All In (The Blackstone Affair #2)(4)
Author: Raine Miller

Dad patted my knee and took a pull on his beer.

“I never wanted anyone like I want her.” I shut my mouth and started in earnest on the beer. Someone scored a goal in the game and I forced myself to watch and pet the cat.

Dad was patient for a while but he got his questions in eventually. “What did you do that made her leave you?”

It hurt just to hear the question. “I lied. It was a lie of omission but still I didn’t tell her the truth and she found out.” I set the cat off my lap carefully and went into the kitchen for another beer. I brought back two instead.

“Why did you lie to her, son?”

I met my dad’s dark eyes and spoke something I’d never said before. It had never been true before. “Because I love her. I love her and didn’t want to hurt her by bringing up a painful memory of the past.”

“So you’ve gone and fallen in love.” He nodded his head knowingly and looked me over. “Well you’ve got all the signs. I should have realized when you showed up here looking like you slept under a bridge.”

“She left me, Dad.” I started on the third beer and pulled the cat back onto my lap.

“You’ve said that already.” Dad spoke dryly and kept looking me over like I might not be his son at all but some alien imposter. “So why did you lie to the woman you love? Best to tell it, Ethan.”

It’s my Dad and I trust him with my life. I am sure there is no other person I could tell, apart from possibly my sister. I took a deep breath and told him.

“I met Brynne’s father, Tom Bennett, at a poker tournament in Las Vegas years ago. We hit it off and he was good at cards. Not as good as me, but we developed a friendship. He contacted me recently and asked a favour. I wasn’t going to do it. I mean, look at what’s on my plate at the moment with work. I can’t provide protection for an American art student slash model when I have to organize VIP security for the f**king Olympics!”

The cat flinched. Dad merely raised a brow and got comfy in his chair. “But you did,” he said.

“Yeah, I did. I got a look at the picture he sent me and I was curious. Brynne does modeling on the side and she is…so beautiful.” I wish I had her portrait in my house already. But the conditions for purchase were that it stayed on display at the Andersen gallery for six months.

My dad just looked at me and waited.

“So I arrive at the gallery show and buy the damn portrait within a few moments of seeing it, like a sodding poet or something! As soon as I met her I was ready to send in the guard to keep her safe if need be.” I shook my head. “What the hell happened to me, Dad?”

“Your mother loved to read all the poets. Keats, Shelley, Byron.” He smiled just slightly. “It happens that way sometimes. You find the one for you and that’s all there is to it. Men have been falling in love with women since time began, son. You just finally made it to the head of the queue.” Dad took another drink of his beer. “Why does…Brynne, need protection?”

“That congressman who died in the plane crash has got a replacement. Name is Senator Oakley from California. Well, the senator has a son, one Lance Oakley, who used to date Brynne. There was some trouble…and a sex tape—” I paused and realized how horrible it must sound to my dad. “But she was a very young girl—only seventeen—and terribly hurt by the betrayal. Oakley was a right prick to her. She sees a therapist…” I trailed off wondering how my dad was taking all this in. I drank some more beer before telling the last part. “The son got shipped off to Iraq and Brynne came to study at University of London. She studies art and conserves paintings, and she’s absolutely brilliant at it.”

Dad surprised me by not reacting to all the ugliness I’d just told. “I am assuming that the senator does not want publicity about his badly behaving son to hit the news.” He looked annoyed. My dad hates politicians no matter their nationality.

“The senator and the powerful party that’s backing him. Something like this will lose them the election.”

“What about the opposing party? They’ll be looking for it as hard as Oakley’s people are trying to bury it,” my dad said.

I shook my head in question. “Why are you not working for me, Dad? You get it. You can see the bigger picture. I need about ten of you though,” I said wryly.

“Ha! I’m very happy to help when you need me but I’m not doing it for pay.”

“Yeah, I am very aware of that,” I said, holding up one hand. I’d tried to get him to come and work for me for a long time and it was sort of a joke between us. He never would accept any money though—stubborn old fool that he was.

“Has anything happened to suggest that your Brynne needs protection? Seems a bit alarmist really. Why did her father ask you?”

“The senator’s son is still finding trouble it seems. He was home on leave and one of his mates got killed in an altercation at a bar. More loud noise that politicians hate for a reason. It causes digging into places they don’t want people to know about. Could just be an isolated incident, but the friend knew about the video. Brynne’s dad went on full alert at that point. In his words, ‘When the people who know about that video start turning up dead, then I need to protect my daughter.’” I shrugged. “He asked me to help him. I said no initially and offered a referral to another firm, but he sent me her picture in an email.”

“And you couldn’t say no after you’d seen her picture.” Dad worded it as a statement. I knew then that he understood how I felt about Brynne.

“No. I could not.” I shook my head. “I was mesmerized. I went to the gallery show and bought her portrait. And when she came into the room, Dad, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She intended to walk to the Tube in the dark so I introduced myself and convinced her to let me take her home in my car. I tried to leave her alone after that. I really wanted to…”

He smiled again. “You’ve always been a protective lad.”

“But it became so much more for me than just a job. I want to be with Brynne…” I looked over at my father sitting quietly and listening, his big body still fit for a man of sixty-three. I knew that he understood. I didn’t need to explain any more about my motivations and that part was a relief.

“But she found out that her father hired you to protect her?”

“Yes. She overheard a telephone call in my office. Her dad exploded when he realized we were seeing each other and challenged me on it.” I figured my dad might as well know the whole bloody mess.