The Dom Who Loved Me (Masters and Mercenaries #1)(54)

“How could she? She barely knows him.” Matt’s face was a mask of pain. His hands clenched on the top of his desk, the same desk where his lady love had screwed the hell out of another man.

“Some women are just natural whores.” Evan shrugged. And some merely required a firm hand. He suspected Grace was the latter. Damn, he should have seen that. He’d always had more trouble reading women than men. “You have to see that she’s not worth your trouble.”

His brother was much easier to manipulate than most women. Matt had always ignored what sat in front of him until someone else wanted it. The minute someone else wanted the toy, or car, or a girl Matt had been ignoring, he bristled up with angry possessiveness. It made him terribly easy to predict.

“Bitch.” Matt’s jaw clenched, but his eyes didn’t leave the screen. Evan looked over his shoulder. They were at the part where Johansson f*cked her so hard her tits bounced and her face contorted. She was hot. It would suck to kill her. Maybe he could have a little fun before he did it. Evan quickly discarded the idea. He didn’t have time. There was a lot of money at stake. His retirement was on the line. He’d find someone even hotter once he got to his place in Thailand.

Then there was the fact that she’d followed him today. He might be more worried about it if Sean Johansson was still around. She was curious. She was about to find out what curiosity did to naughty little cats.

Evan reached into his brother’s file cabinet. It was where his alcoholic brother kept the whiskey. He poured him a glass, not the first of the night. Matt accepted it without question and downed it quickly. He sat in his chair as Grace came and the big, blond guy had his fun, too. Evan closed the laptop and looked seriously at his brother.

“She’s going to f*ck up everything, you know that, right?”

Matt’s hand shook slightly. “I can’t believe it. She screwed him. She’s always been so stand-offish about touching, but she lets him toss up her skirt in my office.”

Patience. Evan let his brother rant for a few minutes. He was completely missing the point, but then he hadn’t commented at all on the fact that his secretary had obviously been snooping. While Matt raged, Evan pondered the problem of her boyfriend. Evan still wasn’t sure he’d heard the last of him. Johansson, if that was his name, was trained. He doubted he was Agency trained. More than likely he was ex-Special Forces. Corporate spy? It wasn’t unheard of, but his brother’s company had nothing a spy would want…except access to other buildings. No, he suspected that * Nelson had caught up with him. He was sure Nelson had introduced himself as Mr. Blue or Mr. Green or whatever color he was hiding behind this week. The whole CIA was one big f*cking rainbow.

It wasn’t surprising. Nelson had been his handler. Nelson knew what he was capable of. When he’d disappeared at the end of the last op in Shanghai, Evan had left plenty of evidence that pointed to Patrick Wright’s untimely death. He’d had another identity in place, and then, after a little plastic surgery, had finally settled into being Evan Parnell. It had taken the bastard almost five years to catch up to him, but Nelson was too late.

Evan had the package. He’d taken it last night after his “shift” at the Bryson Building. One f*cking shift and he had the prize. Damn, it was good to be back in the States where the pickings were easy. If he had been in China, he’d probably be dead. One little badge and a human resources file and you were in over here. Now all he had to do was hold it together until the drop. Another couple of days and he’d drop the package at the party. His Chinese contact would pick it up. The Chinese government would gain about ten years of aviation technology research, and he’d gain twenty f*cking million dollars.

If Sean Johansson and Grace Hawthorne didn’t wreck it for him.

“So what are we going to do about it?”

Finally, an intelligent question passed his brother’s mouth. Evan smiled his best “big brother” smile. “Well, I have some thoughts on that.”

Twenty minutes later, Evan breathed in the night air. It smelled like rain to him. Tomorrow would be a good day for a storm.





Chapter Thirteen


The rain was coming down in sheets, pounding at the window beside her desk as Grace held the phone to her ear. The woman on the other end of the line droned on for what felt like forever before there was a chance to respond. This party was going to kill her. “Yes, I know it’s short notice. Okay, if we can’t do the spare ribs, what can we do? Dumplings sound good. Pork and chicken. All right.”

The conversation dragged on and on. The hotel’s catering liaison was a long-winded woman. She had a story about every single dish she offered.

Sean would just cook. She wondered if Sean cooked Asian. Probably. He’d seemed to really know his way around a kitchen. The French dish he’d cooked had been heavenly. She remembered the rich taste of the sauce and how he’d offered it up to taste from his fingers. Grace had sucked them into her mouth, loving the flavor and texture of him as much as the food.

Stop. Focus. She had to stop allowing thoughts of Sean to occupy her every moment. She’d spent most of the previous night crying over Sean Johansson. She hadn’t slept at all. She was not wasting a perfectly good workday on him as well.

“Orange peel beef. Got it.” She thought that was a yes on the beef. Maybe the woman had told her she couldn’t. Damn it, she had to get her head in the game. She had mere days before this party, and Matt was already in a crappy mood. If this went to hell, she wouldn’t be able to work with him.