Sleeping With the Enemy (18 page)

Charlie groaned. “Yeah, I figured as much. I had the procedure done in New York. The doctor and his nurse were the only people in the room.”

“Good. Do you have any information on the sperm
donor?”

“No, just the basics, good health, all his teeth, IQ above 120, brown eyes, brown hair. I made sure to pick from the donors who hadn’t signed up for the identity disclosure
program. I figured that if they didn’t want kids looking for them once they were eighteen, they wouldn’t be looking for their kids, either.”

Bridgett was impressed at her reasoning. “Good thinking.”

“I happen
to have an IQ over 120 myself,” Charlie said.

The smug grin she gave Bridgett was so very much like Jay’s that she nearly laughed. She sobered up quickly before she asked the next question, though. “I have to ask if you slept with anyone else during that time period.”

Charlie’s smile faded and her mouth grew hard. “Contrary to how the tabloids depict me, I’m not some slut who sleeps with
a different rock star every night.”

“I take that as a no?”

“No!”

“You hired me to do this right for you, Charlie,” Bridgett explained. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t cover all the bases.”

“Do you like it?”

Her question caught Bridgett off guard. “Like what? My job?”

Charlie nodded.

Bridgett thought carefully about her answer. “I like that things are always
black and white. Most of the cases I handle are fairly clear-cut.”

“Did you always want to be a lawyer?”

“No. When I was your age, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I liked the idea of helping those who were less fortunate, but in the end, I had to make a living somehow.”

Charlie looked wistful as she gazed across the vineyard. “I want to do something where people will
take me seriously.”

Bridgett was careful to tamp down on the surprise in her voice. “Why don’t you?”

She watched as Charlie’s hand gently cupped her still-flat belly. “I am.”

Somehow, Bridgett didn’t think that Charlie’s decision to have a baby would get people to take her seriously, but she
refrained from saying so. “Well, at least we can make sure your baby’s fortune is protected.”

“You didn’t tell Jay about the baby’s father?”

“Of course not.”

“Did he ask?”

“You know he did.”

Charlie grinned then. “Good. I can trust you. More important, my brother can trust you. He doesn’t have too many people in his life he can say that about.”

Bridgett didn’t bother to comment. It wasn’t
her
trust that was at issue between them, unfortunately.

It was nearly midday when Jay’s plane landed in a small commercial airfield just outside of Las Vegas. He and Don trudged through the already stifling heat to the car waiting for them on the tarmac.

“You gonna tell me what we might be walking into?” Don asked over the sound of the air-conditioning blowing on high through the vents.

“If you’re scared, Don, you should have
stayed on the plane.”

Don laughed. “I’m not scared. Just being a good Boy Scout. I like to know who I’m up against.”

Jay glanced out the window as they sped past rows of neat tract houses lined up like dominoes in the desert on their way into the city. “I’m pretty sure neither one of us has to worry about a thirty-five-year-old woman who’s barely a hundred and twenty pounds.”

“Damn,”
Donovan muttered. “It is a woman.”

“You’re surprised?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “You know what they say about a woman scorned.”

“Mm,” Jay said by way of agreement.

“What does she want?” Don might as well have given the Final Jeopardy question.

Jay shook his head. “Knowing Delaney, she wants my balls and my heart served up on a platter.”

“That must have been a hell of a
breakup.”

“Yeah, it was,” Jay said. “Except the breakup was her engagement to my best friend. I was just the one who nudged it along.”

Don let out a little whistle. “In a good way, I hope?”

“Let’s just say the wronged party is relieved to have dodged a bullet.”

Crowds mingled on the Las Vegas streets as the car traveled along the Strip, passing the replica of a pyramid, a New York
City tugboat, the Statute of Liberty, and the Eiffel Tower.

“A gambler’s paradise,” Don murmured.

“In this case, it’s an addict’s hideaway,” Jay said. The driver pulled into the driveway of the Wynn hotel, where Jay and Don climbed out. “Just follow my lead,” he instructed Don.

They walked with purpose through the crowded lobby of the hotel, past ornate gardens of trees, lit up and
decorated with huge flower bulb lanterns hanging from the limbs. Jay headed straight for the elevator that would take him to the thirtieth floor. The suite he wanted was strategically positioned at the end of the hallway and he and Don strolled casually toward it, trying not to look too intent as they passed other guests and a stray cleaning crew.

“Here goes nothing,” Jay said quietly when
he knocked on the door marked thirty thirty-three. A long moment later, the door opened to reveal a young Chinese man.

“Yeah?” His expression became wary as he took in Jay and Don, both of whom looked very official in their business suits.

“We’re looking for Delaney,” Jay said.

“No one here by that name,” the guy said before quickly closing the door.

Don was quicker, however, maneuvering
a foot and shoulder between the door and the wall and shoving his way in.
“Told you that you needed me,” he grunted as Jay stalked past.

The doorman was grumbling something in Chinese as Jay entered the suite, which was littered with nearly twenty different laptops.

