“You’re not exactly Mr. Clean here,” Jack growled at her brother. “You’re the one who seduced Kayla while I was married to her, made her believe you loved her—”
“So you seduced me in return?” Morgan shouted at Jack. “Pushed me to change my perception of myself and my sexuality. You made me believe you loved me, that I loved you, too. I said it to you while...” She gasped as the awful truth washed through her blood in an icy rush. “That must have been the ultimate revenge, having me tell you that I loved you during sex, just like Kayla said to Brandon. Did you know it would work out that perfectly, or just hope?”
“Cher, it was nothing like that. I swear. Honest. I—”
“Dear God! Did you do to Morgan what you did to Kayla?” Brandon broke in, his voice booming with incredulity. “Did you mess with her head and try to turn her into some submissive robot?”
“Does she seem like a robot to you?”
“Kayla couldn’t handle what you wanted from a woman, and after you, she was afraid of every man. I no sooner had her, than she left me.” Wearing a furious, incredulous scowl, Brandon grabbed Jack by the arm. “Have you done the same thing to Morgan, you bastard?”
“No!” Jack insisted. “Morgan is wired for what I need in a woman. She is my woman. I awakened her, which is more than you can say. I gave her everything her body yearned for, even a ménage when the thought of it twisted my guts in two, all because I wanted her happiness. What did you do besides ignore her sexuality, then leave her when some sick stalker followed her, masturbated on her bed, then shot at her in public? Yeah, that’s love for you.”
“He shot at you, sweetheart?” Concern transformed Brandon’s angry face. He dropped his gun to his side.
“Put that away,” she whispered, nodding toward the firearm.
With a reluctant sigh, one that communicated just how pissed he was, Brandon tucked his gun in the waistband of his slacks at the small of his back and turned to her.
When he tried to cup his hand around her shoulder, Jack snarled, “Don’t touch her!”
Then he jumped in and hit Brandon with a right cross to the chin. Brandon’s head snapped back, and he came up rubbing his chin with one hand and forming a fist with the other.
Jack blocked Brandon’s incoming punch. “I let you take Kayla from me. I didn’t love her, and we all knew it. But you’ll have to kill me before I let you take Morgan from me. I love her. I’ll always love her.” Jack turned to her then, his penitent frown ripe with a plea. “If you’ll let me explain and apologize. You can’t marry him.”
“She’s not marrying any of you!” screeched a half-wild voice from the open doorway.
Brandon turned and Jack leaned around her brother for a look at their new visitor, but Morgan didn’t have to see to know who’d just arrived. She knew that voice.
“Andrew? What are you doing here?” She leaned into his line of vision, still clutching the sheet over her bare body.
Her blood turned to ice when she saw menace mutating his cultured face into a snarl and the threat in his stance as he blocked the door. Fury vibrated off him, zinging around the room like its own lethal force. Adrenaline and anger crashed through Andrew, judging from the way he twitched as he held a gun in his hands—a gun he pointed right at her.
Morgan gasped, her mind racing to comprehend this turn of events.
“Someone has to stop you.” Andrew stared at her as if he barely knew her, taking in Deke and Jack, both shirtless and disheveled a few feet away…and drawing some accurate conclusions. “You fucked two men? I knew you were a whore, but this is even beyond what I believed you capable of. I can’t believe I nearly married you. You dating Senator Ross’s son infuriated me enough.” Andrew tossed his unusually unkempt salt-and-pepper hair as he nodded at Brandon. “You visited him, agreed to marry him. You slept with him. And now you’ve taken up with yet another man. Your bodyguard, right? Did you ask him to dominate you, too?”
Andrew’s sneer hung in the air, its hostility stinging her like a harsh slap to the face. She refused to be embarrassed by his words. But the gun pointed at her, making her heart pound, scared the hell out of her.
“Yes.”
Jack glanced in her direction, then stared at Deke, some silent communication between them that she couldn’t understand.
Andrew shook his head. “And now a morning spent cheating on your fiancé and sandwiched between these two testosterone-oozing lugs. For what? A few orgasms? You and I knew each other’s minds and shared the joy of quality work, elevating tawdry sex to art, until you threw it away.”
Brandon leapt toward Andrew, reaching out to swipe the gun from his jittery grasp. Andrew roared and scrambled away, firing two shots in Brandon’s direction. Morgan heard herself scream as the retort of fire deafened her. Her brother threw himself to the ground and rolled away from the bullets.
Breath held, Morgan launched herself from the bed to check on Brandon.
“Back in the bed!” Andrew roared, turning the gun on her again. “Now!”
Easing back under the sheets, she covered her nudity again, shaking. Her hammering heartbeat nearly deafened her. Andrew was serious. Deadly serious. And Brandon… Oh, God, had he been shot?
Slowly, Jack bent to help Brandon up. Andrew’s grip tightened on the gun, his mouth compressing into a grim white line.
Once on his feet, her brother turned to send her a reassuring glance. “I’m fine. Just do what he says, Morgan.”
“And nobody else do anything stupid or heroic,” Andrew snarled, tossing his arms around wildly, still clutching the chilling, shiny weapon.
Morgan forced herself to take a deep breath, tried to push calm through her body. She knew Andrew. Hysterics on her part would only up his dramatics. And he was an opera fan, a performing art where all the central characters frequently died and the audience applauded the tragedy of it all.
Please God, no such tragedy for her. She had to save herself, and stop Brandon, Jack, and Deke from doing something heroically fatal.
Morgan sucked in a breath and lowered her voice, trying to sound much calmer than she was. “Why are you here? My life is no longer your concern, Andrew.”
“You ignored my notes and photos. You ran when I left my semen on your bed as a reminder of the place where we once connected. I tried to make you understand where you belonged and to whom you belonged. I could have forgiven you for Mr. Ross in time. You and I argued, and you might have thought I didn’t intend to return for you. But these two…” He waved a shaking fist again, this time at Jack and Deke, gun clenched tight in his grip. “I should have shot you at that strip club. I would have if the nasty den of iniquity hadn’t been so crowded.”
Andrew’s words staggered her, making her mind race with implications. “So Reggie didn’t…wasn’t…?”
Andrew rolled his eyes and sighed with impatience. “Pursuing you?”
“This is stalking, asshole,” Deke growled.