Fashioned for Power (14 page)

Finn cleared his throat and drew her from her internal debate. “Mrs. Simpson, I love your daughter very much. I’m sorry we were . . . occupied and didn’t hear the phone. It won’t happen again. Allegra’s safety is the most important thing to me.”

Yes. The answer was definitely yes. She’d gone and fallen madly in love with Finn Williams.

The next hour went by in a blink of an eye. The flowers were turned over to Agent Hectoria, as her family all dealt with the uncomfortable situation of finding Allegra and Finn naked together. Finally the flowers and notes were taken away, Finn was dressed, and her family was clustered around her door ready to leave.

“We’ll see you tonight for dinner, won’t we?” Margaret asked in a way that suggested she really wasn’t asking.

“I’d love that,” Finn said calmly.

How did he do that? Her stomach was hosting a NASCAR race inside her.

“Wonderful. It seems we have some good news to talk about instead of all this . . . unpleasantness.” That was her mom, always looking on the bright side.

Allegra kissed her mom, gave Shirley a hug, and exchanged meaningful glances with her sisters as she saw her family out. She closed the door, turned, and saw Finn smiling at her. He stepped forward, put his large hands on her hips, and smiled down at her. His forehead came to rest on hers and so slowly, he skimmed his lips against hers.

“I love you, Allegra. I love your family. I will do everything I can to keep you safe. We promised last night—no more secrets. But there’s another thing I want to promise you. I promise to love you, cherish you, and stand beside you. You’re the best person I know, the real you.”

“The real me?”

Finn chuckled. “You’re already the best person I know. I know you, and I know there’s so much more inside you’ve kept hidden under all your
P
s and
Q
s. Every now and then, it escapes when you’re really mad. But that passion simmering down there—that’s the real Allegra Simpson.”

Allegra gulped. No one, not even Nate, knew that side of her. “So you want me to be mad?”

“No,” Finn smiled. “I want you to be you. If you get mad, then get mad. That passion can manifest itself as happiness as well. Let go, Allegra, and just be yourself.”

“But, what if you don’t like that me?”

Finn moved his hands up her sides to cup her face. “I already love her. And when you find her, tell her there’s something I’ve been waiting to ask her.”

Allegra’s breathing was ragged to say the least. Did she dare break free of the quiet politeness of her life and spread her wings? What if she fell?

“Don’t worry, I’ll catch you,” Finn whispered right before he captured her lips more firmly. She felt all his hardness when he pulled her tight against him. Her arms clutched at his shoulders as they started stripping their clothes. Allegra let her mind go blank. She stopped thinking. She stopped being nice. She just felt . . . and oh gosh, did she feel—over and over again.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Finn lay panting on the living room floor. Allegra was slumped on top of him with a satisfied look on her face. Just like he thought she’d be when she let loose. He was proud she trusted him enough to show him this side of her.

Allegra had only shown him glimpses of her true self over the past six months, and his soul cheered in recognition of its mate. He’d known from the beginning he wanted to marry her. He’d known it during the long hours they worked together—and the times they laughed at each other at the gym. He’d known it when he was still just a driver going to night school, and he knew it now as he held her to him.

“I love you,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

She snuggled into his chest, and he felt her lips move to a smile. “I love you, too. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being there to catch me.”

“Anytime, babe. Anytime.”

He sat in his car and tried not to throw his laptop through the windshield. She was his. He’d claimed her even before this nobody came into her life. He had handpicked her out of all the others to be his wife. It was fate, yet she kept challenging it.

Allegra would wear
his
gifts, then act the whore for other men. Well, no more. Once she was his he’d keep her far away from other men. She would only serve him. He opened the small box of pearl earrings and slipped in the note for her. He’d have to woo her back. If all went well, by next week he’d have her on her knees begging.

* * *

For my own perfect pearl. May our love only grow until the day we say I do
. Allegra set the note down and opened the box. Two large pearls sat in the cushion of the jewelry box. Oh my. She ran her fingers over them and laughed. She hadn’t known this kind of happiness was possible after her string of bad boyfriends.

Finn was thinking about marriage! He wasn’t afraid to talk about it. Was she? No, she wasn’t. She knew when she woke from her orgasmic coma this morning that she and Finn were connected on a deeper level. A level she’d seen between her sisters and their husbands. And now she had it.

Allegra twirled around in her office chair as she put on the earrings. Finn wanted to marry her!

Finn shook hands with the agent for Sports X. They had energy drinks, deodorant, clothing . . . everything. And they wanted Kane to add to their X Team. Damn, today had been a good day. It was easy to forget the flowers after the amazing sex followed by two deals that would bring his agency to the top of the game. But more important, he had Allegra.

