Unmasked (11 page)

No, of course not. She loved it. What kind of friend would he be if he wanted her business to fail? That was the whole idea behind staying with her—to make sure she wouldn’t lose the one thing she loved.

I honestly don’t know what I would do without it.

He waited as Charlotte unlocked her office door, then pushed it open and checked the room. There was no sign of disturbance. Everything was as it had appeared the previous evening. That was good, too. Right, everything was working out as well as either of them could have expected.

But somehow the door slipped from Jackson’s grasp as he was closing it, slamming into the frame with enough force to shake the antique glass fanlight that was set into the wall above it.

Charlotte paused behind her desk, her suit jacket in her hand. She took her silver cell phone from the pocket and put it on the desk, draped the jacket neatly over the back of her chair and returned to where he stood. “Okay, what’s going on?”

He flexed his fingers and looked at his hand. “I can’t grip things that well. Sometimes it’s hard to judge how much strength to apply.”

She took his hand between both of hers and shook her head. “Don’t try to snow me, Jackson. You’ve been on edge since we got up today. Waiting for Yves to rerun the nerve test tomorrow is getting to you, isn’t it?”

She was right about that. The closer the test drew, the bigger it loomed. He clenched his jaw at the compassion in her voice. “I don’t want your pity, Charlotte.”

“I don’t pity you. I thought you knew me better than that. My financial problems aren’t the same as your physical one, but I do understand what you’re going through.” She lifted his hand to her face and pressed her cheek to his scarred palm. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day for both of us.”

Once again he was struck by the irony of the situation. How had it happened that both of them were simultaneously facing the possibility of losing the very things they’d chosen to devote their lives to?

Yet he felt like a fraud for accepting her sympathy. Because as ugly as the thought was, deep inside he
did
want her to lose the hotel.

He’d claimed that he didn’t hate this place, that he hadn’t meant it when he’d told her he did, yet that wasn’t the whole truth. There was a part of him that always would hate this hotel. Sure, it had been the backdrop for a large chunk of his growing-up years and there had been plenty of good memories for him in these walls, but the affection he felt for it had been tinged with envy. Charlotte had belonged here, but he never had.

And ultimately it had become his rival. That’s why he hated it. Charlotte had chosen the hotel over him even before she’d married Adrian.

It still was his rival. In fact, she had moved into Jackson’s arms, their bodies warm and pulsing from some of the best sex he’d ever had—and the best sex
she’d
ever had—and she’d stated flat out that she didn’t know what she would do without the hotel.

You could come with me,
he’d wanted to shout. If she lost the hotel, she would be free to leave with him.

But that wouldn’t have occurred to her. Charlotte hadn’t seen the alternative that was standing right in front of her nose.

Damn, he was surprised how that had hurt.

Yet it shouldn’t have hurt. They’d both agreed that there were no strings to this affair, so he had no right to want more. They’d grown up, they knew the score, they didn’t expect each other to change.

He eased away from her touch. “Sorry. You’re right. I’m just stressed.”

She chewed her lip briefly, then sighed. “I should apologize, Jackson.”

“For what? I’m the one in the bad mood.”

“It’s because I talked about Adrian, isn’t it? I noticed you got quiet after that.”

He raked his fingers through his hair as he considered how to reply. This was water under the bridge. He’d worked through his anger about Adrian years ago, hadn’t he?

Hell, no. He needed something else to slam. He walked to the window, braced his elbow on the side of the frame and glared at the wing of the building across the courtyard. “It would be smarter to leave this alone, Charlotte.”

“I don’t agree. If something’s bothering you, let’s talk about it. That’s what you’re always encouraging me to do.”

“We’ve been getting along great. What good would it do to dredge up the past?”

Her heels tapped across the floor and stopped somewhere behind him. “Considering the foul mood you’re in this morning, it probably would help to clear the air. That seems to have worked for us before.”

“Are you sure you want me to be honest?”

