Ace in the Hole (16 page)

His body might feel great, but his head was a mess. The last few days had really done a number on him. Not only was it bizarre living another man’s life, but what the hell was he going to do with Christian? His life wasn’t set up for another human being to share in it. At all. How much was he willing to give up to be with Christian, assuming Christian was even thinking long-term?

It was a topic they’d assiduously avoided so far, and he wasn’t sure it was a place either of them wanted to go. They both had demanding careers they’d thrown themselves into with abandon. Of course, maybe that was both of them compensating for the emptiness of their personal lives.

But after last night, did he have any choice except to bring up the subject? First Granny Chatsworth had forced him to admit how special a man Christian really was, and then the big jerk had to go and show it.

He’d thought at first it was just the adrenaline aftermath hitting Christian hard. But long after that had passed and it was just the two of them making love, the same intensity had gripped Christian. As if he was trying to communicate silently to Stone all the things neither of them dared to say out loud.

Hell, he’d been shaken by the accident too. He had enough combat experience working with close-air-support aircraft to know just how nearly a disaster it had been. A thousand people had been in that plaza. They all owed that pilot a huge debt for keeping the helicopter airborne long enough to get everyone out of the way before it autorotated to the ground. What a clusterfuck it would have been otherwise.

Speaking of clusterfucks, it seemed they’d pulled off a second public appearance of faux-Jack Lacey successfully. But honestly, he wasn’t sure their luck would hold for much longer. The bastard needed to get back here and resume his regularly scheduled life pretty damned quick, or the jig would be up.

To that end, he paused several miles down the beach from the hotel and put in a call to Pere Cardiffe at Wild Cards, Inc. “Hey, it’s Stone Jackson. What’s the word on our missing senator?”

“The
Wrastle Castle
still has not made landfall. All our efforts to relay a message to the senator by way of the ship’s captain have been unsuccessful.”

“Meaning that the captain won’t relay the message or that Lacey won’t respond?”

“The latter.”

Having lived in the bastard’s shoes for a few days, he had a better understanding of the allure of fame and constant attention that must draw Jack to politics. Perhaps an appeal to jealousy and ego might sway the man. “Has anyone tried telling him that a body double is doing a better job at being him than he does? If you tell him a security guard is hogging all of his attention, media interviews, and women, he might come running back to Miami to stop it.”

Pere laughed at the other end of the phone. “It’s worth a try. At this point I have no better ideas. As long as he refuses to respond to our messages, our hands are tied.”

“Please tell me this is the wildest job you guys have ever taken.”

Another laugh out of Pere. “I don’t know. We’ve got another strange one unfolding in Gibraltar. But you’re right up there.”

“Good luck landing the senator.”

“And good luck continuing to be him.”

Stone snorted and disconnected the call. Jack Lacey could use a good old-fashioned ass kicking for the hassles he was causing a whole lot of decent people. He turned and started back toward the hotel as the sun came up in a blazing ball of red.

His thoughts turned back to Christian and the intense lovemaking they’d shared last night. An overwhelming desire to do that again rolled over him. In fact, he could do that a whole bunch of times and never grow tired of it or of the man himself.

He was almost back to the hotel when another runner came toward him on the beach, tall and athletic, moving with the efficient, ground-eating strides of a hard-core runner. With a start, he recognized Christian.

As they drew near, he drew breath to give a cheerful greeting. He was feeling a million times better after getting some exercise. But then he caught Christian’s thunderous expression and came to a full stop.

“What in the bloody hell are you doing out here all by yourself?” Christian ground out.

“Running,” he answered cautiously.

“In the first place, Jack doesn’t run. And in the second, what possessed you to come out here alone?”

“Why not? No assassin’s going to be out looking for Jack on the beach. Like you said, he doesn’t run.”

“And yet you’re not the only person out here. You could be seen.”

“I don’t see how that’s a problem—”

“That’s because you have no idea how rapacious the press really is. Not to mention most of them hate Jack’s guts.”

