Hot Secrets (21 page)

“I’ll deal with the Robocops,” Blake called, “and
I’ll call you if I find her down here.”

Royce targeted an entry point without officials and
ducked the tape, wondering where the hell his other three men were.
Someone shouted at him, but he didn’t stop. He climbed the stairs
to the building, burst through the glass doors, and instantly
spotted Kyle.

Kyle
,
who knew how
to work his connections,
headed towards him immediately. “It was a bomb threat,” he
said. “A special team is already working the building.”

“Where is she?”

“Daniel got positive confirmation from a cop that
she was outside but when he got to the place he was told he could
find her, she wasn’t there. He can’t find anyone who even saw her.
Daniel and Rick are searching the crowd. I was about to hit the
stairs to go up to look for her. The elevators are shut down.”

Royce started to walk backwards, towards the
stairwell. “Call Blake. He’s outside. Tell him what’s going on.” He
turned and started running, yanking open the heavy steel door and
charging upward. Every step was torture, another obstacle to
getting to Lauren.

Ten floors later, he pulled the Glock from his ankle
holster and eased the door open. Nothing. No one in sight and there
was complete silence. His cell phone vibrated and he looked at the
caller ID and answered. “Tell me you found her, Blake.”

“No, get in and get her out. This guy has proven he
knows explosive devices. Don’t fuck around, Royce.”

Royce hung up and shouted, “Lauren!” To hell with
caution. Blake was right. If there really was a bomb, time was
everything. He was halfway to her office when he paused, hearing a
muffled pounding noise.

“Lauren!”

More pounding. He ran towards the noise, and then,
thank God, he was at the bathroom door and heard the sweet sound of
her voice. “Royce! I’m in here! Help. Please, help me.”

“I’m here, baby. I’m here.”

“Oh God, thank you. The door is stuck and my phone
won’t work and”

“But you’re okay?” he asked, his gaze catching on
the wooden doorstop jammed in the door.

“Yes. Yes. Now that you’re here.”

He yanked out the wedge and tossed it, pulling open
the door. Lauren fell into his arms and clung to him as if he was
her lifeline. Wrapping his arms around her, he hugged her, saying a
silent thank you and kissing her. “Let’s get out of here.” He
grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, his gun still at his
side.

“What’s happening?” she asked from behind him.
“What’s going on?”

“Bomb threat,” he said, pulling open the door again
and inspecting the path before pushing her in ahead of him. “In
other words, run, don’t walk down.” He followed her, ready for a
strike from behind.

***

Luke was standing inside the yellow line, talking to
an official when he saw Julie shoving through the crowd,
desperately trying to get to him. “Luke! Luke!”

“I’ll be back,” he said to the cop, heading to the
tape to meet her, the pale pink of her fall jacket flaring behind
her.

“Tell me she’s okay,” she pleaded, grabbing his arm.
The touch sent that familiar punch to his gut that he’d always felt
when she touched him, magnified by about ten because he knew Lauren
was all she had, because he knew how scared she was.

“Royce went in after her,” he said. “She’ll be
okay.”

“Oh, God. So she really is still inside? They said
there might be a bomb. Please tell me she isn’t in there with a
bomb.”

“They just located it on the roof,” he said. “A
team’s already tearing it down.”

“But it’s still live and she’s still in there?” Her
hand tightened on his arm. “Please tell me they already disarmed
it.”

“She’ll be fine,” he said, praying that was true, on
edge himself about Royce getting the hell out himself. “He’ll get
her out, if she’s even in there. If you want to help, search the
crowd.”

“I have,” she said, swiping at a long lock of blond
hair covering her face, her hand shaking. “I tried. I’ve looked. No
one has seen her.” She inhaled and let it out. “I don’t… I can’t
lose her.”

The vulnerability in her gave him another kick to
the gut. He knew better than anyone, besides maybe Lauren, that
Julie hid everything behind sex, sin, and a façade of cool, all of
which were gone now.

“Hey,” he said, bending under the tape to stand
closer to her. “You won’t.” He reached up and slid the wayward hair
in her eyes behind her ear. “You won’t lose her.”

