Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel Read online

  *

  The file was gone, just as Alexander had suspected it would be. Staring down at the disarranged papers on his desk, he blew out a relieved sigh and shook his head.

  Behind him, Peters was carefully resetting the figurines to their proper positions. Books were out of order; the framed picture of Zack’s mother was missing once again. No doubt stored in the bottom desk drawer Alexander kept unlocked for Zack to hide it in.

  The boy delighted in upsetting the office, but even more, he seemed to enjoy hiding the picture of Alex’s baby sister—Zack’s mother, Nicole—to show his disregard for the family. There was no changing his mind, and Zack refused to hear why his mother had run away to the mountains of Tennessee or what had been the cause of her and her husband’s murders.

  The boy was nosy as hell, too, hence the reason Alex had left the file for him. Making a move against anyone in Zack’s hometown—Maddox, the Kin, or otherwise—would ensure his nephew’s complete hatred, especially where that girl Grace was concerned. At least this way, he could say he’d given Zack a chance to save her. If she was innocent, then his sister’s son would delight in thinking he was rubbing it in Alexander’s face.

  The sound of Peters’s cell phone ringing and the assistant’s quick response drew Alexander’s attention. The other man listened attentively for long seconds, the corners of his eyes tightening in concern at whatever the other party was saying before disconnecting the call.

  “Sir, there’s a development in the Loudon situation.” Peters stepped closer, his brown eyes showing a glimmer of concern. “It would seem Grace Maddox was attacked at her uncle’s home last night. She’s been wounded, and the pet Mr. Zack gave her last year is reported to be seriously injured. News of the attack has also reached her half brothers in NOLA. Should we send a team in?”

  NOLA? Mad Max and Beau-Remi? Have mercy!

  God help them all if those two became involved.

  “Her condition?” Alex rasped, the fingers of one hand curling into a fist as frustration began to rise inside him.

  Dammit, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Word of her mother’s confessions shouldn’t have leaked, not yet.

  “Her family has all access to her limited to her uncle and his three sons,” Peters reported. “There’s no report on her condition or the extent of her injuries.”

  The other man worked on the electronic pad he held, his fingers quick as he began searching for information.

  “Send Victoria in alone,” Alex ordered, knowing his daughter would gain access to the family before anyone else from the house or the agency could. “She and Grace are friends, and the family seems to like her. They shouldn’t refuse to allow her to see the girl. Have a team on standby, just in case the situation deteriorates. Whoever our enemy is, they’re moving to start a war between the Kin and the agency. We can’t allow that to happen.”

  He’d seen it coming for years. It was the reason his sister, her husband, and Grace’s father, Benjamin Maddox, had been targeted to die over two decades before.

  He waited as Peters typed, his assistant’s fingers moving quickly over the tablet despite his age.

  “The team will be ready to head out by nightfall, but Miss Alexandra demands to speak with you first. I’ve already sent orders to our pilot to expect her.”

  Alexander nodded at his assistant’s quick response.

  “And it would appear Mr. Zackary has stopped at the McDougal property. Our contact within his estate reports Mr. Chaz is flying him to Loudon himself.”

  Alexander grimaced at that piece of information. “Figures,” he grunted. “Damned Scots bastard. I should have known Zack was friends with him. Loyalty to the family isn’t exactly in his vocabulary, is it?”

  There were days he wished his father were still alive just so he could prove how wrong the old man had been all those years ago.

  “I believe Mr. Zack merely likes to poke at you however possible,” Peters defended the boy yet again. “Mr. Chaz isn’t a bad sort, though, as you’ve stated yourself. He’s not exactly his father.”

  “Yet,” Alex snorted before giving a heavy sigh and gazing around the office once again.

  He tried to remind himself that his nephew, the son of his beloved baby sister, just didn’t understand the past. He feared Zack, like his parents, would never allow himself to hear the truth either. Not that any of them were blameless, but neither were any of them monsters.

