I blink. That wasquick. So much for me playing the hero.
The other two pull knives, the blades glinting. She’s going to back away now, which will give me my chance. I start forward—
Nope. She traps the arm of the first guy who comes at her, grabs him by his shoulder, twisting violently, and tosses him in a spectacular judo throw. Holyshit. Her foot connects with his belly, and he curls into a ball with a pained groan. The third one lashes out with his blade, and I am finally in position to help out. I grab his wrist, spin him around and punch his jaw in one motion. He collapses, feigning unconsciousness—I didn’t hit him that hard.
She huffs out a breath, then looks at me. “You okay?”
I feel like an actor who just realized he’s been studying the wrong script, but I nod. Didn’t anybody study this woman’s background before setting this up?
Her critical gaze rakes me top to bottom. “Thank you.” She speaks in a calm, gentle voice. “But you didn’t have to do that.”
“Apparently not. You can obviously handle yourself in a fight. But it was one against three. Not really fair.”
She smiles. Feeling the full impact, I realize why the bartender grinned like he was in love. A woman who can take care of herself with ease, then smiles at you like an angel is positivelynuclear. My heart thunders hard and fast.
Suddenly, the smile vanishes, and a frown pinches her eyebrows. “You got cut.”
She reaches out, fingertips brushing my bare arm gingerly. A delicious prickling sensation spreads through me.
“Probably should put a Band-Aid on that.” She looks up at me. “I have some at my place.”
“That’d be great—”
A jolt that travels from tailbone to skull wakes me up.Dammit. I blink at the bright light of the Airbus cabin as I remember I’m on a commercial flight. What was the pilot thinking? The older passengers probably had their backs thrown out.
There’s a roar of deceleration and creaks from the fuselage as the plane tries to slow down on the tarmac. Rain drops splatter the window, streaking and blurring the view.
I wish I were on my private plane. My personal pilot would’ve done a better job of landing, for one thing. But this is work, and incognito is the name of the game. To the point that I’m traveling under a fake name and ID.
The cabin attendant smiles as I deplane. “Have a great evening. We’d love to see you again soon, Mr. Everson.”
I give her my flirtiest grin and start walking up the ramp. See? I can easily charm any woman, no faux heroism necessary. If my idiot handlers hadn’t set up the moronic plan behind my back, I wouldn’t have fallen for Bobbi so hard and so fast.
And I wouldn’t be here, in the dreary, rainy Pacific Northwest.
* * *
Two hours later, I’m standing in front of a fancy intercom at my mom’s mansion. “I’d rather fornicate with Mozart,” I say loudly into the mic. Otherwise, Mom will claim she couldn’t hear me over the howl of the storm and keep me outside until she’s satisfied.
Two beats…and nothing happens.Goddamn it.She’s kept the old passcode. I sigh and say, “There’s no one I’d rather fuck than my mom.” I grit my teeth to avoid gagging. It’d only amuse her, and I’m not in the mood to entertain her perverse sense of humor.
Finally, the lock clicks open. I walk inside the huge château, topped with soaring witch-hat turrets, overlooking the Pacific from a cliff. Mom doesn’t like the sun—or people—so she loves this place. It’s remote, very defensible and made with marble and stone in various hues. Fifty Shades of Grey, the Real Estate Edition.
I stride past the solid double doors at least fourteen feet in height. The ceiling is even higher. The place holds very little warmth by design. The moist chill of the rain lingers in the air.
It’ll be easy to locate Mom in the vast home—she’ll be in the kitchen, her favorite place. Not because she’s that into cooking or eating, but because there are a lot of sharp objects close at hand.
“Careful you don’t track mud onto the floor,” she calls out.
“You think mud is what’s on my mind?”
“I have no clue what’s on your mind, and don’t particularly care.Myconcern is you dirtying my floor.”
“What’s on my mind,” I say as I walk into the kitchen, “is why you didn’t change the passcode like we talked about.”
“BecauseInever agreed to the change. You can’t just use some common phrase—then it wouldn’t be a passcode.”
“But fucking yourmother?”
