Say I Do

by Cynthia Eden

  “Guy could just be off drinking somewhere.”

  Lacey snorted. “Really? With everything else that’s happening, you actually think that?”

  His expression softened. “Why do I find that little snort so sexy?”

  “What are you talking about?” Her chin notched up. “I don’t snort. Never have. Never will.”

  A grin stretched across his face. “My God, I love—”

  He isn’t saying, he can’t be saying…Dex, are you saying—

  “—the way you can make me smile even when the world is shit around me. Only you can do that, Lacey. Only you.”

  Bam. Bam. Bam. Her heart was racing even faster now. “Glad I can amuse you,” she managed to say. Why did you think he was about to make some epic confession?

  And a follow-up question to herself…Why are you so disappointed that he didn’t?

  Dex’s brows lowered. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Lacey?” Elizabeth’s worried voice rang out. She gave a small, uncertain knock on the door. “Should I go start searching for him? And why is the bellboy watching me?”

  “Just wait. Give me a minute!” She blew out a long breath. Get your focus, woman. Dex wasn’t making some big confession and saying he loves you. It’s pretend. Why can’t you keep remembering that? “Dex, go and talk to Roman. You know him far better than I do. If he’s lying, you’ll see through him. I won’t.” She backed up.

  Dex followed her. “You know I want you close.”

  “I know you’ve been protecting me. Doing your usual manipulation. Pawns on your chess board—”

  Dex’s jaw hardened. “How many times do I have to remind you?” He brought her hand to his mouth. Pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “You are the queen. Not a pawn. You never sacrifice the queen. You protect her at all costs.”

  Fine. “The queen protects the other pieces on the board. That’s her job. Elizabeth and Jonathan are my friends. So I am going to protect them.” And it sure seemed that perhaps Jonathan had been taken. If he had been taken, would Elizabeth be the next target? If she’s searching the lodge for her husband, she’s vulnerable because she’s in the open. I need to get her to a secure location. “You get your agents to help in the hunt for Jonathan. I’ll go back upstairs and stay with Elizabeth. I’ll question her and find out exactly what’s been happening during her stay here in the lodge.”

  His lips parted—

  “You can send a guard to stand outside of our door. Or to stay in the room with us, whatever. But I’m not helpless. I can defend myself. I can protect her. You need to trust me to do that.”

  “I do trust you, Lacey.”

  “Really? Then tell me the truth about Charles and Roman. Right now.”

  His eyes narrowed. “The truth?”

  “You don’t buy that Charles turned on you, do you? I don’t think you really ever believed it, not knowing his past as you do.”

  His eyelashes lowered.

  “But you still had him taken into custody. You did that…” I’m starting to really figure you out, Dex. It took some time, but I see you now. “You did it to protect him, didn’t you? Because maybe even your pawns are valuable.”

  “Do you know the name of his son?”

  She shook her head. “No, I just saw the photo. He never told me—”

  “Charles named his son Nathaniel Dexter Hatch.” His gaze held hers. “So, no, I didn’t think—even when the evidence was right in front of me—that Charles had turned on me. I believed him when he said that Heather gave him the access to that site. I also believed that he could be in danger, so I removed him from the equation.”

  “Dex, you have got to stop keeping things from me! You need to tell me the truth. If this is going to work between us—”

  “This?” Dex pounced. “You mean our pretend engagement? If it’s going to keep working?”

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t—ah, screw it. “I’m not talking about pretend anything. I’m talking about the way I feel about you and the way I think you might feel about me.” She pulled her hand free of his grip. “Here’s the problem, though. You’re so secretive. You won’t let anyone inside. You won’t let me know how you really feel about me. You want this to work? You want us to work? Then you tell me. You let me in.” Once she’d started talking, her words just wouldn’t stop. “You keep the rest of the world out, fine. Do it. Tell them they don’t have clearance to learn your secrets. Keep fighting the dark and keeping everyone safe from the shadows. Someone has to do that shit, after all. But when it comes to me, to us, you share with me.” She blinked quickly because her eyes had gone a wee bit blurry with what could have been tears. “You let me in those shadows with you because that’s where I want to be. I want to be right with you.”