“Well, well, what have you gotten yourself into now, Delaney?”

The years had not been kind to his former roommate. Once
upon a time she was a stunning, polished woman with thick, long brown hair and bright brown eyes. Looking at her now, she appeared washed out and haggard. Her addiction had done that to her, Jay reminded himself. He was not responsible for what she’d become. She looked startled, but certainly not surprised to see him.

“It’s okay, Li,” she said to the man who’d answered the door. “He’s not
here to report us. Mr. McManus doesn’t operate that way. He just gathers intel and uses it for his own purposes. I suspect he’s here to make some sort of deal.”

Jay scanned the computer screens located throughout the room. All of them had betting odds for that week’s upcoming NFL games. “Interesting little business you’ve got here, Delaney,” Jay said as he watched. “Off-site betting on pro
football games. I’d say you finally put your two best talents together: gambling and software development. Congratulations.”

“A girl’s got to make a living somehow, Jay. After all, you destroyed my chances to marry into one of the wealthiest families in Chicago.” Her hands went to her hips.

“You destroyed your own chances, Delaney. You were stealing from Blake.”

“
Borrowing
, Jay. From
my fiancé. It was none of your business.”

Jay shook his head. “Actually, it was my business to let my best friend know his future wife had a gambling problem and was already taking him to the cleaners before they even walked down the aisle.”

“I told you before, I would have worked it out.”

He laughed then. “Before or after the thugs showed up
to rough you up? Face it, Delaney, you
were so far in debt you couldn’t have ‘worked it out.’”

She glanced over at Don, who was furiously snapping photos of the laptop screens. “You’ll want to pay attention to this part,” she said to Don. “This is where my old friend here claims to be my white knight.”

“I bailed you out.”

“You blackmailed me,” she snapped. “You made Blake fall out of love with me; then you used me yourself.
All so you could get rich quick and get your damn vineyard. And a freaking professional football team! What did I get? Nothing!”

“Is that what your little blogger game is about?” Jay demanded. “You think I owe you something?”

Delaney’s laugh was harsh sounding. “You wouldn’t be where you are today without me.”

“And you likely wouldn’t be alive without me.” Jay’s words hung like stalactites
in the stale air of the hotel suite.

Her lips formed an angry line but she didn’t refute his words. She couldn’t.

Jay scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “Look, Delaney, this has to stop. I’m not your enemy.”

“No,” she whispered. “But you’re not my friend, either. I sometimes wonder if you ever were. I loved you, you know. Almost as much as I loved Blake.”

“Get help, Delaney.
And stop harassing Blake and me with trumped-up lawsuits and that ridiculous blog.”

She crossed her arms defiantly against her chest. “Or what?”

“Or we’ll turn your ass over to the Feds,” Don shouted. “Hell, I’ll turn you over to Interpol because I’m sure this is an international operation.”

“And here I thought your friend
was
a Fed,” Delaney said to Jay before turning back to Don.
“You must not know Jay very well, because he’d never turn me in.”

Don glanced between Jay and Delaney, a glimmer of confusion in his eyes.

Jay sucked in a breath. “How much do you owe?”

Delaney grimaced and shook her head. “Enough to have me enslaved here for the near future.”

“So the blog and the lawsuits are how you’ve been entertaining yourself while you’re in this opulent prison?”

She shrugged. “I needed a diversion.”

“Make it stop,” Jay commanded as he walked close enough to whisper to her. “All of it. Find another diversion. I’d suggest solitaire but I’m sure you’ve found a way to cheat at that one by now.” He leaned closer so the other men in the room wouldn’t overhear him. “Perhaps you could spend your time calculating the interest accruing in that lovely Swiss
bank account you have? Tell me, do the goons you work for know you’re skimming their profits, Delaney? I wonder how they’d feel about your secret retirement account. Maybe I should set up a blog and write about your creative bookkeeping.”

Delaney’s eyes grew wide before she narrowed them to slits.

Jay smiled smugly at her discomfort. He had no idea how long she’d been skimming money from
the profits, but Delaney’s employers likely weren’t as smart as Jay was at detecting it. It was what had first alerted him to her backstabbing when she worked for McManus Industries, after all. Knowing Delaney, she was building herself a nice nest egg while she was “enslaved” paying off her debt. If it were anyone else but Delaney, Jay might have been impressed with her acumen.

He turned to
Don and signaled him to proceed to the door.

“She won’t ever love you, you know,” Delaney called after them.

Jay halted, turning around to face her, his chest squeezing when he met her cold eyes.

“Not an honest love, anyway,” she continued. “Don’t forget how she dumped your ass when she found out you weren’t inheriting. Do you really think you can trust her?”

A throbbing started
at the base of Jay’s skull. He didn’t trust Bridgett. But he trusted Delaney less. “To hear you tell it, I don’t have a heart, Delaney, so what are you worried
about?” The fact that his heart wouldn’t be engaged with Bridgett wasn’t Delaney’s business.

