Catoctin Mountain, Maryland
Present
Alexandra hadn’t intended to fall asleep in JT’s arms. She didn’t plan on falling asleep at all. But it happened anyway. It had been so natural to lie next to him on the couch, accepting the comfort she so desperately needed.
So much like the night they met. Complete strangers then, but she’d been through a traumatic experience, and he hadn’t hesitated to comfort her. That night, she’d had no intention of ever seeing him again.
Here she was, sixteen years later, and once again sleeping in his arms. She shifted, rising on her elbow to study him in the dark. They lay side by side on the wide lounge seat on the end of the plush sofa.
In sleep, JT’s face was free of the lines he’d earned in the twenty-two years he’d been CEO of a multimillion-dollar international engineering firm. She’d met him six years into his tenure, back when he had his own dreams of entering politics.
The man she’d first met at a Talon & Drake holiday party sixteen years ago had been so very different from the one she’d said goodbye to at the same event nine years later.
Who had he become in the last seven years?
Was he more like his former incarnation or the latter?
Honestly, it was hard to imagine either version of him willingly babysitting a toddler for any length of time, let alone agreeing to care for Gemma indefinitely.
Yet he had. And he’d done a good job of it.
A few hours ago, after the dinner dishes were done and they settled in the living room. Gemma had grabbed her tattered Goodnight Moon board book from the diaper bag and climbed onto JT’s lap, demanding he read it to her.
Alexandra’s eyes had burned with tears as he read with gusto and Gemma giggled wildly. It was decidedly not a bedtime story the way Uncle Tee read it.
Her eyes burned again just thinking about it. She let out a soft sniff. She would not cry.
“Hey, sweetheart.” JT’s voice was soft and sleepy. His arm tightened around her. “It’s okay. You’re safe. Gemma’s safe.”
She wanted to protest that that wasn’t why she was fighting tears, but she also didn’t want to admit what had triggered them.
She did the cowardly thing and buried her face in his side and let him hold her.
“Your daughter is really amazing, Lex. A genius, just like her mom. You know she told me a knock-knock joke?”
She swiped at her eyes and said, “Did she make a raspberry sound?”
“Yep.”
“She started doing that last week. It will never not be funny.”
“I had no idea kids her age could…have so much personality.”
“What about Grace?”
“I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
She could believe that. “I should go check on her.”
His arm tightened. “I haven’t heard a peep from the baby monitor. Stay a little longer? Holding you like this…it reminds me of the night we met. I held you all night, sleeping in my slacks even though I had more comfortable clothes down the hall. But I didn’t dare leave you.”
She let out a soft laugh. He was right. They both were still dressed. They’d settled on the couch to brainstorm ways to prove her innocence, and she’d slowly inched toward him until she was snug against his side.
Sliding into sleep had been inevitable from there. It was the first time she’d truly relaxed in days.
“I needed this as much as I needed you then.”
He kissed her forehead. “I will always be here for you, Lex.”
He’d made that promise before. That first night, in fact. It had taken him a lot of years, but he did eventually break it.
But it wasn’t really fair to hold a man to a promise he made to a total stranger and think it would mean the same thing after she’d called off their wedding years later.
She’d been the first to break a promise.
“I appreciate that, but someday, you’re going to meet the woman I could never be for you, and she won’t be thrilled with me coming around for emotional support.”
“Impossible. You’re the only one for me. I’ve known that from the day we met.”
“Right.” She pulled away from him. He’d read too much into the comfort she’d accepted from him.
He sat up, moving to the corner of the couch. She grabbed the throw blanket that had covered them both and pulled it around her, using it as a barrier.
“I won’t ever love anyone like I love you, but I understand why you don’t believe me. I was far too lost when we were last together. We can open those wounds later. Right now, I just want you to know I will move heaven and earth to help you and Gemma, and I have the engineering skills and tools to do it.”
“Earth is your zone as an engineer. I’m the one with the knowledge of the heavens, and I can say with authority you won’t be able to get the cosmos to budge on my behalf.”
He chuckled. “Ah. Literal Lex is in the building.”
She felt a pang at the name. Kendall too had called her that. “Just sayin’. I don’t think your money or your company can save me.”
“I’m selling the company. Then I’ll have a crap ton more money.”
“You are? Does Lee know? Of course. He must know but…he hasn’t said anything.” But then, Lee and Erica didn’t talk about JT with her, at her request.
He shrugged. “The closing is New Year’s Eve. Big party to follow where fat bonuses will be handed out.”
“Was the sale something Kendall was working on?”
He frowned and cocked his head as he considered the question. “Probably. Her numbers as a cost estimator would have been part of the due diligence. Why?”
“She said something about an issue with her job she wanted to talk to me about.”
He frowned. “Have you considered that what happened to you could be related to her?”
“I have. But I haven’t a clue how it might connect.”
“You were only about a mile from her house. The cop could have followed you.”
“But why?”
“What all did you get from Kendall’s house?”
“I left most everything there—I planned to go back next week with a rental van to pick up the couch and boxes that I wanted to take my time sorting through. Many of my school papers had been mixed with hers. I filled one archive box with framed photos, my mom’s cookbooks, and a few knickknacks we’d purchased for our various apartments together.
