The Paris Assignment (21 page)

“Tears, Abby?”

“I see my dad. I’ve never noticed it before, yet I’ve always felt there was something familiar about you, but there it was as you bent over me to drag the chair.

The quiet look she received in return—the sheer emptiness in his gaze—showered ice pellets over her spine.

He might look like her father but there was none of the associated warmth. And there certainly wasn’t any love or affection.

“Lucas. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I’m going to win.”

“Win?” She shook her head, willing there to be something—
anything—
inside his mind she could appeal to. “What’s there to win?”

“My legacy.”

He resettled her chair in the corner, then took his steps to put the distance between them.

“You can have it. You always could have had it. I’d have been more than willing to share.”

“I want what’s mine.”

The reality of his sickness rose up to choke her, threatening another layer of tears. “What if I just give it to you?”

“Nope. You need to lose everything. That’s the only way my plan will work.”

Plans...back to the plans.

“And what is your plan?”

“Those satellites you’re deploying next month?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to sabotage their launch, indicating the damage you’ve done to them in various cost-cutting measures.”

“No, Lucas.”

“You’ll be nowhere to be found because you’ll be right here, tied up nice and tight. And then I’ll swoop in and buy up the company. You know, with all my experience on the board I’ve got the exact credentials to bring the company back from the brink of financial disaster.” His gaze floated to the window and it was in that moment—why it had even taken her this long, Abby didn’t know—that she accepted he was lost to her.

The brother she’d never known would never be hers.

* * *

“No doorman,” David grumbled as he scanned the ornate lobby. “Who the hell builds an apartment like this and leaves off a doorman?”

Campbell glanced down at his phone, the lights on the face indicating the man he’d tracked was in the building. “A landlord who’s catering to a more average clientele while assuring them, and himself, they’ve got the height of security wired in to keep them safe.”

“Tenants sleep soundly, thinking of the foolproof cameras in their lobby.”

“Yep, and we know different.” Campbell saw Simon through the front door of the building, his gaze pointed up the front of the midsize high rise as he strapped on rappelling equipment. Two other men stood on the roof, ready to drop his rope and pull him up.

Simon shot them a thumbs-up before his body began to ascend.

Kensington had come up with the purchase details and they’d narrowed Lucas’s apartment down to three possibilities. Since all three faced the front of the building, Simon would rappel up the side, out of view from any of the three possibilities and do some external spying until he found the right one.

Voices echoed in the matched earpieces Campbell and David wore and he heard Simon confirm he was ready to begin climbing.

Campbell and David took the stairs to the third floor as Simon’s voice echoed in their ear. When they heard him confirm the third floor wasn’t it, they kept going toward six.

The image of getting to Abby filled his mind like a mantra—a prayer—the need to hold her a living, breathing need inside of him.

What if he got there too late?

Again another denial went up which meant they were headed to twelve.

Campbell picked up his steps, taking them two at a time on a renewed burst of speed as David’s heavy booted footsteps clattered behind him.

As he approached the door to the twelfth floor, Campbell heard the scream echo through his earpiece along with the rail of gunfire.

David screamed his name from behind, demanding he halt, but Campbell ignored it as he dragged open the stairwell door and raced for the sounds of battle.

* * *

Abby struggled to duck and knew she had nowhere to go but down. With hard bursts of her feet, she pushed on the chair, desperate to make herself topple over to ensure she was out of the line of fire.

The gun in Lucas’s hand had been a shock, but the sight of Simon outside the windows even more so. She saw him in the briefest moment before Lucas made out the threat and screamed as loudly as she could to alert him to the danger.

She screamed once more as Lucas fired on the man, dangling in a harness, but it must have given Simon enough warning because he pushed himself off the window just before it shattered.

The force of her feet had her own momentum shifting and she fell to the side with a hard thud. It was only when she looked up that she saw the apartment door slam open, Campbell barreling through it, his face a mask of determination.

“Campbell!”

His gaze alighted on hers and in it she saw relief as well as a bone-deep anger that was glacial in its intensity. Then she watched as he turned that stare on Lucas.

And then everything happened at once.

Abby screamed that Lucas had a gun a split second before David lifted his weapon to fire. Simon’s momentum on the swinging harness carried him back through the opening, sending more glass flying into the room and crashing to the floor.

