Dirty Little Lies: A Men of Summer Novel Read online

  Going slow and easy would be hell, but he’d do it. There was no way to fake being lovers. The act had to be legit. It was the only way to draw out the traitor intent on killing her. Once rumors that he was the missing Brigham nephew began to circulate, then her enemies would know there was no way in hell the Brigham family would move against her so long as she was in his bed. It would also ensure no orders went out against her from the Brighams. That avenue would be effectively closed to whoever was targeting her.

  This way, the enemy would have to do his own dirty work and contact Zack. And everyone in the Kin knew exactly how Zack felt about the Maddox Clan, other than Grace, as well as the Brigham family. He’d made no secret of it.

  “Grace,” he tried again as he crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at her. “This isn’t a game. It’s your life. Do you want to die?”

  She lowered her head, the fall of hair obscuring her expression as she seemed to staring at her fingers where they lay on the quilt covering her.

  Delicate fingers with pretty oval nails. Nails that had clenched into his shoulders earlier as her hips arched, pressing the slick flesh of her sex into his palm as she came for him.

  “You should leave, Zack,” she finally said softly, still refusing to look at him. “I understand we all have an important meeting in the morning, and I need to rest.”

  Important meeting, her ass. According to Cord, Zack was going to inform them how he intended to protect her. He thought she was just as weak and defenseless, just as malleable as Luce had believed.

  He was in for a surprise.

  Just because she couldn’t reveal her training didn’t mean she couldn’t reveal her temper, and he was testing it sorely at the moment.

  “Not until we have this resolved.” He stalked back to the side of the bed, watching her carefully when she glanced back up at him. The way the slight tilt of her eyes seemed more pronounced, the dark emerald color gleaming with a hint of anger, her flushed cheeks, the stubborn set of her chin.

  Why had he never noticed that determined little curve before?

  “It is resolved. Unless Uncle Vinny tells me otherwise, then I’m heading to D.C. at the end of next week. You can go with me, stay here, go home, go back to work, I don’t care.” She stared straight up at him then, pure green fire making her eyes brighter.

  A grin tugged at Zack’s lips. “Do you think you’re going to get stubborn on me, Grace?” he asked her, scooting next to her hip on the bed and watching as her petite nostrils flared in irritation. “After this afternoon, do you really think it’s going to work?”

  She stared back at him resolutely. “It was good, Zack,” she surprised him a second later. “It was real damned good, and I’m sure it can get better.” And not once did she bat an eyelash. “And I’m sure I’d promise you anything you want once you started touching me, just to have it again. But don’t doubt, I’ll lie straight to your face and once I’m out of this bed, I’m going to do exactly what I want to do, and exactly what my job entails I do. Consider that before you try to use sex to control me. That control lasts only while we’re in the bed.”

  He’d be damned. She believed every word spilling past those pretty little lips, didn’t she? She was so convinced that what he could do to her, what he could make her feel would be so easily overlooked once her bouncy little ass came off the sheets?

  He shook his head in amused regret. “Ahh, baby, one of these days, you won’t be under Vinny’s roof. You’ll be in my home, in my bed, where I can show you different. Then we’ll see how brave you are.”

  She gave a little shrug. “The chances of that happening before we go to D.C. are slim. I’ll take my chances.”

  She would take her chances, would she?

  Zack braced his arm across her hips, leaned forward until his lips were less than an inch from her, and warned her softly, “I’m not one of those little boys who pant after your cute ass. I’m a man, Grace, and one you don’t want to dare.”

  Her lips parted, her breathing heavy. Zack watched as a flush suffused her face and pure want filled her eyes. “I didn’t barge into your bedroom, making demands,” she whispered, breathless, her tongue poking out to dampen her lips. “We both know you can make me want you—it’s a game you’ve been playing since I was eighteen.” The hurt that flashed in her eyes then surprised him. “You are indeed a man, Zack, but I’m not a stupid girl anymore. Don’t make that mistake. Now, stop teasing me and let me go to sleep. It’s been a helluva two days.”

