Royal Rescue

chapter Seven

Maybe Josie was as tired as her son was. Why else would she have made such an admission? Moreover, why else would she have let him drive her here—of all places?

She should have recognized the route, since her gaze had never left the road as he’d driven them away from the hospital. She had driven here so many times over those months when they had been seeing each other. She’d preferred going to his place, hoping that she would find something or overhear something the police didn’t know that could have led her to a break in his father’s murder investigation.

And she hadn’t wanted him to find anything at her apartment that would have revealed that she was so much more than just the empty-headed heiress so many others had thought she was. Things like her journalism awards or her diploma or the scrapbook of articles she’d published under her pseudonym.

But it didn’t matter that he had never found any of those things. Somehow he’d learned the truth about who she was anyway. And after the ferocious fight they’d had, the attempts on her life had begun.

“How could you think I would have tried to kill you?” he asked, his voice a rasp in the eerie silence of the vehicle. Even CJ wasn’t making any sounds as he slept so deeply and quietly.

Brendan had pulled the SUV through the wrought-iron gates of the O’Hannigan estate, but they had yet to open the car doors. They remained sealed in that tomblike silence he’d finally broken with his question.

“How could I not think it was you?” she asked, keeping her voice to a low whisper so that she didn’t wake her son. He didn’t need to know that tonight wasn’t the first time a bad man had tried to hurt his mommy. Even the authorities had suspected Brendan O’Hannigan was responsible. That was why they’d offered her protection—to keep her alive to testify against him once they found evidence that he’d been behind the attempts. “Who else would want me dead?”

He turned toward her, and since she still leaned over the console, he was close. His face was just a breath away from hers. And his eyes—the same rare blue-green as her son’s—were narrowed, his brow furrowed with confusion as he stared at her. “Why would I want you dead?”

“I lied to you. I tricked you,” she said, although she doubted he needed any reminders. And given how angry he’d been with her, she shouldn’t have reminded him, shouldn’t have brought back all his rage and vengeance. He might forget that she was the mother of his son. Of course he had earlier mentioned those things to their son. He’d included stealing, too, although she’d stolen nothing from him but perhaps his trust.

Despite how angry he’d been, Brendan literally shrugged off her offenses, as if they were of no consequence to him. His broad shoulder rubbed against hers, making her skin tingle even beneath her sweater and jacket. “I’ve been lied to and tricked before,” he said.

She doubted that many people would have been brave enough to take on Dennis O’Hannigan’s son—the man that many people claimed was a chip off the block of evil. She still couldn’t believe that she had summoned the courage. But then she’d been a different woman four years ago. She’d been an adrenaline junkie who had gotten high on the rush of getting the story. The more information she had discovered the more excited she had become. She hadn’t been only brave—she’d been fearless.

Then she had become a mother, and she had learned what fear was. Now she was always afraid, afraid that her son would get sick or hurt or scared. Or that whoever had tried to kill her would track them down and hurt him.

And tonight that fear, her deepest, darkest fear, had been realized. She shuddered, chilled by the thought. But the air had grown cold inside the car now that Brendan had shut off the engine. His heavily muscled body was close and warm, but the look on his ridiculously handsome face was cold. Even colder than the air.

“And,” he continued, “I never killed any of those people.”

With a flash of that old fearlessness, she scoffed, “Never?” All the articles about Brendan O’Hannigan alleged otherwise. “That’s not what I’ve heard.”

“You, of all people, should know better than to believe everything you hear or read,” he advised her.

Growing up the daughter of a media magnate, she’d heard the press disparaged more than she’d heard fairy tales. Fairy tales. What was a bigger lie than a fairy tale? Than a promise of happily-ever-after?

“If it’s coming from a credible source, which all of my father’s news outlets are, then you should believe the story,” she said.

He snorted. “What makes a source credible?”

As the daughter of a newsman, she’d grown up instinctively knowing what a good source was. “An insider. Someone close to the story.”

“An eyewitness?” He was the one scoffing now.

She doubted anyone had witnessed him committing any crime and lived to testify. She shivered again and glanced at their son. She shouldn’t have put his life in the hands of a killer. But the gunman in the garage had given her no choice. Neither had Brendan.

“Even grand juries rarely issue an indictment on eyewitness testimony,” he pointed out, as if familiar with the legal process. “They need evidence to bring charges.”

Had he personally been brought before a grand jury? Or was he just familiar with the process from all the times district attorneys had tried to indict his father? But she knew better than to ask the questions that naturally came to her. He had never answered any of her questions before.

But he kept asking his own inquiries. “Is there any evidence that I’m a—” Brendan glanced beyond her, into the backseat where their son slept peacefully, angelically “—a bad man?”

She hadn’t been able to find anything that might have proven his guilt. She’d looked hard for that evidence—not just for her story but also for herself. She’d wanted a reason not to give in to her attraction to him, a reason not to fall for him.

