be removed. “Three whole days. That must have been hard for you.”
Jared sighed. “I really wanted her. Naturally it turned out she taped the entire thing and tried to sell it.”
Kai felt his jaw drop. “You made a sex tape?”
This was why it worked with Kori. They were the adults of their families. They both had horrible siblings.
Jared waved it off. “Lots, but that’s the only one that almost made it out. All those celebs who claim the maid stole our sex tape and leaked it, it’s all bullshit. Sex tape is one of the first things a good publicist will tell you to do. Well, unless you’ve got a small penis.”
He thanked god he’d been given a brain and didn’t have to live in Jared’s world. “Why didn’t you let yours get out? Apparently you might have an Oscar by now.”
“I liked her. I thought she liked me. I paid a lot of money to keep it off the Internet.” His brother sounded serious for once. “Everything I’d saved up to eighteen months ago. I’m good at starting over.”
Well, it wasn’t like his brother had ever been a financial whiz. Kai parked the Jeep in the McKay-Taggart visitor slot. He couldn’t help but notice there was a limo hanging out a couple of rows down. “You’ll make it back. It seems like you’re doing pretty well. I thought you had given up limos.”
“I let the guys use it. The studio pays for a driver. It’s part of my contract.”
Kai turned the engine off. “Your entourage is here? Upstairs? With Big Tag?”
“Not sure if they’re with him, but I asked Squirrel and the guys to start taking some notes, maybe some pictures so I can get in the character’s head. Don’t worry. Everyone loves to answer questions about themselves.”
“How many actual spies have you known?” Kai opened the door and hopped out, praying he could get up there fast enough to save some lives.
Jared was right behind him as he strode to the elevator. “I played a corporate spy on a Lifetime movie once. Have you seen it? Cyber Eyes Are Watching Her. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds.”
It sounded spectacularly crappy. “I don’t watch a lot of TV. Or movies.” Luckily there was an elevator open. He hopped on. “You can’t treat Ian like some movie consultant. He’s the real thing.”
Someone shouted out Jared’s name. He turned before he got on the elevator, his face going movie star bright as he waved. “Yes, it’s really me.”
Kai reached out and hauled his brother inside. “No time for autographs.” He pushed the button for McKay-Taggart. They now occupied the top two floors. “I’m serious about Ian. You have to be careful. Even now he’s involved in classified stuff. The company he runs still works for the government from time to time and they take those secrets seriously.”
Like the fact that Theo Taggart was alive somewhere. If Jared threatened that mission in any way, Tag would happily bury his body.
Jared grinned. “Real spy stuff. That’s cool. And I’m sure my guys are sitting in the lobby somewhere looking at their phones. It’s kind of what they do.”
“How are you still with Squirrel? I can’t see that kid does anything real for you.”
“You always hated him. And I gave him a job because he stuck by me when no one else did.” Jared looked straight ahead, his eyes on the elevator doors. “He’s not stupid. He can run errands.”
“I thought that’s what Lena did.” Kai knew it didn’t matter, but he wanted Jared to admit that Squirrel was mooching off him. He wanted to at least get that out into the open. So often Jared looked at the bright, shiny side of everything, refusing to see anything could possibly be wrong.
“He’s my friend. Just drop it, Kai,” Jared said in a stubborn tone. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t understand friendship?” They were good at falling back into old patterns. Kai would come out accusing his brother of acting like an idiot and then Jared would say Kai never understood. Nothing had changed in fifteen years.
“Not really. How many friends do you still have from childhood?”
It was a decent point, but he had one of his own. “I didn’t have a lot of them. I was too busy taking care of you.”
“Fine. Blame me. How about from the Army? Have many friends from those times?”
He didn’t. He had some guys from his unit he called from time to time to check in on them.