The Pint-Sized Secret

Even as she studied the crowd, she waved off his inquiry. “I’m sure you’ve seen the personnel records. It’s no big secret,” she said dismissively.

Actually Jeb had read the personnel file. It was almost as vague as Brianna herself was being now. “It wasn’t working out. I believe that’s what the file states. Was that it?”

She shrugged. “That about sums it up.”

“Max Coleman doesn’t strike me as a man prone to whims.”

For a fleeting moment her attention returned to him. “You’d have to ask him about that. One day I was working there, the next day, I wasn’t.”

“If your firing was that capricious, why didn’t you sue him?”

“Not my nature,” she said. “All I cared about was getting another job.” Her attention drifted yet again.

Jeb struggled to accept her response. It was so deliberately disingenuous, he almost wondered if Max hadn’t staged the firing just so she could be hired by his competitor, making her a well-placed spy for her old boss. So far, though, Coleman hadn’t been involved in any of the soured deals.

Besides which, Brianna genuinely seemed to despise the man. She might not have wanted to waste time and money taking him to court for wrongful dismissal, but she resented his actions just the same. That much was clear from the venom in her voice whenever she mentioned his name. Unless she was a better actress than Jeb imagined, her hatred was sincere.

“How about a little fresh air?” Jeb suggested when they had their champagne.

She cast one last, disappointed look around the room, then nodded. “Fine.”

Outside on the terrace, there was a soft breeze. The sky was brilliant with stars, competing with the lights of downtown Houston. But none of the scenery could hold a candle to the woman beside him. Jeb found himself wishing for the hundredth time that this were a real date, that he could take her in his arms and kiss her the way he’d been wanting to ever since he’d picked her up. Aware of just how inappropriate that would be on any number of levels, he held back. For a man reputed to have no scruples, now was a fine time for his to be kicking in.

He leaned back against the railing and sipped his champagne. “Tell me about your marriage,” he suggested idly.

Without the distraction of looking for Max, she was instantly suspicious. “Why?” she asked bluntly.

“Just making small talk, sweetheart. That’s what men and women do at these things.”

She shrugged off the explanation. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t spend a lot of time at charity balls.”

“Well, let me explain the rules, then. We eat a little, drink a little, dance when the mood strikes us, exchange pleasantries with people we know, chitchat with those we’d like to know better, gossip about the bad guys, network with business associates. Then we go home and crash, so we can do it all again tomorrow.”

“Two balls in one weekend?”

“Downright decadent, isn’t it?”

“Tedious.”

“Depends on your companion. Now something tells me you could relieve the tedium, if you’d just relax a little.”

“I am relaxed,” she protested.

She didn’t look it. She’d started looking uptight the instant he mentioned her ex-husband. In fact, she looked so thoroughly uncomfortable, so totally wary, that he couldn’t help himself. He forgot all about his resolve of moments ago and leaned forward and kissed her.

It was meant to be no more than a quick peck, something to startle her, maybe put a little color in her cheeks. But when she gasped softly, when her lips seemed to heat instantaneously, Jeb was lost. He dipped his head and kissed her again, longer this time, deeper, savoring the taste of cool champagne and hot Brianna. He lifted his hand, curved his fingers around her neck and felt the wild beating of her pulse beneath his thumb.

When he leaned back at last, she looked dazed. He felt as if he’d been sucker punched. The kiss wasn’t supposed to happen, but he’d kissed plenty of women without having his insides turn to mush. His reaction told him that this informal, unauthorized investigation of his had just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

Distance, that’s what he needed. Not physical, but emotional. He knew a surefire way to get it, too.

“Let’s try that again,” he suggested innocently, and caught the flare of color in her cheeks. Before her protest could form, he grinned. “Tell me about your marriage.”

Just as he’d anticipated, her expression closed down. “It didn’t work out,” she said evasively.

“Sort of like the job,” he countered, deliberately trying to provoke her with innuendo. “Are there a lot of things in your life that just don’t work out?”

“No more than the average person,” she retorted. “I just know when to cut my losses.” She gave him a hard once-over. “This seems like a good time to do that tonight.”

