the gunman in the garage had given her no choice. Neither had Brendan.
“Even grand juries rarely issue an indictment on eyewitness testimony,” he pointed out, as if familiar with the legal process. “They need evidence to bring charges.”
Had he personally been brought before a grand jury? Or was he just familiar with the process from all the times district attorneys had tried to indict his father? But she knew better than to ask the questions that naturally came to her. He had never answered any of her questions before.
But he kept asking his own inquiries. “Is there any evidence that I’m a—” Brendan glanced beyond her, into the backseat where their son slept peacefully, angelically “—a bad man?”
She hadn’t been able to find anything that might have proven his guilt. She’d looked hard for that evidence—not just for her story but also for herself. She’d wanted a reason not to give in to her attraction to him, a reason not to fall for him.
But when, as a journalist, she hadn’t been able to come up with any cold, hard facts, she’d let herself, as a woman, fall in love with an incredibly charming and smart man. And then he’d learned the truth about her.
What was the truth about him?
* * *
BRENDAN WAITED, but she didn’t answer him. Could she really believe that he was a killer? Could she really believe that he had tried to kill her?
Sure, he had been furious because she’d deceived him. But he’d only been so angry because he’d let himself fall for her. He’d let himself believe that she might have fallen for him, too, when she’d actually only been using him.
He wasn’t the only one she’d used. There were the friends in boarding school she’d used as inside sources to get dirt on their famous parents. Then there was the Peterson kid in college with a violence and drug problem that the school had been willing to overlook to keep their star athlete. She’d used her friendship with the kid to blow the lid off that, too. Hell, her story had probably started all the subsequent exposés on college athletic programs. It had also caused the kid to kill himself.
“You really think that I’m the only one who might want you dead?” Josie Jessup had been many things but never naive.
She gasped as if shocked by his question. Or maybe offended. How the hell did she think he felt with her believing he was a killer?
He was tempted, as he’d been four years ago, to tell her the truth. But then he’d found out she was really a reporter after a story, and as mad as he’d been, he’d also been relieved that he hadn’t told her anything that could have blown his assignment.
Hell, it wasn’t just an assignment. It was a mission. Of justice.
She didn’t care about that, though. She cared only about exposés and Pulitzers and ratings. And her father’s approval.
But then maybe his mission of justice was all about his father, too. About finally getting his approval—postmortem.
“Who else would want me dead?” she asked.
“Whoever else might have found out that you wrote all those stories under the byline Jess Ley.” It was a play on the name of her father, Stanley Jessup. Some people thought the old man had written the stories himself.
But Brendan had been with her the night the story on her college friend had won a national press award. And he’d seen the pride and guilt flash across her face. And, finally, he’d stopped playing a fool and really checked her out, and all his fears had been confirmed.
She sucked in a breath and that same odd mixture of pride and guilt flashed across her face. “I don’t even know how you found out....”
“You gave yourself away,” he said. “And anyone close to you—close to those stories—would have figured out you’d written them, too.”
She shook her head in denial, and her silky hair skimmed along her jaw and across his cheek. No matter how much she’d changed her appearance, she was still beautiful, still appealing.
He wanted to touch her hair. To touch her face...
But he doubted she would welcome the hands of the man she thought was her would-be killer. “If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have helped you tonight,” he pointed out.
She glanced back at their sleeping son. “You did it for him. You know what it’s like to grow up without a mother.”
So did she. That was something that had connected them, something they’d had