Busted (Barnes Brothers #3) (6 page)

“Sorry.” Ressa focused back on the matter at hand. She’d promised her friend she’d pin down the elusive Trey Barnes for a few minutes.

He’d had a short visit with a local writers’ group back in Norfolk just three weeks ago, so apparently he was rejoining the writing world.

Now she just needed to try and talk him into coming to the Norfolk library. Shouldn’t be too hard.

In theory.

She’d give it a shot. He had to leave the house occasionally, and Ressa had been told more than once she could charm a snake when she set her mind to it.

A too-rigid lit writer should be a piece of cake compared to some of the people she’d dealt with.

“I told you I’d try,” she told Farrah, watching as Lynda snagged a bag and then an envelope, pausing to speak with somebody sitting at the table piled with electronics.

“I wish you could have lucked out and gotten picked for his panel. I mean, you know Max and he suggests you all the time,” Farrah said.

A little bell went
ding
in the back of her mind.
Max suggested you . . .

“Ms. Bliss?”

“I need a minute, Farrah,” she said, moving toward Lynda.

“I apologize for this mess, and for the inconvenience,” Lynda said, smiling. “I’ve got you all set. I’ll look into what happened with your registration, but I can’t guarantee I’ll find any answers. Sometimes the system just messes with us. I will report it, though.”

“As long as you’ve gotten me taken care of, I don’t care. I really appreciate your help.” She accepted the bag, the envelope. “By any chance, do you know which panels they want me to help out with?”

“No.” Lynda grimaced. “I’ll be honest, I’m surprised I even remembered to pass the message on—they said they’d leave
a message with the concierge so you’ll probably have a voicemail or something, too. I only remembered because of your name—
Bliss
 . . . it’s kind of pretty.”

“Thanks.” Rissa waggled the envelope again. “For everything. I’ve got Max’s number so I’ll just call him.”

As she started to work her way through the crowd, she put the phone back to her ear. “I’m here.”

“All fixed?”

“Save for the people problems,” she muttered. “It’s handled. They apparently want me to help moderate two more panels—don’t know which ones—I’m going to be scrambling. But I’m a gofer for one of the panels he’s on, so if nothing else, I’ll sneak in a few minutes then.” Up ahead, she spied the main elevator bank and she could have sworn her entire body breathed a sigh of thanksgiving.

“And that one is early tomorrow, right? Probably the best time to talk to him, before he gets pestered too much,” Farrah said.

In the background, Ressa heard the deep voice of Farrah’s fiancé, Antoine. “Baby, let her check into her room, at least,” he said.

Ressa grinned as Farrah said, “Hush. I’m doing my job.”

“Yes,” Ressa said before Farrah could say anything else. She wedged herself—and her suitcase—in line. “I should have a chance tomorrow. Everybody, including the gofers, are supposed to meet up about fifteen minutes before the panel starts. I won’t have much time to go over anything, but I’ll put on the charm and ask him if I can buy him a drink.”

“You’ll flirt, you mean.”

“Sure.” Ressa was a natural born flirt and was perfectly fine with it. “If that’s the card to play. Now can I get to my room? I’m exhausted and my feet are killing me. I want to lay down and crash for a little while.”

“Oh, honey. I’m sorry,” Farrah said, the switch from business to best friend flawless. “You do that. Let me know how things go tomorrow, though. And I expect
pictures
.”

Ressa managed not to laugh.

She was well aware what kind of pictures Farrah wanted. Yes, the woman was engaged to one sexy beast, but it was no
secret between the two friends that Farrah had something of a minor crush on one Trey Barnes.

“I’ll get pictures,” she promised soberly.

Then, as the elevator doors slid open, she disconnected.

Five minutes alone.

That was all she wanted.

Five minutes . . .