The suddenness and depth of her anger took him by surprise. She moved before he could stop her. Jeb watched her cross the terrace, spine stiff, shoulders square. The effect was lost a little when his gaze drifted lower and he saw the sway of slim hips encased in bronze. Damn, but she was something.

He followed her inside at a leisurely pace, so leisurely that he might have risked losing her in the throng if Max Coleman hadn’t chosen that moment to put in an appearance. Brianna was frozen in place, her face pale.

“You okay?” Jeb asked, moving up beside her.

Apparently she counted Jeb as the lesser of two evils, because she linked her arm through his and plastered a smile on her face. “Just peachy,” she announced. “I’ve been waiting for this chance for a long time. Since it’s the only reason I’m here tonight, let’s make the most of it.”

Jeb could have chosen to be insulted by the role he’d been cast in—second fiddle to revenge—but if it brought her back to his side, he was more than willing to go along with her. He wanted to see how she interacted with her old boss, see if he could glean any relevant information from their exchange.

Max Coleman had scrambled his way to the presidency of a small Houston-based oil conglomerate. He’d started in the fields, studied hard and been driven by blind ambition to reach the top. He wasn’t as polished as Bryce Delacourt, nor as handsome, but he presented a commanding figure, especially in a well-tailored tuxedo. His gaze settled on Brianna, then moved to Jeb.

If seeing her made Max uncomfortable, spotting his rival’s son made him downright nervous, but he covered both reactions quickly with a smile that only a close observer would recognize as fake.

“Brianna, my dear, you’re looking lovely tonight. How nice to see you here. Things must be going well for you.” He glanced pointedly at Jeb, as if to imply that he now knew why she was succeeding in the aftermath of his dismissal. “I had no idea that you and Jeb were so close.”

“First date,” Jeb retorted. “I needed the most beautiful woman in Houston on my arm tonight, so naturally I thought of Brianna. She’s become a very valuable asset to Delacourt Oil.” He hesitated ever so slightly. “And to me.”

Her startled gaze shot to his, as if she couldn’t believe the audacity of the remark. He winked at her, drawing her into the game.

“Yes, Brianna was always as interested in corporate benefits as she was in the challenges of her work,” Max said, then gave them both a curt nod and walked away.

Jeb stared after him, puzzling over the comment. It sounded like the embittered response of a man who’d been wronged in some way, but how? Had he made advances toward her and been spurned? Was her firing as simple as that, a sexual harassment case that she hadn’t had the will to fight?

Glancing down, he caught the bright red patches of color in her cheeks and realized that, whatever the man had meant, his comment had hit its mark.

“What was that all about?” Jeb asked.

“Just Max getting in the last blow,” she said. “I’d like to leave now, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind,” he said, catching her off guard. “You can’t walk away in defeat. You need to show the man he can’t get to you.”

“How am I supposed to do that? Being here with you certainly backfired.”

“Darlin’, that was just the first volley.” He beckoned her toward the dance floor. “Now let’s show the man what you’re made of.”

A fast tune had just started, and Brianna stared at Jeb as if she’d never been on a dance floor before in her life. “I can’t.”

“You don’t know how? You don’t want to? Or what?”

“Dancing is not going to prove anything to Max Coleman,” she said, as if she pitied Jeb for being foolish enough to think otherwise.

For the moment Jeb forgot all about his secret mission for the evening and concentrated on hers. She looked vulnerable and defeated, and he was too much of a gentlemen to let that continue.

“Then you’re not doing it right,” he assured her, sweeping her into a dip that clearly left her dizzy. She was laughing by the time he brought her upright.

“Okay,” she said, the sparkle returning to her eyes. “Let’s do it.”

For the next three dances, they ruled the floor. The crowd parted to observe, cheering the intricate steps, applauding and begging for an encore when each song ended. Jeb caught Max’s expression as they whirled by him in one tempestuous sweep of the room. He looked as if he’d swallowed something particularly nasty.

Brianna caught his expression, too, then gazed up at Jeb. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I think our job here is done.”

Jeb nodded his agreement. “Let’s blow this place.”

