Her eyes narrowed with fury. “What do you think he did, Scott? What do weak men do to assert their control over women who resist them? They use their physical strength and force them.”
Scott had paled, but his expression was still fierce and taut just like the rest of him. But it was a brittle tautness—one that seemed ready to crack. “He raped you.”
It wasn’t a question, but she responded anyway. “Yes, Scott, he raped me. He was a weak misogynist pig who thought it made him strong to brutalize women. Unfortunately it’s not that uncommon. It was horrible and not something I’d ever want to go through again, but it’s behind me. Behind me—as in in the past. I got over it, and I don’t need you dredging it up and playing psychoanalyst or feeling sorry for me. But if it helps you understand why I believed he would hurt my sister and parents, then fine. I didn’t care about him hurting me, and he knew that—which is probably why he never tried it again.” Her smile was definitely on the malevolent side. “That and because I learned how to defend myself. I carried a small knife with me. If he’d tried again, I would have happily killed him.”
He accepted her proclamation to commit murder as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “And I would have helped you bury the body.”
He sounded serious. But Natalie knew Scott. He was too honorable for murder—no matter what the circumstances. He might have come close if given the chance, but in the end he would have given Mick over to the authorities just as he would have done with her.
But behind his grim expression, Natalie could see the conflicting emotions that he was struggling to contain. Rage. Compassion. Helplessness. For a warrior like Scott, for a man who had to make life-and-death decisions almost every time he went to work and relished the role, she suspected the last was the hardest to accept. He wanted to do something but was realizing that there wasn’t anything he could do.
She knew he wanted to say something to try to comfort her, but whether it was her warning not to try or the fact that he hated her, his lips were firmly pressed together.
But he was too good of a guy—too inherently decent—not to say something. “I’m sorry.”
She sensed he meant it and accepted the sentiment with her own nod. What he felt shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did.
Realizing she’d peeled the label completely off the bottle of beer, she put it back down on the table. “Does beer go bad? I’m not sure how long it’s been in there.”
But Scott wasn’t paying any attention to the beer; all his attention was focused on her.
Natalie knew better than to try to discern his thoughts, but she tried anyway. It was an exercise in futility, but she suspected that given their conversation, he was trying to process what she’d told him.
Had hearing her explanation moved him? She doubted it. His gaze was as hard and unyielding as it had been when they sat down. He was always hard and unyielding when it came to things like this. It wasn’t stubbornness as much as principles. There was right and there was wrong. To Scott there wasn’t a lot in between.
Whatever her motivations, it didn’t change the fact that she’d lied to him and betrayed him every time she asked him a question—no matter how insignificant.
She knew how his mind worked so she expected what came next. What to him would be the fatal flaw in her argument.
“Even if what you say is true, you did have another choice. You could have come to me.”
Natalie could feel the frustration bubble up inside her. He made it sound so simple. “Don’t you think I wanted to? I loved you, Scott.” His jaw clenched a little, but he didn’t otherwise react. “But I know you: Lieutenant Commander ‘By the Book’ Taylor? You have too much integrity to hide something like this. You would have gone right to the authorities, and I couldn’t take that chance. Not with my family’s lives at stake. You have far more trust in the system than I do. Although maybe you’ve seen the light on that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Her gaze met his. “If you trust the system so much, why did you let everyone think you were killed, and—if the dark hair, stubble, and ‘Mr. Wilson’ are any indication—why are you still in hiding?”
His jaw was clenched so tight that his lips were white. She could see he wanted to argue but also recognized that there was some truth to what she said.
“You should have trusted me more than that, Nat. I would have protected you.”
“Would you? I wasn’t sure that you wouldn’t lock me up yourself.”
He drew back as if stung by the accusation. “How can you say that? You know I cared about you.”
“I thought you did, but you never told me as much. You never told me you loved me.”
She looked at his steely expression, but if she hoped he would say anything now, she was crazy.
Maybe she should have been more sure, but what if she was wrong?
She sighed heavily. Wearily. She was tired and this wasn’t an easy conversation. But it needed to be had. “I thought about confiding in you, but after you refused Kate’s request to visit her dying father—your biological father—I changed my mind.”
His expression turned icy with irritation. The way it did every time the subject came up. “What the hell does he have to do with anything?”
“You don’t exactly have a forgiving nature when it comes to people who don’t hold themselves to the same high standards as you do, Scott. I was lying to you—betraying you—far more than your biological father ever did. How could I trust that you would understand?” She gave him a wry smile. “The only reason I’m probably not in jail right now is because I’m pregnant.”
* * *
• • •
She might be right, but that was because in the interim men had been killed. If she’d told him before the mission, he would have been pissed—okay, more than pissed—but he would have listened.
He would have. But he wasn’t going to tell her that he’d been stupid enough to fall in love with her and would have done anything to keep her safe, including setting aside those supposed “principles” and risking the job and career that meant so much to him.
