The first man who’d spoken nodded and confirmed, “It wasn’t common knowledge that the girl wanted to work for her father. All her life she had seemed more intent on spending his money, living the life of an American princess.”
An American princess. That was exactly what Josie had been. Rich and spoiled, going after what she wanted no matter who might get hurt. She had hurt others—with the stories Brendan had discovered that she’d written under a pseudonym. Her exposés had started before she’d even graduated with her degree in journalism.
Brendan should have dug deeper until he’d learned the truth about her before getting involved with her. But the woman had pursued him and had been damn hard to resist. At least he had learned the truth about her before she’d managed to learn the truth about him. Somehow she must have discovered enough information to have gotten herself killed, though.
The news report continued: “The death of his daughter nearly destroyed Jessup, but the billionaire used his work to overcome his loss, much as he did when his wife died twenty years ago. The late Mrs. Jessup was European royalty.”
“So she was a real princess,” Brendan murmured, correcting himself.
“She was also a reporter,” the other man said, his focus on Brendan, his dark eyes narrowed with suspicion.
It had taken Brendan four years to gain the small amount of trust and acceptance that he had from these men. He had been a stranger to them when he’d taken over the business he’d inherited from his late father. And these men didn’t trust strangers.
Hell, they didn’t trust anyone.
The man asked, “When did you learn that?”
Learn that Josie Jessup had betrayed him? That she’d just been using him to get another exposé for her father’s media outlets?
Anger coursed through him and he clenched his jaw. His eyes must have also telegraphed that rage, for the men across the booth from him leaned back now as if trying to get away. Or to reassure themselves that they were armed, too.
“I found out Josie Jessup was a reporter,” Brendan said, “right before she died.”
IT’S TOO GREAT a risk … She hadn’t been able to reach her handler, the former U.S. marshal who had faked Josie’s death and relocated her. But she didn’t need to speak to Charlotte Green to know what she would have told her. It’s too great a risk …
After nearly being killed for real almost four years ago, Josie knew how much danger she would be in were anyone to discover that she was still alive. She hadn’t tried to call Charlotte again. She’d had no intention of listening to her anyway.
Josie stood outside her father’s private hospital room, one hand pressed against the door. Coming here was indeed a risk, but the greater risk was that her father would die without her seeing him again.
Without him seeing her again. And …
Her hand that was not pressed against the door held another hand. Pudgy little fingers wriggled in her grasp. “Mommy, what we doin’ here?”
Josie didn’t have to ask herself that question. She knew that, no matter what the risk, she needed to be here. She needed to introduce her father to his grandson. “We’re here to see your grandpa,” she said.
“Grampa?” The three-year-old’s little brow furrowed in confusion. He had probably heard the word before but never in reference to any relation of his. It had always been only the two of them. “I have a grampa?”
“Yes,” Josie said. “But he lives far away so we didn’t get to see him before now.”
“Far away,” he agreed with a nod and a yawn. He had slept through most of the long drive from northwestern Michigan to Chicago; his soft snoring had kept her awake and amused. His bright red curls were matted from his booster seat, and there was a trace of drool that had run from the corner of his mouth across his freckled cheek.
CJ glanced nervously around the wide corridor as if just now realizing where he was. He hadn’t awakened until the elevator ride up to her father’s floor. Then with protests that he wasn’t a baby but a big boy now, he had wriggled out of her arms. “Does Grampa live here?”
“No,” she said. “This is a hospital.”
The little boy shuddered in revulsion. His low pain threshold for immunizations had given him a deep aversion to all things medical. He lowered his already soft voice to a fearful whisper. “Is—is Grampa sick?”
She whispered, too, so that nobody overheard them. A few hospital workers, men dressed in scrubs, lingered outside a room a few doors down from her father’s. “He’s hurt.”
So where were the police or the security guards? Why was no one protecting him?
Because nobody cared about her father the way she did. Because she had been declared dead, he had no other next of kin. And as powerful and intimidating a man as he was, he had no genuine friends, either. His durable power of attorney was probably held by his lawyer. She’d claimed to be from his office when she’d called to find out her father’s room number.
“Did he falled off his bike?” CJ asked.
“Something like that.” She couldn’t tell her son what had really happened, that her father had been assaulted in the parking garage of his condominium complex. Usually the security was very high there. No one got through the gate unless they lived in the building. Not only was it supposed to be safe, but it was his home. Yet someone had attacked him, striking him with something—a baseball bat or a pipe. His broken arm and bruised shoulder might not hurt him so badly if the assault hadn’t also brought on a heart attack.
Would her showing up here as if from the dead bring on another one? Maybe that inner voice of hers, which sounded a hell of a lot like Charlotte’s even though she hadn’t talked to the woman, was right. The risk was too great.
“We shoulda brought him ice cream,” CJ said. “Ice cream makes you feel all better.”
Every time he had been brave for his shots she had rewarded him with ice cream. Always shy and nervous, CJ had to fight hard to be brave. Had she passed her own fears, of discovery and danger, onto her son?
“Yes, we should have,” she agreed, and she pulled her hand away from the door. “We should do that …”
“Now?” CJ asked, his dark bluish-green eyes brightening with hope. “We gonna get ice cream now?”
“It’s too late for ice cream tonight,” she said. “But we can get some tomorrow.”
“And bring it back?”
She wasn’t sure about that. She would have to pose as the legal secretary again and learn more about her father’s condition. Just how fragile was his health?
Josie turned away from the door and from the nearly overwhelming urge to run inside and into her father’s arms—the way she always had as a child. She had hurled herself at him, secure that he would catch her.
She’d been so confident that he would always be there for her. She had never considered that he might be the one to leave—for real, for good—that he might be the one to really die. Given how young she was when her mother died, she should have understood how fragile life was. But her father wasn’t fragile. He was strong and powerful. Invincible. Or so she had always believed.
But he wasn’t. And she couldn’t risk causing him harm only to comfort herself. She stepped away from the door, but her arm jerked as her son kept his feet planted on the floor.
“I wanna see Grampa,” he said, his voice still quiet but his tone determined. Afraid to draw attention to himself, her son had never thrown a temper tantrum. He’d never even raised his voice. But he could be very stubborn when he put his mind to something. Kind of like the grandfather he’d suddenly decided