Release (5 page)

He paused in eating when he saw that she studied him curiously with eyes that were the color of storm clouds when sunlight starts to break through them.

“What?”
he asked.

She grinned. “Oh . . . sorry. Max said you were a war hero.”

“That’s not what you were thinking, girl,” he chided softly before he resumed eating.

She looked nonplussed for a second but then she laughed. “No, you’re right. He said you were ruthless.”

“It’s true. That’s why he hired me. I show no mercy to the administrative staff when they try to skip out early from work and I’m a tyrant about keeping down office supply shortages.”

She chuckled as she accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter.

“You’re like Max. So secretive about what you
really
do at work every day.” She took a sip of champagne. “My mother still doesn’t believe me when I tell her Max is a spy.”

“Sounds a bit melodramatic.”

“But it’s easier to say then ‘private sector intelligence operative. ’ ”

“Now that’s a fact,” he replied with a grin.

Talking to Genny was the easiest, most natural thing he’d ever done. He didn’t know how it happened, but a half hour slipped by like a second. Every once in a while, a Sauren Solutions employee would stop by and greet him and pay respects to Max’s wife, but thankfully no one lingered long. The sky softened to a lavender color and lightning bugs begun to spark out in the garden as Sean found himself telling Genny about his mother. She listened without interrupting, her expression somber and intent.

“I hope your mama will find peace someday,” she said in a hushed voice after Sean’d finished explaining about his mother’s long history of alcohol and cocaine addiction. It was a fact he’d told precisely two people in his entire life: a kind priest with a great sense of humor who used to visit him in the hospital when Sean had been wounded in Iraq.

And Max Sauren’s wife.

“She goes through periods where she seems okay . . . hopeful.”

“You take care of her, don’t you?” Genevieve asked quietly.

“If you count sending money to the manager of her residential facility taking care of her, I guess so. She won’t accept much else. To her credit, to my knowledge she’s never finagled a dollar of the money I’ve sent for her care to go on a binge.”

“It’s more than most sons would do, Sean.”

He shrugged, suddenly feeling like a major idiot for having spilled his guts to this gorgeous stranger.

Genevieve sighed and leaned back, seeming to sense his discomfort.

“I didn’t grow up having it as rough as you did, but this type of thing”—she waved at the mansion behind them and the lush grounds—“was about as familiar to me as Mars growing up in Gary, Indiana. My dad was a steel worker, but with all the layoffs and plant closings . . . well, things were never too certain for us. He’d go through long stretches being out of work. He either worked himself raw, worrying the entire time about layoffs or was unemployed and fretting about not getting a paycheck. I blame the steel industry, at least partially, for the fact that he was dead at age fifty-three.” She met his gaze and smiled wistfully. “You
must
be a spy. You got me to reveal my secret so easily.”

“Which part was the secret?”

“The part about where I grew up.”

“Why’s growing up in Gary, Indiana, such a secret?”

She shrugged, the movement diverting his attention to her smooth shoulders and lithesome arms.

“It’s not
really
a secret. But you have to admit: only the daughter of a steel worker from Gary, Indiana, would ever think of serving something as pretentious as escargot at a Fourth of July party.” She gave him a wry look and he knew that she hadn’t really fallen for his hasty cover-up of his earlier slip.

“It’s the first event I’ve ever planned for Max without any professional catering help. I wanted it to be perfect for him. It was stupid of me. I should have had a barbecue or something. Not a stuffy cocktail party.” She glanced around the deck sadly. “People don’t look like they’re having a very good time.”

“You’ll have a barbecue next time. As for tonight, I think you did a fantastic job. Best party I ever went to. I’m having a great time.”

“Do you know what I think?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

“I think Max knew exactly what he was doing when he hired you. You notice things about people. You noticed something about me, didn’t you?”

“You think it takes some kind of spy instinct for a man to notice the most beautiful woman at the party, is that it?”

For a few seconds, she looked taken aback by his compliment, but then he laughed softly. She shook her head.

