Queen of Hearts (12 page)

I gasped.

“You have a lot of nerve saying that to me.”

The palm of his hand spread across my belly, and he nuzzled my cheek with his. “I love you, Jayne. You don’t get to leave me again. We’re right. This is right.”

“It’s fucked up,” I whispered. My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Are you staying?” he asked.

“Tonight?”

I turned in his arms and pushed back so I could see him better. His face was still flushed and his hair fell into his eyes. Reaching up, I pushed it away from his brow and watched the tenderness fill his eyes.

“Why did you come back here? Why now?”

I closed my eyes. I wasn’t even sure how to answer that.

“I need to know what happened to my dad. You can call him a piece of shit all you want, but he was all I had, Flynn. Your father had him killed, and I want to know why. There’s more to all of this than debt. My dad owed everyone.”

He smiled a sad smile and ran his finger down my face. “My smart girl.”

“I deserve to know. You and Vince can’t play games with me forever. It’s not fair. I spent a lot of time trying to fix things inside of me, and I can’t put everything together without knowing why my dad had to die—not when I did everything I could to save him. I can’t live with that failure.”

“You didn’t come back to me? For this?”

I turned, looked up into his eyes, and shook my head. “No,” I said softly. “I was happy there. I wanted to start over.”

His eyes narrowed. “Just go to sleep, Janie.”

The next morning, I slipped out while he slept. It was hardly the most graceful walk of shame I’d ever performed, but I’d been walking that walk since before I got my driver’s license. I made it work.

I
managed to avoid Flynn for the next few days. I’d checked out and into two different hotels to stay off his radar, and I’d ignored all his calls. I wasn’t sure what to say to him or how to act. I knew exactly where he stood, and it was in a giant pile of denial. Just like most men, he thought that giving me a little bit of dick would render a girl stupid. I wasn’t ready to forgive him. Not completely, and definitely not without full disclosure.

That didn’t mean that I didn’t want him. If anything, I wanted him more. Sadly, he was right. I was cold-hearted, and that wasn’t something I could just thaw out after just one night of great sex.

I’d been surprised when I got a call from Ellie, my pseudo-stepmother, to meet for lunch. I hadn’t seen her since getting back in town, and I felt bad. She hadn’t been entirely happy that I’d come back. I think she’d hoped that I would move on and find a better life somewhere else. She had regrets, and I know she didn’t want me to continue living in the shadow of my dad.

So when she called and asked if I could meet her that afternoon, I was worried. Just the tone of her voice put me on edge. She could be a little dramatic and motherly, and most times, I adored that about her, but hearing the stress and panic in her voice was just too much.

I was still raw and emotional. I flip-flopped constantly between embracing my life in Vegas and bailing out for good. There was that pull to run back to Jackson and beg his forgiveness, but an even stronger pull to just give in to Flynn and deal with the repercussions of that decision. If anything, he was a challenge and my life would never be boring, and that’s where the majority of my thoughts went. A life with Flynn would be exciting and explosive. The love and the hate and definitely the physical.

He was my match in every way.

But, I was stubborn, and damn it, I would make him fight for it. He couldn’t hand me cash to buy my trust, and I was ready to see what lengths he would go to gain that trust back.

He already had my heart, something I’d known all along. Jackson taught me a thing or two about unconditional love, and I wanted to give that to Flynn, and I really wanted it back. It would take time to weed out the bullshit between us.

~~***~~

I
met Ellie in a small coffee shop a short drive out of town. She was already sitting in a vinyl booth waiting when I arrived, and just seeing her face again gave me a sense of relief.

“Ellie,” I said, smiling. I leaned down and kissed her soft, weathered cheek and took a seat across from her. “How are you?”

She frowned and narrowed her eyes. “Darling, you have always been a pain in my ass, but I love you. I have to say, though, you really know how to piss people off!”

I was taken aback by her tone. “What’s going on, Ellie? Is someone bothering you? Did something happen?”

I was suddenly filled with dread. If Doyle set his sights on Ellie in retaliation for my actions or those of his son’s, I would kill them all. She was innocent and precious to me. She’d stepped in, knowing it was dangerous and stupid, but she’d done it anyway. For me. She’d do anything for me.

