by Lexi Blake
A woman of her skill and at her level would always have enemies or people who were jealous. Had one of those people tried to hurt her? What would that have to do with him?
He had to also consider the fact that she was simply done with him.
“You should talk to her,” Jax said. “Walk back out there and strike up a conversation. She’ll make an excuse and leave if it’s too uncomfortable.”
“Remember that this isn’t personal,” Robert advised. “This is only about the op. Nothing else matters, and we should put everything else aside.”
The doorbell rang again and he watched as River moved toward it and Becca was left alone. She bit her bottom lip and glanced over at the clock as though trying to decide if she could find a way out.
He was going to lose her. He had to find a middle ground, had to figure out why she was afraid of him suddenly. Had something happened today?
He could hide in here or he could try.
“What the hell?” Robert straightened up as Ezra walked into the apartment, his hand tangled with his partner’s for the evening.
Ariel Adisa. She looked gorgeous in a green dress that showed off her curves. Her hair was in its natural curl, and there was no doubt she was a stunning woman.
Becca’s beauty was quieter, but no less impactful. Of course, Becca wasn’t holding on to another man. She wasn’t grinning as she was introduced as someone’s wife, her face kind of glowing.
No. Becca looked shy as she put her hand out to greet Ezra and Ariel.
“Why the fuck is his hand on her?” Robert’s whole demeanor had changed.
Ariel was here tonight as Ezra’s wife so she could get a better read on Becca. She’d explained that reading Becca’s reports and her social media would only tell her so much. Ariel wanted to get to know the woman who might have worked with Dr. McDonald.
Who hadn’t worked with that woman. No way. He couldn’t even think of it. She hadn’t known a damn thing. He couldn’t believe it.
“I thought this was all about the op, man,” Jax said. “She’s Ezra’s partner, not his lover.”
Robert actually growled the minute the word lover came out of Jax’s mouth.
“Seriously? You know you were supposed to be playing my lover, right?” Owen pointed out the flaw in his friend’s logic. “You certainly weren’t doing it to make Ari jealous. Or were you?”
Robert’s jaw tightened as he obviously tried to gain control. “Of course not. She knows damn well I wouldn’t sleep with you.”
But he was worried she might sleep with Ezra. “She turned you down because she wouldn’t sleep with a coworker. I know Ezra technically isn’t on the payroll, but I assure you she thinks of him as a coworker.”
“She didn’t turn me down at all,” Robert said quietly. “I did it. I kissed her back when I first started living at The Garden, and it got out of hand. And I realized how much I could hurt her. We agreed to go back to what we’d been before, therapist and patient. Friends, sort of, because of how we work together. I’ve come a long way. I can control myself now. I won’t hurt her physically. But she’s angry because I left her behind in London. I’m trying to show her that maybe we could try again after all this is over.”
Jax hissed slightly. “Man, they do not like to hear things like that. Women tend to want to go through all the things. The good. The bad. All the stuff.”
“You’ve been married for five minutes, Jax,” Robert shot back.
“Yeah, but it’s been a good five minutes.” Jax sighed as though thinking about something amazing. “It hasn’t been long, but I know one thing I’ve figured out. If you’re a couple you’re together no matter what. You don’t give up because being together is the most important thing. River isn’t merely a gift to protect. She’s my wife and she’s got a say in everything we do.”
“Oh, you learn quickly, baby.” River pushed through the swinging door and walked straight up to her husband, throwing her arms around him and lifting her face for a kiss. “Nothing is sexier than being a partner and not a prop.” He lowered her back down and she grabbed a corkscrew. “I take it this man-talk is brought to us by the sight of Ariel with another man? I ask because I know this isn’t about Owen. He’s already running away and hard.”
“I am not running,” he complained. “I’m giving her space because she obviously doesn’t want me here.”