  He leaned forward just that little bit, then captured her lips at that moment when she thought she could turn away from him, thought she could escape the hunger raging through his system. He deserved one more taste of her before morning came. Before she learned what a bastard he intended to be.

  He deserved the pure, unvarnished need he tasted in her kiss, the way she flowed into him, melted against his chest, and let him in. Her arms snaked around his shoulders, those delicate nails pressing into bare skin, pricking at his flesh with heated need.

  Oh, he was going to have her. Not tonight, not until she knew what she was facing, knew what they were doing. He didn’t want fairy tales in her eyes when she stared at him. Fairy tales didn’t exist, but this did.

  Her lips parted for him again, her tongue tasting his as he possessed her with his kiss and pulled those hot whimpering little moans from her throat. This was what he wanted to see in her eyes. The need for this, the aching hunger, and a woman’s knowledge that she would come to him, no matter what, just for this pleasure alone.

  That she was his—

  At that thought, he jerked back, staring down at her, shocked at his own musings, at the depth of need beginning to burn in his veins. Pure, raging lust mixed with a hunger he’d never allowed himself before and wouldn’t tolerate now.

  Rising quickly from the bed, he glared down at her, jaw clenched, his body demanding he take her, lust tearing through him with a force he’d never experienced before.

  What the hell had she done to him?

  She accused him of teasing her since she was eighteen? Hell no, it wasn’t her he’d teased; he’d been teasing himself, killing himself with the need for her. And he was damned if he could figure out why.

  “Get your rest, Grace,” he growled, the discipline it took to force himself away shaky at best. “Rest well, because after tonight, you may be far busier than you ever imagined.”

  chapter five

  Tension lay thick in Vince Maddox’s office the next morning when Zack stepped into the room, the files he’d put together gripped loosely in one hand. The space reminded him far too much of Alex Brigham’s office. Perhaps not so stately or so expensively decorated, but the appearance was more or less the same. Dark wood, walls, and floor offset with large windows positioned to allow maximum light. Tall bookcases filled with suitably impressive titles, among them historic and military tomes.

  He hadn’t glimpsed a single modern paperback on the dust-free wood. It was enough to send a chill up a man’s back.

  Vinny sat at the other end of the room behind the heavy executive desk with his sons positioned on the two sides just as before while Grace stood with her back to the room, arms crossed, staring pensively out one of the large windows.

  The pale blue sleeveless dress she wore emphasized her delicate figure, but rather than the high heels he was used to seeing her in, she had a pair of white flat sandals on her feet. The change in footwear made sense, considering her wound.

  Bruises marred her upper arm; he knew others marked her side. His jaw tightened before he reached Vinny’s desk and took the chair the other man waved him to.

  “Sleep well?” The edge of snide anger in Cord’s tone had Zack lifting a brow mockingly.

  “Very well,” he assured the other man. “You?”

  Cord gave an irritated grunt, his brooding gaze flickering with ire.

  Vinny spoke to his niece, his voice gentle as he looked across the room to Grace’s back. “Grace, could yo
u join us, sweetheart?”

  “I can hear just fine from here, Uncle Vinny,” she assured him, and though her tone was well modulated and lacking any anger, Zack swore he could still feel heat in it.

  “I’m sure you can, but I’d prefer you come over here and sit with us. Let’s at least try to be civil about this until we find out what’s going on exactly.”

  Tossing a file in the seat beside his own, Zack leaned forward and placed all but one folder on Vinny’s desk without addressing the fact that Grace had yet to take her seat. “This is the information I’ve put together since returning yesterday morning, along with a copy of the file I stole from Alex Brigham’s desk,” he announced. “I think you should go through it before we begin talking.”

  Grace took her seat silently as Vinny passed a file to each of his sons before flipping through the one he kept for himself, a frown darkening his brow as he scanned each page. Beside him, he could hear Grace breathing quickly, and he caught the look of horror as it came over her face.