In the midst of it all, Campbell charged forward without stopping, straight into Lucas. The force of his body was enough to propel Lucas off his feet.

Campbell never stopped, just pushed forward until Lucas was scrabbling for purchase on anything, desperate to keep himself upright as Campbell pushed him inexorably toward the window.

On a final push, Campbell’s momentum took the man over and everything went silent as Lucas’s screams faded as he fell.

Abby stared at him—this man that she loved—and saw the mirror image of his warrior ancestors in his stance.

“Abby.” Campbell was by her side, dragging on the chair so she could sit upright. His hands ran over her arms, tugging on the tight knots, his gaze roaming everywhere at once.

“Campbell. It’s all right. I’m all right.”

“I can get them.” David pushed Campbell to the side before he flipped open a switchblade and made quick work of the knots. He’d barely sliced the last knot around her ankle before Campbell was dragging her into his arms.

His hands were everywhere as he scanned her for injuries. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s okay.”

She finally stilled him by taking his face in her hands. “I’m fine. Really. Fine.” She glanced at the window. “Are you okay?”

“You’re safe.”

“I mean it. Are you all right?”

“All I saw was you. Lying there and he had the gun pointed at you.”

The brief moments assaulted her senses and she knew she’d see them for years to come. “It was pointed at you. I was so scared.”

“I had to keep you safe. And the only way to do that was to charge him.”

“My stubborn hardheaded man.”

He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her lips. It was brief but it held a lifetime of promise. When they finally came up for air, he winked at her. “Good to know it’s useful for something.”

She laughed at that as she pulled his head down for one more kiss before stepping back and dropping her hands to her hips. “I’ve had twelve hours to think about this and I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I know and I’m kind of mad at you for it.”

“For being in love with me? Or for me being in love with you?”

The fear of the past several hours vanished at the reality that she would get to tell him. Would hear him tell her he loved her in return, again and again.

“For telling me first and giving me no way to tell you back.”

His smile spread—the one that promised their bright shiny future was theirs for the taking—and he wrapped his arms around her waist. “Tell me now, baby.”

“I’ll tell you every day. I love you, Campbell Steele.”

“I love you, too, Abigail McBane.”

“Forever.” She whispered the promise against his lips and let it unfurl in her heart.

Epilogue

A
bby sat in the living room of the Upper East Side brownstone that also acted as the main conference room for House of Steele. Kensington had a bottle of champagne chilling on the sideboard and Abby didn’t miss the anticipatory glances Campbell kept shooting toward the door.

“Have you met our grandfather?” Rowan reached for a square of cheese off the large tray Kensington had placed in the center of the table.

“Yes, but it’s been years and I’m quite sure he won’t remember me.”

“Of course I remember you.” A deep voice, thick with the sounds of Britain, echoed off the wall as Alexander Steele marched into the conference room behind his wife.

“Mr. Steele.” Abby stood and took comfort from Campbell’s hand which sat on her lower back.

“Come here.”

He barked the order with such force she didn’t dare disobey and stepped forward, skirting the edge of the conference table.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Mr. Steele.” She nodded to Campbell’s grandmother, Penelope, who looked resigned to her husband’s antics. “Mrs. Steele.”

“So you’ve snared my grandson.” Alexander Steele’s words were frank as he continued to stare her in the eye, that rheumy blue gaze still as sharp as ever.

“Um, well...” She broke off at the mischievous smile that rode his features. It was a smile she knew well and whatever anxiety she’d felt waiting for the arrival of Campbell’s grandparents fled on swift wings. “Well, yes.”

“Good for you. Smart girl. I always knew it. Always suspected you two would make a fine match.”

Penelope waved her husband off. “Don’t listen to him. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”

“Not true, Penny!” Alexander bellowed. “Not true. I told you about these two years ago. That time Abby came and you dragged her through Harrods for three days. I said it to you then.”

Penelope’s gaze turned speculative before she turned back to her husband. “So you did.”

Campbell leaned forward and kissed his grandmother before turning to shake his grandfather’s hand. “I wasn’t aware fortune-teller was in your job description.”

“I can see what’s in front of my own eyes. That’s not fortune-telling, that’s being observant.”

Truth be told, Abby thought the man had a rather valid point.

“But Abby and I didn’t meet on her visit to London all those years ago.”

