Lenore’s aristocratic features relaxed marginally and her smile became less polite and a bit warmer.
“Courtney is raving about the designs you’ve shown her so far for the mansion,” she said. “There was talk, though, that you had no intentions of lingering in Alexandria once you were finished with the Sinclair home.”
“Really?” Jaci asked. “I haven’t made any decisions regarding projects in the area, but I’m a businesswoman, Lenore, as I’m certain you understand. My plans often hinge on the projects available in an area.”
She was aware of Cam and Brian Zimmer talking quietly at the side. Lenore’s gaze flickered to her husband. She turned slightly, the shimmering blue-and-smoke shade of her evening gown darkening her gray eyes.
“I wanted to be certain to catch you before others could arrange your schedule for you.” She lowered her head and glanced back at Jaci through lowered lashes. “I’m sure you’re aware there are those who are eager to see you leave town as quickly as possible.”
Jaci’s brows arched curiously. “Some people will have to live with the inconvenience, then.”
Lenore’s lips twitched in amusement, before her expression smoothed once again.
“I look forward to discussing the project with you, then.” Lenore nodded firmly, the sleek, dark hair feathering around her sharply defined face, as a smile curled at her lips. She turned back to her husband. “Are you ready, Brian?”
He frowned, though his hazel-brown eyes gleamed with laughter. “But Lenore, she hasn’t come on to me yet. Do we have to leave before she has the chance?”
Jaci froze, then blinked at Brian in shock, as Cam seemed to growl at her side.
“Brian, it’s the wrong time for your jokes,” Cam warned him.
“Hit him, Cam. He’s only getting worse.” Lenore was obviously hiding her laughter. “I can’t take him out in public at all anymore.”
“Brian, I catch you in the sparring ring again, and I’m going to hurt you,” Cam warned him, though amusement lurked in his voice.
Jaci glanced up at him, saw the laughter lurking in his gaze, despite his cool expression.
“Hell, you two won’t let me have any fun anymore.” Brian shrugged his shoulders and flashed Jaci a subtle wink. “Maybe you can teach him how to enjoy life some.”
“You’re looking at the wrong girl,” she told him. “I was hoping he could teach me how to have fun.”
Cam tensed beside her, the obvious sexual vibes rising between them were thick enough to cut with a knife. She couldn’t push Cam away, she couldn’t push him back; that left distracting him. It wouldn’t take long, she assured herself. She and Moriah would have things ready soon. She just had to push Richard and Annalee a little bit further. Just enough to make them stupid enough to contact her, to say the wrong thing. Just enough to set them up and neutralize them.
She glanced around the ballroom as Brian and Cam returned to a business discussion, her gaze meeting Annalee Roberts’s.
Shoulder-length black hair framed her porcelain face and long, slender neck. Tonight she was dressed in a soft, cream-colored silk. Hell, she looked almost virginal. Her blue eyes were full of fury, though—narrowed, glittering with rage, as her ruby-red lips thinned in displeasure.
She might be dressed in the color of almost-purity right now, but Jaci knew what she looked like in black leather and with a whip in her hand. The scar across Jaci’s hip was evidence that the woman liked to use a whip and loved to leave lasting reminders of her sadism.
Jaci ignored the nerves in her stomach, let a smile touch her lips as she accepted a glass of champagne from the waiter and lifted it in a subtle toast to the other woman.
Then she turned back to Cam, deliberately assuring Annalee how little her anger meant.
Oh yes, she just needed to push her a little bit further.
12
“Would you like to tell me what the hell you were up to at the Brockheim party?”
Cam all but slammed the hotel room door closed hours later, as Jaci tossed her clutch onto the table just inside the room and turned to face both him and Chase.
Chase had been eerily silent during the drive from the party, his expression dark and closed, his eyes watching, tracking both Jaci and Cam’s expressions constantly. He’d made Cam feel like a f**king bug under a microscope.
Until Cam looked at Jaci. When he did, he could see the defiance in her expression, but there was something more in her face that almost terrified him. As though the veil of calm indifference that had been there before had been stripped away by some unknown force. She faced him now, none of the shadows that had once hid her from him in place.
“I wasn’t up to anything.” She spread her arms out from her body, drawing attention to those luscious curves.
Cam gave her what she was after. He let his gaze flicker over that dark red dress, but he watched those incredible eyes from the corner of his, just as he knew Chase was watching her, lusting for her. That defiance only fueled the desire. The desire was in turn fueled by the knowledge that she was his. His, by God, and she would not continue in whatever was up between her and the Robertses.
“You’re up to something, all right,” he grunted as he shrugged his jacket from his shoulders and moved into the sitting room, aware of Chase crossing his arms over his chest and watching both of them carefully.
She watched them both warily. He could see her thinking, calculating her odds of blowing off his suspicions.
“You challenged Annalee at that party, Jaci. I’m not a fool. I saw that look you gave her.”
And he wasn’t the only one. Brian Zimmer had seen it, and he had been concerned. As one of the club’s legal advisors, Brian had been keeping up with the investigation into the Robertses’ vendetta against Jaci, as well as the reports that were still coming in on Jaci herself.
She had met a lot of people over the years; there had to have been someone she had revealed the truth to. A friend, a lover they hadn’t yet found, someone she had talked to in a moment of weakness.
It wasn’t Courtney, which surprised Cam. Jaci was closer to Courtney than she had been to her girlhood friends in Oklahoma.
“Annalee was trying to have me thrown out of the party.” She kicked her shoes off, revealing the smoky silk hose that covered her toes. “I was merely acknowledging the fact that I had won this round, nothing more. Margaret and Harold Brockheim weren’t about to throw me out. It wouldn’t be acceptable, after inviting me to begin with.”