Pizza delivery sounded better by the minute. Pizza, wings, an early night. An invitation from Max had changed his plans, but now he wished he would have just stayed with his initial plan of an early dinner, followed by bed. So far, Trey had done nothing but listen to the pompous ass who was Baron I. Capstone as he attempted to talk over and around everybody else at the table.

Trey was trying to figure out how to excuse himself—so he could get those damn wings—when she walked in.

He damn near choked on the tea he’d just swallowed.

Ressa
 . . .

Trey thought maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but after he blinked and rubbed his eyes, she was still there. Although it could be a hallucination brought on by lack of oxygen.

That body ought to be illegal.

Get it together
.

He swallowed, clenched his hands into fists—almost managed to suck in some much needed air.

But then she saw him.

She pursed her lips, frowned as though she was puzzling something through.

He saw the very
second
she recognized him and something that looked like dazed shock fell across her face. He could sympathize. He’d accepted the fact that they wouldn’t see each other again, and that it was for the best.

That didn’t mean he hadn’t enjoyed every white-hot dream, and the rare, blistering climax that might follow.

Yes, he still thought about her.

Yes, he still dreamed about her.

And now . . .

She slowly resumed walking toward them and his heart started to hammer in his chest. Some wild hope started to jump and dance.
Maybe
—

“Hmmm. Boys, I’ve just found who
I’m
taking back to the hotel,” Capstone murmured.

A rush of possessiveness, the kind he hadn’t felt in years, slammed into him, catching him off guard.

He had no idea what he might have said if Max hadn’t laughed. “Baron, son, you couldn’t manage that if you lived a thousand years.”

Then Max shifted his attention forward. “Ressa, sweetheart. It’s been far too long.”

All the puzzle pieces fell into place. Max . . . Max knew her. He’d mentioned he had a friend who could handle the moderating bit—
a librarian
, he’d said.
Has handled events like this before. You’ll love her.

Feeling a little dazed himself, Trey thought,
Yeah, Max. I think I could do just that. I could love her.

Her gaze moved around the table and as it landed on him, need, longing attacked him with vicious, desperate claws.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she said, her voice smooth and warm as melted chocolate. And her mouth—she’d painted it with some rich, vibrant red and he had to force himself to listen to what she was saying, instead of just watching her mouth as it formed those words. Her gaze landed on him and he inclined his head.

“Well . . .” She drew the word out, inclining her head. “This is . . . something of a surprise, Mr. . . . ?”

He grimaced. He’d heard that from her so many times. It
had become habit, dodging when people pushed, even for something as small as his name. His family had come in after Aliesha’s death, surrounded him in the days that followed, and even though part of him had wanted them there, another part had dreaded it. Because if Zach was in town, and Sebastian, even though he’d just been a bit actor then, they were known names and the reporters had flocked around. Abby had been there too and any time she and Zach were together, that brought reporters out in droves.

It had been a small slice of hell, even as he took comfort in having his family around.

While he was grieving for Aliesha, and trying to deal with what was going on with his son, then—and the black hole of memories in the hours that followed after he’d left his family—he also had reporters dogging his every step. Normally, he wasn’t one of the brothers who caught much attention when it came to reporters. Authors weren’t that fascinating when it came to media attention, but nothing brings them out like tragedy.

Yeah, it had become second nature to avoid the media, to avoid having people recognize
him
period.

And it was time to get over it.

“Yeah, um . . . hi.” He rose and glanced around. “Kind of a surprise to see you here, Ressa.”

“Not as much as you,” she said, arching her brow. “And again, you dodge the question.”

“Ah . . .”

“Trey, it appears you know each other,” Max said, leaning back in his chair, cocking a brow. “Ressa, you never mentioned you’d met this troublemaker.”

“Well . . . we haven’t
exactly
met. I’ve seen him more than a few times, but I’ve never managed to get
his name
.” Ressa cocked her head.

She enunciated it this time and Trey winced.

“It’s—”

He never really managed to finished because Max started to laugh, and Max had a laugh that boomed and echoed.

