Hidden Agendas (22 page)

"Potential husbands, girl," he snapped back. "They knew better than to step within so much as a foot of your bed without an engagement ring. I didn't send Kreiger to you as a potential husband, he was protection. He came with the team."

"And he's the one I chose, instead of you handpicking him?" She sneered. "For God's sake, where the hell do you get your nerve?"

"The same place he got his." His chin lifted proudly. "The Navy."

Emily snorted rudely at that. "For some reason, I don't think so. Cut my damned check now. You've dropped your little bomb and you can head to your precious Capitol Hill and make whatever trouble you decide to make today. But your interference with my life is finished. Do you understand me?"

"Like hell." His voice lowered. "Tell me, Emily, do you think he's going to give you free rein? That he's going to let you have all this freedom you crave? He lost his wife and child when he was working as a snitch with the police in New Orleans. He wasn't even eighteen. Do you think he doesn't remember every moment of it? Every fucking detail of their deaths? You think I try to wrap you up in cotton and protect you? Just wait until he gets his ring on your finger and a baby by you. He'll never give you a moment's peace."

In the past, the dangerous lowering of his voice had always indicated that the last measure of his patience had been exhausted. Emily had always walked lightly in response to it, not really understanding what that dangerous undertone meant, but not wanting to find out either.

Now, she really didn't give a damn.

"Do you understand me?" she screamed back then, feeling the tears edge into her eyes, the pain blooming in her chest as she ignored the revelations about her lover's past. "Write the fucking check. And so help me God, you send another man to my home and I'll have him arrested."

He was the one staring back in shock then.

"Emily—" He stepped toward her, his gaze becoming wary. "This is getting out of hand." He rubbed his hand over his face, his expression twisting with indecision then.

"I've never asked you for anything," she said then, forcing the words past her lips, feeling the pain claw at her stomach.

Kell had been married before? He had lost a wife and a child and she hadn't even known. She hadn't wanted to know. She had deliberately kept her distance from him, holding him back even as she tempted the passion that was so much a part of him.

"You've never asked me for anything," he agreed. "And maybe that's been the problem. You don't seem to need me at all."

"Oh, I needed you," she bit out. "When I tried to tell you I didn't want to stop mountain climbing. That I wanted to train in the mountains again. When I tried to tell you I wanted to join the Navy. I needed you, Dad. You just refused to hear any of it."

"It was too dangerous." He shook his head with a sharp jerk. "You weren't a child anymore. You wouldn't see there were limits. You were always pushing for more, going higher."

"Trying to live. Trying to be something other than daddy's little girl?" she asked mockingly. "Forgive me, Father, maybe I should have just bowed to your wishes, married the first jerk you brought home and had all those grandbabies you wanted. Maybe I should have found a way to screw my life up worse than I did when I tried to compromise with you instead." He pushed his fingers through his hair, a grimace contorting his features as he tried to figure out how to deal with her. "Don't bother looking for an edge on this one, Senator Stanton," she told him roughly. "I'll tell you what. You keep your damned money. When this deal with Fuentes is over, we'll call it even. And I'll make damned certain I live my life then, and you can live yours."

"You don't mean that." He caught her arm as she turned away from him to stalk to the door. "Emily. You wouldn't just walk away from me like that."

She stared at the portrait of her and her mother. Across from his desk, where he could see it. Where he could remember.

"Unlike you, Father, I don't need to control everything and everyone in my life," she said as she turned slowly back to him. "And I don't want to ever face living solely in the past. I'm not your little girl anymore.

I'm your adult child. Your daughter. If you could accept that, maybe you could get a life yourself." She pulled her arm from his grip, turned her back on the pain that flared in his eyes, and stalked to the doors.

As she pulled one open she stared back at him.

"Don't interfere with my life again. You won't like the consequences." She stalked out, coming face-to-face with five hardened SEALs, whose expressions—except for one—were blank, watchful.

