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A pang of regret hit Ysabel square in the chest. “You and I both know Jackson rides life in the fast lane. He doesn’t slow down long enough to notice anything but the business.”
“He took enough time to get engaged.”
“Only because it was on his scheduled time line of ‘things to do before I die.’ I penciled that in on his goals sheet when he wasn’t looking one day. The man wouldn’t have bothered if I hadn’t.” He’d totally missed the point, too. Ysabel could still feel the pain of watching him court woman after woman to find one who could provide the right corporate-wife image. He’d thought he’d found it in Jenna Nilsson. The witch. He’d even had Ysabel order an engagement ring for the woman. Wow. She shook her head. The memory still made her chest ache.
“Still, he did get engaged,” Delia offered, wincing when Ysabel glared at her.
“For what it was worth!” Ysabel threw her arms in the air. “She was cheating on him from day one with an old boyfriend.”
“You knew?”
Heat filled her cheeks. “Yeah, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. The man is clueless when it comes to women. He deserved her.”
“Wow, and here I thought you were in love with the guy.”
“Emphasis on past tense.” Ysabel tossed her long, straight hair behind her shoulder. “I’m so over him.”
“Right, that’s why we’ve been talking about him for the past…” Delia glanced at her wristwatch, “thirty minutes.”
Anger surged in Ysabel’s chest. “Of all people, I thought you’d understand.” She grabbed her purse and keys. “I’m going back to my place.”
“You mean you’re going back to the office, don’t you?” Delia stood and followed Ysabel toward the door. “I don’t know why you bother to keep an apartment, you practically live at the office. What are you going to do when you aren’t working there anymore?”
“I don’t live at the office and I am going to my apartment,” Ysabel lied. She’d thought of a few things she’d wanted to straighten in Jackson’s office before he showed up bright and early tomorrow.
Delia rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
As she reached for the door, her BlackBerry phone sang out the tune to Mission Impossible, the one she’d assigned to Jackson Champion’s phone number. Her heart leaped into her throat, threatening to choke off her air. Ysabel dug in her purse for the device. “Where is that damned thing?”
“Calm down. He’ll just keep ringing until you answer.”
“I am calm!” Her fingers curled around the smooth black rectangle and she jerked it from her purse. For a moment she stared down at the name displayed across the miniature screen. Jackson Champion. Her breath caught in her throat and her fingers froze.
“Tell him, Ysabel. Tell him he’s going to be a father.”
“No, I can’t. I have to quit first.”
“You owe him that much.”
Ysabel’s hands shook. “I can’t.”
“At least answer the phone.” Delia reached over her sister’s shoulder and punched the Talk button. Then she leaned back against the wall, her brows rising up her smooth forehead in challenge.
“Ysabel? Ysabel! Are you there?” Jackson’s voice barked out from the phone, jerking Ysabel out of her stupor.
Her hands shook as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Yes, I’m here.”
“I need you down on the Bayport Terminal ASAP.”
“Tell him,” Delia whispered.
With Delia staring at her like her gaze could bore a hole into her conscience and Jackson’s voice sending goose bumps across her skin, Ysabel shook her head. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Jackson asked. “I need you here now! And set up a meeting with the Aggie Four—Flint McKade and Akeem Abdul—for first thing in the morning. We’ve got big problems.”
Ysabel resisted the urge to pull out a pen and jot down his instructions on the handy notepad she kept in her purse. She took a deep breath and straightened. It was now or never. “I quit.”
“You what?” Jackson shouted.
Ysabel held the phone away from her ear until Jackson stopped yelling. “You heard me. I quit.”
“That’s what I thought you said. I don’t know what’s going on, but quitting at this point in time is not an option. Get down to the terminal now!”
It was just like the man to ignore her when she wanted something. Ysabel’s stubborn streak set in with a vengeance. “Maybe you didn’t understand what I just said.”
“I understood just fine. I also have an employment contract that requires you give me two weeks notice.” Jackson paused, breathing heavily in the phone. “Look, I’ve had a lousy voyage with a man gone overboard. You sent me a trainee when I just got back in town, a crate full of what I thought were Rasnovian saddles just exploded in front of me, I have a dead man lying at my feet and the police are trying to arrest me for murder. Either you get down here now or I’ll sue you for breach of contract!”