But when, as a journalist, she hadn’t been able to come up with any cold, hard facts, she’d let herself, as a woman, fall in love with an incredibly charming and smart man. And then he’d learned the truth about her.

What was the truth about him?

* * *

BRENDAN WAITED, but she didn’t answer him. Could she really believe that he was a killer? Could she really believe that he had tried to kill her?

Sure, he had been furious because she’d deceived him. But he’d only been so angry because he’d let himself fall for her. He’d let himself believe that she might have fallen for him, too, when she’d actually only been using him.

He wasn’t the only one she’d used. There were the friends in boarding school she’d used as inside sources to get dirt on their famous parents. Then there was the Peterson kid in college with a violence and drug problem that the school had been willing to overlook to keep their star athlete. She’d used her friendship with the kid to blow the lid off that, too. Hell, her story had probably started all the subsequent exposés on college athletic programs. It had also caused the kid to kill himself.

“You really think that I’m the only one who might want you dead?” Josie Jessup had been many things but never naive.

She gasped as if shocked by his question. Or maybe offended. How the hell did she think he felt with her believing he was a killer?

He was tempted, as he’d been four years ago, to tell her the truth. But then he’d found out she was really a reporter after a story, and as mad as he’d been, he’d also been relieved that he hadn’t told her anything that could have blown his assignment.

Hell, it wasn’t just an assignment. It was a mission. Of justice.

She didn’t care about that, though. She cared only about exposés and Pulitzers and ratings. And her father’s approval.

But then maybe his mission of justice was all about his father, too. About finally getting his approval—postmortem.

“Who else would want me dead?” she asked.

“Whoever else might have found out that you wrote all those stories under the byline Jess Ley.” It was a play on the name of her father, Stanley Jessup. Some people thought the old man had written the stories himself.

But Brendan had been with her the night the story on her college friend had won a national press award. And he’d seen the pride and guilt flash across her face. And, finally, he’d stopped playing a fool and really checked her out, and all his fears had been confirmed.

She sucked in a breath and that same odd mixture of pride and guilt flashed across her face. “I don’t even know how you found out....”

“You gave yourself away,” he said. “And anyone close to you—close to those stories—would have figured out you’d written them, too.”

She shook her head in denial, and her silky hair skimmed along her jaw and across his cheek. No matter how much she’d changed her appearance, she was still beautiful, still appealing.

He wanted to touch her hair. To touch her face...

But he doubted she would welcome the hands of the man she thought was her would-be killer. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have helped you tonight,” he pointed out.

She glanced back at their sleeping son. “You did it for him. You know what it’s like to grow up without a mother.”

So did she. That was something that had connected them, something they’d had in common in lives that had been so disparate. They’d understood each other intimately—emotionally and physically.

He shook his head, trying to throw off those memories and the connection with her that had him wanting her despite her lies and subterfuge.

“That was sloppy tonight and dangerous,” he said, dispassionately critiquing the would-be assassins, “trying to carry off a hit in a hospital.”

His father and his enemies would have been indicted long ago if they had operated their businesses as sloppily. Whoever had hired the assassins had not gotten their money’s worth.

Neither had the U.S. Marshals. Like the local authorities, they must have been so desperate to pin something on him that they’d taken her word that he was behind the attempts on her life. They’d put her into protection and worried about finding evidence later. Like her, they had never come up with any. No reason to charge him.

If only they knew the truth...

But the people who knew it had been kept to a minimum—to protect his life and the lives of those around him. So it might not have been his fault that someone had tried to kill Josie, yet he felt responsible.

* * *

JOSIE REALIZED THAT he was right. Even if he hadn’t been with her tonight, in the line of fire on the roof and in the garage, it was possible that he had nothing to do with the attempts on her life.

Brendan O’Hannigan was never sloppy.

If he was, there would have been evidence against him and charges brought before a grand jury that would have elicited an indictment. No. Brendan O’Hannigan was anything but sloppy. He was usually ruthlessly controlled—except in bed. With her caresses and her kisses, she had made him lose control.

And that one day that had her shivering in remembrance, she’d made him lose his temper. The media hadn’t been wrong about her being spoiled. Her father had never so much as raised his voice to her. So Brendan’s cold fury had frightened her.

If only it had killed her attraction to him, as he had tried to kill her. Not tonight, though. She believed he hadn’t been behind the attempt at the hospital.

If he’d wanted her gone, he would have brought her someplace private. Someplace remote. Where no one could witness what he did to her.

Someplace like the O’Hannigan estate.

“You’re cold,” he said. As close as they were he must have felt her shiver. And the windows were also steaming up on the inside and beginning to ice on the outside. It was a cold spring, the temperature dropping low at night.

And it was late.

Too late?

“Let’s go inside,” he said.

