Willing Sacrifice (Knights of the Board Room) Read online

  She saw Cassandra, Lucas’ wife, link hands with Rachel. The way their fingers tightly intertwined reflected the anguish they felt for Matt, the worry for Savannah. They were all so used to Matt being in total command of himself and everything around him, the undercurrent of agony in his voice twisted something in all of them. Including Janet.

  Ben joined Lucas now, on the opposite side of Matt, a subtly strategic move in case he bolted anyway, but Janet could tell her boss knew Lucas was right. He was simply a man of action. The waiting was killing him. And Ben knew it.

  “Tell you what. Let Marcie go stake out the emergency room and see if she can get somebody going in and out to tell her anything. Best if you stay here, though, in case someone from admin needs anything from you, or if the doctor slips out a different door and she misses her.”

  Ben was legal muscle for K&A. With his devilish good looks—green eyes, dark hair and silver tongue—he was quite capable of convincing anyone of anything, but Janet understood why he was sending Marcie. Marcie, Cass’ younger sister, worked in corporate investigations for Savannah’s company, and no one was better at convincing people to inadvertently give up confidential information. And the attractive blonde with chocolate-brown eyes was only twenty-three, with a fresh-faced beauty and deceptive innocence that only enhanced that ability.

  When Matt gave a grudging nod, rubbing a hand over his face, Ben glanced toward Marcie. No words needed to be exchanged for her to understand her task, and not just because she was just that intuitive. She and Ben had been an item for less than a couple months, but with such a bonded intensity that they all expected an engagement announcement any day now. She disappeared down the hallway.

  Connections, bonds, fate. Janet repeated the thought to herself. The five men had supported one another through loss and gain, as well as when each man found the woman of his dreams. Those shared experiences, as well as the traits they had in common, like sexual Dominance, had made their relationship far beyond that of simple friendship. It was an unconditional brotherhood. As Janet looked around at the women, seeing faces that reflected a fear of the worst but also a complete commitment to support Matt and their men, whatever the outcome, she knew the women had become part of that inner circle as well.

  She thought of Savannah, the grip of her hands, the fear in her eyes. Whatever happened, Matt would have these people. His link to them would help him survive. But Janet knew what kind of road that was, and she wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

  * * * * *

  Marcie returned with a report that Savannah was holding her own, but that the outcome for mother or child was still in the balance. Janet could tell Marcie wished she had better news, but she delivered it with painful honesty, knowing Matt wouldn’t settle for anything less.

  He nodded, taking a silent seat in his chair once again, staring straight ahead. Ben touched Marcie’s face, gave her a reassuring nod and the girl returned to Dana’s side. The vigil resumed.

  In some ways, Janet knew the news made things worse for Matt, but now he’d lapsed into a raptor-like stillness, staring at something beyond all of them. Just waiting. For the next hour, less than a dozen words were exchanged.

  Finally, Dr. Rosen arrived in the waiting room.

  She looked exhausted. Yet when Matt pushed up from his seat and faced her with the fixed expression of a man locked in stone, she gripped his hands and told him the thing he most needed to hear. “They’re both fine.”

  Lucas put his hand on Matt’s shoulder as a hard shudder ran through the man’s large body, the stone cracking. The doctor proceeded to explain Matt had a healthy, six-pound baby girl, and that his wife, when she woke from her surgery, would want to see him first thing.

  But Janet had been right. This would be their only birth child. They had to remove Savannah’s uterus, a full hysterectomy, but otherwise she was going to make a complete recovery. Amid the tears and congratulations, Dr. Rosen added, “Whoever your driver is, Mr. Kensington, he saved your daughter’s life, and very likely your wife’s. Ten minutes later, and we’d have lost both of them.”