“No, Janie. I’m worried about you. Here.”

She thrust an envelope across the table at me, and I held it up as one would hold a ticking bomb.

“What is it?”

She huffed. “Hell if I know. It was delivered to my room along with directions for me to give it to you. Discreetly.”

I rolled my eyes. It was probably from Flynn. More of his ridiculous memos and nonsense. I laughed.

“It’s probably from Flynn.”

She let out a low groan, reached across the table, and grabbed my hand.

“Have you learned nothing? They killed your father, Jayne. You are in way over your head here. You’re no master criminal, baby. You’re a call girl. I don’t say this to be cruel; you know that I would never judge you. I never have. This is about your safety. Flynn is as dangerous as his father. You need to be careful.”

She was worried sick, and it hurt to hear the words coming from her mouth. I knew she meant it when she said she didn’t judge me. She really didn’t. But I was puzzled by her concern with Flynn. Was he an asshole? Completely. But dangerous? Not the way she assumed. He would break my heart, but physically hurt me? Never. I knew that to be a fact.

“Ellie, trust me. Flynn is not anything like his father. He isn’t exactly a good man, but he’s not dangerous—especially not to me.”

She shook her head and sat back. “You’ll do what you want. You always have, but I have a bad feeling about this. How in the world did they find me? Doesn’t it bother you that they came to me?”

I gave her a small smile. “No, Ellie. It doesn’t surprise me. I don’t have very many people in my life. It wouldn’t be hard to put two and two together. You were with my dad a long time. Everyone knows we’re connected. You were like a mother to me.”

“I still am,” she hissed. “Damn it, I wish you’d allow me to guide you a bit. You’re so damn stubborn.”

I giggled. “I love you, Ellie. Trust me. Please. I won’t let anything happen. Vince watches me like a hawk—you know this.”

Her eyes blazed. “He’s no damn good either. If he had any sense, he never would have let you become what you are. He had the ability to talk to you in a way no one else ever could. He could have helped.”

It was back to that. “Trust me, Ellie. No one tells me what to do.”

~~***~~

A
fter an awkward lunch and a lot of lecture and disapproval from Ellie, I went back to my hotel to nap. I still hadn’t opened the envelope, hoping to avoid whatever it was Flynn wanted from me for a little while. I had a feeling he wanted to meet, and I wanted to be well rested. So, I slid into some lounge pants and a tank top, flipped on the music, and slipped off to sleep.

The sound of a knock at my door woke me some hours later. I woke up foggy, and oddly, just as tired as I’d been when I’d fallen asleep. So much chaos in such a little frame of time had me all screwed up. I’d gotten used to a routine, and Vegas was not a routine town.

I answered the door and rolled my eyes when I met the tense glare of Collins standing outside.

“What is it now?”

His lips tightened, and I just knew he wanted to tell me to go fuck myself. He knew better, and that made me smile.

Jerk-off.

“Vince asked me to deliver this to you.” He nodded his head, handed me the package, and walked away without another word.

“Good riddance,” I muttered as I slammed the door.

I strolled across the room, staring at the small white box in my hands. I sat in the middle of the bed and pulled the top off, dumping the contents in my lap.

It was a key card. A key card for the Maguire, to be exact. I turned it over in my hands, eyeballing it for further clues. It was so damn irritating that every single man in my life was so dysfunctional when it came to communication. They were a pain in the ass.

I reached over the side of the bed and grabbed my purse, and as I did, the envelope Ellie gave me earlier fell and tumbled to the floor.

I reached further to grab it, figuring I may as well get all the mysteries out and into the open all at once. I had to play fucking Nancy Drew with both of them.

Jesus.

I pulled my phone out, pressed Vince’s number, and held it to my ear. While I waited for him to pick up, I slid my finger underneath the fold of the envelope and ripped it open, shaking the letter out and straightening it so I could read.

The script wasn’t familiar, and it sent an ice-cold flash of fear through my veins.

“Hello?”

