A Lot Like Love

by Julie James

  Not surprisingly, that bit of good-natured fun had put an end to any trash talk from Tommy Angolini, but also had royally pissed off their father. A sergeant on the NYPD at the time, he had rounded up Nick and his brothers, brought them down to the Sixty-third Precinct, and locked them up in an empty jail cell.

  For six hours.

  Needless to say, after that the McCall brothers had all developed a healthy appreciation for the benefits of being lawabiding ten-, nine-, and seven-year-olds. The only person more traumatized by the lockup had been their mother, who'd spent the six hours crying, refusing to speak to their father, and making lasagna and cannoli—three helpings of which she'd practically force-fed each of her sons immediately upon their homecoming from the Big House.

  "The last person who called me that watched while three footballs crashed through his living room windows," Nick said.

  "Seeing how you can't seem to find your way to New York to save your life, I'm not too worried," Matt shot back. "You'd better be saving the world from a biological weapons attack or foiling a plot to assassinate the president."

  "Nope. That's next week's agenda."

  "Seriously, Nick—you couldn't even make it to Ma's party? We've been planning this for months."

  Feeling like a major asshole, Nick distracted himself by looking out the rear window of the cab and keeping an eye out to see if he was being followed. "I know. But something came up that made leaving impossible. I'll figure out some way to make it up to Ma. How bad is she taking it?"

  "She says she's not FedEx-ing you any more arrabiatta sauce," Matt said.

  Nick whistled. His mother had to be really pissed if she was threatening to cut off food. "That is bad."

  "Unless you suddenly announce you've got a girlfriend or you're getting married or something, I think you're going to be on her shit list for a while." Matt chuckled. Being the middle child and peacemaker of the family, he didn't hold grudges for long. "She's getting crazy with this grandchildren stuff, you know. If I so much as mention that I'm having drinks with a woman, she's on the phone with Father Tom, asking what days the church has free for a wedding."

  "Unfortunately, there's no imminent announcement on my end, so I'll be in the doghouse for a while." Nick oddly caught himself wondering what his mother would think of Jordan. Tough to say whether the billion-dollar inheritance or the convicted felon of a brother would freak her out more. Not that it mattered. "I'm planning to come out there as soon as I finish this project with work. If Ma won't let me in the door, think I can crash with you?"

  "Sure. And don't worry about Ma," Matt said. "I'll tell her there's a new cute assistant DA that I ran into at the station. That should distract her for a while from your sorry-ass excuse for a son."

  "Thanks. And out of curiosity, did you actually run into a new cute assistant DA?"

  His brother sounded sly. "Better than cute. You know I'm a sucker for a woman in high heels and a power suit. Hey—Anthony wants to talk to you next. Here he is."

  Nick heard muffled sounds as Matt handed the phone over, then his youngest brother came onto the line.

  "Hey—anyone ever tell you that you're a douchebag?"

  And so it went.

  Sixteen

  AFTER THE EXCITEMENT of the weekend, it felt strange for Jordan to return to her normal routine on Monday. All day at the store she was on edge, waiting for something to happen, some problematic development in the case: Xander had discovered the recording devices in his office; Mercks had clued in to Nick's real identity; the FBI, for whatever reason, had decided to call the whole thing off.

  It didn't happen.

  By Tuesday night, it was fair to say that she was essentially back to her normal routine, with one notable addition: Nick called to check in every night at nine thirty when she got home from DeVine Cellars. Through him, she learned that Xander and Trilani had met that morning, which meant first and foremost that Xander wasn't suspicious—yet—and second, that the FBI was on their way to getting the evidence they needed to make the arrests.

  "If this keeps up, you won't be stuck with me for long," Nick said teasingly. Then, for the third evening in a row, he asked if she had noticed anything unusual during the day.

  "You keep asking that," Jordan said. "Trust me, you'll be the first person I call if anything seems out of the ordinary. I have no lofty ambitions of being a hero in all this."

  "Just keeping an eye on you, Rhodes."