  Janet turned toward the entrance to the waiting room. Max had remained at that far wall like a soldier on watch duty, prepared for anything, but now he was gone. When she peered around the corner, she saw him striding down the hall toward the elevators. Mission accomplished, right? Though in a far less intense context, it was the same when she planned a major event for K&A. She didn’t usually stay for the event itself, only long enough to confirm she’d exceeded every expectation Matt had for it. For people like her and Max, having accomplished their mission was the victory. They didn’t need to stand around for the parade.

  However, when Max reached the stairs, he stopped and looked back, as if knowing she was standing there. A muscle flexed in his jaw, and he lifted a hand, acknowledging her. Then the fingers curled and his face changed. The flash of regret told her he’d hoped to escape when he had the chance. A blink later, Matt touched her shoulder, passing her to move down the hall toward his employee.

  She didn’t hear what her boss said to Max, because his voice was low, and got lower. She saw him gesturing, then Matt’s hands fell to his sides, conveying a helpless inability to express what was beyond words. Max’s expression transformed, reflecting the empathy a strong man felt when another strong man faltered. He stepped forward, putting his arms around Matt’s broad shoulders. It was a good thing they were a like height.

  Janet had to slide down the wall, her eyes filling with tears. Her legs simply gave way at the unlikely sight of Matt Kensington, the most indomitable man she knew, weeping. Max’s face had that aged granite look as he held Matt. But his gray eyes shifted, locked with hers. Throughout the next few memorable moments, he didn’t look away.

  Neither did she.

  Chapter One

  Six months later

  “Randall, is Max in yet?”

  “Yes and no, ma’am.”

  She paused by the security desk, arching a brow. The head of K&A security pressed a button on his console, calling up the needed camera angle on the top covered level of the parking deck. “He’s not on until noon, but most mornings, this is where you’ll find him. He won’t mind doing anything you need, as long as you don’t mind he’s not in uniform. Want me to buzz him? He’s wearing his pager.”

  “No. I need to stretch my legs. I’ll go to him.”

  Randall nodded, waited until she was a safe distance down the hall, then murmured, “And fucking fantastic legs they are. Ma’am.”

  Janet paused at the elevator, a good fifty feet away, and glanced back at him, a glint in her eye. Randall cleared his throat, paid close attention to his monitors and didn’t let out a breath until he heard the elevators close. Jim, the desk guard, gave him a grin. “You’re a brave man. Mr. Kensington says she can hear through concrete walls.”

  “Why do you think I added the ‘ma’am’?” Randall responded wryly.

  “Should we give Max a heads-up she’s coming?”

  Randall shook his head. “The moment she steps into the parking-deck elevator, he’ll hear it engage. He’ll be tracking where it stops.”

  Jim studied the video dubiously. “He looks like he’s asleep.”

  “Trust me. He can tell you how many bugs have scurried across the parking deck in the past half hour, and give you their current coordinates.”

  “Since she can hear through walls, sounds like they’re made for each other.”

  Randall pursed his lips. Imagining Janet Albright, Matt Kensington’s terrifying admin, and Max Ackerman, his head limo driver, as a couple wasn’t as unlikely a vision as he’d expected. In fact, it might be a mighty interesting combination. ’Course, an explosion was interesting—if you were outside the blast zone.

  * * * * *

  Janet stepped off the parking elevator, careful not to snag her heels on its metal threshold, and headed toward the back corner of the parking deck. Her glossy brown pumps made a crisp echo on the concrete. Glancing over the
wall at the New Orleans business district, she drew in the faintly smoky air, pleased to detect the cool scent of fall beneath the city smells. But as she made the turn toward that back corner, other scenery captured her attention.

  Randall had said Max wouldn’t mind running her errand as long as she didn’t mind he wasn’t in uniform. She wasn’t sure there was a red-blooded woman alive who would mind that. He looked handsome in his various uniforms, everything from the traditional chauffeur’s suit to the more informal black dress jeans and crisp black placket shirt with the embroidered K&A insignia. However, in the blue jeans and dark-blue T-shirt he wore now, he was pure sex.