“This is a story I really do need to hear,” Baron said, his voice low and packed with more innuendo than Trey would have thought possible.

Baron leaned forward then, elbows braced on the table as he studied Ressa. “You know, you look familiar to me. Have we met?”

“No,” she said, her voice politely cool, the look in her eyes frosty. Then her gaze zoomed right back in on Trey.

Max chuckled. “Come on, Ressa. Sit down.”

She huffed out a breath and started around the table, her gaze skewering into Trey.

He slumped lower into his seat, feeling both sheepish and disturbingly elated. He shifted uncomfortably to accommodate for his cock as it pulsed, reminding him of dirty dreams and fantasies he’d tried to forget.

Ressa slid into the seat next to him, bringing with her the scent that he’d
almost
managed to put out of his mind.

“So . . .” she drew out.

“So . . .” Max said, his voice underscored with laughter. “You’ve lived in Norfolk, oh . . . going on ten years now, I think. Been in that general area for most of your life. Am I right?”

Ressa just looked at him.

Max glanced past her to Trey and then asked, “All that time, and you’re a librarian but that boy’s famous face doesn’t look at all familiar to you?”

Trey could feel the rush of blood racing up to flood his face. “Max. I can take you down, old man.”

A laugh boomed out of him. “Yes, you can, Trey. Now shut up and let me have my fun . . . I’m an old man, remember?”

“Trey . . .”

She said slowly. Somebody had said it once earlier but it hadn’t registered.

A number of eyes zeroed in on her, but she was only conscious of his—those amazing blue green eyes, that seemed so very familiar now.

And that face—lean, maybe leaner than it should be, now that she thought of it. He’d cut his hair, quite a bit, and the shorter length only served to emphasize how sinfully attractive he was.

That nagging sense of familiarity—

Trey—

Her heart kicked up because she could think of only
one
Trey who was appearing at the event this weekend.

A rush of other details slammed into her mind, almost too fast for her to process everything.

I’m gonna see Uncle Bastian this time . . . is Aunt Abby making cake?

Sometimes he even makes them up. He gets paid to do that, too.

Bastian.
 . . .

Trey Barnes’s younger brother was Sebastian Barnes.

Abby . . . Abigale Applegate?
She’d read about the marriage to one of the Barnes brothers. The sexy tattooed one.

Slowly, she said his name, one more time, hoping he’d correct her. “Trey,” she said softly.

He seemed focused on the table now.

“I remember Clayton telling me that you told him stories . . . that you even made them up. You got paid to do it.”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “It’s a living.”

“I imagine it is . . . Mr. Barnes.”

He lifted his head now, faced her straight on. “Yeah, well . . . I could try to do something else, but apparently the one thing I’m really good at is making shit up.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

Still a little stunned, she looked over at Max, her gaze bouncing off the glass he had sitting in front of him. “I seem to recall that you owe me a drink.” That said, she snatched his mostly untouched whiskey. If she knew Max—and she did, it would be good whiskey and that was just what she needed. “I’m collecting.”

She tossed it back and closed her eyes as it burned its way down her throat.

“You know Trey, if you’re forgetting the basics of civilized society—like how to introduce yourself to a beautiful woman, maybe you should trade me seats.”

Ressa cracked open an eye at that low voice. Smooth, practiced and all but oozing with charm. And so pathetically obvious. His eyes roamed over her in a patently familiar way and she pointedly met his gaze, then looked away.

“Trey’s just fine where he is,” she said. “After all, this will be the perfect time to ask him for a favor . . . considering he’d been loitering in my library all that time.”

She slid him a look as she said it, watched as his eyes widened.

“A favor.”

“Don’t worry.” She gave him a cheeky smile. “It’s almost completely painless.”

“Baron, don’t sulk. Ressa’s not switching seats anyway.” Max tipped an invisible hat toward him. “Ressa is my guest and
I’m going to be selfish—you’d talk her ear off and I haven’t seen her in almost two years now. Far too long.”

