“So, I’m hired,” Marc said.
“Yes, but with certain conditions.” His siblings were all settling down, getting married, and having children. They had too much to lose. His younger brother, Ian, was in town but had gotten a job with the US Embassy in Madrid. A scandal could end his career. “We don’t share anything we discover until we are certain of the facts, and if there is danger to my family, we don’t come home until we eradicate it. I may not be the Barrington you consider most qualified, but I will do whatever it takes to protect my family.”
“Good.” Marc nodded slowly. “When are you heading to Aruba?”
“Sunday.”
“I won’t fly with you, but I’ll be there every step of the way. If you see me, I’m doing my job wrong.”
“Understood.”
“You need an alias. Give me a name, and I’ll have IDs made up for you.”
“I don’t care. Use any name.” He snapped his fingers. “Grant E-n-y-n-a-i-m.”
“Seriously?” Marc asked.
Grant raised and lowered a shoulder. “You have a better suggestion?”
Marc opened the door. “No. Grant Enynaim it is. I’ll be Marc Let’s-fucking-come-back-alive.”
For the first time that day, Grant smiled. “I want to see that passport.”
Marc laughed. “That’s funny.”
Grant sobered. “Good because if I sound out of touch when I speak, I need to correct that. Instead of working out in the gym tonight I’ll jog near the Charles and meet some people. I can’t imagine it’ll be hard. I’ll spend some time with them, listen to how they speak, and have that issue remedied by Sunday.”
Marc laughed again then stopped when Grant glared at him. “You’re serious. Of course you are.”
Viviana Sutton slowed her pace so Audrey could catch up. Her friend wasn’t out of shape, in fact she had a figure that men jogged backward to take a second look at, but she didn’t like to get sweaty. With her hair in a fashionable French braid and her designer spandex, Audrey looked like a bouncy model in a sportswear commercial.
Viviana, on the other hand, was in cotton jogging shorts and a loose, faded T-shirt. She’d tied her hair back without the benefit of a mirror and considered this portion of her daily run, the part where Audrey joined her, her cool down phase.
From the time they were young children, everyone knew Audrey would move to the big city. She was too pretty for a small New England town. Everyone expected her to end up on the big screen in Hollywood or married to some sinfully rich man. She left right after high school but surprised everyone by working for an environmental advocacy agency—saving the world one water source at a time. Living her dream.
She has her life together—me, not so much.
No one ever expected much from me.
Viviana had grown up working for her father’s construction and large machinery rental company. She’d commuted to school from home and continued to work for her family after college because her family had needed her.
She didn’t consider herself ugly, but she was realistic. Women like her didn’t inspire devotion from men. They liked her. She could walk into a bar fight and leave with a new male best friend. She could fish as well as the best of them, parallel park an eighteen-wheeler, and no amount of swearing offended her.
Was it wrong to dream of being irresistible to someone? No wonder I’m an easy mark.
“You’re not thinking about him again, are you?” Audrey asked.
“Who?” Viviana parried.
“Forget him.”
“I can’t. What is wrong with me? He didn’t even try to sleep with me. That bugs me more than the money he took. Do you realize I haven’t had sex with anyone but myself for . . . holy shit, it’s been over a year. I’m going to die alone.”
“Now you’re talking stupid. Let go of who you were in Cairo, New York. Do you know why I moved to Boston? I didn’t want to be the person everyone thought I was. I wanted to do me on my own terms. You don’t think you’re sexy, so men don’t see you that way. I’m not actually prettier than you, I just think I am.” Audrey’s concerned expression took the bite out of her words.
Viviana smiled. Good try, Audrey. “No, you are.”
“As long as you believe that I always will be. Listen, I’m your friend, and I love you. You pay half the rent so if you want to keep the first job you came across when you moved here and hide out in your room, I’m cool with it. I love having dinner made for me when I come home. I love having someone clean up after me. I wouldn’t be a good friend, though, if I didn’t tell you that you’re not my mother. You don’t have to feed me. You don’t have to do my laundry. All I want is to see you happy, and I don’t think you are.”
Viviana sighed. Good friends saw too much. “That stung.”
Audrey nodded. “You need a win—something to boost your confidence. You need to pick a man, bring him home, and fuck his brains out. You’ll feel better, I promise. Then we’ll go get our nails done, maybe have our hair highlighted. We’ll have a whole beauty day.”
“I think you have it backward. Shouldn’t I get the makeover first?”
Audrey threw her hands up in frustration. “No, that’s the point. You are beautiful just the way you are. I’ll prove it to you. See that guy who just jogged by?”
“What guy?” Viviana scanned ahead of them and her breath caught in her throat. “Oh, that one.” Male perfection. Broad shoulders. Tight ass. Muscular legs. If the front of him looked anything like the back of him he was way, way, way out of her league. “What about him?”
“You need to fuck him.”
Viviana swallowed hard. “Sure. I bet he’s single and has been waiting his whole life for me.”
“If you don’t want him, I’ll fuck him.”
“Do it. I don’t care,” Viviana said in a terse voice. She didn’t expect the shove Audrey gave her.
