Invincible (5 page)

She'd been on administrative duty for months. After she completed counseling, she'd been asked if she thought she could go back to work and fire her weapon without hesitation. She'd said yes.

She'd been wrong.

“I hesitated before drawing my weapon. And I hesitated before firing—to make sure the suspect had a weapon. By the time I realized he had a gun, he'd already shot George.” Her brand-new partner, who was busy manhandling another suspect, who was unarmed.

“In fact, the suspect shot Agent Parker twice before you fired your weapon, isn't that true?” Harrison said.

Kristin nodded curtly. “I fired, but the suspect darted around the corner out of the kitchen, and I missed. Once George was down, the suspect he was cuffing took off. He was unarmed, so I didn't shoot. He knocked me down and fled, along with the other suspect, through the back door. I could tell George was seriously wounded, so I stayed with him.”

“Rather than pursuing the suspects, even though one of them had shot your partner.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Kristin said. “I thought we had enough information to find them again. And I wanted to render all the aid I could to my partner.”

She'd visited George in the hospital yesterday, where he was in serious but stable condition. He didn't blame her, but he no longer wanted to be her partner.

“You've got a problem, Lassiter,” one of the SIRT panel members interjected. “Better get it fixed, or no one will want to work with you.”

Most FBI agents didn't draw their weapons during their entire careers. She'd drawn hers twice, with disastrous results both times. She'd shot too fast. Then she'd shot too slow. She supposed the fear was, the next time she'd be afraid even to draw her weapon.

Kristin wasn't sure herself what she would do if the situation arose again. Which explained why Harrison seemed so determined to pin her wings to the wall like a butterfly in a lab experiment. Harry Lassiter's invincible little girl was looking pretty damned vulnerable right about now.

“Do you have anything you'd like to say on your own behalf?” the SIRT Agent in Charge asked.

It could have happened to anyone,
Kristin thought. But that argument wasn't going to do her much good. Or maybe,
After what happened last time, you can understand why I had to be
sure
he had a gun before I fired.

She didn't make either argument. Nothing could excuse her behavior. So she simply said, “No, sir. I have nothing to add.”

“SIRT will consider the evidence and inform you of what disciplinary action it deems necessary—if any—within the next few weeks,” Akers said. “Until then, Agent Lassiter, keep your nose clean.”

Kristin rose and realized her legs felt shaky. She steadied herself and headed for the door.

“Oh, one more thing,” SSA Harrison said, stopping Kristin at the door.

She turned and waited for whatever barb Harrison had saved for a parting shot.

“You need to see Rebecca in the information office downstairs. The MFO wants to issue a press release about your lawsuit.”

Kristin stared at the SSA blankly. “Lawsuit? I'm not involved in any lawsuit.”

“A reporter from the
Miami Herald
has already contacted the bureau. I assumed you'd received the paperwork. After this second shooting incident, the parents of the boy you killed are suing you in civil court for wrongful death. Better get yourself a lawyer, Lassiter.”

A lawyer? She couldn't afford a lawyer, not on top of the expenses for her father's hospital stay and his rehabilitation and the cost of a nanny for Flick. Her father would hate the publicity a lawsuit would bring, and it would make Flick's life a nightmare. Not to mention her own. What if she ended up suspended without pay? Or lost her job. That was a distinct possibility, considering how badly the hearing had gone. Then what?

Kristin felt her knees threaten to buckle. She curled her hands into fists and stiffened her legs. A lawsuit was just one more straw. One tiny little straw.

You can do it. Remember, you're invincible.

To hell with that. Kristin yanked the door to the hearing room open and headed for the stairwell. She realized she wasn't going to make it. There were no private offices on this floor, just cubicles connected with a lot
of other cubicles in a large room. There was nowhere to hide and lick her wounds.

She felt the choking knot building in her throat. Her nose burned with the threat of tears. She blinked to clear her blurring vision. She wasn't going to break down. She refused to give SSA Roberta Harrison the satisfaction. She felt a tear hit her cheek and angrily brushed it away. But she was losing the battle against the sob growing in her chest.

