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Gabe slowly set down his pen. Raising his head, he met Dom’s direct gaze with one of his own. “Let me guess. You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
Dom grinned. “Not a chance. So you might as well tell me what’s going on and get it over with.”
For a very long moment, Gabe continued to stare at him. Then he gave an exaggerated sigh. “Aw, hell. You always have been pigheaded.” Reaching over, he snagged a file folder off the top of a stack to his left, speaking even as he thumbed it open. “The client is Abigail Sommers. I did protection work for her when I was first getting started. She was born an Anson, as in the Anson Mining Group, and over the course of eighty-odd years she’s single-handedly increased what was already a pretty sizable family fortune. Along the way, she’s outlived four husbands and both of her children.
“According to the message she left on my voice mail, her only grandchild is being detained in San Timoteo, an island nation—”
“—in the southern Caribbean. Run for the past dozen years by a corrupt ex-army general, Manolo Condesta, who insists on being called El Presidente.” With a chiding look, Dom tipped back his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “I’ve been living in London the past few years, Gabe, not on the moon. I’m up to speed on all the banana republics. I don’t need a lesson in geography or world politics.”
Gabe’s stern mouth tipped up the faintest fraction. “Got it. Sorry.”
Dom shrugged it off. “So what’s the grandkid accused of?”
His brother glanced down at the file, even though Dom knew very well all the information was already securely lodged in his encyclopedic memory. “Rioting, assaulting a policeman, resisting arrest.”
He gave a nod of understanding. It was an old story—spoiled rich kid takes a trip to a foreign country, gets drunk or stoned and does something obnoxious that pisses off the local officials.
“I’m surprised I haven’t heard a word about it in the press. Usually they love this stuff.”
Gabe nodded. “True. But Condesta’s got an iron grip on info going out of San Timoteo. And due to some bad tabloid press decades ago, Abigail is rabid about protecting her privacy. Everyone who works for her in any capacity signs a nondisclosure contract.”
“Okay, but from what I’ve heard about El Presidente, he’ll let people go for the right dollar amount. With all the money Mrs. Sommers has, she must have government contacts who can help?”
“Officially, the U.S. government has no relations with San Tim since it’s been added to the terrorist watch list. Unofficially, they’ve done what they could.
“Problem is, Condesta keeps upping the ante. Abigail said that twice he’s set a price, twice she’s agreed to pay it. And twice he’s changed his mind just hours before the scheduled exchange and demanded more. The asking price is now at one million, with no end in sight, and in the meantime her granddaughter’s been held for over four weeks.”
“Not good,” Dom repeated. While young Miss Sommers most likely was being confined someplace that more closely resembled a country club than Alcatraz, the hard truth was that women were vulnerable in ways men were not. “So what does the client want from us? More negotiations? An extraction?”
“I don’t know. All she said in her message was that the situation was untenable and something had to be done.”
“She’s right about that. And as of now, I’m the guy to do it.”
“No.” The eldest Steele closed the file as if that settled the matter.
“Yes.” His voice for once not the least bit amused, Dom straightened, bringing his chair down with a thump. “I don’t need a babysitter, Gabe. What I need is some action. Because if I have to spend another week sitting on my ass doing nothing but counting snowflakes, I’m likely to go tear up some Third World country myself.”
“Dammit, Dom—”
“Give it up, big brother. You did a hell of a job taking care of us after Mom died, but we’re all big boys now. We can take care of ourselves. Besides—” he forced himself to ease up and summoned an ironic smile “—as has been previously established, you are not, as the kids say these days, the boss of me. I’m going to San Timoteo, and that’s all there is to it.
“That being the case,” he went on without missing a beat as he picked up the file and climbed to his feet, “it appears I’ve got some reading to do, so I’ll let you get back to your paperwork. But I’ll see you and Mrs. Sommers in the conference room in—” he glanced at his watch “—an hour. Don’t be late.”
Just for a second, Gabriel’s green eyes narrowed dangerously. Then his expression unexpectedly relaxed and he unbent enough to murmur a caustic two-word epithet that started with an F and ended with a U.
Laughing, Dom headed for the door.
Abigail Anson Sommers didn’t look like anyone’s dear old grandma, Dom decided, observing her as Gabriel ushered her into the conference room. Tall and slim, she had finely modeled features, thick, upswept white hair, impeccable posture and the aloof expression of an absolute monarch.
