Red-Hot Renegade. Kelly Hunter

do, to protect the people in your care. I know you’d protect me if I asked it of you.’

      ‘But you won’t ask.’ He looked at her then and she gathered her courage and held his gaze. Timid rabbit, staring down the tiger.

      ‘I can’t.’

      ‘Why not?’ Always such absolute focus on the issue at hand or the person he was with. When he’d taken her in his arms and made love to her, ecstasy had rained down on them from the heavens. And when his attention had shifted to other responsibilities, Jianne’s demons had surfaced and demanded their due. Obsessive love was like that. Incandescent. Unforgettable. And ultimately destructive. ‘Jianne, I need a reason. Why won’t you let me help you?’

      ‘How? By pretending to be the happily reunited couple? By bringing you back into my life again until Zhi Fu goes away?’

      ‘If that’s what it takes,’ said Jake. ‘We could set boundaries.’

      Jianne smiled mirthlessly. ‘So we could.’ And she would break them. ‘Have you ever been so addicted to something that it nearly destroyed you to give it up?’ she asked gently. She held his gaze. He didn’t hold hers.

      ‘Yes,’ he finally muttered.

      ‘So have I.’

      This time when she moved away he made no move to stop her.

      Chapter Two

      JIANNE managed her goodbyes to Madeline and Luke well enough. She offered up a wistful smile for a sleeping baby Layla and deftly sidestepped Hallie’s invitation to lunch the next day. She told her aunt and uncle that she was heading home and watched with affection as her uncle phoned his driver and arranged for her collection. Uncle Yi was taking no chances with her safety—not on his watch—and for once she didn’t mind his protectiveness.

      A half-grown boy in a carefully pressed suit stood in the shadows cast by hotel towers as Jianne made her way to the waiting car. She slowed her steps until finally she came to a stop beside him. ‘Not a party person?’ she queried gently.

      Po shook his head to signal no, his gaze not leaving her face. Looking for something, wanting something from her, but what? She’d never been good with children. Jake’s younger brothers and sister could attest to that. ‘I’m sorry our conversation got you into trouble.’

      Anguish flickered briefly in Po’s dark eyes. ‘Me too.’

      ‘Is this the first time you’ve dishonoured him?’ Him being Jacob, stern sensei and keeper of strays. Would-be protector of the weak.

      ‘No,’ said Po. ‘When it comes to honour and what it is, sometimes I don’t get it.’

      ‘What do you get?’

      The boy considered her question for a very long time. ‘Need.’

      ‘Then you and I are more alike than you know.’ Jianne offered up a smile, one needy soul to another. ‘It’s been a pleasure making your acquaintance, Po from the dojo. If ever you have need of me, look me up. Madeline knows where to find me.’

      ‘What if Jake needs you?’

      ‘Po…’ How to tell a child something she’d never before put voice to. ‘Jake’s always known where to find me.’

      With a dignity born of desperation, Jianne Xang-Bennett took her leave.

      Five minutes after Jianne took her leave from the party, Jake took his. Finding Po took some doing for the kid had skipped out of the hotel. Not far. Not Bugis Street or any of the boy’s old haunts. Instead Po had taken refuge in the shadows a few steps beyond the glamorous hotel façade. Tolerated by the hotel doorman because of his smart suit and his shiny black shoes. Mistrusted by the doorman because of those all-seeing eyes.

      Hotel staff had fetched Jake’s ride up from the hotel’s underground parking area. Too much horsepower for practical purposes. Too few opportunities here in Singapore to let speed have its way. Two helmets, the smaller one recently purchased. And a boy who watched him through desolate black eyes. ‘You coming?’ he asked and held out the kid’s helmet.

      ‘Am I still your apprentice?’

      ‘Do you still want to learn karate?’

      The boy nodded jerkily.

      ‘Then here’s the deal. You steal, you’re gone. You make other mistakes, you get one warning about them. Go through anyone’s private possessions again and you’re gone. Are we clear?’

      Another nod.

      ‘Then get on.’

      The boy clung on tightly all the way home. And when Jake hit the training floor around two a.m., unable to sleep and needing to work off the tension that came of dredging up old memories best forgotten, a half-grown shadow joined him.

      Brothers were useful at times. Jake hadn’t expected to see Luke at the dojo the day after Luke’s engagement party. He certainly hadn’t expected to see Luke waltzing into the dojo at six-thirty a.m., daisy fresh and whistling cheerfully.

      ‘What time did the party finish?’ asked Jake.

      ‘Two-ish.’

      ‘So you’re here this morning why? Maddy kick you out?’

      ‘Madeline opted for Tai Chi by way of morning exercise.’ Luke yawned hugely. ‘Me, I’m looking for something with a little more kick. It occurred to me that I knew exactly where to find it. You good for a little one on one?’

      Jake smiled, slow and sure. ‘I guess I could indulge you.’ No holding back with brothers the way he held back with students. Blood bond between brothers and unspoken comprehension of intent. A man might spar for exercise or to perfect his warrior’s art. A man might spar to compete and to win. Sometimes a man sparred in order to tame the beast inside him. And sometimes he fought to forget.

      This morning, Jake was all about the forgetting.

      ‘So how’d it go?’ said Luke as he shed his T-shirt and shoes and waited for Jake to do the same. Bare chests, bare fists, black cotton trousers, and neither of them giving a damn about the colour of their belts.

      ‘How’d what go?’

      ‘Last night. Seeing Jianne again.’

      ‘About as well as expected.’

      Luke rolled his shoulders. Worked his way into a stretch. ‘You talked for long enough.’

      ‘You here to fight or to gossip?’

      ‘Either. Both. Whatever. I’m here for you, precious. Never forget that.’

      Jake favoured his brother with a smile a smart man would have been wary of. ‘When’s the wedding, again?’

      ‘Three weeks.’

      ‘I’ll try not to mark you up.’ Jake let his fist connect with Luke’s unprotected jaw. ‘Much.’

      Luke countered with a knee to Jake’s groin and followed up with an elbow that would have taken a rib out had it connected. Game on, with Luke’s reckless smile signalling that if Jake wanted to play by nobody’s rules, Luke was perfectly happy to comply.

      They fought with fury and catlike grace. Jake had the edge when it came to technique but Luke had a knack for delivering the unpredictable. They both had a generous supply of killer instinct. It was exactly the kind of mindless pleasure Jake needed to take his mind off the living, breathing ghost that was Ji.

      It was always going to end in bruises. Jake’s meeting with Jianne. This bout with his brother. They hit the floor hard, no mats for the wicked, and Luke groaned and Jake saw stars on the ceiling that he was pretty sure hadn’t been there earlier.

      ‘Are you going to look out for her?’ asked Luke as he fought free and staggered to his feet.

      ‘She