Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(67)

If he even could.

“I couldn’t have broken her heart too badly. She seems to have moved on, according to the Internet. If that police officer was proposing, they’ve probably been together for a while.” Although he’d been ready to marry her a couple of weeks after they’d gotten together. Hell, he’d been thinking about it the first time he’d slept with her.

Shame twisted his gut when he remembered what he’d said to her, especially that Courtney had been better in bed. He couldn’t even remember most of the sex he’d had with the woman he’d married. He could count on one hand the times he’d actually slept with her, and every time he’d been thinking of Holland.

He joked with his friends about picking up women, but the truth of the matter was he hadn’t slept with anyone since his divorce. He couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to any woman since they would simply be a standin for the one he wanted. The one he loved. The one he fucking hated.

Holland. Holland was it for him and had been from the moment he’d met her.

“That?” Special Agent White said with a cocked brow. “That was her attempt at trying to find something normal again. I knew it wouldn’t work. He was an asshole behind her back. You’re the better kind. You’re an asshole to her face or she wouldn’t have smacked you. What are you really here for?”

“I told you.” He wasn’t going to lie. If anyone was watching and intended to off him for investigating his father’s death, then bring them on. These people hid in the shadows and he so wanted to drag them into the light. They’d taken his friend, and now he was almost certain they’d taken his father and Zack’s mother as well.

And Joy. Joy’s name had been on that kill list. Now they knew that Joy hadn’t been the victim of a rogue shot intended for Zack. Her murder hadn’t been an accident. No. She’d been the target all along.

So bring them all on. It was long past time to meet these fuckers who’d had a stranglehold on his life for years.

“If you’re interested in a closed case, maybe you should contact our supervisor.” Special Agent White’s eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “I can go and get him for you.”

There was no way he was sitting here and getting lectured for hours. And he wasn’t about to out Holland to anyone, not even her partner. “I was just feeling her out. I’ve recently heard a few rumors that my father’s aide left the service. I’d like to talk to him, but I can’t find the man.”

It was true. His father’s aide, Peter Morgan, had left the Navy eighteen months before and then seemingly fallen off the face of the earth. Connor’s main job at this point was to find the man who had turned his father in. Dax had a few questions for him.

“That’s not our problem, Captain Spencer, as your father’s case is not open. It’s closed and the ruling on his death isn’t going to change, so unless you have evidence you’re willing to share, I would appreciate it if you would stay away from my partner.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He turned because further baiting Holland’s partner wasn’t going to advance his cause. He needed to regroup and figure out what the hell was going on. Nothing today had turned out as expected. He’d thought he’d walk in and see Holland again and realize he was truly over her. He would see that she wasn’t as beautiful and vibrant as he’d remembered.

All he’d felt was a terrible urge to hold her and a massive wave of jealousy at the thought of some dickhead proposing to her. The same dickhead who’d likely been in her bed. He knew he was a hypocrite, but the idea of her sleeping with another man had made him mean as shit.

So mean he’d deserved that smack.

He hopped back on his bike and headed for home, determined to figure out what the hell was going on.





ELEVEN




Dax looked up from his computer and all the printed pages that had overtaken his father’s desk.

“I thought you might like some tea.” His mother set the teacup on a mostly uncluttered corner. It rattled slightly against the saucer, a sure sign that she was tired.

He glanced at the window. The afternoon had gotten away from him and now waves of orange light streamed in, the final vestige of the dying day.

He wasn’t sure if this was one of the worst days of his life or the best.

“I was wrong about Holland.”

His mother eased herself gingerly into the chair across from him as though she wasn’t certain she really wanted to. It made Dax wonder exactly how much time she’d spent in this room since his father’s death. He’d only camped in here because Gus had set up the printer at the back of the office so she had a place to work when she visited home. Somehow the pictures of Gus and her friends that now dotted the desk alongside their father’s old pictures made the place seem cheerier, as though the living were taking back the space in a slow and inevitable march of time.

His gaze caught an image on the far side of the desk. Three lovely women stood arm in arm, all smiles. Joy Hayes stood in the middle, beaming in her lovely white wedding dress as she clutched her closest friends, Gus and Holland.

Now that he’d looked at all the evidence she’d accumulated and thought about what she’d said, he realized that Holland had given up everything for him. He’d selfishly thought only about their relationship and how much losing her had hurt, but Holland had been woven into the thread of his family for years. She had so little of her own that she’d become a sister to Gus, an extra daughter to his mother.