She giggled like a schoolgirl and in that instant, Jeb felt himself falling for her. She tantalized him. He didn’t know her. He didn’t understand her secrets. He had no idea what made her tick.

Which meant he was going to have to keep seeing her, he concluded. Not that it was a hardship. She fit a little too neatly into his embrace. She smelled of some exotic scent that drove him a little bit crazy. He found himself wanting to kiss that graceful curve of her exposed neck.

None of that was supposed to happen, of course. Getting turned on by the subject of an investigation tended to cloud objectivity. He might not be the professional P.I. his brother was, but he knew that his current state of arousal was big trouble.

Still, he had no choice. Not if he was to save Delacourt Oil.

And maybe not even if he was to save himself.

After their triumph on the dance floor, the evening had gone downhill. Jeb couldn’t coax more than a one-word response from Brianna all the way home. At her house, she fled from his car. She barely uttered goodbye, much less an invitation to come inside. He had sat in the driveway for fully ten minutes trying to decide whether to follow her. At midnight, he’d finally concluded that he needed to give her the space she so obviously craved. He figured eight to ten hours ought to be enough.

He was up at dawn on Saturday and on the phone to Dylan.

“Some of us actually like to sleep in on the weekends,” his big brother protested when Jeb awakened him. “Especially when there’s a beautiful woman in bed beside us.”

“Stop bragging,” Jeb retorted. “Besides, this is important.”

“And my plans for the morning weren’t?”

“You can get back to them in a minute.”

Dylan sighed heavily. “Afraid not. I can hear the patter of little feet running toward the kitchen right now. Soon I’ll be blessed with the sound of cartoons at top volume. Then my bride will desert me.”

“Okay, okay, you have my pity and my apology. Now will you listen for a minute?”

“Why not? Looks like I don’t have anything better to do.”

“I went out with Brianna last night.”

Dylan whistled. “The lovely spy?”

“We don’t know she’s a spy,” Jeb said defensively.

“Hey, you’re the one who pinned the label on her, not me. What’s changed?”

Jeb ran his fingers through his hair. “She’s…I don’t know. She’s not what I expected.”

“Holy mackerel, you’ve gone and fallen for her, haven’t you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It was one date. Nobody falls for a woman in one date. Besides, I’m investigating her. How stupid do you think I am?”

His brother laughed. “Not stupid. Just male.”

“You are not helping,” Jeb accused.

“What do you want from me?”

“Advice.”

“About your love life?”

“About the investigation, dammit!”

“Let’s take it from the top then. Tell me again why you suspect Brianna of leaking Delacourt secrets.”

“Timing, mostly. She arrived and suddenly deals started going sour.”

“What does Dad say?”

“That I should stay the heck away from her, that she’s totally trustworthy, etcetera.”

“Maybe you should listen to him for once.”

“I can’t ignore my instincts. There’s something going on, Dylan. I can feel it.”

“Maybe there is, but maybe Brianna has absolutely nothing to do with it. Circumstantial evidence, especially the little bit you have, won’t cut it. You need some cold hard facts. There are other geologists. Any one of them could be behind the leaks.”

“Out of the blue? They’ve been here for years.”

“But maybe one of them has just been hit with huge medical expenses, or college tuition, or blackmail. The possibilities are endless. I think you’d better back off with Brianna. Start from scratch. Look at everyone who had the information that was leaked. Check into their finances. If you want to fax me a list of names, I’ll do some of the financial checks for you. Then you can go from there.”

Jeb could see the logic of Dylan’s plan, but it grated just the same. If he did as his brother suggested, he’d have to stop seeing Brianna. Right now he had the excuse of the investigation. If he kept seeing her, he would have to admit it was personal, and then what? What if the feelings that had stirred in him last night deepened, and then it did turn out that she was guilty? He’d be caught smack in the middle of a disaster.

“Jeb? Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, I heard you.”

Dylan groaned. “But you don’t want to stay away from Brianna, do you? It’s already gotten personal. How far has it gone, little brother?”

Jeb saw little point in lying. Dylan was already assuming the worst. “Not far. I kissed her. That’s it.”