The exception was a dark emerald green, rife with shadows and dark pain, as he watched her closely.

"I have things to do before the party tonight," she said sharply. "I'll meet you down here at precisely five o'clock. See if you can't at least give me the time I need to get ready before we have to have our little blow-up, hmm? Because, honest to God, if I have to deal with another stubborn, intractable SEAL for one more minute, I might shoot one of you with your own gun."

With that, she brushed past the five men, refusing to look back, refusing to let the tears that filled her eyes fall.

It was her own fault if she had gone to bed with a man she didn't know. Her own fault if she had allowed her father to have the ammunition he needed to strike back at her.

Her father hated losing a fight with her. He always had. It was one of the reasons she rarely let a confrontation evolve between them, because she was always the one who came away from it hurt.

At precisely five o'clock, Kell was waiting in the foyer, wearing his dress blues, and watching the stairs with a sense of unreality as Emily descended them.

She was a living flame. Incandescent, radiant. The long emerald gown should have been modest. On her, it was a statement of sensuality. Fragile silk cupped her full breasts before slender straps moved over her shoulders.

The high waist only hinted at her shapely body, but made it seem all the more desirable. Silk smoothed over her stomach and hips, then dropped in a fall of shimmering color to her feet, which were shod in matching heels that added at least three inches to her height.

A shimmering wrap trailed over one shoulder, flowing to the floor behind her as she moved down the stairs as regally as a queen.

Her auburn hair was upswept. Emeralds twinkled in the banked flames and artfully arranged curls, and her makeup gave her face an even more an exotic cast.

He could feel his cock thickening beneath his slacks. His heart raced in his chest.

She was the most beautiful creature alive.

Her blue eyes were shielded by her lashes, refusing to let him glimpse the emotions he knew must be raging inside her.

He had heard the argument from outside the office doors. He had heard the information her father had given her about his past. Information that even his commander hadn't been fully aware of.

She knew so little, yet it was enough to send a prickle of dread down his spine. She knew just enough to demand more later.

Hell, how had this happened so quickly? It seemed from one moment to the next his life had changed. He had gone from existing to living.

The senator had been wrong on one count though. Emily would have her freedom. Kell couldn't afford to try to hide her; to restrain her, in that direction lay madness. To begin with, she would never accept such a life with the man she loved. She would never love a man who tried to enforce it. For another, Kell would never be able to function knowing that his wife, possibly his children, would have no means of protection.

"Wilma Dunmore has done an excellent job putting this party together," she commented as she stepped into the marble foyer. "I'll need to spend a few minutes going over the details with her when we arrive, meeting with the caterers and so forth." She checked her purse as she spoke. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't make the same mistake my father's past bodyguards made and glower at everyone. It makes them uncomfortable."

"Yes, ma'am. No glowering." He nodded, restraining his smile.

She was ready for battle. He could see it in her, but even if he had been blind as a bat he would have felt it. It poured off her in waves.

The vixen was finding her claws and God help any man who tempted her to unsheathe them anytime soon.

"Why are you carrying that pack?" Her gaze went to the strap that dangled from his hand.

"Preparation's everything, sugar." He shrugged.

"Preparation. That reminds me." She opened her slender evening purse again and pulled free a folded piece of paper. "I was talking to Wilma last night about the security she has in place for the party. I marked a few weak areas here."

He accepted the paper slowly.

"What sort of weak areas?"

"I intend to discuss them with Wilma before the guests begin arriving," she stated. "But I didn't pinpoint the areas until I was looking at this earlier. There are several entrances and exits onto the grounds through a series of what were once deep gullies. James Dunmore's father, Winchester, had cement tiles installed in them and had them covered over when I was a child. I used to play in them with the Dunmores'

children when I visited there."

Kell stared at the sketched diagram she had put together. It was surprisingly well put together. It showed the mansion, the entrances and exits from the main house, and the location of the gullies.

