Chapter Four
“Where are we going?”
Jacob Stone pocketed his phone and turned to see his wife coming toward him, her blond hair loose and hanging over her shoulders, so lovely he momentarily forgot what she was talking about.
“We’re not going anywhere, my darling,” he informed her. “But according to my source at the airport it appears Jack Grayson and Maddie Blake are heading to Boston.”
She arched a fair brow. “Business or pleasure? They were involved once, right?”
Jacob grunted. “Twice—from what Maddie told me when we were still on speaking terms.”
“You sound like you miss her,” Allison observed, her tone waspish. Not something he was used to. But now that her meek façade had been stripped away, there was quite a lot he was learning about his wife. “Should I be jealous?”
He sent an angry look her way, irritated by her insinuation—mostly because it hit far too close to the truth. There’d been a time when he and Maddie were close—perhaps even might have had a future. But then Jack Grayson arrived on the scene, suddenly filling the role of confidant and friend. And more.
“Jealous?” he snapped. “You dare even ask such a question? I married you, Allison.”
An emotion he might’ve almost called sorrow briefly twisted her beautiful features. But then she donned her perfect smile—the one that she had worn every day while pretending to be the doting administrative assistant who secretly pined for him. He’d trusted that smile once, had depended upon it. Now he had to wonder what thoughts and schemes it masked.
“That you did, my love,” she said, extending a hand for him to pull her to him. “I’m sorry.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead and held her close. “The Faithful in Boston are among my most loyal. They will handle this, and soon Jack Grayson will no longer be an issue.”
Allison pulled back from his embrace, her expression wary. “What do you mean by that?”
“My old friend is not without his enemies.” A faint tug at the center of his chest made him pause, but he shoved aside the hint of remorse he felt. “I’m sure they’ll be delighted to finally discover his whereabouts after all this time.”
Allison’s lips twisted into a hungry smile. “And Maddie Blake? What will happen to her?”
He would not order Maddie’s murder—no way in hell. For all his protestations to Allison, Maddie still meant far too much to him to order her death. But he couldn’t be responsible if she was foolish enough to put herself in harm’s way. “If she insists on playing at being the heroine in this little drama, then that’s her choice. I can’t be responsible for what happens as a result.”
* * *
“You’re certain being in separate hotel rooms is a good idea?”
Maddie realized how her question sounded the moment she saw the wickedly handsome grin curl Jack’s lips. “You’d prefer to share?”
She couldn’t help but return his smile.Damn his charm. As if this wasn’t hard enough already, now she had to be reminded how much she adored that sexy grin that made her pulse kick up a notch—every, single, freaking time.
“You know what I mean,” she said, sending Jack a wry look as she swiped her key card and shoved open the hotel room door with a sweep of her hip. He leaned in behind her and held the door open as she rolled her Gucci overnight bag inside.
“Allow me,” he murmured near her ear. “We’re back among the champagne crowd.”
She rolled her eyes, hardly needing the reminder. She’d grown up in prim and proper political circles, constantly having to be “on,” always dressed for show, an ornament to her father’s public image. It’d been a relief when she’d gone to college and then to Quantico, where she could be herself without having to constantly be on display. And so having to ditch her jeans and T-shirts and favorite, well-worn jacket in order to once more don her designer clothing and uncomfortably pointy-toed heels was a special kind of torture.
But not for Jack. The man lived in designer clothing, was as comfortable (and undeniably sexy) in silk shirts and handmade slacks as in his fatigues and combat boots. If the author of the James Bond novels were still alive, she had no doubt that Fleming could’ve easily created a rival for his famous British agent, using Jack as the model.
Jack had never talked much with her about his past—only once letting the wordsmanorandestateslip out when discussing his childhood. But she knew he’d been born into the Alliance and that his family’s legacy stretched back almost to the beginning of the Order. So she would’ve been surprisednotto see the evidence that the man had grown up with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. But it wasn’t wealth alone that had shaped the man who’d stolen her heart on the very first day they’d met . . .
She still remembered the day so many years ago when Jack had been assigned to guard her father, Senator Hal Blake. Jack’s slow, suave stroll as he’d sauntered into the senator’s study had immediately set him apart from the others who’d been part of his security detail. His easy smile had caused her heart to thunder in her chest when he shook her hand, his intense gaze—green flecked with brown and gold—searching hers, sizing her up, so warm she thought she’d melt right there on the Persian rug in her father’s office.
And when it was announced a few months later that he would be replacing her security officer at the university when she returned to finish her senior year, she’d already fallen for the man’s devastating charm. It was hardly surprising that things had soon gone far beyond just a working relationship between them. She just wished she’d known the truth before it had driven them apart. It was the one big “if only” that still kept her up nights.
She’d thought it was odd that her father’s new security specialist had a British accent, but it was explained away as easily as all the other anomalies that Maddie had questioned throughout her childhood, never realizing they all were a means to cover her father’s involvement in the Dark Alliance—a new order of Knights Templar. They’d secretly formed after the Order’s dissolution in the Middle Ages, to help guard the freedoms and liberties that the Templars had been sworn to protect. And now that Maddie had insisted upon becoming an initiate into the Alliance to continue her father’s legacy, it was an oath she’d taken as well.
Which was what had taken her to Mexico City in search of Jacob Stone, the traitorous son of a bitch who’d been like a brother to Maddie growing up, someone she’d trusted without question.
His betrayal had been devastating to them all—especially her father.
