DOMINIC (Dragon Security Book 3) (17 page)

Megan

I kept busy, making sure everyone had a full glass of wine in their hands or some of the petite sandwiches Dominic and Amy had chosen to serve. Sam was at my side most of the time, worried that I would have a nervous breakdown just because it was a wedding and I’d been stood up at mine. I could feel Dante watching me, and that made me nervous. There was this part of me that couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened between us.

“It can’t happen again,” I whispered to him when he came to stand beside me after the ceremony.

“What can’t happen again?”

I glanced at him. “You know what! I’m your boss, you’re my employee. What happened can’t happen again.”

He moved closer to me, close enough that he didn’t have speak very loud for me to hear everything he whispered to me, for the heat of his breath to wash over the back of my ear.

“You mean us getting naked together. Well, more technically, you getting naked for me.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“No? You didn’t open the door in nothing but a bathrobe?”

I wanted to smack him, or at least set him straight. But I didn’t want to draw any more attention to us than necessary.

“You’re an arrogant bastard, you know that, right?”

“Au contraire, both my parents are still alive and happily married.”

I balled my fists at my side, anger threatening to burst from my chest.

“You wanted me,” he said softly. “And I wanted you. There’s nothing wrong about that.”

“Just know, it won’t happen again.”

“Then you don’t want me anymore?”

I couldn’t answer that. The truth was, I hadn’t been able to get him out of my head since the first moment we met. There was just something about him, something arrogant, yes, but something else, too. He was a bad boy who’d simply shatter my heart, but my heart was already broken so why not have a little fun before it was completely destroyed?

“I’m not asking for a great love affair.” That heat against my ear again. “But we could have a pretty good time if you’d open yourself up to it. Quit playing the martyr, live a little. Have some fun before you dry up and blow away.”

He walked away before I could answer him. My fingernails were biting into my palms. I wanted to smack him, but when the scenario played out in my head, we somehow ended up pressed against the wall again, the intensity of our kisses melting everything around us.

But then I thought of Luke and my soul hurt.

He wasn’t coming back. I had to accept that now. He’d left me without warning, disappeared and didn’t tell me why. Not really. For all I knew, he was married and living the life we’d planned together with some other woman in some other part of the world. Why was I sitting here alone, waiting for something that would never happen?

I watched Dante serve himself some wine, smiling at Dominic’s mother as she asked for a little help with her own glass. He was a mystery. A little unnerving. But he was fun, too.

Was I really thinking about having an affair with one of my employees? Was I insane?

Yeah. I was.

Hayden

Sam was alone in the kitchen, rinsing wine glasses out in the sink. I came up behind her and tugged at the black blazer she was wearing.

“Couldn’t find a wedding cardigan to wear?”

She jerked her shoulders, moving away from me before I could get too close.

“What do you want, Hayden?”

“Just thought I’d come and talk to my favorite secretary.”

“You do realize I’m not a secretary, right? I run that office.”

“You’re Megan’s flunky. Always moving around in her shadow.”

I saw the hurt flash across her face. Sometimes I went too far, and I knew it. But I couldn’t help myself with her.

“Speaking of Megan, were you able to figure out the virus on your computer?”

The hurt disappeared and was replaced by a deep concern. She had such an expressive face…she didn’t have to speak for me to know what she was thinking.

“You found something?”

She carefully placed the wine glasses in the dishwasher before turning to look at me.

“I haven’t told Megan this yet. But I think…the virus was put on my computer by someone with direct access to it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I traced it. Most viruses, you can find where it was downloaded onto the computer. Usually it’s an email attachment you shouldn’t have opened or a website you shouldn’t have visited. But this…someone had to have put it onto my computer directly and then activated somehow…I don’t know. It seems crazy.”

“What?”

She looked at me for a long minute. “Someone had to have activated it at that exact moment, which means they had to have known what we were looking at. That means that someone who was in the office at the time put that virus in my machine and activated it to stop us from reading Emily’s notes.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, my eyes moving to the crowded living room where people were coming and going for the wedding reception. Dante was standing behind Megan, whispering something near her ear.

“Dante was there that night.”

“So were half a dozen monitors, you, me, and Megan.”

“Dante was using his cellphone when the virus activated. Could that be a way to do it?”

“Sure. But Dante?”

“You’ve been investigating him.”

“How do you know that?”

I shrugged. “You have.”

“Megan wanted to know more about him.”

“Have you found anything?”

“Not really. No more than what we already knew.”

“That he was a cop who just decided he’d rather work for a private agency half a country away?”

Sam nodded, as though agreeing with me. “That seems odd.”

“There’s something not right about him, and I’m worried what’ll happen to Megan when she learns the truth.”

“Me too.”

“Let me help you. Let me help figure out what this guy’s up to.”

She studied my face again, her beautiful eyes uncovered by her glasses today. I found myself wondering if I lived up to her expectations, if I was the man she thought I was. Or better, maybe. I wanted to be better; I wanted to be everything a girl like Sam deserved. I wanted to get her attention, to sweep her off her feet. But there was something, some fear deep inside of me, that made it impossible for me to even make the first move. I’d never had that problem with other women.

“Okay. But we keep it out of the office. I can’t lie to Megan, and if she caught us whispering behind her back, I’d have to tell her everything.”

I smiled, thinking how absolutely naive and sweet that really was.

“Deal.” I shook her hand. “Now how about a dance?”