“Always, Jackson.”

He folded his good hand into a fist and smacked it against the window frame. “Fine. I appreciated your honesty when you told me about your marriage and I realize it was difficult for you to talk about it, but I’m not a saint, Charlotte.” He turned to face her. “I tried to be understanding, but I can’t forget that you dumped me for Adrian.”

She reached out as if she were about to touch him but then pulled back her hand and crossed her arms. The sympathy in her gaze cooled to caution. “I didn’t dump you, Jackson. You left me.”

There it was, the past in a nutshell.

They’d danced around this issue for days without addressing it directly. They’d both done their best to ignore it. They’d kept things friendly, they’d spoken about the paths that they’d taken instead of the reasons behind them. But they had been waiting twenty years to finish this argument. Maybe it was high time they stopped waiting.

Some wounds needed to be lanced before they could heal.

“You did dump me, Charlie,” he said. “We’d made plans. We promised we’d be together forever.”

“Oh, I remember those plans, Jackson.” Her voice hardened. “You changed everything when you accepted that scholarship.”

“Nothing changed for me. I wanted you, not some old pile of bricks. Joining your family’s business wasn’t part of the package.”

“It was as far as I was concerned.”

“You made that clear. When I didn’t fit into your vision of our future, you had no problem substituting Adrian.”

“I was following my dream.”

“And you sure were in a hurry to do it.”

“Yes, I was.” Color sprang to her cheeks as her words came faster. “That’s what you were doing when you left me, wasn’t it? Following your dream, no matter what it did to mine?”

“I asked you to come with me.”

“And do what?”

Her shout hung in the air between them. That was the question that had stopped them before. She hadn’t wanted to give up the hotel or her life here. “You wanted kids,” he said. “We could have had kids.”

“How? You were determined to leave for Africa as soon as you graduated. Did you expect me to uproot myself from my family, tag along with you like a piece of baggage and have our babies in a refugee camp? Or wait at home in some empty apartment for an absentee father whose children wouldn’t even recognize him?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling slowly to hang on to his temper. He wasn’t sure whether he was angry with her or angry with himself for still feeling anything at all. “Do you remember that final Christmas? How I came home for the holidays?”

“Yes, I remember it vividly. That’s when you told me you’d
committed yourself to working overseas and nothing I could say would change your mind.”

“We hadn’t seen each other for months. I wanted to make love, but you kept putting me off, saying you wanted to wait until our wedding night. I felt as if I was going to explode, but I respected your wishes. Less than two months later you married Adrian. Do you know what I thought?”

She stood by her desk and pressed her fingertips on the surface as if she needed to steady herself. “I explained it to you, Jackson. Our goals were incompatible.”

“Sure, that’s what you said. But I thought it was more. I thought he was better than me.”

“What?”

“I believed Celeste was right, that you’d been slumming, that I was just a phase you had gone through. I thought that you had known all along you belonged with a man who had money and social graces and—”

“Jackson, no!”

“And I was convinced he had to be better in bed.” He laughed humorlessly. “How’s that for irony? I knew you hadn’t liked sex with me. I figured Adrian must have been God’s gift to women, a superstud, a sex machine. Thinking that he could give you what I couldn’t drove me crazy.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Sure.
Now
you tell me.”

She sat on the edge of her desk. “Oh, Jackson. I’m so sorry. I had no idea….”

“Yeah, well, I got over it.”

“Is that why you never married?”

“What?”

“Were you…concerned about—” She pressed her lips together.

“Was I concerned about my performance? Is that what you were going to ask?”

“I’m sorry. I have no right to probe.”

He pushed away from the window and moved in front of her. He placed his hands on the desk beside her hips, caging her between his arms. “Do I strike you as a man who has problems in the bedroom?”

She shook her head.

