The Closer Read online

  “I’ll look him up, thanks.”

  Payne hesitated again. “Listen, Griff, not that we doubt your capabilities, but we’ve been talking strategy here on our end and we’re all of the opinion that the bra is most vulnerable when it’s on the model, from the instant it goes on her body, onto the catwalk, then back offstage.”

  Yes, he’d mentioned that before and Griff was in total agreement, because it was the only time the damn thing would ever be off his wrist.

  There was another pregnant pause. “Because of this, we think it would be best if the bra never went onto the model.”

  Griff blinked. Never went onto the model? But— “I don’t see that scenario flying with any party involved here, Payne, least of all Jess.” Shit. “Er, Ms. Rossi,” he corrected.

  “We can pull rank,” Payne said. “It’s in our contract. Ranger Security isn’t going to handle anything worth two and a half million dollars and not have total authority on protecting the cargo.”

  Griff rubbed his eyes, wearily anticipating the riot he was going to have on his hands. No one was going to like this. Not Jess. Not Clandestine. Not Montwheeler. They were all going to be justifiably livid. And he was the lucky bastard who was going to get to break the news to them.

  “Are you suggesting that we abort?” he asked. “That I return to Shadow’s Gap?”

  “That’s not at all what I’m suggesting,” Payne assured him. “What I’m suggesting is an amendment to the plan.”

  He wasn’t certain he liked the direction this was going. “What kind of amendment?”

  “We think it would be best if Ms. Rossi modeled the bra, with you as her escort.”

  Griff laughed nervously, certain that he had misunderstood. “Come again?”

  “Think about it, Griff,” Payne said. “The piece is at its most vulnerable when it leaves your wrist—when it goes into someone else’s hands, onto the model. If it goes from your wrist directly onto Ms. Rossi, whom we’re certain hasn’t been compromised in any way, and you stay at her side from beginning to end, then we have a much better shot at thwarting Keller. His easiest ‘in’ on this job is through one of the models. I’m sure he’s already recruited an unwitting accomplice.”

  He suspected Payne was right on all counts. Still...”And what if I can’t get Ms. Rossi to agree?”

  “She’ll agree,” he said. “Her father has put too much work into the piece for her to refuse.”

  There was that. She’d abandoned her own plans for the weekend to see this through for him. She knew what backing out altogether would mean for all parties involved. Payne was right. She would do it, in the end.

  But not without a very vehement, prolonged and indignant resistance.

  “Bring them all up to speed, but make sure that they keep the change of plans to themselves,” Payne continued. “Changing the strategy is moot if Keller gets wind of it.”

  “All right,” Griff told him. “I’ll see to it.”

  But, damn, how he dreaded it.

  8

  HE WANTED HER to what? Stunned, Jess felt her eyes bug and her jaw drop. “Not no, but hell, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I agreed to come as a family representative, not to actually put the damn thing on and walk out in front of a roomful of people.” And the most notoriously critical people in the world, at that. Nausea curdled in her stomach and her mouth went bone dry at the mere idea.

  There was no freakin’ way.

  “I understand your hesitation, Jess, but—”

  She snorted. “You do, do you? You understand what it would be like to basically bare your own family jewels to what will eventually amount to millions of people?”

  “I’ll be right there with you,” he said, taking a step closer to her. “I’m going to accompany you from one end of the runway to the other.”

  She arched an imperious brow. “In your underwear?”

  He blinked, then swallowed. “Well, no, but—”

  She shook her head again, cutting him off. “Then you don’t know what the hell you’re asking.”

  “And you don’t seem to realize that I’m not asking,” he said, his voice infused with a hint of steel. “I’m telling you that this is the only way we’re moving forward.”

  She sucked in a breath, her gaze swinging to meet his again. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m completely serious,” he said levelly, an implacable glint in his eyes. “This was not the original plan, I know, but it’s my job to work with the facts as I know them, in the framework that I’ve been given. This is the new reality. It’s too dangerous to put the bra on anyone else. How do we know that the Owl hasn’t already recruited one of the models? Perhaps the very model?”

  She stilled. He had a point, but—

  “The only thing that we know for sure is that an accomplished thief with a flair for the dramatic wants to take the bra.” He stepped forward once more, his gaze lasering into hers. “What better time to snatch it than during the show?”

  “What?” she asked incredulously. “You think he’s going to swoop in like Tarzan, pop the snap and swing away with it?”

  “Are you so certain that he couldn’t?”

  Not after reading everything about him, no, she wasn’t. Jess dropped heavily onto the small sofa, hung her head and shoved her hands into her hair. “Why can’t you just accompany the Clandestine model?” she asked. “Why does it have to be me?”

  “Because I don’t trust anyone but you,” he said, surprising the hell out of her.

  She glanced up, caught his equally astonished expression before he smoothed it away. She opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again. “Well,” she finally managed to say, “be that as it may, you’re forgetting one important detail.”

  His brow furrowed with suspicion. “What is that?”

  “It doesn’t fit me.”

  Confusion cluttered his brow. “I’m sorry?”

