Black Ties and Lullabyes (3 page)

Don’t move,” the blond said, “or he’s history.”

“I hear you,” Bernie said.

“I was hoping you’d just drive away.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Give me your gun.”

“I’m not armed.”

“Bul shit. Let’s have it.”

Bernie paused just long enough to look at what was on the security screens. One camera was pointed to the courtyard, where Bernie’s car sat. Another screen showed a large truck making its way up the winding road toward the house. In only a few seconds, it would be there. She had to do something
now.

Slowly she reached beneath the hem of her dress to pul her Beretta out of the holster strapped on the inside of her thigh above her knee. Just as she kneeled down to slide it across the floor, she heard the truck’s engine outside. Seconds later, the muffled thud of doors slamming and boots on the ground told her that men were heading into the house, and when they got there, al hel was going to break loose.

The kitchen door opened. The blond turned toward the noise, angling her gun away from Jeremy. Already in a crouching position, Bernie dove at the woman, grasping her around the hips. She fel backward, her hand smacking the floor and dislodging the gun from her grasp. It slid across the hardwood floor to crash into the wal . Bernie was on her feet in an instant, stil holding her gun, but the men were almost there.

“Safe room!” Bernie shouted to Jeremy.
“Now!”
Bernie shoved Jeremy in front of her as they raced to the hal way at the back of the house and into his office. She slammed the door behind them, locked it, then ran to the bookcase on the far wal . She reached beneath one of the shelves, grabbed the handle, and swung the bookcase open to reveal a silver keypad on the wal behind it. Heavy footsteps clattered down the hal .

She spun around, double-fisting her Beretta, pointing it at the door. “Punch in the code!” she shouted at Jeremy, just as the office doorknob rattled.

An instant later, somebody started kicking the door.

Jeremy hit the last number, and the safe room door clicked. He yanked it open. Bernie turned and shoved him inside at the same time a gun went off. Glancing behind her, she saw pieces of the lock on the office door go flying, and with one more smack on the door, it swung open hard, bouncing against its hinges. As the men entered the room, Bernie pul ed the door closed behind them.

Then… silence.

Not only were the wal s concrete, reinforced with Kevlar, they were also soundproofed. Absolutely nothing got into or out of this room unless Bernie decided it would. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, then went straight to a communications panel connected to a secure phone line and cal ed 911.

“Robbery at 4536 Emerald Creek,” she said. “The home of Jeremy Bridges. Perpetrators are stil on the premises.”

“Where are you and Mr. Bridges?”

“Safe room.”

“Anyone else in the house?”

“No.”

The operator told Bernie that the cops were on their way. Bernie told her to cal them back for an al -clear when the incident was over. Then she cal ed Mrs.

Spencer and told her to lock her door and move away from the windows until the police arrived, assuring her that the burglars were most likely on the run by now.

Bernie heard the apprehension in the woman’s voice, but she was a calm, levelheaded soul. Of course she was. How else could she have continued to work for Jeremy al these years?

After she hung up, Bernie pressed her palms against the wal , closed her eyes, and took a deep, cleansing breath. That had been close. Too close.

Then she turned around, and any relief she felt was overwhelmed by a surge of irritation.

In the few minutes it had taken to her to make sure the room was secure and the authorities notified, Jeremy had poured himself a drink. Now he was lounging in an overstuffed leather chair, basking in the ambience of a space that looked more like a gentlemen’s club than a safe room. It came complete with wal s paneled in cherry wood, a wet bar, an entertainment center that included a state-of-the-art music system, and a forty-two-inch HDTV. As he relaxed in that chair, instead of showing fear, relief, thanks,
something,
he looked smug. Slightly bored.

Not the least bit distressed at the possibility that he might have ended up dead, and she might have, too.

“Wel ,” he said, with a big sigh of satisfaction. “That was fun, wasn’t it?”

For a moment, Bernie was speechless. Then her anger shot through the roof. “Fun?” she shouted.

“Fun?”

“Yeah,” Jeremy said, taking another casual sip of his drink. “Real y gets the old blood rushing. But I am a little disappointed. You had your gun. I think you could have taken them.”