“One of the benefits of being a doctor is a detailed knowledge of anatomy as well as an understanding of how a woman’s body works.” He leaned over her, bringing his face to hers. “I might have had a slow start, but I learned how to put that knowledge into practice.”

“I noticed,” she said tightly. “I asked you about marriage, not your sex life.”

He dropped his gaze. She’d left the top button of her blouse open today. He could see her pulse flutter against the thin skin at the base of her throat. The scent that rose from her skin was a mixture of expensive perfume and the earthy honesty that had haunted him no matter how far he’d run.

And that was the true source of his anger. He knew damn well why he’d remained a bachelor. Losing the one woman he’d ever loved wasn’t something a man forgot.

The pulse in Charlotte’s throat accelerated.

Jackson stepped closer and nudged her knees apart with his leg. Nylon hose slid across the fabric of his pants, making a sound like a sigh. He’d watched her dress this morning. She didn’t wear panty hose. Those stockings were held up by a
garter belt of peach-colored silk. That was so like his Charlie, elegant and traditional on the outside but as sensual in her core as warm custard.

He hadn’t realized he’d lowered his head until he felt her skin against his lips. He closed his eyes and kissed her throat, dipping his tongue into the hollow where he’d seen her pulse.

The phone that she’d placed on the desk began to ring. Charlotte put her hand on his chest.

“Let it go,” he whispered.

She tilted her head away from him. “I can’t.”

He looped his arms behind her waist and slid her off the desk and into his body. The phone rang again. He straightened up, holding her off the floor so he could look into her face. “Charlie—”

“Put me down, Jackson. It could be important.”

And this isn’t?

Instead of releasing her, he flexed his arms, tightening his hold on her and flattening her breasts against his chest. At her gasp, he kissed her fast and deep, using his tongue to possess her as he wanted to use his body, fusing his mouth to hers while the phone continued to ring.

She grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. “Jackson, stop!”

Her grip wasn’t gentle. The twinge of pain in his scalp helped bring him to his senses. So did the distress in her eyes. Jackson set her on her feet, held up his palms and stepped back.

Charlotte’s hand shook as she wiped her mouth. “What was that supposed to prove?” she asked. Without waiting for his reply, she reached for the phone, spoke into it tersely, then carried it to the far side of the desk and turned her back on him.

Jackson wanted to kick something, but he doubted whether any of the furniture in this office would stand up to the force he would use. He returned to the window, threw it open and inhaled a lungful of fresh air.

What had he been trying to prove? That she would rather kiss him than do her job? That he could make her choose him over the hotel?

That the only tie between them was physical?

He already knew the answers to all those questions—and he didn’t like any of them.

Staying with Charlotte had been a mistake. The smart thing to do would be to get out now, before things got worse. They were only going to end up hurting each other again.

A movement in the courtyard caught his eye. A man with sandy blond hair was staggering from the direction of the alley. It was Luc Carter, and he evidently was still drunk from the night before. He was bumping into guests, barely able to stay on his feet.

Jackson rubbed his face, still trying to clear his head, when Luc suddenly collapsed beside the pool.

For a split second Jackson didn’t realize what he was seeing. Luc’s blazer had fallen open, but instead of his typical white shirt, he was wearing red….

Luc wasn’t drunk. He was soaked in blood.

T
HE SMELL OF BLOOD
wasn’t something a person forgot. Not when there was this much of it. As Jackson knelt by Luc’s side, decades of images kaleidoscoped through his head. He’d dealt with the aftermath of every kind of disaster, injuries caused both by nature and by man, so his response was automatic. Check the airway, assess the breathing and the circulation, tend to the basics first before searching for cause or treatment. Because treatment was moot if the patient didn’t live long enough to receive it.

Yes, the professional in him functioned without hesitation. But he never got used to that quick spike of outrage he felt when he witnessed the damage that could be done to a human body. Luc was unconscious, his face sallow and his skin clammy. The volume of blood that soaked his shirt couldn’t have been all that he’d lost. It was a wonder that he’d been able to walk anywhere under his own power.

