Page 2 of Dirty Gambit

Nicole and Richard Westwick were a striking and elegant couple. Average in their sleek haircuts and professionally tailored outfits. Nicole was stunning, despite being in her fifties. Her heart-shaped features were flawless with the smooth, taut skin of a thirty-year-old. Her son had her eyes, a stormy green of an ocean. They were surrounded by thick fans of lashes beneath high, arched brows. She had the body of a swimmer, lean and graceful beneath an ivory gown that scooped at the neckline and swirled beautifully around her slender ankles. Next to her, Richard seemed bland and uninteresting, but man, he was as gorgeous as his son, a finely crafted specimen of male ferocity and strength. The jaw angles alone could have been showcased in a museum.

But where Richard Westwick had a head full of dark curls and hazel eyes, his son was a masterpiece of angelic beauty. He had his mother’s sandy blond strands shorn short at the back and left recklessly long at the front. In the articles she’d seen of him, they weren’t normally swept back, but left wild and unchecked falling over his brow and into those turbulent eyes. His jaw was freshly shaven, but she’d seen it dark with a path of stubble around a full and lush mouth. In person, he was a head taller than his father and mother and broad across the shoulders and chest. The suit he wore, a black number with no tie and two undone buttons at the throat, strained around the hard muscle barely contained underneath. It was the body of someone who worked for it. It was a good body. A really, really good body, and face, and jaw, and chin, and nose, and mouth, and hands…

Fuck.

Lena squeezed her eyes shut just long enough to mentally shake herself. She reminded her brain they had a job to do that required all her senses to be present.

She blew out a breath before letting her eyelids open again.

At long last, her attention settled on the tiny figure perched on Jaxon’s knee and Lena’s breath caught.

She’d seen photos of Jessie before that night. She’d scoured the internet and even paid a guy Pablo knew to get the really good stuff. It hadn’t been cheap, but wasn’t that the first step to a job, learning absolutely everything about them, all the dark and gritty little secrets they kept hidden from the world?

Unless your name was Westwick.

The family was disgustingly clean. There wasn’t even a closet alcoholic in the mix, or a mistress. Hell, not even one parking ticket. Instead, all she learned was how generous and upstanding they all were. The sheer number of charities they funded only convinced Lena they had to be hiding something. No one was that good. No one cared that much about anyone else. It was a lie or a coverup. Rich people covered shit up all the time. They had an army of cops in their pockets, and everyone knew you couldn’t trust the justice system. Those guys were as shady and crooked as they came, and Richard Westwick was a fucking judge. He could probably make anything disappear. So, the little display of a happy family all huddled together for pictures didn’t fool Lena one bit.It only convinced her all the more that Jessie didn’t belong with them.

Thoughts of the girl had Lena’s attention redirecting back to where Jessie bounced happily, tiny hands clapping together in glee. The excitement flushing her rosy cheeks reminded Lena so much of Lissa that her arms physically ached to gather the girl up and squeeze her close.

That ache had been a growing force since coming across the folder six months ago. Seeing Jessie for the first time, seeing her soft, round face and dark fringes, it hadn’t skipped Lena’s notice just how much the child mirrored her mother as a little girl. It broke Lena’s heart. The guilt was suffocating; at that age, Lissa had only known the dark side of humanity. She had already seen far more than any child ever should.

The toddler in question laughed, delighted by the buzzing sound the photographer was making while waving a camera in her face. It clearly wasn’t her first rodeo; she was perfectly at ease in front of the lens. She posed with the expertise of someone accustomed to getting photographed often and enjoyed it. She smiled and laughed and let herself get showered in kisses and the stroking hands of the trio surrounding her.

But she didn’t belong with them. Lena knew that even if Jessie was too young to. Jessie belonged with her family, with people who knew her, knew her past and could protect her. The Westwick family, even with all their money, would be powerless to stop the monster coming for Jessie.