There was only one place she could hope for any privacy. She hurried around the corner and shoved her way into the ladies' room, searching for feet under the stalls. With a lack of trust she'd learned from the bureau, she smacked open each stall door, letting the metal slam against the opposite wall, as though she were clearing a house.

When Kristin was absolutely certain no one else was in the room, she let the sob break free.

T
he knock on the door came at a very inopportune moment.

Max had just eased the last button free on his date's blouse and was sliding the black silk off her shoulders. After his meeting with Kristin in Miami, he'd been irritated to discover that he was having difficulty getting her out of his mind. This seduction—of another woman—was an attempt to remove her entirely.

He ignored the knock.

Despite orders from his uncle, he hadn't yet found a replacement for Kristin on the tennis court. As ridiculous as it sounded, he kept hoping she'd change her mind. He hadn't wanted her as his partner, but once she'd refused him, no one else would do.

He kept wondering what he'd done wrong all those years ago to make her hate him so much. Considering everything, it was no surprise she'd said no to playing spy. He was lucky she had. He didn't need her complicating his life—or the risky assignment he'd been given.

But he couldn't help comparing the porcelain skin
he was kissing with Kristin's freckled shoulder. K had been self-conscious about her freckles. He'd loved kidding her about them. And kissing each and every one of them. Which had taken the better part of the one night they'd spent together.

“Max?” The perturbed female voice saying his name woke him from his reverie.

He realized he'd stopped caressing his date and was staring out the tall, mullioned windows of the bedroom in the north wing of Blackthorne Abbey where he'd brought her. The room, supposedly slept in by Henry II, had once been the lair of the Beast of Blackthorne.

Not a real beast, of course, but the younger brother of the sixth Duke of Blackthorne, a soldier whose face had been badly scarred at the Battle of Waterloo.

K had loved that story, which also involved a fair maiden, a duke with amnesia and twin eight-year-old girls lost in the hidden passageways of the Abbey leading to the dungeon.

“Max?”

He realized he'd drifted off again.
Damn and blast, K. What are you doing to me?

“Where was I?” he said with a rueful grin.

“Making me feel beautiful and desired.”

Max didn't see the feline smile that accompanied the words, because he was lost again in the past.

“You make me feel so beautiful.”

Those were the words K had said when he'd looked at her naked for the first time. She'd been surprisingly bold—taking his dare when he'd shown up at her hotel
room one afternoon unannounced, two years after they'd first met—dropping the hotel's white terry cloth robe, which she'd donned after her shower, and standing before him in all her glory. Especially since he'd still been dressed in sweaty tennis clothes. He'd been so startled by what she'd done, he hadn't said anything for a moment. She'd lowered her gaze, suddenly a shy fifteen-year-old again.

He'd quickly taken the few steps to bring him close, lifted her chin with a forefinger, looked into her eyes and said, “You are so beautiful.”

That was when she'd said the words that had thrilled and enthralled him.
“You make me feel so beautiful.”
He could see it was true. She blossomed like a flower before him, her eyes full of joy and her smile wide and happy. It was the most wonderful, most powerful feeling he'd ever had in seventeen years of living—the ability to bring another human being utter joy.

And he'd only looked at her.

That precious moment had been interrupted when her father knocked on the door and called out to her. Max had raced for the hotel closet and hidden there while K grabbed the robe she'd discarded and anxiously tied it tight at her waist. Her father had wanted to discuss tactics for the next day's match, so Max had spent an uncomfortable hour fending off a bunch of empty hangers.

When Harry had finally gone, K's playful mood had left along with him. She'd pleaded fatigue and apologized. Max had left without touching her, without even kissing her. But he'd been entranced with her from that
moment on. To say he'd wanted her would be to understate the matter. He'd craved her.

Because of their separate tennis schedules, the opportunity to finish what she'd started didn't come for almost a year. When he'd finally convinced her to sleep with him, he'd been so impatient to be inside her—and so ignorant of the true state of her innocence—that he'd hurt her. And disappointed her. Despite only wanting to love her, he'd somehow made her hate him.