“No. I think you recognized how nervous I was. I think that despite all her hardships, your mama managed to teach you some very nice manners, Sean.”

He leaned forward and held her gaze. “I was speaking the absolute truth. I’m having the time of my life, Genny from Gary, Indiana.”

Her smile gave him a glimpse at something he’d never been taught to hope for.

“I didn’t hire you to charm my wife, Kennedy, but I never complain about anything that makes her happy, so you go right ahead.”

Genevieve looked a little startled but recovered immediately when she glanced up into her husband’s face.

“Max,” she murmured warmly. Max Sauren stroked his wife’s shoulders with long, elegant fingers and extended his other hand to Sean in greeting.

As usual, Sean’s boss looked movie-star handsome with his wavy mane of silver hair, perfectly proportioned, chiseled features and deep-set, dark brown eyes. His cream-colored pants and jacket might have been borrowed from Gatsby’s closet, but Max added a degree of careless elegance and sophistication that even surpassed those of the fictional character.

Sean had instinctively understood upon first meeting Max Sauren that a methodical, cold-blooded killer resided in his depths. The knowledge didn’t detract from the fact that Max was also a pleasant, extremely clever, stimulating companion. They had a good working relationship, and respected each other’s strengths.

In Sean’s mind, Max Sauren and he were like two different species—a canine and a feline forced to share the same environment. Sean didn’t have to trust the wily, sleek big cat in order to like him.

“Kennedy.”

“Max. Al, how are you?” Sean exchanged a handshake with the dark-haired man who’d approached the table with Sauren. The smile on Albert Rook’s thin lips didn’t match the hard glitter in his green eyes as they shifted from Genevieve, to Sean, and back to Genevieve again.

Rook had been one of Sean’s first challenges when he started work at Sauren Solutions. Rook had been with the company since Max had started it. Max had recruited him after he’d retired from the Navy, where Rook had served as a weapons systems analyst in Navy intelligence.

At first, Sean’d thought Rook’s sullen animosity toward him stemmed from that old Army-Navy rivalry. It didn’t take him long to understand Rook’s resentment went deeper than that.

Much deeper.

Rook was angry that Max had hired Sean from the outside, believing he should have been offered the position of chief operating officer instead. Sean had pulled Rook aside one day last spring and confronted him about his sullen attitude. He’d given him two choices: get over the fact he’d been passed over for the position or walk. Sean seriously doubted Rook had completely gotten past his resentment, but he acted a good deal friendlier. Which was fine with Sean.

As long as he did his job.

“Did you see Carmichael?” Max asked Sean. He tapped his forehead as he recalled. “Oh, that’s right. Carmichael was before you joined us, wasn’t he?”

Sean nodded. “Sauren must have done a hell of a job for him. That whole illegal hiring scandal blaze fizzled into nothing.”

A smile tilted Max’s sculpted lips. “I handled that myself, you know.”

Sean recognized the knowing sparkle in Max’s eye. It was the type of case that Max would never pass up, of course, involving high-level people and bartering secrets. Max loved the moment when his opponent realized he’d been cornered with no escape.

Mycroft Stokes was well known on Capitol Hill as being a cantankerous, lovable old coot. His off-the-cuff, emotional diatribes to the press in defense of the “common man” had endeared him to his constituents. He was loud, uncouth, and extremely powerful—exactly the kind of man Max would have delighted in putting in his place.

“Is that a fact?” Sean tipped his glass in a small, grudging salute before he drank. Given the degree of the uproar over the hiring scandal, Max had done one hell of a job in not only getting the charges dropped against Carmichael, but in silencing the uproar. The way Max relished this nasty aspect of his job so much turned Sean’s stomach a little, but he grudgingly respected a job well executed, nonetheless.

Stokes’s secret hadn’t been revealed in the file Sean had perused. Max guarded his methods and contacts carefully. From what Sean knew about Mycroft Stokes, he could make an educated guess about his weak point, however. He’d wager that Max had laid evidence before the aging senator regarding his proclivity for keeping company with teenage, nubile females who didn’t seem to mind his gray hair, wrinkles, or the fact that he was married.

