A Little Harmless Rumor (3 page)

“So, after all these years you worked with Lassiter and now he burns you?” Randy asked.

Sean looked at Jaime then down at his coffee. “No comment.”

The repeat of his response irritated Randy. He looked at Jaime expecting her to fire back, but she didn’t. She apparently found her coffee as interesting as Sean’s.

“Am I missing something here?”

Sean looked up, confusion clouding his gaze. Then, he glanced at Jaime. “You never told him.”

Jaime shook her head.

“Told me what?”

He had a really bad feeling. Sean was always one for payback and the confident expression on his face told Randy he had leverage—and lots of it.

“Well, love, you want to tell him, or do you want me to?” Sean asked Jaime.

Jaime said nothing, her expression giving nothing away.

“Okay, this is getting fucking old. You two have bad tempers, but I tend to kill people to get rid of my bad mood.”

Jaime still wasn’t saying anything, so Sean stepped in. “Amazing. I thought you two shared everything.”

His stomach started to sink. “Just what are you talking about?”

“What? You didn’t know that your lover is actually Royce Lassiter’s daughter?” His lips turned up into an evil smile. “Well, now you do.”

F
ury burned
a hole in Jaime’s gut by the time they got back to Sean’s. She had never had a more uncomfortable time with the two men, including when Sean found out Randy and Jaime were an item. Having Sean show up at her room at six in the morning had been bad enough, but finding Randy in bed with her had been horrible. If there had been an argument, she could have handled that, but there hadn’t been. Sean hadn’t said a word. He had walked away and shut them out. Just like he had today.

Thanks to his little bombshell, they had eaten in relative silence. Randy was rarely quiet, but while she had picked at her food, neither man talked much. Of course, he had disappeared the moment they had returned, and Randy had gone to the beach to brood. They were both going to be a pain in the ass to control.

“Why the hell do I put up with two stubborn men?”

Of course, there was no one to answer. If her father had been there, he would have told her she deserved it. And there was a part of her that thought maybe she did. She hadn’t always been truthful with everyone in her life. She had always reasoned that it had been to protect herself. Growing up on the streets in London hadn’t been easy, and even worse when she had hit puberty. After escaping, it became more about protecting her privacy. She never felt she would be accepted if people knew she had been orphaned. Then…it became a habit. Walking away from Sean all those years ago had hurt, but she could not accept it as a total mistake. For, if she hadn’t, she would have never had Randy.

It was through him she had learned how to be more open. And because of that, both of them had realized they were missing an important person in their lives.

She sighed. Truth was, her father had been scarce for months, although that was nothing new. From the moment she found out Royce was her father, they had both been avoiding each other. They worked together, but she had made it clear she wanted no one else to know about it. Sean finding out was something very odd. Her father wasn’t always the best man to do business with, but he was respectful of her wishes. Or she thought she he had been.

“When were you going to tell me?”

She turned around and found Randy standing in the doorway. Damn SEAL. He was always sneaking up on her that way, but she couldn’t be mad at him. She could hear the anger in his voice, but there was a thread of hurt. It was the last thing she wanted to do to him.

“I don’t know if I would have ever. It’s not like he’s really a father to me.”

“He’s
your
father.”

She nodded. How did she explain something so buggered up?

Randy crossed his arms and waited. Gone was the teasing lover she was so accustomed to. This was the man she usually spent time with in the field. This man made demands, and if you didn’t live up to them, he left you.

“Yes.”

“Are you really going to make me interrogate you?”

He would do it too. Randy could be very gentle, but when he was hurt, he tended to lash out. Worse, he always regretted it. It was better to just give in and talk about it.

She sighed and walked to the door. “I was raised an orphan, you know that.”

“So, you were truthful about that.”

She hated the tone of his voice. Randy didn’t trust easily, especially after Sean and everything they had been through. It had taken her months just to gain his trust so they could work together. Accomplishing the same in their personal relationship had been almost impossible.

And now it could all be lost.

