Jesus…
Haydn couldn’t even begin to imagine how desperate and heartbroken Ellen Snow must have felt to have taken those actions. It must have been devastating to discover, after weeks of anguish for her daughter’s welfare, that her husband was the one responsible for having Cassie kidnapped. All for his share of five million dollars of his wife’s money.
No wonder Ellen had shot and killed the bastard!
Unfortunately, having done that, and no matter what her reasons for doing so, if she had lived, Ellen had condemned herself to a life in prison, or worse. By killing herself, she had chosen not to drag her two daughters though that further anguish.
“Ernesto was furious over the death of his brother,” Hailey continued. “So angry, he aimed a gun at me and threatened me when I left the courthouse at the end of the trial of those other two men,” she continued. “You have twin brothers. I’m sure I don’t have to explain that emotional connection to you. Or why Ernesto chose to turn his fury on me.”
Haydn was well aware of the bond between twins. Logan and Rourke could argue like cats and dogs, but God help anyone who tried to harm either of them, because the other twin would tear them to pieces.
But he was also aware that Hailey had announced Eduardo’s obsession with her and then moved on to talking about her parents and Ernesto.
Haydn couldn’t forget that image of Cassie after she’d been rescued from her kidnappers.
How lifeless those green eyes had been.
How thin she was.
How naked she was beneath the overlarge, man’s T-shirt, before it was quickly hidden beneath the blanket someone threw about Cassie’s shoulders.
Oh God…
Chapter Six
“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Hailey muttered as she stood in the elevator beside Haydn on the ride up to his penthouse apartment. The same apartment he had convinced her would be a much safer place for her to spend the night. “The last thing I want to do is involve you in the mess that is now my life.” But wasn’t that exactly what she’d done by allowing herself to be persuaded into coming here?
Allowed?
Haydn hadn’t really give her a choice.
He now shot her an amused glance. “I think we can both safely say that ship has sailed.” He sobered. “Just so there are no further misunderstandings, it sailed the day you started working for Steele Protectors and became a part of our family. We protect our own more fiercely than we do anyone else.”
Hailey knew that was true. She just hadn’t thought or dared hope she would ever be included as part of that family.
A supposition that was completely blown out of the water when they stepped into Haydn’s apartment and she saw all of the Steele family currently in England were already gathered there. August sat on Logan’s lap. Sophie on Rourke’s. Bella was cuddled up to Bryce on the couch. Lucan stood alone in front of the huge picture window with a view behind him of London’s skyline.
Tears blurred Hailey’s vision. “How…?”
“I called them while you were in your bedroom packing an overnight bag,” Haydn dismissed.
Hailey’s “overnight bag” had everything she intended taking away with her. Including the silver necklace, even though she never wore it, that never left her possession. Not for sentimental reasons but because something inside her had warned that the day might come when she needed it for her survival. That day might just have arrived.
Logan grinned. “And I know the code to let us all in.”
She should have known Haydn wouldn’t just sit meekly in the sitting room of her apartment and wait for her. She closed her eyes, unwilling to look at all the kind and concerned faces. “Do they know?”
Haydn gave her reassuring smile. “I’m very conscious of the fact you said you would have no choice but to kill me if I broke your confidence.”
“Shaking in your boots, were you?” she said dryly.
“Terrified.”
Logan gave a snort of laughter. “You should be. She really could do it.”
“Thanks for that, bro,” Haydn drawled.
Logan grinned. “Welcome.”
Hailey shot Haydn an impatient glare. “They obviously know something, or they wouldn’t be here.”
Haydn sobered. “They know that you need our help, but not the reason why you do.”
And yet they had all, without fail, congregated at Haydn’s apartment. All because he had only told them she needed help.
Even so… “I’m not sure I can repeat all the things I told you earlier,” she said shakily.
“Would you like me to tell them?”
“Please.”
He sat in a vacant armchair before pulling Hailey down so she was sitting on his thighs. “Stay.” His arms tightened about her waist as she would have got back to her feet.
