AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He held back his concern after discussing it with Ian, but he had to admit that the return of Cam’s recklessness was starting to worry him.
He hadn’t been like this in years. Not since his return from the military, and when they started sharing their lovers. As though he needed an outlet, something to pour all that darkness into. And the wicked games they played with their women had provided that outlet.
Jaci, sweet, innocent Jaci, was holding out on the game, and it was pushing Cam. Chase could feel it. But he couldn’t blame Jaci, either. She wasn’t a woman who went to bed with one man that easily, so giving in to Cam’s more extreme desires would be harder for her.
She was fighting her curiosity, too. He and Cam could both see it, feel it. She was fighting for Cam, and though Chase gave her an A for effort, he didn’t hold out a lot of hope that his brother would ever willingly tell either of them what had happened all those years ago. As they moved through Carlyle’s—Chase moving ahead of them, with Jaci in the middle and Cam at her back—he noticed the knowing looks they received.
Ian’s club was safe, but there were a few of the members who were known for their sharing. Not a lot of them, but a few—those who willingly fronted for the club and drew attention away from the married members.
Ian’s ancestors had known gossip and society. They had learned the most effective way of hiding was in clear view. Give the greedy piranha’s something to latch onto and the others could slip by undetected.
Cam and Chase had no problems with others knowing who and what they were, to a point. They were members of Ian’s club, but they were also members of several other men’s clubs that were as staid and uptight as any ever created. Clubs based on wealth or position, and a clientele that benefited from the particular arena they fed off of. None of those clubs were based on sexuality. He and Cam avoided the sex-based clubs like a plague. They were counterproductive and just too much damned work.
“Ian, Courtney. ” Chase nodded to them as the waiter showed them to the private table Chase had requested.
“And here I thought the night would be boring. ” Courtney’s smile was all teeth as she glanced across the room to where Richard and Annalee Roberts were currently holding court at a long center table.
“You promised to be good, Courtney. ” Ian glanced at her from the corner of his eyes, but Chase saw the carefully banked anger there.
He hadn’t been pleased with the information Chase had relayed to him, and Chase knew he would now be working to make certain that, no matter how Jaci’s relationship with Cam fared, the Robertses would never touch her again.
Ian didn’t need proof, all he needed was his own certainty with which to go to the punitive committee. He and Cam needed more, though. Protecting Jaci from not just the Robertses, but from herself. Because he was damned certain Cam was right: Jaci was trying to take care of this all on her own.
He glanced at Cam, then to Ian. That shared look assured him they were in agreement. It was time to neutralize the bastards. No one, but no one, attacked one of Ian’s employees, and especially a female employee. They were family. They were under his care. Under all their care.
Jaci watched the shared look between the three men, and glanced at Courtney. She was glaring at the Robertses, her gaze flickering back to them every few seconds before she would murmur a Spanish curse beneath her breath.
“What’s going on?” Jaci kept her voice low, but she felt Cam tense in the chair beside her, just as Chase did on the other side.
She watched Courtney’s gaze flicker over the two as Ian watched in amusement.
Courtney’s lips pressed together as the waiter placed the water before her and Ian ordered wine. As he retreated, she leaned closer to Jaci and hissed, “Whose idea was Carlyle’s?”
Jaci pointed to Cam with a subtle shift of her finger.
“Remind me to make you pay for this. ” Courtney glared at him.
“Undercurrents, undercurrents. ” Jaci smiled. “What the hell is going on?”
“The bastard dared to threaten Sebastian and Ian,” Courtney huffed, ignoring Ian’s warning look. “Chase should have told you. I am certain Ian informed him of it. ”
Her accent was thicker and her eyes glittered with ire.
“Sometimes they neglect to tell me things,” Jaci told her calmly. “I’ll discuss that with them later. ”
Courtney smiled at that, the gleam in her eyes turning to one of immense satisfaction as she glanced at the twins. “I gather they haven’t exactly met the wrong side of your shoe, as of yet?”
Jaci only smiled, carefully keeping her gaze from turning to Chase and Cam as the waiter returned with the wine.
She stewed over their obvious machinations. The pure arrogance in bringing her here just pissed her the hell off and, she admitted, deeply worried her. Cam had been willing to let the subject of the Robertses slide earlier, just as she had wanted him to. Needed him to. And Richard had destroyed that.
Threatening Sebastian wasn’t a good idea, and it was obvious he had pissed off the wrong woman when he made Courtney angry. Jaci knew Courtney. The fiery temperament could turn brutally cold and vengeful.
It was Cam and Chase who worried her now. They were . . . stealthy. Dangerous. She could see it and feel it in them now, where she hadn’t earlier in the evening. She hadn’t been looking for it. Cam especially had a way of hiding his anger when he needed to. It made him more dangerous, and she had a feeling it could make him more merciless.
Just what she needed, Cam in a merciless mood while Richard and Annalee were in the same room.
She sipped at her wine as they waited on the meal, chatting with Courtney and Ian, and doing her best to ignore Cam and Chase. It was hard, because both of them insisted on flirting with her.
