In Plain Sight (Stolen Hearts) (2 page)

What the hell…

He heard the woman screaming and the word police
.
Then silence.

They came immediately.

Four days later

Rafe groaned and buried his pounding head beneath the pillow. “Close the damned curtains,” he rasped.

“Get up.” A large hand grasped his shoulder and shook him. It felt like someone was stabbing a dozen knives into his head.

“Go to hell.” He burrowed deeper.

A second later he was exposed as the blankets were whipped off his bed.
Goddamn it.
Rafe came up swinging. Someone grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back and flipped him on his stomach, placing a hard knee in the middle of his back.

“Listen, you piece of shit. I don’t give a damn if you rot in this bed for eternity. But you’re breaking Sophie’s heart. You’re damn well going to get up.
Now
. You’re coming home with me.”

Aw, hell. Gage.
His sister had sicced the Terminator on him.

“Get off my freaking back,” Rafe murmured into his pillow.

The pressure in the middle of his back eased off as Gage let go of his arm.

“It stinks in here. Come on, you need a shower.”

As if he were a rag doll, Gage lifted Rafe over his shoulder and dumped him into the shower. He cranked the water on before slamming the shower door shut.

“Damn it!” Rafe blindly groped for the taps as cold water blasted into his face.

“I’ll put the coffee on,” Gage tossed over his shoulder before leaving the room.

Rafe stripped off his T-shirt and underwear when the water turned warm. After a few minutes of staring blindly at the tiled wall and trying to calculate if he was still drunk, he grabbed the soap and started scrubbing.

How long had it been since he’d bared his ass to the world then come back to his apartment to hide in every way he could think of? Three days? Five? However long, it wasn’t enough. Basil Freeman, the creative genius behind the ad company that had spent top dollar for him to model a new men’s underwear line, had diabolically decided the only way they could save the campaign after all the bad publicity was to run with it.

Which meant in addition to the pictures the press had published of him handcuffed and being dragged off to jail as the Indecent Interloper, Basil had insisted he pose bare-assed with only the model’s hand on his butt and a pair of men’s underwear hanging from her other hand. If he knew Basil, the man had persuaded the underwear company to plaster pictures of his bare butt all over the city. Hell, why stop there? Might as well do all of Europe. To top it off, the modeling agency he’d worked with for the last three years had terminated his contract. Not that that was necessarily the worst that could happen to him. He’d planned to quit anyway, but on his own terms.

If he ever came across Bridget O’Neill in this lifetime, he’d even the score if it killed him. How in God’s name had she figured out what he was up to in such a short period of time? He’d been over and over it in his mind. All he’d done was follow her.

When his legs started to tremble from the effort of remaining upright, he turned off the water, wrapped a towel around his waist and sat on the edge of the tub.

Sophie
. Hell. Of course, his twin sister would be worried about him. He should have texted her or called or something to let her know he’d needed a few days to wallow in self-pity. He was a selfish moron.

Still, it was a bit extreme for Gage to fly to Paris to check on him. Sophie knew him better than anyone. She should have realized he’d pull himself together after a few days. That’s what survivors did, right? They kept pushing forward.

Except Gage had said something about taking him home. He groaned and covered his face with his hands. The circus must be worse than he’d anticipated if even Gage thought he needed rescuing.

He jerked his head up when Gage knocked against the door.

“Are you still alive in there?”

“Barely.”

“Got some eggs cooking. Don’t be long.”

Rafe stood and grimaced at his reflection in the mirror as he heard his brother-in-law move away from the door. No one would have recognized the bleary-eyed, unkempt man looking back at him. He picked up his razor, but put it down again. What better way to camouflage his face than by growing a beard?

He brushed his teeth and his hair and slipped into his bedroom for clean clothes. Ugh. Gage was right. The room stank of stale sweat and booze. He pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans, then propped the window open with the slab of wood he used to keep it up.

Feeling as old as the building around him, he shuffled down the hallway to the kitchen. Gage was sweeping an armload of take-away cartons into a sack when Rafe entered the room. Under normal circumstances, he managed to keep his place under control with the help of a cleaning lady once a week.

“What did you do?” Gage asked without looking up. “Keep ordering take-out, then pass out before you could eat it?”

Rafe put his hand up. “Could you not—” he gestured toward the mess, “—do that right now?”

Gage glared at him over the slate gray counter. “Sit before you fall down.”

Rafe poured himself onto a stool and leaned against the half-cleaned counter. His stomach turned over at the smell of wilted bean sprouts and congealed grease.

“You okay?” Gage slid a coffee in front of him.

“You were right. We should get rid of this crap.” He grimaced at the ripe food in front of him.

“I’ll do it. You stay still. Unless you’re going to hurl. I’m not cleaning that up.”

Rafe closed his eyes and sipped the coffee. Good old Colombian coffee. Gage must have dug it out of the back of his refrigerator “Where do you put your garbage?” Gage asked.

“A bin out back of the building,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Is there a back way out?”

Rafe cracked one eye partially open. “The press is still here?”

“There were a few when I first arrived, but most of them took off a few minutes later. Someone else got caught with their pants down, probably.” Gage smirked, then his expression turned dark. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“That a beautiful woman wanted to give me a blow job.”

“In Pierre Dejarnatt’s home? Do you know who he is?”

