A few minutes later the doors of the plane are open, and Kayden pulls a leather jacket on to cover his shoulder holster and weapon, then reaches into the overhead bin and offers me my purse. “Annie is still intact.”
“Oh, Annie,” I say, opening the purse to stroke my gun. “How I missed you.”
He laughs and so do I as we head up front to chat with Chris and Sara, who seem much more relaxed now. We exit the plane before them for safety reasons, heading down the stairs inside a private hangar.
Sasha is waiting on us at the bottom of the steps and she wastes no time throwing her arms around me. “You did it. You brave bitch, you! Damn, you scared me.” She fights tears, and my chest tightens because I know what Neuville put her through. I know what I put her through with that phone call.
Seconds tick by and she gives me a nod, the emotion scrubbed from her face moments later. “I’m going to play shotgun to the driver escorting Sara to the castle.” She glances over my shoulder as Sara and Chris exit, whistling, and proving she’s officially pushed aside Neuville, at least for now, as she adds, “And apparently her really hot husband. Holy hell, she has good taste. I like her already.” She hands Kayden the keys to one of the F-TYPEs. “Sweet ride, boss,” she says, motioning to the ice-blue Jag waiting a short distance away.
Kayden and I laugh, and then get Chris and Sara introduced to Sasha and into the car. We follow them, and they’ve just entered the gates of the castle, with us about to as well, eager to lock up the necklace, when a limo pulls up right next to us.
“Niccolo,” Kayden says, shutting the gate with us and him on the outside, and placing the car in park. “At least we’ll get this over with right away.” He glances over at me. “Ready?”
I nod and we both open our doors, finding him standing only a few feet from us. “You lost the necklace?” he snaps. “How did you lose the necklace?”
“We didn’t know what happened until we landed here,” Kayden says. “We watched it on the news.”
“That necklace was worth three hundred million dollars,” he bites out. “How does a Hawk and his Lady Hawk lose it?”
“Your brother’s dead,” I say. “There’s your prize.”
Kayden adds, “And maybe you’ll even live to enjoy his death. You do have that new cancer therapy.”
Niccolo locks eyes with Kayden. “I am going to live, Hawk. There will be many more years for you to hate me. You’d be advised not to forget that.” He walks away, pausing at the door of his limo to add, “And I hear his fourth is now in charge.” His lips quirk and he climbs into the vehicle.
“Why did that make him smile?” I ask.
“Never let the enemy see you blink,” Kayden says. “And make no mistake, we’re still the enemy. Win at all costs or die forgotten.”
It’s the saying that connects to the tattoo on his arm, the same one etched into the War Room table, and I know now why it’s so familiar. Kayden is a warrior, as was my father. As am I now, and perhaps have been every moment of my life, even before I understood that was who, and what, I am. And warriors always win at all costs or die forgotten.
“What about The Jackals?” I ask, my mind looking for any loose ends. “Any bumps there?”
“Disbandment is effectively underway,” he confirms. “In three months that organization will be gone and forgotten.”
He motions to the car and we climb back in, and it’s not long afterward that Chris and Sara are tucked away in our spare bedroom. After we watch their door shut, Kayden motions toward ours. “Now we lock away the necklace.”
He leads me into the bedroom closet, where he pushes aside his clothes and presses a button. The wall moves, and a door opens.
“It’s like in the movies,” I say.
“Better than the movies, because it’s ours.”
He flips on a light and we walk down a long set of winding stairs that ends in a huge stone room lined with wine bottles in racks. “A wine cellar?” I ask.
“By design.” He hits another button, and one of the wine racks lowers into the floor and a safe emerges in its place. “Each wine case has a safe. That way if someone finds one, they won’t find them all. Or so we hope.” He presses his finger to the steel door and it opens. He then removes a velvet box and sets the necklace inside it. We both stare down at the butterfly.
“It’s really gorgeous, isn’t it?” I ask. “But three hundred million dollars? That’s insanity.”
“It creates insanity.” He closes the box and places it in the safe, sealing it away along with a chapter of our lives. The safe is then lowered and the wine rack returned to its prior position. “Now, it’s really done.”
He steps to me, his hands framing my face. “But we’re just beginning, and I plan to live every day with you like we’re dying. And to kiss you like I will never kiss you again.”
And so he does. He kisses me, and it feels like a kiss from a dying man. A kiss to last forever, whatever our forever may be.
Dear Readers:
I can’t believe it’s over! I’m already imagining the wedding, and a chance for Ella and Sara to sit and talk for hours. They need to talk about those journals! And about the wedding . . . well, you know Ella might need to have a gun strapped under her dress, and actually have to use it. That would be so fun and pretty sexy, too. And you know Niccolo would have to show up with a gift, and a problem. Oh yes, he would. Maybe that follow-up story will happen. I’d like it to happen. If not, perhaps I’ve now sparked your ideas for what comes next—and a reader’s imagination and excitement are the best compliments a writer can have. I already miss Ella and Kayden and I hope you will, as well. And then there’s Sasha and Adriel—those two need a story! Whatever happens, thank you for taking this journey with me.
