No Rules(31)

Avery frowned. “Wally wouldn’t do that to me. I’m not some fuzzy little bunny rabbit.”

Jess believed it. There was a hard edge to Avery that didn’t fit with the image of a cute little bunny. No one in the group did. She didn’t know what her father had been thinking, because no one here reminded her of a bunny rabbit.

A bunny rabbit. Her thoughts screeched to a halt. No, it couldn’t be.

Images rose from the place where she’d tucked them away, deep inside her mind. Happy, laughing memories, some of her very earliest ones, of her and the daddy she’d adored. Her dad would rub her hair fondly and use his favorite nickname for her, the one she’d insisted he drop after one of her kindergarten friends had made fun of it.

Donovan’s curious voice cut through the wild cyclone spinning in her mind. “What’s wrong, Jess?”

She raised her horrified gaze to his. Taking a shaky breath, she tried to talk and felt the words stick in her throat. She swallowed and licked her lips. “He called me Bunny.” It was barely a whisper, but they all heard it, and stared. “When I was very young,” she explained. “My dad called me Bunny. It was an endearment. A nickname, but I got teased about it and hated it, so he quit using it. Oh, shit,” she groaned, “I don’t want to be the rabbit.”

Donovan stared at her, no doubt remembering the story as she’d recited it. The timid, scared rabbit. The wolf she feared but had to trust to take her to the beaver’s lodge. They both knew how well it fit.

Evan took a decisive step back from the table. “Pack your bags; you’re all leaving for Egypt immediately.” He looked at her. “Jess, you, too.”

Evan strode from the conference room. Mouth agape, Jess stared after him, then at the three members of the rescue team who were ignoring her as they rolled up the map. In five seconds, everything had changed. Mitch, Avery, and Kyle were already discussing how they would alter their cover story to accommodate her presence, as if they took it for granted that Evan could knock her serene world off its axis with a simple order and send her flying off to Egypt.

Not Donovan. He still stared at her. Maybe he was as appalled as she was at the idea of taking her along on their rescue mission.

“We’re interpreting it wrong,” she told him, concentrating on keeping desperation from quaking through each word. “My father wouldn’t pull me into this, you said so yourself.”

“But he did. I don’t know why yet, but…” A faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “He told you to trust me.” His voice had dropped, becoming almost seductive, as he tilted his head thoughtfully. “What else did he say about the wolf and the rabbit, Jess?”

Instantly, her imagination was inventing more of the story. The defenseless, timid prey confronting a sly predator. A predator who made her pulse pound and her breasts tingle and whom she’d been instructed to trust.

She needed an emergency session with Dr. Epstein, right now.

Panic flooded every cell in her body. Whirling, she ran after Evan, finding that he’d already crossed the living area and was headed down a hallway. She power walked to match his purposeful strides. “I’m not going to Egypt.”

He glanced at her, but didn’t slow down. “I’m sorry, I know this disrupts your plans, but it can’t be helped. And it’s obviously what Wally wanted.”

She didn’t give a shit what Wally wanted. “I have a life, Evan. Deadlines to meet. Appointments to keep.”

“We’ll take care of notifying people for you.”

More panic boiled to the surface at the way the Omega Group assumed control and took over her life. “You don’t get it. I don’t work for you. You can’t just order me to go to another country.”

His look was the sort of visual reprimand one might give a child. “Lives are at stake, Jess.”

Guilt trip. She wasn’t falling for it. “I know, that’s why I came to Chicago.” Well, not exactly. She’d come because a man in Nipagonee Falls had tried to kill her and Donovan had given her no choice. But she’d stayed here because of those two hostages, damn it. She wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. “I helped you. My part is over.”

“I think your part is just beginning,” Evan said.

No. Fear battered at her insides like a trapped bird trying to escape. She couldn’t be part of this for so many reasons. Evan had no idea. It wasn’t only the look on Tyler Donovan’s face, that unsettling mixture of interest and hunger that burned into her like fire. He was some sort of hormonal aberration she’d work out later. She could resist him—would resist him—and he wasn’t the type to use force on a woman. At least, she was pretty sure he wasn’t. Hell, he probably wouldn’t need to. Women probably begged to be with him.