Page 18 of Jacking Jill

He was already trapped.

“This room is a death-trap,” Jack muttered as he swept his Delta-trained gaze around the hotel room, noting the bars on the outside of the solitary window which overlooked the hotel’s parking lot. He glanced down at the lot, was about to draw the curtains closed, then stopped when he saw Kay Steffen getting into a black BMW SUV. She pulled the door closed, then started the car and drove off in the direction of the Carmine Estate.

“What does that mean?” Jill was staring ashen-faced at Jack when he closed the curtains and turned back to her. “A death trap?”

Jack smiled. “Sorry, just habit to scope out a room for all available exits. There’s only one way in and out of this room. Special Forces guys call that a death-trap.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring,” Jill said, glancing at the window, then towards the door leading to the bathroom. “Are we expecting to be trapped in here fighting to the death?”

Jack shrugged, flashed a teasing smile that perhaps had a slight edge. “Depends on whether you pull off your mission. Bobby Carmine might not exactly be thrilled if his wedding gets cancelled after all the guests have arrived.” He rubbed the back of his head as it occurred to him that Jill’s mission could be far more dangerous than Darkwater’s mission to figure out who Diego was talking to at the Carmine Estate. “You do realize that your plan isn’t going to work, right? I mean, yeah, talk to your friend by all means, Jill. But I can’t imagine there’s anything you can say to stop her from going through with a wedding this close to the ceremony.”

Jill shrugged back at him. She placed her suitcase on the bedspread, unzipped it and began to unpack. She said nothing, her lips clamped shut, the lower one jutting out slightly with a stubbornness that Jack hoped wasn’t clouding her judgement. He studied her in silence, then blinked and exhaled sharply.

“Jill?”

“Yes?” She didn’t look up, continued to unpack her things, placing some folded garments carefully in the closet, unfolding some other outfits and hanging them up. It looked like she’d planned an outfit for each event. The blue dress was just the finale to her plan. A plan that perhaps Jill hadn’t been completely forthcoming about. “What?”

Jack rubbed his jaw, glancing at the blue dress in its dry-cleaner plastic. “You didn’t expect to convince Nina before the actual wedding ceremony, did you? You planned to attend all the events. You’ve got something else up your sleeve. Something you haven’t told me yet.”

Jill still wouldn’t look at him. “So you’re not just an expert in the female psyche but also a mind-reader?”

“Doesn’t take a mind-reader to put the pieces together.” Jack folded his arms over his chest, glanced at the blue dress again, then shook his head and sighed. “You were never expecting to convince Nina to break it off before the wedding. You were going to play along at the cocktail party tonight and the brunch tomorrow. You know that no reasonable woman is going to cancel her wedding to a millionaire after all the guests have arrived and the preparations are made. If you tried to argue with Nina on the first night, you’d be kicked out of the mansion immediately and you damn well know it. If she’s already uninvited you and cut off contact, then I bet Bobby Carmine knows that you’re against the wedding. It’s going to be hard enough to talk your way into the cocktail party, let alone the actual wedding. So you’re going to use the first two days to make up with Nina and Bobby so you can be certain of being welcomed at the Sunday ceremony. And that’s when you’re going to strike, isn’t it, Jill?”

Jill’s lower lip was an unmistakably stubborn pout now. She finished unpacking and zipped up her empty bag with a sharpness that told Jack he was on the right track, that there was more to this woman than he’d figured, that he’d underestimated how audacious her plan really was.

And how dangerous.

“This isn’t an intervention,” Jack said, his eyes widening with a mix of admiration and alarm. “It’s an ambush. Your plan was to make sure you were allowed to attend the wedding ceremony, and then you were going to spring the ambush.” He thought a moment, then snapped his fingers. “Shit, are you going to object to the wedding? When the priest asks if anyone objects to this union, you’re going to stand up and say something, aren’t you? The priest will have to stop the proceedings to hear your objection. That’s it, right? You’re going to screw up the ceremony in front of all the guests? What are you going to say? That Bobby cheated on Nina or something? Maybe with . . . with you? Oh, hell, is that it? You’re going to let Nina hate you forever just so you can save her from a marriage that you think is bad for her? Jill, answer me, damn it!”

Jill yanked the empty suitcase off the bedspread, placed it upright beside the closet, then grabbed a red-leather satchel with what Jack figured was her toiletries. She pulled open the bathroom door, walked inside and slammed it shut without confirming or denying any of Jack’s speculations and accusations.

