“Okay,” he said slowly. “It’s true, I have been following you. I saw you today, and I couldn’t believe it was you.” He took a deep breath. “I wanted to pluck up the courage to say something, but it’s hard. For obvious reasons.”
She raised her eyebrows. “So, you thought it would be better to stalk me on dark city streets? Nice touch, Shay. Way to win a girl’s confidence.” She eyed him banefully. “You reappear after twelve years, stalking me, and you think you’re going to get a kiss hello?”
Shay swallowed. “Look, I’m sorry. It was wrong of me. I don’t usually stalk women on the streets, Tess.” He sighed. “Could I take you for a coffee somewhere and explain?”
She stared at him then started laughing slowly. “You want to take me out for coffee? Honestly, that wins the prize!” She stared at him harder. “We didn’t exactly part as friends, Shay, all those years ago. In fact, I seem to remember that we never spoke again after Eric’s death.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, gazing at her. “I stuffed up. I was young. I didn’t know how to handle it. Could we at least talk about it? You owe me that after all this time.”
Tess stiffened slightly. “I don’t owe you anything, buddy,” she hissed. “Not one single thing. And you appearing here on this dark street following me doesn’t inspire me to think that you are any different from what I thought you were all those years ago.”
Shay coloured. “I’m sorry I followed you,” he said. “I wasn’t intending it. I just saw you, like I said, and wasn’t sure how to approach you. Please?”
Tess stared at him. She could see he was shaking, slightly. She stared down at her hands, appalled to find them shaking as well. Should she let him explain?
One part of her screamed no. That she should hightail it away from him, right now. Leave him shaking in the street. He didn’t deserve anything else, after all. There was all the bad feeling between them from years ago, and on top of that, he had been stalking her. An action that didn’t exactly inspire confidence in her that he had turned into a great guy.
But on the other hand…Tess gazed at him. Perhaps she should hear him out. How many chances were there in this life to confront the demons from your past? She knew that it was unresolved for her. That she still carried it within her, and that it coloured her whole life—the decisions she made, and how she reacted. Perhaps talking to Shay would give her a sense of closure with it, once and for all.
If he turned out to be a straight-up creep she would simply leave and make very sure that he could never come within ten paces of her again. But somehow, she didn’t think that tailing women on city streets was his usual modus operandi. She somehow believed that it had only been because he had seen her. How, she didn’t know, but it was there.
She stared at him, harder. He had grown into a tall, strong man. It had taken all her strength to pin him down. She remembered the awkward youth he had been—almost like a baby giraffe, all arms and legs. Gangly. Shay Sullivan had certainly grown up, and then some. She swallowed. He had turned into an extremely attractive man. His shoulder-length, sandy blonde hair, dishevelled from their tussle, suited him. His face had changed with maturity; it had become more angular, and his devastating blue eyes were disarming, to say the least. She could see the shadow of a three-day growth over his jawline.
Shay was hot. There was literally no other way to describe him.
Tess felt herself flushing slightly. He was standing very close to her. Too close. She stepped back, trying to put some distance between them.
“One coffee,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “And you’re paying.”
***
Shay stared at her across the table, still unable to believe that it was Tess sitting there. After all these years. They had found a diner close to the street that she had jumped him on. It was rundown, and it didn’t serve the best coffee in town, but it would do.
Up close, she was even more beautiful than he remembered. Those hazel eyes. Her full lips. He had kept the image of her face in his mind’s eye, but the reality simply blew him away. It was all he could do to not gawk at her openly.
For God’s sake, play it cool, he told himself. He didn’t want to scare her, any more than he already had. Although he knew now that Tess Nolan was no shrinking violet. She was an incredibly strong, forthright woman. How she had fooled him, and then managed to pin him to the ground, was crazy. He was a wolf shapeshifter with superhuman strength. Most guys couldn’t get the better of him. She had taken him by surprise, of course, but still…
He took a deep breath, staring down at his coffee. The fact that she had relented and agreed to come here with him was amazing. He had blurted out the invitation on impulse, thinking that she would never agree. But she had.
And now he had to convince her that they were working for the same side. He had thought about it, on their way here, and realised that there was no other way. Not if he was to gain the information that he needed to and make headway with this case. He had to convince Tess that they were both employees of the same person. Whoever that was.
He sighed. It was so disappointing that she was an art forger. She had turned into a smart, beautiful, strong woman, who could have done anything with her life. Why had she chosen the path she had? Did it have something to do with what happened to Eric, all those years ago?
“Okay,” she said, now, staring at him over the rim of her cup. “Talk me through how you came to be tailing me on the streets.”
Shay took a deep breath, then ploughed in. Could he convince her? Well, part of it was true. Up to a point.
“I had a meeting,” he cautiously began. “With a guy. A new client of mine.” He took another deep breath. “My work is…delicate. I need to know that I can trust the people I work for. So, I was following him.”
Tess frowned. “A new client of yours? What kind of work are you in, Shay?”
