Page 34 of Midnight Secrets

“Nope, honey. I’m really sorry to contradict you, but we’re getting up.”

In your dreams.With difficulty she dragged her hand out from under the warm covers where it had been perfectly happy to clutch his shoulder. In comparison to the warm cozy space under the covers, the air felt cold. She held out her index finger and wagged it back and forth in the universal “no” sign, then put her hand back under the warm covers against his hot skin, where it belonged.

He grabbed her hand, kissed it and sighed. “We gotta get up, honey. Sorry.” And the beast threw the covers off!

Without opening her eyes, she reached down blindly to grab them, pull them up and huddle deeper in the warm blankets. Then, in an act of incredible cruelty, he pulled them away again.

She sat up, indignant. Joe smiled into her eyes and tapped her mouth. The one he’d kissed all night. “God, you’ve got a sexy pout.”

“I’m not pouting,” she huffed.

“World-class pout. A real champ. I’d love to let you sleep, but I can’t, because in about an hour’s time Metal and Jacko are coming over and I don’t think you want to find yourself opening the door in your nightgown.” His smile was pure sex, eyes narrowed as he glanced at her nightgown on the floor, where she’d tossed it. He could have no idea that in her pre-Joe life, a nightgown of hers wouldneverbe on the floor. Ever. Apparently fabulous sex made you lower your housekeeping standards.

“Wait.” She frowned. “I thought they were coming over in the afternoon to play poker in your house. What are they coming here for this morning?”

“We’ll play poker all right. Later.” Joe’s face went from pure male sensuality to sober soldier in an instant. “This morning we’re all going to work to make your place more secure than Fort Knox. Remember I said that last night? No one is ever going to creep up close to your house and look in your bedroom window.” He gave a short, sharp nod. “You can take that to the bank.”

Something loosened inside her, something she hadn’t realized was twisted tight. “You really believe me then. That there was someone here last night.” It mattered. He wouldn’t have called in his friends and colleagues if he thought she’d conjured up an intruder in her sick mind.

Joe’s face pulled tight. “Of course I believe you. The fact that I couldn’t find evidence doesn’t mean anything. The ground was too cold to bear prints and I imagine he wouldn’t be foolish enough to smoke a cigarette and throw the butt on the ground. But someone was here. And he had night vision. That’s not ever going to happen again.”

“Thank you,” Isabel said quietly. She was wide-awake now. Joe and his friends were going way out of their way to help her. She knew only one way to pay them back. “I’ll fix lunch for all of us and then snacks for the poker players and then dinner for Felicity and Lauren. It’s the least I can do.”

“Breakfast, too? Or is that pushing it?”

Pushing it? After the best night of her life, after he was going to spend his morning and afternoon making sure she was going to be safe, breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner were definitely not pushing it. His friends were going to dedicate at least a half day to her safety. And Felicity and Lauren? She was starved for female company. She was going to take enormous pleasure in preparing a light dinner. It used to be her specialty—chick food.

This was going to be fun.

Isabel rolled that idea around in her head, tasting it, savoring it.

Fun.

Something that had fled her life six months ago.

She cupped Joe’s bristly, square jaw. His skin was hot, the unshaven beard rough. She hoped he never grew a beard, fashionable as they were nowadays. It would hide the crisp clear lines of his jaw.

Isabel smiled into his eyes. “Breakfast coming right up. And if your friends are going to help me make this house more secure, I am more than happy to feed them. Particularly since, according to local gossip, they’re going to lose their pants to you at poker. Consider lunch and snacks their consolation prize.”

6

WASHINGTON, DC

The rally was held in the Sentinel Hotel, two blocks from the Burrard, which was still being restored. Party leaders would have wanted the rally to be in the Burrard itself, but the reconstruction work kept getting bogged down in setbacks.

Which, of course, Blake was organizing. A broken, burned-down Burrard, still in ruins, was a potent symbol of failure. Of an inability to pick up, restore and move on.

Exactly what he wanted and what his team of men orchestrated. Every night a team of men went in quietly and undid the repair work and set little traps guaranteed to slow work the next day.

The consortium of owners had gone through three construction companies and was about to fire the fourth. Of course nobody knew he held a majority share through lawyers. That was how he’d gotten the blueprints to set the explosives.

The Burrard was gone and would never come back. Hector Blake would make sure of it. And in a year or two, when the plan was complete, it wouldn’t be just the Burrard that would be a smoking ruin. Half the country would be a wreck.

So today’s rally was in the Sentinel, old and staid and not giving off the vibe the Burrard, all sleek glass and steel, would have.

After their talk at the Voyagers Club, Blake hadn’t contacted London in any way. Neither had any member of his staff been in touch. London would be puzzled. He might even wonder if he’d imagined their meeting, imagined Blake handing him the nomination on a plate.

Because this was Blake’s event, no question. His face was on a thousand posters, on banners held high in sweating fists, on screens set throughout the huge ballroom. The crowd spilled out from the hotel, lining the sidewalk. His handlers had herded them out here so that the journalists could shoot him emerging from his limo walking straight into a warm bath of wildly enthusiastic supporters.

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