I blinked and shook my head when I heard his voice. I was in a trance looking down at the letter in my hands and had yet to read a word of it.

“Oh, hey, it’s Jayne.”

He chuckled. “No shit. Your name comes up when you call, smart one. What’s going on? Are you okay?”

I gave my head another shake to clear the confusion and concentrate on the conversation. “Yeah, um... Collins just brought me a box with a card. Did you send this?”

“Yeah. Pack up, girl. You’re moving in to the Maguire.”

Now that got my attention. “The hell I am! Is this Flynn’s doing?”

He sighed on the other line, and I could tell he was getting aggravated with me. “It’s my doing. You don’t want to stay in a swanky hotel? Come on, now. You know you do.”

I smiled. “Yeah, I kind of do.”

“Good. Pack up, baby. Room number is on the card.”

It was an odd turn of circumstances, but I really did want to stay there. Not only was it beautiful, but it would give me more access to Flynn and Vince, and hopefully, more time to get answers to the burning questions I still needed answered.

I pushed the phone to the side and stared at the letter. My first instinct had been to panic. Doyle was still out there somewhere. Flynn was being so blasé about the whole thing, but after all I’d gone through, I had to be cautious.

My mind conjured up all kinds of scenarios. It could be an ambush, some elaborate setup. Or, it could be another one of Flynn’s schemes to get me alone.

I hoped for the latter.

Against my better judgment, I punched the address into the GPS on my phone and found that it was only about twenty minutes away from the hotel. I didn’t know anyone in that area, but I was going to chance it anyway. I jumped in the shower to freshen up after my nap and hurriedly got dressed before leaving the hotel to get to the bottom of the mysterious letter.

It didn’t take long to get there with traffic being light that time of day. It didn’t hurt that I drove with a heavy foot and my new little silver Lexus drove like a lightning bolt.

I took in the neighborhood as I pulled up to the address. It was a nice area—definitely one of the nicest in Las Vegas. The houses were expensive and well manicured, and the driveways were filled with exotic sports cars and extravagant SUVs.

My nerves were frayed as I got out of the car and looked around some more, paranoid. That nagging feeling of being followed still hadn’t gone away, and since I was about to walk into the unknown, my guard was definitely up.

Shaking it off, I walked up the drive toward the door. It was the middle of the day, after all, and there were plenty of people milling around within a scream’s distance. I took note of an older man with his weed whacker across the street, a couple walking a small, cotton-white dog a few feet down the sidewalk, and a telephone company technician working out of a van a few houses away. It was an average day in an average neighborhood. What could possibly go wrong?

As I approached the house, I noted that it was very quiet. There was only one car out front, a maroon Cadillac. After staring at the door for more than ten minutes, contemplating my next move, I decided to grow some balls and ring the doorbell.

I stood back, straightening my skirt, and waited for someone to answer.

A few minutes passed and there was still no answer, so I rang it again and rapped on the door a couple times with my knuckles. The longer I stood there, the more nervous I became.

Finally, just as I was ready to bolt, I heard footsteps and then the sound of locks unlocking.

The door swung open, and a woman in her late fifties appeared, a shaggy tan dog squirming in her arms.

“Ahh, the soiled dove. It’s about time you showed up.”

I cocked my head, staring at her in shock.
Who the fuck was this lady?

“I’m sorry... do I know you?”

She chuckled, a low, raspy sound from deep in her throat, and held the door a little wider. “Come inside. We need to talk.”

She smiled, but it was anything but friendly. The way her lips crinkled as she pressed them together with contempt gave me a chill.

I shifted on my heels and put a hand on my hip as I pointed at her angrily with the other.

“I don’t know who you think you are, lady, or why you’ve brought me here just to insult me, but you have the wrong girl if you think I’m going to go inside without knowing who the fuck you are.”

Her dog yipped sharply, and I blinked in surprise. I hated those damn little dogs.

She started to bounce it a little, shushing it with a kindness that contradicted the glare she was giving me.

“We have a common interest, darling. I believe we have a lot to talk about—regarding my husband.”

I barked out a laugh in disbelief and threw my hands up.

Unbelievable.