His Ex's Well-Kept Secret

“Why didn’t you just tell the world what really happened?”

Jaeger grimaced. “There were a few reasons. Most important, my siblings were trying to keep the news of my accident from our uncle Connor. He raised me and my sibs from the time I was ten, and when the accident happened, he was in a scary stage of Alzheimer’s. The stage when everything is upsetting and confusing. Knowing I was so injured possibly would’ve accelerated his mental deterioration.”

Piper tipped her head to the side, thinking back. “But...didn’t he pass on around that time?”

Jaeger nodded, his expression grim. “He died ten days before they pulled me out of the coma. God, the weeks following were hell.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m sorry about your uncle.”

Jaeger ran a hand over the back of his head, obviously uncomfortable. “Yeah, thanks.”

Piper pulled her bottom lip with her finger and thumb. “Well, that explains a hell of a lot. What it doesn’t explain is how you linked me to Milan,” she said, curious.

“This morning, I knew there was something you weren’t telling me. It made me curious.”

Oh, there was quite a bit she still wasn’t telling him...

“I did a Google search on you, but I didn’t realize I was also searching my own computer and the Ballantyne server. I had the usual Google hits, but it was what was on my computer that I found interesting.”

Piper bit the inside of her lip. “Pray tell.”

“I hired a PI after the accident. He dug deep into that month I spent overseas, and he mentioned in his report that you and I had dinner.” Piper opened her mouth to speak, but Jaeger beat her to it. “No, I don’t know how he found out who you were and how we met.”

“And how did you find out about the calls and messages I sent to you?”

Amusement sparked in Jaeger’s eyes. “My family is fairly high-profile, and we work in a high-risk business. Security logs all calls, messages and emails coming in. If we don’t respond to the calls and emails, and if they are ongoing, the person making contact is put on a special list.”

Piper narrowed her eyes at him. “A special list?”

“The kooks and crazies list.” Jaeger grinned, and Piper felt like she was standing in a beam of pure sunlight.

Oh, God, not good. When he smiled, her hands itched to undo the buttons on his shirt, to spread the fabric apart and rediscover his hard chest, the ridges of his stomach. She wanted to unbuckle his belt, unzip his fly, take his...

Whoa! Alrighty, that’s enough now.

Piper tapped the tip of her finger against her bottom lip. He should have been the last man in the world to rev her engine; he was a commitment-phobic playboy who would never change. But from the moment she’d met him, Jaeger had the ability to short-circuit her brain.

She wasn’t the carefree woman she’d been a year and a half back, though. She had responsibilities now. This wasn’t about her and what she wanted—hot, curl-her-toes and burn-her-sheets sex.

So stop imagining him naked and think!

He had an ironclad good excuse for not contacting her after Milan, and his explanation went some way toward erasing the anger and hurt she’d lived with for so long. But did it fundamentally change anything?