Beginnings and Ends (Short Story) by Suzanne Brockmann Read Free Book Online

shame.
    “Hey, Cos.” Tom Paoletti came out from the back, smiling his welcome. He looked at Sophia. “Soph, you better get going if you’re intending to catch that flight.”
    “Yeah. It was nice meeting you,” Sophia told Cosmo.
    As she hurried down the hall, Tom led Cosmo back toward his office. “You’ve got … how many weeks of leave left?”
    “Three weeks, two days, seventeen hours.”
    His former SEAL CO smiled. “Well, at least you’re not counting the minutes.”
    Cosmo glanced at his watch. And fourteen minutes.
    “And you’re sure you don’t want to use this time as a vacation?” Tom asked.
    “I’m quite sure, sir.” Like many SEALs in Team Sixteen, Cosmo wasn’t good at taking vacations. After just a few days, he got bored. Restless. “I just want to be able to check in on my mother once or twice a day.” He got down to business. “So tell me about this Hollywood producer. What’d she do to piss people off enough to make them want to kill her?”
    “I don’t need personal protection—a team of bodyguards? God! This is absolutely ridiculous.” Jane Chadwick told Patty, her new college intern.
    Patty didn’t seem convinced, so she turned to Robin, hoping for just a teensy bit of brotherly support.
    But Robin wasn’t paying attention. He was giving Patty one of his “hey there” smiles. The girl, naturally, was dazzled. Of course, she was impossibly young and didn’t yet have the mileage that would enable her to see past Rob’s gorgeous face to the lowlife womanizing scum within.
    “Yo,” Jane said, clapping her hands sharply. Half-brother. At times like this, it helped to remind herself that they shared only a fraction of their genetic makeup. “Robin. Focus. Patty, go call the studio back and tell them no. Thank you, but no. I’m perfectly safe. Be firm.”
    Unlike many young movie-loving girls who made the pilgrimage to Hollywood, Patty’s freckled-face cuteness wasn’t an act. She wore kneesocks and actually meant it. Jane didn’t know her that well yet, but, unfortunately, being firm didn’t seem to be high on Patty’s skill list.
    But at least she was out of Jane’s office, closing the door behind her and releasing Rob from her captivating spell.
    “If you touch her,” Jane told him, “I will kill you and I will make it hurt.”
    “What?” Rob said. Mr. Innocent. He made that sound that was half laugh, half indignation. “Come on. I was just smiling at her.”
    One thing was certain, her too-handsome half-brother was a brilliant actor. If they could get this movie made, and—most important—if they could get it distributed and seen, he was going to be a star.
    “Besides,” he added, “you of all people shouldn’t be making idle death threats.”
    That was supposed to be funny. Jane didn’t crack a smile.
    “That wasn’t a threat,” she said. “It was a promise. Let me put this in terms you’ll understand, Sleazoid. If you sleep with her, she’ll think she’s your girlfriend. And when she finds out that she was merely your Friday night distraction, she’ll be badly hurt. Now, maybe you don’t give a rat’s ass about Patty’s feelings, but I do. And I also know what you do care about, so listen closely. If you break her heart, she will quit. And if she quits, you will become my personal assistant, and you won’t have a single minute to yourself from that moment until we are done making
American Hero
. Which means, in sleazoid-speak, that it will be two months before you have sex again. Two. Months.”
    Her little brother laughed. “Relax, Janey. I’m not going to sleep with her.”
    Jane just looked at him. She liked Patty. A lot. The girl was smart, she was sweet, she was way overqualified for this glorified gofer position. The lack of backbone could be worked on—besides, Jane had plenty of that to go around.
    Best of all, though, despite being paid only a stipend, Patty also liked Jane. It was a win/win situation.
    As long as Robin kept