  He didn’t speak.

  She hadn’t been able to stop talking, and he wasn’t saying a word.

  That seemed right.

  She tipped back her head and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t hear Elizabeth. I asked your undercover guy to watch her because I was afraid she’d go off on her own, and that woman’s survival skills—speaking from our last time together—are not the best. She may also be walking straight into a trap that’s been set by the bad guy. I have to go to her.” She side-stepped. “Excuse me—”

  “I don’t truly think that Roman killed Heather. I ordered him taken into custody because I wanted to protect him, too.”

  The moisture in her mouth seemed to dry up. “Are you sharing with me right now?” Finally?

  “Roman matters to you, so I wanted him safe.”

  “He—wait. I just met him. He seems to hate me so—”

  “Family matters to you. That was obvious from the beginning. Roman kept being targeted, so I wasn’t going to wait and see what happened to him next.” A quick exhale. “I also wanted to see what would happen if he was in holding downstairs. I figure he’ll make an attempt to escape, but he won’t actually flee the property. He’ll stick around because he wants to make certain you’re safe. You matter to him, too, and I wanted him to know that shit. I wanted Roman to stop glaring at you and appreciate you. To fucking love you. You deserve love. You deserve to have a family around you who loves you and wants to do everything possible to make you happy. Everything, even if it involves twisting or damn well obliterating some rules out there.”

  Now he’d been the one to talk too much. Only, it hadn’t seemed like too much. Not really.

  “Lacey?” A soft knock. “I’m scared,” Elizabeth cried. “The bellman won’t let me move. So many people have left the lodge already. It’s like a ghost hotel or something. Like that Stephen King book with—”

  “I’m coming! I’ll help you!” Lacey promised. She lowered her voice. “I have to go. Look, I have the new phone you gave me after we arrived at the lodge. I’ll keep it with me. You call me as soon as you have news. I’ll go to her suite, and we’ll figure everything out.”

  “I don’t like this plan.”

  “Yes, well, it’s not exactly sunshine and rainbows, but Jonathan is missing and Roman is waiting, so we have to split up.” Once more, she side-stepped. Lacey grabbed for the doorknob.

  “I think I might love you.”

  There was no way—no way—that Dex had just said those words to her. Lacey shook her head because she knew she was wrong.

  “You’re right.”

  A fist squeezed her heart. Her breath froze in her lungs. Her head turned—ever so slowly—toward him.

  Dex nodded. “I said the wrong thing.”

  Yes, yes, he had, damn him, and for one incredible moment, she’d hoped—

  “I don’t think that I love you. And there is no might involved.” His shoulders straightened. They’d already been straight, but they squared up even more. “I love you. There. No secrets. No lies. No manipulations. I’ve been an extra asshole because I knew I was falling fast, and with you, there was no holding back. There was no keeping my emotions separate. There just…there just was you.�
�� He seemed to flounder at the end.

  He wasn’t the floundering type.

  “I don’t expect you to say the words back or anything. That’s not what this is about. I’m trying…I want you to know that I did let you in.”

  She swallowed. “You’ve been my pretend fiancé for a few days. Is that really long enough to fall in love with me?”

  “Sweetheart, I fell in love with you the first time we met.” His grin lit his gray eyes.

  Impossible. Wasn’t it? But… “I pulled a knife on you the first time we met.”

  “The knife was unnecessary. You were already holding my heart.”

  Now he was being poetic? In his way, at least.

  Elizabeth pounded on the door. “I need you!”

  Lacey nodded. She started to open the door. Stopped. Then she whirled and launched at Dex. Her arms wrapped around him. His head lowered toward hers. And she kissed him with hot, frantic passion. “You are going to tell me that again,” she breathed against his mouth. “When this mess is over, when we are alone…” Another kiss. “You are going to tell me all of that again.”

