The Perfect Bride

Chapter Thirteen

“We should get dressed.”

Lying next to him on the rug beside his desk, Jillian sighed against his chest. “I know.”

She made no move to do so. Neither did Adam. It felt too good lying there, touching her, feeling her body against his, basking in the feeling of what they’d just shared. He’d known they should get dressed when he’d pushed away from her on the desk, had almost said it then. Instead he’d found himself lowering her to the floor, stretching out beside her, kissing her again, unable to let her go. Just as he couldn’t now.

She ran her hand idly over his chest, the sensation of her soft fingers distracting him anew.

They lay in a comfortable silence for a few moments before Jillian finally spoke. “Meredith told me you blame yourself for what happened with her husband,” she said softly.

Familiar anger swelled in his gut at the thought of that bastard, killing some of the pleasure of her nearness. “For good reason. I should have realized what was happening. We always spoke at least every week. Suddenly she stopped calling or messaging. I was so caught up in work I didn’t even notice. I went weeks, even a couple months, without talking to my sister without even realizing it. That’s on me.” He’d been traveling so much, working a minimum of sixty hours a week, and for what? He’d turned into his father—something he’d never wanted to do—and only realized it when it was too late.

“Did you have any reason to believe her husband was capable of that before then?”

“I never liked him. He was too cocky, too full of himself. I thought he was all wrong for her. I just didn’t recognize the meanness beneath the arrogance. That part he hid well, at least from the outside.” Meredith was the one who’d had to deal with it firsthand. Alone. “He seemed to make her happy, so I tried to put my misgivings aside and didn’t say anything.” But he should have stayed on his guard, should have still paid attention.

“But you did help her. You managed to get her out of there.”

“Only after he broke her jaw.” The memory sent a hard lump to his throat, the horror of it still overwhelming his anger. “I called and tried to speak with her. The bastard tried putting me off, made excuses, and I immediately knew something was wrong. I took the first flight to Chicago—that’s where they lived—and that’s when I found out she was in the hospital. One of the neighbors had to tell me, a lady who drove her to the hospital when she couldn’t. She—” He swallowed hard. “It wasn’t just her jaw. He gave her a black eye and she had bruises all over. He damn near broke her shoulder—” The words caught, the images still vivid in his memory more than a year later. Just as it did every time he remembered, the guilt struck, raw and agonizing, square in his gut.

Jillian reached out and took his hand, squeezing tightly. From the way her body had tensed, he could tell she was picturing it. “Why wasn’t he in jail?”

“She refused to say anything to the police or social workers when they tried to talk to her. Everyone knew who had done it—her neighbor told me it wasn’t the first time, though it was the worst—but without Meredith’s cooperation they couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Why didn’t she want to tell them what happened?”

Because that was Meredith. Meredith, his shy, quiet little sister, who always tried to make people happy, who never made a fuss, so eager to please those she could never satisfy. Not their father, who’d never been around enough to notice his children’s existence. Not their self-absorbed mother, who’d never considered anything her children did good enough.

Not a husband who took his own failings in life out on her, who didn’t deserve her love.

“It would have been hard on her,” Adam said, keeping his answer vague. “Having to relive it all again.”

“So where is he now?” Jillian asked.

“Still in Chicago. She divorced him, though he actually tried to fight it.”

“Whatever it took, at least she’s away from him now.”

“Yeah.” But it didn’t erase what had happened. Didn’t take away the fact that Adam hadn’t been there when she needed him most.

Jillian must have heard the self-recrimination in that single syllable. After a moment she said quietly, “I’m the last one who should be telling you not to blame yourself. I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve failed someone you should have been there for.”

Adam had no trouble understanding exactly what she meant. “Your friend must have meant a lot to you.”

“She did. She does,” Jillian corrected furiously. “We may not have been related by blood, but she was my sister in every way that matters. I told you I don’t have any family? Well, she was the closest thing I had. Ever since grade school, when we were six years old on the playground.”

“What about your parents?” he asked gently.

“It was just my mother and me. My father didn’t stick around, and my mother wasn’t exactly happy to be stuck with me. Half the time she forgot I existed. When I left home, we were basically done with each other. I don’t even know where she is now. I haven’t spoken to her in years.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it.

“It’s all right. I had Courtney. Growing up I spent more time at her house than mine. Her parents were great. Probably not a surprise that she always dreamed of getting married, and I didn’t.” She grew quiet. “They both passed away within a few years of each other not long ago. But we still had each other. We might have lived in different cities and not have gotten to see each other as much, but she was still my best friend. My sister.”