And if you haven’t read Chris and Sara’s story, and even want more Blake Walker, you can find them all in the Inside Out series.
xoxo
Lisa
Can’t get enough of the sizzlingly sexy and provocative adventures from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones? Keep reading for an excerpt from the first novel in her bestselling Inside Out series.
if i were you
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I am still standing in the middle of Chris Merit’s display, in stunned disbelief, when something snaps inside me. I am hot and confused and feeling like the world is spinning around me. I’ve spent money I don’t have on the ticket for the night, but I can’t get out of this gallery fast enough. I run for the door, not literally, but I might as well be running. This heat I feel is unexplainable, considering the gallery is chilly, and I need air desperately. I need to think. I need to figure out what is going on inside me, because it is nothing I know as familiar.
Exiting to the street, I welcome the cool night air washing over me. I turn quickly to my left, intending to head for my car, when the strap of my purse catches and snags on the brick of the building and somehow it snaps open. The contents spill to the ground. With exasperation, I squat, trying to retrieve my items. This is so my life, and there is a tiny part of me comforted by my familiar clumsiness, by something that feels like me. I mean, who else can manage to catch her purse on a wall, of all things?
“Need some help?”
My gaze shoots upward to find Chris Merit at eye level, and for a rare moment in time, I can’t find the words to ramble with my nerves. While I’d felt comfortable with him inside the gallery, I am dumbstruck now that I know who he is. He is brilliant. He is also incredibly good-looking and he’s squatting down on the ground with me, which somehow feels wrong. This night has me feeling as if I am in the Twilight Zone. There is no other explanation for how bizarre it is.
“I . . . ah . . . no,” I manage. “Thank you. I got it. It’s a little purse. Doesn’t hold much.” I scoop up my lipstick and a tiny wallet, and slide them back inside the bag before pushing to my feet.
He grabs my keys and stands, towering over my five feet four inches by a good foot. I hadn’t realized how tall he is when he’d been sitting beside me at the Ricco event, or how earthy and deliciously male he smells, but the wind lifts and the scent tickles my nose. He is different from Mark, not so sophisticated and debonair, more raw, and yes, like his scent, earthy.
He gives me another one of those devastating smiles he’d used on me in the gallery and dangles my keys in the air. “You might need these to go wherever you’re going so fast.”
“Thank you,” I say, and accept them. His fingers brush mine, and electricity charges up my arm, across my chest, and steals my breath. My eyes meet his, and I see awareness in the deep green depths of his stare. Only I’m not sure if it’s the same kind of awareness I feel. Maybe it’s simply that I hide my feelings horribly and he now knows I’m reacting to him, and it amuses him.
“You’re leaving early,” he comments, his hands going to his hips, which pushes back his blazer enough for me to see the stretch of his black T-shirt across his impressive chest. I approve, as I’m sure the rest of the female population does.
“Yes,” I say, and jerk my attention to his face, to a full mouth that has me a bit breathless, but then everything has me breathless tonight, it seems. “I need to get home.”
“Why don’t I walk you to your car?”
He wants to walk me to my car. I’m not sure why he would want to do that. He doesn’t even know me. Is it possible that he felt that same electricity I did, or do I amuse him and he wants to continue the entertainment? Mark did say he has a strange sense of humor. “Why didn’t you tell me who you are?” I blurt, not liking the idea of being a joke.
His lips quirk. “Because then you would have told me you loved my work even if you hated it.”
My brows dip. I’m not sure how I feel about that. “That’s sneaky.”
“It spared you the awkwardness of pretending to like my work.”
“There wouldn’t have been any awkwardness. I like your work.”
“And I like that you like my work,” he approves, a warm glow in his eyes. “So . . . shall I walk you to your car?”
My escape has been further waylaid, but I’m not sure that is a bad thing anymore. “Okay,” I squeak, appalled at my lack of voice. There is a reason I don’t date much: I’m horrible at it. I get shy and I pick the wrong men, who use both of those very things against me. Dominant, controlling men, who seem to turn me on in the bedroom and off in real life. It’s genetic. I’m quite certain that had I a sister, she would have been just as foolish about men as myself and as my mother had been. And while Chris, at first impression, doesn’t strike me as arrogant or controlling, his failure to tell me who he was earlier in the evening was in fact a way of controlling my reaction. Not that I think he is interested in me. I’m overanalyzing and I know it. Chris Merit could have his choice of women and, in fact, probably has. He doesn’t need to add little ol’ me to the list.
“You know my name,” he says, pulling me from my reverie. “It’s only fair I know yours.”
“Sara. Sara McMillan.”
“Nice to meet you, Sara.”
“I should be the one saying that to you,” I say. “I wasn’t joking when I said I love your art. I studied your work in college.”
“Now you’re making me feel old.”
“Hardly,” I say. “You started painting when you were a teen.”