  “You couldn’t tell me this yesterday?” Vinny finally snapped, glaring across his desk at Zack.

  “I didn’t have all the information yesterday. All I had was the few pages at the front of the file that I took while at the estate. The rest I put together from favors owed and various contacts I’ve made within the Brigham Agency,” he assured Grace’s uncle. “They’re going to come for her, Vinny, as will Luce’s partner. You might be able to protect her from Kin traitors, but you can’t protect her from the agency, and you know it.”

  He didn’t have to look at his own file. The orders Alex Brigham had been putting together to have Grace brought in for questioning were bad enough. The report on Luce’s interrogation—her accusations that Grace had been helping her and still held vital information missing for over twenty years regarding a deep-level traitor within the Kin—was the same as a death sentence for Grace. A sentence Zack refused to accept.

  “This isn’t true!” Horror and a realization of the depth of her mother’s betrayal filled Grace’s strangled whisper. “Uncle Vinny, it isn’t true.”

  Tears filled her voice, and the sound of them tightened Zack’s chest. She knew as well as the rest of them did what was coming if they didn’t find a way to prove her innocence or reveal the information Luce had sworn she possessed.

  “Dammit, Grace, I know that,” Vinny swore, his expression darkening with fury as Zack sat back in his chair and waited.

  “This is bullshit,” Cord muttered, suddenly tossing the file he held and its contents across the floor, the pages fluttering for a moment before settling silently. “They can’t do this. I’ll be damned if we’ll let them do this.”

  “If we defy them, it will destroy everything the Maddox family has built over the generations and it will throw the protection of not just this area in danger, but it will affect the other families in the network as well,” Zack pointed out. “The Maddox Clan is the strongest, but even that strength won’t be enough to save her, Cord. You know that.”

  The Brigham Agency wasn’t bound by normal laws, just as the Kin weren’t. There were checks, balances, and there were traitors. Far more, it appeared, than they had ever imagined.

  “I’ll leave…” Grace whispered.

  “And go where?” he asked, turning to her, finding it harder to rein in his own fury than it had ever been. “Where will you go, Grace, that the agency or the Kin can’t find you? There were only a few of those low-level bastard traitors searching for Kenni, and she lost her uncle fighting to stay alive. How will you survive against the agency or the Kin they convince to go after you?”

  She was so fucking pale, it made him want to slam his fist into a Brigham face.

  Emerald eyes sparkled with tears as soft pink lips tightened to control their trembling and a sense of hopelessness flashed across her face. “But I didn’t do this.” The file shook in her hands as she lifted it for just a moment before letting it settle back to her lap.

  He hadn’t seen that look on her face since she was five years old and standing beside her father’s grave. The vulnerability and uncertainty mixed with overwhelming grief and pain. It was bad enough knowing her mother had betrayed the family in general and was the reason for her father’s murder. But to realize the woman who should have nurtured her was instead so evil, she’d sacrifice her daughter as well was tearing her up inside. And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to make the pain go away for her.

  “I’m going to assume you have a solution?” Vinny snarled. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “How can he have a solution?” The tears in her voice didn’t detract from the anger, the pain, or the confusion. “How can he help when it’s obvious you or the Kin can’t?” She turned to him then, shaking her head. “And how did you get this information? You hate the Kin and the Brighams, yet you were able to steal files from the estate?” Disbelief flickered in her gaze. “Really, Zack? Did you turn into a cat burglar overnight?”

  The question came quicker than he’d anticipated. Grace was smart, though; he should have expected it.

  “Did you verify this information, Uncle Vinny?” Desperation filled the question, the search for something, anything to change the situation apparent in her tone.

  Turning back to Vinny, Zack let his gaze lock with the other man’s.

  Vinny’s expression was heavy with knowledge of the sacrifice Zack was making. And it was a sacrifice. A lifetime of secrets, the attempts to deny who he was and where he came from were over.

