Christmas Alpha (13 page)

 
Eva’s eyes widened as she stared at Finn like he had now gone insane. If he seriously thought she was going to—

 
“I thought you weren’t interested in a threesome?” Moira’s attention was now fixed totally on Finn, the gun lowering slightly as the tension eased in her arms.

 
Now
Eva realized exactly what Finn was doing. Distracting Moira, drawing her attention onto him rather than Eva. And he was obviously succeeding. But then what? What was he going to do next? Surely he didn’t intend—

 
“Not if it’s two men and one woman,” Finn answered with a shrug. “But two women and one man might be fun.”

 
Eva knew Finn had to be deliberately distracting Moira with the intention of then somehow disarming her, but even so—
 

 
Eva’s head jerked up as one of the windows behind Moira suddenly shattered inwards, followed by a man dressed completely in white who rolled on the carpet before coming up on his knees, the gun in his hands leveled at Moira.

 
At the same time as Finn made a dive for the armed woman.

 
And the door behind them burst open to admit another man dressed completely in white, the gun in his hand also trained on the armed woman across the room.

 
Immediately followed by the sound of a single gunshot.

 
Eva’s world went suddenly black as she saw the bloom of blood on Finn’s t-shirt...
 

“Calm the fuck down, Devlin—”

 
“And just how am I supposed to do that, when I have an unconscious woman in my arms and a dead woman on the floor?” Finn glared at the other man.

 
The same man who had tersely introduced himself as Dair Grayson, Lucien Wynter’s head of security, before just as briskly calling the police to report the death.
 

 
Finn frowned slightly as he looked at the other man’s intensely muscled body and hard, uncompromising face, his steely grey eyes flecked with green. “Are you and Lucien related?”

 
“Maternal cousins.” Dair Grayson grinned. “I’m guessing it was the charm that gave it away, hm?”

 
“Oh definitely the charm,” Finn drawled. “Why the hell didn’t Lucien let me know you were on your way? I nearly had a heart attack when I saw your face at the window just now!”

 
“I have that effect on people,” Grayson drawled. “And maybe you should think about occasionally checking your cell phone? I think you’ll find the battery needs charging.”

 
Finn looked at the other man blankly for several seconds until he remembered that ‘battery low’ had come up on the screen this morning when he was talking to Jack. And he had called Lucien twice since then.
 

 
He had forgotten all about recharging the battery as his attraction to Eva had intensified. Definitely a case of the blood in his head all going south!

 
“Lucien thought it best we get here as soon as possible after you lost power,” Dair Grayson added softly. “Looks like we arrived just in time, too.”

 
Finn looked down at Eva as he remembered that gut-clenching fear of seeing Moira pointing a gun at her. ‘Just in time’ about described it.

 
“There’s something else you need to know.”

 
Finn instantly tensed at the grimness of the other man’s tone.
 

 
Dair Grayson nodded. “Miss Summers over there shot and killed a man named Ian Jackson earlier today.”

 
“Shit!” A shiver ran down Finn’s spine at the knowledge that Moira had killed her married lover. At the thought that Eva might easily have been Moira’s next victim.
 

 
He frowned as Eva began to stir in his arms. “It should take the police at least an hour or so to get here. I want you to get her out of here before they arrive, Grayson.”

 
“It’s doable, if you’re sure?” Dair Grayson nodded abruptly.

 
So far in their twelve-hour acquaintance, he had mistaken Eva for his nude photographic model, the two of them had made love, she had been held at gunpoint by his stalker ex-girlfriend, and now that ex-girlfriend lay dead on the carpet across the room, a bloom of deep red having darkened the front of her pink ski-suit and his t-shirt.
 

 
Admittedly Moira was dead by her own hand, the gun having gone off during the scuffle between the two of them. But Finn was very sure he didn’t want Eva caught up in the mess that was sure to follow, when the news and circumstances behind Moira’s death leaked out to the press. As they surely would.

 
He nodded grimly. “Yes, let’s get Eva out of here—”

 
“No.” Eva had opened her lids and now looked up at Finn. “I’m not going anywhere, Finn.” She winced as she sat up in his arms. “You
were
shot!” Her eyes widened at the blood that had soaked into his t-shirt.

 
“Not my blood,” he bit out.
 

 
Eva glanced across to where Moira lay dead, before quickly looking away again, her face having gone even paler.

 
He couldn’t claim to be unshaken by Moira’s death himself. He just hadn’t had time to think about it too deeply as yet. He had never been in love with her, but at one time he had thought he liked her. The her before he learned of her aged lover. The her before she turned into the stalker from hell.
 

 
His arms tightened about Eva as he felt her trembling increase. “It’s okay, Eva,” he murmured soothingly. “You’re going to be just fine—”

 
“Well of course
I’m
going to be fine!” The green eyes Eva raised to glare at him were spitting fire as she pulled out of his arms and stood up to continue scowling down at him. “You’re the one who had to play the hero—and you almost got yourself killed in the process! What on earth did you think you were doing, tackling an armed woman?”
 

 
“‘Playing the hero’?” Dair Grayson put in helpfully as Finn sat back on his heels in surprise at Eva’s attack.

 
Eva turned to frown at the other man. A man she had last seen bursting through the shattered window across the room, gun in hand. A man who looked hard and uncompromising, an impression that was added to by a livid scar on his left temple.

