He continued to hold her even after the sobs eventually stopped. He only realized when her arms went slack about his waist that she’d fallen asleep. A sleep so deep that she didn’t even stir when Sinclair gathered her up in his arms before lifting her and wrapping her in a large bath towel. He carried her through to his bedroom.

  He dried Remy and then himself as much as he could before discarding the towel to throw back the duvet and then climb carefully onto the bed. Remy lay on her side, still asleep, cradled against his chest. Her legs were already entangled with his when he pulled the bedcover back over the two of them and leaned back against the headboard to study the woman in his arms.

  Remy looked younger when she was asleep, possibly because she was no longer looking at him with that challenging expression.

  Whatever the reason, Sinclair could now clearly see the dark circles from sleepless nights beneath her eyes and above the pale hollows of her cheeks. Those circles were so deep, he doubted it was just from the past two nights of trying to sleep in a house with a front door so damaged that anyone could have walked in and attacked her.

  He’d been too mesmerized earlier by wondering what her delicious berry-tipped breasts would taste like to notice the prominent bones of her shoulders, or how sharply defined the clavicles were, the hollows deep above them.

  Remy had always been thin, all gangly legs and arms in her teens, but she was far curvier now, and her current slenderness seemed excessive.

  Because for the past month, she’s been completely alone while trying to deal with the sudden death of both her parents.

  Sinclair’s feelings of guilt increased at this reminder from his reawakened conscience. Not good when he already felt like shit for having walked away from Remy without a second glance all those years ago.

  Yes, he’d been dealing with his own set of emotions at the time, barely holding himself together, but it had still been cruel of him to just leave her without saying so much as a goodbye after Cathy’s funeral. No doubt Gina had been there for her. But he knew Ralph, Cathy’s brother, was just too damned selfishly wrapped up in himself to bother trying to relate to whatever his wife’s and daughter’s emotions might be.

  Sinclair’s arms tightened about Remy, and he inwardly vowed never to abandon her like that again.

  Quite what that meant for them long-term, he had no idea but—

  “Sinclair, Mal let me know this is where you were. I thought you should know that listening to my police scanner on the way home, I heard that the detective dealing with the Mitchells’ helicopter crash has received a call after a report of another— Ah.”

  Sinclair glanced across the bedroom at Casper, his brother’s wide gaze fixed on the swath of dark hair draped across Sinclair’s chest, which was probably all that was visible of Remy from the bedroom doorway.

  She stirred in his arms now to turn and look above the duvet at an obviously dumbstruck Casper. “Found another what?”

  Sinclair knew from the grimace Casper gave that they weren’t going to like his brother’s answer.

  “Hi, Remy,” Casper greeted.

  Remy wondered how it was the Kingston brothers could so casually greet someone they hadn’t seen for five years. Especially when, on this occasion, she was in the last place—Sinclair’s king-sized bed—they might have expected to see her again.

  Whatever the reason, after his initial murmur of surprise, Casper didn’t look in the least troubled by her being there as he crossed the room to sit on the bed beside her. Maybe because, as he’d said, Malachi let him know she was with Sinclair.

  Aged thirty-five, Casper was the youngest of the Kingston brothers. His wore his dark hair long, just below shoulder length. His beard was trimmed, his eyes as dark as Malachi’s in his teasing and handsome face. He was still dressed in the formal suit, shirt, and tie that he’d worn to the weddings, but Remy knew that in the past, Casper had preferred to shut himself away in his room of monitors and computers while wearing faded jeans and well-worn T-shirts.

  Casper was a typical nerd when it came to all things tech, which was the important role he had within the Kingston Security company.

  “Hi, Casper.” She didn’t look at Sinclair as she extricated herself from his arms.

  She hissed the moment the sting of her smacked bottom made contact with the bottom sheet, forcing her to take a moment to adjust before slowly easing down onto her back.

  Casper gave her a concerned glance, but Sinclair, damn him, merely sent a mocking—satisfied?—smile, her way.

  He looked like some golden bloody god from Olympus while doing it too!

  His hair was still wet and tousled, his tanned shoulders and chest revealed by the duvet on his side of the bed having slipped down to his waist. There was a T-shaped sprinkling of salt-and-pepper hair across his pecs and tapering down to his waist. Remy knew exactly what his engorged cock and long and muscular legs looked like beneath the duvet.

  “Neanderthal,” she muttered before turning to Casper. “You still haven’t answered me,” she reminded him sharply. “Look at me, damn it, not him,” she snapped when he glanced at Sinclair.

  “Feisty little bugger, isn’t she?” Casper admired with a grin.

  “You have no idea,” Sinclair drawled.

  The younger man chuckled. “The fact there’s a waft of the eau de sex in the room is a pretty big hint.”

  Sinclair ran his tongue slowly across his top lip and then his bottom one. “Apricots,” he corrected huskily.

  Casper’s brows rose. “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  Remy’s cheeks felt as if they were on fire. “When the two of you have quite finished…?”

  Casper’s mouth quirked. “Are we finished?”

  Sinclair’s eyes were hooded as he glanced at Remy. “For now, yes.”