He didn’t want her words or the pain in her voice to get to him. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t the same. But it would be a lie. She’d loved Courtney Miller like a sister, and someone had hurt her sister. Not just hurt her, but killed her. Made it so that she would never have a chance to see her again. Adam had damn near killed Brad as it was. If that bastard had managed to kill Meredith, Adam knew there was nothing he wouldn’t have done to get justice for her.

Just as Jillian was trying to do.

“I should have been here,” she said hoarsely. “She gave me the only family I ever had, and I couldn’t even be here for her when she needed me. But I can be here for her now. I can find out who did this to her. If you’ll let me. Are you going to make me go?”

There it was, the question he’d been dreading. Because he knew the answer, and he didn’t like it one bit. “I should,” he said finally. For her own sake. For her safety.

He felt her smile, and knew she’d read the true answer in his response. “But you won’t.”

He couldn’t, even if he thought she’d go easily. “No. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do.” And knowing how much this meant to her, why she cared so much, he couldn’t bring himself to make her leave.

Even as a small part of him whispered that he had his own selfish reasons for wanting her to stay.

“So what do you want to do?” she asked.

Another good question. “We can call the police. Tell them what happened to you and ask them to reopen the investigation into Courtney’s death based on what we now know.”

“I don’t have any proof. Do you really think they’ll believe me, or will they just try to dismiss everything that’s happened as a dream or a mere accident? I know they were told that Courtney was afraid of heights, but somehow they came to the conclusion she was not only on a high balcony at night, but came close enough to fall over.” She made a sound of contempt in the back of her throat. “Come on. I wouldn’t trust these cops to help a little old lady cross the street.”

Truth be told, the more he thought about it, the less he could argue with her. The local police were just a small-town force, who likely didn’t have much experience investigating major crimes. Then again, it wasn’t as though the two of them did, either.

“Besides,” she continued before he could point that out, “even if the police do question the staff, do you really think any of them is going to admit anything? They’ll just know that we’re onto them, and it’ll be harder for us to figure out who it is. I know we can do this. After a few days here I bet I know more about these people than the police do, and you’ve been working with them for almost a year. We should be able to figure this out.”

It had to be one of the staff. He recognized that, even if he still couldn’t quite wrap his head around it. “Who was upstairs when you were pushed?”

“Ray and Zack were working in the ballroom. I think Ed was supposed to be around somewhere, too. Grace is the one who took me up there, though I don’t know if she was still on the second floor. That’s all I know of for sure, but if there are passageways in the west wing as well—and I have to believe there are—then anyone could have gotten up to that hallway and come up behind me.”

“And anyone could have been the one who came into your room as well.” He let out a sigh of frustration. “I just can’t imagine why any one of them would want to stop the weddings.”

“How much do you really know about the staff?”

“Mostly that they’d all been here for years. I did standard background checks on them when we decided to open the manor for weddings and keep them on, normal business procedure. None of them have criminal records, and since everyone but Zack had been here for decades there wasn’t really any employment history to check out. Zack’s background check was clean. I can’t say I know any of them all that well personally, but there didn’t seem to be any reason they shouldn’t be allowed to work here. If anything, they seemed to fit the atmosphere of the place, and Meredith didn’t feel right about letting them go.”

“I get the impression Grace isn’t all that pleased to no longer be in charge around here. It might be enough to make her want to stop the weddings.”

“But without the weddings, we’ll probably sell and she’d have to leave anyway.”

“Maybe it’s worth it to her. I don’t know. There’s more, though. I think Grace was in love with Jacob Sutton.”

Adam was suddenly reminded of how he’d been struck by her use of Jacob’s first name yesterday, the way she’d said it. “What makes you say that?”

“I think it’s why she stayed here all these years. That comment she made at dinner about Kathleen being ‘irreplaceable.’ I think she wanted to be with Jacob, and he was still in love with his wife. Maybe Grace doesn’t want to see any other woman get married here when she was denied the chance.”

Adam considered the idea. “Pretty twisted motive.”

“I think it’s clear we’re dealing with a very twisted mind here.”

He couldn’t exactly argue with that. “True. So you think it’s her?”

“I think it could be. But all of them seem to have issues that, in theory, could make them want to stop the weddings. I mean, Ed and Rosie are married, but don’t seem happy about it. Talking to her the other day, I got the impression she’s not too happy to be married to him. Probably not a surprise considering how she treats him. And I know he’s usually all smiles, but I’ve seen the way he looks at her sometimes. It’s...cold, calculating. Not the way I can imagine anyone looking at someone they love. Then there’s Ray. Did you know his wife abandoned him and Zack?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Either one of them—or both—could have substantial enough issues with women that they’d go after women who are getting married.”

