“He is.” Rosa couldn’t hold back from his sister what she felt. “I never thought I’d find anyone like Drake. He’s been amazing. The calm in the storm. The light in the dark. But...” She needed his sister to understand. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t still a huge mess to deal with. It doesn’t mean I’m not still a huge mess. This morning, when I found out there were more pictures, I kind of lost it. I wanted to run again, needed a better hiding place than the Hamptons. So here we are.”
Suzanne moved closer and reached out to take Rosa’s hand. “Who wouldn’t have lost it? Who wouldn’t have wanted to run and hide, at least for a little while? Drake was right to bring you here, to bring you home.”
Rosa was struck by the way his sister said the word home—and how, after only a few minutes here, it resonated with her too.
“Have you seen this?” Suzanne picked up the paper on the counter and handed it to Rosa. It had Smith’s face on it, and a quick scan confirmed it was what she’d read on Drake’s phone in the car.
“I’ll never be able to thank Smith enough for this. He doesn’t even know me.”
Drake’s sister grinned. “You’ve got us on your team now. In fact, I wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking more and more about your situation. Especially about the fact that it isn’t just your situation. So many women, and men, are finding themselves in a similar position, with pictures being stolen or taken against their wishes and ending up on the Internet.”
“I did some research,” Rosa said. “It made me sick to realize how much this kind of thing happens.”
“Not usually on your scale, but yeah, it’s happening a lot. I don’t know if Drake told you, but Internet security is my specialty.”
“He did. He’s your biggest fan. And I can see why.”
Suzanne grinned again. “It goes both ways. I’m really lucky to have such great brothers. But anyway, what I was going to say is that I’ve been looking for a new challenge, and I’m thinking this is it. Take your situation, for example. Smith has convinced most of the major media outlets to take down the pictures and not run them anymore. But most people won’t have Smith on their side, and there’s still a need for software that can actually erase them—or block them—completely, or you’d still be able to search on the pictures and find them pretty easily.”
When Rosa cringed at the reminder, Suzanne said, “Sorry, Rosa, I’m just thinking out loud. I didn’t mean to upset you. Sometimes I say more than I mean to. Especially when I get all up in my head about something.”
“Actually, it’s nice to be so straightforward about it all.” Rosa was surprised to find that it really was, especially with another woman. “Drake and I have talked about the pictures, but he always gets so upset.”
“It’s because he loves you and he hates that you’re being hurt.”
Rosa couldn’t stop her eyes from growing huge. “Did he actually say that to you?”
Suzanne cocked her head. “Of course he doesn’t want you to be hurt. Oh, wait—you mean the part where he loves you.” She smiled. “I could see it in his paintings, see exactly what he feels for you.”
Rosa was still speechless, her mouth likely hanging open in surprise, when Drake walked back into the kitchen. Maybe he could see that she was out of her depth—yet again—because he crossed straight to her, put his hands on either side of her face, and kissed her. His kisses had always been the one surefire way to ground her. And, she thought as she kissed him back, to send her flying.
“What’s going on here?”
Rosa pulled away from Drake at the sound of the deep male voice, her heart hammering as if she’d been caught doing something wrong. But he wouldn’t let her go too far, keeping her hand in his tightly enough that she couldn’t possibly slip away.
She recognized the two men who walked in as his brothers, Alec and Harrison. Alec was flat-out gorgeous—tall and broad-chested, with tanned skin and well-groomed dark hair. He was the kind of guy women gravitated to in droves. Polished and obviously wealthy, but still all man. She could easily imagine just how charismatic he could be when he felt like turning it on.
Harrison was as good-looking as his brothers—just as tall and broad and masculine—but that wasn’t what hit first. Rosa was struck, instead, by his academic air. The impression that he was currently working through some complicated puzzle in his head. His dark-framed glasses might have been geeky on anyone else, but on him they only seemed to up the sexiness quotient.
Of course, to her eyes, neither man held a candle to Drake. Then again, she wasn’t exactly objective where he was concerned, was she?
She should have thought this might happen, that everyone in his family would have been summoned to his father’s home to collect the paintings of their mother. But she hadn’t been able to think beyond running from discovery in Montauk—and also hoping Drake could patch things up with his father.
Suzanne had been immediately welcoming, but since she’d seen the paintings in Drake’s cabin, she hadn’t been blindsided by their relationship. His brothers, on the other hand, clearly hadn’t heard word one about her. And, judging by Alec’s expression at least, weren’t necessarily impressed with their brother’s choice of women.