Chapter Two
“I tell you, as far as I knew, the box contained hand-crafted Rasnovian saddles, not explosives.” Jackson held his temper in check. Now was not the time for letting loose. Not with a rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth detective ready to accuse him of God knew what.
Detective Brody Green nodded toward the area surrounded in yellow crime scene ribbon, a snarling sneer lifting his upper lip. “Obviously, the box wasn’t full of saddles. Our crime scene experts are leaning toward explosive detonators. Would you care to explain that?”
Jackson’s back teeth ground together. “Champion Shipping doesn’t transport explosives or detonators. Nowhere on my manifests was this indicated or I would have put a stop to it before it left the port of embarkation.”
Brody’s lips twisted into a mirthless smile. “Right. Still, I’ll need to question you and all your employees involved in the loading and unloading of this particular ship. And I’ll bet the Department of Homeland Security will want to talk with you as well.”
“Fine. I have nothing to hide.” Jackson ran a hand through his hair and looked around for the hundredth time. Where was Ysabel?
As if reading his mind, Tom, the executive rotation trainee, stared down at his watch. “She said she’d be here in twenty minutes. That was…twenty minutes ago.” He looked across the container yard and grinned. “Just like clockwork. How does she do it?”
The skin on the back of Jackson’s neck tingled. He didn’t need Tom’s words to tell him Ysabel was behind him. The day of reckoning had arrived and Jackson was no more prepared for it than he’d been two months ago. Face the music, Champion. Face it and lose her.
Sucking in a deep breath, he slowly turned.
Ysabel Sanchez strode across the heated concrete, her heels clicking, her long straight hair swaying around her shoulders in a curtain of light. Her full hips mesmerized him in the glare of the overhead lights.
Jackson’s mouth went dry and his groin tightened. Two months should have erased all physical yearnings he might have had for his executive assistant. It worked for all the other women he’d dated since he’d escaped puberty.
Ysabel wasn’t like the other women. She carried herself as if she were a Spanish queen, poker-straight, a haughty tilt to her chin, all business and no nonsense. Yes, that was the Ysabel he wanted to remember, but he had the other Ysabel branded in his mind and every nerve ending in his body since that night he’d spent in her arms.
Jackson had witnessed the softness and tenderness beneath the hard-core front she put on for Champion Shipping. Her Spanish heritage showed in the full curve of her breasts, the light olive tone of her skin and the rounded swell of her hips. Soft, moss-green eyes saw through his soul to the man he’d hidden beneath the rough exterior since his first day in the foster care system. The woman had a knack for reading minds. If Jackson believed in magic, Ysabel Sanchez was most definitely a witch.
His hands ached for the straight, light brown hair that sifted through his fingers like strands of the finest silk. Beneath that cool, professional exterior lurked a fiery passion he hadn’t seen before. The urge to pull her into his arms and pick up where they’d left off that night in his bed nearly blew away his icy reserve. Damn the woman to hell!
Jackson suppressed a moan and struggled to keep his hands in his pockets and maintain a professional face in front of the detective and the kid. Neither of them had a need to know of his transgression or his secret lust for his executive assistant. That was his cross to bear.
Without a “Hello” or a “Good to see you” after two months out of the office, Jackson skipped the niceties and went straight for dealing with the more immediate problem. “Detective Brody, Ysabel Sanchez.”
Ysabel extended a graceful hand. “Detective.”
The detective’s eyes narrowed, his lips tightening. “Miss Sanchez.” He didn’t take her hand, just raised his notepad a degree and made a show of jotting down notes with the government black pen. “For the record, what is your relationship to Mr. Champion?” His glance skewered her.
Sensing the detective’s rising ire, Jackson jumped in and answered for Ysabel. “Miss Sanchez is my executive assistant.”
“Right.” Detective Brody’s gaze swept her from head to toe. “We should all have our very own assistant like Miss Sanchez, shouldn’t we?” A nasty smile slid across his face as he glanced at Jackson and Tom.
Tom’s brows rose and Jackson’s anger spiked to dangerous.