  It was a lesson young Grace Maddox would be learning soon as well.

  chapter two

  A woman should have a warning before a man like Zack Richards stepped into her bedroom. Time at least to comb her hair, maybe look a little more presentable after being attacked by some maniac and nearly losing the pet Zack had given her as a present the year before.

  Magnus was just a pup when he’d been delivered to Grace with a big, half-chewed blue bow around his neck. The accompanying card had warned her that the rambunctious puppy was a brat. Someone to get into trouble with. She’d laughed at that, and loved the pet at first sight. And now she’d let Magnus get hurt. She didn’t think she’d ever forgive herself for that. Facing the man who had given her the gift wasn’t easy.

  The fact that she was obsessed with him didn’t help.

  Grace glared at her cousin Cord as he stepped in behind the tall, auburn-haired, gray-eyed object of her greatest irritation and arched his brow at her with mocking knowledge.

  Cord knew how she felt. He knew how hard seeing Zack would be for Grace, especially after the weeks she’d spent being ignored and turned away from, feeling reviled by him.

  This sucked.

  “Grace.” Without so much as a hello, how are you, or get ready, Zack flipped the blanket back from her, pushed the hem of her gown as far as possible on her thigh, and glared at the bandage high on her leg.

  “For God’s sake!” she burst out, completely shocked, amazed he’d do something so forward, especially while Cord looked on.

  She slapped at his hand as it neared her flesh, jerked the blankets back to her waist, and held on tight. “Who the hell are you, and where did the real Zack go?”

  Quiet, intense, staid Zack Richards would never just jerk her blankets off her, no matter the reason. He was polite. He wasn’t alpha material. Never raised his voice or acted so dominant.

  There wasn’t so much as a glimmer of apology in his gaze now. As a matter of fact, it was as flat and hard as her uncle’s and cousins’ had been after her attack.

  “Have you found the bastard?” Zack turned his gaze back to Cord.

  Cord shook his blond head, his deep, intense green eyes darkening with fury as the muscles in his body seem to flex dangerously.

  He felt responsible, as did his brothers and her uncle. But the attack hadn’t been their fault; it would have happened sooner or later.

  “We have a team searching for him—he won’t get far.” Cord bit out between clenched teeth. “Magnus took a chunk out of his arm before he managed to use that knife to get away from the dog. We have our best trackers after him.”

  Grace felt pain tighten her chest. She was used to Magnus lying at the bottom of her bed, his large body comforting when the nights were too quiet and too lonely. Zack would never have gotten so close to her without permission if her pet were here.

  “What’s Magnus’s condition?” Brooding, dark with fury, Zack’s voice sent a chill racing up Grace’s spine.

  When had he learned to mimic that kind of authority, that lack of mercy?

  “Serious,” Cord breathed out in a rough sigh. “He’ll make it, but it’s going to take a while. He’ll be with the vet for a week or better.”

  She’d had enough. The two of them were talking over her scantily clad body as though she weren’t even there. “My bedroom is not a freaking office or meeting area!” Grace snapped, fed up with the discussion as mortification burned through her. “Go have your little powwow somewhere else, if you don’t mind.”

  Her pulse was racing, her skin fel
t overly warm, and even the ache in her leg where Rich’s blade had sliced across it paled in comparison to the ache that bloomed under her skin whenever Zack was around.

  She didn’t need this.

  Not right now, not while she felt about as unattractive as possible or while facing a side of Zack she’d never imagined.

  “I do mind.” The belligerence caused her eyes to narrow on the normally polite, sometimes teasing man she’d set her heart on in the past several years.

  She might consider changing her mind on that one if he kept this behavior up. “Well, isn’t that just too bad.” She sliced her narrowed gaze toward her cousin. “My bedroom. Both of you can leave.”

  Cord’s arms went across his chest as a frown lowered his dark blond brows. Her attention was quickly pulled from him when Zack just sat beside her on the bed.

  Her bed.

  As though it belonged to him.

  “Get out of my bedroom—”

  “Let me see your leg first.” The attitude of command and the pure arrogance in his expression nearly had her jaw dropping.

