The Cinderella Mission (Family Secrets #1)(50)
Author: Catherine Mann

Brittany stormed past without a single thanks—the ungrateful brat.

Ethan nodded to the butler standing in the door. “See that she leaves the property.”

“Yes, sir,” the butler said before leaving.

Kelly sagged against the sink, her SIG-Sauer heavy in her hand as she stood alone with Ethan and his aunt.

Alone and definitely under-dressed.

Eugenie nudged the bottle with her fuzzy slipper. “Cook will send someone up to clear this away. We’ll obviously want to replace all your beauty products immediately.”

“Thank you.” That wouldn’t take long. Even with Eugenie’s makeover, Kelly still shied from too many products. Simple meant fewer goofs for Kelly the Klutz.

“Well, goodnight, then,” Eugenie called as if ending a formal dinner party. “I’ll leave you two to find your own way back to bed.”

Eugenie paused, turned and reached past Ethan’s head. Her hand came back with a rose petal. “Ethan Williams, I haven’t had to get after you for picking my flowers since you were ten.”

She patted his cheek and spun away with a low laugh.

Ethan, however, looked far from amused. Where had her tender lover gone? Kelly touched his chest. Ethan flinched.

She jerked her hand back. Confusion, hurt and more than a little anger wrestled for control within her.

“Come on.” He gripped her arm and tugged her toward the door, his touch far from loverlike.

“Ethan.” She dug her feet into the carpet. “Ethan!”

He gave her a slight tug, his face as immovable a mask as one of Eugenie’s mud treatments. “No time to waste. I have a call to make.”

At least he wasn’t leaving her in her bedroom. She doubled her steps to keep up as he hauled out of the house.

Her ire eased along with her confusion. Of course he wanted out of the house. He’d all but admitted to staying away because of the painful memories. The fact that he wouldn’t sell it but avoided entering said much about how his parents’ death still affected him.

Ethan charged through the garage and back up the stairs to his apartment. He slammed the door closed behind them. The cavernous room echoed with silence and memories of what they’d shared in the room just a few minutes earlier.

“Go to bed, Kelly. I’ll take care of making sure Brittany leaves.” Ethan climbed the stairs.

Man, she was getting tired of chasing his hunky back. “I’ll wait up until you’re done.”

He dropped into his computer chair and spun to face the screen. “I need to call ARIES.”

“Okay.” She perched a hip on the desk beside him. “I’ll wait.”

His gaze fell to her legs, held, then scorched up to her unrestrained br**sts. Her body heated at the memory of his touch, of his mouth on her skin. Her br**sts tightened beneath the cotton in an invitation he couldn’t miss.

Ethan shifted, looked away and hammered keys. “I’ll be sleeping on the couch.”

Her body still humming from the passion in just one look, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re kidding, right?”

He clicked until the surveillance screens shifted to views of Brittany’s car. “I can keep watch better that way.”

Like he would actually sleep at all. She expected he would park himself in front of the screens all night. “Then we’ll both sleep on the sofa.”

“No.”

What the hell was going on? She might be inexperienced, but she couldn’t have completely misread him.

Old insecurities threatened. He’d had her and was through. Or worse yet, he’d found her lacking. The sleep excuse was just that, an excuse to get rid of her.

Her chest constricted. Even the thought hurt, so much more now that she knew exactly what she would be losing if he walked away. Damn him. She deserved better than this. “So is this the big brush-off, then? Sex was great, now we’re done?”

“No.”

“Can you give me a polysyllabic answer?” She thumped his shoulder. “And could you quit being so cold and look at me?”

His jaw worked. Slowly, he spun his chair to face her. His shoulders lowered, his face lined with exhaustion for the first time since she’d met him.

His hand fell to rest on her knee, his other hand clenched in his lap. “Tonight was…incredible, Kelly.”

The ache inside her eased.

His hand fell away. “But it’s time to get back to the real world. Go to bed. In less than forty-eight hours we’ll be standing down a room full of jewel thieves. I need a partner who isn’t asleep on her feet and can watch my back.”

Turning away and shutting her out, Ethan reached for the secured phone and pulled the key from a hidden drawer. Twisting the key that guaranteed protected communications, he punched in the number. While waiting, he rubbed a hand along his neck, just as he’d done when telling about his parents’ murder.

Self doubts faded, replaced by a new understanding. The day he’d lost his parents had left its mark in more ways than one. He didn’t like ties…fabric or emotional. Losing Celia had only cemented his defensive need for distance.

All his revelations of the past hours poured over her, the reliving of his parents’ deaths brought to the surface by the revelations about his aunt. While he barked out an update into the phone, the harsh lines on his face mirrored those she’d seen when he’d stepped into the greenhouse.

His hardened agent exterior covered pain.

He’d come to her earlier because he was hurting. He hadn’t sent her from his apartment, but his emotional walls were in place, high and impenetrable.

And in that moment, a deeper ache spread, because now Kelly knew. Her quest to learn more about Ethan and banish her crush had worked. Her infatuation was truly a thing of the past.

She loved Ethan Williams, a man who wanted her body, even her friendship, but would never risk accepting her heart.

Ethan sprawled in the steel-backed chair in the spacious ARIES tech lab while Kelly, Juarez and Davidson discussed listening devices. With her legs crossed, Kelly swung her foot in a lazy dance back and forth, the delicate arch of her calf all but hypnotizing him.

Another thirty-six hours and he could put this case behind him. Ethan tapped a folded memo along the table, flipping it over and over in his hand.

He didn’t know what the hell to do about Kelly after that. Sure, he’d thought about marriage, but now he wondered if Kelly might be better off without him. He’d lived day-today for so long, planning for the future could scare the sludge off his Jag. If he screwed up as he’d done last night, Kelly paid the price.