“Don’t overstep your boundaries, Detective,” he warned, his fists clenching at his sides. If the man wasn’t sporting a badge and a gun, Jackson would have taken a swing and to hell with the consequences.
But with a man being loaded onto a gurney for transportation to the morgue and an unexplained shipment of explosives, Jackson couldn’t afford to lose his cool. No matter how warranted.
Ysabel’s lips spread in a tight smile, her hand dropping to her side. “Could someone fill me in on what’s going on?” She glanced up at Jackson, her gaze quickly shifting to Tom.
A twinge of annoyance made Jackson’s chest tighten. So things weren’t right with her either after the two-month absence. So much for time and distance diminishing memories. Damn, he had a lot of backpedaling to do to convince Ysabel not to leave Champion Shipping. And he had to. She’d become his lifeline to sanity in a business that seemed to have mushroomed overnight.
Detective Brody stepped between Jackson and Ysabel, completely ignoring her and addressing only Jackson. “Could you direct me to whoever is in charge of offloading the cargo from your ship?”
Longing for a minute or two with Ysabel to set the record straight—although a minute wouldn’t be nearly enough—Jackson grit his teeth. “Sure.” He turned to Tom. “Could you enlighten Miss Sanchez? I’ll be back.” He hoped.
“Yes, sir.” Tom practically snapped to attention at the request.
A small smile quirked the corners of Ysabel’s mouth.
Warmth filled Jackson’s chest. That was the easy smile he remembered from his assistant before he’d slept with her. The warmth chilled almost as quickly as it came on. What he wouldn’t give to put things back to the way they were.
He walked away, leading the detective toward Percy Pearson, the superintendent responsible for offloading the cargo.
All the while, he could feel her gaze boring into his back. Yeah, he’d screwed up. If only he could get her alone and try to undo the mistake and make things right again.
Fat chance.
YSABEL clutched her purse to keep her hands from shaking. Her first face-to-face contact with the man who had tied her in knots for the past two months hadn’t gone nearly as she’d planned. She’d wanted to get him alone, hand over her resignation letter and walk out. A clean break. The less said the better. After he’d walked—no, make that ran—from his apartment following the most incredible night of sex she’d ever experienced, she had a firm understanding of what he expected from her.
Nothing. And she should expect nothing from him.
She might have been able to hide her true feelings and gone on, business-as-usual just like she had for the past two months—which hadn’t been hard considering the man had disappeared off the face of the earth physically, if not so much by e-mail and voicemail. Unfortunately, the result of their mental lapse in their otherwise professional relationship was the baby growing in Ysabel’s womb.
Her hand rose involuntarily to her still-flat midsection. She’d harbored more than a professional yearning for her boss pretty much since she’d gone to work for him five years ago. Determined to keep her job, she’d squelched her natural desires and pretended that his constant parade of different women didn’t hurt. After a while she’d begun to see a pattern in his dating. Date twice and dump. The women he dated were primarily money-hungry gold-diggers, mostly interested in his wealth and social standing. They hadn’t been given a chance to know the man beneath the charming, if somewhat distant, exterior.
Being his assistant, Ysabel saw what made Jackson Champion tick. When he didn’t think she was looking or he didn’t notice she was in the room, she saw what made him hurt and knew more than he’d ever tell her about himself by simply observing. In order to better understand her boss, she’d done a little digging of her own and knew he didn’t have family. Tossed into the foster care system at the sensitive age of seven, he’d been passed from one family to the next, never feeling the love of parents.
When he’d been more than a bear to work for, Ysabel reminded herself that the man had to be hurting inside still, never having resolved issues of loneliness and neglect from his childhood.
The only family he claimed was the Aggie Four, the closeknit group of friends he’d made while attending college at Texas A&M. An unlikely group of young men brought together by hard times, their own isolation and a need for friendship. He’d die for any one of them and they’d do the same.
A wave of sadness washed over Ysabel. The Aggie Four was now down to three. Even after three months, Viktor Romanov and his family’s deaths still burned in her chest. She could imagine how Jackson felt. As his assistant, Ysabel had been involved in many meetings of the Aggie Four and come to know the men Jackson valued as friends on a more personal basis.
