Their Virgin’s Secret, Masters of Menage, Book 2 (16 page)

This was what he’d wanted to avoid. “Jessa, we told you we love you. I still love you. Cole still loves you.”

She stood, leaving the coffee and food behind. “You also told me you would come back for me, so you’ll forgive me if I find your undying devotion hard to believe. You lied about everything, Burke. You’re two dangerous men who amused yourselves with a little virgin who was dumb enough to get pregnant. I’m sure I was an interesting conquest, but that’s all I was. I’m going to take a shower. No, you are not invited. Just get this guy so I can get back to my son, and you two can get on with your lives.”

Cole reached out and grabbed her arm. “If you think we’re going to let you go at the end of this, you don’t know us at all.”

She pulled away. “Yeah, well, since I just found out your real last name and occupation in the last twenty-four hours, I think I can safely say that you’re right. I never really knew you. Now let me go. Don’t you need to clean your gun or shoot bad guys or something?”

As if he’d been burned, Cole released her. She turned and walked to the bathroom, her face set in stubborn lines. The door closed with a little slam.

“That went well. You know you could tone down the caveman act.” Burke looked down at his sandwich, but his stomach turned. He understood why Jessa didn’t want to eat.

“Yeah, well, your nice guy act isn’t working, either. I’m not letting her walk away. She belongs to us. She’s the mother of our child. I’m not going to sit back and wave as she leaves.”

So stubborn. “Neither am I, but I don’t think tying her up is going to work in this case.”

“I don’t see why not. She can’t leave if she’s bound to the bed with both of us deep inside her.”

His brother’s skull could be so fucking thick that not even a chainsaw could penetrate it. “We fucked up. We got scared for her safety and fucked up. We didn’t want her to know about our work or tell her how often we get our hands bloody. We should have told her everything, but we kept our mouths shut.”

Cole’s eyes turned down. “Yeah, well, would it have mattered? You saw how she reacted just now. Someone as sweet as Jessa doesn’t need a man as hard as me. Our job is dangerous. I’m not good for her and Caleb.”

“She’s not pissed about our work. She’s furious that we didn’t call. And the minute we thought there was an obstacle, we let her go. We shouldn’t have believed Landry or given up on Jessa without checking out this ‘husband’ ourselves. We caused this. We have to make it right.”

Cole’s whole body deflated. “You should work it out with her. I love her, but I’m too rough. I don’t fit into the life she deserves. I sure as hell can’t raise a kid, not when his mom thinks I’m nothing more than a gun-toting motherfucker.”

“Do
not
let Uncle Martin win. Whatever shit he told you, you aren’t unwanted and unlovable. Were you listening to her, damn it?”

But Cole was done. Burke could see it plainly. His brother turned away. “I need to make a few more calls. Did you get what you needed off the hard drive?”

Burke felt his hands tighten into fists. He knew how much Jessa meant to his brother. Cole had gone off on a two day drunk the day they got word she’d married someone else. Burke wasn’t sure Cole hadn’t been trying to kill himself since. He’d been reckless. Dangerous. Never around the women they had saved, but since he’d learned about Jessa’s marriage, he’d taken chances he wouldn’t have before.

Cole had accepted the loss not because he didn’t love her, but because he didn’t think he deserved her or that she could ever love him in return.

His mouth a flat line, Cole turned back to him. “I’ll kill Marco. My wedding gift to you two. I’ll kill him for her if it’s the last thing I do.”

Burke was suddenly afraid that Cole’s words would prove all too true.

* * * *

Eleven months earlier, February 14 – New York City

“What did you say?” Jessa asked, her mind not able to really register the doctor’s words.

The middle-aged woman looked entirely competent in her white coat. “You’re pregnant.”

Pregnant. With child. Knocked up. Left behind.

“But I was on birth control,” she sputtered.

The doctor shrugged. She worked a low cost clinic for women. She’d obviously heard it all before. “No birth control is one hundred percent effective. I noticed on your chart that you came in and got the prescription about seven weeks ago. Did our pharmacist explain how it worked? You have to take them every day.”

She wasn’t stupid. “I know that.”

“And you should use condoms for the first month. It takes some time for the hormones to take effect in your body.” The doctor raised her eyebrows over very sensible looking glasses. “Did she go over all of that with you?”

Jessa shook her head, the reality starting to set in. “I told her I didn’t need a lecture. I was running late to a meeting. I thought I knew what I was doing.”

“You’ve never had girlfriends who were on the pill?” the doctor asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No.” She’d never had real girlfriends, period. Not since sixth grade when her father decided she was far too smart to stay behind with her friends. She’d been accelerated, moved through grades with no thought to her social life. She hadn’t had one. She’d studied and when she could, worked on her art. She’d been far too young to be friends with her classmates. She’d gotten used to being alone.

Except for one week when she’d thought, just for a moment, that she wasn’t any more. Tears spilled on her cheeks.

“Oh, sweetie,” the doctor said, her demeanor changing in an instant. “It’s going to be okay. Can you call the father?”

Which one? She shook her head. She wasn’t going to go into her ménage relationship now. “I lost his number.”

The doctor took Jessa’s hand in hers. “You should look him up. He should know what’s happened. Look, you have options.”

“No. I want my baby.”

“Good. You’re not a child. You have a job. You can come here for your appointments. It’s going to be okay. But he should know.”

The doctor gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and left her to get dressed.

Twenty minutes later, she walked out, the frozen blast of Manhattan air hitting her straight in the chest. What she hadn’t told the doctor was that she’d already tried to find them. After she’d realized she had lost the number, she’d tried looking them up. She knew they lived in Dallas. She knew the name of their business.