He tried to smile. “I won’t go into that now.” He stared at her. “But I have a suspicion we are working for the same person. I saw you meeting with him.”
Tess’s eyes widened. “Today, you mean?” She frowned, gazing at him. “You know where I am working?”
Shay nodded. “I have a fair idea what you are doing,” he said slowly. “I followed my new client to a building in the financial district, and you came out of the building with him. You both went into a café. You were wearing a paint-splattered shirt, like you had been painting.” He paused. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw it was you, Tess. That was why I followed you to start with. To make sure it really was you and my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.”
Tess digested this information slowly. She picked up her coffee cup and took a long sip. Then she lowered it, raising her eyes to stare at him sharply.
“I see,” she said. “Coincidence, then. Right place at right time. Or wrong place, at wrong time, depending on your point of view.” She waited a beat. “So, you are working for Mr. Gee?”
He stared at her. “I am. I have been asked to move certain pieces of value for him. And I am guessing that you are supplying some of those pieces for him.”
She grinned suddenly. “You assume right. You remember that I always loved painting? Well, that talent has come into good use. A very lucrative way to use my skills.”
Shay forced himself to keep smiling, but his heart plummeted to his feet. He knew it, of course. But hearing her say it—admit that she was a criminal—was devastating.
“Yes, I remember,” he said softly. “You were very talented. So, you went to design college after school, then? I lost track of you after you moved.”
Tess nodded. “I did.” She stared down into her coffee cup. “Graduated with honours. I tried to do my own work, but it wasn’t much fun starving in a garret. And then I found this line of work.” She took a deep breath, staring at him hard. “It was a win-win. I could keep painting, which I love more than anything, and make a very good living doing it. It’s not my own work, of course, but it’s better than serving coffee for mini
mum wage in a diner like this, jumping through hoops for extra tips.”
Shay grinned. “Yeah, who wants to do that? I’m the same. I tried the straight road for a while after school, but I wasn’t making much.” He leaned back in the booth, gazing at her. “What I do now is much more lucrative. Risky, of course, but the benefits outweigh that. And I’ve been lucky. Part of that luck is only working for people I trust. Hence why I was tailing Mr. Gee.”
Tess nodded again. “Mr. Gee is a closed book. Very professional. He doesn’t give much away. It would be easier to get blood out of a stone than anything from him.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s just the way I like it. I don’t want to know too much. It’s purely a need-to-know arrangement for me.”
“Very smart,” said Shay dryly. “You have to protect yourself, after all. If it all suddenly got too hot, you need to be able to extract yourself easily and smoothly.”
“True,” said Tess, her eyes narrowing. “So, you’ve been in this business a while, then? I’m a newbie myself. First job. You might need to tell me a few things about it, so that I can protect myself more.”
Shay spread his hands wide. “What can I tell you? You’re a smart woman, Tess. That’s obvious. And strong. Have you done a self-defence course or something? Because I must admit I was mighty surprised at how easily you jumped me on that street. Not many women would have been able to do that.”
Tess tossed her long auburn hair over her shoulder. “I can look after myself, Shay. I wouldn’t have gotten into this business without having a few tricks up my sleeve. A girl must protect herself. I learnt that many years ago. In fact, it was that night that made me realise it.”
Shay took a deep breath. “Yes. That night.” He stared down at the table. “I was trying to protect you then, Tess. I know that you didn’t understand at the time, but I hope you do now. It wasn’t easy for me.”
She laughed, but the sound emerged brittle. “Of course, Shay. I do know that now. But at the time all I could see was that you were leaving Eric high and dry.” She paused. “I still don’t know why he decided to stay like that, or what the hell happened. How he ended up dead.”
Shay gripped his coffee cup tighter. “I don’t understand either,” he whispered. “None if it made sense, and it still doesn’t. I’ve looked at it from every angle over the years, and there are still more questions than answers.”
Tess nodded. “Glad to hear you’ve thought about it, as well. I would have been disappointed to hear that you simply moved on, without a backward glance. It wouldn’t have been very loyal to Eric, would it?”
Shay felt his face burning. That old familiar guilt started to spread over him. It was like he was seventeen again and having to explain his actions. How he felt. Why he had made the choices he had. Did she still blame him for it, even though she said she didn’t?
“You ran off, Shay,” she said, staring at him hard. “I turned around, and you were gone. There were police everywhere, shining their torches in that yard. I didn’t know what to do.”
Suddenly, Shay felt angry. “You can’t have it both ways, Tess,” he said, staring back at her. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t want me to protect you, then cry foul when I left you to it. You said you were going back in there to face the music with Eric, and I couldn’t stop you. Why do you care now that I got scared and ran away?” He couldn’t tell her the real reason. That he hadn’t wanted to desert her. That it had been the wolf suddenly appearing that had made it so.
Her face tightened. “I don’t care,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t care about anything that you did, or that you do, Shay Sullivan. You are the one that followed me tonight, remember? I would have been happy if I never saw you again in my life.” She stood up, gathering her coat and bag. “It’s been an interesting trip down memory lane, but I’m tired, and I need to go.”
