His Ex's Well-Kept Secret

A baby...a species he’d vowed to avoid after he’d chosen a tiny white coffin painted with delicate pink roses.

“Bro.”

Jaeger turned to see his younger brother walking into his kitchen, scratching his bare chest. Beckett looked like someone had dragged him backward through a bush, but his blue eyes, darker than Jaeger’s, looked lazy and satisfied.

“Is she still here?”

Beck shook his head. “Nope, she left a half hour ago.”

Thank God, Jaeger thought, not in the mood to make small talk with one of Beckett’s short-term women. Hypocrite, his inner voice mocked. Until eighteen months ago, their women would’ve bumped into each other in the kitchen. But since his accident, the revolving door to his bedroom was broken, and he’d slept with only a select few. He hadn’t lost his libido—it was working just fine—but he wanted something more than a quick bang, a roll in the sack.

He didn’t want a relationship, though, which left him in no man’s—or little sex—land.

“Jay, coffee?”

Jaeger nodded and walked into the kitchen. He sat on one of the uncomfortable seats at the sleek granite island separating the kitchen from the rest of the open-plan apartment.

Jaeger watched Beckett, who was far more at home in his kitchen than he was, make coffee.

“Do you really think those sapphires you saw yesterday could be part of the Kashmir Blues?” Beckett asked, pushing a cup of coffee over the counter toward him. Jaeger nodded his thanks and lifted the cup to his mouth.

“There’s a good possibility.” Jaeger smiled as excitement jumped into Beckett’s eyes. Although he was their director of finance and their master strategist, Beck loved the hunt for gems as much as Jaeger did. He knew finding the Kashmir Blues was a freakin’ big deal.

“Holy crap, Jay, that’s unbelievable.”

Jaeger told Beck about Piper, about them meeting in Milan, that Ballantyne security had kept her away when he’d been in the hospital and afterward.

“She must’ve been desperate to sell those sapphires,” Beck stated, leaning against a counter and crossing his legs at the ankles. “But if she was, why didn’t she sell them to someone else?”

“It would be easier to answer that question if I could remember meeting her in Milan.”

“The doctors say you probably never will.”

And that pissed him off. He wanted to remember Piper, wanted to remember what they spoke about, talked about, whether there was something else he was missing. And dammit, he really felt like he was missing something. Something huge.

“Could the sapphires be stolen?” Beck asked, pulling Jaeger back to the present.

He wanted to say no, but he wasn’t sure. “I’m running a background check.”

“If the sapphs are the Kashmir Blues then we are looking at paying her five million or more. That’s a hell of a payout, but we’d make a massive return.”

Yeah, he was aware.

Beck tapped Jaeger’s shoulder as he walked out of the kitchen to shower and dress. Jaeger thought he should get ready, too. He had a busy day ahead. He was valuing a collection of vintage jewelry belonging to a rapacious, childless scion of New York society. He couldn’t wait to see what Amelia Grant-Childs had in her vault.

His thoughts wandered back to his own vault and the sapphires within it. From there it was a mini-jump to Piper, remembering her slim body in his arms, her soft lips, her spicy mouth, the passion that flashed and ignited when he kissed her.

No married women. No kids.

He ignored the mantra in his head, walked back into his bedroom and picked up his phone off the credenza where he’d left it to recharge. Piper’s card was under the phone, and he quickly dialed her number and waited for it to ring. Calling her just because he wanted to hear her voice was pathetic.

That didn’t stop him.

“Hello?” She sounded exhausted, Jaeger realized.

“Hi, it’s me... Jaeger.”

“Oh, hi. Listen, it’s really not a good time for me. We’re just walking in, Ty is screaming for me and I need to give him some medicine.”

“Walking in from where?” It was barely seven, for God’s sake!

“Ty took a turn for the worse late last night. I took him to an after-hours clinic at around four this morning. He had a miserable night.”