Knowing she was going to have to avoid the Falladay twins until the job was over, and that the Robertses would surely interfere in any relationship she developed, was quickly changing her plans. If Cam and Chase were close friends with the Sinclairs, then the potential for disaster had just grown exponentially.
She would kill Courtney for not warning her they would be so close.
As they moved onto the wide, flagstone path that weaved and branched off into hidden grottos, Chase drew her alongside him, his hand settling against the small of her back as they walked deeper into the shadows.
The other guests hadn’t wandered this far yet. There was a faint tinkle of a fountain nearby. Night birds sang their songs and crickets chirped happily. If she closed her eyes she could almost feel that hot summer night seven years earlier, and she could almost pretend Chase was Cam.
“Are you bringing me out to the gardens in an attempt to seduce me, Chase?” she drawled with a smile, the seriousness of her question hidden beneath the subtle laughter in her tone.
She had forgotten how much fun it could be to flirt with and tease Chase, what it felt like to be with a man that a part of her instinctively trusted, rather than distrusted.
She had learned over the years not to trust anyone, especially good-looking men. And that, she often thought, was an incredible shame. A woman her age should have had more adventures than she’d had so far.
His chuckle stroked her senses.
“I want to catch up with an old friend, nothing more,” he promised her. “Damn, Jaci, when did you become so suspicious?”
“When it comes to you and your brother? Seven years ago.” She glanced up at him, amused at the accusation. “You’re not old enough to have forgotten, surely?”
She hadn’t forgotten a moment of it, and she knew Chase—he would never let her hide from it if he thought for a minute that she was trying to. Better to get it out in the open now. And she couldn’t resist it anyway. Seeing him, knowing Cam was close, the needs were rising inside her with all the dark promise of the dreams that had haunted her.
“Now you’re just being mean.” He gave her a mock glare before pulling her to a vine-covered swing that sat beneath a wide arbor. “Here we go. We can just sit here and visit.”
Jaci sat down, carefully smoothing the material of her black evening gown down her thighs as Chase sat down beside her.
The gown, which had felt so alluring when she put it on, now seemed too sexy, too revealing. It made her feel too feminine. The thin straps held the draped bodice over her breasts. Maybe she should have worn a bra. The side slit ran to her thigh. It showed an indecent amount of leg.
Chase chuckled again.
She lifted her gaze and felt the grin that tugged at her lips, as he watched her knowingly.
“You and Cam always made me too nervous,” she admitted with a soft laugh. “Sometimes I’ve missed that.”
She had missed the twins after she left town within weeks of the night of the party. She had snapped up an offer to attend a design school in California and headed out as fast as she could. And every day she planned the trip, she’d had to fight herself to keep from going to Cam, to keep from accepting an offer she knew she couldn’t handle. Just to be in his arms. To feel his kiss again. To see what she was missing.
“We’ve missed you.” His arm stretched behind her, his fingers playing with the strands of hair that escaped the decorative clip that held it in the back.
We’ve missed you. Not I. Jaci caught that one quickly.
She ducked her head, hoping to hide her response to that statement as she inhaled with a slow, deep breath.
“You ran out on us, Jaci.”
Jaci swallowed tightly, her head jerking up as his tone hardened.
“There was nothing to run out on.” She kept her voice firm, steady.
The shadowed landscape lighting gave his expression a darker, more dangerous cast. His eyes gleamed in the low light, piercing into hers.
His fingers paused at the nape of her neck where they had been playing with the hair that drifted down from the clip. His expression became intent, determined.
He nodded slowly. “I guess you’re right. There was nothing to run out on.” His lips quirked humorlessly. “We still missed you like hell, though. Life wasn’t the same without your laughter.”
It hadn’t been the same without them, either. She had been their friend, when other women were no more than novelties—she knew that. Until one night destroyed that friendship. She had never looked at Chase the same after that, and she had never seen Cam again.