He cast me a sideways look. “You weren’t joking when you said you studied my work.”
“Art major.”
“And what do you do now?”
I feel a little punch to my gut. “Schoolteacher.”
“Art?”
“No,” I say. “High school English.”
“So why study art?”
“Because I love art.”
“Yet you’re an English teacher?”
“What’s wrong with being an English teacher?” I ask, unable to curb the defensiveness in my tone.
He stops walking and turns to me. “Nothing is wrong with it at all, except that I don’t think that’s what you want to do.”
“You don’t know me well enough to say that. You don’t know me at all.”
“I know the excitement I saw in your eyes when you were in the gallery.”
“I don’t deny that.” A gust of wind rushes over us and goose bumps lift on my skin. I don’t want to be scrutinized. This man sees too much. “We should walk.”
He shrugs out of his jacket, and before I know what’s happening, it’s wrapped around my shoulders and that earthy raw scent of his is surrounding me. I’m wearing Chris Merit’s coat and I am dumbstruck all over again. His hands are on the lapels and he is staring down at me. My gaze catches on the brilliant colorful tattoo that covers every inch of his right arm. I’ve never been with a man with tattoos and never thought I liked them, but I find myself wondering where else he might have them.
“I saw you talking to Mark,” he says. “Did you buy something tonight?”
“I wish,” I say with a snort, and my embarrassment at the unladylike sound that comes too naturally only drives home reality to me. We are from two different worlds, this man and I. His is one of dreams fulfilled, and mine is one of impossible dreams. “I doubt I could afford one of your brushes, let alone a completed piece.”
His eyes narrow. “You shouldn’t walk away from something that intrigues you.” His voice is a soft rasp of sandpaper that still manages to be velvet on my nerve endings.
Suddenly, I’m not sure we are talking about art, and my throat is dry. I swallow hard and though I hadn’t decided I was really going through with it, I blurt, “I’m taking a summer job at the gallery.”
His light blond brow arches. “Are you now?”
“Yes.” I know it is the truth as I say the word. I know I’ve already decided I am going to take the job. “I’m filling in for Rebecca until her return.” I search his face for a reaction, but I see none. He is unreadable—or am I just too affected by his nearness to see one?
His hands are still on the lapels and he doesn’t move for a long moment. I don’t want him to move. I want him to . . . I don’t know . . . but then again, yes I do. I want him to kiss me. It’s a silly, fantastical moment—no doubt brought on by the journals—that has me blushing. I cut my gaze, feeling as if the heat in his will scorch me inside out. I motion to my car, shocked to realize it’s only one parking meter down. “That’s me.”
Slowly, his hands loosen on my—or rather his—jacket. I immediately walk to my car, willing myself not to dump my purse again. I click the locks open and I stop by the curb before opening my door. I turn to find him close, so very wonderfully close. And that scent of his is driving me wild, pooling heat low in my belly.
“Thanks for the walk and the jacket.” I shrug out of it.
He reaches for the jacket and takes it, and I hope he will touch me and fear that he will, at the same moment. I am so out of control and confused.
His green eyes burn hot like fire before he softly says, “It’s been my pleasure . . . Sara.” And then he just turns and starts walking, without another word.
Has the Careless Whispers series left you craving more Lisa Renee Jones?
Sara McMillan can't stop reading the entries in an old journal she found belonging to a woman named Rebecca, and this high school English teacher's eyes are opened to a world she never knew existed, and a passionate craving within that she never knew she possessed.
If I Were You
* * *
After Ella awakes alone in Italy, claimed by a beautiful, powerful man who indulges her every desire, she soon learns that nothing is as it seems and makes it her business to discover the truth. Don't miss the first book in the Careless Whispers series by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones!
Denial
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&
nbsp; Skye is desperate to pay for law school, and when famous poker player Jason "Red Bull" Wise invites her to Las Vegas in his private jet, she's seduced by the millionaire lifestyle . . . until their passion turns deadly. Don't miss this brand new gripping and provocative novel that ties into Lisa Renee Jones's bestselling Careless Whispers and Inside Out series. On sale now!
Inside Out: Behind Closed Doors
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about the author
An award-winning New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Lisa Renee Jones has published more than forty novels spanning many romance genres: contemporary, romantic suspense, dark paranormal, and erotic fiction. In each book the hero is dark, dangerous, and sexy. You can find Lisa on Twitter @LisaReneeJones, Facebook.com/AuthorLisaReneeJones, and her blog LisaReneeJones.com for regular updates.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR: Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Lisa-Renee-Jones
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Also by Lisa Renee Jones
The Inside Out Series
If I Were You
Being Me
Revealing Us
His Secrets*
Rebecca’s Lost Journals
The Master Undone*
My Hunger*
No In Between
My Control*
I Belong to You
All of Me*
A Standalone Inside Out Novel
Inside Out: Behind Closed Doors*
The Secret Life of Amy Bensen
Escaping Reality
Infinite Possibilities
Forsaken
Unbroken*