He stepped around the large, glossy table to pull out her chair.
“Thank you, young man,” she said as she took her seat, her manner pure queen to commoner as he and Gabriel also sat.
“My pleasure,” he replied, secretly amused by her not-so-subtle effort to put him in his place.
Foregoing formal introductions, she got straight to the point. “According to your brother, you had something to do with that Grobane incident,” she said crisply. “The one that was in all the papers.”
“Something,” he agreed, settling back. He met her probing gaze with an unflinching one of his own. She could pry all she wanted, but he had no intention of discussing his last protection detail with her. And not just because it would be a breach of client confidentiality, even though that concern might be considered by some to be gone with the wind due to all the media attention the incident had received.
But because, unlike the press and the public, he didn’t consider taking a bullet for a client heroic. Nope, he’d screwed up, failed to follow his gut and was just damn lucky the bad guy had been a lousy shot. He still had nights when he would lie awake in a cold sweat thinking how close Carolina Grobane had come to being injured or killed.
He didn’t think he could’ve lived with that. And he sure as hell didn’t intend to rehash it—or court praise for something he considered to be far from his most shining hour, popular opinion be damned.
Evidently mistaking his silence for modesty, something approaching approval registered on Mrs. Sommers’ autocratic face. “Gabriel also mentioned you served our country as a Navy SEAL. And that you received numerous medals and commendations.”
This time, he sent his brother a reproachful look, which was met with a slight, live-with-it shrug. A little ruefully—apparently St. Gabe wasn’t above some minor payback—he returned his gaze to the client. “Yes, ma’am, that’s true.”
She pursed her lips. “He also assures me that if anyone can get my Delilah out of this mess she’s in, it’s you.”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?” Her arctic-blue eyes drilled into him. “And what exactly do you mean by that, pray tell?”
“It means I have a general idea of your granddaughter’s situation, but I’d be doing us both a disservice if I made any promises until I know more,” he said easily.
There was a prolonged silence as once again she considered him, then she abruptly murmured, “Hmmph.” Leaning sideways, she reached into her large handbag and pulled out a fat document-sized manila envelope.
“I anticipated this,” she said brusquely. “It’s all here. Delilah’s original itinerary. A list of the people she met with. Transcripts of my conversations with that detestable Condesta’s representatives. Photos of and information about the compound in Santa Marita where she’s being held. Oh, and a photo of her, of course.”
“This should be very helpful.” Dom took the proffered envelope and set it down in front of him. “First, however, I think we’d better establish what, exactly, you want me to do. Take over negotiations? Handle the exchange?”
To his immense gratification, she snorted and said briskly, “Certainly not. I have lawyers to do those things. Lawyers and advisers and business managers, whom I allowed, against my better judgment, to convince me that dealing with Delilah’s captors was the right thing to do…” She trailed off, then squared her shoulders and ratcheted up her already ramrod posture. “I may be old, Mr. Steele, but I’m not stupid, at least not often, and I don’t care for extortion. I want you to go to San Timoteo and bring Delilah home where she belongs.”
He did his best to squelch an inner cheer. “Okay. But there are still things we need to discuss.”
Her mouth curved in a moue of annoyance. “If this is about your fee—”
“No, ma’am,” he assured her. “I’m sure you’re good for it.” He swallowed a grin at her huff of indignation, then got down to business. “What I want is some insight into your granddaughter. Is she a leader or a follower? Easygoing or high-strung? Quick off the mark or more of a deep thinker?”
“Why on earth do you need to know all that?” she snapped.
“Well, let’s see.” He lazily drummed his fingertips against the tabletop. “I guess because it would be helpful to know what to expect. Is she likely to scream or faint when I show up? Will she feel compelled to offer her opinion about every move I make, or will she do what she’s told? Is she going to get hysterical if we have to make a run for it and she breaks a nail?”
Abigail’s icy blue eyes glinted. “You may count on Delilah to behave sensibly, Mr. Steele. I didn’t raise her to indulge in histrionics. She’s a level-headed, responsible young woman as befits her station, and I can assure you she understands that sometimes duty—or circumstance—requires one to subvert one’s emotions and do what needs to be done.”
“Okay,” he said mildly. “But if she’s such a paragon of virtue, then how’d she wind up enjoying Condesta’s enforced hospitality?”
“I never claimed my granddaughter was perfect,” she said stiffly, raising her already elevated chin another fraction. “For all her many sterling qualities, once in a while, on exceedingly rare occasions, Delilah can be unexpectedly…stubborn.
