South Beach. Land of young, tan skin. Oil. And heat. The reputation had nothing on the reality. Women strolled by wearing dental-floss bikinis, and way too many men wore those skin-tight swim briefs that left no one questioning their package size. Despite the vast crowd soaking in the sweltering morning sun, Vince’s attention was snared by one particular nearly naked beachgoer.
Charlie.
The thorn in his side. The reason for his sleepless night—besides the norm.
She was lying on a lounge chair, her own bright pink barely-there bikini hugging her curves to perfection. Her breasts strained against the triangular fabric of her top, and her long, tan legs might as well have started beneath her chin. Until Charlie, he’d never known someone so petite could have legs that went on for fucking weeks.
They’d spent the better part of the morning by the hotel pool, but when Arturo still didn’t make contact after the fourth hour, they relocated. To the beach. It was almost worse than the fucking club, and only because he was keeping watch from a distance rather than up close and personal.
A group of guys strutted past Charlie’s lounger, not bothering to hide their sexual ogling. Vince gripped the pier railing in front of him until the wood bit into his palms. Fuck. He couldn’t blame them for appreciating the wonderland of Charlie’s body. Last night, he’d done the same damn thing. Hell, he’d done more.
Even though he wasn’t about to admit it aloud, their first tongue-lashing outside the club hadn’t involved their covers or their assignment one damn bit. It had been need—plain and simple. He’d needed to feel her in his hands and on his mouth more than he’d needed his next breath. And despite happening under the guise of their cover, at some point during their second tonguing, it had been more about giving—and soaking in—pleasure, and less about their assignment.
Recipe. For. Fucking. Disaster.
Every woman who’d slid into his life, had left just as easily. Now their faces and names were all a blur—if he’d even gotten their names to begin with. They hadn’t left behind any significant marks, and other than sating a temporary need, hadn’t left behind any lasting impression. No emotions. No loss of control.
But Charlie? Even as colleagues, it took everything in him to keep his shit together—like what had happened in the parking garage. He’d lost his fucking head with a goddamn kiss.
Overstepping that professional line was a one-way road to hell for both of them. Something told him being with Charlie would not only leave behind an impression, it would sear it into his DNA and bring a horde of emotions along for the ride. And he knew from firsthand experience that emotions led to wrong decisions. Emotions led to dead friends and living nightmares that always started the same—with laughter and jokes—and ended in smoke and blood.
When he focused, Vince could still smell the smoke from eight years ago. Insurgents, who’d managed to get the drop on base security, had sent a fucking bomb straight into the middle of camp while soldiers slept. No one knew what was happening around them until it was too late. Too many lives lost. Too few resources.
Vince’s decision to go after those responsible had led to Rico “Watchdog” Padillo’s name being added to the list of casualties. New husband. Soon-to-be father. He’d been a best friend and a brother. When Vince had watched his buddy’s pregnant widow spread Rico’s ashes along the shore, he’d vowed…
Never. Again.
No more losing sight of the big picture, complete with repercussions. And no way in fucking hell would he bring someone into the nightmare he lived every fucking day.
Logistics. Rulebooks. Game plans. Those were the methods by which he now lived his life. Anything that threatened that ordered structure couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen. Being with Charlie would not only threaten that vow, but obliterate it. He couldn’t see beyond his own fucking wants when she was near.
“Vincent?” His name, whispered in a voice from his past, plunged Vince’s body into ice.
He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. Maybe thinking about Rico and his team had finally brought on the fucking hallucinations. But Vince forced himself to turn and came face to face with his past.
“Dawn.” He stared at his friend’s widow.
She looked the same, as if time hadn’t flown by. Her dark hair was a little shorter, barely brushing her shoulders, but she’d kept her willowy figure—and her smile. She watched him warily, as if trying to predict his reaction to the blast from their past.
He knew how she felt.
Dawn’s smile brought out the dimples Rico had been so damn fond of. “I was going to keep walking in case I was wrong. A few months back there was an embarrassing incident with a Chris Evans lookalike and—well, I can’t go to my local coffee joint for a while.”
He let out a soft snort in spite of himself. Same Dawn…yet not.
“What are you doing in Miami?” he asked.
“My mother retired down here so we’re visiting for the summer. Although, I have to admit, I underestimated the amount of half-dressed people. I thought maybe all the television shows overestimated it, you know? Guess not.”
We’ve.
A moment after he’d registered the word, a little girl skipped up to Dawn’s side, her dark hair bouncing. Big brown eyes watched him as she adhered herself to the safety of her mother’s legs.
It was like staring at a child version of Rico—in girl form.
Vince swallow the lump forming in this throat and, goddamn, it hurt.