“I knew, anyway.”

Campbell winked at her before turning back to his grandfather. “Just like you know everything.”

“Everything worth knowing.”

Campbell helped his grandparents to their seats as Kensington took care of the champagne. Despite Alexander’s formidable presence, Abby observed Campbell’s gentle care of his aging grandparents and felt another tick mark go up in the “reasons she loved him” column.

As if she needed another.

Kensington filled the glasses and Rowan passed them around and it was only when everyone had a flute in hand that Alexander stood up once more.

Lifting his glass he turned to Abby and Campbell. “There’s never been a day since my grandchildren arrived that I haven’t thanked God for them. But I’d be remiss in not saying I’d have always loved to have more.”

Alexander extended his glass toward her and Abby touched her flute lightly to his. “To my new granddaughter. I had to wait a bit longer for you, but I’ve no doubt you’ll be well worth the wait.”

The happy sound of clinking glasses and laughing conversation filled the room as Abby leaned forward to kiss Alexander.

And when he patted her on the back and told her he expected she’d give his grandson hell and make him enjoy each and every minute of it, Abby knew she’d found her family.

For years she’d drifted, alone in the world.

But it was Campbell Steele who had brought her home.

* * * * *

Will House of Steele continue to expand?
Find out in
THE LONDON DECEPTION,
where Rowan Steele puts her skills to use,
just as her past returns to haunt her....

Keep reading for an excerpt from
A Billionaire’s Redemption
by Cindy Dees.

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Chapter 1

“...W
e commend the soul of our
brother
departed, and we commit
his
body to the ground—earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”

The preacher’s voice droned on, but Willa Merris’s heart hurt too much for her to hear the rest. Her father, Senator John Merris, was dead. Truly gone. Murdered. And even though his body had been discovered nearly two weeks ago, the finality of it had waited until this exact moment to slam into her like a ton of bricks.

Despair weighed on her until she could hardly breathe. What were she and her mother going to do? He had always been the center of their universe, the two of them pale moons orbiting his brilliant life.

A thud startled her. Her mother had just tossed a tightly balled clod of red Texas clay on top of the casket. The dirt in her own hand was cold and moist, squishing out of her clenched fist. Blinded by tears, Willa tossed her clod of dirt into the hole that contained her father’s mortal remains.

She shuddered as dozens of other mourners stepped forward to toss handfuls of dirt on her father’s grave. Some of them appeared genuinely sad, but the majority ranged from indifferent to covertly satisfied to bury the bastard. She had no illusions that her father had been a saint. Far from it. He’d been a mean man in a mean business—two mean businesses—a wildcat oilman carving a fortune out of the oil sands of West Texas, and a United States senator, brawling in the halls of Congress.

A comforting arm slipped around her shoulders. She leaned into the embrace for a moment, but then caught a whiff of the aftershave and stiffened.
No. Surely not.
Horror flowed through her. That, and sheer, frozen terror. She glanced up at the sympathetic face of James Ward, the son of her father’s longtime business partner.

“Get away from me this second,” she cried. “Don’t touch me!”

The people around her jolted, shocked by her outburst. She slipped out from under Ward’s arm as he stared at her, dumbfounded. Right. Like he didn’t know exactly what she was talking about.

Flashes of his big hands tearing her clothes...viciously slapping the fight out of her...shoving her to the floor of her living room...and, oh, God, the pain of his big body slamming into hers over and over. His grunts...the maniacal gleam in his glittering blue eyes...the humiliation and utter degradation of it...

She’d wanted to die. Right there where he’d left her on the floor like some piece of tossed-off garbage. She’d wished desperately to disappear, to just cease to exist. But no such luck. Instead, her father had checked out of his mortal coil and left behind the mess of his life for her to unravel in addition to hers.

“Honey,” Ward murmured, “you’re overwrought. Let me drive you home. Put you to bed.”

Overwrought?
Something inside her cracked. She’d show him overwrought! “Get away from me!” she screeched.

Backpedaling from him with her hands outstretched to fend him off, she registered vaguely how everyone had gone stock-still around her. It was as if time had stopped with everyone in funny poses, staring at her slack-jawed as if she’d grown a second head.

“I swear, if you lay a hand on me again, I’ll kill you!” she shouted at Ward in rage she didn’t even know she had inside her. “Do you hear me? I’ll kill you!”

