Millionaire in a Stetson (17 page)

“Can this wait until morning?” she asked no one in particular.

“You have to go back to D.C.,” Sawyer told her.

She rounded on him. “Are you going to tie me up and throw me in a trunk?”

“Tempting.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Caleb put in. “Niki, how drunk are you?”

“I’m not drunk.”

“She’s not drunk,” Travis echoed.

“Is that what you’re telling yourself?” Sawyer challenged him.

“Really?” Travis took a step toward Sawyer. “Seriously?
You’re
going to lecture
me?
”

“Time out,” Caleb called, making a T sign with his two hands. “Niki, Sawyer wants to help you find the diary.”

“Certainly he does.” Her head was spinning just enough to be disorienting.

Sawyer would help her find the diary, and then he’d take it from her and hand it over to his family.

Gabriella had warned her they’d come after it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Sawyer’s uncle was in the diary. Gabriella had made it clear the diary was Niki’s ace in the hole, and she should protect it from all comers.

“Nobody gets the diary,” she told Sawyer with conviction.

His tone went softer as he spoke to her. “Many people will try.”

“They won’t find it.”

“That’s not the point. They’re terrified of you, Niki. They’ll hunt you until they find
you.
”

“Like you did?” she challenged.

“Like I did,” he admitted. “I was the first, but I won’t be the last. You’re in trouble.”

“Because of
you,
” she couldn’t help pointing out.

“Not anymore. I’m on your side now.”

Niki looked to Caleb. Over the past few months, she learned he was cool and smart in any circumstance.

“Do you trust him?” she asked.

“I’ll come to D.C. with you,” Caleb told her.

“You can’t,” said Sawyer.

Caleb’s lips tightened in a frown.

“If they see you with her, her safety net is gone. Until we straighten this out, nobody can connect Niki with the Terrells.”

“Then, I’ll go,” said Travis.

“Same problem,” Sawyer returned.

Travis squared his shoulders. “Well, we’re not entrusting her to you alone.”

Niki was beginning to feel like a prize in a tug-of-war. “Can we please stop?” This argument was getting them nowhere.

“Have you read the diary?” Sawyer asked her.

“No.” The only reason she told him the truth was because she was sick and tired of lying. It wasn’t because she owed him anything.

He took a few steps toward her. “Here’s the thing. They know who you are, but you don’t know who they are. Step one, is to identify them. To do that, we have to read the diary.”

“There is no ‘we.’” Though she didn’t disagree with the rest of it. She needed to put names to these former lovers of Gabriella’s.

“I know D.C.,” Sawyer offered reasonably. “I know the city, and I know the players. I can keep you safe there.”

“I don’t need your help.” She wanted to get out from under this threat. But she didn’t want anything more to do with
Sawyer.

Instead of answering her, he looked to Caleb, Reed and then Travis, setting his gaze on each of them. “If I hurt her in any way, I know you’ll come after me.”

“Damn straight,” said Reed.

“And I have complete faith in your ability to annihilate me.”

“Don’t doubt it for a second,” said Travis.

“Does anybody care what I think?” As Niki glanced from man to man, she realized they didn’t. The living room contained more testosterone than the Giants starting lineup.

“Fine.” She agreed. Though she wasn’t giving in. Instead, she was taking control.

The threat was in Washington, and to Washington she would go.

* * *

Niki watched the clouds slip past below them from the window of Caleb’s private jet. She understood the wisdom of not traveling on a commercial airline, but she hated being cooped up all alone with Sawyer for hours. She wished she’d thought to tell him to take a commercial flight, coach, an inside seat with screaming toddlers on either side.

Reed probably would have gone for it. Then again, given what she’d learned about the Layton family, Sawyer would have simply called in his own jet. That might have kept him away from Niki, but it would have done nothing for her revenge fantasy.

“You feeling okay?” Sawyer asked, breaking the silence that had stretched for over half an hour. He was in a seat on the opposite side of the eight passenger jet, one row ahead.

“I’m not speaking to you,” she informed him.

He turned. “You seemed a little tipsy last night. I was worried you might be hungover.”