“I didn’t know Royce was my father. He didn’t know. He had known my mother, or who he thought was my mother. It’s why he hired me, trained me.” And she still owed him for that. He had given her a way out of the poverty she had been so accustomed to. “He didn’t put the two things together because…well, he’s Royce. You know he doesn’t deal with consequences well.”

He nodded. “How did you find out?”

“He found out. There was a situation…you know, the shooting.”

He nodded. “And you needed a blood transfusion. That was when Sean and I were on our first mission together.”

When the two men had become lovers. Of course, that had to be brought up. Today just kept getting better and better. “Yes. I almost died.”

There was a beat of silence. “You said it wasn’t that bad.”

“That’s just…I told you before I knew you well enough. I didn’t want to remember anything about that job.” She could sometimes still hear the noise of the explosion, knowing she had lost her target…and the man she was supposed to protect. There were times she could feel the bullet ripping through her body, tearing through her flesh.

“Even that you are Lassiter’s child?”

“Especially that. I have B negative blood and I needed some. I was working that job with Royce. When he found out we had the same blood type, he started to investigate. Then, he had our DNA tested.”

“He did this without telling you?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. It still angered her that Royce had done all of it without her approval. The men in her life always seemed to be doing that. “Yes. You know the man.”

He sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She heard the pain, and she hated that the news had hurt him. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to. At first, I wasn’t ready to. You have this great family, and I have Royce and a mother who abandoned me. I felt…inferior.”

Understanding filled his gaze. He knew just how hard it was for her to say that, and she rarely shared. It was her love for him that had made it easier for her.

“I don’t know how Sean found out. Royce must have told him.”

Randy sighed again, then walked over to her. He stood behind her and, without hesitation, pulled her back against him into his arms. His warmth surrounded her, as did his love. They stood that way for a very long time. She could hear the waves from the ocean and smell the salt air. It had always been easy to talk to Randy, even about things like this. He accepted her as if they were the same. Probably because Randy did see them as the same. Her background wasn’t important to him.

“More than likely, Royce told him. The last year or so those two have been thick as thieves.”

“Yes,” she said. She thought about how secretive Royce had been in the last few months. There was something going on, something that both of them were keeping from her.

“What are you thinking?”

She smiled and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “It’s nice that you know me so well. I am thinking that those two are hiding something. Royce is never off the grid for me. I haven’t been able to get hold of him for weeks. The office just keeps telling me that he’s on a job.”

“When was the last time he was on the job?” Randy murmured.

“Exactly. Something is up, and it all has to do with what happened in Thailand.”

They stood there together, silent, and she knew his mind was turning over the problem.

“We have only one option.“

“And that would be?” she asked.

“Our only way of finding out is making Sean tell one of us.”

She snorted. “Good luck with that.”

“He’s our only source. You know he hasn’t told anyone else if we hadn’t heard about the burning. He’s lain low—well, as low as you can in a multi-million dollar house. Since we know Lassiter won’t be truthful with us, we’ll have to get it out of Sean.”

Which was going to be a bloody pain. The man held onto so many secrets, he didn’t know how to be truthful even if his life depended on it. But then again, it is one of the reasons he had survived as long as he did.

“True, but it isn’t going to be easy.”

Randy nodded. “Now, which one of us is going to deal with the dragon?”

S
ean hung
up and frowned again. Days now, and he could not get hold of her. Emma knew she should be answering, but getting her to do anything was like trying to get honesty from a politician. He had no real indication that they had been found out, but his gut was telling him something was about to happen. He didn’t know exactly what, but he did know that things had gone on for too long. Like with his first job with Randy, he knew something was off about the situation.

He walked over to the balcony of his room. They had been home hours, and he had avoided dealing with both Randy and Jaime. It was easy enough. He’d pissed them both off in some way. After breakfast, he had stayed in his room, working on his laptop and avoiding both of his ex-lovers.

“You were always good at brooding,” Randy said from behind him.