Except it didn’t exist. Neither did they.

She walked back toward the hotel where she had to tell her sweet but flighty aunt that she was in trouble again. She was jostled and shoved by the crowd. She was surrounded by a throng of humanity, but she was alone.

They weren’t coming back. They had used her, and in what seemed to be the cruelest way possible. If they had just told her what they wanted, she might have gone along anyway, but she wouldn’t have fallen in love. She would have guarded her heart.

But they had told her they loved her.

A ruthless little lie.

She was alone. Except she wasn’t any more. Her hand went to her belly. She would never be alone again. She would have someone who needed her, whom she couldn’t let down. She’d spent weeks drowning in her own misery with tears, but she couldn’t do that now. She had a baby to think of.

She had a life to build. She turned. She wouldn’t talk to her aunt yet. The gallery owner had made her a very interesting offer. One she’d turned down because it would take her to Scotland, and she had been waiting for them.

No more waiting. They had left. They had lied. They were out there somewhere, and it was a good bet they had moved on with their lives, found another woman or two.

It was time to build her own life—and one for her baby.

Present Day – Dallas, Texas

Jessa finished drying her hair and stared in the mirror. She wasn’t sure she recognized the woman staring back at her. She looked tired and older than she really was. She sniffled. She’d cried in the shower, the pressure just too much to handle. Her whole world had upended in the course of a few short hours, and it was damn hard to handle.

She missed Caleb. His absence was a gaping wound in her chest. It was mid-morning, the time she usually brought her canvas into the living room to catch the soft, pure light that came through her windows. She would hum and talk to Caleb while he played and napped in his blue and white playpen. The hours would fly by as she mixed her colors and brought the pictures in her head to life. But she wouldn’t work today. And her latest series was gone, destroyed by a man she’d met for less than a minute over a year ago. Five large canvases all burned. Two smaller ones, too, meant for a gallery.

She tried to shake it off. She didn’t need the money now. Her bank account was healthy. And she would never have sold the large works. She wouldn’t have put them out there on the off chance that someone would recognize the men she’d painted with bold lines, broad strokes, and vibrant, vivid colors. Her agent had seen them and called them modern and erotic. She’d said she could sell them in a heartbeat for a pretty penny, but Jessa had refused.

Now the point was moot. They were gone, like her pictures and her videos, like all of Caleb’s toys, and the crib she’d had to put together herself.

She wasn’t just tired. She was angry, too. Furious.

Jessa pulled the robe she’d discovered in her small bag around her body. The bathroom, despite the hot water she’d used, was chilly. She’d forgotten to get her clothes, but the robe was large and warm. Not as warm as she’d been when she’d awakened in the middle of the night with Cole’s big arms around her. She’d heard Burke working quietly nearby, his hands tapping at the keys of the computer. She’d felt his eyes settle on them.

And she’d cuddled closer. Despite all the trauma of the night, with Cole enveloping her, she’d felt safe enough to go back to sleep almost instantly. When she’d awakened this morning, Burke’s arms had been wrapped around her.

There was a knock on the door outside, and Jessa nearly jumped out of her skin. She took a deep breath as she heard Cole greet a man he called Kade.

Their friends from Bezakistan. The ones with whom they had wanted her to go into hiding. Jessa opened the door and walked into the cramped room. If she let Burke and Cole, they would completely steamroll her, and she wouldn’t have any say in her own protection. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

Two insanely gorgeous men with dark hair, dark eyes, and golden skin sauntered in, one carrying a duffel bag stuffed full. She stared. They could have walked off the pages of a magazine. Tall and lean, both men were dressed impeccably. One was slightly broader than the other, with a hawk-like air about him. The other man seemed a bit younger than his brother, his solid face handsome. He wore a faint, mischievous smile.

“Hello. You must be Jessa,” the younger man said smoothly, somehow instantly setting her at ease as he crossed the room in two long strides. “I am Kadir al Mussad. It is my greatest pleasure to meet you.”

Oh, she believed him. He was one of those men who could just make a girl feel like the only woman in the world. He took her hand in both of his, surrounding her. “Hello.”

He smiled, his lips curling, making his whole face come alive. “You are most beautiful.”

“Cut that shit out now, Kade.” Cole yanked her away from Kade.

Damn it. Even as beautiful as this man was, she found herself attracted to two goddamn men who looked exactly alike, one a smooth talker, the other this Neanderthal glaring daggers at his friend.

“She’s not going to Bezakistan with you,” Burke said.

The taller man frowned. “Pity. She would do well there. I could give her between three and five husbands very quickly. In fact, Talib would love her. He has a thing for redheads. She could save our kingdom. We only have another year left, you know.”

“She’s ours,” Burke said with a little growl.

“Between three and five men?” Jessa gaped. “I can’t handle two.”

The older brother’s lips curled up, but she wouldn’t exactly call it a smile. Instead, the expression promised all manner of decadent delights. “I think you would be surprised what you could handle if you were properly prepared. Trust me. I know how to prepare a woman.”

“And I know how to prepare a body for burial,” Cole scowled.

“He really does,” Burke added, his voice deep and dark. “I do, too.”

The other man ignored them. “I am Prince Rafiq, second in line to the throne of Bezakistan. And because my brother owes Cole his life, I regret that we must forego carrying you off to my country to seduce you.”

Kade raised a brow. “Seducing her is a tempting thought, but she is the mother of their child. We will honor our debt.”

“Indeed.” He turned to Cole and Burke. “Reconsider sending her with us. We will keep her safe and make certain no one touches her. She can disappear into the palace. Our jet is fueled.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I can’t leave the country,” Jessa explained.