  But for now, she let him go. Once more, her fingers reached for the door.

  “I’ll send one of my best agents with you. And I’ll get people to search for Jonathan. I’ll talk to Roman, then I’ll come join you.”

  She nodded and pulled the door open.

  Elizabeth stood on the other side of the threshold. When she saw Lacey, relief flashed on her face. “Finally.”

  Lacey stepped forward.

  The bellman slipped away.

  “Lacey.”

  She looked over her shoulder at Dex’s deep voice.

  “You stay safe, my love. Remember that you matter to me more than anything else. If you get so much as a bruise on you, I will be very, very pissed off.”

  Lacey licked her lips. Tasted him. “And you stay safe. You matter more than I ever imagined.” So much that it scared her. “If you get so much as a bruise on you, not only will I be very pissed off, but I will kick the ass of the person who bruised you.”

  His white teeth flashed. “How could I not love you?”

  Her body trembled. She’d always known that Dex was a dangerous man. She just hadn’t always known…

  How much I’d care about him.

  Elizabeth grabbed her. “This is great and all, but the man I love is missing! Come on, Lacey! Come on!”

  ***

  She hadn’t said she loved him. Dex hadn’t expected a confession from Lacey. One would have been nice, certainly, but he knew he still had to build more trust with her.

  When it came to Lacey, he wanted no secrets. He wanted to let down the wall, as she’d said, and let her in. No one else had ever been as close to him as Lacey. When he thought of his life without her, a brutal cold seemed to sweep around him.

  Because she brings warmth. Life. All of the things that he’d told her he fought for at the CIA? The kids on the soccer field? The teens going to prom and the proud grandmothers? All of that had been true. But…

  He also fought for people like Lacey. People who lit up the world simply by being in it.

  She’d certainly lit up his life.

  He watched as she made her way to the elevator with Elizabeth. One of his undercover operatives was nearby. A man who’d earned Dex’s respect with his skills and intelligence. Dex approached Cornell Tait and quietly ordered, “Go up on that elevator with Lacey. Show her your ID. Tell her that I want you near her and Elizabeth at all times. Stay with them until I personally come and relieve you of duty. I cannot stress how important it is for you to be with Lacey every moment.”

  Cornell nodded and immediately headed for the elevator. “Hold the ride!”

  Lacey threw out her hand to stop the door. Her gaze darted from Cornell to Dex.

  Dex gave a slow nod.

  Cornell entered the elevator, and when the doors closed, Dex drew in a deep breath. Time to confront Roman. He’d let the guy stew long enough. Lacey had been right—as she was often proving to be—he could tell when the other man tried to bullshit him.

  He called some of his agents. Got them to begin searching the area for Jonathan Radcliff. Dex made his way down to the holding area. The elevator ride was brief, and when the doors opened—

  Antony was standing right there. “Lacey was right.” He gripped a laptop in his hands. Not the same laptop he’d held before. This one was a dark silver. Probably the fellow’s own machine which meant it would be decked out to the extreme.

  “What is she right about this time?” Dex nodded as he passed two other agents and marched to holding. He’d have to close this CIA location as soon as the case ended. Definitely compromised. Pity. The lodge had been convenient, and he’d enjoyed the whole underground lair aspect of the facility.

  “There are spaces that don’t make sense in this lodge. I pulled up some architectural plans, and when I look at them and compare them to the rooms and floors that I’ve actually walked in myself, the dimensions are off. Probably not enough to be noticed by the average person, but you know, I don’t always think like—”

  “I know your mind often goes off on its own, fun, interesting tangents,” Dex allowed carefully. He paused in front of the holding room door. “I’m in a bit of a hurry here, so could you get to the point?”

  “The dimensions are wrong on the plans. They don’t match up. That means there is space in some areas—like on the Whisper Floor—for there to be tunnels. Small passageways.” His eyebrows wiggled. “Secret passages, do you get what I’m saying?”

  “Jinkies,” Dex replied.

  Antony pushed up his glasses. “Is that supposed to be funny right now? Because I knew I made a mistake when I told you about Velma.”