“So that leaves us with what we already knew. It could be any one of them.” He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice. “Maybe I should call the company I had run the background checks, have them run more in-depth checks on them in case there’s anything else we should know that we don’t already.” Perhaps he should have dug deeper to begin with, but it hadn’t seemed necessary. He’d basically been hiring people to work at a hotel, not the Pentagon. He hadn’t needed to know more about them. Or so he’d thought.

“Good idea.”

“In the meantime, every moment you’re here you’ll be a target.”

She fell quiet for a moment. “We could still use that to our advantage.”

Adam immediately recoiled at the idea. “I am not going to let you use yourself as bait,” he said firmly.

“If we can draw out the killer, we can catch him or her.”

“Or you can get yourself killed. This person already managed to get to you twice.”

“I didn’t have anyone watching my back. And now I do.”

She said it as a statement of plain fact, not a question, as though she had no doubt that he would be there for her. She was right, of course, and her faith in him nearly made his chest swell with a sense of masculine pride, regardless of why she was saying it.

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “You do. And I’m watching your back when I say you’re not using yourself as bait. We’ll figure something out.”

Jillian nodded once. “All right. What about Meredith? Do you want to tell her the truth about me?”

Adam considered the question. It was another one he didn’t like the answer to. “I don’t like the idea of leaving her clueless to what’s really going on here, but Meredith isn’t the best liar. Never has been. I think it’s one reason she became so distant when things went bad with that bastard Brad. She had to know I would realize what was going on. And she hasn’t been that strong emotionally in the wake of everything that happened. If we do tell her, I’m not sure she would be able to keep from letting the others know something is up.”

“So we won’t tell her yet,” Jillian agreed. “Hopefully we’ll be able to tell her soon enough, if we can resolve this quickly.”

Which they would, he thought. Whoever was responsible for all of this had to be stopped before anything else happened, anyone else was hurt.



Now, if they could only figure out how to do that.

In the meantime... “We really should get dressed before anyone comes looking for us.”

Adam felt her sigh, and nearly did the same. “You’re right.”

With mutual reluctance, they pushed apart and climbed to their feet. They dressed quickly, collecting the clothes they’d scattered across the floor and shrugging into them. Adam couldn’t resist sneaking a few glimpses of her tantalizing body as it was regrettably recovered—and found her looking back at him, watching him in exactly the same way.

Jillian shot him a grin, completely unembarrassed to be caught staring or to have him look. He could only grin back.

God, she was amazing. So vital, so full of life. Just the idea of anything happening to this woman—

Not going to happen, he vowed.

Finally, all too soon, they were dressed. Unable to resist, he reached for her, moving in for another kiss.

A sharp knock suddenly sounded on the door. They barely had time to move away from each other, let alone acknowledge the knock, before the door swung open. “Hey, boss—”

It was Zack. He came to an abrupt stop just inside the doorway as though sensing he’d interrupted something. He glanced between the two of them, eyes narrowing.

Adam could imagine what he saw. They hadn’t taken the time to completely straighten their clothes and hair, so they had to look disheveled, as if they’d been—well, as if they’d been doing exactly what they had.

“What is it, Zack?” Adam asked, keeping his tone completely unconcerned.

Zack lowered his eyes, his discomfort clear. “We’re finished in the ballroom, but Ed is worried part of the basement might flood with all this rain. Looks like there’s already some leakage. He wanted to know if you wanted to come take a look so you’d know what was going on.”

“Thanks, Zack,” Adam said. “I’ll be right out.”

Zack nodded tightly. Ducking his head, he backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

As soon as it was shut, Jillian raked a hand through her hair, giving it a makeshift combing. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance he’s not going to tell everyone what he just saw—or thinks he saw.”

“I doubt it. I’d give it about thirty minutes, tops, before everyone knows.”

“The only question is, how will the killer react?”

“If they think this means your wedding is off, they might be happy,” he suggested.

Jillian’s frown deepened. “But then they might not come after me again and we’ll never know who it is.”

“There has to be another way to get to the bottom of this without making you a target.”

“I’m all ears.”

Grimacing, he shot a glance at the window, listening to the wind and rain pounding against the glass. “We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, let me put in a call to my investigator and get that ball rolling. And then let’s just try to get through this storm without anyone getting hurt.”