  Casper turned his dark and piercing gaze on her. “Whatever you’ve done to my big brother in the past few hours, you’ll hopefully do it again soon. It’s really good to see him almost back to being his old easygoing self and not the growly arsehole we’ve all had to put up with for so long.”

  Remy felt the color heat her cheeks at this reminder she hadn’t done anything to or for Sinclair since they arrived at the Kingston estate. Instead, after Sinclair had given her a climax and then spanked her, she’d sobbed her heart out and fallen asleep.

  She could still feel the pleasure of that release, heightened by the burning sensation of her bottom cheeks, if she squeezed her thighs together. Telling her, as she’d always fantasized would be the case, that Sinclair was a demanding but unselfish lover.

  “As far as I’m concerned, he’s still a growly arsehole.” She avoided meeting the gaze of either man after uttering such a blatant lie.

  Casper chuckled as he reached out to clasped one of her hands lying on top of the duvet. “It’s really good to see you again, Remy.”

  “If you’re all so damned pleased to see me again, why did you disappear so completely from my life for all these years?” she accused with a glare.

  The warmth disappeared from Casper’s gaze, his fingers tightening briefly about hers before he released her and stood. “I’m sorry for your loss. Gina was such a beautiful lady.”

  Just like Malachi and Sinclair, Casper offered no similar feeling of regret for her father’s death.

  She had known how difficult her father could be, bombastic and controlling, she just hadn’t known that any of the Kingston family had realized it too. She might only have been seventeen, almost eighteen, the last time she saw any of them, but surely she would have noticed that they tolerated her father rather than liked him? Apparently not.

  “They found another body, Remy.”

  It felt as if all the blood in her veins had turn to ice, her lips feeling numb as she asked, “Which of them is it?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “I have every right to want to see and identify the body that might be my mother or father!” Remy glared at Sinclair as she paced the sitting room of his suite.

  It had been several hours since Casper delivered his news before going to check if he could find any more information on the body that had been netted by fishermen off the Cornish coast.

  Remy now wore the same clothes she had earlier, although the jeans were less comfortable than they had been as they chafed against her throbbing bottom cheeks.

  Sinclair wore tailored black trousers and a formal gray shirt unfastened at the throat, with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows.

  He didn’t even need to try to look every inch the sexy silver fox that he undoubtedly was.

  “It’s better if we wait,” he now answered her patiently. “The detective told you on the phone that he’d call you immediately if he had any news.”

  “I want—”

  “Remy, the body they found has been in the water for at least a month,” Sinclair interrupted.

  She’d called the detective dealing with the helicopter crash a short time after Casper delivered the news of another body having been found. The detective hadn’t wanted to confirm or deny it was either of her parents until they had the results of a DNA test and had checked dental records.

  That last detail should have alerted her to the things Sinclair was hinting at but trying not to say.

  Which was that the body that had been found was so badly compromised, they hadn’t even been able to tell if it was a man or a woman.

  “Excuse me!” Remy placed a hand over her mouth as she ran to the bathroom, only just managing to reach and bend over the toilet bowl before she brought up the contents of her stomach.

  Which, quite frankly, wasn’t much.

  She’d hadn’t been eating well before the break-in at her parents’ home, but since then, she’d been too on edge to bother eating anything more than a few pieces of toast, washed down with several pots of coffee or tea. This morning, she hadn’t even bothered with the toast, too nervous at the thought of seeing Sinclair again. Then she’d drunk far too many cups of coffee in the hotel coffee shop waiting for him to leave the wedding.

  The last thing she’d expected was for the two of them to be naked in the shower, and then in bed together, within hours of them meeting again!

  An intimacy that had now taken on the same sense of unreality as her parents’ deaths, after Casper had dropped the bombshell of another body having been found.

  Apparently, fishermen off the Cornish coast had hauled in their catch the previous night and found the remains of a body in amongst the fish. They’d instantly returned to their small fishing village and called in the find to the local police, who in turn had notified the detective in charge of her parents’ disappearance. The body was now at the nearest morgue for identification and autopsy.

  Leaving Remy to pace Sinclair’s sitting room, her imagination running riot as she inwardly screamed at the possibility the body could be that of either of her parents.

  A part of her, a slim part, admittedly, was still hoping they would both be found alive. The possibility they were both suffering with amnesia after the crash so they were unable to contact her was a big stretch of Remy’s—anyone’s—imagination. But without any proof of their death, desperation had a way of making even the most unlikely scenario seem possible.

  Remy no longer had that hope.

  Because a part of her knew, instinctively, that the body now in the morgue was one of her parents.

  One of them.

  Where the other one was, she had no idea.

  She began retching again, only bringing up sour-tasting bile now there was no more liquid left inside her.

  “It’s only me, Remy.”

  She began to cry as a kneeling Sinclair placed a wet cloth against the heat of her forehead. “How could this happen?” she choked.

  Sinclair didn’t answer as he gently wiped that cooling cloth over her cheeks and mouth before throwing it aside and sitting on the tiled floor to gently pull her so that she was sitting on his thighs as he held her in his arms.

