James: A College Girl Romance (29 page)

A
s Borelli knocked back another shot of Jäger, I leaned toward Bennett.

“Was I really this big of an asshole?” I asked.

“Are you kidding me, McDevitt? You were the king of the assholes. Ask anyone.”

“Hell, yes,” Peterson laughed. “Let’s toast to days gone by. It is a sad day for bachelordom when the King of the Assholes, known to us as Mayhem McDevitt, beats Ryan Bennett, known to us as Golden Boy, to the goddamn altar. I mean, what the fuck? Raise your glasses, shitheads.”

I looked around for Cass, sure I would see her sitting at one of the tables watching us with a wry smile. My eyes ticked around to each table. She still hadn’t come back. It had been ten minutes—not cause for alarm for a normal person. To me, it was. I texted her and then glanced at the personal protection agent standing several yards away. I tapped my finger to my ear to communicate my message:
Where the fuck is my wife?

While he was talking to his lapel, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and saw a call from Irving. I glanced up impatiently, only to have the security agent shake his head in frustration. Now, I was starting to get pissed.

Just as I was about to walk over and shake some fucking information out of the man, Finn bounded up holding something in his mouth. As Ryan reached down and took the material from his loyal canine, I saw that the dog’s mouth was bloody—and he was holding a piece of someone’s pant leg.

“Dude, is that
blood
?” Borelli laughed. “Who’d your dog bite, Bennett?”

Everything in me froze.
Cass
. I stalked over to the security agent.

“Gun.
Now
. No fucking questions.”

The man took the gun from his holster and handed it to me butt-end first. I took off the safety and checked the magazine. Before I could take off in a dead sprint, Bennett grabbed my shoulder.

“Someone’s got Cass,” I said as I shook him off.

When I turned and started running full-speed toward the guest cottages, I knew Bennett was at my heels. I didn’t want to be responsible for his safety, particularly on his wedding night, but I wasn’t going to stop and take the time to tell him to fuck off.

Fuck
! Why had I let her go alone?

The door to cottage five was standing wide open. There was blood in the entryway. My phone buzzed again as I tore through the cottage. I ripped it out of my pocket and stared at the text message from Matt Irving. For several seconds, the words didn’t make sense.

Blake’s dirty
.

“
Goddamn it
!”

Bennett whistled at me, and I ran over to where he was standing with his dog sitting at his feet. He held up Cass’s purse.

“I think she went into the vines,” he said with a nod past the terrace.

I nodded and followed after him as he vaulted over the wrought-iron railing into the vineyard. It was dark on this side of the estate, and the music from the reception was muted. A sick, gnawing feeling had taken over the pit of my stomach. The thought of Cass out here alone and hurt—or worse—was making me insane.

The dry grass under my feet crunched softly as I turned off my phone volume and gestured for Bennett to go in one direction while I headed in the other. My mind still hadn’t wrapped itself around Irving’s text. I moved quietly, listening for any sign of movement. At the sound of heavy breathing, I stopped.

“That goddamn dog really did take a bite of me, didn’t he? And then you—you saucy little cunt. Did you have to go for my face? I must admit, I’m going to enjoy this. McDevitt thinks he’s found love, and now he’s God? Fuck him. It doesn’t hurt that the bastard’s father offered me a gross sum to make you suffer. What can I say? Like father, like son. You don’t mind if I take a little video, do you?”

“Fuck you, Jasper,” Cass hissed. “You were James’s friend.”

My blood was ice in my veins as I doubled back in the direction I came along the vines until I reached the clearing. By the I came up behind him, Jasper was crouched above Cass with her ankle caught in one hand. In his other hand, I saw the glint of a knife in the moonlight.

“Take your fucken hand off her before I put a bullet in your head.”

My hands would have been shaking from rage, but an icy calm had fallen over me. Ten years of friendship, and I wanted to see this man dead. In a single smooth movement, Blake grabbed Cass and wrenched her up from the ground, one arm wrapped around her waist as he pressed the blade to her throat with his other hand. The left side of his face gleamed with bloody claw marks.