Her eyes flashed as she turned to glare at him. “I’m not your fucking pet!”
“Wow, Haydn, that’s kinky as hell… Ouch.” Logan winced as he was jabbed in the ribs with his wife’s elbow. “Just trying to help things along,” he defended innocently.
“Well, don’t!” Hailey glared at him.
“She’s back,” Lucan drawled from across the room. “And feisty as ever.”
“Sit,” Haydn bit out as she continued to struggle.
“You treat me like a damned pooch one more time, and I’m going to kick you in the balls,” she hissed.
Logan chuckled. “Gotta love a feisty woman. Ouch.” He glared at August after receiving another elbow in his side. “I was merely complimenting Haydn on his good taste in women.” He nuzzled the stubble of his chin against his wife’s throat. “You know there’s only one feisty woman for me, my love, and that’s you.” He batted dark lashes at her.
August chuckled. “Lucky for you, I do.”
“And I’m not Haydn’s woman,” Hailey snapped irritably.
“No?” Bryce drawled. “Looks pretty much as if you are from where I’m sitting. But if you insist,” he added as she turned to include him in her glare, “I’m willing to accept the excuse you’re sitting there because there aren’t any empty chairs left for you to have a seat of your own.”
“Let’s get this conversation out of the way, and then we can decide what we’re going to do.” Haydn spoke firmly before Hailey could make another scathing reply.
By the time he came to the end of his explanation, Hailey was grateful for Haydn’s arms about her and being able to hide her face against the warmth of his neck.
“Witness Protection Program,” Lucan guessed easily.
“Yes,” she mumbled.
“England because of the connection to your deceased grandparents?”
Hailey sat up reluctantly, knowing she couldn’t continue to carry out this conversation by hiding her face and talking into Haydn’s neck. No matter how comforting it had felt. “They got my sister out first. Under cover of the publicity over the trial, she came to England and took on a new identity as the orphaned niece of an old school friend of my mother’s. I arrived almost a year later, after the trial had ended. Becca continued to live with my mother’s friend and her husband, under a new name. I chose to join the military because I wanted to learn to defend Becca and myself if it became necessary.” She gave a tight smile. “Ironically, we’ve since jointly and separately inherited my mother’s fortune when we reached the age of eighteen, so one thing neither of us is short of is money.”
“Do you see Becca?” Sophie prompted gently.
Hailey’s eyes stung with sudden tears. “Twice, but only from a distance.”
“Why not more than that?” Lucan bit out.
She blinked. “Sorry?”
He shrugged. “Once the media circus had died and you were also put into Witness Protection, why haven’t you attempted to make contact with your sister, your only living relative?”
“Hailey?” Haydn prompted gently when she didn’t immediately answer.
She didn’t looked at any of them. “She�
��s happy living with our Aunt Joan and Uncle David. Obviously, they aren’t related by blood, but we always called them that whenever we visited England. Becca finished school here, went to university, and now has a degree in art history,” she announced proudly.
“Ooh, maybe she would be interested in working with me.” August was the owner of a prestigious art gallery in London.
Hailey gave an apologetic smile. “She always wanted to work with old paintings and has a job at one of the museums.”
“Just a thought.” August smiled reassuringly.
“You still haven’t answered Lucan’s question, Hailey,” Haydn reminded softly. “Why haven’t you made contact with Rebecca in the years you’ve both been in England?”
She glared her frustration at him. “Because as far as Becca is concerned, I’m dead! Satisfied?”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “All this time and no one has told her you didn’t die in that car accident?”
“Who is there to tell her?”
“This Aunt Joan and Uncle David don’t know either?”
“No.” Hailey’s eyes flashed when she saw Haydn’s disgusted expression. “The car accident and funeral were ‘arranged’ by Witness Protection, and it was my decision not to inform my aunt and uncle, or Becca, of it. None of them know I’m still alive and also in the Witness Protection program. I decided it was better for Becca if she could just put all that behind her.”
