The Secret Son

The biggest mistake of all.

Jack was frowning.

“You have to understand,” Erica said quickly. “It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. I did—I do. It’s just not a stars-in-your-eyes, heartjumping kind of love. He’d been a colleague of my father’s, a friend of the family for years. I’d actually had a crush on him for a short time while I was in high school.”

“Just how old is he?” Jack asked, pulling her up to stand with him, still not relinquishing his hold on her hand.

She didn’t want to tell him. Jefferson looked younger than he was, and Jack had told her he wasn’t really up on Washington politicians, anyway. She was pretty sure he’d missed the publicity about her marriage to Jefferson three years before.

“Fifty-nine,” she said with obvious reluctance.

He stopped. Stared at her. “Twenty-seven years older than you?”

He was good with the math.

Erica nodded.

“And here I’ve been picturing you with some hotshot young stud tearing up Capitol Hill. This kind of reminds me of that song by the Eagles. ‘Lyin’ Eyes.”’

Hand in hand, they walked to the door.

“Except that I’ve never visited the cheatin’ side of town.”

The New York air was crisp. Cool. Forty-seventh Street was almost deserted. With the minutes closing in on her, Erica felt caged, claustrophobic.

“Let me walk you to your hotel?”

“Of course.”

But there was no “of course” about it. Always before, he’d hailed her a cab on Fifth Avenue and wished her good-night.

A twenty-minute walk to her hotel—if they took things slowly—and then her soul mate was going to walk out of her life forever. How could she possibly make it through a lifetime of never feeling this way again? Of never feeling the intensity, the rightness, she felt when she was with Jack?

This wasn’t the youthful passionate love she’d felt for Shane. It went deeper than that. Deeper than what she’d known as love.

Jack made her feel complete.

THEY WERE NEARING her hotel. Jack spent the last couple of blocks wondering whether he dared to kiss her good-night.

He was going to have to leave her without doing what he needed most—take her to bed. He didn’t even question that.

Jack didn’t sleep with married women.

And she wasn’t the type to cheat.

Jefferson Cooley might not have passionate love from her, but he had her loyalty. And of the two, loyalty won out.

As he believed it should.

“See that guy over there?” Erica said, gesturing as they approached her hotel.

A man, dressed casually in a pair of well-fitting jeans and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, leaned against the corner of the building.

“Yeah.”

“My first night here, he tried to get me to go with him, supposedly to pick out some earrings for his mother. I had to tell him no three times before he finally gave up,” she said, her voice not quite steady, though from wine, their imminent goodbye or something else he couldn’t be sure. “He’s been hanging around the hotel all week.”

She slowed her steps until they were barely moving forward at all. “For a while I thought he was out here smoking, but I’ve never seen him light up. A couple of times since that first night, I’ve caught him watching me. And then last evening, I’m almost certain he followed me into the hotel. He came in right after I did. I slipped into an elevator just as the door was closing and lost him.”

Once a cop, always a cop. Jack checked the man out. Erica was right. He was watching them. Or rather, her. The guy hadn’t been hanging around his place all week.

“I’m walking you inside,” Jack said brusquely, putting an arm around Erica to lead her through the front door of the hotel.

He glared at the guy as they passed, warning him off in no uncertain terms. The other man shrugged and looked away.

The man might be perfectly harmless. Just a hotel guest appreciating a beautiful fellow guest.

But Jack had learned the hard way that you could never be sure.

Glancing back as they entered the hotel, Jack wasn’t pleased to see the man still leaning there, still watching them.

It was odd, the way he’d been leaning against that wall all week. Was he a threat to Erica? And if so, why?

“I’d feel a whole lot better if you’d just let me see you safely up to your room.”

Erica looked at him uncertainly, lightly chewing her lower lip, and he knew it wasn’t just the man loitering outside that was troubling her. With every moment they prolonged this goodbye, they were giving temptation the edge, challenging a strength that might not be able to sustain them.

She nodded, silently leading the way.