Damn it, even now, he found himself being affected by her story more than he wanted to be. How could he believe anything out of her mouth? Was he going to let her make a fool of him again?
But Scott had never seen her scared before as she had been when talking about her parents. Natalie had always seemed so cool and collected. The only times he’d ever seen a crack of vulnerability in that facade was when she’d cuddle up against him after making love and seemed to hold on a little too tightly or when he’d wanted to come out to command about their relationship. She’d freaked out, begging him not to. She’d said she couldn’t lose her job.
At the time he hadn’t understood her panic, but in retrospect, it made sense. She’d thought Mick would blame her and was scared what he would do to her family.
Mick. Scott’s fists tightened as his teeth clenched. The bastard was lucky he was dead. Scott would have taken him apart limb by limb if he’d known about the rape.
Whatever else she might have been lying about, Scott believed her about that. Not only because that was what thugs like Mick did but also because of her “butt out of it, I don’t want to talk about it” reaction. It was the opposite of the vulnerable card she could have played if she’d wanted to make him feel sorry for her.
Just thinking about what the bastard had done to her made Scott want to be sick, punch the wall, and hold her in his arms all at the same time.
It was the latter that bothered him the most.
He couldn’t let her get to him. But just looking at her was getting to him. She might not have wanted to play the vulnerable card, but there was something about the woman seated across from him that was bringing out his Galahad instincts. And it wasn’t just the jeans, T-shirt, and ponytail instead of glamorous DC
power broker high heels, carefully made-up face, and tight-just-to-the-edge-of-sexy business suits. The mask she’d taken off went much deeper than that. The woman seated before him seemed much less sure of herself and more fragile than the one he’d known before.
Just how much of a part had she been playing? Or was she playing a part now?
Who was the real Natalie?
Neither, he realized. Her name was Natalya, and he’d better remember it. Even if he believed that she’d tried to remove the spyware program, it obviously hadn’t worked. Mick had learned about the mission, and eight of Scott’s teammates had died because of it. Not to mention that she’d spied on him for months.
What difference did her reasons make to the eight men who had never come home?
She’d been scared—he got that—but it didn’t change the facts or the repercussions. There were always choices, and giving in to blackmail to commit treason was never the right one.
She should have come to him. She should have trusted him more. There was a big difference between her and his biological father: he’d loved her.
But she hadn’t known that, had she?
He pushed the errant thought away and steeled himself against that vulnerable, I’m so alone thing she was giving off.
She hadn’t been alone.
But whether she should have told him no longer mattered. She hadn’t, and that was the reality they would both have to deal with.
A reality that apparently included a baby. “When did you find out you were pregnant?”
It was the wrong question to ask for someone who was trying to resist the silent help me expression on her face. Her composure crumbled and tears sprang to her eyes. Big brown eyes that were even softer and more expressive than the green contacts he’d spent months looking into.
If the eyes were the window to the soul then the barrier had been removed.
“It was right after Mick told me what happened. I’d been nauseous off and on for a couple days, but that was when I started getting sick. Really sick. I thought it was because of everything that was going on and the news Mick had told me about your death, but my best friend from childhood was visiting for the weekend before taking a new job in New York, and she suspected something else. I’d told Jennifer about you.”
“But you never told me about her.”
Natalie looked down, clearly ashamed. He saw her shoulders tremble a little before she took a deep breath and looked back up at him.
How the fuck could someone he knew was strong appear so fragile? The past few months had obviously broken her down. Or maybe it was the relief of not having to lie anymore. The urge to reach for her was so natural that he had to physically squeeze his muscles tight not to do so.
“I didn’t want you to learn anything about me, Scott. I thought it would protect me.”
“From what? Me finding out about your being adopted or that you had family and friends you cared about?”
“I thought that if I didn’t let you in I would be able to keep you at a safe distance. But it didn’t work.”
His muscles tightened even more. He reached for the now label-less beer and took a long drink, not caring if it was stale. Beer was beer. But Bud Light wasn’t going to take the edge off the demons wrestling in him right now. He’d need something far stronger for that. A bottle of whiskey would be a good start.
“So your friend Jennifer figured it out,” he said, prompting her to continue and get back to the story.
She nodded, eyes still big and dominating her pale face. “I didn’t take the possibility well. I’d just found out you’d died and I was panicked at the idea of a baby. I told her I couldn’t be, but I got it in my head to go to the drugstore to get a test. I didn’t make it to the door before I was sick again. Jennifer told me to lie down and she’d go get me something and a test. She didn’t have a car so she took mine.” It was getting more and more difficult for her to talk as the emotion in her voice crept up higher and higher. She tried to take a deep breath, but it came out unevenly. “Jennifer called a little while later and said she thought someone was following her.” Natalie looked up at him pleadingly, tears rolling down her cheeks. “She was so scared, Scott. It was horrible. I could hear the terror in her voice. I knew it was Mick. I tried to warn her, but she screamed, there was a loud crashing sound, and then the line went dead.”
