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Partners in crime.
God, she loved having him on her side!
He loved the way she kept scouting the crowd for him.
Hell, he loved the way she kept trying not to smile at him.
And the way she’d melted, like pudding, when she’d kissed him.
“You do realize you’re smiling. Right, Lan?”
Landon tore his gaze from Beth and drained the last of his champagne flute. He’d been smiling? Like some idiot? He hadn’t realized. His mind had been spinning all night, plotting, planning. There was still no unleashing of his anger, and then the lust that had come afterward, with Beth’s kiss. “Halifax was here,” he told Garrett.
“What—tonight?”
“Son of a bitch talked to Beth.”
“Can you trust her, Landon?”
Landon stole another glance at her, one of many this evening. He needed to think with his head.
“I should post someone on her.”
“What about that detective who brought you all the dish on Chrystine and Halifax?”
“Is he still the best?”
“I think so, yes.” Garrett’s eyes, black as coals from their father’s side, narrowed thoughtfully. “Why would you want someone on her tail?”
Landon frowned into his glass, surprised to find it empty. “My own peace of mind.”
“You don’t think Halifax sent her to you, do you? How far can his fury run?”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her, so pretty as she talked animatedly with Kate. “If it runs as far as mine then there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
Garrett propped his shiny Italian leather boots up on a stone bench. “You can still back out, Lan. You haven’t married her yet.”
Yes, he could. He didn’t need Beth to ruin Halifax, he knew that. But somehow, the desire for revenge just wasn’t as fierce without her.
He remembered how pale she’d been moments ago, how frightened, and the thought of her getting hurt made him grit his molars. “Halifax could be more dangerous than we think.”
“True.” Garrett shrugged. “Then again, I still can’t see why that guy hates you so much.”
“Because he wanted Chrystine… They were fooling around after she had the baby—remember all those emails the detective printed out for me? Hell, Garrett, I still can’t believe Beth was married to that scumbag.”
His son had died because of that bastard. Because of his selfish demands that Chrystine meet him the night of one of the worst storms on record.
The loss of that bright-eyed baby boy had almost killed Landon. No parent should have to feel it, no man, no animal, no innocent woman who’d do anything for her son.
“While I go poking into his business, I need to know Bethany’s safe. If she’s being followed, where she goes, what she eats.”
“Has it occurred to you she and Halifax might be out to ruin you together? She may still be loyal to him. In the end, Chrystine was.”
Landon pondered those words. But to compare Bethany with his first wife was unfair. Chrystine had been a social-climbing, self-centered princess, and Landon had known what she wanted from him from the start—his money, and the power his name would grant her. He hadn’t planned to give her either—until she got pregnant. And to a man like him, marriage had been the only option.
Bethany, on the other hand, just wanted her kid back.
“She’s my fiancée now, Garrett, and in a few days, my wife. Not his,” he growled then.