She tore her attention away from the trio to her watch. There was just enough time to start her own party. First, she needed Nicole and Richard to leave. Jaxon was less likely to show his true colors with mommy and daddy hanging around. But they seemed determined to make that moment last, smiling and hugging and being the very picture of a joyous family. No doubt Nicole was a coke fiend and Richard had a whole folder of kinky porn on his computer, and Jaxon was some sleazy playboy with an Adonis complex. The façade only made Lena more adamant to get Jessie away from them.

Biting back her annoyance, she pushed away from the wall and slipped into the crowd, keeping one eye on her target. The blobs of cat vomit were snatched off her tray with every round, a warning that — if she wasn’t careful — she’d need to make a run into the kitchen for more and miss her opportunity.

Her chance finally came when Nicole Westwick scooped Jessie out of Jaxon’s arms and cradled the girl against her chest. The display was a good one. Even Lena was nearly convinced the light in her green eyes was genuine, but she’d been in enough foster homes, seen enough fake affection to recognize when it was bullshit; that woman didn’t see Jessie as anything more than a pretty prop to show off to her wealthy friends.

Taking a deep breath, Lena looked across the room to where Pablo stood, offering a group his tray of champagne. He glanced up as if sensing her gaze on him and their eyes locked. Lena gave an imperceptible little nod which Pablo returned before turning his attention back to the group.

Cotton mouthed, Lena waited until Nicole and Richard Westwick had left the library with the photographer in tow before making her move. Tray in hand, she slipped her way through the crowd in the direction of the only figure left in the library; Jaxon was just unfolding miles of lean, hard muscle from the chair and adjusting the cuffs on his suit when Lena stepped into the room, inciting his full attention.

The consequences of that single mistake rocked Lena to her toes. The ground beneath her feet shifted. It gave a violent jolt that she felt to her soul as physically as a punch. The hard collision of his eyes hitting her nearly knocked the damn wind out of her chest. She told herself it was just nerves, that once she got through that part, she’d be fine, but the longer he stood there painting the length of her with eyes too breathtaking to be real, the less she was so sure.

“Hi there,” he murmured, at last, breaking the coiling tension in the room.

He was tall, taller than she’d anticipated, despite having already known all his measurements. All. Being near him, however, was another experience entirely. Being that close made her aware of just how incredibly dangerous he could be if she made one wrong misstep. With even two feet between them, his looming presence forced her neck back. He made her feel so small and out of place standing before him.

“Are you lost?” he teased, slipping large, strong hands into the pockets of his trousers. The gesture shouldn’t have been as provocative as it was.

Lena caught herself and hastily shoved the tray at him in offering. Somehow, she’d managed to stubbornly save him eight pieces from the grabby hoard at the party. They sat in two neat rows, two rows that made a clean path down gleaming silver to the three undone buttons of her blouse and just a hint of black lace where the fabric parted.

“Caviar canapés?”

It didn’t surprise her when his gaze dropped to the tray she held out to him. It didn’t surprise her that they lingered on the black blob of alien eggs with mild interest. What surprised her was when he bypassed the lacy display and went straight to her face without pausing or detouring. Most of the men at the party had gone for the cleavage shot first, then the tray. Some never even made it past her shoulders. But this guy seemed more interested in her face.

Lena drew her head back a notch in slight amusement but also wary suspicion; she couldn’t do her job if he didn’t do his. She needed him to be lecherous and sleazy.

“No, thank you.” He offered her a slight smile. “Caviar has never been my thing, but I wouldn’t say no to your name.”

There it was. Finally. But the thrill of it was lost under his bold scrutiny. The scalding spotlight of his attention made her want to fidget. Every nerve in her body battled with itself not to bulk, to maintain rigid eye contact at all costs. She struggled with the nervous need to moisten her dry lips and lost when her tongue snaked out and swiped before she could stop it. The gesture only seemed to heighten the glimmer in his eyes.

“Lena,” she said finally, hoping the low chatter of voices spilling into the room and the soothing hum of violins and flutes filling the house muffled the squeak.

His grin broadened and something pitched in the pit of her stomach at the appearance of the twin indents on either side of his mouth, grooves she’d seen a million times in his photos, but in person may as well have been a fist slamming into her gut.

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