“You motherfucker,” I hissed. “Ten years, and you go after my
wife
? You sell me out to my
father
? For
money
? Well, I’m going to send you to straight to hell with him.”

Blake pressed the blade against her skin, and I heard Cass whimper as a small trickle of blood dripped down her neck. I snarled just as Borelli and Peterson crashed into the clearing.

“Holy shit!” Peterson barked as he lurched to a stop next to Borelli.

“What in the holy
fuck
?” Borelli blurted.

“I’m going to walk out of here with the girl, and everyone’s just going to stay where they are—”

“Fuck you, Blake,” I snapped. “Cass isn’t going anywhere. And you? I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Well, then. We’re at an impasse, aren’t we,
mate
?”

From behind him, I saw Bennett creeping up. A second later, Finn darted past his owner with all the grace of a Shepherd and caught Blake in the back of the thigh. Cass screamed and wrenched away from him as the dog’s assault dropped Blake to his knees. In a split second, I saw him pull a small gun from an ankle holster even as the dog tore viciously into his leg. He aimed directly at Cass.

I sprinted forward and lunged, knocking Cass to the ground just as Bennett slammed Blake flat on his back. Peterson and Borelli stumbled over to them, and Peterson stomped the gun from Blake’s hand as Bennett landed a blow to his jaw. I looked down at Cass.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

When she screamed, I felt a dull ache in my chest like someone had knocked the wind out of me.

O
ne thing kept repeating in my head over and over as I sat in the waiting room: I didn’t know what blood type James was. It seemed like such a simple thing. I should have known.

Because that was the one thing the medics had told me:
He’s lost a lot of blood
.

The winery had been a full forty minutes from the closest trauma center. It was Ryan Bennett who had managed to get a helicopter to the empty field at the winery just after James had lost consciousness. I had gotten on the helicopter with him and had held his hand as the medics did their job.

By the time they had rolled him into the operating room of the trauma center, I had been completely numb. I couldn’t even remember walking into the waiting room or sitting down. When someone told me I should get the cut on my neck checked out, I reached up and touched the sticky blood. I looked down and saw blood all over my dress.

But most of it wasn’t my blood. It was James’s blood. He had pushed me out of the way—and he had gotten shot. I squeezed my eyes shut.

The roar of the gunshot was still fresh in my mind. The first thing I had seen after Finn had growled at Jasper Blake was the gun in his hand. A gun with a long silencer affixed to the muzzle. He must have had another, the one he had shot James with.

I knew I should have been pacing, screaming, grabbing people, demanding answers. But I couldn’t even stand. I was terrified into absolute stillness. I could barely think, barely breathe. Because I was frightened out of my mind that at any second someone was going to walk out of the OR in bloody scrubs and say something like,
He didn’t make it
.

I thought about seeing Ryan Bennett’s mother and father dancing during the reception. James had told me that the radiation and chemo had been working, and Ryan’s father was extremely lucky to be alive three years after his cancer diagnosis.

I had watched them dancing and seen the way Ryan’s mother looked at his father. There was still love there. James had said she was a cold bitch, but I had to wonder what mother wouldn’t die a little bit inside after losing her oldest child—Ryan’s older brother, dead in a car accident that had nearly killed Ryan, too.

I bit down on my lip until I tasted a trace of blood. I didn’t want tonight to be the only time I ever got to dance with my husband. I squeezed my eyes shut again and jumped when someone touched my hand.

“We got here as fast as we could. Have you heard anything?”

I looked over and saw Alex Reed. She was still in her wedding dress. Slowly, I shook my head.

“He’s in surgery. They haven’t said anything.”

My lips felt rubbery as I spoke, and everything around me seemed slow and unreal. Memories started to surface that made me bite into my lip again. The gun aimed at my chest. Running through the vineyard wondering if I would ever see James again. Jasper Blake grabbing me and tossing me to the ground like a rag doll.