“You, being a part of ‘that’?” Haydn rasped.
“Yes.” Her challenging glance included all the occupants of the room. “I will never put Becca’s life at risk because of me.”
“If Becca is anything like you, she wouldn’t see it that way,” Bryce drawled.
“I’ve always been aware of the fact that Ernesto Silva might try to find me again once they let him out of prison,” Hailey explained determinedly. “By having no contact with Becca, I’ve hopefully ensured she’ll remain safe,” she asserted.
“None of this was your fault, Hailey.” Sophie squeezed her hand in reassurance.
“I’m fully aware of who was at fault,” she acknowledged bitterly. “If my father was alive today, I would probably kill him myself. Luckily for him, he isn’t.” Her mouth tilted wryly. “I can only imagine how my mother must have felt when she realized what my father’s selfishness had done to all of us.”
“But by committing suicide after killing him, she left you and Rebecca alone.” Bryce’s wife, Bella, was, amongst other things, a London policewoman.
“She did what she thought she had to do to protect us,” Hailey defended. “Can you imagine the three-ring circus our lives would have become if my father had been charged with my kidnapping, alongside Eduardo and those other men? Or if my mother was charged with my father’s murder? Becca and I would have been constantly hounded and questioned for the rest of our lives, would have become ‘those poor Snow sisters, their father a kidnapper and their mother a murderess.’” She shuddered at the thought. “Would I rather still have my sister in my life and my mother still alive? Of course I would. But I also have to respect that my mother did what she thought was best for Becca and me to ensure we could both have a future free of scandal. Even if it didn’t include her. She had no idea Ernesto would come after me.”
“True,” Bella acknowledged.
Hailey drew in a steadying breath. “In the letters my mother left for both Becca and me, she told us she believed that, by sacrificing me on the almighty altar of money and political gain, my father no longer deserved to live. I agree with her,” she stated flatly. “I just wish she’d found a way of ending him that didn’t mean she had to die too.”
“And in the meantime, you have a sister who doesn’t even know you’re alive,” Haydn bit out impatiently.
She nodded. “And seeing her all grown up, happy, and beautiful is more important to me than any relationship we may or may not have been able to have together with the scandal of our past between us like some specter lurking to destroy even that fragile bond.”
Haydn wasn’t fooled for a moment by the calmness of Hailey’s tone, could clearly see how pale her cheeks had become and the wild throb of the pulse at the base of her throat. Talking of her sister had brought her almost to breaking point. “Okay, let’s move on,” he accepted briskly. Which didn’t mean he’d forgotten the subject, only that he’d decided to defer it for now. “We need to decide what we’re going to do about the Ernesto problem.”
Hailey eyed him warily. “We?”
He smiled. “Don’t look so worried. I’m not going to hunt Ernesto down and kill him.”
Hailey felt some of the tension of the past few minutes ease from her shoulders. “That’s good to know.”
“No, we’re all going to lure him into a trap,” Haydn continued lightly. “Then I’m going to kill him.”
“Haydn!” she gasped.
His brows rose. “What did you think would happen once you’d told me the truth? That I was going to just sit back and allow you to leave here with that bastard still hunting you?”
“I’m not expecting you to allow me to do anything,” she scorned.
“Don’t even think about trying to shut me out.”
“Give me an answer to one question,” Lucan cut in softly before Hailey could explode at Haydn’s—deliberately?—challenging tone. “Yes, Ernesto Silva was let out of prison on Monday, but that doesn’t mean he’s ever going to connect the English Hailey Frost to the American Cassie Snow. Unless he’s already made that connection?” he mused when Hailey’s gaze suddenly became evasive.
“Has he?” Haydn demanded.
She continued to avoid meeting anyone’s gaze, but most especially Haydn’s. “I—”
“Answer the fucking question!”
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you—you overbearing and arrogant fucking asshole—” She broke off as she heard the return of her American accent, in her agitation, after years of talking with only a clipped English accent.