  The next day, Jordan fought the downtown traffic and headed back to MCC. So much for last week having been my final visit, she thought as she rode up the elevator.

  She and her brother got their usual table, right in front of the grimy, bulletproof window covered with steel bars. Nothing but the best seat in the house when visiting Kyle Rhodes.

  He laid into her the moment he sat down. "Who's Tall, Dark, and Smoldering?"

  Jordan's mouth dropped open. "Shut up. You've been reading Scene and Heard?"

  Kyle gestured to the bars. "What else am I supposed to do in this place?"

  "Repent. Reflect on your wrongdoings. Rehabilitate your criminal mind."

  "You're avoiding the question."

  Yes, she was. Because her brother was number two on the list of people she really, really didn't want to lie to, right after her father. "It's no big deal. He's just a guy I brought to Xander's party." Who, yes, happened to be tall, dark, and smoldering. Allegedly. And who occasionally made her smile, when he wasn't busy getting under her skin. Like an itch she couldn't scratch. Or a tick.

  "For five thousand dollars a head, I doubt he's 'just a guy,' " Kyle said.

  Suddenly, their friend Puchalski, the inmate with the black snake tattoo, was at their table. "So who's this tall, dark, and smoldering jerk?" he asked Jordan, seemingly affronted.

  Jordan held out her hands. "Seriously, does everyone read Scene and Heard in this place?"

  Puchalski gestured to Kyle. "I snagged it from Sawyer here while he was reading the financial section. I've got to keep up with current events." He winked. "I won't be in this place forever, you know."

  "You will be if you don't shut your yap and start following the rules, Puchalski," a guard warned as he passed by.

  The inmate scuttled off.

  Kyle picked up where they'd left off. "So now the big secret's out."

  Jordan glared at her brother, who apparently had decided to be more annoying than usual on this particular subject. "Yes, it's true—I had a date. Ooh, shocking." Then she thought of something. "Wait, does Dad know about the gossip column?"

  "He didn't mention it when he visited on Monday. I doubt he reads Scene and Heard." Kyle eased back in his chair, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "This is an interesting situation, Jordo ... What's it worth to you to keep this information under wraps? Because I'm going to need some income when I get out of this place, and I hear that wine business of yours is really taking off."

  "Get real. You owe me."

  Kyle sat up, indignant at that. "For what?"

  Jordan folded her arms on the table. "Sophomore year. You took Mom's car out of the garage in the middle of the night—without a license—to drive over to Amanda Carroll's. Dad thought he heard a noise when you tried to sneak back in, so I distracted him by saying that I'd seen a strange person in the backyard. While he was looking out my bedroom window, you crept by and mouthed, 'I owe you.' Well, now I want to collect."

  "That was seventeen years ago," Kyle said. "I'm pretty sure there's a statute of limitations on IOUs."

  "I don't recall hearing any disclaimers, expirations, or caveats at the time."

  "I was a minor. The contract's not valid."

  "If you want to weasel your way out of this, I suppose that's true." Jordan waited, knowing she had him. Despite the impression one might get from the orange jumpsuit, her brother was quite honorable. And he always kept his word.

  "Fine," he grumbled. "I finally get some dirt on you, Ms. Perfect, for the first time in thirty-three years, and it's wasted."
He grinned. "Good thing that trip to Amanda Carroll's was worth it, or I'd be pretty pissed about this."

  Jordan made a face. Way too much information. "I'm hardly perfect. I'm just a lot better at not getting caught than you." She took in their surroundings. "Maybe I should've given you a few pointers."

  Kyle nodded approvingly. "Nice one."

  "I have months and months worth of this material," Jordan said. "I figure I better get it in while ... it's still fresh in my head."

  Whoa. She needed to be careful—she'd almost slipped there.

  "You were about to say something else." Kyle eyed her suspiciously.

  Truly, she was the worst secret-agent-accomplice-type person ever.

  BUT ON THURSDAY, Jordan's brief respite of normality came to an end.