K had kept him at arm's length forever after. Or at least until he'd been forced by his uncle to approach her and ask her to work with him.

It had been an awful lesson to learn about human nature. You couldn't make a person love you, no matter how much you loved them. What had happened with K was exactly what had happened with his mother. Once he'd let her in, she'd shut him out. The pain the second time was terrible enough to cure him of the disease.

Love was for fools and idiots.

“Max, would you rather we didn't do this?”

Max was startled to discover he'd been neglecting his date again. He'd spent a great deal of time talking Veronica Granville, a reporter for the
Times
of London, into spending the weekend with him at Blackthorne Abbey, his family's hereditary castle—complete with moat—in Kent. He'd arranged her seduction carefully, and it was proceeding according to plan. Or had been, until that knock had interrupted them.

And thoughts of that infuriating female from my past.

Max made himself focus on pressing kisses against
the throat of the woman in his arms, but as he brushed aside Veronica's long, straight blond hair, memories of Kristin intruded. He remembered ribbing K about her corkscrew curls, which she hated. And shoving K's lush blond curls out of the way to kiss her nape as he lay beside her. He remembered how she'd shivered with pleasure in his arms. And how good it had felt to finally press his naked flesh against hers.

He supposed it was K's lack of sexual experience that had made kissing her and caressing her so memorable. He couldn't help smiling as he recalled how amazed she'd looked when he'd kissed the tip of her small breast.

“I'm glad to see you're enjoying yourself,” Veronica said as she turned in his embrace.

The smile disappeared as he acknowledged how totally Kristin Lassiter had been dominating his thoughts.

The knock came again.

The statuesque blonde in his arms stared at the thick, wooden-planked door, with its enormous black wrought-iron hinges and said, “I thought you said we were the only guests at the Abbey.”

“We are.” He'd told the reporter he was a distant cousin of the Duchess of Blackthorne's estranged husband, and that the duchess had offered to let him stay as a guest at the Abbey. He'd learned from bitter experience that he couldn't trust a woman's feelings when she knew from the outset that he was the youngest son of the infamous Bella and Bull.

Max blessed his mother for the diligence she'd used in keeping photos of her children out of the papers and
off the internet. With some fancy footwork during his brief junior tennis career that included refusing to pose for photos or turning his head when the cameras flashed during the trophy presentation, he'd remained virtually invisible both in print and online. There were pictures, but not good ones.

“I heard you tell the butler we didn't want to be disturbed,” Veronica said. “Who could it be?”

“Ignore it,” he murmured, brushing aside her silky blond hair and teasing her ear with his teeth, determined, this time, to banish K from his thoughts.

The knock came again, cracking like thunder.

And he bit Veronica's ear.

“Ouch!” Veronica grabbed her ear as she pulled away and shrugged her blouse back onto her shoulders. “Answer the damned door, Max,” she snapped, turning her back as she rebuttoned her blouse.

Since she was dressed again, he sighed and headed for the door. When he opened it, he found the Blackthorne butler, whose forebears had worked at the Abbey since medieval times, wearing formal clothes and holding a silver platter containing a blue-tinged white envelope. The word
TELEGRAM
, framed by four red stripes, was written in blue on the upper left hand corner.

“I presume that's for me, Smythe,” Max said quietly.

“Yes, your lordship,” the butler replied, just as quietly. “It was delivered by personal messenger.”

It was impossible to get Smythe to call him Max. He'd been trying since he was a boy of six. It was Lord
Maxwell, or your lordship, as though they were living a century or two in the past. Considering the English laws of succession, there was no way he should be a lord.

It was Smythe who'd explained to him how, thanks to his courageous ancestors—and an act of Parliament—he remained fourth in line to inherit the Blackthorne dukedom.

It was a pretty good story, actually. One of K's favorites, back in the days when they were speaking to each other.

