Project: Runaway Bride

Kick his ass. Break his hand so he could never touch Juliet or any other person again.

“No,” she responded quickly, shaking her head and sitting back in her seat. “No, no. I don’t want you to do that. It was a mistake, that’s all. With the wedding right around the corner, and the added pressure from our families to make it all work, everyone’s nervous and emotions are running high. Everything will be fine.”

She nodded, as though determined to believe her own words, even if she had to talk herself into it. Reid knew better, but also knew there was little point in arguing with her.

Pursing his lips, he waited until the red-tinged haze of anger faded from his vision. If he couldn’t convince her to kick the bastard to the curb or let him track the man down and beat him to a bloody pulp, then the best he could do was offer his support. Let her know he was there for her, without judgment—none that he wouldn’t tamp down and keep to himself, at any rate—in case she needed him.

Whether as someone to talk to or as personal protection once she realized her fiancé was more Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jekyll, he figured he was well qualified. She’d already confided in him, breaking down enough that he suspected she hadn’t mentioned Paul’s violent behavior to anyone else, including her sisters.

But he’d be even better at the personal-protection part. He was well trained and had access to a multitude of weaponry. Glancing again at the purplish bruises on her soft, pale flesh, Reid knew he would have no problem utilizing all of them. And calling in reinforcements, if he needed to.

“Where are you going from here?” he asked, catching her off guard with the sudden change of subject.

She startled slightly, giving a little sniff and swiping a knuckle delicately under each eye before licking her lips and answering, “Home.”

Reid’s eyes narrowed to snakelike slits. “Will the fiancé be there?”

Juliet looked even more surprised by that question. Or maybe it was simply a reaction to the barely banked fury Reid knew was still clear on his face.

“No,” she replied softly. “He’s on his way back to Connecticut.”

“Tell you what. Just to be safe, let me take you home.” Without waiting for a response, he pushed back his chair and stood.

“Oh, no, that’s not necessary,” she insisted, hopping to her own feet.

Rounding the desk, he took her elbow—gently, but firmly. “Please. I’ll feel better knowing you got home safely.”

She seemed to consider that for a moment, then on a gentle exhalation of breath, she nodded.

Opening the door, he let her pass before pulling it closed behind them. As a safety precaution, he kept his office locked whenever he was away. He trusted his staff, but there was a lot of sensitive material inside, and it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Hey, Paula,” he addressed his personal secretary as they passed her desk. “Cover for me for a few hours, would you, please? I’m going to see Ms. Zaccaro home.”

If Paula found that at all odd, she didn’t show it. Her expression remained friendly but neutral as she gave a sharp nod. “Yes, sir.”

With a hand resting lightly at the small of her back, Reid led Juliet down the hall to the elevator. Neither of them spoke a word as the car carried them silently down to the ground level.

“Did you bring a car?” he asked as they crossed the lobby, their footsteps—especially the click-click-click of her sharp heels—echoed in the cathedral-like space.

She shook her head briskly. “Cab.”

Applying gentle pressure to her spine, he steered her slightly to the left, toward the entrance to the underground garage. “We’ll take mine.”

Then he looked at his watch and realized it was nearly lunchtime. Maybe he could kill two birds with one stone while he was out...and finagle a bit more time with Juliet while he was at it.

“How would you feel about grabbing a bite to eat?” he asked as they reached a sleek, onyx-black Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. He opened the passenger’s-side door for her and added, “My treat.”

* * *

Juliet couldn’t remember the last time she’d had Chinese carryout. There had been a time when she and her sisters had ordered in more often than anything else. Back when they’d been thick as thieves, working 24/7 to get Zaccaro Fashions off the ground. And that was after Lily had already done more than her fair share of the legwork on her own.

Once the three of them had come together, though—Lily doing the clothing line, Zoe shoes and Juliet handbags—they’d been like a bunch of sorority girls. Staying up late, walking around in pajamas all day and eating little better than rats in a restaurant Dumpster.

It was the most fun she’d ever had.