The thought of Cam had her insides burning, rioting with fear and with need. She kept checking the shadows for him, kept expecting him to step into view. And the hunger to see him was growing within her in burning waves.
“I need to get back inside.” She rose to her feet, her fingers tightening on the small purse that hung from her shoulder. “It’s almost the witching hour for me. I have to get up early in the morning.”
She needed to get away from him, to think. It had been too damned long since she had seen Chase or Cam, too long since she had allowed herself to think about the Falladay twins, either separately or apart.
“Let me take you back to your hotel, or are you staying here?” He nodded to the mansion.
“I’m at a hotel. But I’ll be fine.”
“We could talk—just talk, Jaci, I promise.” He smiled. The charm and sensuality that was so much a part of him wrapped around her, encouraged her to join in, to let herself be seduced.
“I don’t know.”
“Just the two of us.”
He said it so easily, with just a hint of amusement, a promise of sensuality. There was a shade of mockery in his tone, an acknowledgement of her hesitancy and the reasons why.
Jaci looked around the thick foliage of the grotto, the scent of summer, of sultry heat wrapping around her, the scent of the man sinking into her. And she weakened. He wasn’t Cam, but he knew her. He wouldn’t betray her or deliberately hurt her. And she was tired—tired of being alone and wishing for things she couldn’t have. Tired of dreaming of one man and regretting one night.
Finally, she nodded. A slow, hesitant movement, a part of her holding back, the other part reaching out for him.
His smile was slow, confident, and for a moment Jaci wondered if she had somehow just stepped into something she didn’t have a chance of handling.
“You can’t change your mind.” He caught her hand and drew her back along the path.
Rather than heading back into the ballroom, he drew her instead to a glass door that opened into the private wing of the house.
“I need to let Courtney know I’m leaving,” she said as they moved through the short hall and into the kitchen and formal dining room, before turning into the foyer.
“Matthew will let her know.” He drew her to the front door where the butler stepped from the small room that connected to the private wing as well as the main mansion.
“Mr. Falladay. Miss Wright.” Matthew nodded his head politely.
“Matthew, please let Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair know we’ve left. Tell Ian I’ll contact him tomorrow about those files.”
“Of course, Mr. Falladay,” Matthew acknowledged impassively. “I’ll inform them immediately.”
He stepped forward and opened the door for them, his brown eyes flickering with curiosity as they passed him.
Matthew was the scourge of Courtney’s life, and the bastion of the male-only club Ian Sinclair owned—the one Courtney wasn’t allowed in. The one Jaci had been hired to redesign, along with the private wing and main mansion. The Sinclair home was being turned over to the club itself, while Ian and Courtney would be moving into the new home they were building out of sight of the club, on the other side of the estate.
“Courtney’s going to skin us both,” she warned him as she lifted her dress and moved down the stone steps to the driveway beyond.
“I promise to protect you.” He flashed a smile over his shoulder, his gaze wicked.
“Who will protect you, though?” She laughed, allowing him to pull her to the curb of the circular driveway as a vehicle’s lights moved around the drive.
“Quick service,” she murmured, as the Jaguar pulled to a stop in front of them and the valet driver jumped from the car.
“Matthew’s a very efficient man.”
He opened the door and helped her into the passenger seat before moving around the front of the car.
Jaci watched him move. He didn’t hurry. He strode with determined steps, with powerful coordination. A wolf in elegant sheep’s wool, she thought with a smile. And he did look elegant.
A second later he was moving into the driver’s seat, pulling the door closed, and accelerating away from the brightly lit mansion.
“Where was Cam tonight?” She turned to stare at his profile, unable to forget that Cam was back at that party. She could have seen him. At least from a distance. Perhaps spoken to him.
He turned and flashed her a quick look. “He was looking for Ian when I caught sight of you. By now, they’re likely deeply involved in a business discussion.”
Had they changed that much over the past seven years? Despite Chase’s words, perhaps Cam had forgotten about the immature little virgin who had dared to tease him, then ran away from the truth she didn’t want to face.
“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.”
