Falling for the Brother

“Yeah.”

There was only one way he could’ve been positive. He’d seen them together.

“Because you were at the party, too, weren’t you? You knew he left with her.”

“Yep.”

Which meant he’d known, that night they’d barhopped together, that the story his brother had given her was false, and he hadn’t said a word. He’d had sex with her, instead. With the lie right there between them.

He’d spent the night with her, never telling her that Bruce had sent him.

Oh, God, what a mess they’d all made.

* * *

BANG! UPRIGHT IN a second, reaching for the gun beneath the pillow next to him, Mason surveyed his room. Listening.

The sound came again. More of a pounding than any kind of blast. Someone was at his front door at—he glanced at his clock—two in the morning. Pulling on the jeans he’d worn to meet Harper the night before, he slid his gun into his back pocket and headed down the hall.

His doorbell rang.

Resisting the urge to yank open the door and share a few choice words with whoever was out there, he reined himself in long enough to look through the peephole.

Gwen Parker?

What the hell was she doing there?

Oh, God. Bruce.

Skin cold and heart pounding, he opened the door. “What is it?” he asked. It had to be about Bruce.

“How bad is it?” Did he have time to get to him? To try to make things right between them? To tell his brother how much he loved him?

Stepping up to him, nose to nose, Gwen, still in uniform, slapped his face.

Hard. What the hell!

“Your brother is the best cop I’ve ever known,” the dark-haired woman hissed. A little shorter than Harper, and larger-boned, the woman was…a great cop.

And ordinary-looking.

Not the type Bruce had gone for. At least not publicly.

“Why in God’s name are you hell-bent on destroying him?” Gwen wasn’t backing down. At all.

It occurred to him then that the night of the bachelor party might not have been the first time Bruce had slept with Gwen. That it was possible he still had sex with her on occasion.

He smelled alcohol on her breath and figured she’d gone straight to the bar after her shift. She’d had a few hours to tie one on.

“Did you drive over here?”

“Of course not! I’ve been drinking. I took a cab.” She gestured wildly behind her and he saw the taxi across the street.

“You might want to get back out there,” he said softly, hoping to disarm her anger enough to get her out of his home. They could deal with their situation in the morning at the station, after she’d sobered up. “You’re running up quite a tab.”

“It’s worth it,” she hissed. “I don’t care how much it costssss.” This was the first time she’d slurred a word. And spat on him, too. “What you’re doing…it could ruin his life. You know how many lives would be hur-hurt by that?”

She swayed a bit, stepped on his bare toe as she caught her balance. The stench of alcohol turned his stomach.

How she’d come to know what he was doing, he had no idea. And he wasn’t any happier than she was about word getting out, damaging Bruce’s reputation. Once he had enough proof to do something, he hoped the matter could be resolved quietly.

O’Brien wanted the same thing. Had insisted on it, actually. So…

“You’re ju-just jealous…” Her vituperative tone had faded to basic disrespect.

Now was not the time to ask her how she’d come about her knowledge. Or to defend it, either.

“Let’s get you out to your cab,” he said, with a hand at the small of her back. “I’ll meet you at your convenience tomorrow, when and where you like.”

She nodded. Looked toward the door and then, suddenly pale, looked up at him. “Bathroom?”

He pointed.

And prayed she made it in time. Cleaning up puke wasn’t on his agenda.

Going for a shirt and shoes, Mason paid off the cab and got his keys. The second his unwanted guest came out of the bathroom—luckily leaving it in the condition in which she’d found it—he handed her a barf bag, ushered her out to his car and drove her home.

Thankfully, she made the trip without saying another word.