“That’s none of your business.” She’d been slightly tipsy after the margaritas, and she was a little wooly this morning, but that was hardly a federal crime.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he repeated to her.

“You didn’t,” she told him airily. “You embarrassed yourself.”

He was silent for a moment. “We both know that’s not true.”

She looked at him for the first time. “Do we? I’m the one who took pity on you and faked it.”

A muscle flexed in the side of his cheek. “I was pretty sure you had to have heard me.”

“When you called me Niki?” She forced out a laugh. “Yeah, I recognized my own name.”

“If you hadn’t—never mind. Stupid question. I’m having a car meet us at the airport.”

“Whatever.” She waved a dismissive hand.

She’d thought long and hard overnight, scrambling for new ideas of where the diary might be hidden. But there was simply no place left to look.

Maybe if she’d been thinking more clearly last night, she could have articulated that logic. But that chance was gone, and she was here, and she was going to have to suffer through Sawyer’s company for the next couple of days.

“We have to stop at the Layton mansion.”

Sawyer’s words took her by surprise.

“I’m not going anywhere near that place.” Charles Layton was apparently one of her most powerful enemies. She sure wasn’t delivering herself into his hands.

“It won’t take me long,” said Sawyer. “There’s a guest house I use. You can’t even see the mansion from there.”

“Drop me off somewhere first.”

“There’s nowhere safe.”

“A restaurant? A hotel?”

“I’m not dropping you off in a public place. And I’m definitely not leaving you on your own. We don’t know who’s watching for you, and where they might be.”

“Nobody will recognize me dressed like this.” Never mind the new hair color and glasses, she’d dressed in plain jeans, a pink tank top and a roomy, white hoodie, that camouflaged most everything, including her face when the hood was up.

“That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. And it’s my choice, Sawyer.”

“He’ll never know you’re there.”

“Was this your plot from the start?” she demanded, her imagination suddenly taking flight, causing her to seriously question the wisdom of trusting him at all. “Are you kidnapping me?”

Was she going to appear on the evening news? A recent picture, maybe from last year’s cotillion flashing on the screen while the announcer talked about Gabriella’s death and Niki’s subsequent disappearance or murder?

Her stomach churned with a wave of anxiety.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sawyer responded.

“I won’t go quietly,” she warned him.

When they exited the airplane, would there be time to flee? Would he have armed guards to meet them? Would they gag her and toss her in the backseat of a car?

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Sawyer intoned. “Stop.”

“Are you truly evil?”

“No.”

“I think you are.”

“I’m not.”

“I think you’re going to kill me and take your chances with Reed and Caleb. How will you get away from them, Sawyer? Do you own a secret Caribbean island?”

“Do you need a drink?”

“I’m not letting you get me drunk.”

He gazed at the ceiling in what looked like a prayer for patience. “You are perfectly safe, Niki.”

“I’m in a lot of danger,” she retorted.

“Yeah, well, that may be true. But you’re not in danger from me.”

“We both know you’re a liar.”

He laughed at that, reminding her of why she’d been attracted to him. “And we both know you’re pure of heart?”

“I never blackmailed anyone. And neither did my mother.” Her stomach was beginning to calm down. She realized she couldn’t bring herself to believe Sawyer was a coldhearted killer.

“We’ll know for sure once we read the diary,” he said.

“I don’t think we’ll find it.”

“You probably want to start thinking about places to look.”

“I’ve looked everywhere.”

“If you’d looked everywhere, you’d have found it,” he offered calmly.

His cool reasoning made her mad.

“I’m not speaking to you,” she reminded him.

“I can tell.”

She pressed her lips together. If he wasn’t so insufferable, she might be able to keep silent. Still, if she didn’t speak up for herself and her mother in all this, who would?

“Why do you want to go to your mansion?”

Sawyer glanced laconically at his watch. “You lasted exactly twenty-five seconds.”

“Shut up.”

“I can shut up, or I can answer your question, but you’re going to have to choose.”

“I have a lot at stake,” she defended.

“I never said otherwise.”