Not another word was said as they rode the deserted elevator up to the twelfth floor. She paused outside a double door about halfway down the hall.

A suite. At least Jefferson Cooley kept her in style.

She slid her electronic entry card into the slot above the door handle. “I can’t do this,” she said suddenly, resting her head against the door.

Jack reached for the card with shaking fingers. “Here, let me.”

But the green light was already on. She’d unlocked the door.

Erica turned, her eyes bright with unshed tears as she looked up at him. “I can’t just go in there and leave you when I still have another six hours before I have to be at the airport….”

“What are you saying?”

“I just wish we could go somewhere and talk.”

He had to work tomorrow. Lives were at stake. He had to be sharp, decisive, alert to every nuance.

But he’d have a long plane ride to recover from a sleepless night….

“It does seem criminal to waste six perfectly good hours,” he said.

“We could go to that place we passed a few blocks back, the one with the yellow and green lights,” she said.

Jack thought of the man hanging around outside. “I’d rather you didn’t leave the hotel again, not while that guy’s still down there. He’s probably harmless, but just in case…”

Erica frowned, her dark-brown eyes filled with so many conflicting emotions he couldn’t decipher. “Nothing in the hotel will be open this late.”

Temptation battled resolve with no clear victor.

Jack took a steadying breath. At the agency, they called him a man of steel. They joked that his middle name was self-control. And it was true. A hostage negotiator had to be cool under pressure.

He reached around her to open the door of her suite. “I’ll bet you have a fully stocked bar in here,” he guessed, “and a perfectly good table and chairs we can use.”

He glanced around the corner of the entryway. He’d been right. The bar was along the far wall. The table was glass, with four chairs around it and a big bowl of fresh fruit in the center.

“We’ll pretend we’re in the bar down the street, the one with the yellow and green lights, but I’ll know you’re safe.”

She looked as though she was going to refuse. As though she had to refuse. And then she smiled at him.

“Okay,” she said, hesitation in every line of her body. She stood there, tall, model-slim, arms tight against her sides. And he realized that if this was a risk for him, it was a greater one for her. “We’re in a bar. And we have the whole night ahead of us….”

Jack wasn’t sure how many shots of whiskey he consumed over the next couple of hours. He only knew that he was ahead of her and her glasses of wine probably two to one. And that it still wasn’t enough.

On his last trip back from the bathroom, he couldn’t make himself return to that hard wicker chair, squeezing his long legs under the ridiculous glass table. He’d been afraid something was going to break every time he set his drink down.

He wasn’t sure why he’d thought staying in her suite had been such a good idea, either.

He’d miscalculated the danger. It wasn’t the man outside she had to worry about but the one sitting here in her room.

She’d gone to the second bathroom in the suite, and while she was gone, Jack poured fresh drinks for both of them and took his over to the long beige sectional in the living area. The square coffee table in front of the couch was glass, too.

Jack set his glass down, anyway.

And thought of Erica.

Every time she laughed, every time she moved, every time she spoke, every time those dark-brown eyes met his, every time he remembered that he was going to tell her goodbye and never see her again, Jack felt as if he’d been punched. He’d never wanted a woman as badly as he wanted Erica Cooley.

And yet, when he considered chucking it all, giving up the crusade to save others where he hadn’t been able to save his own, he knew he couldn’t do it. When he thought about changing his life, his goals, his mind filled with visions of that tiny body, that small casket and he realized he couldn’t turn his back on all the lives he could save.

He couldn’t risk committing himself that completely again, either.

He laid his head back, eyes closed, waiting for her. Trying to predict whether she’d join him on the couch. Or make the smart choice and stay over at the table.

He tried to figure out what he hoped she’d do.

She joined him on the couch—a full cushion away. He still hadn’t decided if he wanted her there, or across the room where he wouldn’t have to be so strong.

He’d had a lot to drink.

Jack leaned forward, grabbed his glass from the table and took a full sip. He didn’t look at her.

“What are you thinking about?” The soft words touched him, seemed so intimate.

“When Melissa and Courtney were killed, something inside me changed. Shut down.”