Jackson glanced up only long enough to make eye contact with one of the people who had gathered around. It was a young man in a bright purple T-shirt, a half-eaten beignet gripped in his hand. “Bring me clean towels,” Jackson said calmly. “As many as you can carry. There should be some stacked near the lounge chairs.”

The young man dropped the pastry and bolted toward the pool. Beyond him, Jackson could see Mac jogging across the courtyard. He could hear Charlotte’s voice from somewhere nearby as she spoke with the emergency operator. In spite of her high heels, she’d done her best to keep up with him as he’d raced outside. He was grateful now for her ever-present cell phone. But he didn’t turn around to acknowledge her. He’d found the source of the blood: there was a small round hole in Luc’s back.

Jackson had seen enough bullet wounds to recognize everything from the caliber to the angle of entry. This wound appeared to be from a .22, fired at close range. Not enough power to go clean through, but judging by the angle, it would have penetrated close to the liver. If that organ was nicked, Luc would be bleeding internally. This wound could prove fatal if he didn’t get into surgery within the next half hour.

Even if Jackson had had the full use of both hands, without any medical equipment he wouldn’t have been able to do more than apply pressure to the wound and keep the patient from going into shock. That was what he did now, improvising with the supplies that were available and directing several bystanders how to help. These first few minutes would be crucial to Luc’s survival.

“The ambulance is on its way,” Charlotte said. “So are the police. I also left a message for Detective Fergusson.”

Jackson spoke without looking up. “The Corbins must be behind this.”

“That was my first thought, too. But why would they want to hurt Luc?”

“Whatever their reason, they did a thorough job.”

She touched his shoulder. “Is he going to make it?”

“It’s impossible to say right now.”

“I’m sure you’re doing all you can. This is what you’ve been trained for.”

He did look up then. She was standing beside him, her body stiff and her fingers white where she clutched her phone. Her cheeks were pale, but her lips were reddened and swollen from the force of his kiss.

Guilt tightened his stomach. How could he begin to explain his behavior, let alone apologize for it? He never would have forced himself on her, but he shouldn’t have used the kiss as an outlet for his frustration. “Charlotte…”

She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Oh, Mac,” she said, looking past Jackson. “Would you please have your people clear a path for the ambulance? And Julie, could you guide our guests indoors, please? I’m sure they’d be more comfortable there.”

Jackson turned back to his patient. This wasn’t the time to sort things out with Charlotte. And what was there to sort out? All he’d succeeded in doing was confirm that nothing had changed.

By the time the ambulance arrived, several uniformed police officers were already busy inspecting the scene and getting statements from the onlookers who were still in the courtyard. The paramedics who took over from Jackson were a different pair from the ones who had worked here the night of the fire, but they functioned with the same practiced efficiency. As they stabilized Luc for the trip to the hospital, Jackson helped himself to a bottle of sanitizer from their supplies and began to clean the blood from his hands.

“He’s coming around,” one of the paramedics said.

Jackson hurried to the stretcher. He was surprised that Luc
was rallying, considering the graveness of his condition. Yet when Jackson reached his side, Luc’s eyes were open.

“Take it easy, Mr. Carter,” the paramedic said. He hooked the end of the stretcher on the back of the ambulance and reached for the lever that would fold up the wheels. “You’re going to be fine.”

Luc thrashed his head back and forth. His lips parted, but it was impossible to hear what he was trying to say.

Jackson patted his shoulder above the restraint that strapped him to the stretcher. “Luc, it’s Jackson Bailey. You’ve been shot. Don’t try to move around or you could make your injury worse.”

Luc rolled his head toward Jackson’s voice. “Stop. Gotta stop…them.”

“Who, Luc?”

“Corbins. Blount.” His chest heaved with his efforts to breathe. “Fergusson.”

“Did the Corbins do this to you, Luc?”