She sucked in a steadying breath. “
Why
do you want to go to your mansion?”

“Because, if I show up in D.C., and I don’t stop to see Charles, he’ll get suspicious.”

“Are you planning on telling him that you found me?”

“He already knows I found you.”

“Does he know your cover’s blown?”

“No.”

“Will you tell him that?”

“No.” Sawyer paused. “Luckily for you, I’m a damn fine liar.”

“Did he help you buy the ranch?” She had spent the last day and a half trying to wrap her head around Sawyer purchasing an entire cattle ranch as a cover story.

“I bought the ranch.”

“I can’t understand the super rich.”

“You can’t understand yourself?”

“I’m not superrich.” She knew Gabriella had been very well off. But she couldn’t approach the inter-generational wealth of people like the Laytons.

“Have you
checked your Swiss bank account lately?” Sawyer asked.

“I haven’t had time. And how do you know she had a Swiss bank account?”

“I can afford good investigators.”

Pain was beginning to throb to life at the base of Niki’s neck. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the white leather seat. “If you people know I have money,” she said, enjoying the darkness. “Why do you think I’d resort to blackmail?”

“Nobody thinks you want money, Niki.” Sawyer’s deep voice seemed to surround her, and her name on his lips sent a deep shiver along her spine. “They think you want power.”

“Tell them I don’t.”

“I will. Just as soon as we find out who they are.”

Ten

I
t was a straightforward matter to get Niki into the guest house. He had been sneaking in and out of it, at all hours of the day and night, with or without company, since he was sixteen years old.

As a teenager, he’d commandeered the little house and customized it to his tastes. Though he now spent most of his time in his own penthouse in Georgetown, he still often stayed over.

“You’ll be safe here,” he found himself telling Niki as he pulled the suite door shut behind him. Once he’d uttered the words, he realized they sounded overly dramatic.

She glanced from the hunter-green wraparound sofa, out the view window that overlooked the grounds and the public golf course beyond, to the narrow, wrought-iron staircase that led to his loft bedroom.

“Bathroom is through that door,” he told her. “I hope you’re not too hungry.”

They hadn’t eaten anything on the plane, and he had nothing to offer her here. Hopefully, he could get away from his uncle fairly quickly, and they could rustle up a meal.

“I’ll survive,” she told him, wandering toward the window. “As long as you’re not planning to kill me off to keep me quiet.”

“Not today,” said Sawyer.

“Comforting.”

He moved up behind her. “Tell me you’re not truly frightened.” He couldn’t stand it if she was.

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to expect. Since the day my mother died, I’ve been jumpy and anxious, and I’d love to know how to make it stop.”

He touched her shoulder, but she shrugged away.

He let his hand drop back to his side. “I’m trying to help you.”

“So, you’ve said.” She turned. “But your priority is your own family, and I’m a threat to them.”

Sawyer didn’t know how to respond. She was a threat to his family. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about her. She was as much a victim in this as anyone, maybe more so. Gabriella might have catalogued those men’s secrets, but the men were the ones who’d stepped out of line to begin with.

Niki had never stepped out of line. She hadn’t picked her mother. Fate had done that for her.

“I’ll be as quick as I can,” he told her.

She simply shrugged in return. “I’ll be here.”

He hesitated. “You won’t try anything stupid, will you? Don’t leave, Niki. I’m your best hope.”

“You’re my worst nightmare.” She looked sexy, vulnerable, compelling to the extreme.

He had to fight to keep from pulling her into his arms. “If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else.”

“Is that how you sleep at night?”

There were times in his life when he didn’t sleep much at all. And this was one of those times. There was no good answer here. No way for everyone to win. But he’d vowed to himself that Niki wouldn’t be the loser.

“Wait here,” he pleaded. “Just…wait for me.”

He left her then, praying she’d do the smart thing.

He drove the main driveway, parking out front and mounting the wide, semicircle staircase to the entry foyer. There, he took a short hallway along the front of the mansion to his uncle’s home office. Sawyer had checked earlier and learned Charles would be working from the mansion.