“It was all I’d planned to take, but when I loaded the box in my SUV, I remembered she’d mentioned the old PC you gave me for school that first winter semester. She’d said the motherboard had burned out, but she was certain the files were intact. Rescuing old files from dead computers had been on her to-do list for years, but she was admitting defeat and wanted me to take the computer off her hands, or she’d throw it away. One less thing to worry about.”
She grimaced, remembering that moment when she’d considered tossing the computer and being done. She’d lived without the photos and files this long. She wouldn’t know what she was losing, so did it matter?
But Kendall was gone. There would be no new photos of her, and she’d just spent hours crying over long-forgotten photographs with Kendall’s sister, Tanya. There could be some treasures on that hard drive.
So she’d given Tanya a big hug in the driveway, and the woman drove off.
“Tanya left, and I went back inside. I gave myself twenty minutes to find the old computer before I hit the road to pick up Gemma. It took me about ten to find the tan console box with the old Talon & Drake logo on it in the CPU graveyard in the office closet. Knowing that all the other electronic components in Kendall’s house would be recycled, I decided not to grab the whole console box. I opened it up and pulled the hard drive.
“I was in a hurry when I left, which is why it wasn’t in the box with the other items. I tossed it on the front seat with my coat. I was mad at myself for not just grabbing the console, when I was already on limited time.”
She’d gotten lost in memories in the closet. The damn computer had represented so much. JT had wanted to help her with school, but she didn’t want to feel indebted to him, so the compromise had been to accept a used but upgraded work computer that was no longer needed.
She’d known even then it was a lie. The Talon & Drake logo had been slapped on it to make it look used.
That was why she didn’t want the console box. She didn’t want the reminder of those wonderful early days, when she was falling head over heels for JT Talon and trying her hardest to demonstrate to them both it was the man she wanted, not the stuff.
And so she’d wasted precious minutes pulling the hard drive.
“In the end, it’s a good thing I didn’t take the whole console and that I had it in the front seat with me. It’s what I hit the cop with.”
“Where is it now?”
“In Kendall’s Jetta. In the glove box. It has the cop’s blood on it.”
JT rose from the couch. “I’ll grab it. Is the car locked?”
She nodded and rose to get the keys from her coat pocket.
Minutes later, he was back with the hard drive. He set it on the marble countertop, and Alexandra felt sick at seeing the dried blood on the sharp edge of the rectangular metal box. There were a few hairs caught in a seam.
She covered her mouth with her hand and tried not to gag.
She hadn’t killed him, and she’d fought in self-defense. But still, knowing that the head injury she’d caused had led to his cold-blooded murder made her ill.
JT’s arms surrounded her again, and again, she remembered the night they met. When another man had intended to hurt her, but JT had stopped him.
She thought about their first kiss. She’d been so angry and wanted mindless sex to claim her bodily autonomy. This was different.
She wanted to kiss him tonight too, but this time, it was to escape the horror. Forget the nightmare.
Still, anger was there too. Why had the cop—Corey Williams—pulled her over and assaulted her? Was she one of many such victims? Would investigators discover he was a serial killer? That wouldn’t clear her name, but it would go far to show hitting him with the hard drive had been done in self-defense.
She didn’t want to think about those moments by the side of the road when she wondered if Williams intended to rape and kill her.
No, she wanted to think about JT’s hand on the small of her back. His scent was oh so familiar. This man, who she’d loved since she was twenty-five and a struggling grad student.
Her hands moved up, sliding around his neck. She tilted her head back and met his gaze.
“Lex,” he said. His voice almost pained. His erection was a familiar pressure against her belly.
“Kiss me.”
He looked like he was going to refuse her, but then he lowered his head until his lips met hers.
It was like a thousand kisses they’d shared before, yet it was also totally different. His tongue explored, stroking hers. Deep and slow. Thorough, like he was making up for lost time. Lost kisses.
She responded in kind. This was exactly what she needed. To get lost. To escape.
This would be like the times they’d slept together after she’d called off the wedding. No commitment. Just sex. Wonderful, hot sex.
She reached for his belt buckle.
JT ended the kiss. His hand covered hers as she worked the leather free. “Lex. We can’t.”
“Please, Jay. I need this.”
“Sweetheart. You know this would be a mistake.”
“It’s just sex. Don’t worry. I won’t expect a ring afterward and I don’t want your money. I know Gemma is the ultimate JT repellant. I just want you to fuck me. So I can forget.”
He flinched. “I know I had that coming.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. It was meant to be reassuring.”
“And once again, I don’t want to be your fuck-and-forget buddy.”
“You wouldn’t be taking advantage of me. We’re not strangers this time.”
“Yeah. But you would be taking advantage of me.”
She took a step back. He was serious. “You don’t want me. I’ve got a kid. She’s not optional anymore. There is no other dad she can be shipped off to, like Lee was when his mom found him inconvenient. I would think you’d be thrilled to get laid again without worry that I want more than you can give.”
“Well then, you’d be wrong.” He pointed to the hard disk on the counter. “I’m going to check and see if I’ve got an old console to plug this into in the attic. Get some sleep. Night, Lex.”
He left the kitchen without looking back.
She’d hurt him. She hadn’t intended to throw his words back at him like that, but still, she wondered if some subconscious part of her had done it on purpose.
Things had been so much simpler when they hadn’t even known each other’s names. Before they had a world of hurt built up between them. Back when their biggest problem was Brent Forbes and Russ Spaulding.