  “The bra,” she said impatiently. “It was designed for a much smaller woman. One with a nonexistent rib cage and less—” she gestured awkwardly to her breasts “—junk in the cup,” she improvised.

  He stared at her chest, his blue-green gaze momentarily glazing over, his pupils dilating with desire. He looked like a starving man who’d just been given a ticket to an all-you-can-eat buffet. Her nipples tingled in response and an answering zing echoed in the heart of her sex. And he was just looking at her. Not touching her, not licking her, not...

  He cleared his throat and with effort dragged his eyes from her breasts to her face. “I’m sure that something c-can be done t-to accommodate you.”

  “I don’t want to be accommodated,” she said desperately. “I want to keep my clothes on!”

  His sympathetic but resolved gaze tangled with hers. “I’ll give you a minute to make a decision,” he said. “You are aware of the options.”

  Case securely clasped to his wrist with the handcuffs that arrived only moments ago, Griff turned and walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, presumably to get a drink while she decided whether to ruin her father and their business, or cram her girls into a bra that was two cup sizes too small and sacrifice her modesty on a group of people who would, if they were feeling generous, call her a cow. She had a minimum of thirty pounds on those Clandestine models. The idea of walking out there, practically naked, with every single eye trained on her breasts, made her want to vomit.

  Violently.

  Granted, Griff’s hot lingering gaze inspired a different feeling in her altogether—he made her feel attractive, sexy, desirable—but that’s because he was a man and men loved breasts. She rolled her eyes, smothered a whimper. But women? Women were vicious. Women judged.

  But how could she refuse, really? She imagined trying to call her father and share the news, tell him that the past
six months of his life’s work was for nothing because she didn’t like the idea of wearing the bra for five minutes. She’d rather be called fat a thousand times over in every language known to man than to do that to him. He was her dad, her only living parent. Her family. She swallowed, heard the clink of ice into a glass as Griff made himself a drink.

  She sighed, lolled her head back onto the couch and closed her eyes as the reality of her immediate future settled on her shoulders. Geez, she could use a drink, as well. Something strong. Like vodka. Or rum. Or good old-fashioned whiskey.

  “Well?” he said.

  She hadn’t heard him approach, which was hardly surprising. For such a big man he made very little noise. She cracked one eye open and looked at him. “I’m still thinking,” she lied.

  “Think faster.”

  She scowled at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve already got a new schedule lined out.”

  He smiled and handed her a drink. “I’ve always got a schedule lined out.”

  “What is this?” she asked, peering into the glass.

  “It’s lime soda.”

  “Does it have a liberal dose of alcohol in it?”

  He chuckled softly, the sound warm and strangely intimate. “No, why? Did you want it to?”

  She made a moue of regret. “Would have been nice,” she said. She looked up at him, noted the angle of his jaw, the sleek line of his brow, the purely sexy curve of his mouth, and released a breath. “I’ll definitely need one tomorrow,” she said, feeling her stomach quake with anxiety. “Before I make my modeling debut.”

  His gaze sharpened, then lit with admiration. “So you’ll do it?”

  “I will,” she said, heartened by his approval. She suspected it took a lot to impress Griffin Wicklow. “Dad would be heartbroken if I didn’t see this through,” she continued. “He’s put so much into it, has worked harder on this than anything else he’s ever done.” She smiled wanly. “He’s convinced that it’s going to fill the family coffers and make Rossi Jewelry a household name.”

  He watched her, the weight of his regard a near-physical thing. “And you? Do you think it will do that?”

  She plucked a strawberry from the plate and took a bite. “Based on the upswing of orders we’ve seen since we were chosen to create the design, yes,” she said, nodding. “I do.”

  “And is that what you want?”

  No one, including her father, had ever asked her that, had ever asked her if she wanted the company to expand to the degree that this sort of exposure would generate. Her brother and sister, who didn’t have anything to do with the business, had been overjoyed, and her father had been so swept up in the “Rossi legacy” that he’d neglected to factor in the way that this was going to change things. They’d have to hire more help, outsource the castings to meet demand, travel more, work more.

  More, more, more.

  No, it wasn’t what she’d wanted. She’d wanted to continue their boutique, exclusive designs—create what she wanted, at her leisure, preferably from the comfort of her own home—and work on cars and race. It would all change now, she realized. Especially once she—a Rossi—modeled the piece.

  “It’s what he wants,” she finally said, indirectly answering his question. “And that’s what’s important.”

  “What you want should be important, too.”

  While she appreciated the sentiment—admittedly, it was nice to have someone on “her team,” so to speak—he was the last person who should be lecturing her about self-sacrifice.

  Because he was the unquestionable king of it.

  “You’re one to talk,” she said, careful to keep her tone light. “You gave up your career—your whole way of life—before even letting your sister see if she was a match for Justin.”

  It was a wonderful, wonderful thing. Purely selfless. Noble. The most honorable thing she’d ever heard of anyone doing for another person. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said he was extraordinary. Because he was. And the kicker? The thing that genuinely, truly set him apart from everyone else?

  He didn’t know it. He didn’t know how good he was. How much character he had.