“Mama.” The little girl turned her heart-shaped face up to Dawn. “I want to go fly a kite. You said we could fly one of the long ones when we got here—and we’re here.”
Dawn tucked an unruly strand of curly hair behind her daughter’s ear. “I know, baby, and we’ll do that in just a minute, but first I want to introduce you to Vincent. He was a friend of your daddy’s.”
That seemed to put the kite business on the back burner, because the little girl looked at him again, her curiosity piqued. “You were friends with my Daddy Rico?”
Vince’s chest tightened, and it hurt to fucking breathe. Taliban torturers had nothing on this little seven-year-old’s stare. He cleared his throat and awkwardly shifted his stance. “I was. He was one of the best ones I had.”
“I’m Richelle. My mama named me after Daddy Rico because she said I looked just like him. Do you think I look like him?”
Vince’s eyes bounced to Dawn, who smiled in return. When he looked back to his buddy’s daughter, she was waiting patiently for an answer. “Yeah. You do. Except you’re a hell of a lot cuter.”
Shit. He probably shouldn’t have sworn.
He grimaced and glanced at Dawn. “Sorry, I’m not used to—”
Dawn chuckled, waving away his fumbling apology. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been known to drop a bomb or two when I stub my toe.”
A heavy dose of awkward shifted Vince’s weight. He shot a glance back over the pier railing and watched an older man, significantly overdressed in a suit and tie, approaching Charlie.
Vince finally found his voice. “I’ve got to go.”
Dawn’s smile slowly melted. “Okay. Of course. Sure. You’re probably busy.”
“It was good seeing you again.” His gaze flickered down to the little girl. “And it was nice to meet you…Richelle.”
The little girl grinned, which made her look even more like his buddy. Fucking-A, he needed air—ironic, since he was standing on a goddamn pier leading out to the Atlantic Ocean. He walked past, but Dawn stopped him, pushing a piece of paper into his hand.
She bit her lip, nervous. “Give us a call, okay? We’re going to be in town for another few weeks. Maybe we can get together and catch up. I’d like to hear how the guys from the team are doing.”
“I’m here working so I don’t know how much free time I’m going to have.”
“Okay. Well, keep the number anyway…in case you ever find yourself in our neck of the woods.”
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
Vince couldn’t have broken away fast enough, but he forced his feet into an easy glide, making his way toward the beach. It didn’t take long to find the overdressed man hovering over Charlie, or the equally overdressed men that were spread out in a twenty-yard radius. Arturo’s horde stuck out like sore thumbs.
Vince ignored his instinct to intervene. This was why they’d come…to create an opening for her uncle to make contact—which he was doing by sending his head of security, Anthony Torres. Vince stood back and watched, leaning against the pier’s pylon as Brock’s father made himself comfortable in the lounge chair next to Charlie.
Vince started the clock. Five minutes, and then he wasn’t keeping his distance anymore. He’d already let down one important person in his life, and Rico had paid for that shortcoming with the ultimate price. No way in fucking hell would he let the same thing happen to Charlie.
* * *
In the last hour since Charlie had parked herself on the beach, she’d gained an uncomfortable knowledge about the open relationship of the young couple six feet away, and the current STD outbreak at the Oakdale Nursing Home. Oh, and a reminder that she hadn’t missed the Miami humidity one bloody bit.
The scorching sun’s only redeeming quality was that as soon as sweat dotted her brow, it evaporated. Behind her sunglasses, her gaze strayed toward the pier.
Vince had been keeping watch for as long as she’d been out here, which, in her opinion, was too damn long. But her boredom had nothing on his…or probably hadn’t until the slender brunette had joined him.
For a moment, Charlie had thought the heat had her hallucinating the woman’s presence. Vince Franklin didn’t do small talk with strangers. He barely tolerated conversation with friends. But there he was, chatting up a gorgeous woman who could’ve easily stepped off the page of a swimsuit magazine—and then the brunette bombshell had executed a perfect note-pass.
It had been nearly effortless, something Charlie would’ve offered congratulations for if her stomach hadn’t suddenly flipped on its side. Whether the woman was an old friend, a recent lover, or someone trying to pick him up, Charlie told herself it shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t.
Yet her teeth creaked from clamping them. Taking a page out of Vince’s book, she deep-breathed herself away from shattered molars. Her focus needed to be on the shadow looming behind her right shoulder, not on lover boy.
Charlie Sparks the Alpha Operator wanted to confront the new arrival head-on. But Charlie Hughes, the once-wild-child orphan, needed a better tan.
Keeping her gaze focused on the ocean’s gentle waves, Charlie reached for the nearby suntan oil. “Sorry, love, but you’re interfering with my daily vitamin shot. Could you be a dear and move over a smidge?”
“Nah. I think I’ll stay and prevent you the need for a skin cancer screening…Letty.”
