Page 104 of Hidden Agendas (Tempting SEALs 4)

They made an odd group. Emily dressed in her bronze silk gown, the flared skirt rustling over the petticoat she wore beneath it. Kira in snug black satin, and Kell and Ian in their dress suits. And she realized she was focusing on clothes when her stomach was knotting with tension.

Her gown was slit from her feet to her knees in the front, with the gathered skirt showing the darker petticoat and slip beneath.

Strapless, snug from her breasts to her thighs, it was more revealing than the gown she had worn to the previous party. Still, her gown was one of the least revealing, except for the matrons who still covered themselves from wrists to ankles. Not that there were many of those left.

“Let’s move,” Kell urged her.

“I can only go so fast in heels,” she informed him, her voice shaking.

“Then take the damned things off.” He pulled her to a stop, knelt, and pulled the shoes from her feet before stuffing them in his jacket pocket and rushing her to the open French doors. “We go straight to the limo, no stopping in between.”

“Fine.” She was in no hurry to stay.

They entered the ballroom, cutting a direct path through the center of the dance floor to the open doors on the other side.

He kept her moving through the crowd, ignoring the few guests who tried to stop them and chat. With Kira ahead of them and Ian behind them, it was easy to keep the quick pace without appearing to be in a rush.

“Kell.” A voice stopped them just inside the foyer. “Drage said you were here.”

Emily stopped, causing Kell to curse behind her. She turned and stared into the gentle, pale blue eyes of the man watching them, his arm thrown around his wife’s shoulders.

“Jansen, we were just leaving,” Kell announced as Emily stared back at her father’s boyhood friend.

His face was so kind. Crow’s-feet wrinkled the corners of his eyes and his lips held a fatherly smile.

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nbsp; “I understand.” He nodded. “I was just taking Elaine to the powder room to freshen up; she wasn’t feeling well.” Jansen Clay glanced at Elaine’s bent head. “We just received some distressing news about Risa.”

Emily felt her mouth go dry. Elaine was pale, her eyes damp with tears.

“Is Risa okay?” she asked, fearing the worse.

“She’s alive.” Jansen’s expression tightened as Emily blinked back at him. His expression seemed to flash with something, fear perhaps.

“She’s taken a setback?” Emily reached out to Elaine, her hand touching her shoulder. Elaine was Risa’s stepmother, but she had practically raised her after Risa’s mother’s death.

Elaine broke off a sob as she pushed from Jansen and wrapped her arms around Emily’s shoulders. “It’s been so hard,” she sobbed. “Oh God. I have to find the powder room. Emily, please go with me.”

Emily glanced back at Kell, seeing the tight grimace that pulled at his expression.

“Kira, could you help me?” Emily wrapped one arm around Elaine’s waist as they headed for the ladies’ room.

“I’ll find Markwell and let him know we’ll be leaving soon, sweetheart.” Jansen kissed his wife’s head as he glanced at Emily again.

For a moment, his eyes seemed cold, hard.

Emily shook the vision away. Jansen was anything but cold and hard. He had always been filled with laughter, always chiding her father for the bodyguards and his protectiveness.

“Hurry,” Kell urged, following behind her. “I’ll be waiting outside the ladies’ room. Kira, go in with them.”

Emily led Elaine through the foyer as the older woman sniffed and wiped at her eyes.

“Risa is such a sweet little girl,” Elaine whispered. “It nearly destroyed Jansen to put her in that institution.”

Daddy, help me! Risa’s frightened pleas echoed through Emily’s head as she and Kira helped the other woman into the ladies’ room.

They were Risa’s screams, not her own. Filled with horror and pain, and realization—

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