Carlton was glancing between them suspiciously as Marcos told her, “Marc-OH. My name is Marco.”
“Marco,” she repeated dumbly, still wondering what in the world he was doing here. Of all the ways she’d imagined running into him again, in the middle of the mountains at a drug lord’s lair certainly wasn’t one of them.
And if she didn’t get her act together fast, she was going to get both of them killed.
Brenna tried to clear the dazed expression from her face. “Sort of,” she answered Carlton, wishing her voice had come out as breezy as she’d intended, instead of breathless.
She glanced back at Marcos, praying whatever he was doing here, he’d leave before he could ruin things for her. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she wasn’t going to let it slip away, not even for the first boy who’d made her heart race and her palms sweat.
She strode through the enormous room, her too-high heels clicking against the marble floor, and then settled onto the chair next to Carlton. “I picked him up at a bar. When was it? A couple of years ago?” She shook her head, letting out a laugh, hoping Marcos would go along with her story.
She could have told them she’d known Marcos from the foster home. Carlton knew her history—at least the version of it she’d chosen to let him hear—and he definitely knew about her time at that foster home. But Marcos was using a fake name, and she didn’t know what his game was, but she didn’t want to contradict whatever story he’d given Carlton. Because no matter how much her heart hurt at the idea of the adult Marcos being a criminal, she held out hope that he was here for some other reason. And she definitely didn’t want to cause his death.
“Sorry for telling you my name was Crystal,” she said to Marcos.
Carlton guffawed and relaxed again. “Lucky man,” he told Marcos.
Marcos’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer before he looked back at Carlton. “Yeah, until she slipped out at dawn. But you never forget a face like that.” His eyes darted back to her for a split second, and then he accepted the glass of champagne the butler held out.
Brenna relaxed a tiny bit. She shook her head at the butler when he stopped in front of her and simply watched as Carlton, Jesse and Marcos toasted to a potential friendship.
Disappointment slumped her shoulders. She knew what a “potential friendship” toast meant. Marcos Costa was a drug dealer.
She should have recognized it instantly. There weren’t very many reasons someone would come out to Carlton Wayne White’s secret mansion. To even earn an invite, Marcos had to have some serious connections.
But Brenna couldn’t help herself. She looked at him now and she still saw the boy who had opened the door for her, taken her pathetic suitcase in one hand, and her hand in the other. That foster home hadn’t been anything close to a real second home to her, but she’d realized after being sent away a few months later that she’d gotten very, very lucky at that first introduction to life in the system. She’d gotten very, very lucky meeting Marcos.
She’d spent most of the rest of her life dreaming of him whenever things got tough, creating a fiction where she’d see him again and he’d sweep her off her feet. She knew it was ridiculous, but that didn’t matter. The dream of Marcos Costa had gotten her through the worst times in her life.
It made her sad to see that he’d grown up into someone who’d have a “potential friendship” with the likes of Carlton Wayne White. Of course, what must he think of her? She wondered suddenly if he’d ever suspected she’d set the fire eighteen years ago that had separated them.
Why would he? Brenna shook it off and tried to focus. She couldn’t let Marcos Costa—whatever his agenda—distract her.
She’d worked hard to get this invite to Carlton’s house. She’d spent weeks planning ways to catch his attention, then even more weeks testing those theories, until finally he’d taken the bait. But Carlton hadn’t gotten to where he was by being careless, or being easily distracted by a woman who wanted to trade assets. She knew he didn’t trust her yet. And there was only so far she was willing to go to earn that trust.
But she needed to get close to him, so she could dig up his secrets as thoroughly as she knew he’d tried to look into hers. Because the events of that day eighteen years ago, when the study had gone up in flames around her, still haunted her. And she suspected that Carlton Wayne White, whether he knew it or not, was connected to that day. And that meant he was connected to her. He just didn’t know it yet.
If everything went as planned, he wouldn’t know it until it was far too late.
* * *
THREE HOURS LATER, after a ridiculously heavy five-course meal filled with meaningless small talk, Brenna walked gingerly toward the room Carlton had put her in. Her feet were killing her. The shoes he’d bought her boasted a label she’d never be able to afford, but as good as they looked, they were far from comfortable. Give her tennis shoes over these heels any day of the week. But she’d never tell him that.
Carlton had bought her the dress, too, as well as a necklace that probably cost more than her car. So far, he seemed to be respecting her boundaries: she’d made it clear that she wasn’t interested in being anyone’s mistress. But she’d also dropped hints that she liked the sort of life her job with the state could never give her.
Slowly, over the course of a series of dinner meet-ups where she’d pretended to be naive enough to think he was interested in simple friendship, he’d dropped his own hints about what he could offer her. About what she might offer him in return.
And now here she was, at his mansion, far from help if he discovered her real intentions, being “interviewed” as clearly as Carlton was doing to Marcos.
Marcos. It had been hard to keep her eyes off him during dinner, a fact she was sure Carlton hadn’t missed. Even if Marcos hadn’t been her first childhood crush, he was exactly her type. Or at least, he would have been if he weren’t a drug dealer.
Besides his good looks, the man was charming and funny and interesting. Maybe a little more cocky and entitled than she’d have expected, but then again, never in a million years would she have pegged that he’d grow up and fall into crime.
He’d seemed so well-adjusted those few months she’d known him, doing well in his classes, having a clear bond with two older boys in the house, a brotherhood that went beyond blood. What had happened to him after that fire?
She knew he and his brothers had been torn apart. All six foster kids had been sent to different places. But that was all she knew; she’d thought about looking him up more than once over the years, but she’d never done it. Now, she almost wished she didn’t know the path he’d chosen.
Was it her fault? If she hadn’t walked into the study when she had, if that fire hadn’t started, would he have traveled a different path?
“Brenna.”
The soft voice behind her startled her, and Brenna stepped sideways on her stiletto. She would have fallen except a strong hand grabbed her waist. For a moment, her back was pressed against a ripped, masculine frame she didn’t have to see to instinctively recognize.
She regained her balance, her pulse unsteady as she spun and found Marcos standing inches away from her. This close, she should have seen some imperfection, but the only