When all the male Blackthorne heirs had died heroically during the Battle of Britain in the Second World War, Parliament had amended the Letters Patent creating the Dukedom of Blackthorne so the title would pass “to all and every other issue male
and female,
lineally descending of or from the said Duke of Blackthorne, to be held by them severally and successively, the elder and the descendants of every elder issue to be preferred before the younger of such issue.”

Which meant that either males
or females
could inherit the dukedom. This prevented the title from being extinguished by the death of the last male Blackthorne during the war. It was the first time such a thing had been done since the Dukedom of Marlborough was preserved in the same way for similar reasons in 1706.

As the elder of twin sisters, his mother was the current holder of the title. Max's eldest brother, Oliver, would succeed her as the next Duke of Blackthorne. As the eldest son, Oliver currently held one of the Duke of
Blackthorne's lesser titles, Earl of Courtland, and was often referred to simply as Courtland.

Max stared at the note on the silver platter and said, “This couldn't wait, Smythe?”

“It is a missive from Her Grace.”

Max knew that as far as anyone at the Abbey was concerned, communication from the duchess was like word from on high. He thought back to the last time his mother had gotten in touch with him. It was six months ago, when she'd emailed to ask if he was coming home to Blackthorne Abbey for Christmas. He wasn't.

He was only here now because his mother was not. And because he'd hoped the exotic locale would help him seduce Veronica—and forget K.

He'd failed miserably on both counts.

“Thank you, Smythe,” he said, taking the note from the tray.

The butler bowed, then took an arthritic step back, before turning and limping away. As he retreated, his uneven cadence echoed off the high stone ceilings in the hall.

The instant the door was closed, Max crushed the missive, dropped it onto an ivory-inlaid chess table and said, “Where were we?”

But Veronica the Reporter was curious. She crossed the Aubusson carpet to the table, picked up the crushed paper and pressed it flat across the front of her skirt. “It's a telegram. From America.” She turned to Max and asked, “Why would anyone send a telegram in this
day and age? I mean, why not phone or fax, or text or email?”

It wasn't until she pointed it out that Max realized just how odd his mother's missive was. He took the telegram from Veronica and tore it open. He crossed to the windows edged with ivy on the outside and hung with gold brocade curtains on the inside and held the note up where it could catch the last rays of daylight.

Veronica followed him. “What is it, Max? Who's it from?”

Max let out a sigh of relief, crushed the note once more and tossed it onto an ancient oak chest that ran below the mullioned windows. “It's nothing.”

“Mind if I look?” She didn't wait for permission, just picked up the discarded paper, straightened it out for a second time and began to read.

Max grimaced, knowing what was coming.

She gasped and turned to stare at him. “The Duchess of Blackthorne is your
mother?
”

He met her gaze and shrugged. “It's no big deal.”

“Don't try using those innocent baby blues on me,” she said sharply. “Your mother's not just famous, Max. She's infamous.”

Which was why he never mentioned the connection. “So?”

“So?
So?
” she repeated incredulously.

Max knew exactly what was running through her mind. He'd lived through some of it and heard stories all his life about the rest. Seventeen-year-old Lady Isabella's fairy-tale romance and rocky marriage to twenty-
nine-year-old American banking heir Bull Benedict had been tabloid fodder for years.

First, Bella had stolen Bull away from her twenty-one-year-old second cousin, Lady Regina Delaford, daughter of the Marquess of Tenby, whom Bull had been courting. To add insult to injury, Bull and Bella had married barely a month after they'd met. The poverty-stricken duchess had even agreed to sign a prenuptial agreement to prove she wasn't marrying the banking heir for his billions.

Eyebrows rose at the birth of their first child a mere eight months later. The public gasped each time Bella showed up at some charity function wearing the priceless jewels—each with a legend attached—that Bull had given to his wife during their marriage: rubies, pearls, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds.

Last, but not least, the public had devoured news of Bull and Bella's antagonistic separation after twenty-five years of marriage. Gossip said Bull hadn't divorced his wife because after twenty-five years of marriage, the prenup became null and void, and Bella could lay claim to as much as the English courts decided to give her of Bull's tremendous fortune.