“I always did think that spoiled cunt had everything. Then his fucking company went public. Unworthy bastard.”

“That’s why you’re doing this? You’re jealous?”
I had asked.

“You think you know him? You know nothing, little girl. People like him don’t care about anyone else. But his father thinks hurting you will punish him, and who am I to argue? Besides, I wouldn’t mind a taste of the little whore who tamed a beast like McDevitt.”

Then he had taken out the knife.

“Are you all right?”

I looked blankly at Alex. Then I shook my head. If anything happened to James, I wasn’t going to be all right.

“Do you want me to call anyone?” she asked.

I shook my head. After my mom had married Michael, I had gotten very good at pretending I didn’t need anyone. And right now, I knew nothing was going to make me feel better. The only thing that would make things right was for someone to tell me that James would be okay.

With a shuddering breath, I closed my eyes and thought about dancing with him. Remembering the feeling of his arms around me was enough to make my eyes burn with tears. I just wanted to rewind time and hold him again.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Ryan Bennett arguing with someone at the nurses’ station. The seat next to me was empty—Alex was gone. She reappeared a minute later with cotton balls and some alcohol. She dabbed some alcohol on the cotton and handed it to me.

“You need to clean that cut.”

I nodded and swiped at my neck with the cotton. It stung like crazy, but the pain was good.

“The police have the guy in custody—the one who attacked you.”

I still couldn’t believe it. Jasper Blake. He was supposed to be James’s friend. How could he have done this? But the answer had been clear—money and jealousy.

“They were friends,” I told her hoarsely.

I wondered how much James’s father had paid Jasper to hurt James by going after me. I sat up as Ryan walked back over to us. He shook his head.

“He’s still in surgery. They won’t tell me anything.”

“His blood pressure is dangerously low, but I won’t know more until he’s out of surgery.”

We all looked up at Matt Irving, who was standing in front of us holding a tablet and a stack of papers. He looked up from the screen.

“Are you okay, Cass?” he asked.

I shook my head as Matt held out his hand to Ryan.

“Matt Irving. I work for James.”

Ryan shook his hand.

“Ryan Bennett, his—”

“College roommate, I know. I wish I were meeting people under better circumstances.”

Matt left and walked over to the nurses’ station. He handed the woman at the desk a stack of papers and then pointed over at me. A minute later, he came back over to us.

“I gave them a copy of James’s advance directive. You and I both have power of attorney for James.”

My chest tightened.

“You think he’s going to die, don’t you?” I whispered.

“I
think
that you should go get some sleep, and I’ll tell you as soon as I hear anything, even if I have to hack into the hospital’s patient records.”

I shook my head.

“No, I’m not leaving.”

I looked over at Ryan and Alex.

“You guys should go. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

“You have everyone’s information?” I asked, looking back at Matt.

He nodded as he sat next to me.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to stay?” Alex asked, putting her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sure. It’s your wedding night, or what’s left of it.”

Ryan held out his hand to Alex and pulled her up.

“We’ll come back as soon as you need us,” Ryan said.

I smiled and nodded. As soon as they were gone, I turned to Matt.

“How did you know what happened?”

He straightened his glasses.

“Well, I have a paranoid tendency to keep an eye on anyone involved in James’s affairs, and this evening, a very large deposit was made into an account connected to Jasper Blake. The source was a shell company—and I knew that couldn’t be good. Were you there when James was shot? I tried to warn him.”

“Jasper came after me. When James found me, Jasper …”

Before I could stop myself, I was crying again. Matt wrapped his arm around me and patted me on the back. After several seconds, I took a shuddering breath and pulled back.

“James pushed me out of the way.” I swiped at my cheeks. “Was Alex right? Do the police have Jasper Blake in custody?”

“Yes.”

I hiccupped.

“Will he stay in police custody?”

“I’ve contacted the FBI and told them the likely source of the money for the job.”

“James’s father?”

