Page 109 of Nothing to Win

“We don’t have to get into that,” Gia said.The last thing she wanted was Brogan thinking she’d still hankered after him even while they were over… though what they’d just done on the bed might have given that away.“Can I trust you to hold this together?”

“What’s in Mexico?”Tripp asked.“Mom is in Chile if you have a sudden desire to travel, she’d love to have you.Take Brogan’s jet, it’s just sitting there.”

“She knows the jet is at her disposal,” Brogan said.

Tripp bobbed his head.

With her eyes closed, she held out her hands, desperate to stop the madness.“I don’t need anyone’s jet, and I have no desire for anything.I have to meet a man who may or may not know the whereabouts of my best friend’s boyfriend.”

“Jarrod,” Brogan muttered.

“Yes,” she said and turned herself toward him.“And in the spirit of that, I know I said I didn’t want charity, but I’m stuck.I need ten thousand dollars.”After a few seconds of processing, he looked up at her.“I swear I’ll make this right with you, whatever it takes, I—”

“No.”

Brogan?This was Brogan and he’d just… he’d never denied her.While he had every right to, the word felt odd on her ears coming from his tongue.

“Anything… name your quid, whatever you want, I—”

“No quid,” he said and rose so close that she had to sway backward.“There’s no chance of me sending you to Mexico alone with nothing but loose change and a vague hope.”Putting an arm around her, he prevented her from backing away.“Julius, send one of our people.Have him get in touch with the PI…” he paused to look down at her.“This is coming from him, right?”

She nodded.“He, uh… he’s already in Mexico, he has leads.”

“Okay, whatever,” Brogan said, pulling her close again.“Send our people, have them liaise with him.If this is genuine, they won’t care who they’re dealing with and if it costs more money to have them deal with men as opposed to women, compensate them.”

“The PI thinks Jarrod will be more comfortable trusting someone he knows.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to be you,” Brogan said.“This has gone on long enough, figure it out.Get the idiot back to Manhattan.”

“Sure thing,” Julius said.

“If he’s looking for a familiar face…” Tripp said.“I’ve got one of those.”

Brogan nodded once, authorizing Julius.A few seconds later the door closed and there was nothing but silence left.

For half a minute, she just breathed.“Figure it out,” she muttered.“If it was as easy as that, why didn’t you say it six weeks ago?”

“If I’d said it six weeks ago, I wouldn’t have had an excuse to get close to you, would I?”

Tipping her head back, she tried to decide if he was joking or making fun of her.“Shanna’s expecting to go down there.”

Kissing the top of her head, he took his arm from around her and went to the nightstand.

Picking up his cellphone, he tossed it to the foot of the bed.“Call her and tell her I’m handling it.”

“She thinks we’re broken up,” Gia said, picking up the phone, paying little attention to Brogan opening his nightstand drawer.

He came back to her with a pile of things.What was he—he dumped her checkbook, credit card, and SG security pass in her hands with the phone.

“You can straighten her out on that too,” he said, putting a hand to the back of her neck to pull her up for a kiss.“I’ll take care of this, baby, I promise.Trust me?”

She put a hand on his chest to ease him away.“This is complicated, Mister,” she said.“My family, Gault, Julius told you to finish with me if we weren’t going to get married.”

“Yeah, he did,” he said and squeezed her ass.

“So, what?”she asked.“We’re back to what we were?”

If he was paying for Shanna’s crusade, she was obliged to keep up her end of the deal and chalk their break-up to a blip.