Redeemed By Passion. Joss Wood

mean anything that he’d moved his personal assistant, Duncan, to number two on his list and Teresa to number one. It meant nothing. At all.

      Liam listened to her phone ring and urged her to pick up. He needed to know that she was okay, that Joshua was okay—God, the kid hadn’t looked, or sounded, good. And he wasn’t talking about the bruise his fist made on his jaw. Her phone went to voice mail and he dropped a hard “Call me” order into her message system.

      Liam placed the bourbon bottle on the coffee table, sat down in the chair opposite Matt and rested his forearms on his knees. He released a series of low but intense f-bombs.

      “That kind of sums up my feelings about this evening,” Matt commented. “I’ve been doing damage control but there’s not much spin you can generate when everything is caught on video and then live-streamed.”

      Liam winced. “How many views?”

      “Far too many.” Matt lifted his glass in a sarcastic salute. “I’ve got to admit, when Teresa messes up, she does it properly.”

      “She didn’t know her brother was in town, never mind that he was going to do that,” Liam retorted.

      “So defending her seems to be your default reaction tonight,” Matt commented, hitting the nail on its head.

      Liam sent his best friend a hard stare. “What’s your point, Matt?”

      “It’s been one drama after another with her, starting with the fact that you thought she had an affair with your dad.”

      “She explained that. My father was her mentor and good friend.”

      Matt rolled his eyes. “They had to be very good friends for him to leave Teresa a twenty-five-percent stake in Christopher Corporation worth millions.”

      When Matt put it like that, all his fears and insecurities about their relationship floated to the surface. Was he being conned? Could he believe Teresa’s version of what happened? In his final hours, Linus did confirm that there had been nothing between them but friendship and Liam wanted to believe him, them. But he’d been raised to believe that everyone lied so how the hell could he trust anything they said? Anything anybody said?

      He thought he could, at least, trust his parents to some degree but their latest lie had been the biggest of his life. As his father lay dying, he realized that it was scientifically impossible that his parents, with their blood groups, could produce a child with his blood group. Ergo, either only one of them was his biological parent or he was adopted. Hell of a thing to realize at the age of thirty-two.

      Was it any wonder he was so messed up when it came to relationships?

      It was late and Liam was done with talking. He wanted this conversation to end so he told Matt that Teresa wanted nothing more to do with him. Liam caught the look of relief on Matt’s face. “You’re happy about that?”

      Matt shook his head. “Happy is the wrong word...” He sat up, swinging his feet off the table. “It’s just that relationships shouldn’t be this hard, bud. Over the past few months you’ve thought that she’s a liar, a gold digger and an opportunist. You’ve slept with her and then slept with other women.”

      No, he hadn’t. “I tried to sleep with someone else to get her out of my system.”

      Matt waved his explanation away. “Whatever. She hit the tabloids, dragging you along with her. Those scum-suckers informed the world that she had an affair with your father and that she only slept with Linus to get her hands on the company.”

      He knew this. He’d goddamn lived it. “Do you have a point and are you going to get to it in the near future?”

      “My point is that, while I actually like Teresa—”

      “You could’ve fooled me.” Liam’s interjection was bone-dry.

      “I do like her,” Matt said. “She’s smart, super-organized and she’s an amazing event planner. Yeah, I’m mad as hell that tonight ended the way it did, but intellectually, I get that it wasn’t her fault. But her career did not need this and if she was boycotted before, it’s going to be nothing like what’s going to happen to her now.”

      Liam gripped the bridge of his nose. God.

      Matt’s long sigh was audible. “But at the end of the day, my loyalty is to you. And, as your friend, I am telling you that I don’t think she is good for you because, frankly, you look like crap.”

      Well, that wasn’t news.

      “Are you in love with her?”

      Liam’s head shot up and his eyes slammed into Matt’s. His throat closed as panic crept up. In his sappier moments lately, he’d flirted with the idea of love, but that was just a result of hormones and stupendous sex. No, of course he wasn’t in love with Teresa; he didn’t believe in love. But he was attracted to her, stupidly so. And attraction was easily confused for that other emotion. He croaked a “No.”

      Matt stood up and gripped his shoulder. “Can I then just point out that this woman you profess not to love has the innate ability to mess with your head and your life? That’s an enormous amount of power for someone you just like to sleep with.”

      Craphelldammit.

      “Go to bed, Matt.”

      Matt smiled for the first time that evening. “Yep, that’s where I’m heading. Into the arms of the woman who, instead of messing with my head and life, actually makes my life better and brighter.”

      Liam glared at his friend as he walked back into the hotel room and thought about returning to his own suite, to the empty king-size bed waiting for him. But the night was mild, this sofa was quite comfortable and he had a bottle to keep him company. And really, he had too much on his mind to sleep.

      Liam lay back and tucked a pillow under his head and watched the light of airplanes move between the stars.

      * * *

      Right, exactly what level of hell had she reached?

      Teresa St. Claire had experienced hot—Liam Christopher believing that she’d had an affair with his father—and knew what blistering felt like when her face was plastered over the front pages of the tabloid press accusing her of stealing Liam’s fortune.

      But tonight she’d stood inside the flames, her skin melting.

      Now, as Brooks Abbingdon’s jet cut through the dark night, Teresa felt frozen, her heart encased in dry ice. Maybe true hell was this dead-on-the-inside, will-never-recover feeling.

      Teresa flopped down into the chair opposite Brooks Abbingdon and eyed her brother through half-closed eyes. A bright blue bruise colored his jaw, and his lower lip was swollen. She loved Joshua, but right now she didn’t like him even a little bit. The only man she felt remotely charitable toward was Brooks Abbingdon, who’d offered her a ride out of the nightmare that was her latest professional disaster zone. He was also sitting across from her, ankle on his knee, deep in thought.

      Teresa swallowed down a groan and felt her stomach cramp. Her reputation, along with her company, had been dancing on the knife-edge of ruin for weeks but her brother gate-crashing her most illustrious clients’ gala evening and, worse, grabbing the mic from singer Jessie Humphrey and placing himself front and center while ranting about rich losers and liars had pushed her off that sliver-thin edge.

      And since she would be, if she wasn’t already, person very non grata by morning, why had Brooks Abbingdon, CEO of Abbingdon Airlines, rushed to her rescue? He was rich, successful and gorgeous so she had no idea why he’d offered them a lift on his plane heading back to Seattle. But she wasn’t complaining; she needed to get Joshua back under the radar as soon as possible and Brooks had offered her a way out.

      Joshua was hunched over in his seat, mumbling to himself. Thank God he’d stopped ranting, his words and sentences not making any sense.

      Teresa couldn’t pull her