He nodded again and pulled out a packet of tissues.

“Do you think they’ll actually arrest James’s father?” I asked hopefully.

“It’s irrelevant,” Matt said. “James left me with instructions to take his father apart piece by virtual piece if he came after you.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yep. Those audio recordings James got of him will make a huge difference.”

“Good. I hope he fries.”

“Oh, he will.” He looked around the quiet hospital waiting room. “Do you want some coffee?”

I glanced toward the doors James’s stretcher had disappeared through after the helicopter had landed.

“Okay,” I nodded.

I closed my eyes as soon as Matt was gone and thought about the first time I had seen James at
Fantasy Land
. How impossibly perfect he had looked, like a picture from a magazine. The way his dark eyes had held mine, betraying his amusement at my awkwardness. The way his thumb had felt stroking my wrist.

A part of me still wondered how different my life would have been by now if he’d had a different server, or if he had gone to a different club that night.

“The coffee’s really bad.”

I opened my eyes and saw Matt holding out a paper cup.

“Thanks,” I mumbled as I reached out.

“No problem.”

I took a sip and burned my tongue. I grimaced. The coffee tasted like scalding hot dirty water.

“I told you,” Matt said with a small smile.

“How did you end up working for James? Because you know—well, you actually might be the only one who knows exactly how James and I met.”

“I’ve known James since … I was in high school. I had lost my mom—”

“I’m sorry.”

He smiled again.

“As James might say, ‘
Shit happens
.’ He was actually looking for some cheap IT support for Hanover Tech when they were just starting out, and he found me. If he hadn’t, I’d probably be sitting in a federal prison by now for cybercrimes, or locked in a black site hacking for the feds. I’ve gotten better since then, though. I’ve started my own company on the side, but I always do work for him when he needs it.”

I smiled and looked down at my coffee when my eyes started to sting again. The entire world saw James McDevitt as this bastard who had gotten lucky, but now I knew there were a few of us who saw him for what he was. I looked up.

“I’m sure he appreciates what you do for him,” I told Matt.

“He likes to pretend it’s a straight transaction, but I know he cares about people in his own weird way. He cares about you more than anything else.”

I blinked away the tears.

“How could you know that? I’ve only known him for …”

It felt like I had known James forever, but I couldn’t say that, because it sounded ridiculous. And now it was possible I would lose him.

“Cass, no offense, but I’ve seen James hook up with a lot of women. A
lot
of women. But he’s very careful about who he gets close to. And you? You’re the only one he married.”

When I laughed, it came out as a sob.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do if he’s not okay.”

Matt reached over and grabbed my hand.

“He’s going to be fine. If he’s not, you’ll deal with it. No other choice.”

I nodded and gulped the rest of my coffee, burning myself in the process. Then I sat back and stared into nothing. Eventually Matt got up and wandered off, his eyes locked onto the screen of his tablet, his fingers moving across it with a deftness that defied logic.

Everything around me grew very quiet, and all I could hear was a faint beeping and an electrical hum from the fluorescent lights above. I kept waiting, annoyed every time my eyes drooped closed.

“Lovely.”

My eyes snapped open, and I looked up. James was standing in front of me. He looked fine. He looked better than that. He looked perfect. He smiled and bent down to kiss my forehead. Suddenly a terrible feeling came over me. I shook my head.

“No.”

“Everything is going to be fine,” he smiled.

“
Cass!
Jesus Christ, wake up!”

When I opened my eyes, Matt Irving was shaking me. I couldn’t stop crying.

“He’s dead,” I sobbed. “Oh my god, he’s dead.”

“Cass, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I—” I looked around, unable to shake the feeling of dread squeezing my heart. “I had a terrible dream.”

Matt held out his hand and helped me up. Everything ached, and as I put my feet on the linoleum, I realized I was barefoot.

“He just got out of surgery,” Matt said. “The surgeon is coming out to talk to us.”

I nodded even though I felt like I was going to throw up.