Oh shit, he had to pick Allegra up for dinner. He was going to be in so much trouble if he arrived late to the family dinner after being caught red-handed . . . well, not so much his hand, with Allegra this morning. He had seen the looks Reid, Drake, and Logan gave him. Dinner was going to be a slow and torturous affair.

* * *

Finn stood staring at three intimidating faces. Reid was swirling a glass of bourbon slowly in his hand. Drake took a sip of his drink and pursed his lips. Logan rocked back on his heels and grinned.

“This is so much fun. Now I understand why you all did this to me,” Logan whispered conspiratorially to Reid and Drake.

Finn downed his drink and looked into the flames of the small fire pit in Mrs. Simpson’s backyard. Moments ago, the women had separated them by a maneuvering tactic he still couldn’t pinpoint. But, here he was, outside with the guys.

“So, Finn. I trusted you with my sisters and this is what I get?” Reid said as Logan snickered.

Drake elbowed him in the stomach and Logan coughed. “Yeah. Trusted you.”

Reid and Finn ignored him. “Then you knew they were in good hands. I would do anything for those ladies.”

“Not anything, you better not,” Drake said dryly before taking another sip of his bourbon. Drake was more of a techie, but you wouldn’t know it when you looked at him. He was almost the same height as Finn, and with dark hair and an angled face, he looked rather menacing. More dangerous than Reid, but that was probably because Finn knew all about Reid’s jet-setting ways and the fact that he didn’t take life too seriously.

“I would never do that, and you know it,” Finn said angrily. These guys were his friends. They should know it, and Finn was insulted by the mere suggestion of it.

“What happens when things get difficult between you and my sister? I’ve seen you both run scared before.”

“You have a point, Reid,” Finn said. “When that happened before we didn’t talk. We were more concerned about what others thought than how we felt. Sometimes you have to suck it up and just put your feelings on the table. We’ve done that now, and we’ll continue to do it. There will be no more running. Don’t tell Allegra, but I already know I want to marry her. Allegra needs to decide how she feels before I ask her. She needs to discover who she is.”

“She already knows who she is,” Reid countered.

Finn just shook his head. “Then maybe you don’t know your sister like you think you do. She’s doing it already though. She took time to work it out, and now she’s finding the confidence to actually try it. And I’m supporting her with this. When she finds her own voice, you’ll find a whole new Allegra Simpson. That’s when I’ll ask her to marry me. She needs to know I’ll love every aspect of her, even if she’s not the nice girl all the time or if she voices her own opinion, laughs too loudly, or dyes her hair purple. She needs to find that expressive side and know I’ll love her all the more for it.”

Logan and Drake nodded. “Cheers to that. Welcome to the group,” Drake told him as he lifted his glass.

Allegra choked on her drink. Literally choked on it. She was sputtering and coughing right along with her sisters.

“What?” Shirley asked innocently. “He should do porn with a ding-dong like that. I’ve heard there’s good money it in. Maybe I should try it.”

Her mother sat next to them with her mouth open and stared at Shirley with shock. “Shirley! We don’t need to be discussing my future son-in-law’s . . .
winky
.” Margaret dropped her voice and leaned forward so that they could hardly hear her say it. But then she sat back up suddenly.

“He is going to be my future son-in-law, right?”

Allegra rolled her eyes. “That’s none of your business, Mom. I shouldn’t even think about it until Harry is caught, and I can actually focus on my future.”

Margaret held up her hands. “Sorry, it’s just that I really like him and would love for him to become part of our family.”

“I know, but this isn’t your call. It’s mine, and I won’t be pressured into it.”

Bree clapped. “Bravo, sis! And for the record, we’re not pressuring you. Well, at least Elle and I aren’t. We like Finn—love him, in fact. You’ll know if you want to marry him, and only you need to make that decision.”

“Very true,” Shirley added. “And you may need to sample the goods a couple more times to make sure he’s really the one.”

Bree snorted and Allegra laughed. She would definitely be taking Shirley’s advice. What she didn’t tell them was her heart already knew the answer. She and Finn were already a couple. A couple who had learned to respect, trust, and express themselves. She wasn’t afraid of messing up anymore. If she did, Finn loved her enough to pick her up and dust her off. That knowledge was actually freeing. She wasn’t afraid to say the wrong thing, to make mistakes. In fact, it was empowering.

Allegra laughed with her family, and for the first time, shared exactly what she thought and shared some crazy ideas for the company. It felt wonderful to express her opinions, and she felt a surge of energy as Elle listened and told her they were good ideas.

“Who is this new Leggy?” Bree asked with a sly smile. “I wonder who, I mean what, has gotten into her?”

