Sleeping With the Enemy (15 page)

Bridgett sat in the chair he’d pulled out for her and Jay
spooned their dinner onto the warm plates. They ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes, both savoring the hearty meal his
housekeeper had prepared.

“So how was shopping with my sister?” he asked.

“Enlightening,” Bridgett answered, a surprised smile curving her lips.

Jay reached for his wine. “She didn’t by chance enlighten you as to who the father of her baby is, did she?”

Bridgett choked briefly before swallowing. “Why would she tell me something like that?”

“She wouldn’t. It was just a shot
in the dark.” Except her mannerisms were telling him it might not have been.

“Hmm,” was all Bridgett said as she buttered her roll.

Jay studied her as he took a sip of his wine. She had that evasive lawyerly look about her. Not only that, but she hadn’t said that Charlie didn’t confide in her.
Damn.
It would be just like his maniacal sister to tell Bridgett.

He swore viciously. “She
did tell you, didn’t she?”

Bridgett remained silent, her face an impassive mask.

“Damn it, Bridgett, you need to tell me.”

“I don’t ‘need’ to tell you anything.”

Jay threw down his napkin. “Suppose it’s some deadbeat who’s only after her money?” He pushed out of his chair and began pacing around the wine cellar, the candles flickering as he stalked past. “She thinks she’s mature
enough to handle having a kid, but she’s only twenty-one. Charlie acts first and thinks about the consequences later. I need to take care of this before it gets out of hand.”

“You don’t have to worry about the baby’s father,” Bridgett said quietly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ve agreed to protect her legally on that issue.”

Her words stopped him in his tracks. “Why
would you do that?”

“Because your sister asked me to.” Bridgett stood, tossing down her own napkin. Tears were shining in her eyes when she stood. “Believe me, I didn’t want to get involved. But I thought—I thought—oh never mind what I thought! Just
drop the issue about the baby’s father and try to support
her
pregnancy. It’s the least you can do.”

Jay grew angrier at her implication that
he hadn’t supported Bridgett’s own pregnancy. He couldn’t have very well supported her when he knew nothing about their baby. “Don’t make this about us,” he argued.

“There is no ‘us,’” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Like hell there isn’t,” Jay growled as he reached for her. He didn’t want another innocent hug like they’d shared earlier up at the house. Jay wanted more. He
wanted to possess her, to have Bridgett be his and only his. She was wrong. They were most definitely an “us” and he wasn’t going to let her go until he proved that to her.

“Jay,” she gasped as he pulled her into his chest. Her hand landed on his heart and the warmth of her palm through his shirt stopped him. His eyes locked with her damp ones. “A relationship based solely on sex isn’t going
to sustain us as a couple. Not in the long run.”

An aching began in the area of his chest, but he ignored it. He wouldn’t give her more, yet he couldn’t let her go. “Then let’s see how far we can go with it,” he said before taking her mouth in a searing kiss. She sighed against his lips, her body arching around his in surrender. Jay wasted no time, parting her lips with his own and delving
inside her warm mouth. She tasted like rich cabernet grapes straight from the vineyard. His vineyard. His woman.

Bridgett’s hands trailed up his chest to wrap around his neck. She made a little mewling sound at the back of her throat and he was instantly, painfully hard. He backed her toward the leather sofa as he shrugged out of his jacket. Jay eased her onto her back before covering her
with his own body, while her efficient fingers undid the buttons on his shirt. Jay feasted on her mouth and she frantically tugged at his T-shirt, finally tangling her hands in the hair on his chest.

He reluctantly left her mouth to savor the delicate skin on her neck. When her finger flicked at his nipple he returned the favor, taking her earlobe between his teeth. Her hips arched toward
his in response.

“I’m going to show you how well this can work,” he breathed into her ear.

Her lips grazed his cheek. “I’m not denying this isn’t good, Jay. I just don’t think it’s good for us.”

“Bridgett, please turn off your argumentative legal mind and let me do this my way.”

“Are you going to stop talking and hurry up, then?”

Jay kissed her again, ruthless and demanding.
She responded with another thrust of her hips and a sexy moan that nearly sent him over the edge. He reached for the tiny pearl buttons on her sweater, but opening them took too much effort so he shoved his hands beneath the fabric, where he could trace his fingers along the silky skin on her flat belly. Bridgett wrapped a leg around his hips just as his fingers made contact with her lacy bra. He
needed to be inside her. Now. He’d show her how well this could work, both now and forever.

“Boss?”

Bridgett stiffened beneath him at the sound of Linc’s voice outside the cellar.

“Whoa! Um, sorry, boss.” His voice came from within the room, which meant his assistant was likely getting an eyeful. Damn it, he was going to fire the kid. Bridgett shoved at Jay but he didn’t dare move
before adjusting her sweater.