  “Not happening.” She held on to the blankets with a death grip now, the sheer irony of the situation nearly laughable. “Guess you should have shown a little interest before now, right? What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”

  Not once since she’d found herself bleeding, cradling the whimpering form of her dog, and screaming for her family as rain began pouring down on them in the backyard did Grace imagine Zack would even give a damn. Let alone show up or pretend to care.

  Not that he was pretending to care. He acted as though it were his right, as though her leg belonged to him. Asshole attitude, and she didn’t like being taken unaware by it.

  Surprise flickered in his gray eyes. “I’m here because you were hurt, dammit—”

  “So?” she enunciated with precise disdain. “It’s not like you showed up when that horse threw me last year, or when I broke my ankle the year before that. So why now?”

  She could actually have dealt with this side of him then. She might even have played up the injuries just a tad to evoke a little compassion and maybe even that first kiss from him that she dreamed of. That was before the past eight weeks. Before he’d looked at her like she was a traitor’s daughter and refused to speak to her at the funeral of the woman who gave birth to her.

  He’d ignored her, turned his back on her, and he was here now for what reason, exactly?

  “Tell her I checked up on her every time, Cord—” he began ordering her cousin.

  “Doesn’t count if I don’t see you,” Grace assured him with false sweetness. “Now, leave. I’m tired.”

  And any chance she’d had of even a one-night stand with Zack, let alone a future romance, was gone. Her mother had made certain of it. And now, Richard James had guaranteed it.

  “Told you she wasn’t in the mood for company,” Cord seemed to remind him when Zack flicked him a hard glance. “Especially from you. She’s been put out with you of late.”

  Cord had told him? Exactly what else had her cousin been blabbing about?

  “Why don’t you play I-told-you-so with Zack downstairs, Cord?” she gritted out between clenched teeth. “Away from me.”

  Cord lifted his gaze to the ceiling as though praying for patience.

  “Because he knows better than to try,” Zack snorted at the question. “He’s just here to make sure I don’t get frisky with the pretty little invalid.”

  Get frisky?

  Her stomach clenched at the very thought even as anger slapped at her pride. That kind of teasing was just wrong. She’d waited years for him to try to “get frisky,” as he called it. She’d given up weeks before, and wasn’t about to put herself there again. No thank you. Wasn’t happening.

  Now, if she could convince her girl parts of that, then she might get through this little meeting without humiliating herself in the worst possible way.

  “I’m sure getting frisky is the last thing on your mind,” she stated with mocking sweetness. “God forbid quiet, staid Zack Richards should lust after a traitor’s daughter.” She flicked her cousin a hard look. “My virtue is perfectly safe.”

  For a second, Cord’s expression went perfectly blank before incredulity gleamed in his eyes and he gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head.

  “Cord. Leave.” Zack’s brook-no-refusal tone of voice actually had her thighs tightening.

  “I don’t know, Zack.” Rubbing at the back of his neck, Cord looked between them before a grin tugged at his lips. “She might shoot you with that gun she has hid under her pillow. And she does know how to use it. Maybe you two need a referee.”

  They needed more than a referee right now.

  “Both of you go—”

  “Now, Cord.” Zack’s tone deepened; it actually rumbled with the demand.

  Giving a mocking snort, Cord shrugged in his it’s-on-your-head way before giving her a knowing little smile and turning on his heel.

  The door closed behind him seconds later, leaving her in her bedroom with no panties or bra beneath the short little gown she wore, alone with Zack.

  And she hadn’t even brushed her hair.

  *

  If his cock got any harder, it was going to bust through the front of his jeans.

  Zack stared down at the delicate, far-too-helpless form of the young woman he’d forced himself to stay away from, and felt the knowledge of what was coming cement in his soul.

  God knew he’d never wanted to hurt her, never wanted her to see the man he was, but hiding it from her now would be impossible.