The skin on the top of his head tightened like a vise. “Everyone knows Dejarnatt. He’s France’s unofficial ambassador for the arts.”

“And a famous jewelry designer. Interesting that O’Neill chose his apartment to…whatever.”

“Fascinating.” Rafe buried his nose in the mug for another hit of coffee. He’d gone over the scene a million times in his head, and it never got better. He was an imbecile. Period.

“Try to eat those eggs or at least the toast. I have a team coming in to clean out your apartment in an hour. We’ve got a flight to catch. You’ve gotta get it together enough to grab what you want to take with you now. Everything else will be shipped later.” Gage headed for the door.

“Slow down, man. What team? I’m not going anywhere.”

“The team—” Gage stopped and breathed through his nose, sounding like a bull about to charge, “—is a bonded clean-up team. They mostly clean up messy scenes, like when there’s been a murder. Or when someone has to discreetly and quickly disappear and doesn’t want to leave behind anything they don’t want to show up on eBay next week.”

Rafe opened his mouth to speak, but Gage pointed a finger at him. “Shut up and listen. Sophie’s pregnant.”

For a second, Rafe couldn’t breathe.
Sophie’s pregnant
. His eyes filled with tears before he could control himself.

She was his twin, and they’d been through…everything together. Goddamn it. He swiped at his eyes and sucked in a breath. “She’s pregnant?” he croaked.

“Yeah.”

“Wow. She’s going to be an incredible mother.”

Gage relaxed his combative stance. “If everything goes okay. She’s only three months, and she can’t get a handle on her morning sickness. She’s losing weight. And now she’s having trouble sleeping because she’s so worried about you. I almost had to lock her up to stop her from coming with me…”

Alarm shot through him. “Who’s with her now? You didn’t leave her by herself, did you?”

Gage glared at him. “I’m not the bonehead here. My sister Maisie and her son, Andy, are staying at the house her until I get back.”

“I’ll call her.”

Gage grabbed his arm. “I already did. Told her you were okay, and we’d be home in a couple days. If I said we were flying tonight, she wouldn’t even try to sleep. You’ll see her in a few hours.”

Rafe didn’t know anything about pregnancy, but even taking into account how protective Gage was when it came to Sophie, flying all the way here to drag him home
right this minute
seemed extreme.

“Other than the morning sickness, she’s okay, right?”

Rafe’s stomach rolled over when Gage’s mouth tightened. “The doctor’s ordered bed rest. He’s worried she might lose the baby. Hell!” He ran a hand over his short hair. “Trying to get Sophie to slow down is like telling a bullet to get back in the gun. You’re the only person she’ll listen to. You come home with me, I’ll owe you.”

“Sophie’s my sister. You don’t owe me a damned thing.”

For the first time since Rafe had woken, Gage smiled. “You’re not nearly as big an ass as people think. Come on, let’s get you packed and get out of here.”

Feeling suddenly energized—Sophie pregnant! That was huge—Rafe followed Gage into his bedroom. “What’s the story on this team you hired?”

“Like I said, they pack your stuff and clean everything. No pictures hanging around that might embarrass you. No old bank statements. They’ll do a good job. Don’t worry. And you’re paying,” he continued. “It took all my extra cash to fly here and buy us return tickets.”

Embarrassed, Rafe looked at his bare feet. “I’ll pay you back.”

“I don’t care about the money, Rafe. I just want Sophie and our baby to be okay.”

“Right.” He thought he couldn’t feel any worse, but apparently he could. A lot worse. He grabbed his phone and turned it on. There were about a billion texts and messages waiting for him. Had Bridget O’Neill left him a message? When the thought flickered across his mind, he shoved it out of sight.

“Can I pay the company online?”

“Yeah, I got the info for you.” Gage dug his wallet out and gave him a slip of paper.

Rafe absently took the paper as he logged into his bank account.

“What the hell?” He sank onto the unmade bed. He didn’t see the final deposit for his work on the underwear ad.

“Trouble?” Gage asked.

“No, I…” He stared at the numbers as his headache returned with a vengeance. “Just a sec.” He dialed his agent.

“Pascotto! My God, where have you been? I’ve been trying to contact you for the last two days.”

“What’s going on, Marshall? I just looked at my bank account. It’s not as healthy as it should be.”

“Yeah, about that. Don’t suppose you noticed that tiny clause near the end of the contract that mentions damaging the company’s image?”

Rafe squeezed his eyes shut. “That’s what my agent is supposed to be for,” he barked into the phone.

“I’m sorry, Rafe. They refused to pay the last installment. We’re going to fight them, though. KB’s stock has shot through the roof since they unveiled your…the ad campaign. I’ve already got a lawyer working on it.”

“I should have known Basil would screw me over. Take that miserable creep for every penny you can. Tell him if he don’t pay the money he owes me, I’ll do something so outrageous I’ll kill the campaign.” He tossed his phone on the bed.

“What now?” Gage asked from behind him.

“Thanks to Bridget O’Neill’s little trick, I’m short a hundred K.”

He grabbed an armload of clothes and stuffed them into a bag. After he went home and made sure Sophie was all right, he was going to find O’Neill and…he had no idea what he’d do when he found her. She’d brought down his career and cost him a hundred thousand dollars. Getting his hands around her neck would be a good place to start.