She groaned as I dragged her out into the living room, but she melted against my chest as we began to dance to the slow, steady rhythm of some old pop song.

I could really get used to this.

Dominic

“I feel like a kept man,” I said, as the bellboy left the room and I turned to survey the suite Megan had arranged for us at a local hotel. Tomorrow we were boarding a flight early in the morning to Italy, a honeymoon among the ruins of Rome. Amy was so excited about it that she’d hardly been able to keep the surprise to herself.

“I hope so,” she said, coming up to press herself against my body. “That was the idea.”

“To make me feel cheap and used?”

“No. To make you feel pampered.”

“Oh, well, I guess that is another way to look at it.”

I lifted her chin and kissed her, drawing her closer against me.

“You look amazing in this dress.”

“You don’t look too bad in your suit.”

“True, true. But I’m ready to get out of it.”

She giggled, turning and running to the bedroom, her train of her dress draped over one arm. I followed, groaning when the bathroom door slammed before I could reach it.

“Come on, babe. It’s not like I haven’t see you naked before.”

“Not on our wedding night!”

I groaned again, crossing the room to pull the blankets back on the bed. There was a bottle of champagne in a chiller in the living room. I went and got it, popping the top and drinking directly out of the bottle. It was one of the most amazing wines I’d ever tasted.

I undressed, hanging the suit because I’d insisted on paying for it and was determined to find another venue to wear it to. But I was certainly looking forward to spending the next week in jeans and t-shirts.

I was sitting on the side of the bed in nothing but my boxer briefs when Amy came out of the bathroom. She was dressed in a white lace baby doll with these delicate little panties peeking out at the bottom. I groaned for a third time, this time because I couldn’t believe how lucky I really was.

“Come here, wife,” I said, my voice much deeper than usual.

She came to me and wrapped her arms around my neck as she stared into my eyes.

“We’re really married, aren’t we?”

“We are.”

She ran her hand over the side of my face, her fingers lingering on my jaw. And then she touched the tattoo that marked a date important enough that I wanted it always on my skin.

“When did you do this?”

“On leave just after Paris.”

“After we broke up?”

I shrugged. “I’d intended to get it done for a long time.”

“But after we broke up. You got the date of our first meeting tattooed to your chest after we broke up?”

“I didn’t believe it as the end. And it wasn’t.”

“But two years is a long time, Dom.”

“I know. But I would have waited twenty for you.”

“Just twenty?” She laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. “Not thirty or fifty?”

“I would have waited a lifetime.”

She climbed into my lap, and we kissed, soft, gentle kisses that were almost painful. I wrapped my arms around her and tugged her hips tight against mine. She moved and…was it possible to want someone so much more every time you touched?

I lifted the baby doll and pulled it off of her, buried my mouth against her throat.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I never stopped loving you.”

She ran her fingers through my hair, then lifted my chin so she could see my face.

“Ditto,” she whispered.

~END of DOMINIC~

Megan

Back to business. I sat at my desk early Monday morning, staring at a screen filled with emails. Business emails related to the running of the company. Client emails, some from our basic security clients, some from those requesting information on bodyguard services or undercover investigative services. It was like swimming through a sea of Jell-O, weeding out the bullshit and mining out the diamonds.

I’d spoken to a man twice over the weekend who wanted to hire a bodyguard for his surrogate mother-to-be. She’d been assaulted in a public parking lot, and he was worried that someone knew she was his surrogate and was trying to either extort money or cause a miscarriage. I guess that was one danger of a celebrity trying to have a kid with some stranger.

I filled out a client form and got up, sticking my head out into the bullpen to find someone to assign the case to. Dominic was on his honeymoon. Cole was wrapped up in his own wedding plans—and he really wasn’t an official asset for Dragon, anyway—and Vincent was on leave for personal issues. Dante was sitting at a desk, working on paperwork that never seemed to get done. And Hayden wasn’t in yet. That just left Marcus.

Marcus was new. I’d only hired him a month or so ago. Like Vincent, I’d teamed him up with the others several times, but never sent him off on a case of his own.

Maybe it was time.

“Marcus?”

Marcus Hanson. He was a Marine, the same branch of the military I’d served with. He’d seen some action in Afghanistan, two tours. He was honorably discharged six months ago. He was born and raised in Illinois, but moved to Texas for reasons we hadn’t yet discussed. I liked to know all I could about the people who worked for me, but I tried not to pry. Like Vincent, Marcus was a quiet guy who kept mostly to himself. That would have to change if either of them planned to stick with Dragon for long.

He followed me into my office.

“I have a case. But before I give it to you, I want your assurances that you’re prepared to handle a case on your own.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

My eyebrows rose. “I need to know that you’ll follow our protocols and you’ll restrain yourself from becoming involved with the young target.”

“I’m highly professional, ma’am.”

“I’m sure you are. But this case involves highly sensitive information. Our clients trust that we won’t betray their privacy.”

“I would never do that.”

I studied his face for a long minute, wondering if I should put Dante on this one. But the idea of sending Dante off to protect a pretty young girl simply didn’t set well with me. Another reason why I shouldn’t become involved with an employee.

This was my business. And my business was built on trust. I had to trust him.

“Okay. Have you ever heard of Blake Zimmerman?”

“The football player?”

“Yes.

Marcus’ eyes lit up in a way I’d never seen before. Again I questioned my choice, but realized I had little choice.

I had to trust him.