“Um, boss. Sir. Mr. McManus. Sir,” Linc stammered. Fortunately, it sounded like he’d retreated to outside the cellar door again. “Donovan says he has to speak with you right away. It’s urgent. Sir.”

Bridgett swatted at his chest and Jay rolled off, allowing her to climb off the sofa. Jay remained where he was, painfully frustrated now.

“Boss?” Linc called.
“What should I tell him?”

Jay swore as he watched Bridgett right her clothes, her actions doing nothing to calm his body down. “I’ll call him from here. Please make sure Ms. Janik gets back to the house safely.”

She arched an eyebrow at Jay before picking up his suit jacket and handing it to him. “Am I under house arrest?”

If that was the only way to keep her, Jay might consider it,
but he was pretty sure he was winning the battle for her acquiescence. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, feeling her pulse ratchet up beneath his thumb. “It’s dark out there. I just want to make sure you’re safe.”

Bridgett leaned down and kissed the corner of his mouth. “If Don is calling about the case, be sure you share whatever he says with your lawyer.”

Jay grinned. “My goal
is to share everything with my lawyer.”

She stood up and gently tugged her arm free. “No, Jay. The offer you’ve made excludes you from sharing everything.” Her face was melancholy as she turned and left the cellar. Jay listened to Bridgett’s retreating footsteps as Linc followed behind her, mumbling an apology. He slammed his head back against the leather sofa. While he unleashed a swarm of
obscenities in which he pretended to fire everyone in his employ, Jay punched up Donovan Carter’s number on his phone. Whatever the Blaze chief of security wanted, it had better be important.

“Jennifer Knowles caved as soon as I got her away from her father,” Donovan said. “Apparently Jennifer’s father has been helping to provide for his grandchildren, but the idea of having the Blaze do the job his own son won’t do sounded like a better plan. He bought right into his former daughter-in-law’s plot.”

“So Jennifer’s father green-lighted the whole thing?” Jay fumed
as he paced the stone floor of the wine cellar. “What about the alleged sexual harassment at the photo shoot? Did that story change once she got out of Daddy’s earshot?”

“She said there was some truth to the accusations, but nothing physical. Alesha took some liberties when she wrote the petition up.”

Jay’s expletives bounced off the stone walls. “Hank is ready to fire those guys.”

“Some disciplining is probably in order, but firing them might be a little drastic,” Don said. “Asia thinks if the team issues a blanket apology with all of them up there at a press conference followed by an in-house mandatory sexual harassment sensitivity refresher, the team will be covered.”

“The bigger question is whether it will be enough to appease the commissioner and the crazy feminists?”

Don hesitated briefly. “As long as nothing else is leaked out.”

He scrubbed at the back of his neck. “Fine. Tell Asia to work out the details with Hank.”

“So now what?” Don asked. “Jennifer wants to tell her former sister-in-law to drop the case.”

“No!” Jay snapped. “We need her to keep playing along. Alesha Warren is just a cog in a larger ploy, and I still need to flush out who’s
trying to come after me.”

“Actually, Jennifer might be able to help with that.”

Jay stopped in his tracks, his breath stilling in his lungs. Could this actually be the last puzzle piece slipping into place? “How?”

“She said that
after
Alesha had begun compiling the case, she reached out to that blogger—the
Girlfriends’ Guide to the NFL
—in hopes for some free publicity,” Don explained.

“Tell me Jennifer knows how her former sister-in-law did it.”

“Even better,” Don said, his tone gleeful. “Jennifer has the e-mail address. In her haste to get court papers ready, Alesha accidently cc’d Jennifer on one of her e-mails to the blogger.”

Yes!
Jay pumped his fist into the air. He hadn’t felt this overjoyed since the Blaze won the Super Bowl. Finally, he could put an end to
this. “Don’t hold back, Don. Give me that e-mail.”

“I called in a favor over at NCIS and they’re trying to trace back the IP address,” Don said. “Whoever this blogger is, he or she has been pretty adept at hiding their path, but maybe we’ll come up with something this time.”

Jay already had a good idea who the blogger was and where he could find her. He just needed the e-mail address to
confirm his suspicions. “They won’t be able to come up with anything. She’s too smart to leave a trail. Just give me the e-mail and let me deal with it.”

Don was quiet for a moment on the other end of the phone. “You mean you know who it is?”

“I have my suspicions.”

It was Don’s turn to swear. “If I give you the e-mail address, you promise not to ‘deal with it’ on your own?”

Jay
snorted. “I can handle her.” He didn’t need former Special Agent Donovan Carter witnessing his retaliatory extortion.

“I’m serious. This isn’t something you should be handling on your own.”

