CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

She was incoherent by the time we were done.

It was after midnight. I heard the bell tower clock strike in Providence, two miles over the trees. In the dark, I stood on her balcony in just my pants, my belt still bound to her headboard, and had a cigarette.

She watched me, naked and sleepy, propped up on the pillows with her sweaty hair piled in a messy bun on her head.

Down below, her koi pond glittered. Beyond it, the orchard moved in the gentle breeze. She lived in a doll’s house made of beautiful things. I was the interloper, playing a game at being part of this glittering world.

Tomorrow, our next leg of this deal started, and we’d go back to being co-workers. Business rivals, even.

Never lovers.

I shook the inevitability of our demise from my mind. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone.”

Her brows arced. “Like a secret?”

I nodded.

Her eyes narrowed, going hazy. She nuzzled her face deeper into the pillow and sighed.

“Sometimes, I miss my mom,” she said. “Which is weird, because I never met her. She died of heart failure. She had a lot of medical issues, and it was a few months after I was born. But sometimes, it feels like…you know how people feel a limb after it’s amputated? Like that.”

She didn’t sound sad, just resigned, and maybe I admired that about her. Even in her pain, she was strong.

“Do you grieve for her?” I asked.

“Not the way you think,” she said. “Maybe because my father was so insistent I go to therapy for it right away—that was his answer for everything from the minute I could talk.”

“That was probably a good choice.”

She nodded. “He was a really good dad growing up. He still is; things are just different.”

“How do you grieve her?”

She rolled onto her back, her dark hair spilling like a river over her pillow. “The way you explained Hireath. Something I’ll always want, something I”ll never have. A pang in my heart that never…fully realizes but doesn’t go away.”

My own chest was tender for her. I took a slow drag from my cigarette, thinking hard.

“You’re a very strong woman,” I said.

She glanced over. “Do you think so?”

I nodded. “I like that about you. It was the first thing I noticed.”

Her lips curved into a little smile. “You like strong women?”

“Very much,” I said, stabbing out the cigarette and going to the bed.

“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Is that a good thing or bad thing?”

She beckoned me, and I slid down beside her, throwing my leg over her lower body so I could soak in her warmth. She pulled a blanket over us and snuggled deep in her plush bed.

“You’re very capable,” she said.

“Capable?”

She worked her jaw. “No, you’re very…responsible.”

“I sound a bit dry.”

She giggled. “I’m trying to find the word; it’s on the tip of my tongue. You’re very…competent.”

I stared down at her, unsure what she was trying to say. “Okay?”

“I think the thing that I noticed about you first was that you move through the world like you know how to do things. You get shit done, you take care of things. I know you’re in charge of training a bunch of soldiers, and you get up and get it done. It’s just…hot. I wish I could see you in action. I’d probably be drenched.”

I laughed aloud, my head falling back.

“You think that me going to work is sexy?”

“Not going to work,” she said, a little flustered. “You just handle shit, and it’s so hot.”

“Well, that’s not what I expected you to say.”

“What did you expect?”

I shrugged. “Maybe that I had a huge dick and that’s the thing that turns you on the most?”

She blushed, rolling her eyes. “I mean, I do like your dick. But honestly, the fact that you run a whole training center is a lot hotter.”

I bent and kissed her mouth, capturing that sweet little smile. “I’m glad I can get you drenched and collect my salary at the same time.”

“I don’t work around a lot of men who work with their hands,” she said quietly. “Can I tell you something?”

She was serious now. I leaned in, nodding.

“Okay, when I first started at the company, I went to a big business convention, all really successful people like my father,” she said, sighing. The memory clouded her eyes. “There was an outdoor party one night. We were all in a restaurant on the coast, and we got attacked.”

“Attacked?”

She nodded, brows creasing. “There were some men trying to take hostages, basically, because they knew it was a group of wealthy people. They broke into the restaurant and held our table at gunpoint. My father had left to go to the bathroom a minute before.”

She hesitated. I could see the blush draining from her face.

A deep anger settled over my chest. I had a pretty good idea of what came next.

“I was the only woman there, other than two of the men’s wives,” she whispered. “But they were at the back of the table. The man leading the group, he had a mask and a pistol. He pulled me from my chair and held me at the corner of the balcony.”

Fuck, she was shaking. I cradled the back of her neck.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” she whispered. “It was just scary. He put the gun to my temple. Right here.”

Her finger grazed her temple. Sick, I bent and kissed that spot.

“He said he’d kill me if they didn’t get money,” she managed. “Then one of his men said something about how I was just a wife, so I was worth less ransom money. So the leader started shouting that he would kill me right there if someone didn’t step up to take my place, someone who was more important than me.”

A tear slipped from her eyes, and I brushed it away.

“Not one person stepped up,” she said. “Every single one of those men just cowered at the table. I’d have thought someone in that room of a hundred and fifty would have had a protective bone in their body.”

She wiped her nose. I shifted onto my back and pulled her against my side.

“They should have protected you,” I said.

She shrugged. “It was just a shock because my father would take a bullet for me. I thought that was the norm.”

“It should be,” I said. “What happened?”

“My father saw what was going on from the hallway. He got the hotel security, and they took the men out from the upper balcony,” she said. “It was horrifying. They shot the leader while he was holding me, and his blood was everywhere.”

She rolled and pushed her face into my shoulder. I held her for a second, trying to push back the anger in my chest.

“So that’s why you were so scared at the rest stop,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, muffled. “I just had a flashback and freaked out. I never thanked you for stepping in. I don’t know how you knew so fast.”

“It’s part of my training to read body language,” I said. “You were scared.”

She looked up, her eyes puffy. “It was hot.”

I frowned. “What?”

“It was really hot the way you just stepped in. That’s what I’m trying to say,” she said. “You just saw an issue, stepped in, and took care of it.”

“Have you ever needed protected again, since then?”

She shook her head. “My father was protective before, but he kind of lost it after that. He had a tracker on my phone, a bodyguard, a driver, and security around our house every night. He had me wear a bracelet with a chip in it for six months until I finally broke down and begged him to stop. It was only recently that he started letting me drive myself alone.”

“So putting you on this mission must have been a big step.”

“Yes and no. You might have noticed everywhere we’ve gone is a safe place, surrounded by people he already knows. He let me out, but I’m on a short leash.”

“He’s afraid he’ll lose you,” I said.

She nodded. “He is, but that’s not an excuse.”

“I’m not defending him, but he likely struggles with a lot of guilt that he couldn’t save your mother,” I said, keeping my tone gentle.

“I know he does,” she whispered. “That’s why I didn’t fight it until recently. But I can’t live like this; he’s suffocating me. I have to live my own life, risks and all.”

“Yes, you do,” I agreed. “Your father has done such a good job protecting you and keeping the world out that he forgot to let anything in. He made you safe, but he forgot to let you live.”

Her throat bobbed as her dark eyes swam with tears.

“I’m ready to live, Caden,” she whispered.

“You will,” I said. “You are.”

She pushed her face against me, and I held her in silence, feeling her blood thrum in her veins, feeling every breath. Her muscles relaxed slowly until we were both limp.

“You’d better stay here tonight,” she murmured. “Can’t have you wandering off in your sleep.”

“I don’t think I wander when I’m with you,” I said, but she was already asleep.