“Wake up, Viv. This is your chance to recreate yourself and be the woman you want to be. You can do it. Decide you want him and go get him.”
“I can’t.”
“Because you’re scared. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”
Are we ignoring the possibility that beautiful people can also be crazy psychos? Yes, well, then—“What if he says no?” And I confirm what I’m already beginning to believe: that I’m universally, sadly quite resistible.
“What if he does?” Audrey smiled in encouragement. “You’ll still be the woman who saw what she wanted and had the courage to go after it. What he says doesn’t matter. What you think about yourself does. Do you believe a man like that would find you attractive?”
“Maybe?”
“Not good enough.”
“Yes?”
“Say it like you mean it.”
“Yes.”
“That’s better. Now, get in front of him somehow.”
“Why?”
“So he can see your killer body. You have one, you know. Cut across the corner over there. Get in front of him. Then drop something. He’ll stop and help you pick it up. After that give him some long looks, touch his arm a few times, lean in. You’ll know if he’s interested.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“How long have we been friends?”
“Forever.”
“Trust me?”
“Completely.”
“Then go get him, Viv. Remember, this isn’t about him—it’s about you.”
Chapter Two
‡
Grant wasn’t used to feeling unsure of himself, but meeting people on the bike path wasn’t turning out to be as easy as he’d imagined. Shortly after he’d approached a group of young men and women, they’d bolted with insulting speed. He’d tried to start up a conversation with a man who was picking trash off the grass and was treated to a barrage of profanity simply because he asked if the man enjoyed his job.
Frustrated, Grant had thrown himself into the secondary reason he was there—jogging. His phone rang. He almost le
t it go to voicemail but decided taking a call from his sister, Kenzi, might improve his mood. “What’s up, Kenzi?”
“Game night on Saturday. Are you in?”
“It’s a busy weekend. I’m heading out of town on Sunday.” Family responsibilities didn’t erase the commitments he’d already made to several clients. Luckily a lot of what he did could be done from any location.
“Anywhere exciting?”
“Not really.” He didn’t want to lie, but he also didn’t want Kenzi to worry.
“Drop by in the afternoon at least. Please. Andrew and Helene are up for the weekend. You know how much Mom and Dad love having all of us together.”
They do and I can work on the plane. “You win. I’ll be there. If I could put in a request, though. Please not charades again.”
Kenzi laughed. “Dax said the same thing. I, on the other hand, think it’s hilarious to watch you try to look cool while acting out movie titles.”
“Yes, well, we have a word for that same experience—torture.” He smiled as he spoke, though, because there was a time when every exchange with his family had been strained. Game night had been Asher’s wife’s suggestion while they were dating, and it had helped to heal his family. A couple times a month he and his siblings gathered at their parents’ house and talked about nothing of importance. Impossible as it was to imagine that something so frivolous could achieve anything, game night had brought his family closer together. Considering what his family was dealing with now, that closeness was especially important.
“Emily suggested Bullshit. It’s a game where you say what you’re discarding but don’t show the cards. If someone doesn’t believe you they call bullshit, and if you lied you have to pick up the pile.”
“So it’s a test of how well we lie.”
“It’s a game, Grant. Children play it. No one is going to judge you for being the world’s worst liar—much. I mean, we’ll tease you about it, mercilessly probably, but it’ll all be in fun.”
“Sounds like a good time,” Grant said wryly.
“See,” Kenzi joked, “a little white lie now and then won’t kill you.”
I should work on that skill. I’ll need the poker face when I introduce myself as Mr. Enynaim. Rather than admitting that, however, he decided to tease his sister. “Have too much fun at my expense, and I’ll ask to see your checkbook. Or have you started balancing it since you got married? Maybe that’s a question for Dax.” Until recently he wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough to joke with Kenzi about her husband, but the fabric of his family was changing. Which was one more reason why he chose to be the one to find out what happened to Kent. It needed to be handled just right. Asher would have acted first and thought about the consequences later. Ian would have concealed the truth if he thought it might sully the family name. Neither would have helped his family.
With a light laugh, Kenzi said, “Dax understands my system. I don’t need to balance to the penny like some people—ahem—I won’t say who. For me, as long as I have a general idea of how much I have I’m fine.”
Grant cringed. In the past he would have given her a lengthy lecture on the importance of those pennies and how those who didn’t count them tended to lose them, but he didn’t. This was an opportunity to imagine what someone who didn’t spend their entire day, every day, crunching numbers would say in response. “If that works for you, great.”
“Save the sarcasm. I’m not as bad as I used to be. Can we talk about something else?”
He frowned. That sounded sarcastic? Dammit. I was shooting for ‘I’m cool with it.’ “Sure, what are you—?” He collided with the back of a woman who was crouched down in the middle of what should have been a clear path and momentum carried him over her, unfortunately without the benefit of his feet beneath him. Had he not learned to tuck and roll to break a fall, he would have faceplanted onto the cement. Instead he tumbled several times, finally coming to a rest on his back.