“You think she’s a corporate spy and you kissed her. Terrific. That’s really using your brain.”

“I didn’t consult my brain. That’s the difference between you and me, Dylan. Sometimes I just react to the moment.”

“Then perhaps you ought to severely restrict the moments you spend with Brianna,” his brother suggested.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’ve already made plans to see her again this morning.” He didn’t mention that Brianna knew nothing about those plans. “I want to check a little more closely into her lifestyle.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m trying to. You’re just not listening. Fax me those names, Jeb. And keep your distance from Brianna. See her today if you have to, but try to think of her as the enemy. Normally I recommend thinking of a suspect as innocent until proved guilty, but maybe that’s not such a good idea in this instance. Maybe considering Brianna a bad guy will help you to keep your hormones in check until we know what’s really going on.”

Jeb accepted his brother’s advice without comment. It hadn’t worked the night before, but he was willing to give it another try. This time he wouldn’t even take coffee, much less pastries, when he paid his surprise visit.

Chapter Four

“Tell me about the party, Mama,” Emma begged when Brianna stopped by the rehab facility on Saturday morning. “I want to know everything. Was your dress beautiful? Did it have lots of lace and ruffles? What color was it? Pink? That’s my favorite, you know.”

Brianna held back a chuckle at Emma’s idea of high fashion. “I know you love pink, but my gown was bronze and there wasn’t a ruffle on it. Sorry, angel. You know I’d look terrible in pink. That’s your color. You look like a little princess when you get all dressed up in pink.”

“I’ll bet you looked like a princess even if you were wearing some other color,” Emma said loyally.

“I don’t know about that.” Brianna thought of her escort, who had looked very much like a prince in his fancy tux. The formal attire suited his dark good looks, made him look more than ever like the scoundrel she had to keep reminding herself he was.

Not that he’d behaved that way…for the most part. For the major portion of the evening, he’d treated her with the utmost respect. He’d been a perfect gentleman. And she, perverse idiot that she was, had hated it. Apparently some long-dormant part of her had wanted him to kiss her, had wanted him to make a pass at her when he’d danced her into the shadows of the huge ballroom. Instead, when he’d merely settled her on a bench and gone for champagne, she had been ridiculously disappointed. He was a rogue, wasn’t he?

Later, when she got her unspoken wish, when he kissed her on the terrace, the results had been devastating. Her blood had almost literally sizzled. She hadn’t realized that was possible. She had also recognized belatedly just how intoxicatingly dangerous that could be.

After the kiss, they had danced some more, putting on a show, in fact. Then they had talked. And talked. Most of the time Jeb had been totally, utterly charming. Attentive. Witty. Compassionate, especially when it came to helping her claim revenge against Max Coleman. In fact, she hadn’t met a man she’d been more attracted to in years.

Or a man who was more out of reach. She had absolutely no intention of risking her job by getting involved with someone at the office, a Delacourt no less. She had no time for a relationship, period. Talk about courting disaster. She simply couldn’t risk it, not with so much at stake.

Besides, there had been all those probing questions he’d dismissed as nothing more than small talk. She knew better. He was after something, though she honestly had no idea what. Could it really be as simple as a man wanting to get to know a woman? She might be out of practice at dating, but her instincts said no. She could still recognize idle conversation. She did a lot of networking, especially with men. She knew how to play that game. Jeb’s questions had been too sharp, a little too pointed. They would have made her uncomfortable even if they hadn’t come so close to exposing all her secrets.

“Mama?”

Emma’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Sorry, baby. My mind wandered.”

“Wandered where?”

“Back to the party,” she said, forcing herself to inject a note of enthusiasm into her voice as she described all of the elegant clothes and beautiful decorations.

Emma had too few chances to hear about anything that could carry her away from this confined world in which she lived. Their rare outings were seldom more exciting than the drive-through line at a fast-food restaurant, though hopefully that would change now that Emma was getting more adept at dealing with her wheelchair. Up until now she had stubbornly refused to go anywhere unless she could remain in the car.

“I don’t want people to stare,” she declared, and that was that.