“Holy shit, I’m right!” Jack strode to the bathroom door, leaned against it, shaking his head in disbelief. He rapped his knuckles against the door. “Jill, you lied to me. You said you weren’t planning to do anything dramatic and crazy. Hell, I need to know exactly what you’re planning. You cannot fucking blindside me. This is now bigger than just your friend Nina.”

“No, it isn’t.” The door opened suddenly, Jill’s brown hair loose and wild. “Not for me it isn’t.” She shook her head firmly, gazed defiantly into Jack’s eyes. “Look, I agreed to get you into the wedding events, and I’ll keep my word. You do what you need to do, and I’ll do what I need to do. If you have a problem with that, make sure you get your stuff done before the wedding ceremony on Sunday. Actually, it’s probably best if you aren’t there as my date on Sunday—because if you are, you’ll need to go along with the act and get all pissed off when I make the big reveal. Much better if you’re a no-show on Sunday, because then it’ll look like we broke up on Saturday night when you found out I’m a slut who fucked her best friend’s fiancé the night before the wedding.” She blinked twice, raised both eyebrows, nodded firmly. “Perfect. It’s settled.”

“Like hell it is!” Jack rubbed his eyes, shook his head, exhaled hard, and looked up. “Listen, you don’t know what kind of people you’re messing with, Jill. You can’t embarrass a mafia family in public and expect that they’ll just let you walk away.”

“What are they going to do, shoot me in front of three hundred guests?” Jill snorted. “Make me disappear like in some hokey mafia movie from the 1970s?”

Jack rubbed his jaw. “This isn’t an episode from a fucking daytime soap, Jill. No, you’re not going to get gunned down at the wedding ceremony, but they’re not going to just let it slide. Best case they’ll escort you out of the hall and let the wedding proceed. Worst case could be a lot worse." He sighed. "You better hope for the best case, which won't accomplish anything except get you kicked out of the wedding. Because that objection crap is just an outdated formality, isn’t it?”

Jill blinked, doing her best to keep her composure and hide the fear that Jack sensed was bubbling beneath her foolish bravery. “Normally, yes, it is a formality that nobody takes seriously. But I bet these Italian mafia families like to pretend to be devout Catholics. They’re going to have a real priest and all that, follow all the traditions to the letter even though they’re all going to hell.” She took a breath, exhaled hard, wetting her lips and swallowing. “Anyway, all I need is for Nina to believe that Bobby and I slept together. She’ll hate me, but she’ll hate Bobby more. I just have to convince Nina.”

“Then convince her in private before Sunday,” Jack said.

Jill shook her head. “Nina won’t believe me. She knows I’m not the type to sleep around with anyone—certainly not Bobby Carmine the night before she marries him. She won’t believe me if I tell her tonight or tomorrow.”

Jack frowned. “Well, if she won’t believe you on Friday or Saturday, what makes you think she’ll suddenly believe you on Sunday?”

Jill gulped now, blinked twice, unable to look Jack in the eyes. “Because . . . because it’ll be true by Sunday,” she said softly. “I’ll make sure it’s true by Sunday.”

Jack’s heart stopped for a full three beats, then started hammering hard enough that his entire body was pounding like a group of drummers going wild. “Wait, what?” He swallowed thickly as the realization almost made his head explode with a possessive rage that was unjustified but undeniable, unstoppable, uncontrollable. “No. You are not planning to actually do it. It’s one thing to make it up and try to get Nina to believe the lie. Another thing entirely to actually do it. And you are not doing it. Absolutely fucking not. No way in hell, Jill. I won’t allow it.”

“Excuse me?” Jill cocked her head to the left. “Since when do I need your permission to . . . to do anything, really?”

“Since now,” Jack growled, taking a step towards her, then forcing himself to stop, to control this sudden fire that was burning far too hot, the flame of possession raging in a way that totally blindsided him, was an unknown emotion when it came to Jack’s one-and-done routine with the faceless women whose names he couldn’t even remember now, perhaps never even knew, like this one name had erased every other name in his little black book, painting his entire history red with the brush of possession. “Since now, Jill.”

Jill stared like she didn’t understand. Jack wasn’t sure he understood either. But there was no denying what he felt, no escaping what every part of his body screamed in unison, every twitching muscle, every strained sinew, every aching breath, every throbbing heartbeat.

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