They stared at each other, the past between them,
the passion, the connection, and yes, even the bad goodbye,
sizzling into awareness.

Her perfect pink lips parted, then, “Luke, I…
we…”

A loud commotion erupted and they both turned to the
building to find Royce and Lauren running towards them. Julie took
at step towards the tape, but then stopped and blinked up at Luke.
Then, to his surprise, she pushed to her toes, and pressed her lips
to his. “Thank you,” she whispered and then ducked under the tape
to run towards Lauren.

Luke watched her embrace Lauren, savoring her taste
on his lips, her scent on his skin while he did. And he knew right
then that the wall he’d just seen come down had to fall again, and
this time for good… and for him.

Chapter Twenty

Hours later, when the bomb was disabled and she’d
answered a million and one questions from law enforcement, Lauren
walked into Royce’s apartment, exhausted as the rush of adrenaline
slid away. Royce tossed his keys on a small table by the door and
Lauren kicked off her heels, heading for the couch where she
collapsed, thankful that her offices were closed the next day.
Thankful that the trial would finally be ramping up for jury
selection soon, and she could get this behind her.

Royce shoved the coffee table away and went down on
his knees in front of her. “We have to talk, Lauren.”

“Not the talk thing again,” she said, sitting up to
rest her hands on his chest. “It’s never good and I can’t deal with
any more bad right now.”

“Plead the case.”

“What?” she asked, trying to scoot away from him.
“No. You said you supported what I do and why I do it.” She tried
to scoot away from him.

He closed his hands on her hips and held her. “I do,
but there is a time when everyone in law enforcement makes a
decision, for the safety of everyone involved. This is one of those
times.”

“This is going to go public,” she said. “Too many
people know what is going on after today. That means the public
will know a plea is caving to intimidation. What message does that
send about our system? And it invites copycats. I’ll be a target
and make other people targets.”

“You already are a target and other people are
targets as well. Plea, Lauren. Put her away for life and make the
concessions to do it. Then let’s go away for a vacation. Rome,
England, anywhere you want to go, and let Luke and Blake catch this
guy.”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this. I
thought”

He kissed her, his fingers resting on her cheek. “I
love you, Lauren. I’m just trying to protect you and everyone
around you.”

She softened instantly at the sincerity, the
torment, in his voice and pressed her lips to his. “I love you,
too.”

He pulled back to search her face. “Then do this for
me. I support you, baby. I believe in what you do, I do. But this
is about safety.”

“What if it isn’t even about this case? We have
clippings from other cases and the links to Sheridan.”

“Then it’s not this case and we’ve ruled it out. We
have nothing at this point but a gamble, but we have to take it,
Lauren.”

“I need to think, Royce. I need to”

He kissed her. “Think. That’s better than ‘no’.” He
slid his fingers under her hair to her neck. “Tell me you love me
again.”

She softened, smiled. “I love you.”

He covered her mouth with his, as if he was trying
to absorb the words, as if he cherished them. Lauren relaxed into
the kiss, lost in him, letting herself forget everything but him
undressing her, touching her, kissing her. When she finally
straddled him, when he was buried deep inside her, and their eyes
connected, she realized that her big, grizzly alpha had a soft side
he saved just for her. And somehow, for just this little bleep of
time, it made everything okay, and no man had ever done that for
her before now, before Royce.

***

The next morning, Lauren woke in Royce’s arms, to
her cell phone ringing on the bedside table. He grabbed it and
handed it to her.

She frowned at Caller ID. “It’s the DA. This can’t
be good.” She answered, to hear her boss, Milton Waters demand,
“Where are you? I’m at your apartment and you aren’t here.”

“You’re at my… why?”

“I received a delivery for you this morning,” he
said. “Where are you?”

Royce rolled out of bed when she gave him the
address. “Any clue what’s going on?”

She headed to the closet. “He’s going to tell me to
plea.”

“Did he say that?”

She yanked a pink t-shirt from a hanger in his
closet, that was beginning to feel like hers, clinging to that
little piece of goodness in the midst of a whole lot of hell.