Zaccaro Fashions was much more successful now. Still not world renowned or a household name, but they were getting there. More business meant more responsibility, though, and less time for the three sisters to spend being the Three Musketeers. Or the Three Stoogettes, as they’d often joked.

Now they all tended to drift along on their own, working privately until one of their design meetings, when they compared notes and concocted future plans. Not to mention the personal lives that seemed to separate them rather than bringing them closer.

Lily had Nigel, and split her time between New York and Los Angeles, where the American branch of his family’s company was located. She was even planning a trip to England to meet Nigel’s parents.

Juliet had been planning her own wedding for what seemed like forever. So long, in fact, that she now understood why so many couples chose to elope. With trips back and forth to Connecticut, her mother’s and soon-to-be mother-in-law’s constant input and the constant feeling that she needed to have her nose buried in copies of Modern Bride magazine, she was surprised her sisters hadn’t disowned her already.

And Zoe was off just...being Zoe. She loved working for Zaccaro Fashions. Came up with some of the sexiest shoe designs anyone had ever seen. They weren’t always practical, but they sold well to people who weren’t always practical, either. But she spent just as much time out on the town, hitting clubs, maintaining her reputation as the wild child that she’d become.

So now, even though the Zaccaro sisters still technically shared the loft and the attached studio space, the takeout menus that had once gotten so much use were now tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen, all but forgotten.

Yet when Reid had invited her to lunch, offering her the choice of whatever restaurant she liked between his office and the loft, she’d found herself craving Chinese instead and suggesting they pick up something to take back to the loft with them before she even realized what she was saying.

He’d looked as startled as she felt, but then shrugged and asked if she knew a good place along the way. She’d been relieved at his easy acquiescence, and more so when he’d told her to stay in the car while he ran inside to get their order.

She knew darn well he’d double-parked as an excuse to ask her to stay with the car, since there was a legitimate space only a few vehicles ahead of them. But she was in no shape to get out and deal with the world. Her makeup was smeared from her earlier crying jag, she was sure, and frankly she felt as though she might burst into tears again at any second.

She was mortified that she’d broken down in front of Reid. Broken down only in front of Reid, when she hadn’t even confided in her sisters about Paul’s recent erratic behavior.

It had been an emotional roller coaster of a day. And not the fun kind—the kind that was rusted and rickety and threatened to fly off the rails.

But she’d felt oddly safe with him. Maybe because he was a professional who’d likely heard a million stories just like hers—and worse, she was sure—over the years. Or maybe because he’d taken on Lily’s case, and then hers, and had proved to be extremely honest and reliable. He might not think so, given the strange set of circumstances surrounding his association with the Zaccaro sisters, but she certainly did. Probably because she could tell how much it had chafed that he’d been forced to juggle both of them as clients, as well as the details of their respective cases.

Or maybe because there had been something about Reid McCormack from the very beginning that told her she could trust him. There was a core of integrity to him that even a blind person could see. He wore it like a suit of armor, surrounding him every minute, everywhere he went.

On the other hand, Paul’s integrity was growing more questionable by the minute.

Having time to herself while Reid was inside the Chinese restaurant waiting for their food to be prepared gave her the chance to compose herself. She was no longer crying, but she noticed that her chest was still tight with apprehension, and it took a few deep, even breaths for her to truly relax.

Then there was the matter of repairing her makeup so it didn’t look like she’d just come in from a rainstorm on a perfectly sunny day. Pulling down the visor and using the mirror on the back, she was relieved to see that while things were a little mussed up, they hadn’t gone into Baby Jane territory.

Her mascara and eyeliner had smeared a bit, probably made worse when she’d dabbed her eyes with a tissue and the backs of her fingers. And the light dusting of powder and blush on her cheeks needed to be reapplied to look less blotchy and uneven.

She took care of all that, plus added a fresh layer of lipstick, and finally felt better by the time Reid stepped out of the restaurant carrying a large paper sack. He got in on the driver’s side, then dropped the bag on her lap, where it taunted her with a mix of savory, tantalizing aromas all the way home.