Sean didn’t glance around at him. He had been dealing with the issue of Randy and Jaime for a couple of years now, but he didn’t want to deal with it in his own house. Of course, he rarely got what he wanted.

He thought he had dealt with the sense of betrayal and jealousy, but at the moment, he couldn’t seem to shake it.

“No comment?” Randy asked.

He didn’t answer right away. Sean wanted to make sure he didn’t say something he would regret. He’d already done enough damage for the day.

“I didn’t think you needed one.”

“You were also good at being an asshole.”

He turned to face his old lover. “I am. So why are you two here and worried about me?”

Frustration marred his pretty face. The man really was gorgeous. Just like all those years ago, he reminded Sean of a California beach hunk. There were a few more laugh lines around his mouth and those sexy wrinkles around his eyes. It wasn’t fair that the man just kept getting better looking by the year.

“Fuck, I don’t know. Why do you think?”

The irritation wasn’t new. Sean had caused enough in the last few years, but the pain he saw was different. He didn’t want to deal with it, but at the moment, Sean was at a loss on how to avoid it.

“I really don’t know. It’s as if the two of you think I need to be taken care of.”

“Fuck, I always forget how frustrating you are.”

Sean found his first real smile in hours. “It’s amazing how many times you seem to forget that.”

Unfortunately, Randy did not return the smile like he had in the past.

“Are you really that stupid that you don’t know why we are here? Why we actually
ask
to work with you?”

They asked to work with him? That information knocked him off center and, of course, Randy picked up on it.

“Ah, so you didn’t know that.”

Sean shook his head, not breaking eye contact.

Randy’s features seemed to soften, and the hard gleam in his eyes faded. “Well we do.”

“Why would you do that?”

Randy shoved his hand through his hair. “You are such an asshole.”

“You just said that.”

Randy growled and Sean tried to ignore the arousal that spiked in his blood. “We do it because we care about you. The last few years, you’ve been taking too many chances. Like this job that got you burned.”

“I didn’t get burned.” The moment he said that, he regretted it. He needed to keep up the façade, to continue on as he had the last few months. It was the only way to make sure he kept Emma safe.

“You haven’t worked for months. That
is
getting burned.”

Dammit, he was sick and tired of that lie. He’d built a reputation and he had thrown the match to it. His reasons were honorable, and he didn’t regret them. Still, after a decade of building a status in the security business, it was difficult to deal with.

“Nothing to say? So, you are okay with letting your life go to shit?”

Anger boiled in his gut. Sean opened his mouth to fire back at Randy, but he snapped it shut. Telling Randy would put him in danger. It would also put Jaime in peril, because Randy would open his big mouth.

“What?” Randy asked.

Sean shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets. It was the only thing he could do.

Randy stomped closer and took him by the arms to shake him. He did it with such force that Sean felt as if his teeth had been rattled. Suddenly, Randy stopped, pulled him close, and slammed his mouth down on Sean’s. The kiss wasn’t teasing or even sexy, but more of a statement. Randy thrust his tongue inside of Sean’s. He tasted of coffee and seduction. That was all it took. His mind whirled as his body responded. Randy cupped Sean’s face, deepening the kiss. He needed this. It had been months since he had even wanted another lover.

As fast as it had started, Randy moved away. They were both gulping in deep breaths of air.

“What the fuck was that about?”

Randy took a moment or two before he answered. “You were always a smart man. Figure it out.”

“How do you think Jaime would feel about all this?”

Something moved over Randy’s expression that Sean could not seem to decipher. Then, Randy looked back to the door. Jaime stood there, leaning against the doorjamb. Randy turned back to Sean.

“I have a feeling she’s okay with it.” Randy cocked his head and studied him. “No comment?”

He said nothing, because he couldn’t form a syllable. His brain had shut down as hormones pumped through him. Randy trailed one finger down Sean’s cheek, then along his jaw. Without another word, he joined Jaime, and they walked out of the room together.

Sean stood there, irritated, confused, and with a fucking hard-on the size of Texas. It definitely hadn’t been his year.