 
She certainly wouldn’t want to run into him on her own on a cold, dark night! “Would you happen to be one of Lucien Wynter’s security men?”

 
Strangely she couldn’t even look at Finn right now, felt—Eva wasn’t sure how she felt, exactly. There was still a certain amount of adrenalin pumping through her veins, most of it engendered by fear. Not for herself but for Finn. The anger she felt was also caused by him, and the sight of him leaping across the room when Moira was distracted by the window shattering behind her, and then hearing that damned gun go off just seconds later.
 

 
As far as Eva was concerned Finn had behaved recklessly. He might have died, damn it. She had thought he
had
died, which was why she’d fainted. Something she wasn’t proud of!

 
Eva still had that fear pumping through her veins, along with a deep anger towards Finn for having behaved so rashly.

 
“Dair Grayson.” The other man nodded before turning back to Finn. “As you say, we have maybe an hour before the police get through.”

 
Finn rose slowly to his feet, his gaze never leaving Eva, even though she now refused to look at him. “Dair is going to take you out of here—”

 
“I’ve already told you I’m not going anywhere,” she stated firmly. “I saw what happened, Finn. I can confirm that her—her death, was an accident.”

 
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Eva,” he assured softly. “Moira killed someone else this morning before coming here—Eva!” He reached out to grasp her arms as she appeared to sway.

 
“Oh good job, Devlin. Very smooth,” Dair Grayson murmured disgustedly. “Tell the lady who just fainted more bad news, why don’t you!”

 
“Shut the feck up, Grayson,” Finn growled as he guided Eva over to one of the chairs, seeing her seated before grabbing the duvet off the floor, draping it over Moira’s body, and then going down on his haunches beside Eva’s chair. “I want you to let Dair take you out of here. Please, Eva,” he encouraged fiercely as he could see she was about to refuse. Again.

 
“I can’t do that,” she insisted as she kept her face turned away from the now-covered body.
 

 
“Why the hell not?” Finn rose angrily to his feet.

 
She swallowed. “For one thing there’s the little fact of the Dailey Courier Service van parked outside.”

 
“We can deal with that.”

 
“And for another I’m not leaving you to deal with this on your own,” she repeated determinedly. “Mr. Grayson, please tell Finn that I’m right about this.”

 
“Me?” Dair slowly straightened from where he had been leaning against the door, watching the exchange with an amused smile curving his lips. He wasn’t smiling now. “I have a rule about never getting involved in an argument between lovers.” He gave a firm shake of his head. “Those situations have a nasty habit of the innocent third person being blamed for everything, while the lovers walk off together into the sunset.”

 
Dair Grayson was the epitome of big, tough, and just plain bad, and Eva couldn’t help but smile at the way he backed away and held his hands up defensively just at the thought of getting in between her and Finn.
 

 
So much for big, tough, and just plain bad!

 
But it was a fact that a dead woman lay on the carpet just a few feet away, and Finn had almost been shot, and could have been killed, trying to protect Eva.

 
And no matter how much Finn protested, she wasn’t leaving him to face the police on his own.

Chapter 13

Seven weeks later...

Eva stared down again at the invitation she held in her hand, not sure what to make of it, despite having read it so many times already she had memorized every word of it; ‘You are invited to attend a private showing of Finn Devlin’s newest collection, on Saturday the 7
^th
of February at 8.00 p.m. in the Foster Gallery, Church Street, London’. That was today!

 
It had been three weeks since Eva last saw Finn. Three long weeks since the two of them had last spoken, outside the courtroom after attending the hearing on Moira Summers. With Moira dead, the police had already assured them that the verdict would be a foregone conclusion; Moira Summers had been responsible for murdering Ian Jackson and threatening the lives of Finn Devlin and Eva Shaw, all while of unsound mind.
 

 
After the court hearing Eva and Finn had spoken very briefly in the hallway. Finn had looked like a devastatingly handsome stranger in his formal dark suit, white silk shirt and grey tie, his hair neatly trimmed. His blue gaze had been guarded as he politely inquired about Eva’s Christmas and the health of her family. Eva had asked him the same stilted questions. Then Finn had politely invited her out to lunch, and Eva had just as politely refused.

 
And then she had gone home alone to cry for hours, her heart aching, longing, for the man she had met—and fallen in love with—during a blizzard.

 
And now this invitation to Finn’s new exhibition of photographs had arrived in the post this morning.

 
The question was why had it?

 
Was Finn just being polite in including her amongst the list of guests invited to this private and early showing of his latest exhibition?
 

 
Or maybe the invitation had been sent out of gratitude, because Eva had insisted on remaining at Finn’s side throughout the whole of the investigation into Ian Jackson’s murder and Moira Summer’s death, and the publicity that had accompanied it?

 
Finn had been right about that; the newspapers had been full of the story over the Christmas and New Year.

 
Eva had even met Finn’s brother Liam that last day at the court, the Irishman having flown over especially to support his younger brother.

 
Finn’s description of his brother having remained blissfully unaware of Finn’s reputation as a world-class photographer had proven correct too, when Liam had become totally overwhelmed by the reporters waiting outside the courthouse before and after the hearing. Dair Grayson and several of his associates had also been there, and had been forced to intervene by pushing a path through the crowd to allow Finn and Liam to get past the media when they were arriving and leaving the courthouse.