“Are you sure about this?” Mom asked as Robert guided her up the narrow stairs into the plane.
“I’m sure. We’ll talk anytime you want and in a few months, I’ll fly down and visit you.” Robert settled her into her seat. “He won’t keep us apart.”
Mom was crying softly. “Don’t let him hurt you,” she said, her voice surprisingly level despite her tears. “I couldn’t live with myself if...”
Robert pressed a kiss to her good cheek. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Mom. I promise you, I’ve got the situation under control. You focus on getting well.” He motioned the nurse forward. “Bridget here will be with you the whole time.”
Mom nodded, looking panicked. Then she glanced out the window and seemed to calm. Robert followed her gaze and saw Jeannie standing near the limo, wind billowing her skirt. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she whispered.
“I do.”
Landon Wyatt wouldn’t have any idea what’d hit him. The disappearance of his wife was merely the first domino to fall.
Mom turned back to him. She took a deep breath and nodded. “All right. But promise me this, Bobby—if you get the chance at real happiness, grab it. Hold on to it.” She gripped his hand with surprising strength. But then, she’d always been so much stronger than she let on. “Be happy, Bobby.” She looked at Jeannie again. “Be well and be happy. It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
Robert had to swallow a few times before his throat worked right. He’d gotten a little bit of happiness for a short time. It would have to do. “That’s what I want for you, too.” Mom gave him a scolding look, tinged with a smile, so Robert promised. “I will. I swear.”
He kissed her goodbye and checked in with Bridget one last time. Then he was climbing down the stairs and Jeannie was waiting for him. After tonight he wouldn’t get the comfort of going to her when he needed her.
How was he supposed to go on without her?
But he didn’t have the luxury of loving Jeannie, not until Landon was either behind bars or six feet under and not until Robert could be sure the bastard hadn’t left behind instructions that would endanger Jeannie or his mother.
Jeannie slipped her hand in his and a brief moment of hope flared in his chest as the plane door shut and locked. She’d said she’d wait for him, hadn’t she? If Robert knew that she’d be there with the perfect Manhattan and that take-no-crap smile—maybe even with a silk tie tangled in her fingers—after this thing with Landon was settled, he’d be content to wait.
But that wasn’t fair to her. She had a life—a baby to care for, a job she enjoyed. He was a customer, a benefactor—and a lover, perhaps—but that didn’t make her his.
Robert knew what Landon would say. He’d say Jeannie belonged to Robert. He was a Wyatt and Wyatts took what they wanted. Landon would spout off about how Robert had to demand respect when he meant fear, as if fear was somehow more magical than love or trust.
Yes, that was what Landon Wyatt would do.
Which was exactly why Robert would let Jeannie go.
As the plane began to move, Robert caught a glimpse of his mother’s face, tear-streaked and shocked. She lifted a hand and Robert returned the small wave.
Jeannie leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, almost the same height he was in her heels. They stood together in silence as the plane taxied down the runway and took off.
It was done. Mom was on her way. Everything else was falling into place.
So why couldn’t he move?
Because moving would bring him closer to the end of tonight. To the end of his time with Jeannie.
He wasn’t sure he was strong enough to do what had to be done.
“Sir?” Kelly came forward. “Do you want the updates?”
Mechanically, Robert nodded. But he turned to Jeannie. “Wait for me?” Because he wasn’t strong enough. Not...yet, anyway.
Her fingers tightened around his hand. She was less than a breath away—closer than that when she lifted her other hand and brushed her thumb over his cheek. “Of course.”
Then she kissed the spot she’d just stroked, her lips lingering. He could smell champagne on her breath mingling with the orange scent she always wore.
He had to let her go. He had to. And if she wouldn’t listen—because this was Jeannie, after all—then he’d have to keep her away.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and held her tight, inhaling her scent deeply. Each moment was another memory he tucked away, another glimpse of happiness that he’d hold on to for later.
He’d promised, after all.
“I’ll wait in the car,” she whispered in his ear.
But he didn’t let her go. Not just yet. Another moment, that was all he needed. He couldn’t take her home because Landon might show up at any moment, full of rage and hate, and follow them. And Maja was at Jeannie’s house, to say nothing of the baby.
“After this,” he murmured against her temple, “I’ll take you to see the stars.”
He felt the tremor of excitement move through her. “From your terrace?” Her body pressed against his, a promise of more than just another moment. She reached up between them and tugged the ends of his bow tie loose and just like that, he went rock-hard for her. “I’d like that. But I couldn’t wish for anything more.”
He shook his head. “You deserve more than one star. You deserve them all.” That would be his parting gift to her. The night sky and all those stars to wish upon.
She pulled the tie from around his neck as she put distance between them. Black silk dangling from her fingertips, her knowing smile in the dim lighting made him want to forget about Landon and revenge and corporate takeovers and everything but Jeannie and him and this wanting that existed between them.
She turned on her heel and, with a come-hither look over her shoulder, strode to the car, where Reginald was waiting to open the door for her. Robert couldn’t move as she climbed in, revealing the curve of her leg as she pulled her foot inside. He wasn’t even sure he was breathing until the car door closed.