  He had his muscled arms crossed over his broad chest, his back braced against his windshield in his reclined position on the hood of his battered Ford Ranger pickup. The jeans were classic Wranglers, worn down to that soft cling that drew the female eye to all the right points of groin, thighs and ass. Despite the covered parking deck, he wore sunglasses, which made it impossible to determine if his eyes were open, but she knew they were. She suspected they’d opened as soon as she stepped off the elevator.

  Max had been working for K&A for over six years but had taken over management of the fleet after less than two years with the company. He oversaw maintenance of the vehicles and management of the rotating staff of eight drivers. One of his important secondary duties was being Dana’s driver, taking her to and from her job as assistant pastor at one of the local churches. Peter and Max looked enough alike that the other men teased Peter, telling him he’d provided his wife a surrogate for the frequent times he had to be out of the country, dealing with their Central American plant operations.

  The physical features of the two men were remarkably similar, dark-blond hair and gray eyes, both over six feet and possessing a large-boned build wrapped in a lot of military-trained muscle. However, to Janet’s way of thinking, their respective personalities gave each man a unique stamp. They both had the discipline and strong moral code of many servicemen, but there was a silent core to Max, seemingly impenetrable. When he met her gaze, she felt pulled into that silence, and it wasn’t a bad place to be. A gray, overcast day, no break in the cloud cover, somber but comforting, like a blanket being wrapped around the earth.

  She’d dreamed a lot about those eyes in the past six months. They’d gotten in the pleasant habit of interrupting her occasional nightmares, driving them away with their tails tucked between their legs.

  The limo he usually drove was parked in its spot along the back wall, pristine and gleaming, the way he made sure all vehicles in the fleet were kept by the team he supervised. Though his older-model pickup truck had seen some fender benders, it was equally clean and polished. His sturdy, thick-tread work shoes were crossed at the ankle but projected over the edge of the hood, not making contact with the paint. He not only took good care of what he was paid to maintain, but his own belongings as well, no matter their age or condition. A woman noticed such things.

  Music was wafting out of the truck window, and the selection surprised her. I’ll Never Find Another You by the Seekers. The poignant, innocent sound of it made her think of waltzing across the concrete with him, her hand curled on his neck, a faint smile in her heart.

  Ever since Savannah had given birth to sweet Angelica, the idle fascination Janet had with the limo driver had grown far stronger. The man had been positively heroic, getting Savannah to the hospital under trying circumstances. It would have made any woman’s heart trip faster. But Janet knew he’d intrigued her for quite a while before that. That day, as now, she reminded herself she’d kept her distance for several intelligent reasons.

  Yet here she was, seeking him out for something any of the other on-duty drivers would be happy to do for her. It told her she’d reached some kind of decision in her mind. It was an intuitive thing, not fully formed, which wasn’t the same as being impulsive or rash. She’d mulled it over for well beyond those six months, yet recently realized the reason she couldn’t get a clear sense of her intent with Max was because she needed more information to sift. So this was a planned direction, even if the road ahead was murky.

  Matt had told her Max was a former Navy SEAL. After looking up considerably more specific information on it, she’d learned that meant he’d left the SEALs before reaching the twenty-year retirement mark. Even so, she wasn’t sure if the term “former” or “retired” truly applied to a SEAL. The quick reflexes and cool nerve he’d demonstrated the day they had to get Savannah to the hospital had underscored it. It was also why she knew his eyes were open behind those glasses, though he hadn’t yet moved. Not until she turned with purpose in his direction. Then he slid off the hood in one powerful motion, taking off the glasses and hooking them in his shirt. She waved at him with the folder she carried.

  “No, don’t come to me. I’m coming to you.”

  She issued it as a command, and he simply nodded. “Ma’am.” But he still took a couple steps toward her, showing he wasn’t entirely comfortable waiting for her to do all the work to get to him. She really needed to sit in on hiring interviews one of these days. She was fairly certain Matt Kensington had the HR department subject all male applicants to a super-secret chivalry test handed down since Lancelot’s days.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  “Just a short nap, ma’am.” He nodded at the folder. “Do you need me to take that somewhere?”

