The Negotiator

by Gadziala, Jessica

  Nothing.

  To do what?

  Start all over again?

  A year, five, ten, twenty years older?

  It wouldn't even be possible.

  Yes, I felt different. And, yes, I cared more deeply for Christopher Adamos than any other man I'd ever met.

  Was that worth everything else?

  It was romantic to think so.

  But it was also foolish.

  And I was far too old to pin my future on girlhood hopes and wishes instead of adult facts and certainty.

  "I know," I whispered, my voice a vague, pathetic imitation of surety.

  I'd never been more conflicted.

  I'd never been less sure of myself.

  "Hey, no," Quin said, voice choked as he looked at me, making me realize my eyes had flooded, tears threatening to brim over and slip down my cheeks. "Don't do that," he demanded, sounding hopeless.

  I'd seen this man handle crying women almost on the daily. He'd done it with diplomacy, with calm professionalism.

  All that was stripped away now, though.

  He was just a man faced with feminine tears. And he had no idea what to do or say about them.

  "Christ, Mills, I don't know what to do with that," he admitted, eyes wide. "I, ah, you know what, I'll send him out," he decided, rushing away, doing what bosses did best—delegating.

  I turned away from the windows, looking off the deck, the stunning landscape blurry through the water in my eyes.

  I felt Christopher before I heard him. His body moving in behind me, close, but not touching.

  "You're going," Christopher said, his voice small, impossible to interpret.

  The sound of his voice managed to rip away the control I'd been holding on to, made the floodgates fail, made the tears flow, bringing with them this awful, choked whimpering noise I had never heard myself make before.

  At that, his hands sank into my hips, turning me, wrapping me up, crushing me to his chest.

  "I know," he murmured into my hair, lips pressing there. "I know," he repeated, one hand running up and down my spine as my soul purged the uncertainty, the fear, the potential loss about to shake my world.

  A long time later, so long that I am embarrassed even to consider how much time had passed, the tears stopped, leaving me brittle inside.

  Christopher's arms released me, his feet taking a solid two steps backward, removing the temptation of contact, his dark eyes shuttered, closed down, impossible to read.

  But they held mine as his face fell into grim lines.

  "It was always going to end."

  With that, ripping out a piece of my heart I hadn't known had started to belong to him, and walking away with it, leaving me bleeding on the deck, hand pressed over my chest, unable to convince myself that the pain was just in my head.

  It was something like twenty minutes later when Quin reappeared, suitcases that didn't really belong to me in his hands.

  "Come on, Mills," he said, giving me a tight smile. "Let's go get you back home."

  And with no other option yet again, I followed a man toward an uncertain future I wasn't sure I wanted.

  FIFTEEN

  Christopher

  It was always going to end.

  Regardless of the truth in them, I regretted saying those words. If not as they were coming out of my mouth, then the second I saw the impact they had on the woman who had come to mean a so much to me.

  She looked... wrecked.

  And that was after she'd already cried into my chest, soaking my shirt through.

  There was no reason my words needed to add more hurt to an already painful situation.

  I had no excuse.

  Except that I was suffering too.

  It was a shitty explanation, if you could call it one. Being in pain didn't excuse inflicting it on others.

  All I can say in my defense was... this was uncharted territory for me. It was foreign soil in a treacherous land. And I was without a map or compass or a north star to guide me.

  I fumbled around like the unskilled pioneer I was.

  I didn't even say goodbye to her.

  I'd gone inside, went into her room, put the suitcases on the bed, and slowly set to filling them.

  It wasn't long before her boss—a man by the name of Quinton Baird— moved into the room with me.

  "Allow me to give you one piece of advice, Mr. Adamos," he said, moving over toward the bed, hastily zipping the suitcases, hauling them off the bed. "If you ever lead that woman around by the neck like that again, I don't give a flying fuck who you are, what allies you think you have, I will make you suffer for it."

  With that, he walked out, collected Melody off the back deck, and brought her with him toward his waiting car.

  I didn't even say goodbye to her.

  This woman who meant more to me in a few weeks than anyone ever had in my life.

  "You just let her go?" Alexander snapped a while later when he came home to find her gone.

  "Was I supposed to chain her to the bed, Alexander?" I asked, not caring what time of day it was, making a beeline for the liquor cabinet.

  "Maybe fight for her?" he suggested, outraged at my lack of action.

  "And what would be my argument?" I asked, pouring a drink, throwing it back. "Come live with me, give up your career, leave your friends behind, forget about your homeland, and come make me dinner, and warm my bed. Because I am selfish and want you to do that for me?"

  "You could have at least told her you wanted her to stay."

  "Accomplishing what, exactly?" I asked, pouring another drink. "Making her feel guilty for having to leave?"

  "Maybe she wouldn't have left at all." His voice was getting higher, borderline squeaky like it often did when he was upset.

  "Fairy tales are nice, Alexander, but real life isn't one. Real life makes love hard." Yes, love. There was no use even trying to deny it. I didn't have the energy to even if I wanted to. "It is never convenient and easy. And it doesn't trump everything else."

  "Maybe it should," he suggested, face falling.