  “I was always a Daphne fan myself, but you do you, my friend.” He needed to be in the interrogation room. “Did you find some of those empty spaces in the suite I share with Lacey?”

  “No. Everything seems to measure up in that area. The upper floors are newer, and the designs clearly show the architects were trying to use every available space. But…” Antony trailed away.

  “Do you know how badly I want to get in this room?”

  Antony glanced at the door.

  “How about you don’t leave me hanging with a dramatic ‘but’ and you simply tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Fine. No secret passageways, but I think someone could have used the air ducts. The person would have to be small. Petite. Probably around Lacey’s size, no bigger. The perp would have needed to gain access to the ducts from another room on that floor.”

  “Figure out which rooms would have provided the best access. Then come find me.” He curled his fingers around the doorknob. “And by the way, I’ve got a search team on the property, hunting for Jonathan Radcliff. His wife can’t find him, and since she and Jonathan are both friends of Lacey’s, the worry is that he might have been targeted by our perp.”

  “Radcliff,” Antony repeated. He seemed to mull the name.

  “He’s a duke. Related to the Queen of England and all that stuff.” Dex opened the door. “Used to be in the press pretty regularly—some kind of royal Romeo bit—until he fell hard for his lady.”

  As the door swung fully open, Roman lunged to his feet.

  The ever-reliable Larry slapped both of his hands on Roman’s shoulders and shoved him right back down in his chair.

  “Take this, too.” Dex tossed Antony Tim Wraith’s phone. “Lacey didn’t send those texts. Find out who did.”

  Roman glared at him.

  “Come in if you get news I need,” Dex directed Antony. Then he shut the door. Propped his shoulders back against the wood.

  Cuffs were around Roman’s wrists. Dex couldn’t help but glance down at his own wrists and the scars that marked him.

  “I can’t believe you took me into custody!” Roman snarled.

  Dex lifted his gaze. “And I can’t believe you haven’t escaped yet. So disappointed. Are you losing
your touch?”

  Roman’s lips thinned. “If I run, I’d look guilty.”

  Larry still had his hands wrapped around Roman’s shoulders. “That’s because you are guilty.”

  “And you’re an idiot,” Roman threw back. “Another flunky who lives to do Dex’s bidding. Never realizing that you’ve tied yourself to a sadistic asshole.”

  “Words hurt, you know. They wound.” Dex sighed as he sauntered forward. He pulled out a chair, flipped it around, then straddled it as he took a seat and stared at Roman. He could see that Larry’s hands had tightened on Roman’s shoulders. Dex could only imagine the pressure that Larry was applying.

  “Larry doesn’t like it when people talk shit about me,” Dex noted. “Doing that in front of him is a bad mistake.”

  “Why?” Roman laughed. “Because you have him convinced you’re some secret hero? Bullshit. You’re a user, a manipulator—”

  “True and true.” Dex cocked his head. “But who says users and manipulators can’t also do a little good here and there? Not like the stuff is mutually exclusive.”

  “You don’t even know the meaning of the word good.”

  “That’s just insulting. Sure I do.” He sniffed. “Lacey Amari.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “She’s my something good. I look at her, and I know the world is worth saving. I know that happiness is real. And I know that even cold-blooded bastards like me can have a shot at a normal life.” He motioned with a flick of his hand. “Thanks, Larry. You can ease back. If he gets twitchy, though, feel free to reengage.”

  “Will do.” Larry backed away.

  Roman leaned forward. “You seriously think you have a shot with my sister?”

  “What? You think I don’t?”

  “You’re using her. The same way you use everyone else. The same way—”

  “I can tell you a thousand ways how you’re wrong. But I won’t bother. Simply put, I don’t care to bother. Believe whatever the hell you want about me.” He tugged down the sleeve of his shirt, making sure the scars were hidden. “You always have.”

  “You left me. You didn’t come until those bastards had taken their time giving me a taste of hell—and you think I will let you near my only family?”