“Fergusson,” he repeated.

“He’s on his way. I’ll tell him what you said.”

“Stop!” Luc stared blankly at Jackson. “Charlotte. They’re—” His words ended in a cough.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” the paramedic said. He slid the stretcher past Jackson into the ambulance. “You’ll have to step back now.”

Jackson disregarded him and climbed into the vehicle with Luc. “What about Charlotte?” he demanded, leaning over the stretcher.

Luc panted shallowly, obviously near the end of his strength. “They’re going…take her.”

“Take her? What do you mean?”

“Heard them. They thought—” He coughed again, more weakly than before, yet he appeared determined to speak, whatever the cost. “Thought I was dead… They said…get hotel…kidnap…Char—” Luc’s eyes rolled back. His movements ceased.

Jackson pressed his fingertips below Luc’s ear, automatically searching for a pulse. It was weak but still there.

And that was as far as his medical efforts went. Without another thought for his patient, Jackson jumped out of the ambulance and scanned the courtyard.

Charlotte was no longer in sight.

When had she left? He hadn’t noticed. He’d been so focused on doing his job that he hadn’t seen her go. He borrowed a cell phone from the paramedic and punched in Charlotte’s number, but his call was routed to her voice mail. Jackson tossed the phone back to the paramedic and told him to relate what they’d heard to the cops, then ran toward the entrance to the bar, where Mac stood. “Have you seen Charlotte?” he called.

“She was here a minute ago,” Mac replied. “She said she was going inside to check Luc’s personnel file for his next of kin.”

Jackson grasped Mac’s arm hard. “Notify your people. Tell them to find Charlotte and stick with her. Luc said the Corbins plan to kidnap her.”

Mac didn’t waste time with questions. He had his phone to his ear and was already giving orders before Jackson turned away.

Jackson glanced at the open window of Charlotte’s office as he ran across the courtyard toward the lobby entrance. If she’d wanted to check Luc’s personnel file, she must have
gone upstairs. But why wasn’t she answering her phone? He should have kept better track of her. That’s why he was here—to protect her, to watch over her, to ensure her safety.

The single whoop of a siren echoed briefly from the hotel walls. He didn’t pause to watch the ambulance drive away. That could have been why Luc had been shot, to provide a distraction. With everyone’s attention focused on Luc, anyone could have walked into the hotel.

Charlotte wasn’t in the lobby, but a small silver cell phone that looked like hers was lying on the floor at the base of the staircase.

Jackson snatched it from the floor. Yes, it was Charlotte’s. He’d seldom seen her without it. She wouldn’t have dropped it accidentally….

The adrenaline surge Jackson had felt the night before, when he hadn’t seen Charlotte in the bar, had been merely a foretaste of what he felt now. Trying to think rationally didn’t work. The sense of emptiness that spread through his body was turning his blood to ice.

He’d known he was going to lose her again but not so soon. God, not like this.

Jackson glanced up at the curving staircase, then reversed direction and sprinted to the street. He was going on instinct rather than logic. From the corner of his vision he could see two of the hotel’s security guards moving purposefully toward the corridor that led to the art gallery and the event rooms, but he didn’t pause. He burst through the front entrance. “Charlie!”

A long black limo was idling down the street from the hotel, its wheels encroaching on the sidewalk. A large man in a
chauffeur’s cap was closing the rear door when a woman’s high-heeled shoe tumbled from the opening.

Jackson dived for the car and grabbed the edge of the door, trying to force it open. “Charlie!”

He only had a moment to glimpse the scene inside the limo, yet the image became seared into his brain. Charlotte was on the floor of the car, her legs a blur of motion as she fought to kick out at the men who held her. Dan Corbin had his arm locked around her throat and his other hand flattened across Charlotte’s mouth. Richard jammed a black revolver into the side of her ribs.

But that was all Jackson saw. An instant later, pain exploded through his skull. He was out cold before his face hit the pavement.

