Release (3 page)

She thought she might shatter into a million pieces if Sean put his hands on her at that moment. She fumbled for the master bedroom door and rushed inside.

“
Genny.
What the hell—”

His exclamation was cut off when Genevieve slammed the door and swiftly turned the lock. The handle jerked. His hand thumped on the door. She pressed her back against the wood, straining to hear in the taut silence that followed.

“Genny.”

She clamped her burning eyes shut at the softly uttered plea. It must be a hollow-core door, because she could actually hear him quite well. It sounded like he’d spoken with his forehead pressed against the crack between the door and frame. They were only inches apart—

“You picked a hell of a time to come waltzing back into my life,” he said, his low voice vibrating with emotion.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Obviously.”

She licked her tear-spattered lips. For the first time, she realized her face was soaked. She must have been crying for a while now . . . maybe since she’d first heard Sean’s easy drawl resounding from the depths of the penthouse.

“Go
away
, Sean.” Her heart thundered in her ears in the pause that followed. The door gave slightly, as though he’d just pushed himself off it.

“I was here first.”

“You can go straight to hell second, boy.”

His chuckle sounded appreciative . . . amused.

Sad.

“Just give me a minute to tell her good-bye.” For a second, she thought he’d walked away, but then his deep voice penetrated the crack of the door again.

“Are you okay? Did something happen?”

She stared at the enormous king-sized bed in front of her—the bed where the three of them had become drunk on pleasure three years ago.

Did something happen?
She’d say it had.

Genevieve had been forever changed on the night Max had offered his young wife to his super-sharp, right-hand man . . . the night she’d burned beneath Sean’s touch.

“I’m fine,” she said blankly, her eyes glued to the bed as vivid memories played before her mind’s eye . . . memories brought to the forefront by being in the room where it’d all happened.

“Yeah, right,” she heard him reply wryly.

“Will you just
leave me alone
?”

“That’s likely.”

This time, she sensed for certain that he’d walked away. A minute later she still hadn’t moved. They passed within feet of her.

“You’re acting very rudely,” the woman accused petulantly as she moved down the hallway.

“Yeah, I’ve been told I have a problem with that,” Sean replied evenly.

“Is there someone here? Who were you talking to?”

But then their voices faded. She heard the front door open and shut, and knew Sean was escorting the female out of the tight Sauren-Kennedy Solutions security. He’d get her a cab. He may have grown up poor, friendless, and fatherless, one of the “conduct disordered” terrors of the mean streets of New Orleans, but Sean’s manners were impeccable.

Genevieve still hadn’t moved when he returned a few minutes later. She stood stock-still, her back against the door like she thought she was on the penthouse’s window ledge with the city looming below her toes. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the handle turn. He spoke softly again near the crack in the closed door.

“You’d better open up, girl. You don’t really think that excuse of a lock is gonna keep me from you, do you?”

Her pulse threatened to leap right off her neck. She’d never heard him call another female
gull
, his drawl softening the “r” until it was only barely audible.

The sound of it on his tongue had always felt like a caress. She spun around and flipped the lock. Her gaze remained fixed on the carpet as she stormed past him. She grabbed the bag she’d dropped in the foyer and reached for the handle on the front door. His hand rose behind her, shutting the door with a precise snap.

“What happened?”

“What makes you think something happened?” she asked irritably. She was hyperaware of him just inches away, leaning down over her. Heat resonated off his body.

“
Don’t
, Genny. Haven’t you punished me enough by avoiding me all this time? You know I’d never have wanted you to see what you just saw. Not in a million years.”

Her soughing breath was the only thing that broke the silence that followed. Her chin dropped to her chest.

She
did
know it. She may have her doubts about him, but she knew instinctively Sean Kennedy would never purposefully hurt her.

The havoc he’d wreaked unintentionally on her life was another matter altogether.

“The house in Lake Forest burned down,” she whispered. “It’s . . . gone. Everything.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders and spun her around. His tall shadow loomed over her. She blinked in disorientation when he switched on the crystal chandelier. He stared. The color washed out of his face.

“Come ’ere,” he growled, taking her hand. Genevieve stumbled after him into the living room. A bar lined the north wall. He slid one of the suspended goblets from the rack and grabbed an open bottle of wine. The crimson liquid splashed into the bowl of the glass.

“Drink it,” he ordered, all traces of his accent absent from the terse command. Genevieve hesitated before she glanced into his glittering eyes. She took the glass, draining half the wine in her first swallow. He pried the trembling goblet from her clawlike grip. He guided her over to the sofa and pulled her down next to him.

“Were you in the house?”

She shook her head as she released her hands from his warm grasp.

“I was working late on Oak Street. I drove home at around nine. I’ve been watching them try to put the fire out all night.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

She just stared at the carpet sightlessly. He didn’t seem to expect her to answer once he’d considered his impulsive question.

They both knew the days were gone when she would have leaned on Sean for support.

“Four engines were working on it when I got there, but they were just trying to contain the blaze at that point . . . keep it from getting to the trees and spreading. One of the firemen told me it had likely started in the garage and spread first to the kitchen. They had it out by the time I left. It was a nightmare. The police were there. The press . . .”

His body tensed for action but he remained seated beside her. She threw him an exasperated glance. Three years hadn’t dulled her almost preternatural ability to read him. Never mind that he’d been trained by the United States Army to be an intelligence operative.

She’d known her fair share of spies. Max had held a top position at the CIA before he’d retired and started his private intel firm. But while Max had proved to be an enigma to her, Sean was pretty much an open book.

“Go ahead, call if you want to,” she said. “There was a cop—Sergeant Gould. The chief from the fire department was a Martin McGruder.”

“I’m not going anywhere right now. What about Jim? Is he okay?” Sean asked, referring to Jim Rothman, Max’s longtime, live-in employee who did everything from house maintenance to grocery shopping.