He patted her shoulder and she shot him a grin.

He wasn’t being selfish. He knew her. He was keeping the peace. She knew far too much about Baron’s type—the sexist, piggish man-whore had never appealed to her.

Shifting more comfortably in her seat, she took another sip of whiskey. Trey Barnes had knocked her off course.

Over the next few minutes, introductions were made and she mentally filed them away, nodding and smiling. All the while, her brain was mentally whirling.

Trey.

Her sexy
CD
was Trey Barnes.

How was that possible?

Although, really, if she’d looked, she might have seen it.

If Farrah had actually been able to spend five seconds in his presence, she
probably
would
have seen it.

She settled into her seat and listened to the introductions, staying mostly quiet as the conversation flowed. It paused briefly as a server came around and took orders. Next to her, Trey shifted in his seat. She was painfully, acutely aware of the long, lean lines of muscle, tanned skin, elegant hands.

He glanced at her and she felt the rush of heat suffuse her. How she managed to just give him a casual smile, she just didn’t know.

He quirked a brow at her and then glanced up at the server. While he placed his order, Ressa tried to get a grip.
So not prepared for this
. Not for seeing him here. Had she bumped into him and he was one of the bloggers, that would have been hard enough, but finding out he was
the
author she was supposed to hunt down?

Shit
. He was probably on one of the extra panels Max wanted her to take over.

Which meant she’d be talking to him outside of this dinner, too.

Not prepared for that either!

Or for sitting next to him. He had a heady scent—cologne, very faint, though, mixed in with his soap, and under that, just
him
—it made her think of grass and the outdoors and sunshine. Sexy and male. She liked. So very much.

She definitely hadn’t been prepared to have those intense, blue green eyes focused on her again. His eyes could be classified as a weapon of mass devastation. Sleepy, heavily lashed and the kind of blue green you’d expect to find down in the tropics. Trey had the kind of eyes that could put woman into a swoon if he put his mind to it.

Would Farrah absolutely
hate
her if she gave into this crazy heat that grew hotter and hotter every second she was around him?

She was debating that very thing, had even decided that Farrah would understand. It was just one of those fantasy crushes, and besides, her best friend was crazy in love, and engaged. Besides, this was just a . . . thing. Some sort of fluke and once it was done and he was out of her system, she could go back to thinking straight.

Decision made, she cocked her head and turned to look at Trey as he was reaching for the glass in front of him.

That was when she saw the glint of gold on his finger.

His ring finger.

On his left hand.

Hands that had always been covered by the gloves he wore—the gloves made sense now. Therapeutic gloves, she imagined. The kind worn by writers to help with their wrists.

And they’d hidden that ring.

An ice-cold bucket of water splashing in her face wouldn’t have been more effective. Abruptly, she shoved back from the table. “Please excuse me for a moment.”

Okay, Farrah had rambled on and on about how private the man was, even more so over the past few years. And Ressa knew—obviously—that there had been a woman in his life. But nobody ever came to the library. Clayton never talked about his mother.

It was like she just . . . didn’t exist.

And how he’d given her that little paperweight for Mother’s Day.

She’d assumed . . .

That’s it, you
assumed.

Feeling the weight of their combined gazes on her, she sought out the restroom. Once inside, she moved to the sink and braced her hands on it.

She’d almost made a move on a married man.

“You’ve done gone and lost it, honey.”

All because a man had a beautiful pair of eyes and a slow, sexy smile.

Of course, she’d always been a sucker for a man with a beautiful pair of eyes and a slow, sexy smile.

Beautiful eyes, a slow sexy smile had damn near ruined her before and she’d fought long and hard to rebuild the mess that bastard had made of her life.

Her heart hammered and she sucked in a breath.

That man—she’d been right. She really
had
been better off getting away from him months ago.

