Royal Rescue. Lisa Childs

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ one to really die. Given how young she was when her mother died, she should have understood how fragile life was. But her father wasn’t fragile. He was strong and powerful. Invincible. Or so she had always believed.

      But he wasn’t. And she couldn’t risk causing him harm only to comfort herself. She stepped away from the door, but her arm jerked as her son kept his feet planted on the floor.

      “I wanna see Grampa,” he said, his voice still quiet but his tone determined. Afraid to draw attention to himself, her son had never thrown a temper tantrum. He’d never even raised his voice. But he could be very stubborn when he put his mind to something. Kind of like the grandfather he’d suddenly decided he needed to meet.

      “It’s late,” she reminded him. “He’ll be sleeping and we shouldn’t wake him up.”

      His little brow still furrowed, he stared up at her a moment as if considering her words. Then he nodded. “Yeah, you get cranky when I wake you up.”

      A laugh sputtered out of her lips. Anyone would get cranky if woken up at 5:00 a.m. to watch cartoons. “So we better make sure I get some sleep tonight.” That meant postponing the drive back and getting a hotel. But she needed to be close to the hospital … in case her father took a turn for the worse. In case he needed her.

      “And after you wake up we’ll come back with ice cream?”

      She hesitated before offering him a slight nod. But instead of posing as the lawyer’s assistant again, she would talk to Charlotte.

      Someone else had answered the woman’s phone at the palace on the affluent island country of St. Pierre where Charlotte had gone to work as the princess’s bodyguard after leaving the U.S. Marshals. That person had assured Josie that Charlotte would be back soon to return her call. But Josie hadn’t left a message—she couldn’t trust anyone but Charlotte with her life. Or her father’s. She would talk to Charlotte and see what the former marshal could find out about Josie’s father’s condition and the attack. Then she would come back to see him.

      Her son accepted her slight nod as agreement and finally moved away from the door to his grandfather’s room. “Does Grampa like ‘nilla ice cream or chocolate or cookie dough or …”

      The kid was an ice-cream connoisseur, his list of flavors long and impressive. And Josie’s stomach nearly growled with either hunger or nerves.

      She interrupted him to ask, “Do you want to press the elevator button?”

      His brow furrowing in concentration, he rose up on tiptoe and reached for the up arrow.

      “No,” she said. But it was too late, he’d already pressed it. “We need the down arrow.” Before she could touch it, a hand wrapped around her wrist.

      Her skin tingled and her pulse leaped in reaction. And she didn’t need to lift her head to know who had touched her. Even after more than three years, she recognized his touch. But she lifted her head and gazed up at him, at his thick black hair that was given to curl, at his deep, turquoise-green eyes that could hold such passion. Now they held utter shock and confusion.

      This was the man who’d killed her, or who would have killed her had the U.S. marshal and one of her security guards not diffused the bomb that had been set inside the so-called safe house. They had set it off later to stage her death.

      Since he had wanted her dead so badly, he was not going to be happy to find her alive and unharmed—if he recognized her now. She needed for him not to recognize her, as she wasn’t likely to survive his next murder attempt. Not when she was unprotected.

      If only she’d listened to that inner voice …

      The risk had been too great. Not just to her life but to what would become of her son once she was gone.

      Would her little boy’s father take him or kill him? Either way, the child was as doomed as she was.

       Chapter Two

      For more than three years, her memory had haunted Brendan—her image always in his mind. This woman didn’t look like her, but she had immediately drawn his attention when he’d stepped out of the stairwell at the end of the hall. Her body was fuller and softer than Josie’s thin frame had been. And her chin-length blond bob had nothing in common with Josie’s long red hair. Yet something about her—the way she tilted her jaw, the sparkle in her eyes as she gazed down at the child—reminded him of her.

      Then she’d spoken to the boy, and her soft voice had hit him like a blow to the stomach. While he might not have recognized her body or face, he could not mistake that voice as anyone’s but hers. Her voice had haunted him, too.

      Before he could recover, he turned his attention to the child and reeled from another blow. With his curly red hair and bright green eyes, the child was more recognizable than the woman. Except for that shock of bright hair, he looked exactly like the few childhood photos of Brendan that his stepmother hadn’t managed to accidentally destroy.

      He didn’t even remember closing the distance between them, didn’t remember reaching for her. But now he held her, his hand wrapped tightly around her delicate wrist.

      She lifted her face to him, and he saw it now in the almond shape and silvery-green color of her eyes. What he didn’t recognize was the fear that widened those eyes and stole the color from her face.

      “Josie …?”

      She shook her head in denial.

      She must have had some cosmetic work done, because her appearance was different. Her cheekbones weren’t as sharp, her chin not as pointy, her nose not as perfectly straight. This plastic surgeon had done the opposite of what was usually required; he’d made her perfect features imperfect—made her look less movie-star gorgeous and more natural.

      Why would she have gone to such extremes to change her identity? With him, her effort was wasted. He would know her anywhere, just from the way his body reacted—tensing and tingling with attraction. And anger. But she was already afraid of him and he didn’t want to scare the child, too, so he restrained his rage over her cruel deception.

      “You’re Josie Jessup.”

      She shook her head again and spoke, but this time her voice was little more than a raspy whisper. “You’re mistaken. That’s not my name.”

      The raspy whisper did nothing to disguise her voice, since it was how he best remembered her. A raspy whisper in his ear as they’d made love, his body thrusting into hers, hers arching to take him deep. Her nails digging into his shoulders and back as she’d screamed his name.

      That was why he’d let her fool him once, why he’d let her distract him when he had needed to be focused and careful. She had seduced and manipulated him with all her loving lies. She’d only wanted to get close to him so she could get a damn story. She hadn’t realized how dangerous getting close to him really was. No matter what she’d learned, she didn’t know the truth about him. And if he had anything to say about it, she never would. He wouldn’t let her make a fool of him twice.

      “If you’re not Josie Jessup, what the—” He swallowed a curse for the child’s sake. “What are you doing here?”

      “We were gonna see my grampa,” the little boy answered for her, “but СКАЧАТЬ