Page 39 of Love Me Gently

Again, his chuckle. I took a sip of my drink, tiny little sips that barely wet my tongue so I could stay sober. This man was disarming enough. The way my body felt when he was near was something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I needed to keep my cool.

“It is. And a challenge. But yes, and the team is having a good year, so that’s always a bonus.”

“Congratulations.” I tipped my glass out to him, and he clinked his flute against mine. “So you live in Georgia?”

“Most of the year. I own a place here in New York though as well. Which is enough about me. Tell me about you. What brought you to New York?”

I tipped my head to the side and gave him a smile. “How do you know I’m not from here?”

“That’s easy.” He chuckled and reached forward. For the first time in years, I didn’t flinch and didn’t pull away. Didn’t even feel the need to wait for pain when his thumb brushed over my cheek, over the shell of my ear, and down the column of my throat. Goose bumps popped and made my blood sing at his soft touch and my lips parted. “You’re too soft. Too beautiful and your eyes are too kind to have grown up in New York.”

“Oh,” I breathed. “Okay.” My words were gone, my senses were alive. It was such avast differencefrom how I’d been treated for so long.

Jonathan licked his lips and trailed that finger down my arm to my hand, linking our two ring fingers together. Like we were childhood friends making a promise. It was sweet. Enduring. So wildly different than the way I was currently feeling. He settled our linked fingers on my thigh, and it felt good.Right.

He leaned in then, close enough anyone watching would think we were far more intimate than we were, but he didn’t kiss me, didn’t do anything except whisper, “Plus, your accent is a dead giveaway.”

He pulled back and took a drink of his champagne, humor and teasing making his eyes glimmer with joy.

I laughed and shook my head. “Right. Of course it is.”

We talked more. I learned so much more about Jonathan Wolf that night. We laughed about how different the South was from the North. He told me how the Gators were having their first winning season in six years. And somehow along the way, he got me to open up more than I had in years. It was so easy to talk to him. He was quick to laugh. Quicker to ask me questions instead of only talking about himself. He was gloriously handsome, crazy smart, and undeniably wealthy and yet he talked to me like we were old friends.

Which was why I told him about my parents. My small town of Deer Creek. How it was stifling to be the daughter of the pastor at the largest church in town where every step I took was watched with eagle eyes, and how the city gave me the freedom to figure out who I was.

The entire evening flew by, and I hadn’t laughed so much, enjoyed myself so much that when Jonathan asked me to go back to his hotel room with him…

I couldn’t find a reason to say no.

Fifteen

Cole

Now

My nerves were racing.The hospital’s alarm for the training lockdown could be heard from where I was tucked and hidden in the blacked-out van that had somehow been fitted to look like an ambulance. Plan set, it included me trusting Kip to get my truck back to my place and to keep Jonathan exactly where he was supposed to be.

I focused on calming my nerves. They were rioting worse than they did on a call-out or an investigation, but then again, the cost was much higher.

“Come on,” I whispered into the void.

The driver was already in his seat. Kip introduced us and then headed into the office. That meant I’d had a whole thirty seconds to grill Jim Bower on his intention and motive. Considering the man was larger than me, bald, and looked like he could kill a lion with his bare hands, I decided to trust him. Also, because he looked at me and in a voice that came close to scaring me, grumbled, “Men like him should be staked and then plastered on a pole for all to see.”

I figured he wouldn’t get that colorful if he was lying, so I nodded, climbed into the back of the van, and began my waiting period.

One that was lasting far too long.

I twisted my neck and asked Jim, “You know what’s taking so long?”

“Subterfuge takes time.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and then went back to staring straight out the windshield. We’d pulled up to a private entrance to the hospital, one far less scrutinized and one where security personnel had been routed away from.

It felt like forever. Hours went by as I stewed inside the back of the van and considered every possible scenario that could go wrong. Ten minutes ago, Kip called Jonathan in for an emergency meeting, using the ruse of someone embezzling from the Gators’ franchise as the excuse. He’d assured me Jonathan would be so furious at the thought of being stolen from, it’d take his entire focus away from Trina. It’d give us the time to get out of there. But if Jonathan didn’t believe the reports Kip was going to show him, or if he decided his wife needed constant vigilance…or if she woke up and refused to leave, things could go sideways in a millisecond. Fortunately, Jonathan was thirty minutes away so even if it didn’t go perfectly, we’d still hopefully be able to get to the air.

The doors opened and I cursed, relieved to finally see a woman with her back to me, hair piled on her head, bending down.

“I’ll help.” I moved from my seat to the other side of the bed as the woman and another man at the other end of Trina’s hospital bed went to lift it.

“On three,” the woman said, her attention on the man across from her. Neither acknowledged me so I stepped back, balling my hands into fists so I didn’t reach out to Trina, and run my fingers down her bruised and mottled cheeks. She looked worse in the daylight than she had under the harsh hospital lighting.

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