Aaron studies him, hard and long, and then offers Smith his hand. “Truce,” he says. “But if you—”
“Forget my place, you’ll beat my ass,” Smith says. “Got it. And if you hurt her—”
“You’ll shoot me. Got it.”
And then to my surprise, we all laugh. It feels like a sign. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to get to the other side of this war to peace. I’m not, however, unrealistic. Someone, probably a lot of someone’s, will have to die before that happens.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ashley…
Laughter fades between the three of us, and we’re all standing there in the shooting range, a million pieces of a broken past between us. A million pieces of what could be my future if we don’t end this war between Mick and Aaron. I see this in Smith’s eyes when they meet mine, but there is also acceptance. With that acceptance is peace. Something shifted while I slept, perhaps while we talked a few minutes ago. He’s not going to fight me. He’s not going to call Aaron the enemy any longer.
He gives me a nod and then shares a look with Aaron that, for me, is unreadable, but Aaron’s returned nod tells me that’s not the case for him. The minute the door shuts, Aaron steps to me and glances down at my hands, where I still hold my gun. “You going to shoot me with that?”
“Should I?” I tease. “Because you and Smith clearly just had something going on that I don’t understand.” I’ve barely said the words, and my gun is taken from me, disappearing I don’t know where, while his hand slides under my hair to my neck. I’m pulled snug against his hard body, his voice and eyes just as hard. There’s a reprimand in what he’s just done that I don’t understand.
“Do you want to live this life, Ashley?” he demands. “You want to be with me, really be with me?”
The charge in the air is electric, the challenge evident, even if I don’t understand where it comes from right here and now, what set him off. “You know I do.”
“Then no one takes your gun, not even me. You have to train. You have to learn.”
“I have. I will. You know I will.”
“I’ve thought a lot about this the past few hours. I’ve thought about you saying that you’re like me.”
“I am.”
“You have to do more than say that. You have to live it.”
“I will damn it. I will. I am. Why do you think I had the gun in my hand in the first place?”
“There will always be someone who hates me, who wants to kill me. Who wants to hurt me by hurting you. There will always be someone who wants to take your gun and kill you with it. And you have to kill them. You have to pull the trigger.”
“And I will. I’m not going to die.”
“You can’t die,” he says. “Do you understand?”
His voice is low, rough, a demand that is pure steel.
“Aaron—” He doesn’t give me time to reassure him.
His mouth comes down on mine, his tongue pressing past my lips and drinking me in, the taste of him dark and possessive, demanding. Protective. Somehow, this kiss manages to be all of those things and more, but right when I’m sinking into him, devouring him the way he’s devouring me, the door bursts open.
“Oh fuck,” Savage murmurs. “Spare me that shit. I need soap to wash out my eyes. Get a room, but do it later. We need to roll, Aaron, my man.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. “Roll where? What’s happening?”
Aaron motions for Savage to give him a minute, and Savage actually nods back in agreement and exits; agreeable. That’s not any more normal than Smith laughing with us a few minutes ago. “Aaron?” I push, feeling the pulse of growing urgency.
He catches my waist and pulls me to him. “Blake used his hacking skills and started connecting dots to clear my name, and he’s good, baby. You were right. He’s led me to places I didn’t know I needed to be led. He found a trail that leads from Mick to me.”
Hope rises inside me. “Are you telling me that we’re going to be free?”
“I’m telling you that we’re going to be free.”
I laugh and smile. “So I was right about trusting Walker Security?”
He laughs, and God, I love his laugh—all low and rough, all sexy man—and he kisses me. “Yes. You were right.”
“And you love me for all my brilliant ideas?” I tease.
He cups my head and leans in close, his mouth near mine. “I love the fuck out of you,” he says, his voice a raspy timbre that turns suddenly serious. “That’s why I’m going to make this count. I’m going to make this happen now.”
I pull back to look at him. “What does that mean? Make what happen?”
“Some of those dots Blake connected led to a woman I once had a moment with, another agent. Obviously, she betrayed me. The problem for Mick is that she also still wants me. She’ll get me what I want. She’ll get us our proof.”
I blanch. “Wait. You’re telling me our answers lie in you fucking some other woman into telling you how to keep fucking me?” I try to push away from him, but he catches my leg, holding me to him.
“Holy fuck, woman. No. I’m not—”
“You’re either going to trick her into helping you or threaten her under harm of death. Which is it?”
“Whatever it takes.”
“Including fucking her?”
“Except that.”
“But just a little rubbing here and there is just fine? Is that what I’m signing up for? Is that what this is?”
He catches my arms and stares down at me, anger burning in his eyes. “After all of this, is that who you think I am, Ashley?”
“I know you do what you have to do to stay alive.”
“I’m doing what I have to do to give you your freedom.”
“I can deal with a lot of things, Aaron, but you with another woman—”
“Don’t do this,” he bites out. “I need to go fight this war with a clear head, and damn it, I need you to trust me enough to know that no other woman—”
“Will matter?”
His lashes lower, and he looks skyward, struggling with this new war between us. I tell myself to reign it in, to make him feel better about what I feel. He’s fighting for my life, but I just need to know what life that is when this is over. “Aaron—”
The doors open again. “We need to roll,” Savage says again.