It still felt odd, talking about that part of his life. He never had before tonight. And yet, strangely, it felt right. The environment was safe, somehow.

He wanted Erica to know.

His arm lay along the back of the couch and she reached out with her hand, laying it on his.

“How could it not?” she asked gently. “They were a big part of you.”

“Far more than I’d realized,” he admitted. “If I’d allowed myself to acknowledge how important they were to me, I’d never have been able to do the job I’d chosen, risking my life every day.”

“You didn’t work in an FBI office?”

He shook his head, remembering some of the more dangerous situations he’d somehow managed to get through unscathed. “I was a field agent. Drug trafficking.” He’d slammed into more than one hovel filled with greasy, violent, conscienceless men, who’d pull their guns without the least provocation.

“I didn’t train for the crisis team until after Melissa’s death.”

Her fingers trailed lightly over the back of his hand. “Whenever you’ve talked about the past few years, you’ve mentioned your work, things you do in your spare time, skiing, books you’ve read, movies, trips to Vegas. What about your personal life?”

“That is my personal life. Work and what I do in my spare time. I’m out of town a lot, but I have an apartment here in New York.”

Erica looked down shyly, which was not like her. “I mean your really personal life,” she said. “You haven’t said so, but there must be a woman in the city someplace who’s missed having your company this week. Someone who would’ve had it if I, if we—”

“There’s no one.” He wasn’t sure how smart it was to tell her that. But he wasn’t sure about a lot of things at the moment.

Except that he hadn’t had enough whiskey to dull his senses. He took another sip.

“How long has it been since there’s been someone?” If he’d detected jealousy in her voice, he might’ve been able to joke with her, fob off the question—while secretly being flattered, of course.

He couldn’t build any defenses against Erica’s compassion.

“I told you, I don’t have the time or energy to invest in ‘someone.’ Nor can I do my job if I know someone’s waiting at home for me. How can I take the chance of putting them through the hell and the horror I went through when Melissa and Courtney were killed? I risk my life every single time I go to work. As a freelance negotiator there’s very little I do that’s safe. I don’t man a desk during downtimes or give training classes, do research or program management like I used to do with the agency.”

“But you must have friends.”

“Of course I do.” He had acquaintances all over the United States. Guys he could call if he ever needed a favor. Usually he just called them to go out for a beer if he was in town.

Or to bum a place to crash for a few nights.

Jack hated hotels.

“And you must have sex.”

It took Jack a second to recover from the jolt those words sent through his body.

“I mean, you’re a gorgeous man, Jack. You exude virility, energy. Vitality. Sex appeal…”

“I have sex,” Jack choked out, a bit desperate to shut her up. “Sometimes. Not often. And not with anyone exclusively.”

“Oh. Good.”

He finished off his whiskey, set the glass on the table, much harder than he’d intended. He winced at the sound.

“You know the part of me that shut down after Melissa?”

He felt foreign to himself, talking this way, but he couldn’t let tonight end without telling her.

“Yeah.”

“I discovered this week that it wasn’t permanent.”

Her fingers froze on his wrist.

“It’s okay,” he assured her quickly, wondering if perhaps the whiskey was affecting him, after all. “You aren’t supposed to do anything with that knowledge. I’m not asking for anything, I just wanted you to know. Wanted to thank you.”

He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

And…damn, her lips were trembling.

“Ah, Erica,” he said, trying to cajole her into calmness. Into repose and resignation. Instead, he was afraid he’d only let her hear his own despondency.

She smiled, but it looked like an effort.

He felt utterly useless. His muscles tensed with the effort it was taking him just to sit there.

Her shoulders straightened. She looked at him, her eyes glistening.

And all his strength dissolved.

CHAPTER THREE

THERE WAS NOTHING sexual about the way he pulled her into his arms. Jack wasn’t sure what was right and what was wrong anymore; he knew only that he couldn’t sit there with Erica hurting so badly and do nothing.