He reached out, gripping her arm. “Tess, please. I’m sorry. Can’t we let it go? It was so many years ago, now. And we are working for the same person. There must be a reason that it’s happened, after so long. Like life is telling us that we should try to put it behind us.”
Tess stared at him, levelly, shaking his hand away. “I just don’t know, Shay. It could be that, but it’s kind of weird, too. The fact that you stalked me. Were you going to approach me at all, or were you happy to be a creep, hanging in the shadows?”
He reddened. “It all happened so quickly. I wasn’t sure it was you, to start with. I was as blown away by the coincidence as you are.”
She stared down at him. He could see that her hand was shaking where she pulled at the strap of her bag over her shoulder.
“It’s been…interesting,” she said again. “I don’t think we’ll have cause to meet again, Shay, even though we do work for the same person. Ships in the night and all that. Maybe it’s best that way.” She turned to leave.
“Tess,” he said, his voice low and pained. How could he let her walk out of his life like this, a second time? And yet, he knew that everything was impossible. He had no more chance of telling her how he felt about her now than all those years ago.
For starters, she was working for a criminal organisation. Happily, by the sound of it. How could he love a woman who did that? And underneath it all, it was still the same. She blamed him for Eric’s death. Despite what she said, she had never forgiven him. She wouldn’t still be angry with him if she had.
Did she still love Eric, after all these years? The thought of it stabbed at him like a thousand knives, twisting in his abdomen.
“I understand this is overwhelming,” he said, trying to blink back tears that had suddenly sprung into his eyes. “I get it. I’m as blown away by it as you are.” He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a card. “If you change your mind, this is my number. I really want to see you again. I think there is more that we should talk about, and that we both need to.”
She took the card, staring down at it. Then she put it into her bag.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “But understand this, Shay. I will know if you start stalking me again, and I will not be happy about it. If you try that on me, I won’t ever speak to you again. I don’t care what the history is between us, or that we happen to work for the same person. Got it?”
He nodded, grimly. She tossed a ten dollar note on the table. “Tell them to keep the change.”
“But this was supposed to be on me,” he said, staring at the crumpled note.
She flicked back her auburn hair. “I changed my mind.” Her eyes narrowed at him. “A woman’s prerogative.” Then she walked out of the diner without a backward glance.
Shay kept staring at the crumpled note, gripping his coffee cup tighter. It hadn’t gone the way he had wanted it to; not at all. Tess was defensive, and she had every right to be. She thought he was a garden-variety stalker, some kind of creep that made a habit of following women. And she was still hostile about Eric. He leaned back in the booth, sighing deeply.
Conflict was raging inside him. He should let it go—he should let her go. She wanted him to, there was no doubt about that. He doubted very much that she would call him. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had already tossed the card with his number on it into the nearest trash can on her way out.
He took a deep breath. She was working for a criminal organisation—willingly. And she knew how to look after herself. He shouldn’t be worried that she would get home safely. And yet, he felt the worry start to spring to life inside him.
This was her first job with these people, apparently, although she hadn’t said whether she had done work like this in the past. Did she understand what she had gotten herself into? Yes, they paid well, and it was easy money for a struggling artist. But this was a multi-billion-dollar criminal industry, and he knew how these operations worked. If she made one wrong move, it wasn’t just a matter that she wouldn’t be employed by them again, or they wouldn’t give her a reference.
They would kill her. They would tidy up the
ir loose ends, and make sure that Tess Nolan could never tell what she had done. Did she realise the danger that she was in?
He felt himself go cold at the thought, and his old protective instincts about her were rising, threatening to overtake everything else. In this moment, he didn’t care that she was willingly doing the wrong thing: he had to make sure that she was safe. But how could he do that, when she had told him in no uncertain terms to stay away from her?
She thought he was the risk, when the risk was all around her.
Shay felt his head starting to spin. He couldn’t follow her anymore. She was onto him, and then he would blow whatever chance he had to make amends with her. He couldn’t let that happen.
He took a deep breath, again, trying to calm himself. This was way more complicated than he had thought it would be. And at the core of that was the realisation that it didn’t matter what Tess Nolan was—he loved her just as much as he always had.
***
The man sat in the car, peering across the road at the diner. They had been sitting in there for about twenty minutes before the woman had abruptly stood up and left. The guy sitting with her had not moved, just sat there for a while, seemingly lost in thought.
He was on the move now, though. The man watched Mr. Stedman, mover of counterfeit goods, walk out of the diner and go in a completely different direction to Miss Daly, art forger. It seemed that they were both heading home for the night.
He picked up his cell phone and pressed speed dial. It only took two clicks before it answered.
“Yes?” The man’s voice on the other end of the line was silky smooth.
“They’ve gone,” the man said. “Separately. Do you want me to tail either of them?”
“No,” the man swiftly said. “We don’t know what we are dealing with here. Hopefully they aren’t aware at this point that they are being watched, and we don’t want to alert them.” There was a slight pause. “It is enough to know that they know each other and are colluding in some way.”
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