Bernie looked at him incredulously. “Taken them?

There were three of them!”

“Let’s see… three against one… when the one is you…
hmm.
Now, there’s a fair fight.”

“My job isn’t to take out the bad guys,” she said hotly. “It’s to get you out of the situation alive.”

“And I appreciate that. But I’ve always been a fan of old westerns, you know. I was hoping for a showdown.”

She looked at him incredulously. “Does anything bother you? Anything at al ?”

“It wasn’t a kidnapping attempt. They were robbing the place. Low-end criminals. Don’t make it out to be more than it was.”

“So the blond was the inside man. She got you to disable the security around the house.”

“Exactly.”

“She must have had that gun from the time we left the hotel. Didn’t I tel you she was up to something?

Didn’t I
tell
you?”

Jeremy shrugged. “Al ’s wel that ends wel .” Anger and frustration roiled inside Bernie. This was it. The last straw. She’d had Jeremy Bridges up to her eyebal s, and she had no intention of dealing with him one more day.

She stalked over to his bar, grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal. She didn’t drink often, but suddenly it seemed like a real y good idea. She poured a shot and tossed it down. And if one was good, two was better.

“I thought you didn’t drink on the job,” Jeremy said.

“I’m not on the job,” she said, pouring another shot.

“As of this moment, I no longer work for you.” He sighed dramatical y. “Okay. How much is it going to cost me to get you to reconsider?” She tossed down the second shot, loving the way it burned her esophagus and instigated even more anger, making her feel as if she could strangle him with her bare hands and walk away without so much as a backward glance.

“Nobody has that kind of money,” she said. “Not even you.”

“Five hundred more a month.”

She slammed the shot glass down on the bar. “I told you to get yourself another bodyguard.”

“A thousand.”

“I warned you not to bring that woman home,” Bernie said, her voice quivering with anger. “I told you I smel ed trouble. And you did it anyway. I don’t give a damn if you have a death wish. But you’re not dragging me into it anymore.”

“Now, Bernie. Don’t go away mad.”

“That’s a done deal. I am mad, and I am going away. I’m done with fol owing you around, watching you pick up women. I’m done with your cavalier attitude. I’m done with
you
.”

“Everybody has their price. Even you. We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Why do you care if I quit? We don’t even like each other. But for some unknown reason, you stil want me around. Why is that?”

“I’m a masochist?”

“Nope. I’m the masochist for working for you longer than I ever should have. You want to play Russian roulette with your life? Fine. But you’re not playing it with mine any longer. The moment we get the al -

clear, I’m out of here.”

“You didn’t have to come back. Why did you?”

“I don’t lose principals. Not even you.”

“Once they got what they wanted, they’d have been gone.”

“And within the hour, you’d have been pointing out their faces in a mug book. Maybe they were only burglars, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t
ruthless
burglars. Why do you think they came after us instead of clearing out? Because they didn’t want us turning them in, and they’d have done anything to stop us.” Jeremy just shrugged. His nonchalance infuriated her. “I saved your ass,” she growled. “Don’t you
ever
forget that.”

“I know Mrs. Caldwel won’t. After al , I haven’t sent the check yet.”

“You just love jerking people around, don’t you?

Then you fix everything by doling out just enough cash that they put up with you being a snarky pain in the ass.”

“I get my laughs where I can.”

“Laughs?” She shook her head. “If you think that’s funny, you have one screwed-up sense of humor.”

“And you have no sense of humor at al . I bet you’ve never laughed a day in your life.”

“You don’t know a damned thing about me.”

“You’re right. I don’t. As far as I know, what I see is what I get. You’re al business. Not a shred of emotion. Tough girl al the way to the bone.”

“It beats having nothing under my skin but silicone and Botox.”

“Actual y, I think you should try those things sometime. You might like them.” He looked her up and down with a deliberate sweep of his eyes. “Why, I might even be persuaded to pick up the tab.” Bernie felt that twinge of sexual awareness that always flickered whenever Jeremy looked at her like that, and she hated herself for letting it happen.
It’s
nothing but a power play. Don’t give him an inch.