  "Maybe," I agreed, nodding. "But it doesn't. I couldn't expect Melody to give up things that I am not willing to give up. That's not fair. So I wasn't going to make her choose."

  "So, that's it? It's over? You're never going to see her again?"

  "Her work might bring her to Santorini some day. Never say never. But, no, I am not going to seek her out," I told him, making my way toward him to go to the door.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I'm not a fucking masochist," I told him, storming down the hall, dropping down into the bed we'd been sharing, smelling her on the sheets.

  I couldn't seek her out.

  See her again.

  Then lose her all over again.

  Because this pain I felt spreading across my chest, snaking outward until it reached every inch of me, sinking inward until I felt the ache in my marrow?

  I wasn't sure I could live through it a second time.

  Three days later, we packed up and went back to Santorini.

  Holden—or as Melody referred to him, The Inquisitor—had finished with my men, finding one more plant, disposing of him without my approval because, apparently, he had very little control in fits of unexpected rage that likely had nothing to do with the present moment, and everything to do with a dark past.

  Things were safe.

  And if I wanted to find Chernev, I needed to be back in my life, around my men, my resources. There was only so much that could be done over the phone, over email. Sometimes you needed to be present to handle business.

  So we packed up; we headed home. Me, my curious men, and a sulking Alexander.

  There was a stab of guilt at realizing I had done to him what I hated having done to me as a boy. I had given him a maternal figure, allowed him to get used to her, and then I let her go—ripped her out of his life.

  It was my fault for thinking he was old enough to be beyond all that.

  The si
tuation with him didn't improve as the days passed. At least in Zagori, he'd been able to go out and explore. Back in Santorini, he was in lockdown once again. And he was taking his pissy mood out on me.

  As if I didn't have my hands full with my own.

  I managed to drown mine. In punishing physical activity, in relentless research into Atanas Chernev; his associates, his known whereabouts.

  It wasn't perfect, but it managed to keep my mind focused during most of the daylight hours.

  If I avoided Alexander and Cora, I didn't let thoughts of Melody slip in until I was alone in bed again, wishing the blankets still smelled like her, wanting one more night, pissed that I couldn't pick up the phone and ask her if she was alright, make sure she was safe.

  I would lay awake wondering—worrying, things that weren't typically natural to me—for hours, often only passing out an hour or two before sunrise, when I would drag my ass back out of bed, and hit the stairs for an hour or two.

  "You know," Cora said when I walked in through the kitchen to get some water, every single muscle in my body aching.

  "Cora, please," I demanded, hearing the ragged edge to my voice. "Don't."

  "I was talking to Alexander this morning. He tells me you said love. About Miss Miller."

  "It was growing, yes," I admitted since she was the closest thing I had in the world to a mother, and it felt good to talk to someone who would be level-headed and rational, not full of youthful foolishness like Alexander. "But then it had to end."

  "Had to," she repeated, pressing her lips into thin lines as she turned to look at me.

  "Yes."

  "I've known you since you were a small boy, Christopher," she started, telling me things I already knew. "I've always thought you were a smart boy, a smart man. No more," she declared, whipping a dish towel off her shoulder and slapping it onto the counter.

  "Cora..."

  "Love doesn't have to end. You kill it. That is how it ends. And if you did that, you are a very dumb man," she told me, throwing up her hands, stalking out the back door.

  "She's not wrong," Alexander agreed, grabbing a bottle of soda out of the fridge, then following Cora outside.

  "Christ," I snapped, hanging my head, wondering why I didn't have a single ally in my own damn house.

  They liked Melody.

  I got that.

  For fuck's sake, no one liked her more than I did.

  But that didn't change that this was our reality.

  Everyone was going to need to live with that.

  Me more than anyone else.

  I was going to need to find a way to cope that didn't involve nearly killing myself with exercise, drowning myself in work, then taking a drink or five before bed to try to make myself pass out.

  Maybe I would be further along if everyone around me wasn't constantly calling me a fool for letting her go.

  No one felt more foolish than I did.

  To let the only woman who ever meant anything to me—meant a lot to me, in fact—go. Without a fight.

  But what was done was done.

  "Boss," Laird called, snapping me out of my cycling thoughts.

  "Yeah?"

  "We have some information on Chernev," he told me, sounding pleased. And he would be. As hard as I had been pushing myself, I had been pushing my team. To track him down. To eliminate the threat he presented.

  I couldn't give Melody much.

  But I could give her safety.

  "Alright. Give me ten to shower, and I'll be right in."

  I figured we would find him in Bulgaria. Maybe, if he was chickenshit, hiding out in Turkey.

  I even lingered through my shower, letting my mind wander to Melody, to the feel of her, the sounds of her, the need for her, her hunger for me.

  When I finally walked into my study half an hour later, I wasn't prepared for the file my men had compiled for me.

  "You're sure of this?" I clipped, flipping the pages in the file.

  "Yes," Laird assured me, nodding.

  "When did he get on the plane?" I asked, my heartbeat hammering, my stomach twisting, wondering why the fuck this hadn't been something I'd considered earlier.

