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Three
Nico and Angelwere on the roof with Stella when the helicopter touched down, Lily waving wildly while they waited for Farrell to open the door. Jenna couldn’t help smiling as she watchedthem.
Nico’s dark eyes and hair stood in contrast to Angel’s striking blonde beauty, but it was obvious even at a glance they were right where theybelonged.
In a strange twist of fate, Jenna was working for Nico as an assistant at MediaComm when he had kidnapped Angel. Jenna hadn’t known about it at the time, but later she had been witness to the chaos that reverberated through the Syndicate when Nico fell in love with his enemy’sdaughter.
Nico had been different before that: hard and cold, determined to exact revenge for the death of his parents. He’d been fair and cordial to Jenna, but there had been no life behind his eyes until Angel Rossi came into thepicture.
And Angel’s love for Nico had also come at a cost toher.
Her brother had been kidnapped, her father assassinated — by Nico — after he’d pointed a gun at Angel during a raid in London. She’d been pregnant during the FBI raid that had resulted in Raneiro’s initial arrest by the FBI and had almost lost Stella, had retreated to Bali with Nico for nearly two years before returning to retake theSyndicate.
They’d been married in Bali, and Angel had given birth near the water with no one present but Nico and an old Balinesewoman.
It had been a long hard road, but Jenna wouldn’t know it looking at them now. The air around them was perpetually charged with Nico’s calm resolve, Angel’s seemingly endless reservoir of quietstrength.
Farrell opened the door and lifted Lily out of the helicopter, handing her to Leo. He jogged toward the Vitale’s with Lily in his arms while Farrell helped Jenna out of thehelicopter.
She could have gotten out by herself, but Farrell still treated her like glass. She’d fought it in the beginning, worrying that he thought she was weak or incapable of taking care of herself, but their time on the run in Europe had proven to her that that wasn’t thecase.
He simply liked to spoil her, and she had to admit she’d gotten used to it. Besides, who was she to ruin hisfun?
Leo set Lily down next to Stella and the two girls embracedtightly.
Angel looked at Leo and shouted over the helicopter’s rotors, still slowlyturning.
“You’re notstaying?”
“Diana’s waiting,” he said. “We’ll be back forChristmas.”
Angel nodded and leaned in to give him a hug. “Tell herhello.”
Leo nodded and waved to the rest of them before springing toward the helicopter. A minute later, the machine rose into theair.
When it finally grew quiet enough to talk without shouting, Angel turned to Jenna and wrapped her in ahug.
“You’rehere!”
“We’re here!” Jenna said,laughing.
Angel took her hand as naturally as if they were children. It was one of the things Jenna liked most about Angel — her openness and affection, her lack of self-consciousness. She was totally herself, utterly unconcerned with how her actions might appear toothers.
Jenna couldn’t help wondering if it was an American thing. Her words and actions were filtered through the sieves of social propriety that were inherent in the British, her adherence to them all the more urgent given her blue-collar background, the shame of her mother’s alcoholism, their near-poverty.
She’d remade herself into someone different when she’d left for New York, had become educated and polished, had learned how to dress and speak in order to commandrespect.
It wasn’t that she wanted to forget where she came from; it was that she never wanted to forget. Only by remembering could she do better for Lily. That meant a good education and proper manners. It meant adherence to the conventions of a society that had the power to celebrate or shunyou.
Lily would not be shunned, nor wouldJenna.
Notnow.
Still, sometimes it was exhausting to follow all the rules. It was one of the reasons she’d responded so immediately to Farrell, one of the reasons she relished theirintimacy.
In bed with Farrell, there was no convention, norules.
It was the way they both likedit.