"And these tunnels go into the house?" He frowned back at her.

"They lead to iron grates above the ground. They're easily large enough for a man to access. I wanted to check with her about security around them. At one time, there were locked gates at the entrances to the tunnels, but several of them run to a streambed several miles from the house. They could have forgotten about them. They never seemed too concerned with them in the past because the grates were always bolted. But if someone knew what he was doing—"

"They could get through the iron grates and into the party." Kell nodded slowly. "Don't mention this to Mrs. Dunmore. Let me contact Reno from the limo and see how he wants to handle this. If Fuentes has a foolproof plan to get to you tonight, this could be part of it."

Emily nodded. Kell had sent Ian into the study where she had gone to finish her calls earlier, to give her the information they'd gotten from the earlier e-mail.

She needed to trust him. Sending Ian to her rather than going himself had been a calculated risk.

"Those tunnels would be a perfect entry point. They're wide enough for a man your size to shimmy through, and the iron grates covering the openings are slightly wider. Winchester Dunmore never considered them a threat to the grounds though, and James and Wilma weren't living there at the time.

They could have just been forgotten."

"Let's go then." He extended his arm to her, staring down her at with a sense of possessiveness and pride. Damn, she was slick. The tiled gullies weren't on the security schematics that the team had been given of the estate, which meant they had either been forgotten as she suggested or simply not mentioned for darker reasons.

"I won't be able to stay in one place or keep you informed of every move I have to make."

"I'm sure I can keep up with you, Emily." He didn't smile, he had a feeling she was hanging on to that redhead temper by an inch and he didn't want to unleash it before this damned party. The last thing he needed was to allow her to go into this with her emotions more severely tested than they were already.

"We're coming out." He spoke into the transmitter at the collar of his uniform, testing the reception and the earwig connected with Ian's.

"All clear," Ian responded. "Proceed to the limo."

The butler gave them a concerned glance as he opened the door cautiously.

"Be careful, Miss Emily," he said softly as they neared him.

"I'm very well protected, Denny," she promised the other man as they moved toward the door. "We'll see you tonight."

Kell kept his gaze moving on the area outside, aware that Ian was doing the same until they had Emily safely ensconced in the limo. Ian closed the door behind Kell then moved to the front seat of the limo with the Secret Service agent assigned as chauffer.

Kell hit the button that slid the back window closed as he stared across the seat at Emily. Once they were enfolded in the intimate confines of the darkened area, he pulled his pack forward.

"I have a weapon I want you to wear." He pulled the Velcroed holster and leg strap from inside the pack as Emily began to lift the skirt of her dress.

Silk and taffeta whispered over her legs as his gaze was drawn to them. Black stockings encased her legs, each delectable inch revealed until the skirt edged over a slender leather strap that held a Beretta Bobcat snugly against her inner thigh.

His cock jerked and became so engorged he had to grit his teeth to hold back the growl that wanted to rumble in his chest. Like an animal. Wild with the need to mate.

The sight of that gun, its walnut grip gleaming in the light of the interior, held so intimately against her flesh, was like a punch to his gut. It should have flashed a warning to his overexcited brain; instead, all he could see were black silk stockings, pale silky flesh, and a woman's confidence in herself.

"Do you like it?" She ran her fingers over the weapon caressingly, the pale peach nailtips scraping lightly over the thin leather holster.

"Too much." He had to clear his throat to speak.

"Then you should really like this." The skirt dipped over the gun, rose above her other thigh, and he had to clench his fists to keep from touching her. Strapped to the opposite thigh, just a shade higher than the gun, was a small knife, carefully sheathed but definitely there, the hilt rounded and pointing to territory Kell hadn't explored nearly enough the night before.

He hadn't even known she was wearing the weapons. The location of the strapped holsters allowed her to move freely while not giving any of the telltale signs that she was loaded and damned dangerous.

"Does your father know about those?" He had to force himself to breathe against through the lust whipping through his veins.