“This trip was a perfect example. Although it could easily have been handled by one of the staff, whom we pay to do this sort of thing, and despite the fact that she has countless obligations that require her attention at home, she insisted on personally going to San Timoteo to inspect a school that had applied to the Anson Foundation, a nonprofit organization my late father started, for funding.
“As I understand it, once her business was completed she decided to attend some sort of local celebration. It got out of hand, the police were called in and when the young man she was with was threatened with arrest—” her lips tightened “—Delilah foolishly objected.”
Dominic nodded. The granddaughter might be a few years older and a little less flaky than he’d initially envisioned, but the rest of the story was still pretty much what he’d expected—a classic case of Rich Person Behaving Badly. “So how do you think she’s holding up?”
“I’m sure she’s managing. The Anson blood runs in her veins,” the old lady said coolly, as if that said it all.
And maybe it did, Dom decided. At least it didn’t sound as if the granddaughter was likely to wilt like a hothouse flower at her first sight of him. Or complain endlessly about his choices and methods, or because he hadn’t brought her champagne and caviar or her own private masseuse.
Not that he’d ever intended not to rescue her if given the opportunity. Even if Mrs. Sommers had revealed that her darling Delilah had all the charm of a polecat on steroids, he’d planned all along to go to San Timoteo to relieve El Presidente of his unwilling guest.
But he wasn’t a fool. For all his no-sweat approach to life, he believed in doing things right. And in the security business, that meant careful planning and meticulous preparation, which meant obtaining all the information you could.
Still, it was probably past time to end the suspense and let Queen Abigail know he was willing to save her bacon, so to speak. “All right. I’ll do it.”
“Excellent!” Mrs. Sommers abruptly appeared years younger, for the first time revealing the genuine concern hidden beneath her crusty exterior. “How soon can you leave?”
“Sometime in the next forty-eight hours. Let me look this over—” he tapped the envelope “—make some calls and I’ll get back to you later today with any other questions that crop up and a more definitive timetable.”
“Excellent,” she repeated. Grasping her purse, she started to stand.
Already formulating a list of things he needed to do, he pushed to his feet. Once again, Dom and his new client shook hands and then Gabe offered his arm to escort her from the room. The two were almost to the door when Dom reached in and drew out the sheaf of papers. Paper-clipped to the top was a five-by-seven color photo. He glanced at it.
A shock like the blast from a stun gun jolted through him.
“This is your granddaughter? Lilah Cantrell?” Damned if his voice didn’t come out in a croak.
Mrs. Sommers turned, still graceful despite her years. “Delilah, yes. Her father was the product of my union with my second husband, James.”
He fought to keep his expression neutral. It took only a second for him to realize why he hadn’t made the connection: when he’d known Lilah, her grandmother’s name hadn’t been either Sommers or Cantrell, and the family mansion had been referred to as—he racked his brain, and suddenly he had it—the Trayburne estate.
But even so…He felt Gabriel’s sudden scrutiny like a touch. Yet Gabe being Gabe, his brother didn’t let on. “Come along, Abigail,” the other man said smoothly. “Margaret has the paperwork you need to sign at the front desk.”
The second they’d cleared the threshold, Dom turned his attention back to the glossy studio image clutched in his hand. A fine-boned blonde with china-blue eyes, a tantalizing mouth and an expression both reserved and challenging looked back at him.
Well, hell. Delilah Sommers was actually Lilah Cantrell. And despite her grandmother’s claims to the contrary, Lilah was every inch a self-centered society princess.
That he knew from personal experience.
Because Lilah Cantrell was the first—and only—woman he’d ever fallen hard for. The one woman he’d never been able to predict. The only woman ever to have shown him the door before he’d been sure he was ready to go.
And definitely the last woman on earth he’d deliberately seek out.
He uttered the first half of Gabe’s earlier curse.
“Something wrong?”
He jerked his head up, startled to find his older brother standing in the doorway watching him.
He immediately blanked his face. “No.”
And there wasn’t, he told himself firmly, shoving the picture back into the envelope. So what if he’d just agreed—no, insisted—on not just seeking Lilah out, but being allowed the privilege of saving her shapely little prima donna butt? He was a pro and he intended to act like it.
