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“Am I worried about breaking my wife’s heart? Um, yeah.”
“You really have changed,” I laugh as I swig back the rest of my drink and place my glass on his desk.
“Yeah, well, no-one is more shocked by my transformation than me,” he laughs too.
I stand up and hold out my hand. “It’s been good to see you, old friend.”
“You too.” He shakes my hand, and then he holds onto it and looks me in the eye. “If you really feel something for this woman, fuck what everyone else thinks, Shane. Life is too short, amigo. Especially for men like us. You need to grab onto any happiness when you can, and while you can.”
I nod at him. “Maybe.”
Chapter
Twenty-Three
JESSIE
Shane got back from L.A. late last night, and this morning Liam told me he wanted to see me. So, once again, I find myself summoned to his office and I’m sitting before him like an errant teenager waiting to be yelled at.
“You seem to be settling in here well?” Shane arches one eyebrow at me.
Heat flushes over my cheeks as I recall him witnessing my encounter with his younger brothers the week before. I’m aware he knows about me and Conor too. His room is next to Conor’s and he must have heard us. “I am. Thank you.”
“You’re certainly a hit with my brothers.”
I blush further. Asshole! I sit up straighter in my chair. “Well, they’re nice guys.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “I’m not sure you know them at all, Hacker.”
“I think I know them well enough,” I reply. “Especially after you introduced me to the kind of work you really do.”
He stops laughing, and the change in him is instant. He glares at me, his green eyes burning into my skin. “They don’t know you though, do they, Jessica?”
I swallow hard as all the saliva in my mouth dries instantly. I glare back at him. That could just be a lucky guess. Lots of Jessica’s shorten their name to Jessie. But my heart starts to hammer in my chest.
Shit!
“Do you really think I would allow someone in my house, in my brothers’ house and into their beds, without finding out who they really are?” he snarls.
“I told you who I am.”
He stands up abruptly, lunging forward and grabbing my throat with one of his large hands. He squeezes lightly and my breathing grows faster. But I don’t move. “Tell me one more lie, and I will have my brothers carve you to pieces and dump you in the Hudson. So, start talking, Miss Romanov,” he spits my last name and I shudder at the sound on his lips. I haven’t heard that name for over ten years.
“How did you find out?” I croak. No-one else ever has. I learned from my father how to cover my tracks and I am damn good at it.
He releases me from his grip and sits back in his seat. “What can I say? My guy is good. He told me to tell you he was impressed. It’s taken him four weeks to find out who you really are. It usually takes him two days.”
Despite the circumstances, I experience an unexpected sense of pride at that revelation. But it still doesn’t change the fact that my cover is blown, and Shane Ryan knows I’ve been lying to him and his brothers since the moment I met them.
“As you’ve already discovered, my real name is Jessica Romanov. And I don’t suppose I need to fill you in on my family history?”
“No,” he says with a shake of his head.
I sigh with relief at that. My family’s story is well documented, and I don’t particularly want to relive it right now.
“But, tell me, how did a sixteen-year-old girl escape the Wolf? Or haven’t you escaped him at all?”
I flinch at the mention of his name. The man I’ve been looking for since the night he slaughtered my parents and my twelve year old brothers in front of my eyes. The man who kidnapped me and held me captive for almost two years.
