Contract Bride. Debra Webb

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СКАЧАТЬ moistened her lips. She knew how this was going to sound. She could only hope that he would believe her. “There’s something wrong with the drug. It may be dangerous to humans in the long run. I think maybe that’s why Kessler got out.”

      “Can you prove it?”

      She sighed. There was the one sticking point. She stood then, hands on hips for emphasis. She had no evidence, just the word of a dying man. “I can’t prove it, but I know it’s true.”

      “And how do you know this?” he asked calmly. So damned calmly she wanted to scream.

      “Because my uncle, who worked on the project, whom I trusted implicitly, told me with his dying breath.”

      One of those dark eyebrows quirked. “His dying breath?”

      “My fiancé killed him. He would have killed me, too, but I got away.”

      Delaney leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his widespread knees. “Where exactly did this take place? Were there any witnesses?”

      “In the chapel where I was about to be married.” She tried to blink away the images again, but couldn’t stop them. Her blood-stained gown. Russ lying lifeless on the floor. The sinister look in David’s eyes. Jenn pressed her fingertips to her closed lids and tried to banish the ugly pictures her mind conjured. Russ was dead. Was her father dead already, too? “There weren’t any witnesses. We wanted to keep things quiet. The others present worked for my fiancé. Even the minister.” She remembered vividly his doing nothing to help her as the man dragged her away. The minister simply stared at her, a passive expression on his face.

      Delaney stood and started in her direction. Startled, Jenn tensed. In a protective move, she wrapped her arms around her middle. Be strong.

      He towered over her. Intimidating, commanding. A little hitch disrupted her breathing as her senses absorbed his nearness. His scent. The heat he radiated. The restrained power behind all that muscle. She fought the fear. He was supposed to be on her side. No fear.

      “So you were at this chapel, garbed in full wedding attire,” he clarified as emotionlessly as if he were inquiring about the time of day, “ready to walk down the aisle and your fiancé tried to kill you. But you got away. Is that what you’re saying?”

      He didn’t believe her. Fury swept through Jenn, evaporating the last of her fear. She had no reason to lie. Couldn’t he understand that? “Basically, yes,” she returned tightly. “Except that he ordered one of his men to kill me. He dragged me from the chapel, then drove deep into the woods.” She shivered, knowing for the first time in her life how Snow White had felt. “He made me watch while he dug a shallow grave. When he decided to have himself a little fun before he killed me, I managed to get a grip on the shovel. I hit him hard, then ran as fast as I could.” She shuddered. “I didn’t look back.”

      “All right.” Delaney still looked ambivalent. “Why don’t you give me your fiancé’s name and I’ll call a detective friend of mine in the city and have him pick the guy up. It shouldn’t take us long to sort this out.”

      Fear rocketed through her. “We can’t call the police!”

      Delaney inclined his head, studying her from another angle. “Why not? You said he murdered your uncle and that he attempted to have you killed.”

      She chewed her lower lip. She couldn’t let him call the police. “He…he has my father. If I call the police and they investigate, but don’t lock him up, I know he’ll kill my father.” Panic tightened her chest. Though her father was gravely ill, on the verge of death really, she didn’t want him suffering. “Please.” She advanced on Ethan Delaney and grabbed him by his jacket. “Please don’t risk making things worse for my father. You have to help me.”

      Those dark eyes softened just a fraction. “Tell me the name of this fiancé that you’re so afraid of and I’ll see what I can do.”

      She nodded and swiped at the tears welling. “His name is David Crane. Dr. David Crane.”

      TWO AND ONE HALF hours later and Ethan was sitting in the reception area outside Dr. David Crane’s plush tenth-story office at Ballard Pharmaceuticals.

      It had taken Ethan a full half hour to convince his client to go along with his plan. She’d done everything short of crying to dissuade him, and she’d been damn close to doing that. Once he’d explained exactly what he intended to do, she’d reluctantly gone along with him. He’d asked her a few more questions about the Kessler Project as she wolfed down half the pizza he’d ordered. Though he was still skeptical of just who she was, he recognized that she was extremely intelligent and appeared to know almost everything about the company.

      Her resourcefulness surprised him. He’d expected a spoiled rich kid who couldn’t fend for herself outside a closely structured environment. If all she said was true, she’d outwitted a would-be killer, run for her life, found a way to disguise herself and gotten the hell out of Dodge all on her own.

      Impressive, he had to admit.

      But, damn, she looked so young. Especially dressed as she was. He gritted his teeth and forced away the things he shouldn’t think about…like that smart and too sexy mouth of hers. Her lips had a daring little pucker to them…one that begged to be kissed, even if it was clearly unintentional. She was small, but emanated an air of strength. She’d sure surprised the hell out of him. In more ways than one.

      On a more professional note, if she wasn’t Jennifer Ballard, she was certainly someone high up at BalPhar or a well-trained spy for one of their competitors. In his estimation, she knew far too much not to be from the inside. And if she wasn’t Jennifer, where was the real Jennifer Ballard?

      Necessity had never posed the occasion for him to visit Ballard Pharmaceuticals before. He was impressed with the place. The building sat in the middle of a large compound, fifteen or twenty acres at least, a good twenty miles from any real civilization to speak of. Security was top-notch. Ten floors and a basement defined the structure. The architecture presented a very futuristic feel with sleek lines and angles, but with an underlying cold, stainless-steel edge.

      If Jennifer Ballard had grown up in this cool, seemingly untouchable environment he wondered how she had developed any emotions at all. The austere feel of the place didn’t sit well with him. But he was still collecting data, physically and mentally. He wouldn’t make any judgments just yet.

      “Mr. Delaney,” the well-polished, efficient-looking secretary said, her voice a perfectly modulated pitch, “Dr. Crane will see you now.”

      Ethan wondered if she’d taken voice lessons to achieve that flawless inflection. “Thank you.” He stood and nodded once in her direction, then turned toward the door a few feet away that opened into the junior VP’s office. He wondered then if Crane would remember him. He almost laughed. Ethan supposed he would. It was difficult to forget the man who’d saved one’s life. He should know, Crane had saved his as well. The three days and nights they’d spent together making their way across that desert were permanently imprinted upon his brain. No way he could ever forget. Death had stalked them both in more than one form. Ultimately, they’d saved each other.

      Crane was standing when Ethan entered his office. “Ethan, what an honor to have you here. To what do I owe this pleasure?” He clasped Ethan’s hand and shook it heartily the moment Ethan had extended it. “How long has it been?”

      “Too СКАЧАТЬ