  “Uncle Vinny?” Grace whispered, the silence in the room becoming as heavy as the tension.

  “I don’t have to verify it,” Vinny said quietly. “I know Zack was at the estate when you were attacked. He’s there every month, just as you are.”

  Cord wiped his hand over his face before leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, his hands hanging between them as he stared at the floor.

  He’d always known the time for secrets was going to be over soon. It had been a damned good fight, and he’d managed to stay one step ahead of the Brigham family all his life.

  He’d known the truth would eventually come out though.

  “Why?” Grace whispered. “Why would the Brighams care about someone who so obviously hates them as much as Zack hates them? What does he have on them?”

  Zack shook his head. “I don’t have anything on them, Grace. It’s what they know about me.”

  He rubbed at the side of his jaw; the bombshell he was about to drop would be devastating for her. The rumors of the reasons behind her father’s and his parents’ deaths had circulated through the Kin for decades. Truth didn’t matter. The truth had never been told, the rumor always allowed to stand simply because it was less dangerous to the family and to the Kin.

  “What they know about you?” she questioned him, anger rising in her tone. “How can you help me if they have something they’re holding over you? What kind of game are you playing?”

  “They’re not holding anything over me,” he gritted out, forcing his fingers not to curl into fists.

  “Then explain it, Richards!” Deacon snapped as he and his twin glared at him murderously. “Do you think we’re just going to let you waltz out of here with Grace, without giving her a damned good expectation of your ability to protect her?”

  “Enough, Deacon.” Cord shook his head as Vinny grimaced at the question, his gaze still locked on Zack.

  “Enough? Let him fucking explain himself to her.” Sawyer came out of his chair to stand next to Grace. “He’s full of shit.”

  Zack’s lips quirked. He had to give it to the twins—they were just as explosive as Cord was dangerously quiet.

  “Ever known me to lie to you, Sawyer?” Zack asked him, turning in his chair just enough to watch Grace’s face as he spoke. “Have I ever lied to you, Grace?” he asked her softly.

  She licked her lips, the lower curve trembling again before she managed to restrain it. “It doesn’t make sense, Zack.” She s
wallowed tightly. “There’s nothing you can do.…”

  “I’m the only one who can keep you alive,” he assured her. “I promise you that.”

  “It takes more than a promise, Zack,” Deacon snarled.

  “Alex Brigham will never let an agent or a Kin under this family’s control touch you once he believes you belong to me,” he stated, hardening his tone, hardening the compassion and anger inside him. “He’d die and go to hell before he’d touch you, because he knows if he does, and I ever learn he’s behind it, then I’ll snap my mother’s inheritance up so fast, it will make his head spin. And if anything happens to me, then he loses control of it to the heirs I’ve named in my stead. There’s no way he’ll win, and he knows it.”

  “And what makes you so fucking important to the Brigham family?” she snapped. “Why would you or your mother matter?”

  “I’m Nicole Brigham Richards’s son,” he stated. “I’m Alex Brigham’s lost nephew, Grace. And I could rip that agency and that family apart if it’s what I wanted. And I will if they ever endanger me or what I consider mine, and that’s something Alex Brigham won’t chance.”

  She seemed to stop breathing for a moment. “No,” she whispered. “You’re lying.”

  “I stayed away from you all these years because I knew how betrayed you’d feel if you learned the truth,” he sighed wearily, knowing the time for hiding was at an end. “Just as I knew I wouldn’t let you go once I decided you were mine.” He reached out and touched her cheek gently before pulling back when she flinched. “This way, you can hate me until hell freezes over for a reason. For something I’ve done rather than something someone else did.”

  The rumor that her father had died protecting the missing Brigham heir haunted her, he knew. Vinny had warned him more than once that if Grace ever learned he was that missing heir, she’d never forgive him for the death of the father she’d so loved.

  “I’d rather face an interrogation.” Jumping from her chair, dumping the file to the floor, she moved away from him quickly.