“I’ll be right there,” Aaron all but growls at him.
For once, Savage says nothing, and I don’t even know if he’s still in the doorway. I’m focused on Aaron, who is now staring down at me. “We both just got a slap of reality, now didn’t we?”
“What does that mean?” I demand.
He releases me and pulls my gun from his waistband, taking my hand and pressing it into my palm. “Stay with Blake.” He releases me and turns and walks away, exiting and leaving me standing there.
I blanch and run after him, gun still in hand. By the time I’m at the railing, he’s at the door with Savage by his side. Blake and a few of his men are at the table, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anyone but Aaron, and the mistake I just made with him. I trust him. Of course, I trust him. I’ve never heard him say he had a thing with any other woman. I got jealous. I got confused. I just—I was shortsighted. “Aaron!” I call out, desperate to stop him, but he doesn’t turn. “Aaron, damn it, I will shoot you if you walk out of that door like this. You can’t go like this.”
He turns and holds out his hands. “Maybe you’d be happier, Ashley. Maybe we both would.”
“I won’t shoot to kill you. I’ll just wound you.”
“You already did that, baby. You already did that.” He drops his hands and turns and leaves. And I let him. I can’t stop him. I was just an emotional idiot when I hate emotional idiots. That’s how I sent him off to fight. Already wounded and at a disadvantage by my foolishness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ashley…
I stare at the door where Aa
ron just disappeared with Savage.
What just happened? What the hell did I just let happen? My lashes lower, eyes squeezing shut. I’m not an emotional or jealous person. I’m not, but Aaron isn’t just an average man either. He’s a CIA agent, even if you put “ex” before CIA. He does things to stay alive, and he does things to end other people’s lives. He lives, he has lived, a much different life than a normal human being. Is kissing an ex to free himself and me a huge deal? Yes. God, yes. It feels big. It feels like it defines us in some other way. No. What defines us is that I didn’t even know she existed.
“Ashley.”
At the sound of my name, I open my eyes. Blake steps into the living area just below me. “Unless you want to shoot me, come down and talk to me.”
“And me.”
That comment comes from his wife, Kara, the pretty brunette who joins him and waves up at me, her long brown silky hair around her shoulders. I met her six months ago, when my boss hired Walker Security to protect me from Aaron, of all people, which was how I met Smith as well. She’s pretty. She’s petite, and from what Smith told me back then, she’s a badass with a gun as well as just in general. “How are you?” she asks.
In need of advice, I think, and I need that advice from a badass woman who has a badass man like Blake by her side. I lower the gun that’s still pointed a the door where Aaron disappeared. “I need a lot of things right now.”
“He’ll be back,” Blake promises.
He’ll be back.
Aaron will be back.
Unless I distracted him emotionally and mentally, and therefore, he ends up dead. Or, unless his ex-woman, whoever she is, saves him and runs off with him. Because, of course, she really is like him, while I’m just a secretary who now knows how to shoot a gun. I back away from the railing, but I don’t retreat. That’s just not who I am. I’m not retreating. I might be having a moment of emotional jealousy and personal fear, but I’m still me. I’m still a fighter. I still need answers. And I need to know if Blake knows about this woman. I need to know that every fear bubbling up inside me right now is as lame as every time I said I wanted to be the attorney I never really wanted to become. If I had wanted that, really wanted it, I would have made it happen. The way I made shooting this gun second nature quite quickly.
Gun still in hand, I rush down the stairs, and I find that Blake and Kara are my only remaining company, which tells a story. There were other men here before. I set the gun on the island. “What’s so big that everyone is helping Aaron but you two?”
“We are helping,” Kara says, placing a cup of coffee in front of me. “That has Almond Joy creamer in it because it’s Savage’s favorite and that’s what he has in the fridge. Does that work for you, or do you want it black and hard like Savage’s soul?”
“Thank you for the coffee,” I say, “and the attempt at humor at Savage’s expense, but I can’t laugh. Though I’m fairly certain it would have been a very funny joke another time. I need to know what’s going on.”
“Mick was selling government secrets to Russia and China for large payouts,” Blake supplies, without making me push harder. “He created an offshore account in Aaron’s name with Nicole Wagner’s help. Nicole was—”
“Aaron’s woman.”
“His fuck buddy,” Kara corrects, setting a cup of coffee in front of Blake. “There’s a difference. He’s human and a man, Ashley. Blake was all about a fast fuck when he met me, which is why I drugged his ass and left him in a hotel room after our fast fuck.”
“Translation,” Blake says, “She was afraid I’d steal her heart. And I did.”
“I thought he was working for the drug cartel that kidnapped my sister,” Kara explains. “I drugged him because I thought he was an asshole.”
“Right now,” I say, unable to keep up with their emotional history because I just don’t want to. “I think,” I add, “I just want to know about Nicole. How was his ex involved in all of this?”
“His fuck buddy,” Kara corrects again. “Nothing more. Proven by the fact that she took a million-dollar payout to frame Aaron for selling secrets to foreign governments. The heat was coming down on Mick; Aaron became his target.”
