Undercover Groom. Merline Lovelace
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at the elevator indicator, Mase spun around and headed back to his office.
Pam had made herself comfortable in the high-backed executive chair behind his desk, her long legs crossed and a rueful smile in her brown eyes.
“Sorry if I made things awkward for you with your fiancée, Mase. Did you soothe her ruffled feathers?”
“I will,” he replied with more assurance than he felt at that particular moment. Forcing his thoughts from Chloe to the woman regarding him with cool amusement, he cut back to the reason for her unexpected visit.
“Tell me again why you think Dexter Greene is looking for me?”
Raising a well-manicured hand, Pam ticked off the bare facts she’d related when she’d first arrived less than a half hour ago.
“One, you brought in his son. Two, said son was found dead in his prison cell last month. Three, we sent an operative to the funeral and four, our agent hung around long enough to believe that Dexter Greene’s vow of vengeance is more than the ranting of a grief-crazed parent. The father’s dangerous, Mase. We knew that when we went in to extract his son.”
Frowning, Mase jingled the coins in his pocket. Fractured images of a long, deadly chase flickered through his mind. He could almost hear the pop of gunfire. Taste the coppery residue of fear as he’d slogged through miles of sucking swamp with the gun-running, hate-mongering murderer slung unconscious across his back and Pam panting at his side.
It didn’t matter that Greene’s son was a conscienceless bastard. Or that he’d not only supplied stolen weapons to the hate-mongers who’d opened fire on a church full of Asian immigrants, but had planned and participated in the massacre himself. As fanatical about America for Americans as the others in his tight little enclave, the elder Greene no doubt approved of his son’s actions.
How the hell had Dexter Greene connected the scruffy, bearded thug who’d snatched his son with the CEO of Chandler Industries?
When he put the question to Pam, she shrugged. “We don’t know how he made the initial connection. We do know that someone logged on to the computer in the library in Greene’s hometown and initiated inquiries about Mason Chandler. We answered the queries with the standard cover information, of course, and sent an operative in to nose around. When he got there, Greene had dropped off the face of the earth.”
“Come on, Pam! Our specialty is hostage recovery and hostile extractions. We’re experts at tracking down the slime no other agency can find. How did our man let Greene slip through his fingers?”
She shrugged again. “I was in the Middle East until two days ago. The Chief called me in when you told him you were out of the business.”
“So he sent you to Minneapolis to change my mind.”
“Have I?”
“No. I’m getting married in November, remember?”
She cocked a brow. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure,” Mase replied with a wry smile. “I’ll have to do some fast talking in the next few hours to make it happen, though.”
“talking?” The brunette shook her head in mock despair. “That wasn’t your style when we worked together. What has this woman done to you?”
Mase wasn’t ready to admit that Chloe Fortune had tied him up in knots so tight he’d never unravel them.
“Look, I won’t go back into the field, but I’ll do what I can to help you with Greene. Did you bring the after-action reports from our original mission?”
“Of course.”
“Let me go through them and see if anything shakes out about the father. I’ll get in touch with you at your hotel later.”
Much later. After he had “talked” to Chloe.
Pam rose with the fluid, feline grace that was hers alone. Slinging the shoulder strap of her calfskin bag over her shoulder, she rounded the edge of the desk and patted him on his cheek.
“I’ll be waiting.”
By the time Mase wheeled through the open gates of Stuart and Marie Fortune’s Minneapolis mansion, the bright fall afternoon had faded into purple dusk. Lights blazed from every window of the two-story stone house belonging to Chloe’s uncle. The sound of laughter and chink of glasses carried clearly on the crisp evening air.
From the number of Mercedes and Jags and luxury sports utility vehicles crowding the brick-paved drive, it appeared that the Fortunes had turned out in force tonight for Stuart Fortune’s impromptu party. The mysterious invitation, conveyed by Stuart’s personal secretary this morning, indicated only that he wanted to welcome a new member of the Fortune family to their midst. At this particular moment, Mase wasn’t interested in welcoming anyone. All he wanted was to get face-to-face with his fiancée.
Masking his impatience, he climbed the curving front steps. Moments later he was shown into a high-ceilinged, glass-enclosed palazzo. With its magnificent view of the lakes and the distant city skyline, the sunroom was a favorite gathering spot of the Fortunes. After a quick scan of the crowd, he headed for a familiar figure.
His prospective father-in-law took his hand in a hearty grip. “Hello, Mase. Where’s Chloe?”
“She was supposed to meet me here.”
“She was?” Emmet Fortune’s silvery brows slashed into a straight line. “I wonder what’s delaying her.”
Having raised Chloe and her twin and their older brother on his own, Emmet’s protective instincts . kicked into overdrive on a daily, if not hourly, basis. They were revving up to full power when Chloe’s twin strolled over to join them.
For the life of him, Mase couldn’t understand how two siblings could look so much alike and possess such different temperaments. They both stopped passersby in their tracks...Chad with his striking Nordic masculinity, Chloe with her breath-stealing, feminine version of her brother’s handsomeness. They both kept themselves in superb physical shape with regular and energetic exercise—skiing in winter, swimming and tennis in summer. There the similarities ended. Where Chloe flashed a smile that could melt the ice on Minnesota’s lakes in mid-January, Chad’s too often held a mocking edge. As it did now.
“Hello, Mase.”
“Hi, Chad.”
“Chloe asked me to give you something.”
Mase stiffened. The hard glint in Chad’s violet eyes, so like his sister’s, gave him an inkling of what was coming. Sure enough, Chad pulled his hand out of his pocket and uncurled his fingers. A gleaming, emerald-cut diamond lay in his palm.
“She said she forgot to return this to you this afternoon.”
His jaw squaring, Mase pocketed the ring. “Where is she?”
Chad didn’t try to disguise his hostility. Obviously, his sister had told him about the fiasco at Mase’s office this afternoon.
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
“She didn’t say. She just indicated that she needed to get away and do some serious thinking.”
Emmet broke into the conversation, his fatherly feathers in full ruff. “What the hell’s going on here, Mase? Why did you and Chloe call off the wedding?”
“I didn’t. Chloe did.”
“Why? And what does she have to think about? Dammit, where’s my daughter?”
“I don’t know, Emmet, but I’ll find her.”
Chad’s smile took on a sharper edge. “I wouldn’t bet on it, Chandler. She didn’t sound like she wanted finding.”
For the first time since he looked up and saw Chloe standing in his office