Then Reginald had the nerve to wink. At Robert! Really, this was too much.
But that cheekiness broke the spell Robert was under. He turned to find Kelly pointedly looking at everything but Robert or the limo and, one presumed, Jeannie.
“Is everything on track?” Robert asked, straightening his cuffs. He felt undressed without his tie. Which was most likely the point.
Well, one of them.
“Yes. The photographer reports that Landon is still at the gallery, although he’s delaying the start of his speech and growing more agitated by the second.” Kelly held out his phone. “Would you like to see the shots?”
“No.” The less space Landon took up in Robert’s brain from here on out, the better. “The lawyers have been notified?”
One for the divorce, a few from the District Attorney’s office and several for the former employees who’d been subjected to Landon’s sexual assaults. In just a few short days they’d found four former maids and six former employees of Wyatt Medical willing to come forward. A few claims were past the statute of limitations, so Robert was funding the civil suits. The others had been turned over to the authorities. The actual number of victims was probably quadruple the ten they’d confirmed, easily.
“Yes. The judge should be approving the emergency search warrant as we speak.”
“Excellent. The guards are on standby?” One posted at Jeannie’s house, just in case Robert had left a loose thread out there for Landon to pull. The others, including two off-duty police officers—one of whom was extremely grateful that his eldest son had just celebrated his sixth birthday after a successful heart valve repair—were watching his house.
“Yes. The forensic accountant has already found some very large...discrepancies between the Wyatt Medical financials and Landon’s campaign fund.” Kelly closed his portfolio. “You’re sure about this?”
This was completely and methodically destroying his father, piece by piece.
Robert almost smiled. He was a Wyatt, after all, and Wyatts demanded respect. They didn’t hesitate or have second thoughts. When someone slighted a Wyatt, they responded by dominating. By destroying, if that was what it took.
It wasn’t enough to have Landon publicly humiliated.
He had to be ended. Simple as that.
And Robert was the only person who could do it. Because he was a Wyatt and this was what Landon had made him into. Someone cruel and hard and utterly without mercy.
So he nodded once. Landon Wyatt would get no mercy. Not from his only child.
Kelly let out a breath he apparently had been holding and said, “Then we’re doing this.”
Kelly was a good kid, not the kind of man who’d been raised to engage in this level of back-channel manipulation. Robert appreciated that his assistant wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation but he also appreciated an employee who did as he was asked.
“I may be...offline for a few hours,” Robert told Kelly, fighting the urge to touch his shirt collar, “but keep me informed.”
He thought Kelly’s cheeks might have darkened but it was hard to tell. “Yes, sir.”
Robert nodded again and turned back to the car but then an image of Jeannie notching an eyebrow at him in challenge floated before his mind’s eye. He turned back before he could think better of it. “Kelly?”
“Sir?” The young man snapped to attention.
“Thank you. I know this is far outside your normal purview but...” Bordering on criminal, in fact. “But I appreciate everything you’ve done for me and my mother. So thank you.”
There, was that so hard? Jeannie’s laugh echoed in his mind.
No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was getting easier all the time.
“Oh. Well. Uh, you’re welcome?” Kelly sounded just as confused by receiving this compliment as Robert had felt giving it.
“Where to, sir?” Reginald asked and dammit, the man had a twinkle in his eye.
“The beach,” Robert said decisively because he was a Wyatt and the time for second-guessing was over. “Take us to see the stars. Please.”
Reginald nodded smartly as he opened the door for Robert. It wasn’t until the door had closed behind him, leaving him completely alone with Jeannie, that Robert was able to breathe.
Champagne and oranges and Jeannie. The scent surrounded him and he felt his shoulders relax. “Well?” she asked as he settled into his seat. Instantly, she was at his side, curling into him.
Without consciously choosing to do so, his arm went around her shoulder, gathering her tight. He could hold her like this now without hesitation, without flinching. She’d given him that.
“Everything is fine,” he said and, at least for the next hour or so, it truly was.
“Good,” she replied, her hand sliding under his tux jacket. She undid his vest and then rested her hand on his stomach. That simple touch, muted through the layers of his shirt and undershirt, still pushed his pulse faster. It took so little for her to affect him now.
She pushed herself onto her knees without letting go of him, her breasts brushing against his chest as she shifted. Her scent, warm and inviting, filled his nose. He could get drunk on her, he realized. Maybe he already was. “What are the rules?”
Here in the dark interior of his car, nothing else existed. Just him and her. A woman who had stood by his side through one of the hardest moments of his life and yet still wanted him. Not his fortune or his name or any of it. Just him.
It was a hell of a thing.
He wished he could give her so much more. But tonight was all he had. So he said, “Same as last time.”
But this time it wasn’t because he was worried he would hurt her. He wouldn’t. No, this time he needed the restraint to remind himself that she was not his to have and to hold.
Would that she was. But it wasn’t safe. Not now. Maybe...