“Bree Ward!” Margaret swatted her daughter.

“What?” Bree asked as she copied Shirley’s look of mock innocence. “I like this side of her.”

“Me too,” Elle said as she smiled at her.

“Thank you.” Allegra reached out and clasped her sisters’ hands. They all looked at each other and Allegra read the support in their eyes. She’d never be afraid to fail again.

Mallory’s butt was frozen. She was pretty sure she’d lost feeling in it an hour ago. Atlanta was in the south, and she wasn’t used to cold weather. It may be fifty degrees outside, and some might think that wasn’t cold, but she’d been sitting on the cold damp grass for too long and couldn’t feel a thing.

She held the binoculars to her face and stared at the man she despised. Reid was laughing with Finn, Logan, and Drake outside of Margaret’s house. Flames were casting a warm glow on his face. His square jaw had a hint of stubble on it, his straight nose with a hint of a crook . . . he looked heavenly, and all she wished was to damn him for being happy when she couldn’t be.

From her position three houses down, she had a clear view of the backyard. She’d asked Margaret to close the curtains in the front of the house and was staked out to see if Harry would show up. Mallory hoped that by not being able to see into the front of the house, Harry would move to the back.

So far, nothing. She’d sat through dinner, sat through the men talking seriously as the women sat around the living room chatting, and now she wanted to go home. Looking at Reid hurt too much. But Allegra was like family to her, and she would do whatever it took to put Harry Daniels away. Or she’d die protecting her. She felt her gun at the small of her back. The Simpsons were more of a family to her than her own stuffy parents.

She looked through the large azalea bush and scanned the trees, looking for Harry. Nothing. She opened her bag and put her binoculars away. She pulled out the thermal imaging camera and turned it on. She huddled in her leather jacket and let her hands warm up in the jacket pocket as it calibrated.

Mallory picked it up and started her thermal scan. She saw squirrels and birds in the trees, a deer, and a couple of cats. The fire the men were standing by burned red, orange, and yellow. She scanned behind them into the small wooded area and froze. Behind a large tree she caught glimpses of some greens and blues. Someone was there. She set the imager down and picked up the binoculars. He must be camouflaged; she couldn’t see him at all. But now she knew where he was.

She set the binoculars down and checked her gun before crawling along the hedgerow into the thinly wooded area behind the houses. She’d been trained by the best and didn’t make a sound as she made her way toward her target. Mallory’s breathing was controlled. Her grip on her gun was confident as she approached him from behind.

He was covered in woods-themed camouflage. A hoodie covered his head and he wore dark gloves on his hands. No wonder he barely showed up on her thermal imager. Mallory took a shooter’s stance and clicked off the safety of the gun. He whirled at the sound and stared at her from underneath his hoodie.

“Put your hands up, Harry,” she said calmly as she stared into the shadows of his face.

All she saw in the dark were his lips pulling back into a half-smile, half-snarl. Her instincts were to shoot, but she didn’t know if he was armed so she held back and braced herself for the hit she knew was coming. He lunged at the same time she did. Their bodies tangled in the air before falling to the ground. Mallory let out a quick breath of air to empty her lungs.

The impact sent her gun to the leaf-covered ground, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. He landed on top of her, and Mallory was quick to shift her hips and roll them until she was on top of him. She moved her arms to block the hits coming at her head. When she reached for him, his leg came up and hooked around her. He twisted and she fell to his side. He was on top of her then, his hand in her hair as he pulled her head up toward him in order to smash it into the ground.

Mallory didn’t worry. She’d been in worse situations that this. She looked up at him and smiled. He faltered, and she slammed her fist onto the side of his head. He fell sideways with the impact, and she made her move. She leapt up and lashed out with a kick of her combat boots to his midsection. She heard a whoosh of air as he absorbed the kick.

He reached for her and grabbed her foot. Mallory slammed her other boot down on his hand. He let out a yowl of pain and a very nasty curse.

“It’s over,” Mallory told him as she stared down at him. She saw the men from the fire running toward them.

“It’s not over until Allegra is mine,” he snarled before bursting upward and taking her down with a football tackle.

He brought his hand back and smashed it into her face. She felt heat and pain burst around her eye. She reached for him then, but he was already leaping off her. She rolled over, shook the stars from her vision, and took off after him. She ignored Reid’s calls and ran as fast as she could after Harry. He was right ahead of her as they ran through the trees, jumped over fallen branches, and then burst onto a major intersection.

Her feet pounded the concrete as she chased after him. He tore down an alley next to a bakery, and she blindly charged around the corner. That was her mistake. A metal garbage can swung right at her head. She only had a split second to raise her arms in defense, but it was enough to take her down hard.