Well, at least he won’t be pining for her heart. Not that I feel overly comforted by that fact right now, considering I’d not heard about her until now. “Why Aaron?” I ask.
“He got too close,” Blake says. “I’ll spare you my detailed research, but the bottom line is this: the government sent him hunting for a spy. He was a stone’s throw from finding out Mick was that spy.”
“And Nicole?” I ask, just saying her name turns my stomach. “Where does she fit in?”
“Not with Aaron,” Kara says. “Like we said. Mick paid her a million dollars to set him up.”
I want to ask for more, especially since that’s twice now that statement has been made, but Blake is already moving on. “I found security footage of Nicole with Mick at a bank where Mick used a fake ID that identified him as Aaron. Nicole used the name Susie. Together, they opened an offshore account in Aaron’s name and had Russia and China each wire five hundred thousand dollars into the account. An alert was sent to the right targets at the CIA, which sent the CIA hunting. Later, that million dollars was withdrawn by Nicole, as her payment.”
“Is the video at the bank enough to end this?” I ask.
“Maybe,” Kara says. “But maybe isn’t enough. This is the CIA we’re talking about. Aaron needs more to secure a clearance from this.”
“Nicole can get him what he needs,” Blake adds, and the flash of a gorgeous woman pressed to a wall with Aaron all over her comes a bit too easily for comfort.
“No,” Kara says, tapping the table.
I blanch. “No?”
“No, he will not fuck her, kiss her, or do anything resembling those things. Ask Blake. He wouldn’t do that, not after meeting me. Meeting me changed how he did things.”
“She’s right,” Blake says. “She changed me, and while I can’t pretend to know what’s in Aaron’s head, I’ve seen him with you and talked to him about you enough to believe he feels the same as I do and did. One woman can change everything.”
“He loves you,” Kara says. “That’s crystal clear.”
She’s right. He does. He’s proven this to me. He loves me. I did change him. He’s declared that many times over. I’m letting the unknowns of his career and past have too much of a role in the present. We are the present. Nicole is his past.
Present.
I control the present.
I control how I respond to the past and the present.
I pick up the gun. “Let me know when you know something, please,” I say, turning back to the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Blake calls after me.
I pause and turn to face him and Kara, but my mind is answering his question. Nicole betrayed Aaron by setting him up. I betrayed him with jealousy, which is indeed the green-eyed monster, a dangerous green-eyed monster.
“Before he left, I made him think I might not stay,” I say. “I made him think that I didn’t trust him. Now, I’m going upstairs to practice shooting. I’m making sure he knows that I’m not going anywhere. At least, not without him.”
And with that, I head upstairs, where I plan to start training. No one is taking my gun from me ever again. And no bitch named Nicole is taking my man. He’s mine. I’m going to make sure he knows that I know it when he returns.
Safely.
When he returns safely.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Aaron…
“Who is this bitch to you?” Savage asks as we step to the hotel across from Nicole’s row house in Greenwich Village.
“Nothing but a fuck and a distraction I clearly couldn’t afford.”
“Good luck proving the ‘nothing but a fuck’ to your woman.”
I shouldn’t have to explain, I think. I love the hell out of Ashley. I’d die for her. T
he only thing I want to do with Nicole, at this point, is kill the bitch. But with all the lies I told Ashley, I can’t expect her to see anything but another, and I don’t know where that leads us.
For the next twenty minutes, Savage and I do nothing but watch Nicole’s place. But I’m ready to get this the fuck over with, so it’s time to make that happen. “Stay here,” I order Savage; I’m about to move forward when Savage grabs my arm.
I eye him. “You do know that I could kill you, right?”
“You do know I’d enjoy watching you try, right?”
“It’s always amusing when someone big and tough thinks I can’t kill them,” I say. “Right up until the moment I do. What do you want, Savage?”
“I don’t stay behind. What’s the plan?”
“You staying behind. She’s the kind of killer who drops men like you like flies.” I jerk my arm away from his reach and head out to the street.
He exits behind me. I feel him there, but he doesn’t approach. He’s not staying behind. If he ends up dead, at least I tried to save him. I cross the street and cut to a side alleyway. I’m at the back of the building on the fire escape in about sixty seconds.
I’m silently on top of it and at her bedroom window in another thirty seconds. And holy hell, one glance in the window, and I find her fucking some asshole she’s probably using like she did me for her million-dollar payout. I reach for the window, and suddenly, she reaches under her blanket and shoots the man with a silencer on her weapon.
She then gets up, pulls on a robe and walks to the bathroom. She doesn’t know I’m here.
I silently break the window, just enough to turn the lock, doing so using a technique I’ve long ago mastered, and then open it, before climbing inside. I then cross to stand against the bedroom wall by the bathroom. I don’t bother to pull a weapon. I don’t need one to kill her or anyone.
The bathroom door opens and the tingling down my spine tells me that she now knows I’m here. On first sight, she’s fully dressed, and she turns toward me, gun in hand. I knock it away, but she’s no easy mark. She comes at me, and we exchange blows before I shove her against the wall.
Part Three: Dirty Rich Secrets, #3 Page 5