Which was why she ended up cradled in his arms, her face pressed against his chest as she took a couple of ragged breaths.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be,” he said softly, aching for both of them. “Please don’t ever be sorry we met.”

Her eyes shone with tears that didn’t fall. “I’m not sorry we met,” she said, her voice weak. “I am sorry I’m not better equipped to handle this.”

“How could you be?” He sat back, pulling her with him, allowing her to rest against him more than actually holding her. “I don’t think either of us was prepared for what’s happened.”

“I never expected to fall for someone.”

“Me, neither, which is why we couldn’t possibly have been prepared.”

They were quiet for a while, the hum of the hotel’s air conditioner, her weight against him, lulling Jack into a tentative sense of peace. He started to follow Erica’s breathing pattern, soothed by the evenness, the steady ebb and flow. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

Part of him hoped so.

Another part, the possessive part that he’d thought gone from him forever, didn’t want to waste a single second of the time still left to them. There were so many thoughts—so many feelings—inside her and he wanted every one of them. To store them away, like tiny gifts, to pull out and savor in the years to come.

“I’m not sorry about us.”

She wasn’t asleep.

“I’m not, either,” Jack said.

As frustrated and horrible as he felt, he should wish he’d never met her. Shouldn’t he?

“Can I ask you something?” he said a moment later.

“Sure.” She was playing with the corner of his collar, rubbing it back and forth against the pad of her thumb.

“Sex with Jefferson—he’s good to you, isn’t he?”

It wasn’t any of his damn business. And yet it was. He loved her. He needed to know that she was treated right.

He needed to know.

“Jefferson is always good to me.”

Jack had suspected as much. And was genuinely comforted to hear her say it.

He was also far more jealous than he had any right to be.

“I just wasn’t sure, with him being so much older…” Let it go, man.

“Sex doesn’t really play a big part in our relationship.” The words were said quietly but not hesitantly. Jack sat unmoving, wanting to hear more, wanting her more. He shifted beneath her to hide—and perhaps ease—the tightness in his groin.

“When we were first married we tried…Jefferson was a very conscientious lover, always making sure I was…satisfied before he…you know.”

So the man wasn’t a selfish bastard, but then, after a week of hearing about him, Jack already knew that.

“After a while, I don’t know, things just tapered off. We rarely make love anymore.”

“Did you ever discuss it? Ask him about it?”

“We talked.” Her knuckle grazed his throat.

“And?”

“One reason’s his age. The male sex drive dropping after fifty and all that. But Jefferson is very fit. He doesn’t look or act anywhere near the fifty-nine he actually is.”

“So what was the other reason?”

She turned her head, burying her face in his chest for a moment. Jack held his breath, willing his body not to torment him.

Finally she said, “He knows my heart isn’t in it.”

Jack didn’t know what to say to that. He was ashamed of his immediate reaction—the fact that he felt glad Jefferson wasn’t having sex very often with the woman he’d fallen so suddenly in love with. He was also saddened to think of Erica going through the rest of her life practically untouched.

“I told you I was an only child,” she said, her body growing heavier against his as she relaxed. “What I didn’t say was that my parents were already in their forties when I was conceived. My dad was seventy when he died six years ago. Jefferson’s fifteen years younger than him, but somehow he’d seemed like a second father to me.”

“What about your mother? Is she still alive?”

Jack’s parents were both gone—killed in a car accident when he was in college.

“She’s in Florida,” Erica said. “Living in an adult community next door to her younger sister. They golf and play bridge all day.”

“What did she think of your marriage?”

“She was mostly for it,” Erica said. “She wasn’t thrilled about the age difference, but she knew I’d never find a man better than Jeff….”

Her voice trailed off again and Jack tried not to think as he held her. Until she shuddered.

“Erica?’

She raised her head and he could see the agony in her eyes.

“This is just so hard,” she said, her lips twisted in pain. “I never expected it to be so hard.”

“I know….”

“What are we going to do?’

“What can we do?”