Sean wagered his wife of forty-four years and the voters in Stokes’s state would take a different opinion.

Forget cash and fuck position. In Sean’s world,
knowledge
was the essence of power.

The four of them chatted as full night settled. Sean absorbed it all without any conscious intent to do so: the way that Albert Rook looked at Genevieve with a cold sort of appraisal, like a man who sat down to a five-star meal with no appetite; Rook’s furtive glances at Max, to which Max seemed entirely impervious. He saw the teasing, easy manner in which Max treated his wife; the way he stroked her dewy-looking skin with distracted appreciation, like a man who petted the silky coat of his favorite dog.

He noticed Genny practically glowed every time she looked up at Max. The initial roar of jealousy that resounded in Sean’s skull eventually faded to a rumble. He realized that she looked at Max like a proud daughter might gaze at a father. He thought of what she’d said earlier about her dad—
I blame the steel industry, at least partially, for the fact that he was dead at the age of fifty-three.

It looked as if Genevieve Sauren had married a father figure as much as she had a life partner. It was a cold sort of comfort, but Sean knew beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Genevieve obviously worshipped her husband. Sean wondered just how much she actually knew about Max.

Not much,
he thought as he studied her radiant smile when Max teased her. He was a little surprised to realize he had no desire to ever see her disillusioned in regard to her husband . . . to see Genevieve Bujold disillusioned
period.

If he hadn’t known for certain she was serious trouble to him when he first laid eyes on her, Sean knew it for a fact when he made that realization.

CHAPTER
THREE

F
or a moment, Genevieve thought she was dreaming when she awoke to see Sean Kennedy sleeping in the chair across the room.

She lay curled beneath the blanket watching his motionless form for several minutes, afraid to move because she didn’t want to disturb the peaceful moment. Warmth and drowsiness gave her a reprieve from her troublesome thoughts. She looked her fill while Sean was unaware of her hungry gaze.

He’d changed clothes since last night, she realized. Had he ever gone to bed? His long legs were bent at the knee. His jeans didn’t cling to him tightly, but they managed to outline his strong thighs and narrow hips to perfection.

Max used to grouse about the fact that Sean occasionally wore jeans to work, saying it lowered the standards for professionalism among the employees. Max had stopped complaining after observing the effect of Sean’s easygoing management style combined with a work ethic that stepped up the performance of every employee at Sauren. Sean may be exacting, but he demanded more from himself than anyone. Everyone from the secretaries to Max’s top operative gave Sean not only their respect, but their genuine affection.

His wasn’t a classically handsome face, but it was full of character. Someone had broken his nose once in a childhood scrap. His mother hadn’t had a job at the time, or any insurance, so it’d never healed properly. The slight crook in it only added to his stark, masculine appeal.

His mouth was perfection, the lips firm, their shape hinting at his stubborn, determined nature as much as his innate sensuality.

When he smiled, he could make a female’s heart skip two beats.

She snuggled farther into the soft blanket as if to hide her small grin from herself. He’d once said something similar about the way her smile affected him, but Sean was a born flirt. Never mind the somber, serious façade he usually showed people.

Her gaze skimmed across a heather gray mock turtleneck that emphasized a powerful chest and wide shoulders. His reserved persona was what Sean typically presented to the public at large, but she’d witnessed his fierce, volatile nature on a few occasions. It’d both alarmed and strangely thrilled her when she’d caught that glimpse of his personality in the past.

Now it frightened her.

She recalled one occasion.

They’d attended several Cubs games together the summer and fall before Max had died. One hot September day, a fan sitting behind them at Wrigley Field had become loud and disorderly as he argued with his female companion. Everyone in the vicinity grew uncomfortable as their argument escalated both in volume and vulgarity. At one point, Sean had turned around and politely asked if they could take their disagreement elsewhere, but had received a rude gesture and instructions to
fuck off
for his efforts.