She laughed again. “You may be ruthless and stingy with your money, Jay, but you have a heart. I should know. I’ve taken advantage of it a
time or two.”

“Not anymore. Find another diversion, Delaney.”

“The same goes for you, Jay. Like I said, she’ll never love you.”

“Jesus,” Donovan muttered when the elevator doors finally closed behind them. “I hope your friend knows how much he owes you for saving him from that.”

Jay leaned his head against the back wall and closed his eyes. “I remind him every chance I get.”

“Now what?”

“Talk to Jennifer Knowles and get her to go on the record that the case was her sister-in-law’s idea,” Jay said. “I’ll get Hank to get the players to apologize to her and we’ll send everyone to sensitivity training. It should all blow over.”

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the tropical lobby. “Something tells me Alesha Warren won’t give up easily.”

Jay
walked toward the doors leading out into the midday heat. “Alesha Warren can stew for years while the case gets stalled in court for all I care. Mimi has enough to refute any possible crap she leaks to the media.”

“And Delaney? Was whatever you threatened her with enough to make her stop blogging?”

Delaney
. Jay pulled his sunglasses out of his breast pocket. “She’ll stop blogging. It won’t
be as amusing to her now that I know she’s behind it.” His threat to out her to her Chinese mafia bosses was enough to end her harassment of both him and Blake. Delaney knew Jay didn’t make threats lightly. Of course, that didn’t mean Delaney wouldn’t find a way to be a pain in his ass once she’d made good on her current debt. She liked messing with his head too much.

She’ll never love you.

Delaney thought she was scoring a wound with Jay by
leveling her threat about Bridgett, but she didn’t realize how wrong she was. Bridgett had already destroyed his heart. He wouldn’t let her do it again. Jay told himself that his uneasiness over Delaney’s words had nothing to do with his heart.

“Call for the car, will you?” He handed the valet ticket to Don. “I’m just going to take a walk
around the block.”

“Sure thing.”

•   •   •

The summer heat felt good after nineteen days of winter in New Zealand. Jay jumped out of the cab before it even reached a full stop in front of the Hyde Park house. He was eager to get a shower and get to a computer so he could finally close the deal with DiSantis. Selling the labels had been more agonizing than he thought, but at least now
he had the cash for the fermentation formula. He’d take the job with the investment firm and raise the money for the vineyard on his own. His stepfather’s death was a setback, but certainly not one that would defeat him. Besides, he’d have Bridgett by his side.

Bridgett. It had been four and a half weeks since he’d last seen her. His cell phone service didn’t allow for international calling
and finding a computer with AOL access had been impossible in New Zealand. Jay missed Bridgett’s soft smile and her sunny, positive outlook. He’d need that and more to get through the next phase in his life. Now that he’d taken care of business, it was time to take care of Bridgett. He couldn’t wait for her to return to the States.

The house was nearly empty when Jay bounded through the door.
The lease was up at the end of the month and, from the looks of it, Delaney had already moved out, taking with her most of the furniture and likely everything in the kitchen. Jay was surprised to find Blake seated on the only furniture remaining, the old leather recliner. It was midafternoon on a Wednesday, a workday for Blake normally. His roommate had a beer in his hand and was watching the
Cubs on a small TV.

“Look who’s home,” Blake said. “It’s the world traveler. I was beginning to think you’d stay in New Zealand.”

“Things took longer than I expected.” Jay glanced around the room. He took in the boarded-up window in the dining area. “What the hell happened here? Where’s your big-screen TV?”

“Delaney happened.” Blake took another pull from his beer, but he didn’t bother
lifting his eyes from the television screen. “You were right. She didn’t deny taking the money from me.”

Jay swallowed painfully. He’d hated to rat her out to Blake, but he didn’t want his friend to go into the marriage without being totally prepared for his wife’s imperfections. “Did she tell you what she wanted the money for?”

“Didn’t have to,” Blake said. “A couple of guys came collecting
the other night. They helped themselves to anything that wasn’t nailed down. Including my Porsche.”

“Holy shit!” Jay sunk down onto the floor. “Did you call the police?”

Blake shot him a look that said,
What do you think, dumbass?
“Insurance will buy me a new car, but I’m sure that’s what Delaney was counting on.”

“You don’t think she did this on purpose?”

“She’s a manipulative
bitch with a gambling problem. She’s been using us for years. Everything that girl does is on purpose.” Blake’s whole body radiated anger.

“You don’t think they’ll hurt her, do you?”

Blake jumped from the chair. “That’s not really my problem, is it?” Blake’s face was ravaged with bitterness and pain. He’d loved Delaney. Her betrayal had obviously cut him deeply.

Jay struggled to find
the right words. “I’m sorry” didn’t sound like enough. Despite everything, he was also worried about their former roommate. Delaney was a product of the foster care system with no real family to fall back on for help. She’d obviously gotten in way over her head. He bit back the suggestion he was about to make, the one about them going to look for her, given Blake’s demeanor.