As she watched him silently, Jack’s heart took hope. He waited to see what miracle she might come up with, some way they could be true to themselves and yet…

“Nothing,” she said. “Keeping in touch would not only be incredibly stupid, it would make things even harder. I’ll survive in my real world, if you’re no more than just a memory. You have to be something I can put away when I go home. If you were still a part of my life, I’d constantly be wanting more.”

He knew she was right, but…

“Maybe you should at least have my address, just in case.”

“No, Jack. I’m not strong enough to do that. I’d be tired one night, feeling lonely, and I’d end up using it.”

“In my line of work, you don’t want to be too easily found, so I’m not listed.”

“Good.”

He nodded. This was the way it had to be.

“Oh, God, why does life have to be so hard?” She sounded beaten.

Her face was only inches from his, and Jack leaned forward slightly to kiss her eyelids closed. She should get some rest. She had a meeting in the morning. He could sit there and hold her the rest of the night.

Hold her and not think.

His lips trailed tenderly across one cheek and then the other and then had nowhere else to go.

Except down to her mouth.

There was no conscious decision. No decision at all. The hour was late, the alcohol convincing. The need to comfort, to connect, too overpowering.

One minute he was kissing her face…and the next she was naked beneath him and his lips were on her breast, her nipple, his body sliding inside hers.

It was wrong. He knew that. And he could see, by the look in her eyes, that she knew it, too.

And yet, nothing had ever felt more right.

They had two hours before she had to shower and leave. Jack made love to her, laughed with her, told her how beautiful she was, how smart, how much he admired her.

And then, in the doorway of her hotel room, just before dawn, he told her goodbye.

A COUPLE OF MONTHS later, in the bedroom she shared with Jefferson, Erica knew for certain that she’d never be able to forget Jack.

Or forgive herself for that stolen week in New York.

She and Jefferson had just returned from a pre-holiday party at the White House. He was still in his tux, although he’d loosened the tie at his neck. He was sitting on the love seat in the corner of the big bedroom suite in their Washington condo. He looked tired.

“When are you going to tell me what’s the matter?” he asked as she came in from the bathroom.

Now. She had to tell him now. But…

“Why do you say that?” She wanted to take off the long, slim-fitting black gown and pull on her silk pajamas. But she didn’t.

“I’ve known something was wrong ever since you came home from New York,” he said, running his hands through his thick, stylishly cut gray hair.

“Why didn’t you mention it before?”

“I’d hoped that eventually you’d come to me with whatever it was.”

Were his shoulders as broad as Jack’s?

Surprisingly enough, Erica thought, they probably were.

But were they broad enough to handle what she was about to tell him? She’d been cold all evening, the November chill seeping through her bones. But now she was sweating.

Wanting nothing more than to crawl into the big four-poster bed, cuddle up to her husband and go to sleep, Erica joined Jefferson on the other side of the room, where she dropped into an armchair adjacent to the love seat. She didn’t know where to begin. Or how.

Jefferson waited. And Erica knew how much it was costing him to do this. Her husband always anticipated crises, always acted decisively, attempting to resolve problems if he couldn’t prevent them. Asking him to just sit and do nothing wasn’t fair.

“I never realized it was possible to hate myself so much,” she said in a low voice.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Knowing you as I do, I’m sure there’s no need to put yourself through that kind of grief, Erica, so why don’t we talk about whatever this is and get it behind us?”

If he had any idea…

Erica opened her mouth to speak but, looking up at him, couldn’t make the words come. How could she do this to him? She, who knew so well how devastating it was to be betrayed?

After suffering the effects of Shane’s betrayal, she’d never have believed herself capable of doing anything so deplorable. So selfish. So hideously unfair.

Her stomach roiled, and Erica was afraid she might be sick again.

“I met a man in New York.”

Jefferson’s head dropped.

“His name’s Jack Shaw. He’s a hostage negotiator, used to be with the FBI.”

Her husband’s shoulders straightened as he sat back and held his head up to meet her gaze.

“You want a divorce. To go to him.”

“I’m never going to see him again.”

She had no way of seeing him, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. Her life and Jack’s—they were farther apart than ever.