A slow smile spread across his face as she approached. “Would it work?”
Her stomach flipped in anticipation. She shrugged a shoulder and pretended indifference on her way by. “Maybe.”
She heard the clink of wine bottles and bags dropping to the floor. When he caught her from behind and whirled her around, she couldn’t contain a startled laugh. His mouth wasted no time finding hers as he pulled her against him.
Moments later, he started down the hall toward her bedroom without breaking the hungry kiss.
They were forgetting something…weren’t they? She drew in a much needed lungful of air and distantly recognized the smell of her simmering spaghetti sauce. Oh, yeah. “Umm…dinner—”
“Can wait,” he said against her lips.
It probably could, but should she be this…easy? His mouth left hers and when he focused his attention on her neck, her knees went weak. Good thing his arms supported her. With her senses reeling, she felt obligated to try again. “The wine—”
“Don’t need it.” He nipped the sensitive skin just below her ear, and then kissed away the non-existent pain. “Do you?”
She shook her head, overwhelmed by how much she wanted him right now. He reclaimed her mouth while kicking her bedroom door open wider. She smiled against his lips as the door banged into the wall, but before he could walk her through, a heavy knock sounded at the front door of the house.
They both stilled. Justin groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He leaned his forehead against hers and drew in a deep breath. She began to pull away to answer the door, but he caught her arm. “I’ll get it.”
Marley straightened her shirt as she followed him into the living room. Justin looked out the window first, then stalked over to swing open the door. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Chapter 20
Jordan brushed past without any invitation to enter. After only a glance in Marley’s direction, he turned back to face Justin. “Dad paid.”
Still annoyed at having been interrupted, Justin frowned in confusion. “What?”
“He paid the blackmail.”
Justin narrowed his gaze on his brother. “Why’d you tell him? I thought we hadn’t completely agreed—”
“I didn’t say a word. Apparently, Berndt covered his bases and we all got a copy of the note. Yours was in the mail on your desk,” he added.
Justin turned away
, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t get it. Why would he pay the money? I sure wish I knew what the hell was going on around here.”
“Maybe he knows something,” Marley said from where she stood near the couch.
Justin swung around to face her, ready to deny it. She met his look without apology. Then she tucked the gun from the coffee table into the back waistband of her jeans, and moved forward to pick up the grocery bags he’d dropped earlier.
Jordan shifted uneasily beside him. “I wondered the same thing.”
Justin looked back at his brother, feeling like he might get whiplash. “Do you really think Granddad did something—that he could’ve killed someone?”
Jordan sighed as he lifted his hands, palms up. “Why else would Dad pay?”
Justin had no idea. He didn’t want to believe his grandfather could have actually murdered someone. Or that his father would help cover it up. But considering the fact that his father had ignored Nate all these years, and taken money from Karl Hunter for doing so, it wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination. Maybe the money he’d paid Nate to stay out of their lives was also part of this mystery.
He watched Marley in the kitchen, unpacking the cheesecake assortment he’d brought and three bottles of wine; red and white since he didn’t know what she’d planned for dinner, and a dessert wine for after. So much for a simple, distracting evening of getting to know her better.
He directed his attention back to Jordan. “How did you find out about this?”
“When I called to set up the meeting, Berndt said he met with Dad this afternoon. Thought it was funny that I wanted proof against Granddad after ‘we’ already paid.”
Justin shook his head. “You watch—this isn’t the last we’ve heard from him. He’ll be back as soon as the money’s gone.”
“What else could we do?” Jordan demanded. “You know as well as I do that the moment we go to the police, the story will hit the news. If it comes out that the founder of Hunter Construction was a murderer, we’ll lose it all. People don’t want to do business with relatives of murderers any more than the murderer himself.”