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“Very well.” He rose and offered her his hand.
She stood as well, her leg calmer now than it had been, and shook with him.
“I’ll let you three get started with the debrief in conference room one, and I’ll join in a minute. First group meet at seven.”
A whole-group meeting to launch a new client and then regular updates to the group was one of the things I liked about how Lucas ran his operation—a holdover from his time in Omega.
Standing, I opened the door for Serena. “You can start by telling us everything that happened today. Second door on the right.”
As she exited, just her proximity made me gulp. The grime, the cuts, and the blood stains did little to hide the fact that grown-up Serena was a total smoke show.
Lucas was dialing his phone when I closed the door.
Following her down the hall, I couldn’t help but notice the sway of her fine ass. She wasn’t a cookie-cutter, stick-figure airhead like Ariana. No, Serena was a real woman, intelligent and determined. If it weren’t for that entitled attitude… “I will not be hidden away. I will continue my normal schedule and activities.”Yada, yada, yada.I pulled open the conference room door for her.
She entered and sat gingerly.
I closed the door after Constance.
My partner asked the first question. “Why don’t you want us to talk to your father?”
“I just don’t,” Serena said, wringing her hands. There was a story there that we obviously weren’t getting today. “My nickel, my rules.”
There was that attitude again.He, or she, who has the gold makes the rules. It seemed I was stuck babysitting another spoiled brat from an insanely rich family.
CHAPTER 5
Serena
The conference roomcrackled with anticipation.
The Duke Sparrow I’d known from camp had been tall but gangly, nothing like the massive man in front of me today who looked like he could lift an elephant. His dazzling gray eyes looked straight through me with an intensity I wasn’t used to. His dark hair was in need of a cut. With a strong jaw and a short beard just beyond stubble, he wasn’t classically handsome. Yet Duke exuded a very masculine power that sent a tingle down my spine.
The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was, did he remember me from summer camp? After their initial questions, quiet had settled over us. “Where do we start?” I asked.
Duke—or Cobra as his boss had called him—opened a mini fridge. “Water?”
“Yes, please.”
Constance declined with a wave of her hand. Her bob cut fit my view of a woman in the Secret service, but she was short and I always pictured their agents being tall.
My eyes trained on Duke’s strong forearms as he brought the water to the table. It wasn’t my fault. I blamed it on him for rolling up his sleeves and flashing forearm porn. With those hands, I’d bet he had a hell of a handshake.
He sat and slid the bottle forward. “It’s been a long time, Serena.”Question answered.
Puzzlement flashed on Constance’s face. “Cobra, you two know each other?”
I snatched the water and opened it, not meeting Duke’s eyes. “We met a long time ago as teenagers,” I said as nonchalantly as possible, ignoring the twist in my stomach and remembering the lie. My heart skittered. If he mentioned the note, I was going to die of embarrassment over my teenage crush on him.
He merely nodded.
“Back then, I knew him as Duke Sparrow.” I had been Serena Rose. The camp was big on not bringing our backgrounds with us, so our nametags had been first name and cabin name only. I blushed, remembering those times. I’d imagined him as Captain Jack Sparrow from the movie, only more clean cut.
He gave me a slight wave. “It’s Duke Hawk, but you can call me Cobra.”
“Wait, you’re Lucas’s brother?”
He nodded. “Guilty as charged.”