He was dangerous.

“Just get through the weekend and you’ll never have to see him again.” The thought caused a hollow ache to settle inside her chest, though.

And instead of making her feel any better at all, it only made her feel worse.

*   *   *

Trey spent the next ninety minutes trying to puzzle out just what had happened.

One minute, she’d been easy and relaxed—oh, Baron—the prick—had gotten under her skin, but she’d handled him, and unless Trey had forgotten how to read people, she’d enjoyed knocking him down a peg, too.

She’d been warm, easy, relaxed.

And then, within the span of a heartbeat, something had changed.

He couldn’t even put his finger on it, try as he might. And he wanted to know what it was. Part of him had kept thinking that maybe he should . . . should . . .

Should what
?

Travis’s voice seemed to nag him—a brotherly earworm—

Are you just going to bite the bullet and ask her out?

He’d almost done it. That last day, before Clayton had gotten so upset.

There was nothing in the way now.

Nothing except for that one thing. The one that made his brain shut down, panic crowding out everything. That,
combined with the humiliation that had happened the one time he’d even tried . . .

So maybe it was better.

Maybe it was better that the air around them seemed to drop by about thirty degrees and she’d gone from sliding him those quick little glances, to barely looking at him at all.

None of that kept him sitting there next to her, thankful that the table was a barrier that kept anybody from seeing the evidence of just how much Ressa Bliss affected him.

Yeah. Maybe this was better . . .

But damned if he could really get himself to believe that.

*   *   *

“You really do need to think about taking that off,” Max said as they headed down the hall to their rooms.

Since he didn’t, at all, want to talk about it, Trey played dumb. “Take what off?” Inside his pocket, he rubbed his thumb across his wedding ring.

“Son, you know damn good and well what. That ring. The one you use like a shield to keep women from getting too close. The one you wear to pretend that maybe Aliesha isn’t really dead, isn’t really gone.” Max stopped outside his door and looked back at him. “It’s like as long as you wear that ring, you don’t have to let her go. You can keep that part of her. But, Trey, she is gone. It’s time you let go . . . and start living again.”

Jaw clenched, he looked away. Max couldn’t be any more off base if he tried, but Trey wasn’t about to go into the real reasons. But abruptly, he had a sickening realization.

Had Ressa seen his ring?

Son of a bitch
—

The news of Aliesha’s death had gone national—hell,
global
—but not everybody followed some of the things the media chose to sensationalize. Maybe she didn’t know . . . ?

“Did I ever tell you that I was married before Maude and I got together?”

Frowning, Trey shot Max a look.

But Max had a far-off expression on his face as he stared down the hall. “Amelia. We met in high school. Married the day after we graduated . . . man, I loved her so much.” That
distant look cleared. “We were together for four years. Four of the best years I ever had . . . and then, one night while I was working, a man broke into our home, raped her, killed her. I thought I’d die, too. The man I had been, he did die. She’d been gone a year when I sat down to write my first book—the purest shit I’d ever seen. It took me three years to finish. The day I finished, I went into our room and sat. Then I started to cry. I hadn’t cried. Not until that day.” He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath, held it for a long moment. Then he looked up, met Trey’s eyes once more. “That much time had to pass before I let myself cry enough to let her go. It wasn’t until then that I realized I wasn’t honoring her memory by keeping her so close. She wouldn’t have wanted that.” He clapped Trey on the shoulder and unlocked his room. “You should think about that ring, son. Think hard.”

As he slid inside, Trey found himself standing in the hall, staring down at the gold band on his hand.

Maybe Max hadn’t been as far off as Trey had assumed.

No, he wasn’t still clinging to Aliesha’s memory. He’d accepted her death. Let her go. But the ring was still a barrier. It was his shield, and sometimes a reminder.

And tonight, when he had actually thought about trying to reach out?

It had been the barrier he’d planned for it to be—only this time, he hadn’t really wanted that.