She let out a sob and buried her face in her hands as the tears really started to flow. His hand was halfway to her shoulder before he forcefully pulled it back.
What the hell was the matter with him? Damn it, he didn’t want to feel sorry for her or see her side of anything. He didn’t want any gray messing up his black-and-white.
He sat there, his insides twisting in torturous knots, as she cried. Good thing for him it didn’t last long. He didn’t know how much longer he could sit there playing stony.
She sniffled and used a napkin from the wooden holder on the table to wipe her eyes and nose. After a moment, she regained her composure and continued. “I heard the sirens a minute or two later and suspected what happened. I didn’t know what to do. I posted anonymously on our social media neighborhood group and a bunch of people in the area posted within a few minutes that a car had exploded under the freeway overpass, and the driver had been killed.” Who needed police blotters anymore? She shuddered as if the news were still fresh. “I knew I had to get out of there. Either Mick would realize he’d killed the wrong person and come after me, or the police would be showing up with questions that I didn’t want to answer. I took my purse, Jennifer’s things, and a few things I couldn’t bear to leave behind and ran. I lived in fear that the police would realize what had happened, especially since it took me a couple days to remember to destroy the SIM card in my phone, but they never did. Jennifer had my car and my keys, and her purse must have burned up in the fire. Not even my mother realized,” she said in a whisper.
“She identified the body?”
Natalie nodded. “Jennifer and I looked a lot alike, and I’m sure there was . . . uh, trauma.” The body would have been badly burned. “I watched my mom go into the coroner’s building, but I couldn’t watch her come back out. I wanted to tell her so badly, but I knew it was safer for my family if they thought I was dead, too.”
“You were there?”
“I had to be. I couldn’t let her go through that alone.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. She obviously loved her mother a lot to risk returning to DC. “The police didn’t do an investigation?”
She shook her head. “I assume there wasn’t a reason to. Everything was cut-and-dry.”
Not so cut-and-dry because here she was. But it wasn’t all that surprising. City police stations didn’t have CSI budgets, and with an identification they wouldn’t go to the trouble of obtaining dental records.
Scott watched the emotions play across her face and knew what she was thinking. He’d steeled himself long enough, damn it. He might want to be made out of stone, but he wasn’t. “It wasn’t your fault, Natalie.”
“Of course it was. It should have been me. Jennifer should never have been in that car. If I hadn’t been freaking out—”
“That’s bullshit. She was your friend, Natalie. You were upset and sick. That’s what friends do. You have a lot of other things you can take the blame for, but that isn’t one of them.”
He was glad she didn’t ask him what things. Truth be told, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything right now.
He stood to leave while he still could. “Get some sleep. I’ll take the couch tonight.”
He saw the look of surprise in her eyes but didn’t react. It wasn’t because he trusted her. He just didn’t think she was going to be trying to climb out of any more windows while pregnant.
Turned out that it wasn’t a window he needed to worry about. Her opportunity to escape arrived a few minutes later.
Ten
Scott took a seat on the couch while Natalie went upstairs to get him a pillow and blanket to use later. It was still too early for him to crash, but a couple of more stale beers and the Sox game, and he should be able to eke out a few hours.
He had a lot to digest.
“Here you go,” Natalie said, putting the stack of bedding on the seat beside him. “Let me know if you need anything else.”
He didn’t, but with the situation in limbo for the next few days until the test results came back, he figured he better set down some ground rules before she headed back up. First and foremost, he needed to make sure she wasn’t communicating with anyone. He wanted her phone, computer, and . . .
A knock on the door startled them both. Natalie’s gaze shot to his, obviously looking for direction.
But one glance out the big living room window and he knew that it was too late for instructions. He swore, seeing the sheriff’s car parked along the driveway.
His operational awareness had obviously gone to hell. The TV was on, and the car was parked away from the house, but Scott should have heard the footsteps up the weathered and creaky front porch stairs. Whatever work had been going on inside of the house hadn’t moved to the outside yet.
Realizing that the sheriff had probably already seen him, Scott knew the jig was up.
“Why is he here?” Scott whispered angrily. “Did you call him?”
She gave him an are you out of your mind? glare. “Of course not. I told you I barely know him. What do you want me to do?”
“Get rid of him—fast.” He caught her gaze with a hard look. “And don’t try anything. There’s a lot at stake, Natalie. Other lives, not just mine, okay?”
She nodded, but he cursed inwardly, knowing the balance of power had shifted. He just hoped to hell she didn’t realize it.
But of course she did. Natalie was too smart not to recognize the opportunity that the sheriff’s unexpected—Scott hoped unexpected—arrival gave her. She could get away. He could see the indecision on her face as she paused at the door and glanced back at him. Their eyes met for a long heartbeat. She seemed to be searching for something.
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