“He didn’t even want to stop and say hello to me?” She didn’t want to admit that it hurt, that he had known she was there and hadn’t stopped to speak.
“I slipped away with you.” There was no smile this time.
His jaw seemed to tighten, a fine sense of tension invading the interior of the car.
Jaci turned her head and stared through the windshield again. There were so many questions raging inside her, so many emotions.
She felt off balance, meeting Chase like this, unprepared for it, not expecting him.
“Courtney’s been excited over the design project Ian approved,” he spoke into the silence. “I bet it took her two months to talk him into those plans. He wanted to give the mansion over to the club, but I don’t think he was certain about allowing a woman to do the designing.”
She smiled at that. Ian had questioned her extensively, on not just her credentials, which she knew he had checked out, but also her ideas about a male-dominant domain.
“So you and Cam knew I was arriving?” She turned back to him as that thought hit her.
“We did the investigative check on you before Courtney was given the go-ahead to contact you.”
Jaci’s lips parted in surprise before she tightened them with irritation. “I’m surprised Ian approved me, then.” And now she wasn’t surprised Cam hadn’t wanted to see her.
Chase was quiet for long moments after that. “If Cam and I hadn’t known you, he probably wouldn’t have,” he revealed. “We were the deciding factor.”
She turned from him then, anger stealing past the shield she had learned to keep between herself and the world.
One accidental misstep, one job she never should have taken, and it had nearly destroyed her career. The repercussions were like echoes, they never went away, even five years later.
“Do you want to tell me what happened between you and Congressman Roberts?” he asked, his tone harder now, slipping from curiosity to demand.
She hated being ambushed, and suddenly that was how she felt.
“No, I don’t. And if this is why you insisted on returning me to my hotel, then you should have stayed where you were. Perhaps you should have allowed Ian Sinclair to make up his own mind about me while you were at it. I don’t need your help.”
“You’re just as damned stubborn as you ever were,” he growled. “It was a logical question, Jaci. Something happened, or they wouldn’t have targeted you so heavily.”
“So tell me, Mr. Investigator,” she snapped, “what answers did you come up with? Why don’t you tell me what happened with Congressman Roberts?”
She knew what rumors the Robertses had spread.
“Wait.” She held up her hand before he could speak. “On second thought, let me guess. I was caught attempting to steal a large amount of cash that Congressman Roberts kept in the desk in his private office. When they caught me, out of the kindness of their hearts, they just fired me from the job they hired me for and sent me on my way, rather than calling the police. Did I get it right?”
He shot her a short glance. “There were rumors of an affair with the congressman, as well,” he stated.
Oh yeah, she hadn’t forgotten about that one.
Jaci propped her elbow on the door ledge, pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose and breathed in deeply. For five years she had been dealing with this.
It had taken her years to save up the money to finance her dream of settling in one city and opening her own design shop, all because of one malicious, corrupt couple that didn’t know how to keep their dirty laundry hidden.
“So, why did you vouch for me? So you could interrogate me?” She turned to him with a glare.
“You’re no thief.”
“But I could very well be a home-wrecking little tramp out to snag a congressman?” she sneered.
“Or Annalee Roberts could be staying true to form, and attempting to destroy someone who has managed to get in her way, or who knows something she’s terrified of others knowing,” he suggested. “What happened, Jaci?”
“I breathed,” she gritted out as he pulled beneath the entrance to the hotel Ian Sinclair had placed her in. “And now I’m going to my room, alone. Thank you for the ride.”
The door opened smoothly, the doorman extending his hand to her as she stepped from the vehicle and headed for the entrance.
She was furious and she knew she had no right to be. She had known in coming here that this would come up, that there was no escaping the past, once she stepped into the Robertses’ territory.
Congressman Roberts was rumored to be making a bid to replace his father-in-law in the Senate. He had a lot to lose, and as far as she knew, only one person knew their dirty little secrets. Secrets she wished she didn’t know.
“Dammit, Jaci. Hold up.” Chase caught up with her in the lobby, his fingers wrapping around her arm, pulling her to a stop as she headed for the elevators. “Talk to me.”
“I’m done talking to you,” she bit out. “You’re as overbearing as Cam ever was, and I’m not in the mood to deal with it. Go back home, Chase. Find a nice little woman who can put up with you and your brother, and leave me the hell alone.”
“Dammit, you don’t want Cam asking these questions,” he warned her, his voice dark. “And he will ask them, Jaci. He’s not the man you left behind in Oklahoma. And trust me, he hasn’t forgotten that promise he made to you the night he took you home. Do you remember it?”
His voice roughened, as Jaci became aware of the odd looks they were getting from the hotel staff and the guests that loitered in the lobby.
“I don’t know . . .”
“He said he would kill any man who dared to hurt you.” His voice was soft, warning. “Did you think he was joking? Do you think for a moment he forgot that promise? Tell me, Jaci, do you want to be the cause of Congressman Roberts’s death?”
2
Cameron Falladay stood on the stone patio outside the ballroom, his body braced against the brick wall, a drink in hand, head lowered. His head filled with a woman’s face and the memory of a kiss that had burned through his soul.
Her. Jaci.
He ground his teeth together and fought against the need to leave the party, to race to her hotel room before Chase could touch her, before his brother could take the woman who had tormented Cam for so long.