A few twinges of misgiving about inviting Reid in to share a meal gnawed at her during the quiet drive. Something like this, she supposed, could be construed as intimate or improper while she was engaged to another man. Then again, it was only Chinese, not a clandestine, candlelit dinner in the shadowed alcove of an expensive restaurant. And Paul wasn’t exactly at the top of her Prince Charming list at the moment, either.

Reid had been kind enough to see her home after her upset; the least she could do was let him combine his lunch hour with the good deed.

She unlocked the door and let them in, heading for the kitchen while he took a seat on the sofa and unpacked their lunch on the coffee table.

“What would you like to drink?” she asked as she moved around, collecting plates and utensils. “I’d offer you a glass of wine, but you probably don’t want to drink on the job.”

Reid offered her a crooked smile, popping the top on a square white carton and taking an appreciative sniff. “I think I can handle one glass of wine. Besides, it’s not like I’m a cop on duty. The rest of my day is pretty light, and if I drink too much, I can always take a cab back to the office.”

“So that’s a yes on the wine?” she teased.

He shot her a teasing look right back. “Yes.”

“Should I ask if you prefer red or white?”

“Whatever you think goes best with Chinese takeout.”

She opted for a bottle of zinfandel that was already open and added two glasses to everything else she’d already gathered.

In the living room, she lowered herself to the sofa beside him, setting out the plates and silverware and pouring the wine. Reid doled out portions of lo mein, fried rice, General Tso’s chicken and crab rangoons for each of them, then grabbed a fork and leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch.

Kicking off her shoes, she folded her legs beneath her and did the same.

For long minutes, they ate in silence. Juliet honestly wasn’t sure what to say, given everything that had transpired already that day, but she was enjoying the flavors of food she hadn’t eaten in far too long.

“Looks like you were hungry,” Reid commented, glancing at her half-empty plate. His wasn’t much fuller, though, so she didn’t take it personally.

Moving what was left of her food around with her fork, she said, “Yeah. I’ve been a little distracted lately. Probably not eating as well as I should.”

To say the least. Between plans for a wedding and her confusion about her relationship with Paul, she’d been eating like a bird. Sometimes literally grabbing only a banana or a handful of granola on her way out the door.

“Lily and Zoe and I used to order Chinese when we pulled all-nighters,” she told him. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call Chinese takeout ‘health food,’ but it sure does hit the spot once in a while.”

“It does,” Juliet replied softly. “And this is nice. Thank you for suggesting it.”

He shrugged a shoulder, took a sip of his wine. “You’re the one who said we should grab Chinese and bring it back here. I just thought it looked like you could use a break, and figured getting something to eat while I was out of the office made more sense than trying to come up with an excuse for going out to lunch again after I get back.”

Her lips lifted in a whisper of a smile, more to herself than for him. He was just being kind, and she knew it. As owner of McCormack Investigations, he could come and go as he pleased. It was a multimillion-dollar corporation, and he employed enough other investigators and support staff that the place could probably run itself for a week or two without him, let alone a few hours.

He’d offered to bring her home to be sure she was safe. He hadn’t wanted her returning to her fiancé after the confession she’d made in his office. Then he’d wanted to be sure she was okay—not just physically, but emotionally, as well. He’d brought up the idea of lunch to keep her from locking herself in the loft and spending the rest of the day moping around.

He hadn’t said any of that, of course, he’d simply steered her in a direction that wouldn’t allow her to be alone with her jumbled thoughts or disillusionments.

Not for the first time, she wondered why she couldn’t have met Reid before Paul. Of course, she’d met Paul in college, long before she’d ever moved to New York or had the need to hire a private investigator.

But suddenly—all right, maybe not so suddenly—she’d found herself thinking about Reid much more often than she thought about Paul. Pulling away from Paul because whenever they were together, Reid’s face or voice would fill her head.