  Remy buried her face against his chest. “I had dinner with the two of them on my birthday just five weeks ago, the evening before they went away on their holiday to Wales, and now they’re both gone!” She didn’t doubt for a moment that it was only a matter of time until the body of her other parent was found.

  Sinclair had no adequate words of comfort for what Remy was going through.

  It had been mind-numbing for him when Cathy was kidnapped and then found murdered, despite him having paid the ransom money. But that had all happened within a matter of days.

  It didn’t compare to this drawn-out heartbreak Remy was currently going through. The weeks of not knowing anything except that both her parents were missing. Now the agony of not knowing which one of her parents’ bodies might have been found, and who was still missing.

  Sinclair stood with Remy still in his arms, then steadied her on her feet before releasing her. “I’m going to leave you here for a few minutes so you can freshen up while I go downstairs to get you something to eat and drink. You’ll find a new toothbrush in the cupboard beneath the sink. Once you’ve eaten and drunk something, you’re going to take a nap.”

  “You might have spanked me like one, but I’m not a child,” she snapped as she flushed the toilet.

  Sinclair was inwardly relieved at hearing the return of some of Remy’s previous spirit. “I spanked you like the desirable woman you are.”

  She looked up at him through tear-wet lashes. “Did you?”

  “Yes.” He raised his hand to lift her chin so that he could look directly into her face. “We have unfinished business,” he reminded huskily.

  A blush replaced the pallor in her cheeks. “I’m sorry I didn’t—you didn’t—”

  Sinclair’s fingers against her lips stopped her from finishing that sentence. “We have all night,” he assured as he removed those fingers.

  She swallowed. “Are you trying to distract me?”

  “Am I succeeding?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He nodded his satisfaction before his hand dropped to his side. “You’ll be staying in my suite with me tonight. In my bed. Any arguments with that arrangement?”

  “None.” She moistened those delectable lips with the tip of her tongue. “Sinclair, you have to know I’ve always l— Will you stop doing that?” She glared at him as she reared back from the fingers he’d once again tried to place against her lips. “It’s extremely annoying,” she snapped.

  Sinclair was sure it was, but it had also been very necessary. He couldn’t be sure Remy had been about to use the L-word, but he’d prefer it if this situation with her missing parents and the break-in at the Mitchells’ home had been dealt with before they talked about what their feelings might be for each other.

  Because they certainly existed.

  At least for Sinclair, and he thought the same was true for Remy.

  He didn’t believe it was coincidence that Remy was the woman to wake his libido from hibernation. After the heat and passion of their lovemaking earlier, a part of him now believed that it’d had to be Remy. That if they hadn’t met again, his sex drive would never have reawakened.

  Had he felt this way about her five years ago?

  Absolutely not.

  But this Remy, the woman with fire in her eyes and seduction on her lips, hadn’t just woken his libido, she’d cracked and then melted the ice about his heart.

  Ready for it to be broken?

  Again?

  Sinclair needed to spend more time with her before he knew the answer to that.

  “Hey, Remy.”

  “Hi, Remy.”

  “What the hell is it with you Kingston men?” Remy glared across the kitchen as two more of the Kingston brothers, the thirty-six-year-old twins, Felix and Darius, entered the kitchen.

  Despite the fact it was late at night, Remy was sitting in the breakfast nook eating the scrambled eggs and toast Sinclair had insisted on making for her, all washed down with a welcome mug of tea.

  She shook her head. “You all act like we only met yesterday when the truth is I haven’t set eyes on any of you for years!”

  Felix strolled over to lean down and kiss her cheek. “Doesn’t mean we haven’t missed you.”

  “Yeah,” Darius echoed gruffly as he followed his twin in kissing her on the cheek.

  The two men were fraternal twins rather than identical. Felix was the accountant of the family, and he tended to dress formally, Darius liked to wear faded jeans and T-shirts. Strangely, Felix kept his dark hair jaw-length, and Darius, who had been in the army along with Adam and Max, kept his military short. They both had the Kingston rugged good looks, with designer stubble on their jaws and piercing blue eyes.

  “I was living in London this whole time.” Remy wasn’t about to let them off the hook that easily.

  “Yeah, well.” Darius glanced over to where Sinclair was pouring coffee into three mugs. “We thought, in the circumstances, it was less confusing for you if we stayed away.”

  “What circumstances?” Remy frowned her puzzlement.

  “The fact your—”

  “That’s enough,” Sinclair snapped, placing the three mugs of coffee on the table as he cut across whatever Felix had been about to say. “Did you do what Malachi asked you to do?”

  Darius nodded. “There’s a bag of Remy’s things waiting out in the hallway.”

  “What things?” she demanded, her head starting to spin with these sudden changes of topic.

  “Any of the clothes you took to your parents’ house were destroyed along with their things,” Sinclair explained. “I asked Mal to have Darius and Felix go to your apartment and pick up some clothes for you after they left the wedding reception.”

  Remy placed her teacup carefully down on the table in front of her. “My locked apartment in a secure building with twenty-four-seven surveillance cameras? That apartment?”