  “No.” Though it had been her excuse for coming to him, she decided then and there she would send the documents to the bank with Wade later today, when he took Matt to his lunch meeting. She didn’t dissemble when it suited no purpose. “Max, do you dance?”

  He wasn’t expecting that. She experienced a small spurt of satisfaction at the flicker of surprise, and amusement when it turned to wariness. “Not really, no.”

  “I’m on a break. May I join you?” She nodded to the hood of the truck. “You made that look very comfortable.”

  Actually, she visualized using his body the way he’d used that truck, leaning back against his chest, her body ensconced in the cradle of his thighs, her hand caressing one as she put her head back on his shoulder and they gazed at the rectangular panorama of the city. He’d be warm, she was sure, a good contrast to the touch of cool air wafting over the business district. She wouldn’t miss the sweater she’d left on her chair.

  There was a reason she connected so well with the K&A men. She herself was a sexual Dominant, one who regularly enjoyed playing Mistress to willing submissives at Club Progeny. As such, she was direct with men, in or outside a club. Her senses were tuned to evaluate how they responded to the unexpected. Max glanced at the hood of his truck, then at her pale-pink silk suit, his gaze lingering on her stocking-clad legs revealed by the just-above-the-knee hem. The short slit in the back offered a glimpse of her thigh, which she knew was what had caught Randall’s eye. She dressed for business, but she also thoroughly enjoyed being an attractive middle-aged woman. She had no problem highlighting her better features within the tasteful boundaries of professionalism.

  “I’ll need a boost,” she said. “And you’ll need to take off my shoes once I’m there so they don’t scratch your truck. Of course, you still haven’t said whether you mind ten minutes of company.”

  “I’m just trying to keep up, ma’am.” He had a little bit of a Texas drawl, just like Matt. It was entrancing. “Why did you want to know if I dance?”

  “I teach a ballet class for teenagers at the community center. We don’t have any male dancers at the moment, and the girls want to learn some basic lifts. When a dancer first starts learning lifts, confidence in the strength of your lifter helps you focus on your form. You seem more than capable of lifting teenage girls. But it does require some grace and agility, which is why I asked about the dancing.”

  She gave him a critical look. “You move well, though, so even if you don’t have any dance training, I think it will still work. If you’re willing, it pays nothing, and it will take up a night of your time. Giv
en your looks, I’m sure it will also gain you the slavish adoration of a dozen underage girls. While I promise not to give them your social networking links, I can’t guarantee they won’t find them anyhow. A fourteen-year-old has ways of ferreting out information the CIA only wishes they knew.”

  Putting the folder on the hood, she held out her hands. “Want to prove you can lift something heavier than a teenager?”

  “If I see something that is, I’ll do that, ma’am.”

  She chuckled. “Charm serves a man well, Max.” She kept her arms out. She knew he couldn’t let her stand that way for long without it becoming awkward or embarrassing for her, at least to his way of thinking. Sure enough, within a blink, he stepped forward to close the distance between them. When his hands settled on her waist, he met her gaze. If he’d wanted to keep it more impersonal, he wouldn’t have done that, so that alone gave her another intriguing piece of information about where this might go.

  First intentional physical contact was a critical sensation, where she logged her own reaction as much as his. Heat swept out from where his hands closed over her waist. She felt the strength in his restrained power, saw the biceps flex as he tightened the grip and prepared to lift her. Then he stopped himself. “Hold on a moment.” Releasing her to open the truck’s door, he twisted his upper torso to reach behind the front seat. He came back with a rolled-up quilt in a brown-and-green camouflage pattern. He untied the straps, folded it into a rectangular cushion and put it on the hood where he’d been about to place her.

  “It’s clean enough for me, but not that.” He nodded to the pastel color of her suit. “I don’t want you to get anything on it.”