  At the store, they had a pickup party for their club members, and the place was packed with customers. Robert and Andrea, the two sales associates, had a steady stream of people at the register, while Martin and Jordan worked behind the bar and around the room, pouring and telling people about the additional wines they'd opened for the night. When they finally closed the shop at nine thirty, a half hour after the usual time, Jordan was exhausted but satisfied. Sales from the tasting had been good—not surprisingly, one of the best times to sell wine to people was after they'd already drunk a few glasses of it.

  They were organizing the store—Martin cleaning up, Jordan organizing the sales receipts, and Andrea drying glasses as Robert washed—when Jordan heard her cell phone ringing. She walked into the back room to grab it.

  "Why haven't you been answering your phone?" Nick demanded when she answered. "I've been trying to reach you all night."

  "I had sixty people in the store until just a few minutes ago. I didn't hear it ringing and couldn't have answered it even if I had."

  "I'm in my car, two minutes from the store. When I get there, you and I are going to have a talk about your lack of vigilance with your cell phone."

  "No—wait." Jordan shut the door so the others couldn't hear. "Look, Nick, I'm beat. We had a pickup party tonight, I've got three employees in the store, and I don't have the energy to do the whole pretending-to-be-dating thing in front of them. Plus, you sound like you're raring to go over this, and as much as I normally enjoy being lectured after a long day of work, I'm wondering if we could just save that for another time. As in, you know, never."

  Nick didn't say anything at first. When he finally answered, his voice had a note of suspicion to it. "What's a pickup party? Sounds sketchy. And it definitely sounds like something my girlfriend shouldn't be attending."

  "It's a party where club members pick up their wine. Not people."

  He sounded somewhat appeased. "Hmm. Just as long as no one's putting their keys in a fishbowl or anything."

  Jordan smiled. "How 1970s of you. I think it's wrist watches now, not keys."

  "I don't even want to know how you know that." Nick paused. "Seriously, how do you know that?"

  "I saw it on Oprah." Jordan took a seat at her desk. "What's the emergency, anyway? I assume there is one, if you were trying to reach me all night."

  "Someone's been following me all day."

  She turned serious. "Do you think we're in trouble?"

  "No, I actually think this is a good sign," Nick said. "Eckhart's investigator must be getting desperate, not having been able to dig up any dirt on me. But since he's watching, we need to make sure everything looks on the up-and-up."

  "And that means ... ?"

  "That you and I are going on another date. The weekend starts tomorrow. With as much as Nick Stanton likes you, he'd want to see you again. Soon."

  "Nick Stanton doesn't play the usual relationship games. I think I like this guy. Hold on a second and I'll see what I can do." Jordan checked the calendar on her phone. "How about lunch on Sunday? I usually take a half-hour break once Martin gets in."

  Nick sounded insulted. "You're trying to push me off to a Sunday day date? That's the lowliest of all weekend dates—where you slot the scrubs who barely beat out doing laundry. I want a Friday or Saturday night date. Period."

  The Great Oz had spoken.

  "Sorry, but this Friday I'm having dinner with my father. And as you already know, on Saturday I have plans with my friends," Jordan said. "But if it'll make you feel better, I could bump you up to Sunday evening, after the store closes."

  "There's a man who's been watching my every move for the last eight hours, Jordan. He's going to wonder what's going on when Nick Stanton, who supposedly has a girlfriend and a regular life, sits at home alone on a Friday and Saturday night. The FBI didn't magically produce friends for me as part of this cover. Other than my fake house and my fake office, there aren't too many places I can go because I can't risk anyone recognizing me. You are the part of this assignment that makes everything look normal. So it's either dinner with your father on Friday, or Saturday with your friends. You pick."

  Jordan bit her tongue, knowing he was at least partially right. Still, for a fake boyfriend, he was awfully bossy. "Fine. You can pick me up on Saturday night and I'll take you to dinner with my friends. I'll tell them your work meeting was canceled or something."

  "See? Was that so hard?"

  Yes, because now she had to lie to three more people she cared about, but she'd worry about that later. "Just be at my house at seven."