“I don’t see a mob of reporters anywhere, Christian. It’ll be okay,” he soothed. “Hell, it’s barely sunrise. None of them will be out looking for me either.”

Christian took a step closer and confessed, “When I woke up and you were gone, I was more than a little freaked out. Last night was… intense.”

“Did you think I was running away from you?” he blurted, equal parts pleasantly surprised and dismayed that he’d upset Christian.

Christian mumbled something unintelligible.

He would take that as a yes. Stone said forcefully, “Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, man. Last night was the most spectacular experience of my life. I’m out here trying to wrap my mind around what we shared. I’m not dumping you!”

Their gazes met, Christian’s troubled and his incredulous.

“For real?” Christian asked.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he said fondly. He leaned in, grabbed Christian by the back of the neck and laid a quick, hard, smoking-hot kiss on him that was more tonsillectomy than smooch. Forehead to forehead with Christian, he mumbled, “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with you, and we have a lot of shit to sort out, but I’m not pulling a runner on you. I promise.”

Christian went very still, absorbing his words. It felt as though he was testing their truth and found the integrity and honor he sought in Stone’s voice. “Later,” he said low. “After this is all over.”

“Deal.”

They kissed once more to seal the deal, and then Christian stepped back and looked around furtively. Stone commented wryly, parroting back the guy’s words from the first time they met. “This is South Beach, dude. No one’s worried about a little PDA between a couple of guys on the beach.”

“Still. We can’t be too careful.”

“So, I still feel pretty good. You wanna go a few miles with me?” Stone asked.

“While I’d love to take you up on that because, Lord knows, do I need the stress relief, we’d better get you back to the hotel before someone recognizes you. I’ll go down to the fitness center and use the treadmill.”

He grinned lopsidedly. “Maybe we can find another way to blow off a little of your stress. And I could use a shower while we’re at it.”

“Is that so?” Christian replied, a grin breaking across his face.

CHRISTIAN’S
near heart failure at waking up to an empty bed had mostly calmed by the time the two of them emerged from a steaming and very lengthy shower that involved a great deal of soap suds and slippery sex.

Stone was in an expansively good mood, and Christian was feeling pretty damned skippy himself. They sat down to go over the day’s itinerary.

“Okay, so we can safely cancel your golf-tournament appearance after last night’s fiasco. That leaves us with just the casino fund-raiser Saturday night.”

“Thank God,” Stone replied fervently.

“Tired of playing senator already?” he asked.

“I’ve had my fifteen minutes of fame. I’m ready to return to my anonymous life, thanks.”

“Introvert,” he snorted.

“That’s not a dirty word, you know.”

“Maybe not if you sneak up on people and kill them for a living. But in politics you’d damn well better like being around hordes of people.”

“The way I hear it, congressmen are pretty good at sneaking up on unsuspecting victims.” He shrugged. “Like, oh, you. Jack dumped a hell of a mess in your lap without a word of warning.”

Tucker hung up a phone and interjected, “The mess is about to get more complicated. That was Mrs. Lacey. She’s flying in this afternoon. Show of support for her husband after last night’s near miss and all.”

Stone rolled his eyes. “Great. The last thing I need is a wife.”

Christian muttered dryly, “What
would
you do with one?” Stone scowled at him, and Christian’s twitching lips broke into the grin he’d been holding back. “Never fear. You’ll like your wife.”

It was decided that Tucker would go alone to the airport to pick up Jill Lacey. There was too much potential for awkwardness if Jill and Stone’s first meeting was in public. People might pick up on any formality or lack of displays of affection. Best to bring her fully into the conspiracy in the privacy of the hotel suite.

Assuming, of course, that she agreed to go along with the risky scheme at all.

Tucker duly left for the airport, and Christian made one more pass through the speech he’d drafted for Stone to deliver at the casino fund-raiser. Although the appearances to date had been important, the really big fish would turn out in force on Saturday night. Not only did the speech have to strike exactly the right note to loosen purse strings, but it also had to sound like vintage Jack. Any number of people who knew Jack well would be at the event.