“Something you perhaps don’t know about Haydn, Hailey,” Rourke said conversationally as he rose to his feet. “He’s very slow to temper, snail’s pace, in fact, but when he blows, he does it with the force and destruction of a volcano, usually obliterating everything in his path. Which, as I believe that’s about to happen right now, is our cue to leave.” He gave his brothers and their wives a pointed glance. “Let’s leave these two to continue their…conversation, and come back in the morning. Hopefully with a plan.”
Within seconds, it seemed, the apartment was empty of everyone except Hailey and Haydn, now standing and glaring at each other.
She eyed him mockingly. “Well, you certainly know how to clear a room.”
“I know how to spank your arse too, if you don’t start being completely honest with me!” he warned softly.
“That’s the second time you’ve threatened me with that this evening!” And the second time her body had responded with an unaccustomed heat between her thighs and a pleasurable tingling as her nipples engorged.
“Then perhaps you should take the threat seriously,” Haydn returned mildly.
Her hands were clenched at her sides. “And perhaps you should just mind your own damned business! I didn’t ask for your help—”
“But you’re definitely asking for this!” he ground out, grasping her about the waist as he sat again before pulling her facedown across his thighs.
She struggled against the arm across her back. “What the hell…?”
“I realize, now I know your background, you were probably overindulged with material things as a child.” He landed a painful smack on the left cheek of her denim-covered bottom while continuing to hold her down with his other arm across her back. “And that you went through a terrible trauma when you were seventeen.” Another smack landed, on her right cheek this time. “But, whatever happened in the past, I also know you’ve become one of the strongest women I know,” he admired as the third smack landed across both of her now-stinging bo
ttom cheeks. “Even knowing that, my need to protect you is so deep, I want to pulverize Ernesto Silva into oblivion for daring to threaten you. I need to protect you, damn it.” His voice was husky with that emotion. “I need to keep you safe, Hailey,” he repeated gruffly, one large hand resting on her recently punished bottom.
If he’d treated her differently after the things Hailey had told him tonight, tiptoed around her as if she was somehow fragile or broken, then Hailey knew she would have no difficulty resisting the husky lure of his voice. As she had rejected so many other men during the last seven years when they tried to see behind the mask she wore in public.
But Haydn hadn’t hesitated to throw her over his knee and spank her. To punish her for not being honest with him.
There was also no mistaking the genuine desire now glittering in his eyes, or the aroused flush to his cheeks, and the long length of his cock pressing against her side.
Hailey grasped hold of his muscular forearms to help lever herself up, slipping out of her leather jacket and discarding it once she was sitting up and able to straddle Haydn’s thighs. She immediately felt that long length of his cock pressing against the heat between her parted thighs.
Haydn obviously wasn’t as easily distracted. “Tell me about Eduardo.”
Her lashes lowered as the heat continued to zing and sizzle inside her aroused body. “Eduardo liked to sit and talk to me for hours. To tell me things about the hardship of his past and how different it was all going to be once he had the money and we could be together away from his brother and out of the States.”
“Did he— Was he—”
Hailey shook her head, knowing exactly what he was asking. “He had this image in his head of me as a virgin bride dressed in white as I walked down the aisle to become his wife.”
Haydn’s breath left him in a shaky sigh. “Jesus.”
“Yes, he was intense. But he also protected me from those other men.” Hailey was aware of how lucky she’d been not to be raped during her weeks of captivity. It was the reason she’d encouraged Eduardo to talk to and spend time with her. “They stripped me naked as soon as they had me down in that disgusting basement. I’m sure they fully intended to amuse themselves by raping me until they received the ransom money. Eduardo was the one to give me one of his T-shirts to wear, to stay with me as much as he could so that those other men couldn’t get near me. No, I didn’t develop Stockholm syndrome,” she assured ruefully at Haydn’s skeptical glance. “But for whatever reason, Eduardo protected me, and I will be forever grateful to him for that.”
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