  In a world where personal responsibility was thin on the ground and entitlement the current battle cry of the masses, society desperately needed men like Griff. Men who were willing to step up and make the hard decisions. And from what she could tell, he’d been doing it since his father walked out all those years ago. Her heart ached for the boy who’d been lost, the one who’d had to become a man much earlier than time ordinarily dictated.

  “That’s different,” he said, the smallest hint of shock registering on his achingly handsome face.

  “Oh, really? How so?”

  He shifted uncomfortably, then looked away. “It was surgery,” he said, as though that explained everything. “I wasn’t going to let her go through that when I was a match, when I could do it.”

  “Let me ask you something, Griff. If Justin hadn’t needed a kidney, would you still be in the military?”

  “Who knows?” he said, lifting a shoulder.

  He knew, she thought. He just didn’t want to answer her. “Well, what else might you be doing?”

  “I might not be doing anything,” he said, his blue-green gaze pinning her to the couch, clearly not liking the direction this conversation had taken. “I might be injured or dead.”

  Her chest squeezed painfully at the very thought, but she recognized deflection when she saw it. “Okay, provided that Justin hadn’t needed a kidney and you weren’t injured or dead, would you still be in the military?”

  He was quiet for a moment, a spark of something kindling in his gaze. Respect, maybe? Because she hadn’t let him off the hook? Because she’d pressed when no else had? “Yes, I would,” he finally admitted.

  She smiled knowingly, having scored her point. “So you put your family’s needs first, right? Just like I’m doing.”

  Faint humor lit his gaze, his lips curling into a rueful grin. “I guess that makes you extraordinary as well, then, doesn’t it?”

  Jess grinned and lifted a shoulder. “Beats the hell out of the alternative,” she said.

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “A fool.”

  Another chuckle bubbled up his throat. “Trust me, Jess, you are nobody’s fool.”

  He was wrong, she thought, watching him from beneath her lashes. She was a fool for him. Already. And they weren’t even halfway through the weekend yet.

  * * *

  HAVING FINALLY CONVINCED Jess that her modeling the piece was the only way forward, Griff knew that he’d need to present the new plan to both the Clandestine and Montwheeler representatives, and had requested an immediate meeting. Given what both companies had invested in what he would forever think of as “the damn bra,” he didn’t anticipate any problems.

  Jess had changed out of her traveling clothes and donned a black business suit and heels. Small ruby ladybugs glittered from her ears and she’d attached a matching brooch to her jacket. Admittedly, Griff knew very little about jewelry, but he liked the look of what she wore. It was classy but whimsical. It had come as no surprise that the design was hers, part of the If It Crawls collection her father had mentioned.

  As they boarded the elevator, Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” playing this time—what the hell was it with this music? Griff wondered—he felt compelled to reiterate the obvious. “They’ll get on board. They don’t have a choice.”

  She harrumphed and slid him a knowing little glance. “You never saw The Devil Wears Prada, did you?”

  “No.” He didn’t see what that had to do with anything.

  “They—as in ‘they’ the fashion industry—thought Anne Hathaway was fat. Anne Hathaway!” she repeated incredulously. “Compared to Anne Hathaway, I’m a sasquatch.” She
shook her head. “They’re never going to agree to it.”

  A sasquatch? Griff thought, blinking repeatedly, stunned at the comment. Her? Didn’t she own a mirror? Didn’t she know how lovely she was? How damn sexy? Was that why she’d been so reluctant to do this? he wondered, an odd tingling in his gut. Because she was afraid she wouldn’t measure up? Because she thought she was, of all things, fat?

  Good Lord...it boggled the mind.

  His gaze drifted over her body—the very evidence to the contrary—lingering on her plump, ripe breasts, the small indentation of her waist, the generous curve of her hip... He hardened again as need hammered through him, singeing his veins, blistering through reason and logic. He could take her right here, Griff thought. Slide those black slacks down over her womanly hips, lift her up, put her back against the wall and absolutely fuck the living hell out of her.

  That’s what she did to him.

  And she thought she was fat.

  He had to unclench his teeth to speak. “First of all, you are not a sasquatch. Honestly, woman, I don’t know what you see when you look in the mirror, but if it’s a sasquatch, then you need to book an appointment with an optometrist immediately.” He took a step closer and was momentarily distracted by her mouth. “Second, I don’t give a damn what they say, you are—” perfect, glorious, amazing, mine, he thought as she stared up at him, wide-eyed and a little shocked at his admittedly vehement reaction “—beautiful,” he finally finished.

  Her gaze held his for what felt like an eternity, then dropped to his mouth. She moistened her lips, her pale pink tongue sliding along the lower. “Th-thank you,” she breathed unsteadily, leaning closer to him.

  His heart pounded in his chest, the breath stuck in his lungs. He could smell her perfume—rose oil, he’d learned earlier—and could discern a tiny freckle just to the left of her right eye. To hell with it, Griff thought, going off book, off plan, as he lowered his head, her breath close enough to taste.

  A mere nanosecond before his lips could touch hers, the elevator dinged, and they stilled, momentarily frozen in the moment. Griff smiled regretfully and carefully—reluctantly—withdrew.