By the time Lauren had dressed in jeans and pulled
on boots, Royce was leading Milton to his living room. The District
Attorney, forty-something, good looking, and dressed in his
standard black suit and red tie, was crackling with anger. “I’m
having the trial date postponed a week. Plead the case.”

She crossed her arms in front of her. “Milton…”

“The Mayor wants the case done. I want this case
done. I only let you ride this out because the victim’s family took
it to the news.”

“Not because the woman murdered her husband,” Lauren
said. “Of course not.”

“The public, and the jury, will be sympathetic to
her,” he said. “They won’t be when we get a building full of people
killed and I did nothing to stop it.”

Lauren took that like a punch in the gut. “If we
plead it out now, you’ll look weak and we’ll invite other attacks.
You’ll risk your office falling apart, and on an election year to
boot.”

He considered her a long moment. “You tell the
opposing council to give us something to work with, a piece of this
puzzle that justifies the deal we swore wasn’t happening. Then you
plead the damn thing and do it by Monday.” He headed for the door
and stopped and turned. “And I’m going to let the media know that
there is new evidence, and plead talks are in the works. So you
damn sure better come up with a good follow up story to justify
this. I’m in this because of you.”

Lauren stood there, staring after him, unmoving even
when the door slammed shut. Royce pulled her into his arms.
“Baby”

She pushed away from him. “No. Don’t. You want this
too. Everyone wants this. I don’t know why I fight like this. I
don’t know why I think that what is right matters when no one else
does. I need to go call Mark.”

He looked like he might argue, but then nodded,
stepping back. “Just remember his reasons aren’t mine.”

She scraped her teeth over her lip, chest tight. “I
know. I do. I don’t mean to lash out at you. I’m just upset and
confused and I just don’t know what I’m doing anymore. But I know I
can’t keep this up. I can’t leave Julie in a hotel. I can’t put
other people at risk. It just feels like this was all for
nothing.”

“I’m here when you need me.”

Her lashes lowered and lifted. “I know and it
matters.” She headed to the kitchen, taking her phone and some
paperwork with her, before sitting down at the table.

A few minutes later, she was deep in conversation
with Mark. “I’ll get you what you need,” he said, pausing a moment.
“Look. I’m happy to get my deal, but let’s put that aside. You’ll
never get to fight for what you believe in in the public sector.
Lindsey and I have been talking about you. We want you to come work
for us. Or go out on your own, Lauren, or with Julie. Just get the
hell out from under that asshole Milton.”

She sank back into the chair. “Until this week, I
think I would have said ‘no.’ I would have thought I was caving to
the pressure and giving up on my beliefs.”

“Is that a ‘yes’?”

“It’s an ‘I’ll think about it.’ Seriously. I’ll
think about it seriously.”

“I’ll take that,” he said. “Are you going to the
annual Children’s Charity event at the museum? Lindsey and I will
be there and we can talk.”

Oh, God. Julie coordinated the event every year and
not without pain, and this time, while stuck in a hotel. “Yes.
Probably.” If she could go without putting everyone at risk.

“Great. I’ll look for you. And how about I get you
this plea information today, and we just get it behind us?”

“Email it,” she said. “And yes. Now that I’ve
decided to do this, let’s be done with it.” She ended the call and
noted the missed call from her father.

Lauren sighed and called him back, listening to half
an hour of him telling her all the reasons she should quit her job.
He almost talked her into keeping her job, when he said, “You can
be my legal counsel for the Presidential campaign.”

“I’m sure Brad and Roger have that handled,” she
said.

“We need you too, Lauren,” he said. “Running for the
nomination is going to be a family affair. We might as well stand
united.”

She could almost hear her stepmother in his words.
“I support you, Father, but in the background.”

When they finally hung up, she sat there, staring
into space, replaying the conversation, and telling herself not to
let it impact her decision.

“You okay?”

Her gaze went to the doorway, to where Royce
sauntered towards her, too graceful for such a large man, his long
hair loose around his shoulders.