C
HARLOTTE DIDN’T WANT
to cry. She couldn’t permit herself the luxury of falling apart, even in private. She had to be practical. The Corbins could return at any time. She should be formulating a plan of escape.

But even if the door to this room swung open and a clear route to freedom appeared, she wouldn’t leave. Not without Jackson.

She cradled his head on her lap and peered at his face. There were no windows in this place. The only light came from a bare bulb in the center of the ceiling. It was more like a closet than a room, less than six feet wide and scarcely ten feet long. There were rows of holes in the cement-block walls, as if there had once been shelves fastened there, but nothing was stored in here now. All that was left on the musty cement floor were some flattened pieces of cardboard.

Charlotte shivered. Her silk blouse and short skirt provided
little protection against the damp air, and her legs were going numb from kneeling on the cardboard, yet she didn’t want to move around. She didn’t want to leave Jackson. “Wake up,” she whispered. “Please, Jackson, open your eyes.”

There were purple bruises on Jackson’s forehead and right cheek and a lump on the back of his skull, but there had been no bleeding, thank God. The dried blood that smeared his cuffs and the front of his jacket wasn’t his, it was Luc’s. She tried to reassure herself that Jackson was going to be all right, that he was only temporarily knocked out, but her hope wasn’t based on any medical expertise. No, there was nothing logical about her feelings, she simply couldn’t imagine losing him.

It was because of her that he was hurt.

Yet this wasn’t the first time he’d been hurt because of her, was it?

She blinked hard, trying to keep the tears from falling, but one rolled down her cheek and dropped on Jackson’s forehead. She wiped it away, then ran her fingertips into his hair and automatically smoothed it back.

Their survival was at stake. This wasn’t the time to dwell on that horrible scene in her office. They were facing far more important issues than their personal relationship.

But it was as impossible to shut out the echoes of his anger as it was to shut off her fear.

All these years she’d resented Jackson for deserting her, but he’d had plenty of cause for resentment himself. She should have realized how sensitive he would have been about the difference between his background and Adrian’s, yet it had been such a nonissue for her she hadn’t dreamed he would have considered it.

And she’d held herself responsible for their failure at sex—she’d never guessed he would have blamed himself.

She licked at a tear that trickled into the corner of her mouth, passing her tongue over the welt on her lip. Most of the swelling was from Dan Corbin’s rough treatment. But not all. Some of the tenderness was from having her lip crushed against her teeth by Jackson’s kiss.

How was it that two people who cared so much about each other seemed destined to keep inflicting more pain on each other?

Men’s voices sounded from somewhere in the corridor beyond the room. Charlotte looked at the flat steel door, her pulse tripping with dread. She recognized Richard Corbin’s cigarette-roughened drawl and the calmer tones of his brother, but there was a third voice that was unfamiliar. Could it belong to the chauffeur who had struck Jackson? Although she strained to listen, the conversation was too far away for her to make out the words. Moments later it faded completely.

Jackson’s breathing changed, growing more rapid. A groan rumbled from his throat.

Charlotte stroked his cheek. “Jackson?” she murmured. “Can you hear me?”

He moved his head against her thighs. “Charlotte? What…?”

“You were hit on the head.” She placed her hand near the spot behind his ear where she’d found the bump. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”

He opened his eyes. His gaze was unfocused, wandering around the room as if he didn’t register what he was seeing, before it finally steadied on hers. He touched the back of his
fingers to her neck. His hand was shaking. “Did they hurt you, Charlotte?”

Her lip throbbed, her throat ached from Dan’s choke hold and her side was bruised from where Richard had shoved his gun, but those discomforts were minor. She had no cause to complain.

Except that Jackson was calling her Charlotte. He’d called her Charlie when he’d kissed her and when he’d tried to stop the Corbins. Now he’d gone back to Charlotte. Somehow it made the ache in her throat worse.