  "Seven p.m. last evening," Laird told me, giving me the harsh truth with no chaser.

  "Fuck," I hissed, tossing the file, reaching for my phone. "Baird. Does someone have Quinton Baird's number?"

  They scrambled for a moment before producing a number, rattling it off while my clumsy fingers tapped my keypad, bringing the phone up to my ear as I paced across my office, feeling a cold sweat break out across the back of my neck.

  "Quinton Baird and Associates," a clipped male voice answered. I'd hoped for the office manager. Jules. Melody had made her seem diplomatic and level-headed. The men she worked with? Not so much. And all of them likely holding a grudge against me.

  "This is Christopher Adamos," I started, hearing the desperate edge to my voice.

  "Yeah?" he cut me off, sounding a hell of a lot more interested suddenly. "Well, in that case, you can go ahead and go fuck yourself."

  "Melody is in dang-" I started before realizing he had ended the call.

  "Fuck," I snapped, trying again. It rang once, got answered, and hung up again. By the third call, I found my number blocked. "God damn it," I hissed, rushing out of the study, going into my room, grabbing a suitcase, tossing things from my closet in it.

  "Mr. Adamos?" Laird asked, following me.

  "Get me a flight out of Santorini tonight. I need to land in New Jersey, if at all possible. And I need a car when I get there."

  "Right," he agreed, already reaching for his phone. "And Alexander?"

  "Bring him back to Zagori. But don't let him out of your sight. I don't think it is safe for all of us to be in the same place right now. I don't have a lot of political pull in the States. If I get caught, I will be doing time. I need to know Alexander is here and safe. If nothing else, Cora can take him on."

  "Anything else?" he asked, jotting down a note in his phone.

  "Keep trying to get through to Baird while I am traveling," I demanded, rushing out of the door, running down the steps.

  If I were thinking rationally, I would have realized that my best option would be to stay put, try to get through to the office, or any single member of her team. Not to get on a plane and waste sixteen hours in the air.

  But I wasn't thinking rationally.

  All I could think of was that Chernev had boarded a flight to the U.S. a day ahead of me. And that there was only one thing in the States he wanted.

  Melody.

  I couldn't let him get her.

  I had to do something.

  I couldn't twiddle my fucking thumbs in my home while God-knew what was happening to her half the world away.

  I had to get there.

  I had to do something.

  I had to protect my woman.

  SIXTEEN

  Miller

  "Explain the logic of protecting your dick but not your head or chest," I said, as Bellamy walked into the safe house above the office holding one of the bulletproof vests from the first floor over his crotch.

  "I'm too valuable for you to kill me, but I wouldn't put a castration above you," he said, giving me one of those smiles that made it easy to forget he drugged and kidnapped you.

  "You know, a good insurance policy against getting your cock chopped off by an angry woman would be not being such a fucking dick," I suggested as he tossed the vest to the side, moving into the space.

  I was on the couch in yoga pants and an oversize white hoodie Finn had loaned me after cleaning the space the day before. Even though it was already immaculate. I had a fluffy blanket Jules had brought me, and a coffee in my hands thanks to Kai.

  Just a plain hot coffee.

  Made the way I liked it, because Kai was Kai, which meant he remembered that kind of thing, but it wasn't what I wanted.

  I wanted a frappe.

  With chocolate syrup. And maybe a little caramel. But I w
anted one made for me especially by Christopher.

  Ugh.

  Even days later, his name was like a knife to the gut.

  No, that wasn't quite right.

  I had once taken a knife to the gut.

  That was bad.

  This was worse.

  This was like a knife to the gut, the blade being pulled out, and then having acid poured inside.

  "I mean, but my dickishness is half my charm," Bellamy declared, dropping down on the couch beside me, taking up more room than he needed, like he so often did. Bellamy wasn't a fan of personal space. Of any sort of civil boundary, really. Yes, he was right; it was all part of his charm. But it didn't mean that when you were angry with him, it didn't bug the crap out of you.

  "Can I ask you one thing, Bells?" I asked, gaze moving over to the TV which was stubbornly set on a big tiger documentary which wasn't really about big tigers at all, but a character study of increasingly bat shit crazy individuals. And, you know, letting the general public know which kind of oil to use if you wanted a tiger to eat a body. Which was likely useful to someone out there.

  No more baking shows.

  Because I'd shared them with Christopher.

  No more action movies.

  Because I'd shared them with Alexander.

  And nothing romantic for very obvious reasons.

  "How big it is?" he asked, drawing my attention back to him.

  "How big what is?"

  "My unmentionables," he clarified, eyes twinkling. "It's okay to ask. Don't be shy. It is natural to wonder. And fantasize..."

  "You're not my type, Bells," I told him, but I felt my lips curving up, and that was the closest thing to a good mood I'd felt since Quin had shown up in Zagori to bring me home.

  "I know," he agreed, the humor leaving his tone, his head nodding.

  "Wait..." I said, feeling my body stiffen.

  "Now she's starting to get it," he told me, lips quirking up, but mostly humorless.

  "Did you set me up? I mean, not with just a job. But like... were you trying to set me up with Christopher?"

  "What can I say? I saw something there."