollar to workers on his rigs, and bought shit refineries to turn them around.
In the beginning, he only hired people he knew. His friends, his family, people he trusted to do things the way he’d want them done. My dad has high standards for everything. It made it stressful being one of his kids—he expected perfection, to the point of running Cam and Ellie off, even though no one dares to utter that aloud.
But, in business, it worked. He shoots for the moon in everything he does and it’s paid off.
Patrick Moss grew up with my dad running cattle and training horses. My dad told him he needed an attorney who specialized in mergers and acquisitions so he could keep that in-house and that was all it took. Patrick might have graduated from A&M with a degree in Ag Business, but he went back to law school just for my dad. He’s the uncle I never had. I grew up with his daughter, he was at my graduation, and I interned under him one summer. He was the one I called when some of my college friends and I were arrested for drinking underage. He not only bailed me out, but every one of my friends as well, and took care of my legal shit before saying a word to my dad.
To see him lying on the cold pavement, sprawled, with life seeping from him as fast as the memories spinning in my head, my brain can barely catch up. I can’t think of anything besides him, alive and fierce, taking on the world for my dad, our company, and, most recently, me.
He was here for me, at this moment when shots rang through the air.
I stumble forward and fall next to him, his briefcase at his side has barely fallen out of his grip.
“No,” I choke and put my shaking fingers to his neck, where he’s covered in blood, trying to find a pulse.
Please, let there be a pulse.
My tears are flowing and my trembling hands shake him, move to his face, searching—no, needing—to find a hint of life.
“Patrick,” I call for him and lean closer. “Please. Say something.”
“Jen!”
I whip my head around and, while I didn’t think it was possible for your heart to break with agony and burst with relief at the same time, it does. There he is, the man I was about to introduce to Patrick. He’s alive and stalking toward me with a gun hanging from his hand at his side.
His eyes are darker than normal, examining me with an intensity so deep, I can feel it in my soul.
The closer he gets, I lose him in my blurry vision as my tears turn into sobs. “It’s Patrick. He needs help—please. Do something.”
*****
Eli
I told her to stay put and thought I was going to have a fucking fit when I couldn’t find her.
The shots came from between two buildings across the street from Lehmans. By the time I was positioned where I could get a good look, they’d stopped. I ran three city blocks, canvassing as much area as I could, and found no one. By the time I got back to my truck, Jen was gone.
But here she is, kneeling over her lifeless attorney, covered in his blood. I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet because all I feel is relief. If that makes me a jackwad, I’ll wear that medal like a motherfucking Olympian, because the twenty seconds I was looking for her were some of the most painful I’ve ever experienced.
It looks like he’s been hit multiple times and he’s losing a shit-ton of blood—fast. Jen is shaking him, feeling around on his neck for a pulse, and begging him to open his eyes.
I yelled at a couple people to call nine-one-one as I was searching the area for the shooter. They’ll send EMS no matter what. I’m sure they’ll be here any second but, right now, all I can think of is getting her away from this shit. She’ll never get this out of her head.
I tuck my gun into the back of my jeans and have her up and off the ground in no time. Taking three steps, I turn her back to the gruesome scene in front of us and wrap my arms around her shaking body. She fists my shirt in her bloody hands and I put my lips to the side of her head. “They’re on the way, baby. They’re on the way.”
She tries to push away from me and cries through her sobs, “Let me go. I need to be with him.”
My arms tighten around her and I shake my head. “No.”
Pushing and struggling against my hold, she keeps on. “I need to stay with him until they get here to help.”
I look over her head at her attorney. I’ve seen a lot and know there’s no way his heart is still beating. “You shouldn’t have seen what you did. Stay with me, baby.”
Her body wracks violently and I’m not sure if it finally hit her or what, but she sinks into my chest. “There’s so much blood. So many gunshot wounds. He’s gone, isn’t he?”
Fuck.
I don’t answer but I do put my lips to her temple.
She looks up at me through the tears streaking her beautiful face. Was it just thirty minutes ago this same face was happy and relieved? She shakes her head and my insides cringe when she says, “He was here for me, Eli. This all happened because of me.”
“Don’t say that.” Her chest is rising and falling against mine, full of life and breath but also agony and guilt, and that kills me. I don’t know how to take that away from her. Through the chaos and the rising sound of sirens, I do the only thing I can and say, “I’ve got you. You’re not leaving my arms.”
She closes her eyes and that’s when her legs give out.
This is where we are when the police arrive and, later, my co-workers and supervisor. My secret who’s no longer a secret is covered in blood and is right where she needs to be—wrapped up in my arms.
And I don’t give one shit even though I should.
*****
I stand and watch the monitor that’s streaming from the interrogation room at the Dallas PD. Her sweatshirt is stained in blood with remnants on her face from spots the EMT missed when they tried to clean her up. She looks like a ghost of he
rself and, when her attorneys allow her to answer a question, her voice comes out hollow and fragile.
Today—a day that was supposed to be a new start for us—turned to shit in epic fashion. I didn’t think my situation with Jensen Montgomery could possibly get worse than it was, but the universe decided to flip us off and shove it up our asses.
Patrick Moss was pronounced dead on the scene from multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and neck.
This I knew the moment I laid eyes on him.
But what I learned later blew my fucking mind and makes the storm brewing at work seem like nothing but a mild irritation. About thirty minutes after the police arrived on the scene, authorities put together another shooting that happened an hour earlier in north Dallas. There was a drive-by in a quiet neighborhood and the only victim was a private investigator.
He was pronounced dead on the scene, too.
It took about a minute to connect the dots. This means someone knew they were about to be outed and whoever that was, went to every length possible to keep that from happening.
“Pettit!”
I turn when I hear my name growled from across the room. Fuck me. It’s my asshole of a supervisor who likes his cock sucked by his subordinates. Who knows, he might be helping Bree set Jen up, too.
What I do know is my acquaintance with Jensen Montgomery is out of the bag as of two hours ago. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I’d have to answer to someone.
As I watch him stalk across the room toward me, I must admit, I’m looking forward to this.
“I need a word,” he seethes and turns, heading for the empty interrogation room next to where they put Jen.
I gladly follow and slam the door behind me. I can’t wait to see how this goes.
He turns and pokes a finger in my chest and his tone is as angry as the lines creasing his face. He might bust a vein. “I don’t know what the fuck it could be, but tell me there’s a good reason you’re consorting with a federal target. And don’t give me any shit that you were working her case. I’ve talked to three detectives who told me they walked up on that scene and you had that fucking woman in your lap with a murder victim lying dead as a damn doornail next to you. Bree was called because her target was involved and, when she got there, she said you refused to speak to her and wouldn’t leave Montgomery’s side.”