After all, the past was just that—the past. And he and Li had been barely more than kids at the time of their clichéd summer fling. What’s more, he’d known from the start they had no future. If in the intervening years he’d occasionally thought about her with a pang of regret, it was only because the sex had been incredible. Hell, more than incredible. Maybe the best of his life—
“You sure you’re all right?”
Gabe’s question yanked him back to reality. He thought about it for all of half a second and then felt a genuine smile form on his lips. “Yeah, I am. Why wouldn’t I be? I get to leave this Popsicle weather, go where I can work on my tan and foil some bad guys in the bargain. Plus we get paid for it.
“Trust me, bro. I can handle it.”
Three
“So you do this for a living?” Lilah’s eyebrows, shades darker than her pale hair, rose eloquently. “You—your brothers—are mercenaries?”
Apparently he hadn’t explained things as well as he’d thought. Just as this particular rescue mission wasn’t turning out to be the cakewalk he’d predicted.
That didn’t mean he had to stand here and let her get things wrong. “No,” Dom said flatly. “Mercenary implies no standards, no ethics, no values, no rules—and we stand for all those things. We don’t break U.S. law, we don’t work for anybody who isn’t one hundred per cent legit. Trust me. We can afford to be choosy.”
He refrained from adding that, in his opinion, he and his brothers had a lot in common with the guy whose nickname they shared, the one with the red cape and big S on his chest. Like him, they believed in justice and cared enough to risk their lives for it.
What’s more, unlike the majority of the populace, they’d all honorably served their country; every one of them was former military Special Operations and had put in their time on numerous tours of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and even darker corners of the world.
To her credit, Lilah appeared to get the message. She worried her bottom lip for an instant, then seemed to catch herself. Squaring her shoulders, she forced herself to meet his gaze head-on. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything…negative. Or—or to suggest I’m not glad you’re here. I am. It’s just…it’s unexpected.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Don’t worry about it.”
God knew, he didn’t intend to. After all, it looked as if things were finally going his way. And that was good, since for a while, he had half-seriously started to think of this job as the Extraction from Hell.
First, his flight into San Timoteo had been diverted. Then, when he’d finally gotten wheels down, he’d found his local contact had vanished. Which was why it had taken him a frustrating thirty-odd hours to discover that: (A) Lilah wasn’t where she was supposed to be; (B) that once he had located her—here, at what the locals called Las Rocas, an isolated, heavily guarded compound sixty-five rugged, sparsely inhabited miles from Santa Marita, the nation’s capital and only large city—his best bet of getting her out was to get himself thrown in; and (C) the best way to do that involved volunteering to get his ass kicked.
Complicating matters further, his satellite phone had been confiscated by San Timotean customs and the last intel he’d received had warned that a big storm was due in at the end of the week. What’s more, thanks to this required detour to the island’s remote south coast, he and Lilah had missed their scheduled ride out of the country. So now, in addition to everything else, he was going to have to improvise that part of the rescue plan, too.
But then, he liked to improvise. And he was good at it. Good enough that, so far as he could see, there was now only one problem that might really give him grief.
And she was standing a few feet away.
Hell he’d forgotten just how pretty Lilah was. Damned if she still didn’t look just like the Disney version of Cinderella, all gilt hair and big blue eyes and the sort of skin you usually only saw in body lotion commercials.
Unfortunately—at least as far as he was concerned—unlike a proper G-rated fairy-tale heroine, she was also hot. She’d been hot at eighteen and, if his current itchy-fingered reaction to her was any indication, the subsequent years hadn’t done a thing to dim her fire.
Not that there was anything blatant about it. Or her. Far from it. She had a way about her, all elegant carriage and air of restraint that made a guy think of garden parties and symphony openings, not mud wrestling and strip joints.
And that was a big part of the problem. Call him perverse, but at age twenty it had been her look-but-don’t-touch demeanor that had first attracted him. He’d always loved a challenge—still did—and her sorority girl air of being unattainable had been like a red flag snapped in a bull’s face. All it had taken to hook him had been one look. After that, the only thing he’d been able to think about was sinking his fingers into her pale silky hair, cradling her close and kissing the primness right off that delectable mouth.
Of course, that’d been then and this was now. He was thirty years old. A man, not a boy. And she hadn’t just burned him all those years ago, she’d barbecued him. Which was not an experience he had any intention of repeating.
So how to explain the gut-wrenching, skin-tightening, gotta-have-some-of-that desire that had blasted through him the instant she’d laid her hands on him earlier?