The vignette unfroze all at once with a rush of reaching hands and concerned faces closing in on her like macabre, black-clad clowns. Camera bulbs flashed, cell phones whipped out to arm’s length, pointed at her. Even the local news reporter frantically gestured at her cameraman to get all this on film.

Appalled, humiliated and so irrationally furious she scared herself, Willa batted away the hands, shoved through the crowd and broke into a stumbling half run toward her car. The grass and her high-heeled shoes were a lethal combination and she nearly broke her neck before she fetched up hard against her car door breathing heavily. She felt dirty. A driving compulsion to wash away the feel of James Ward’s filthy touch overwhelmed her. She had to get home. Take a hot shower. Scrub herself clean.

Willa stabbed at the car’s ignition button and nearly ran down the news reporter as she accelerated away from her father’s disaster of a funeral, frantic to escape this nightmare from which there was no waking.

* * *

Gabe Dawson watched the slender, black-veiled woman race away from John Merris’s grave. What was that all about? He hadn’t been close enough to hear the commotion, but it had been hard to miss. An angry buzz of gossip hummed around him...something about the senator’s daughter threatening to kill someone....

Quiet little Willa Merris? Alarm blossomed in his gut. Was she in danger? The girl he remembered wouldn’t say boo to a mouse. But then, he hadn’t seen her in over a decade. She’d been a skinny, awkward teen the last time he’d visited the Merris home. Before his falling out with John Merris. Before the two of them became mortal enemies.

At least Willa’s outburst had drawn the attention of the rumormongers away from his arrival at the funeral. As it was, he was sure to be topic number one in the gossip columns for showing up at John Merris’s grave. He would probably be accused of coming here to gloat. In point of fact, he hadn’t wished the old man dead. Plenty of suffering and failure, yes. But not death.

The preacher mumbled a few more words into the suddenly circuslike atmosphere, but no one was paying attention. Seeming to sense it, the minister cut short and wrapped up the graveside service with unseemly haste. Gabe watched in sardonic amusement as the good ladies of Vengeance, Texas, wasted no time texting and calling their friends to report the latest scandal surrounding the lurid death of John Merris.
Vultures.

He jolted as a microphone materialized under his nose. “Have you got any comment on Willa Merris’s outburst, Mr. Dawson? You’re Senator Merris’s former business partner, are you not?” a female reporter demanded.

She looked as avidly entertained as the vultures. More so.

“No comment,” he growled. He strode away from the woman, but she walk-ran beside him, continuing to shove that damned microphone in front of him.

“What do you have to say about John Merris’s murder? Some people are saying you’re more pleased than anyone that the senator is dead. Is it true you two had a violent argument just a few weeks ago?”

He stonily ignored the reporter and her sleazy innuendos.

“Is it true that the police have asked you not to leave town, and that you’re a person of interest in the senator’s murder?”

He stopped at that, turned slowly and gave her the flat, pitiless stare that had earned him his reputation as a hard man among hard men. The reporter recoiled from him with a huff. Smart girl.

“What did you say your name was?” he called after her as she stomped away from him.

She half turned and snapped, “Paula Craddock. KVXT News. Are you going to give me a statement?”

“Nope. Just wanted to know who to sic my lawyers on the next time you harass me.”

The journalist’s gaze narrowed to a threatening glare.

Yeah, whatever. Better women than she had tried to get a rise out of him over the years. But he wasn’t the founder and CEO of a billion-dollar oil conglomerate for nothing. He chewed up and spit out self-serving leeches like her for breakfast.

Meanwhile, the alarm in his gut refused to quiet. What had caused Willa Merris to blow up at her own father’s funeral? She and her mother were always the souls of decorum, quiet props in the background of Senator Merris’s many public appearances. Willa had been trained practically from birth how not to draw attention to herself. It was unthinkable that she would cause a scene, ever, let alone in public, in front of the press, and most definitely not at a somber occasion like this.

What had gotten into her?

Worry for the unpleasant conversation he had yet to have with young Willa flashed through his head. Maybe he should wait awhile to break his own bad news to her and her mother. But it wasn’t like there was ever going to be a good time to tell them John Merris’s last, nasty little secret.

He sighed. Lord, this was going to suck. He might as well go find Willa Merris now and make her misery complete.