Only one person dared call her Letty. At the sound of his voice, weathered by countless years of puffing on her uncle’s cigars, she turned in her seat. Her uncle’s head of security—Brock’s father—sat in the empty chair next to her.
Salt-white hair had taken over his head, and what she remembered to have once been fine lines etching his face had become more pronounced and brought friends. But still tall and broad, he looked like an older—harder—version of his son.
“Anthony.” Charlie fought to keep her voice level, feeling his penetrating gaze through his mirrored sunglasses. Despite the fact that Anthony Torres presented a refined outward appearance, his cunning surpassed only that of her uncle. To show weakness or hesitancy was like opening an artery in shark-infested waters.
“You don’t seem surprised to see me,” Anthony pointed out needlessly.
“I knew it was a matter of time. I was just hoping it would be a longer amount of time.”
“We may run by the old-school way of things, but this is still Franconi’s city. Nothing much happens in it without him knowing.” Anthony leaned his elbows on his knees. “Like you having a little run-in with Brock. Hope my son minded his manners.”
Charlie snorted. “As hospitable as ever, although the company he keeps now leaves a little something to be desired. Glad it appears the two of you have called a truce, though. Father and son back together again, huh?”
“We have an understanding.” Anthony’s head cocked toward the pier, where Vince stood in the distance, watching. “I hear congratulations are in order. Why don’t you wave him over here? I’d like to meet the man who finally tamed Wild Child Letty.”
Charlie wouldn’t let herself be taken in by the laid-back attitude, and when she waved Vince over, she saw in his stride that he was also prepping for a hundred different scenarios. Standing when he got close, she reached out for his hand and latched herself to his side. Vince didn’t miss a beat, wrapping his arm around her waist.
“Anthony Torres,” Anthony introduced himself. “I’m a good friend of Letty’s uncle.”
“Vincent Franklin. Fiancé.”
Anthony’s smile held little warmth. “I know. You don’t think her uncle found out about his only niece’s engagement and didn’t look into the man she’s going to marry, do you?” He turned back to include them both. “Arturo’s inviting the both of you to brunch tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock at the house.”
Charlie warned, “I’m not here for a family reunion.”
“And yet you came back to Miami knowing that’s exactly what you were going to get. Ten o’clock,” Anthony repeated. “Arturo’s looking forward to having both his girls there at the same time. And it may have been a few years, Letty, but your uncle’s not so changed that he condones lateness in any form. See you tomorrow.”
Charlie and Vince watched as he turned back toward the boardwalk. With their dark suits and goon-walks, both Anthony and his men stuck out on the scantily dressed beachgoers. Vince took the vacated seat and pulled Charlie onto his lap. She knew it was in case they were being watched, but it didn’t stop the tingle zapping through her body and to all her barely covered lady bits when his hand landed on her upper thigh.
“Start talking,” Vince demanded gruffly. “Now.”
“About what? The fact that I was right? One night out on the town and we already have a meet with my uncle,” Charlie smarted back in an attempt to gloss over the unexpected onslaught of nerves attacking her stomach.
She thought she’d mentally prepared herself to step back into her uncle’s life, but the slight shake of her hand said otherwise. She draped her arm over Vince’s shoulder and tightened her fingers, hoping he didn’t notice.
“What are you worried about?” Vince asked, too damn observant. “The brunch invite?”
“Invite? You thought that was asking?” Charlie snort-laughed. “You mean you didn’t hear the silent We both know you don’t have a choice so let’s not keep pretending? Granted, Anthony’s always been a bit more tactful than the rest of Arturo’s men. The others wouldn’t have attempted to make it sound like there was an option other than saying yes.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’s a real swell guy,” Vince muttered sarcastically. “Father like son.”
“Maybe that’s one of the things bothering me.” Charlie absently massaged her fingers into the back of his neck as she fought to make sense of her thoughts.
Vince flashed her a curious look. “What?”
“Brock has been undercover with DHS since he got out of the military, right? Which means he was an agent even when I knew him.”
“Your point?”
“My point’s that as long as I’ve known him, Brock’s never gotten along with his father. Not before he left for the military, not after, and not even when he was apparently with the DHS. So what happened? What happened to suddenly make him get involved in Arturo’s business now?”
“Assuming he hasn’t changed sides? He did have a job to do. It’s hard to do it if you’re on the outs—easier to infiltrate from the inside. Which is exactly why we’re here too.”
Charlie knew he was right. In theory. Still, something was missing. Even the acting greats couldn’t have put on a better performance than Brock. He’d legitimately hated everything his father and Arturo stood for and never hid the fact from anyone—especially them. So why would Anthony and her uncle think he’d experienced a sudden change of heart?
Or more importantly, what had he done to convince them?