Billionaire Unmasked(16)

“They’re hers,” Tate said in a cocky voice. “If you check her email, she has travel confirmations that coincide with the pictures. And she has an entire portfolio with her luggage that we got at the hotel. The photos have her marking in the bottom right corner. I’m assuming she’s H.L. Sinclair. I did a search on the name. She’s idolized in the photography world as an extreme weather photographer. Hell, she sounds more like my kind of woman than yours.” Tate grinned at Jason. “She must have some balls to be traveling to every corner of the world for that kind of shit.”

“She doesn’t have balls,” Jason snarled as he looked through all of the pictures that Hope had apparently taken. “Jesus Christ. What in the hell has she been doing?”

“Taking photos, apparently. She got a degree in fine arts with an emphasis on photography. I saw it in her biography.”

Jason scowled at the computer screen. He’d known she’d gotten a degree in fine arts, but he hadn’t known she was a photographer, and now it pissed him off that Tate knew more about Hope than he did. Why hadn’t he known? Maybe it was because he’d spent years trying to control himself around her, used every ounce of willpower he had not to toss her over his shoulder and take her away somewhere, anywhere with him. “I guarantee her brothers don’t know. They would have locked her up and thrown away the key if they’d known she was doing this shit.”

“That’s probably why she never told them,” Tate mused philosophically. “She’s a grown adult, man. She can do whatever she wants.”

“Not this,” Jason replied angrily. “She can’t be traipsing around the world, throwing herself into danger.” Every hair on his body stood up in alarm as he viewed some pictures of what was a hurricane, typhoon, or cyclone. It was hard to tell where the photos had been taken. All Jason knew was that Hope had to have been sheltering there during the damn storm. She had captured the shot just as a roof was torn from a building, the picture horrifying evidence of the violence of the tempest she’d thrown herself into.#p#分页标题#e#

“Of course she can go. She’s a grown woman,” Tate argued reasonably.

Jason wasn’t feeling reasonable. “She’s mine now,” he snapped back at Tate.

“She wasn’t yours when she took the pictures, and you snatched her out of Vegas, not knowing who she really is now. You’ve seen her what—a handful of times as an adult? You can’t expect her to stop her life because she got drunk and followed you here willingly just because she was three sheets to the wind.”

Selfishly, that was exactly what Jason wanted. He’d taken her with the intention of sating himself with her, before eventually letting her go. Already angry and hurt that she hadn’t told him that she was getting married, all he’d wanted was Hope in his bed, and to prevent her from marrying an asshole. Now he wasn’t so sure he was going to let her out of his sight ever again. Not that he wasn’t still pissed off at her, but his protective instincts overrode his anger. Jesus, did she have some sort of death wish to be chasing these kind of storms?

You don’t know me anymore.

Hope had told him that when they’d been together in Amesport. Turns out…she was right. “She has an entire secret life that nobody knows about,” Jason speculated aloud, pissed off and troubled. Where in the hell was the shy girl he had known, the quiet, sweet young woman he’d seen right before she left for college? Every time he’d seen her after that fateful day, she’d been quiet and subdued, doing nothing to indicate that she’d…changed.

“We all have our secrets,” Tate said solemnly. “She’s accomplished a lot for a woman her age. She sells a lot of her photos to major publications, and she’s already highly respected in her field.”

“It’s fucking dangerous,” Jason replied irritably. “How would you feel if you cared about someone who rushed into dangerous situations all the time? What if it was your sister, Chloe?”

Tate frowned. “I’d lock her up and throw away the key.”

Jason raised his eyebrows, giving Tate an I-told-you-so stare.

“She’s my little sister,” Tate continued defensively.

“Exactly. Someone you care about, someone you want to protect.”

“She’s related,” Tate grumbled. “I’ve never felt that way about any woman. I couldn’t. I did some crazy shit. On any given mission, there was always a very good chance that when I left, I wouldn’t be coming back.”