“Donovan, unless you no longer want to work for the Baltimore Blaze, you’ll text me that e-mail immediately.”

Don mumbled something that sounded less than respectful for one’s boss. “I just forwarded
you the e-mail.”

“Thank you, Don. You and Asia, go home now. Tell Jennifer Knowles to sit tight and play along until we say otherwise. I’ll see you when the team arrives tomorrow night.”

He ended the call and clicked through to his e-mail. Jay released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding when he finally read the address.

“Gotcha.”

Jay found Linc in the office.

“Uh, sorry,
boss,” his assistant said sheepishly.

Jay held up a hand. “Enough. We’ve got work to do. I’ve got to take a quick trip to Las Vegas tomorrow. I’ll need the plane ready first thing in the morning.”

“Sure, boss. When do we leave?”

“‘We’ aren’t leaving. This is a solo trip.” Jay pushed aside a panel in the wall to access his safe.

“You’re leaving me here? With Princess Charlotte?
And your mother?” The look on Linc’s face was comical.

“Next time maybe you’ll remember to knock.”

“But, boss—”

Jay glared at his assistant. “No buts, Lincoln. I need you to hold down the fort in case of some sort of estrogen implosion.”

Linc grumbled about his grandmother calling him Lincoln when she was mad at it him, but Jay ignored his assistant. He shoved two file folders
into his briefcase, hoping
that they contained enough to make Delaney back down for good.

“Fine,” Linc finally said. “I’ll keep working on the Princess Charlotte problem.”

Jay paused in his packing. Bridgett knew who the father of Charlie’s baby was. He could probably get it out of her if he tried hard enough, but then again, he didn’t really want to. Sure, Jay wanted to know who the jerk
was who’d knocked up his sister, but he was surprisingly comfortable with Bridgett holding on to that secret. She could be trusted with it. Bridgett would do right by Charlie.

“That problem has been solved,” Jay said as he snapped the briefcase closed.

“What do you mean it’s been solved? You know who the guy is?” Linc looked and sounded astonished—almost as though he were nine and his
stepfather had just told him to suck it up, Santa Claus wasn’t real.

“I have no idea who the baby daddy is. But Bridgett does and that’s going to have to be good enough.”

Linc slumped back onto the leather sofa in the office. “Seriously? You’re going to let it go?”

Jay didn’t have the heart to totally burst the boy’s bubble. “For now.”

“So what am I supposed to do with a house
full of women tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. Talk about shoes?’ Jay headed for the door, eager to finish what he and Bridgett had started in the wine cellar. “Have the plane ready to go at eight tomorrow morning.”

Linc was whimpering much like the pup Charlie had accused him of being when Jay strode from the room headed for the stairs. His mother’s voice calling his name stopped his forward
progress.

“Jayson Michael McManus.”

Jay turned on his heel and glanced toward the far end of the family room. His mother sat in the shadows, a glass of wine in her hand, presumably gazing at the stars.

“The trifecta. You haven’t used all three names since I was a teenager.” Jay wandered into the dimly lit room. Tossing his briefcase on a chair, he headed for the liquor cabinet. A little
voice told him that this conversation would go a lot more smoothly accompanied by two fingers of Scotch.

“Yes, well, you haven’t been around me enough this past decade to have an opportunity to warrant a full dressing-down.”

Jay sipped at his Scotch. “How do you like the chardonnay, Mother?” He gestured at the wineglass dangling from his mother’s fingertips.

“It’s lovely, but you know
that it’s my favorite. You send it to me by the caseload.” She saluted him with her glass. “Stop trying to avoid this conversation.”

He perched on the arm of the upholstered chair across from the sofa his mother was curled up on. “I thought we were having a conversation.”

“Really, Jay, you’re incorrigible.”

He smiled at his mother. “I haven’t heard that word since SAT prep.”

She
shook her head and took a sip from her wine. “I’ve raised two headstrong, disobedient children.”

Jay wanted to take exception to her use of the word
raised
but while his mother was most times too absorbed in her work to notice either of her children, her neglect was always emotional, not physical, and never on purpose. His stepfather used to explain to Charlie that her mother had a brilliant
mind, and sometimes that brain didn’t allow her to share her time with others—even her children. It was a crappy thing to say to a first grader, but Lloyd Davis hadn’t exactly been the role model of a demonstrative parent either.

“What is she doing here?” his mother asked.

Jay was honestly perplexed as to which “she” his mother was referring to. “Charlie? I don’t know. She just showed
up,” he lied. “She’s obviously bored with the beautiful people this week so she’s hiding out here.”

“I wasn’t talking about Charlie. Although shame on you for not telling me immediately when she arrived. I worry
about her and I’m tired of having to find about her comings and goings from that obnoxious TMZ program.”