  What quirk of impishness had made fate decree that the one woman he couldn’t seem to stop lusting after was exactly the type of woman he could never keep? He needed a woman who was less delicate, harder, better able to handle whatever danger might erupt in their lives and help him protect whatever family they might have together. A woman as helpless, sweet-natured, and defenseless as Grace wasn’t a woman who could do that.

  Though, he had to admit, she was showing a little more gumption now than he’d suspected she possessed.

  “Can I see your leg now?” he asked, injecting what he hoped was gentleness in his tone.

  “You can kiss my ass and get the hell out of my bedroom.” She lifted her head from her pillows just enough to emphasize the feminine fury brightening her emerald green eyes. “Right now.”

  Zack blinked down at her and almost grinned.

  That thought of baring that pretty, curvy little butt was a hell of a temptation.

  Dark blond hair curled becomingly around her face and bare shoulders from where she sat propped against her lacy pillows, dressed in that virginal little white nightgown, in her girly little bedroom while fire filled those green eyes.

  She looked almost put out.

  “Now, Grace, settle down.” Once more, he had to control a grin. “Let me see how bad you were hurt, then we’ll talk.”

  The color of her eyes deepened, going from emeralds to jade in the space of a heartbeat as her little jaw clenched and her pouty lips thinned in displeasure.

  Damn, she’d been cute as hell before—now, hell, he might be mesmerized. For a minute, anyway.

  “We are not talking, Zackary Richards—”

  He was tired of being nice about it. Catching her off guard, he jerked the blanket back, pushed her gown up again, then froze.

  The breath rushed from his lungs, his balls went tight, and Zack could have sworn every drop of blood in his body went straight to his dick.

  Sweet, sweet heaven.

  Silk-soft flesh touched his fingers, bare, so bare there and warm that it took every ounce of strength he possessed not to push her back against those pillows and spread her pretty thighs farther.

  Grace was just as still, and as he stared at the soft flesh he’d revealed, a hint of feminine dampness began to gleam against the bare folds.

  “How pretty,” he whispered instead of pulling back, aware of her stillness and the sense of
anticipation growing between them. “I always knew you’d be so sweet and pretty there.”

  And so small. Her mound was just as small and delicate as she was.

  She was hurt! another part of his mind was screaming at him. The bandage covering the knife wound was just inches below his fingers, a swath of blinding white against satiny, sun-darkened flesh. She’d just been attacked, nearly killed, and all he could do was imagine pressing his lips right there, where that gleam of dampness was gathering on the slowly swelling folds.

  What would it be like to take her? he wondered. To watch that sweet flesh stretch around him, taking him inside her—

  To keep from mounting her in a haze of lust, he jerked his gaze from the temptation to meet her eyes and nearly groaned at the arousal he saw there.

  She wanted him, but he’d always known that, hadn’t he? At any time in the past few years, he could have had her in his bed, could have lived out every fantasy he had of touching her, taking her.

  “This wasn’t what I intended, Grace,” he breathed out, knowing he was lying to her.

  He’d known the second he saw that file on Alex’s desk what he was going to do. There was only one way to protect her while proving her innocence, and that was by taking her to his bed. Alex Brigham knew the hell he’d pay if he dared to strike against her then.

  “Of course it isn’t,” she murmured, realization flashing in the jade green of her eyes. “Sucks knowing a traitor’s daughter is aroused by you, doesn’t it? Must just sicken you inside.”

  She slapped his hand away and jerked the blankets up again as he fought to process the accusation.

  “Is that how you think I see you?” He moved closer, the hunger hardening him further as she glared at him, resentment and anger darkening her eyes. “Do you think I blame you for Lucia’s actions? That anyone does?”

  “Well, someone does,” she snapped back. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been attacked, and Magnus wouldn’t be so hurt that he’s not here to bite your damned ass for pissing me off.”

  The large Rottweiler had been no more than an overgrown lapdog until the farmhand attacked her. Zack was more than a little surprised when he’d heard how savage the animal became and how well he defended Grace without having had any specific training.