His current working plan was to hold Stone out of the main casino party until it was time for his speech, have Stone deliver the speech, and then have him get “called away” immediately afterward by an emergency. Everyone thought it was cool when congressmen had “classified crises” to deal with. It made the politician look important and observers feel like insiders to know that something was up before the rest of the world did.

His cell phone rang, and Christian fished it out of his pocket. Now why was Tucker calling him on his personal line? “Hey, Travis. What’s up?”

“I’m at the airport with Mrs. Lacey. She’s being mobbed by reporters and paparazzi.”

Alarm sliced through his gut. “Why?”

“Something about pictures of Jack and his lover. They’re going crazy. Full-on feeding frenzy.”

Oh Jesus. Had someone gotten pictures of Jack and Chesty? That was the one variable he had no control over. He’d prayed that Jack’s innate hatred of paparazzi and well-developed radar for when they were around would save them all. But no.

He closed his eyes in chagrin as the whole house of cards unraveled before his very eyes. His career was over. His life was over. The scandal was going to be horrendous.

Belatedly he mumbled, “You know what to do. Pull her out and get her over here.”

“Roger that.” Tucker hung up the phone, and Christian slumped in his chair.

Stone wandered into the living room. “What’s up?”

“Pictures of Jack and Chesty have hit the press.”

“Aww jeez. I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do? Maybe deny that the pictures are me? After all, I’ve been in Miami the whole time. The pictures will be coming out of the Caribbean. You can have an analyst declare them to have been taken in St. Thomas or wherever they were snapped. A bunch of people can verify that I’ve been making public appearances here over the past few days.”

He had a point. Maybe they should brazen out the ruse and dare the press to prove them wrong. “We’ll need Jill to corroborate the story. Everyone loves her, and people will listen to her. If she calls the story a ridiculous lie, that will hold weight.”

“Wow. Jack must hate it that her credibility is higher than his.”

“It drives him crazy.”

“Doesn’t give him the right to cheat on her,” Stone commented.

“Amen.” Thank God Jill had arrived. This thing was getting bigger than him. He didn’t have the authority to be making some of the decisions that were going to have to be made soon. This involved the Lacey marriage, and he needed Mrs. Lacey to be on board.

The door to the suite opened, and Christian stood to hug her, but she screeched to a stop and demanded angrily, “What the hell have you done?”

“I don’t understand—”

“The pictures, Christian.”

“I haven’t seen them. Jack and his girlfriend must have come ashore—”

“They’re not of Jack and a woman. They’re of Jack and
you
!”

STONE
came out of the bedroom and stopped cold. An attractive woman was glaring at Christian, who looked like he’d just been run over by a freight train. Tucker was looking back and forth between them like the two of them were aliens speaking in tongues. What the hell had he just walked into?

He stepped forward. “You must be Mrs. Lacey. I’m Stone Jackson. Pleasure to meet you.”

She whirled to include him in her glare, and he recoiled. She did know that he had been impersonating her husband, right? He looked over at Christian questioningly. What was he missing here?

“What the hell have you done, Christian?”

Egads. She
didn’t
know what he and Christian had been up to. She was so going to fire his ass, and Wild Cards, Inc. would get a black eye. And then they’d have to fire him over the scandal. What on earth had he been thinking to agree to this madness?

Christian faced the boss’s wife, his shoulders set defensively. However, he spoke with admirable calm. “You gave me an impossible task. Jack and Chesty absconded to international waters where we couldn’t retrieve him—”

“
Chesty?
” Frost on a witch’s tits couldn’t have been any colder than that single word.

He felt rotten that Christian was taking so much heat for merely being the messenger bearing bad tidings, and he stepped into the line of fire with the guy. “Chesty Hills, ma’am. She’s the porn star Jack left the country with.”

“Speaking of which, how did your protectee manage to slip out of an entire country without you knowing?” she asked him sharply. “Weren’t you supposed to be guarding him?”

“He insisted that I stay away from him, Mrs. Lacey. And he refused to let Tucker or me guard the suite’s door. The two of them snuck out of here and used a stairwell with no security cameras to make their escape.”