The young prince of Rasnovia had struggled to bring his country into the future. With the help and financial support of the Aggie Four Foundation, they’d combined forces to rebuild the small nation after its split from Russia. Democracy and capitalism had been introduced and flourished until a group of rebels overran the Romanovs, killing them and plunging the country into civil war.
A lot had happened in the past few months to all of the Aggie Four. She suspected it was more than coincidence. She sucked in a deep breath and turned to Tom, a smile spreading across her face. “So, how was your first day with the great Jackson Champion?”
Tom grinned. “Wow, the man’s a dynamo! I’d no sooner gotten here then he was leaping onto a forklift and chasing after another.” He filled her in on what had happened with the runaway forklift driver and the ensuing explosion.
“Any idea what caused the explosion?”
Tom’s smile faded. “The firefighters found evidence of detonators in the debris. The detonators might have set off the propane tank on the forklift. The man driving…” Tom shook his head. “Not pretty.”
The wind shifted, pushing the damp smell of charred wood and flesh toward Ysabel. Her stomach lurched. She’d had only two bouts of nausea in the past two weeks. That plus the missed period had clued her into the fact she might be pregnant. She pressed a hand to her mouth and willed her stomach to behave.
Jackson stalked back toward Ysabel and Tom, his face set in tight lines. “Detective Brody is breathing fire and trying to come up with reasons to throw me in jail.”
Ysabel swallowed hard, hoping her stomach would stay down. “Why?”
“He wants to pin the shipment of detonators on me and Champion Shipping, not to mention slapping a murder charge on me for the thief’s death.” Jackson ran his hand through his hair, making the dark locks stand on end. “I’ll need that emergency meeting of the Aggie Four to happen first thing tomorrow morning.”
She nodded, afraid to open her mouth. Another waft of pungent air hit her and her stomach burbled.
“We’ll meet at McKade’s ranch house. I could use the fresh air.” He glanced around the container yard, shaking his head. “If the Department of Homeland Security sinks its teeth into this, it could shut down Champion Shipping indefinitely.”
Ysabel knew they could and she understood the impact to their customers and cash flow. They could lose millions.
“The detective said I could go but to expect more questions.” Jackson turned to Tom. “Did you drive your own car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No need for you to ruin your night. I’ll see you tomorrow in the office.”
Tom nodded, shooting a look from Jackson to Ysabel for confirmation.
Ysabel nodded. “See ya tomorrow.”
“Okay, then.” Tom gave them one last look as though he was afraid he’d miss something important or exciting by leaving, then he turned and strode toward the parking lot.
Alone at last, Ysabel quelled an urge to run after Tom. She didn’t want to be alone with Jackson. So much remained unsaid and even though she’d wanted to clear the air, now that she had the opportunity, she couldn’t find the backbone to make it happen.
Jackson fixed that for her. He took one more look around then headed off toward the parking lot, his pace eating the distance. “Come on, I want to swing by the office. I’ll need a list of all employees working the shipment here and in Rasnovia where we picked up the saddles. Then we’ll need to compile a list of anyone who might have it in for me, although I suspect that could be a long one. You don’t make as much money as I do without accumulating enemies.”
“I know this isn’t a good time for you, but what part of ‘I quit’ didn’t you understand?”
Jackson stopped dead still. He didn’t turn, didn’t look at her, but his shoulders stiffened. “And what part of ‘lawsuit’ didn’t you understand? I need you now to help me figure out this mess. After that, we’ll discuss your severance options.” He didn’t wait for her response, but continued toward the parking lot.
Ysabel hurried to keep up. She was used to racing after Jackson even on a good day. He didn’t waste time and he didn’t suffer slowpokes. If only her stomach would cooperate. Several steps brought her closer to the source of the smell and she saw the emergency personnel zipping the remains of the forklift driver into a body bag.
The charred skin and the stench of burned flesh sent Ysabel over the edge. Her stomach heaved. She dropped back and held her hand over her mouth. No, please, not now. Tears welled in her eyes.
Jackson, aware he’d lost her, stopped and turned, a frown creasing his brow. “Is everything all right, Miss Sanchez?”
