you certainly were that weekend,” he said, leaning in so that she caught a whiff of his spicy aftershave.
She closed her eyes for a minute and acknowledged that if she didn’t keep Allan in the adversary category, there was a part of her that would be attracted to him. He was the only person—man or woman—she’d ever met whom she could go head-to-head with and still talk to the next day. He understood that winning was important to her and didn’t get mad when she won. He just got even, which, to be fair, appealed to her as much as it irritated her.
“But that’s in the past. Let’s work together. I think you and Emma probably have a lot to contribute to the newly merged company.”
“Probably? Jeez, that sounds encouraging,” she said, taking another sip of her drink.
“I’m trying here,” he said.
“Well, I’ve got a few feelers out in the movie industry. There are three new action movies coming next summer that I think are good matches for the type of games that we develop, which might be enough lead time to get a really good game out.” Given that the merged company was not only a prime video game developer for consoles like Xbox and PlayStation, but also had a thriving app business for smartphones and tablets, making games with movie tie-ins was a naturally good idea. Infinity Games had never pursued this line of business before, but since the takeover, Jessi and her sisters had been thinking outside the box.
“That’s a great idea. I have some contacts in that area if you’d like me to use them,” Allan offered.
“Really?”
“Yes,” he said. “It’s in my best interest to help you.”
“Is it?”
“I’m the CFO, Jessi. Anything that affects the bottom line concerns me.”
“Of course it does,” she said.
She was torn. A part of her wanted to accept his help, but this was Allan McKinney, and she didn’t trust him. It wasn’t just that he’d thrown around his money as if the stuff grew on trees; it was also that she hadn’t been able to find out much about him from her private investigator, whom she’d hired to check out John when Patti had first met him. What the detective had turned up about Allan...well, frankly, it had all seemed too good to be true.
No one had the kind of happy, pampered existence the P.I. had found when he dug into Allan’s past. It was too clean, too...perfect. There was something he’d been hiding, but none of that had mattered at the time, since John McCoy was the main subject of the investigation and he’d turned out to be a good guy.
Maybe Jessi should ask Orly, her P.I., to start digging again. When it came to Allan, there had been too few leads and many closed doors the first time around. Given what had happened with Playtone and Infinity, and that she’d recently had Allan’s cousin Dec investigated, too, maybe it was time to ask Orly to find out what more he could about Allan.
“Sure, I’d love your help,” she said.
“You sound sarcastic,” Allan commented, glancing down at his mobile phone yet again.
“It’s the best I can do,” she said.
“Excuse me for a moment. I keep getting a call from a number I don’t know,” he told her.
He picked up his phone and answered. After a moment, his brow furrowed, and he hunched back in his chair. “Oh, God, no,” he muttered.
“What?” she asked. She grabbed her Kate Spade bag and started to slide off the bench, until Allan grabbed her hand.
She shook her head but waited as he listened, and then his face went ashen. He turned away from her.
“How?” he asked, his voice gruff.
She could only stare at him as he shook his head and rasped, “The baby?” After a pause he murmured, “Okay, I will be there on Friday.” He disconnected the call and turned to her. “John and Patti are dead.”
Jessi wanted to believe he was lying, but his face was pale and there was none of that arrogant charm she always associated with him. She pulled her phone out and saw that she, too, had received several calls from an unknown number.
“I can’t believe it. Are you sure?”
He gave her a look that was so lost and wounded, she knew the truth.
“No,” she said, wrapping her arm around her waist.
God, no.
* * *
Allan was shaken to his core. He’d lost his parents at a rather young age, which was part of the reason he and John had bonded, but this was...wrong. It was just wrong that someone so young and with so much to live for had died.
Jessi’s hands were shaking, and he glanced over at her, only to find everything he was feeling inside was there on her face. The woman who always looked so tough and in control was suddenly small and fragile.
He got up and moved around to her side, putting his arm around her shoulder and drawing her into the curve of his body. She resisted for the merest of seconds before she turned her face into his chest, and he felt the humid warmth of her tears as they soaked into his shirt.
She was silent as she cried, which was nothing more than he’d expect from someone as in control as Jessi always was. By focusing on her pain and her tears he was able to bury his own feelings. A world without his best friend wasn’t one he wanted to dwell on. John balanced him out. Reminded Allan of all the reasons why life was good. But now—
“How?” she asked, pushing back from him and grabbing a cocktail napkin to wipe her face and then blow her nose.
Her face was splotchy, red from the tears, and she took a shuddering breath as she tried to speak again. The tears were at odds with her rebel-without-a-care look. She wore her version of business attire, a short black skirt that ended at her thighs, a tight green jacket that had bright shiny zippers and a little shell camisole that revealed the upper curves of her breasts and her tattoo.
His chest was too tight for words. He didn’t really know how to talk through the grief. But as he stared into those warm brown eyes of Jessi’s—one of the very first things he’d noticed about her when they’d met—he realized that he could do this. He would pull himself together and do this for her.
“Car accident,” he said.
“John is an excellent driver, as is Patti—oh, God, is Hannah okay?”
“Yes. She wasn’t with them. Another driver hit them head-on as they were coming home from a Chamber of Commerce meeting.”
Allan was John’s next-of-kin contact, which was why he’d gotten the call. “Let’s get out of here.”
She nodded. He could tell she was in no shape to drive, and steered her toward his Jaguar XF. She got into the passenger seat and then slumped forward, putting her hands over her face as her shoulders shook.
Never in his life had Allan felt this powerless, and he hated it. He stood outside the car and tipped his
