The Butler's Daughter. Joyce Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ white-knuckle grip. “Please, God, let them be okay.”

      Beyond Cort’s sucking noises an ominous silence hung outside the thick drapes covering the window.

      EXACTLY ONE HOUR and forty-two minutes later, Juliana heard a light tapping on the door.

      Leaving Cort sleeping on a pillow on the floor, she approached the door stealthily with the gun in hand. Surely, it could only be The Guardian, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

      Through the peephole she saw a man standing in the exterior hallway—his posture rigid and controlled as if his body were formed from black steel, his head turned in profile to scan the corridor and the parking lot below.

      He was younger than the image she’d conjured from his voice. But no less intimidating. Instead of the military fatigues she’d imagined, he was dressed all in black. The black leather of his jacket gleamed almost malevolently in the muted glow of the corridor light piercing the chilly autumn night. He tapped again lightly on the door.

      Juliana jumped, her heart dropping to her stomach. “Who is it?” she called softly, staying to one side of the door.

      “Operation Guardian.”

      Relief whisked through her. There was no mistaking his voice. “Just a minute.” Tucking the gun into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back, she unhooked the chain and opened the door. His brown hair was cut short and combed back, revealing every bone and hollow in a face that was hard and uncompromising. His eyes were the azure blue of a Mediterranean Sea.

      The instant their gazes connected she knew the news wasn’t good. His face was grave, each tight line carved in stone.

      She fell back two steps, instinctively retreating from the harsh truth in his eyes. “M-my father?”

      He entered the motel room, closing and locking the door with fluid efficiency, then put his hands on her shoulders. His firm fingers held her captive, upright, though her knees threatened to sink right to the carpet. “Juliana, I’m afraid your father has been seriously injured.”

      Her fingers twisted into the cold supple leather of his jacket, felt the impenetrable hardness of his chest beneath. “He’s alive, then?”

      “They found him unconscious. He was apparently outside when the explosion occurred.”

      “Oh, thank God! He was probably waiting for me and Cort to arrive.” Juliana stopped suddenly. A cold horrible truth was still suspended between them on a taut thread. “How serious are his injuries?”

      “I don’t know. He’s been rushed to the hospital, and I haven’t received an update on his condition. But someone will call.” He paused and Juliana felt the slow pound of his heartbeat against her fingers. She couldn’t explain it. She was terrified, yet she’d never felt so safe or so grateful for this man’s presence. It was as if every beat of his heart shielded her in a secure airtight bubble from the grim truth of what had happened tonight.

      “And the others?”

      His face might have been carved of stone, but for an instant his eyes gleamed with moisture. Confusing her. Scaring her.

      A well of grief savagely ripped open within her. “Oh, no!”

      His fingers dug into her shoulders, preventing her from collapsing. “I spoke with the police at the scene. They don’t expect to find any survivors in the house.”

      “Oh, my God.” Juliana pressed a fist to her mouth, hot tears stinging her eyes. This was not happening. It was too much. She’d grown up on the Collingwood estate. Had spied on Ross Collingwood and his friends living their golden lives in a world she could never be part of. Ross ran a billion-dollar corporation and amassed companies in takeover bids as if capturing checkers on a checkerboard. And he remembered to take her and her father out to lunch on their birthdays and wrote them silly poems for birthday cards.

      A sob exploded in her chest like a fireball. He could not be dead. Nor could Lexi. They were madly, totally in love with each other. This was too horrible, too ugly to contemplate.

      The Guardian pulled her against his chest, his hands stroking her back. Heat seeped into her cold body in slow widening circles.

      “I’m sorry.”

      Juliana bit back a sob and lifted her head to look up into his rock-hard features, her heart registering the compassion she saw in his eyes. She’d heard stories of The Guardian. Whispered tales that made him sound mysterious and invincible, like a cross between a comic-book superhero and James Bond. But in that fraction of a second before he hid the emotion banked in his eyes she saw a man who truly cared about the people he tried to protect. “Was it a bomb or an accident?”

      “It’s too soon to tell. The fire department will investigate, but they say the explosion is suspicious. It appears to have originated in an upstairs bedroom. Were Ross and Lexi the only ones in the house? The police would like to know.”

      Juliana nodded, her mind still trying to grapple with the horror of what he’d just told her and the frantic desire to rush to her father’s side, ensure he was okay even though he’d told her to keep Cort safely away. “There were only the three of them, my father and the Collingwoods,” she said shakily. “The Collingwoods were being extra careful, following the precautions you gave them. They left the members of their traveling staff at home—even the chef and the chauffeur. No one knew they’d rented the house in the Adirondacks. My father secured the booking under his own name.” Juliana paused, suddenly aware that she was still standing there with The Guardian’s arms around her.

      Self-consciously, she pulled out of his embrace and wiped her face with her palms. She needed to be strong. Ross and Lexi and her father were counting on her. She had promises to keep. “What about the baby?” she asked, her legs trembling as she walked around the corner of the bed to check on Cort. He was still sleeping peacefully, his little arms suspended in midair as if ready to receive a hug. “What happens to Cort?”

      The Guardian followed her movements, his gaze narrowing on the sleeping infant. He didn’t ask why the baby was lying on the floor rather than in the crib. “He’ll be raised by his godfather.”

      Juliana stepped defensively between him and the infant, alarm snapping her to attention. His godfather? That was news to her. Had Lexi and Ross had the baby christened shortly after his birth? Perhaps that was information they’d only shared with her father. “Who would that be?” she demanded, feeling as if more of her world was about to change.

      “Me. I’m Hunter Sinclair.”

      The strange, reclusive multimillionaire who’d sent Ross and Lexi a canoe as a wedding present? Juliana instantly recognized his name and remembered the rumors associated with it. Rumours of dementia. Wasn’t there a history of mental illness in the family? She didn’t give a damn if he was James Bond or the President of the United States. She was not surrendering Cort to him. Ross and Lexi had trusted The Guardian to find their daughter and protect them from harm. He’d failed on both counts.

      “Over my dead body,” she said sharply, breaking twenty years of protocol by raising her voice to her better. “You are not taking that baby away from me.”

      Hunter stiffened at the unexpected threat. Juliana Goodhew glared at him out of almond-shaped eyes that reminded him of richly polished mahogany. Her lips, bearing a faint trace of pink lipstick, thinned into a СКАЧАТЬ