“He’s fine,” Genny whispered. “He’d been out for the evening, like me. He came home from the movies at around eleven and stood with me, watching it burn.” Her breath caught on an inhale. “He was more upset than I was. He kept worrying he’d left some appliance running or hadn’t maintained the furnace the way he should. I must have told him a million times it wasn’t his fault, poor man, and even if one of us
had
done something inadvertently, it wasn’t intentional. He was worried sick. He’s staying with his daughter in Niles.”

“There was no indication it’d been set?”

“Set?”
She sharpened her gaze on him. “Of course not. Who would have set my house on fire?”

His brows drew together as he studied her. His hand rose to cradle her jaw. “Was there a medical unit there? Did they treat you?”

“For what?”

“Shock.” Their gazes met and locked.

He didn’t try to stop her from standing. She returned to the bar where she lifted the wineglass to her lips. The crystal hummed when she set the goblet on the bar too forcefully. She saw him watching her in the mirror lining the back of the bar.

“Am I going? Or are you?”

“I think you know the answer to that, Genny.”

She turned around. “You can’t expect
both
of us to stay here.”

He shrugged and leaned back, spreading his arms along the back of the couch. He’d buttoned the crisp white shirt, but not completely. When he spread his arms, the fabric parted. Genevieve found herself staring at the sexy triangle of exposed skin and curling, light brown hair. She blinked when he spoke.

“I’m working on a big project. My assistant will be here first thing in the morning. It’s easier to sleep here when I’m staying so late in the office.”

“
Sleep
, huh?” she muttered sarcastically.

“You couldn’t expect me to know you’d show up here tonight. I said I was sorry about that.” He waved toward the hallway and the bedroom. When she glanced out the window dismissively, he added, “Right—I forgot. You’re good at ignoring my apologies. You’re an expert at the business of ignoring me in general.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. She opened her mouth to bring him to task for changing the subject but he interrupted her before a word left her tongue.

“I own this penthouse, too. Have you forgotten that?”

“No, I haven’t
forgotten
. Fine. If you’re staying, I’ll be the one to go. I’ll stay with my mother.” Her eyes widened when he just shook his head slowly, his expression implacable.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But until I can get some more information about what happened with the fire . . . until I know for sure nobody set it with the intent of harming you, you’re staying here. And so am I, Genny.”

Her muscles felt as if they’d snap like rubber bands stretched too tight when he said her name again. He was the only person who called her Genny. The only one who
could
and make it sound so natural . . . like her true name. Once Max had tried to call her Genny. It had sounded forced and foolish on his tongue. She hadn’t said anything, but Max had never done it again.

Max had encouraged her and Sean to spend time together. Her husband had confessed to her once that he felt a little guilty about the fact that he had so few interests in common with her, given their twenty-four-year age difference. Max had never shown an ounce of jealousy over the fact that Sean and she shared a love for taking in a Cubs game on hot summer afternoons or biking for miles along the lakefront. Sean had even taught her how to shoot at the Sauren Solutions in-house firing range.

It’d all been innocent . . . on the surface anyway.

Until that New Year’s Eve three years ago, when Max had suggested the three of them indulge in a night of pleasure.

Until five nights later, when Sean had murdered him.

CHAPTER
TWO

S
ean watched her closely, seeing her indecision, her exhaustion. He sensed something else in her; something he strongly suspected was fear. The realization that it was
he
who was making her practically vibrate with anxiety made him feel like he’d just tipped pure acid down his throat.

He understood why she was so nervous around him . . . to an extent, anyway. He cursed himself at least once a day for his uncharacteristic impulsivity on that night three years ago. Genny had every right to avoid him like he carried a particularly potent version of the plague. When he’d been desperate to see her after Max’s death, he’d sometimes catch her wincing when she looked at him.

He’d made a mistake. But that’d been years ago. How long did he have to suffer for caring about something beyond wisdom and circumstances?

Beyond reason?

He knew he wasn’t good enough for Genny, but that simple fact had never once stopped him from wanting her more than he’d ever wanted anything. Besides, Sean figured he possessed some kind of deep psychological flaw that made him rebel against the obvious.

Stubbornness stiffened his backbone and he sat forward on the couch, elbows on his knees. He’d grown up knowing that if you wanted something, you had to do more than just fight for it. You had to go into that fight like it was your last volitional act on earth. You had to be willing to sacrifice everything before you went into that battle, whether it was a back-alley scrap with a bully or an Iraqi who hated you so much it was like a poison in his blood.

It hadn’t been hard for him as a kid to live by that code. He’d had nothing of substance to lose but his own life—and hadn’t he gotten the message from plenty of people that even
that
was a worthless commodity?

He still had nothing to lose at age thirty-seven, Sean admitted to himself grimly. But Genny had wandered into his domain again, even if it had been unintentional on her part. Mistakes and sins be damned. He wasn’t going to let her go again without a fight. He just needed to work on regaining her trust.

If he could just spend some time with her, get her comfortable with him once again, maybe she’d open up.

“You’re staying right here, Gen. There are two bedrooms. You can have your pick.”

“I don’t want to sleep in either one.” Her usually soft, soulful gray eyes turned as sleety as the hovering gray clouds outside the window, but Sean pretended not to notice.

“The couch is nice and soft then.” He stood and walked to the foyer. He locked the front door and keyed in the code for the alarm. She came up behind him as he finished.

“What are you doing?”

“Locking up for the night. Is this your stuff?” He picked up a huge leather carryall and peered inside, seeing hastily folded clothing and a bag of toiletries. “I’ll put it in the guest bath.” She ignored him as she stared at the alarm system mounted on the wall. She turned to him, an incredulous expression spreading on her face.