  WHILE DRIVING BACK to his condo—with a guy on his tail—Nick's cell phone rang a few minutes after he finished talking to Jordan. He saw that it was Huxley, who Davis had assigned to be the liaison on the favor Nick had called in.

  Finally. Nick had been expecting this call all day. "I was thinking you might've forgotten my number," he said as he answered.

  "Sorry for the delay," Huxley said. "Griegs isn't easily accessible, given the circumstances."

  True. "So what's his assessment of the situation?" Nick asked.

  "That Kyle Rhodes isn't exactly Mr. Popularity with some of the inmates at MCC. He's already been involved in several altercations. It doesn't sound like he's the instigator, but the guards have started putting him in disciplinary segregation nevertheless. Probably hoping that will pacify anyone who thinks he's getting special treatment because of his money."

  For the first time, Nick sympathized with Kyle Rhodes. Being sentenced to prison for a crime he'd willingly committed was one thing, but being thrown in disciplinary segregation merely for defending himself was another. "But Griegs will keep an eye on him?"

  "He says he'll try. But he told me to warn you that there's probably not much he can do. Apparently, Rhodes isn't exactly helping the situation—he defends himself when threatened. Griegs says it's just as likely that Rhodes will end up injuring somebody else during a fight. Either way, it's not a good situation."

  "No, it's not." That wasn't the report Nick had been hoping for. "Kyle Rhodes sounds like a ticking time bomb."

  "And if he explodes, Jordan Rhodes will pull out of this deal," Huxley said. "You got any ideas how to keep her brother under control?"

  "I always have ideas, Huxley. We'll talk soon."

  Seventeen

  "SO TELL ME about your friends."

  Jordan looked over at Nick. He'd insisted upon driving, even though she had wanted to take a cab. Given the circumstances, meaning that the evening counted as a work night for him, he said he didn't plan to drink much. Which was a shame, because she'd brought along some great wines and had been planning to take another shot at making Nick a non-scoffer. She might not get another chance, after all. Things seemed to be progressing well with the surveillance of Xander, which meant that their dating charade wouldn't last much longer.

  "Well, you already met Melinda," she said. "She'll be there with her boyfriend, Pete."

  "What does he do for a living?" Nick asked.

  "He writes operas. That's how he and Melinda met—they're both in musical theater."

  Nick eyed her skeptically. "They're not going to burst into song or anything during dinner, ar
e they?"

  "That depends on how many bottles of wine we've gone through."

  Nick muttered something about men from Brooklyn not doing musical theater. "What about the other couple?"

  "Corinne is a high school teacher and her husband, Charles, is a lawyer."

  This, at least, seemed to meet with his approval. "Sounds more my speed."

  "Do try to get along with everyone, sweetie," Jordan said. "Remember that we're in that stage of our relationship where you're trying to impress me by getting to know my friends."

  "I've never been very good at that stage." Nick thought about this. "Actually, I've never been at that stage."

  "I'm sure you can handle one night of it. Just do whatever it is you normally do on a date."

  Nick looked over with a devious sparkle in his eyes.

  "Other than that," Jordan said.

  Charles and Corinne lived with their son in a three-bedroom bungalow in Andersonville, a quaint, charming neighborhood a few miles north of downtown Chicago. As they climbed up the steps to the front porch, Jordan saw Nick look over to their right. She heard a car approaching down the block at the same moment she felt his hand move to her waist.

  She waited until they were at the front door and spoke quietly. "Are we being followed again?"

  "Yes."

  She rang the doorbell and took a deep breath, preparing herself for the next episode of the Nick and Jordan show.

  NICK PLASTERED ON a charming grin just as the door opened. A woman with straight, jet black hair greeted them with a cheerful smile.

  "Hey, guys." She held the door open and introduced herself. "I'm Corinne. It's so nice to meet you, Nick. We've heard ... well, honestly we've heard nothing about you. Jordan's been oddly quiet about this whole thing. Melinda's been telling everyone that you're some kind of spy or secret agent."