If her lips twisted to the side in disappointment, he couldn’t say. “Hold out your hands.”
It felt right, letting her do this again. It’d worked the last time. He’d lost himself in her, but he hadn’t lost control. Hadn’t become the man Landon had demanded he be.
Tonight Robert had come closer to being that man, that Wyatt, than he ever had before and it was necessary and important but it was also...unsettling that he had it in him.
He could do bad things, even if for good reasons.
But not to her. Never to her.
He trusted Jeannie, tonight more than ever. He needed her this one last time and then he’d let her go.
Jeannie lifted his arms into the air and then slid onto his lap. Instantly, the warmth of her core rocketed through his body. She wasn’t wearing panties, he realized with a jolt. “Jeannie,” he groaned as she pulled his arms down so his knotted wrists were looped around her neck. Because this counted as touching and God help him, he needed it. Needed to feel her over him, around him, under him.
One last time, he repeated silently to himself. That was all this was.
“Hush.” She shifted back, her weight perfect on his lap as her hands moved to his trousers. She undid his belt and zipper in silence.
He opened his mouth to tell her where the condoms were—inside pocket of his jacket—but that was when she reached over and snagged that tiny purse Maja had handed her. When she opened it, a strip of condoms popped out like a jack-in-the-box without the terrifying clown.
“You’re prepared,” he said, his breath coming faster as she snapped off one and tore it open.
“Luck favors the prepared. Now quiet.” She had to grab at his jacket as they took a corner. In that moment he felt the strength of her thighs’ grip on his legs. She was so strong. God, he loved it.
Then she grinned at him as she smoothed out his lapel and added, “Or else.”
Desire pounded through him at that challenge. She’d already tied him up. How far would she go?
She rolled on the condom and Robert realized he was holding his breath as her fingers stroked over his length, hard with wanting her.
“Or else what?” he heard himself ask through gritted teeth.
Her grip on him tightened. “Or else,” she whispered, leaning forward to let her lips brush over his earlobe, trapping his aching erection between them, “I’ll touch you. Slowly.”
As if to demonstrate, her fisted hand slid up over his shaft, the lubrication of the condom smoothing the way. His breath caught in his throat as he strained against her. It was too much—far, far too much—and yet not enough.
“Yes, like that,” she whispered, her voice nothing but breath that caressed over his skin. “And harder.” Her grip tightened as her hand moved back down, inch by agonizing inch.
A groan ripped free because she was touching him and he was letting her and it was something new, and he’d never been so turned on in his entire life.
“Then,” she said, shifting so his length was pressed against her sex, trapped in her embrace, “then I’d touch you here, too.”
Her hand slipped down, cupping his balls and pressing up ever so gently as her hips moved, dragging his tip over her.
“Jeannie,” he moaned, helpless to stop her, helpless for her.
“And then?” She pushed back, his arms still around her neck, his hands in tight fists as he let go of everything but the way her hand squeezed him, tormented him—made him whole again.
She smiled, wickedness brought to life. “Then I’d stop.”
She pulled her hand away.
For all that he’d trained himself to control his emotions, control his reactions, Robert couldn’t help it—he whimpered.
Her smile was pure victory. “Will you be quiet?”
He nodded. It was all he could do.
“Thank God,” she said, raising herself onto her knees and positioning him at her entrance.
Then she sank down on him, taking him in completely until Robert was on the verge of losing control.
“Just be,” she said, her breathing faster now. “Just be with me, Robert.”
Although it was a risk, he had to let her know. “Always.”
She would always be this perfect memory, this utterly wonderful moment in time when he was the man she needed and she was his everything.
One last time.
The car came to a somewhat sudden stop and she scrabbled to grab hold of his jacket to keep from falling right off him. He used his bound hands to pull her back to him, her breasts flush with his chest and in that moment, he wished he hadn’t insisted on the clothing because he wanted to see her in her nude glory, feel her body against his.
He didn’t just want part of her. He wanted all of her.
One last time. Dammit.
Giggling, she leaned back, but he didn’t let her pull away. He kept her against his chest, feeling her nipples harden through the thin fabric of her dress as she rose and fell on him.
He needed to touch her. He’d never needed anything so badly in his life.
Somehow, he got his wrists shifted so he could cup the back of her head and tangle his fingers in her short hair.
“Robert,” she sighed softly as he angled her head toward his. “What...”
“Kiss me.” He wasn’t begging because Wyatts didn’t beg, but it wasn’t an order, either. “I need you to kiss me while I’m inside you.”
He felt the shudder move through her body and then her lips were on his, their tongues touching and retreating and touching again, all while she rode him and he held her, and this was the moment he would never forget. No matter what happened in an hour or tomorrow or next month, no one would ever take this moment from him.
She moved faster and faster, chasing her climax and all he could do was grit it out and hold on until she’d found her release.
When she threw back her head, the lines of her neck taut, he did the only thing he could—he leaned forward and buried his face between her breasts. The diamond pendant hit him in the nose but he didn’t care as he kissed her there, thrusting up into her as he let go.
He let go.
How could he ever let her go?