It would be too late for her if she went inside the mansion with him. She still clutched her purse, her hand inside and still wrapped around her cell phone—the special one she used only to call Charlotte. But she released her grip on it.

It wouldn’t help her against the immediate threat he posed. She didn’t even know where Charlotte was, let alone if she could reach her in time to help.

“I’ll get CJ,” he offered as he opened the driver’s door. But she hurried out the back door, stepping between him and their sleeping son.

“No,” she said.

“He’s getting cold out here.”

Brendan tried to reach around her, but she pushed him back with her body, pressing it up against his. Her pulse leaped in reaction to his closeness.

“You can’t bring him inside,” she said, “not until you make sure it’s safe.”

He gestured toward the high wrought-iron fence encircling the estate. “The place is a fortress.”

“You don’t live here alone,” she said.

“You really shouldn’t believe everything you read,” he said.

So obviously if there had been something in the news about a live-in girlfriend, it hadn’t been from a credible source. Despite her fear of him, she felt a flash of relief.

“You don’t take care of this place yourself,” she pointed out. “You have live-in staff.”

He nodded in agreement and leaned closer, trying to reach around her. “And I know and trust every one of them.”

She clicked her tongue against her teeth in admonishment. “You should know that you can’t trust anyone.”

He stared at her and gave a sharp nod of agreement before stepping back. “You’re right.”

She held in a sigh of relief, especially as he continued to stare at her. Then he reached inside the open driver’s door and pulled out the keys. Obviously she was the one he did not trust—not to drive off without him. He knew her too well.

“I’ll check it out.” He slid the keys into his suit pocket. “And come back for you.”

With a soft click, she closed the back door. “I’ll go with you.”

As they headed up the brick walk toward the front door, she reached inside her bag for the can of mace. She would spray it at him and retrieve the keys while he was coughing and sputtering.

She could get away from him. She could protect her son and herself.

“Remember the first time you walked up this path with me?” Brendan asked, his deep voice a warm rasp in the cold.

She shivered as a tingle of attraction chased up her spine. Their fingers had been entwined that night. They had been holding hands since dinner at a candlelit restaurant.

“I teased you about playing the gentleman,” he reminisced. “And you said that you were no gentleman because you just wanted to get me alone.”

Her face heated as she remembered what a brazen flirt she’d been. But she’d acted that way only with him. And it hadn’t been just for the story. It had been for the way his gorgeous eyes had twinkled with excitement and attraction. And it had been for the rush of her pulse.

Brendan chuckled but his voice was as cold as the night air. “You really just wanted to get inside.”

That wasn’t the situation tonight. Inside his house, with its thick brick walls and leaded-glass windows to hold in her screams, was the last place Josie wanted to be. Maybe he hadn’t been a bad man four years ago, but he’d only just begun taking over his father’s business then. Now that business was his. And he’d been leaving his own legacy of missing bodies.

“You just wanted to search my stuff,” he angrily continued, “see what secrets you could find to shout out to the rest of the world through one of your father’s publications.”

“You’re so bitter over my misleading you,” she remarked. “Can’t you see why I would think you’re the one who wants me dead?”

He sighed and dragged out a ring of keys from his pants pocket. She recognized them because she’d tried so often to get them away from him—so she could make copies, so she could come and go at will in his house, business and offices.

“If you would realize why I am so bitter,” he said, “you would also understand why the last thing I want is for you to be gone.”

He turned away from the door and stared down at her, as he had that first night he’d brought her home with him. His pupils had swallowed the blue-green irises then, as they did now. “I wanted you with me that night...and all the nights that followed.”

There was that charm that had given her hope that he was really a good man. That charm had distracted and disarmed her before.

But she hadn’t had CJ to worry about and protect then. So now she kept her hand wrapped tightly around the can of mace. And when he lowered his head toward hers, she started to pull it from her purse.

But then his lips touched hers, brushing softly across them. And her breath caught as passion knocked her down as forcefully as he had earlier in the parking garage.

He had saved her tonight. He had saved her and her son. And reminding herself of that allowed her to kiss him back. For just a moment though...

Because he pulled away and turned back toward the door. And she did what she should have done as he’d lowered his head—she pulled out the can of mace and lifted it toward him.

Then she smelled it. The odor lay heavy on the cold air, drifting beneath the door of the house. She dragged in a deep breath to double-check.

Maybe she was just imagining it, as she had so often the past four years, waking in the middle of the night shaking with fear. She had to check the stove and the furnace and the water heater.

And though she never found a leak, she never squelched those fears. That this time no one would notice the bomb before it exploded.

This time the fire wouldn’t eat an empty house. It would eat hers, with her and CJ trapped inside. But this wasn’t her house.

It was Brendan’s, and he was sliding his key into the lock. Would it be the lock clicking or the turning of the knob that would ignite the explosion?

She dropped the damn can and reached for him, screaming as her nightmare became a fiery reality.