When Paul would reach for her, she’d stiffen, never knowing if his touch would be gentle or rough. Reid had only ever shaken her hand or touched the small of her back, and the memory of it could make her shiver. Day or night. For no reason at all or because she’d been concentrating too hard on what it might be like to have him touch her even more. A lot more, in a lot of other places, and for much less professional reasons.

She swallowed hard, lifting her wineglass to her mouth to hide it. And to buy herself a little time while her breathing returned to normal.

She was an engaged woman. She shouldn’t be sitting here lusting after another man. Even if the man she was engaged to had turned into a bit of a jerk.

But since he had, and since he was on his way back to Connecticut, Paul never needed to know that she was enjoying a very impromptu, very pleasant meal with a kind, handsome business associate.

There was no harm in that. And since this was the best she’d felt in quite a long while, she was going to savor it for all it was worth.

Three

Present day

It said something about his personal life that he was in the office, working, on a Saturday, Reid McCormack thought. And that he was happy to do it.

For one thing, the place was quiet for a change. As a private and corporate investigation firm taking up five floors in the center of one of Manhattan’s tallest skyscrapers, the office was always bustling. With people, with conversations, with the ring of phones and buzzing of fax machines. Sometimes even the weekends were busy, depending on their caseloads and the number of investigators putting in overtime.

This weekend, though, he’d lucked out. The offices—or the floor where his corner office was located, at any rate—was silent as a tomb. He could hear himself think. Hell, he could hear himself breathe.

Not that that was a good thing, not today. But at least here he had paperwork to keep him busy. Reports to fill out and review. Cases to follow up on. New employee applications to consider.

Some of it he’d been putting off for a while. Some he’d had to dig deep to come up with. Either way, it would eat up his day and keep him from going home too early to an empty brownstone where the silence was not only deafening but depressing as hell. With luck, it might also help to keep his mind off the thing he was trying desperately to avoid thinking about.

With a grunt, he closed one file folder, set it aside and reached for another.

He hadn’t always hated his town house. There was a time when he’d loved it. He’d bought it slightly rundown and renovated it from top to bottom until it put all of the other houses on the block of his upscale neighborhood to shame.

Then he’d taken Juliet there. It had become their secret meeting place. A clandestine lovers’ nest where they’d hidden away from the world.

Now he couldn’t sleep in his bed without missing the feel of her lying next to him. He couldn’t walk into the kitchen without picturing her standing at the center island in one of his discarded dress shirts, pouring fresh glasses of wine or nibbling on grapes from the fruit bowl.

The memory of her voice echoed off the walls.

The scent of her perfume hung in the air.

The home he’d once loved had turned into a bitter reminder of the woman who was at this very moment walking down the aisle into the arms of another man.

The pencil in his hand snapped. He hadn’t even realized he was holding the thing, and counted himself lucky it wasn’t the pen from his Montblanc set or the crystal letter opener instead.

Making a concerted effort to unlock his knuckles and loosen his grip, he blew out a breath. He might not be happy about Juliet’s decision, but it was hers to make. Her decision, her mistake.

And it was well past time that he put their ill-fated affair behind him and get his head back on business. He hadn’t built McCormack Investigations into a multimillion-dollar corporation by letting himself be distracted. Especially by a woman, no matter how beautiful or smart or refined she might be.

For the fourth or fifth time since he’d gotten to the office, the phone rang. Not his receptionist’s line or one of the others on the floor, but his direct line. Who would be calling him here, at this number, on a Saturday?

Annoyed now by more than just the ringing phone, he snatched it up and snapped, “What?”

There was a slight pause and then a deep male voice came on the line. “Mr. McCormack. It’s Glenn from the front desk.”

An image of the tall, wide-shouldered security guard from the building’s main lobby flashed into his head, and Reid immediately regretted his short tone.

“Yes, Glenn. I’m sorry, what can I do for you?”

“There are a couple young women down here insisting they need to see you. I told them you weren’t in today, but they don’t seem to believe me,” he added, a touch of humor tingeing the words.

“Who are they?” Reid asked.