“Keep your money, Bridges. The older you get, the more those twenty-year-old bimbos are going to cost you.”

“I believe I can stil spare twenty thousand or so,” he said, tilting his head and focusing directly on her breasts. “I know a surgeon in Houston who does some damned fine work. He can take a woman from B to D and never break a sweat.”

Bernie resisted the urge to fold her arms across her chest. “Have you ever considered dating a real woman? Just once in your life?”

“Define ‘real.’ ”

“Smart. Sensible. A woman who thinks plastic surgery is for accident victims, and that’s about it.

Instead, you sleep with every living, breathing, blond-haired D-cup you can find. It doesn’t get much more juvenile than that.”

He swirled his glass, ice cubes clinking. “An attraction to beautiful women is juvenile?”

“When those beautiful women are nothing but boobs and asses to you, yes.”

“Not every encounter has to be a cerebral experience.”

“How about
one
, Bridges? Just one? My God. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you have a conversation with a woman under age thirty that wasn’t designed to get her into bed.”

Bernie knew she was losing it. Saying things she might regret. But for one of the very few times in her life, she couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. She was ful to the brim with anger fueled by a real y nice alcohol buzz, and she wanted to take out every bit of frustration she’d felt with this man over the past two years and face the consequences later.

“But it’s not the conversation that gets them into bed,” she went on. “It’s your money. Without it, you’re nothing. You might be able to get by for a few more years on your good looks alone, but pretty soon you won’t even have that.” She made a scoffing noise.

“And when that day comes, a real woman wouldn’t have anything to do with you.”

Jeremy’s demeanor shifted, and for the first time, anger flickered across his face. Very deliberately, he set his glass down on the coffee table and stood up.

“A real woman, you say?” He took a few steps toward her, closing the gap between them. “Such as yourself?”

“You’re
such
an asshole.”

She turned to walk away, but he grabbed her by the arm and spun her back around. She looked down at his hand, then slowly turned her gaze back to meet his, giving him a look so frigid it could have turned Death Val ey into a polar ice cap. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Oh, yeah? Why not?”

“Because I know a dozen ways to kil a man. I’m thinking number five.”

“You could do that,” Jeremy murmured, his gaze wandering over her face. “But you won’t.”

“I wouldn’t bank on that.”

“You want to do a lot of things to me right now,” he murmured, “but kil ing me isn’t one of them.” As she imagined what kinds of things he was talking about, her face heated up as if she were standing in front of an open furnace. She closed her hands into fists and realized her palms were sweating. She wanted to object. Tel him she didn’t care if he lived or died. But as he continued to chal enge her with an unyielding stare, she was forced to admit the truth.

God help her, he was right.

There had been times when she watched Jeremy lust after beautiful women that she wondered what it would be like to be the object of his singleminded attention.
Look at me like that,
she’d thought sometimes, as her mind wandered to forbidden places. As furious as she was with him right now, just the feel of his hand against her arm triggered the kind of sexual thoughts she hated herself for having, the kind of fantasies about this man no
real
woman would even begin to entertain.

Al at once everything seemed mixed up together—

the alcohol, the flaming-hot anger shooting between them, his green eyes boring into her. Her heart had settled into a heavy, sluggish rhythm, refusing to drive enough blood to her brain to ward off the fuzzy, incoherent feeling that came from one too many whiskey shots. Light seemed to fade around the edges of her vision, blurring the room around her until the only thing she could see clearly was his handsome face and his mocking eyes.

“If you’re one of those real women,” he said, easing closer stil , “why don’t you show me what I’ve been missing?”

“Why don’t you go screw yourself?”

“Good. At least you’re thinking about sex. I wasn’t sure that was possible.”

“Which is just more proof that you don’t know a damned thing about me.”

“Then maybe it’s time I found out a thing or two.” With that, he wrapped his arm around her waist, yanked her up next to him, and slammed his mouth down on hers.

For several seconds, Bernie couldn’t fathom what was happening. She was stunned into submission, her head swimming with disbelief.