One day Emma’s world would open up again, but until then Brianna did her best to let Emma live vicariously through her own activities. Her site explorations were seldom as intriguing for a five-year-old as last night’s dance clearly was.

“It sounds like a fairy tale,” her daughter concluded with a little sigh when Brianna had finished. “I wish I could go to a ball and dance.”

Brianna’s heart broke at the wistfulness in her daughter’s voice. In Emma’s case, it wasn’t just childish yearning to be grown-up. Unspoken was the very real fear that she might never be able to walk, much less dance.

“You will, sweetie,” Brianna promised in an attempt to reassure her. “One of these days you will make all of the other girls weep with envy when you arrive with your handsome prince.”

“What about your prince? Is he very handsome? Can I meet Mr. Delacourt?”

The very idea horrified Brianna. “No,” she said curtly, then tempered it by adding, “He’s a very busy man.”

“But you like him, don’t you? You haven’t gone out with anyone since Daddy left, so you must.”

“This was just a business occasion, Emma, not a real date,” Brianna said, ignoring the fact that for a few minutes, out on the terrace, it had felt very much like a date. In fact, it had felt like the start of something important.

Then he’d started in with those questions again, and the mood had been lost.

“Oh,” Emma said, clearly disappointed.

Brianna decided it was time to change the subject. “Want to try to stand up for me? Gretchen says you’re getting better at it every day.”

Emma shook her head. “Not now.”

“It’s important to keep trying.”

Emma’s expression set stubbornly. “No,” she said as emphatically as she had when it had been the primary word in her vocabulary.

“Please,” Brianna coaxed.

“I don’t feel like it.”

Brianna sighed. She’d had to learn not to push, though it went against her nature. But she knew Emma had to be allowed her rebellions. There were so few things she had control over in her life. The therapists were demanding taskmasters. The doctors poked and prodded. Occasionally Emma had to be permitted to make her own decisions about what she was ready to try.

“Maybe next time, then,” Brianna said cheerfully, and gave Emma a kiss. “I love you, baby. I’ll be back first thing in the morning. If the weather’s nice, I’ll bring a picnic and we can eat lunch outside. Would you like that?”

Emma shrugged, then turned away to face the TV, even though Brianna doubted she really cared what was on. It was just a way to show her displeasure with her mother.

Once again filled with the sensation that she had let her daughter down, Brianna left. She’d known there would be days like this, days when she would feel utterly and totally defeated. The doctors, the counselors and Gretchen had repeatedly told her it was perfectly normal, but she wanted so badly to be a positive influence in Emma’s life. She wanted her little girl to be motivated, to feel loved. She wanted her to fight her injuries, not her mother.

Brianna was dragging by the time she got home, lost in waves of self-pity and regrets. Though her pulse took an unwanted leap at the sight of Jeb waiting on her doorstep, she was in no mood to welcome him.

Even so, for a fleeting moment she found herself regretting that she hadn’t dressed in something other than jeans and a faded teal T-shirt when she’d run out of the house to pay a quick visit to Emma. She looked decidedly frumpy, while he managed to make his own jeans and dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up look like something out of a men’s fashion spread in GQ.

Why was it that she constantly felt at a total disadvantage with this man? She worked in a man’s world. She had never been easily intimidated, but there was no denying that Jeb rattled her. He could shake her composure without even opening his mouth. Possibly it had something to do with the fact that he deliberately kept her off balance. She couldn’t get a fix on his real intentions.

And so she approached him with wariness.

“Where have you been this early on a beautiful Saturday morning?” he asked as she neared. “Not the office, I know, because I called there.”

Even though his tone was curious rather than accusatory, Brianna instinctively bristled. “Checking up on me, Mr. Delacourt?”

“Now that I’ve held you in my arms, I think you can stick to calling me Jeb,” he chided. “No, I wasn’t checking up on you, just looking for you. I thought you might want to do something today. It’s a little late now, but we could go out for breakfast.”

“Sorry. I’ve already eaten.”

“So that’s where you were. Having breakfast with a friend?”

Brianna grasped the explanation eagerly. “Yes. If I’d known you were thinking of coming by, I could have told you I had a prior engagement. Some people actually call ahead.”