“And this is my problem, how?”

“It’s never been your problem,” his
mother snapped. “She adores you. Me, she just tolerates. Lloyd should have never allowed his will to be written to give her access to her trust at eighteen. She was too young. Of course she’d rebel against me.” She swallowed hard and jerked her chin up. “Never mind. I can wait Charlie out. One day she’ll have children of her own and she’ll understand how difficult it is to be a mother.”

Jay
choked on the Scotch he’d just swallowed, trying not spew it all over his mom.
Damn.
Clearly, Charlie hadn’t come clean with her.

“I’m talking about Bridgett Janik,” his mother continued. “Why is she here after all these years? You loved her and she broke your heart. I watched you nearly self-destruct after she lied about the baby. Don’t tell me you’re giving her a second chance to do the
same?”

Jay coughed now, the lack of air bringing tears to his eyes. Was he giving Bridgett a second chance? At a sexual relationship, yes, but not at his heart. Somehow, he didn’t think his mother would understand that, though. “It’s business, Mom. Her firm is representing the team in a crazy class action case.”

His mother tsked at him. “According to your sister, your lawyer slept in your
room last night. With you. That’s monkey business if you ask me. And don’t you dare disregard those cheerleaders who represent your team as ‘crazy.’ You’d better be paying those women a decent wage as well as providing them a safe work environment.”

He had to smile at his mother’s staunch protection of working women everywhere. “The case is specious. By all accounts, the Sparks are not only
happy with their pay, but also their working conditions. The truth will win out and the case will be settled very soon.”

“Does that mean your ‘business’ with your lawyer will be over very soon, too?”

Jay’s gut clenched at the thought. After years of being apart from Bridgett—of despising what she did—the thought of letting her go again was unthinkable.

His mother sighed. “Never mind.
Your face says it all.”

“And what does it say, Mother?”

“That you’ve forgiven her. And you still love her.”

He gulped down the rest of his Scotch. “You’re wrong on both counts. But we’ve moved on.”

Coming to her feet, she walked over to Jay and cupped his cheek. “For such a smart man, you really don’t get it. You’ll never be able to move on. Not without forgiving her. And it’s
impossible to keep your heart out of any relationship, no matter how hard you try. Love just doesn’t work that way.” She kissed his cheek. “You’ve been aloof and guarded since that summer, not allowing anyone to get close to you. I want to see you happy, not just involved in a calculated ‘business’ relationship. That’s not healthy, Jay. And no matter how superhuman you think you are”—she tapped his
chest—“it’s dangerous here.”

Jay didn’t bother enlightening his mother that he no longer had a heart to risk. He’d left it in Italy all those years ago.

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked, standing in the doorway.

“No,” he said. “I have business I need to attend to all day.”

She sighed again. “All right, then. But I’d like to find some time before the party to speak with both you
and your sister together. It’s important.”

“Is everything okay?” A trickle of unease ran up Jay’s spine.

“Everything is fine. I just have something to discuss with you two while I have you both in the same house. That doesn’t happen often enough.”

The regret in his mother’s voice made him even more uncomfortable. But the last thirteen years hadn’t been entirely his fault. “I’ll have
Josie arrange a nice lunch on Saturday.”

His mother nodded. “Good night, then.”

Jay heard her footsteps disappear up the stairs, but he
remained where he was, staring out at the darkened vineyard. The stars in the night sky were not as bright as they were in the valleys of Northern Italy, but Jay still felt a profound connection to the place that had changed his life.

•   •   •

“Damn it, Bridgett, the condom broke.” Jay looked across the cab of his pickup truck at Bridgett, her much calmer face illuminated by starlight as she drove them toward the airport in Verona.

“I know that, Jay. I was there, remember?” She shot him a cheeky smile before returning her eyes to the road. “Please don’t worry about that now. Your stepfather just died. You need to get home to your
mother and Charlie.”

“I wish you’d come with me.” It was the first time he’d admitted that to her, but suddenly the thought of leaving her behind was more painful than the prospect of attending his stepfather’s funeral.

She smiled again, but kept her eyes on the road. “I’ll be with you in spirit. Besides, you’ll have too much to do to think about me.”

His stepfather’s sudden death
had been a shock. When Jay’s mother had finally reached him, she’d begged him to hurry home for Charlie, saying that the little girl was understandably devastated. She needed her big brother now more than ever. He was booked on the first flight out the following morning and Bridgett was making the two-hour drive to get him there on time. Jay was grateful to have a few more hours to spend with her.

The last seven weeks had flown by while both of them worked during the days and spent their nights in each other’s arms. He’d told her about his family, his friends and their dream of opening a vineyard. Bridgett had slowly and irrevocably become a part of that dream, too. Jay couldn’t imagine a life without her.