“What the—?” The swear died on his lips when a beautiful, glistening blonde bent over, grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet before his head had a chance to stop spinning. When she dropped his hand he swayed briefly.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I wanted to meet—I mean, I dropped my phone, but I couldn’t let it fall too hard because I’ve already had the screen replaced twice. Not that I knew it was going to fall because how could I? Shit, is that your phone?” She began rushing around collecting pieces of what had indeed been his phone. “Fuck me. Of course I broke your phone. Perfect. Fucking perfect.” She looked at the broken device with the most stunning blue eyes he’d ever seen. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to swear. I do it when I get nervous.” She held out his phone to him. “I’ll buy you a new phone. Friday, after I get paid. Shit. How much does a phone like that cost? Would they have payment plans?”
“It’s insured. No need.” He accepted the pieces while studying the woman before him. She was thin, but with more muscle than women he was used to. Her hair was barely contained by an elastic that was off-center on the back of her head. She looked like she cared more about the workout than attracting male admirers, and that was hot. Outside of his family, women in his circle couldn’t pass a window or mirror without preening. She was real—raw. Regular?
Had he literally run into exactly what he was looking for?
“Thank God because I have maybe twenty bucks in my bank account.” She leaned forward and touched one of his temples lightly. “You’re bleeding. Fuck. Do you feel okay? Do you want me to call someone? An ambulance?”
He closed his hand over hers and felt a jolt of lust rock through him. Instead of talking to a regular person, imagine how much I could learn if I spent a weekend fucking one. This one. This perfectly average, unbelievably sexy, hot mess of one. “Have dinner with me.”
She blinked several times fast before answering. “Did you say dinner?”
“Or breakfast,” he suggested in what he’d been told was his sexy growl and watched her reaction closely. Did she feel it, too? This—heat? “Or both.”
She looked at their linked hands and her mouth rounded in a way that made him want to kiss her right then, right there, before he even knew her name. “You want to have dinner with me?”
“Yes.” The look in her eyes told him she wanted the same, and that’s all he needed to know.
“It’s not every day a woman literally knocks me off my feet.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she pulled her hand free. “Ha. Ha.”
Focus. What would a beer drinking, sports watching man say to this woman? How blunt would he be? He probably wouldn’t follow the three-dates-before-an-orgasm rule of etiquette. Grant stepped closer, and she bit her bottom lip. “Would you be offended if I said you look amazing in those shorts? All I can think about is tearing them off you.”
She tipped her head back as he leaned even closer. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Wow. Come home with me.” I’m ready to taste some regular.
A smile spread across her face. She threw her arms around him, but it wasn’t the passionate embrace he already fantasized about nearly a dozen times during their short acquaintance. It was the brief, tight hug one friend would give another. “I did it. You would totally have sex with me.”
He frowned.
“Audrey was right. I needed a win.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “Thank you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Her smile brightened. “I wish I were the type for a one-night stand because I am that grateful. You have no idea how much this means to me.”
Another woman slowly jogged by and tipped her head in question.
The blonde before him shot her a thumbs up. “He totally would!”
“Didn’t doubt it for a second,” the woman called back.
The blonde let out a happy sigh then sobered a little when she looked him over again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
He didn’t feel okay. He was turned on and turned upside down. For once in his life he
had no idea what was going on or what to possibly say to clear it up. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought, because I’m completely confused.”
“Oh”—she chewed her bottom lip—“because I acted like . . . because you thought I would . . . I’m sorry. It was exciting to think I could do it, but I know myself. I can’t have sex without being in a relationship, and I don’t even know you. Plus my track record lately proves my judgment is way off when it comes to men—”
He pulled her to him then and silenced her with a kiss. It wasn’t meant to be a deep kiss, but as soon as his lips touched hers his brain completely shut down and all of his blood headed south. Part of him expected to be smacked. He didn’t know her name. What right did he have to kiss her? When her lips parted for him, a primal need surged within him. His body wanted hers in a purely physical, animalistic way. He wanted to carry her off and fuck her in the bushes, in an alley, and he didn’t care who watched.
This was a wild side of him he hadn’t known existed. Sex had always been good, and he considered himself a considerate lover. It had always been important to him that his partner came first. This was different. His need for the woman in his arms shook him with its intensity. He hadn’t realized how cerebral he was during sex until hunger replaced thought. This was the sex he’d heard people joke about but had doubted was real.
I don’t care why she tripped me or what she’s talking about. I’m going to fuck this woman tonight. All night. And then I’m going to wake up and have her again.
Some experiences were life changing. Viviana had felt this way before—the first time she’d tasted expensive chocolate. Well, not exactly this way, but she remembered closing her eyes to better savor the taste and thinking, “Holy shit, so this is what all the fuss is about.”
Off to the side of a very public bike path, hungrily kissing a complete stranger, Viviana once again thought: So this is what all the fuss is about. She gave herself a moment to savor every unexpectedly decadent sensation.
His kiss was bold and unrestrained. It should have scared her, but instead it called to a side of her that had never been fully satisfied. She’d had tender sex, breakup sex, make-up sex. She’d even once had drunken let’s-agree-not-to-talk-about-this-tomorrow friend sex—but she’d never had this. It was as scary as it was wonderful, though. Like a swimmer being knocked off her feet by an ocean wave, if she didn’t right herself, it had the power to pull her under.