“Lily and Zoe Zaccaro. They say they’ve been calling you all morning, but you didn’t answer.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. So that explained the incessant ringing of his private line. But if there was anything he didn’t need today, especially in his current dark mood, it was these two walking blond disasters.

Okay, so maybe “disaster” was a bit harsh. He’d never even met the youngest Zaccaro sister, Zoe, though the stories he’d heard about her led him to believe she was the wildest of the three.

But Lily was the one who’d dragged him into the crazy world of the Zaccaro trio to begin with. Theft and corporate espionage and a disappearance that had turned out to be an amateur undercover investigation, and finally his introduction to Juliet.

If Lily had never walked into his office, he’d be a happier man today, that was for damn sure. She’d brought him The Case That Wouldn’t End and led him straight down the path to personal misery.

He didn’t say that aloud, of course, and didn’t tell Glenn to send them away. Instead, he said, “Send them up” and spent the few minutes before their arrival tamping down his temper and schooling his features. When the door to his office opened and the two sisters bustled in, he was the epitome of calm professionalism.

The two women, on the other hand, were a whirlwind of yellow taffeta, blond hair and tear-streaked faces. They let out twin huffs of relief that they’d finally reached him after numerous attempts and flopped into the guest chairs directly in front of his desk.

“Thank God,” Lily sighed at the same time Zoe muttered, “It’s about time.”

Reid’s lips twitched at the younger sister’s cheekiness, but he kept his expression blank.

“Ladies,” he greeted them in a clipped voice.

It was the weekend, for heaven’s sake. There was nothing so pressing in Lily’s ongoing design theft case that they needed to show up at his office on a Saturday, and he didn’t want them thinking this sort of behavior should be repeated.

And didn’t they have a wedding to attend in their fluffy, over-the-top bridesmaid gowns? Their sister’s wedding, to be specific.

“This is rather unorthodox. Is there something I can do for you?”

“Help!” they exclaimed at exactly the same time. They weren’t twins, Reid knew, but damned if they couldn’t pass as mirror images when they acted like this.

Taking the lead, Lily leaned forward slightly. “You have to help us,” she said again. “I know it’s a weekend. I know you’ve probably had it up to your eyeballs with us by now.”

Boy, she’d hit the nail on the head with that one.

“But we don’t know what else to do.”

“About what?” he asked calmly.

“She’s missing!” This from Zoe, whose eyes were wide and glistening.

Reid’s own eyes narrowed. A niggle of foreboding began to tickle at the nape of his neck. “Who?”

“Juliet,” Lily supplied. Her voice had evened out a bit, as though she was growing calmer now that she knew she had the ear of a private investigator. Especially one who’d had dealings with their family before.

Reid didn’t know how much Juliet’s sisters knew about her involvement with him. Did they know about the affair? Had Juliet confided in them? Or had they turned to him simply because of who he was and the work he’d done for them in the past?

Taking a deep breath, Lily continued. “Juliet disappeared from the church. From her wedding. We don’t know what happened. She was in her gown. Her hair and makeup were done. I checked on her and told her everything was ready to go, and then she was just...gone. She never came out, even though we were all waiting for her at the back of the church.”

She dropped her gaze, plucking at the folds of her fluffy yellow skirt. “I went to check on her again,” Lily said softly, “but she wasn’t there.”

Tears lined her lower lashes as she raised her gaze to his. “There was no note, no hint of what might have happened to her.”

Reid’s stomach clenched. “Do you think she ran away?”

He didn’t let himself hope for that, at least not on a personal level. He’d been down that road before and ended up deeply disappointed. But if she hadn’t run off on her own, the other possibilities were too frightening to contemplate.

“We don’t know,” Lily responded.

“What about the fiancé?” He wasn’t going to use the bastard’s name. And God help him if the jerk had done anything to Juliet. Reid would hunt him down and rip him limb from limb.

Zoe tilted her head. “What about him?”

“Has he disappeared, too?”

Both women shook their heads.