Jaeger walked back toward her, picked up his glass, took a sip and stared at her over the rim, as if he were trying to decide what to tell her. “I was leaving Milan, on my way to the airport. The police reports said that a...”
“Police reports?” Piper interjected, her voice rising.
Jaeger frowned at her interruption. “I was in a taxi when a truck slammed into us. I was in its direct path.”
Piper just stared at him, not sure whether she was hearing him properly. Jaeger was in a car accident the morning they’d said goodbye? “But—”
“Do you want to hear this or are you going to keep interrupting?” Jaeger muttered. “I was in a bad way. I had various injuries, the most serious of which was swelling and bleeding on the brain.”
“God, Jaeger.” Piper placed her hand over her mouth, horrified. She stood up and faced him, wishing she could touch him. It wasn’t enough that he was standing in front of her looking healthy and fit—deliciously healthy and fit. She needed to examine him to make sure, dammit!
The thought of him being so injured made her world tilt upside down.
“My siblings and a medical team came to Italy and accompanied me back to the States. I had a couple of surgeries, and then they kept me in an induced coma for six weeks. When I woke up, the last thing I remembered was landing in Bangkok a month before the accident. After that, nothing.”
“God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea!”
“Nobody did. We kept it very quiet. My siblings put the word out that I was hunting for an emerald in a very remote area of Colombia where communications were dicey. They told anyone who asked that they weren’t sure when I would return.”
“Why didn’t you just tell the world what really happened?”
Jaeger grimaced. “There were a few reasons. Most important, my siblings were trying to keep the news of my accident from our uncle Connor. He raised me and my sibs from the time I was ten, and when the accident happened, he was in a scary stage of Alzheimer’s. The stage when everything is upsetting and confusing. Knowing I was so injured possibly would’ve accelerated his mental deterioration.”
Piper tipped her head to the side, thinking back. “But...didn’t he pass on around that time?”
Jaeger nodded, his expression grim. “He died ten days before they pulled me out of the coma. God, the weeks following were hell.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m sorry about your uncle.”
Jaeger ran a hand over the back of his head, obviously uncomfortable. “Yeah, thanks.”
Piper pulled her bottom lip with her finger and thumb. “Well, that explains a hell of a lot. What it doesn’t explain is how you linked me to Milan,” she said, curious.
“This morning, I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. It made me curious.”
Oh, there was quite a bit she still wasn’t telling him...
“I did a Google search on you, but I didn’t realize I was also searching my own computer and the Ballantyne server. I had the usual Google hits, but it was what was on my computer that I found interesting.”
Piper bit the inside of her lip. “Pray tell.”
“I hired a PI after the accident. He dug deep into that month I spent overseas, and he mentioned in his report that you and I had dinner.” Piper opened her mouth to speak, but Jaeger beat her to it. “No, I don’t know how he found out who you were and how we met.”
“And how did you find out about the calls and messages I sent to you?”
Amusement sparked in Jaeger’s eyes. “My family is fairly high-profile, and we work in a high-risk business. Security logs all calls, messages and emails coming in. If we don’t respond to the calls and emails, and if they are ongoing, the person making contact is put on a special list.”
Piper narrowed her eyes at him. “A special list?”
“The kooks and crazies list.” Jaeger grinned, and Piper felt like she was standing in a beam of pure sunlight.
Oh, God, not good. When he smiled, her hands itched to undo the buttons on his shirt, to spread the fabric apart and rediscover his hard chest, the ridges of his stomach. She wanted to unbuckle his belt, unzip his fly, take his...