“She had a rough day at work and she’s still unsettled,” River replied, picking up two wine glasses. “Which you would know if you hadn’t gotten all man hurt because she didn’t become a puddle of goo at the very sight of your handsome face. Go and make her laugh. Be charming and non-threatening. Try not to look like a crazy caveman. If you need tips on how to do that, look at Robert right now and then do the opposite of him. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll try to get Ezra back here and then Ari and I can solve the case while you guys gossip.”
She strode out to the living room, the door swinging behind her.
Jax grinned after his wife. “She gets sassier with age.”
She was definitely a far cry from the woman he’d first met. She’d been sad, closed off and suspicious.
If Jax had walked away the first time she’d rejected him—over a misunderstanding—they wouldn’t be here. That wasn’t how it would work out for him and Becca, however he could do his job and still be good for her.
But not if he let her walk away because he didn’t even try.
From his vantage he could see her through the opening between the kitchen and the bar. She hadn’t put her purse down. She was glancing around like she was trying to find a way to get out of this gracefully.
He couldn’t give her the chance. He grabbed a second glass and poured out two fingers of whiskey. “I’m going in.”
“Damn straight you are,” Jax replied. “Ask her. She won’t be expecting it because almost no one in this world is open and honest when they feel vulnerable. I was too stupid to know how to behave and it saved me. Be bold.”
Bold. He could do that. He clutched the glasses and strode out to make his play.
* * * *
How to get out? It had been a mistake to come tonight. Maybe if she hadn’t walked in and seen Owen she could have gotten through dinner, but seeing him again had thrown her off kilter.
She could fake a text. She was a doctor. Everyone knew doctors had emergencies all the time. A research emergency. That might work. Something could have gone wrong in the lab and she needed to get back. Except there was zero chance she was going back there tonight.
Damn it. She hated being this wishy-washy, hated not having a plan in front of her.
It had been an hour since she’d left the office and she couldn’t find her calm. She could tell herself that the feeling she’d gotten while standing outside her office had been nothing but a trick of memory, but it still sat there in her gut.
She’d hated that feeling. Vulnerable. Fragile.
Seeing Owen had made her want to run because she was close to the edge and she didn’t have any right to ask him to put those big, strong arms around her.
It would be a stupid thing to do. She’d just met the man. She wasn’t going to pour her heart out to him.
She’d had sex with him, but somehow talking about how scared she’d been, leaning on him for something other than an orgasm was more intimate.
“Did you say you were a doctor?” the gorgeous woman with a British accent said. She’d been introduced as Ariel, Ezra’s wife. She was tall and graceful, with brown eyes lit with intelligence. “Medical?”
“Yes,” she replied out of politeness. River was busy opening the bottle of pinot noir she’d grabbed at the café downstairs as her husband’s boss spoke to her in low tones. “I work in research with the Huisman Foundation.”
“You’re Rebecca Walsh? The Rebecca Walsh?” Ariel smiled broadly. “I’m sorry. I bet you don’t normally meet fans outside of a conference. I guess fan is an odd word. Admirer is more posh, perhaps.”
“I
don’t normally meet anyone who knows me outside of the medical world.” There was a reason those eyes were so intelligent. “They didn’t introduce you as Dr. Fain.”
“I go by my maiden name, Dr. Adisa, but honestly, unless I’m working, I don’t use it. I’m around a lot of Ezra’s circle most of the time and they are not impressed with education. Well, not the university kind. My husband knows an awful lot of computer experts. I’m a clinical psychologist. I work particularly with intense PTSD and trauma.” The psychologist smiled brightly as she spoke, practically lighting up the room. “Obviously one of the problems can be memory loss, both short and long term. Your paper on new therapy techniques in reconnecting memory function was brilliant. I use several of your methods with my long-term patients. I thought you were in Boston.”
“I took a job at Huisman a couple of years ago,” she explained. “They gave me a whole department and pretty much free range on whatever I wanted to work on, so I moved here.”
“They’ve got deep pockets and some incredible connections,” Ariel agreed. “It’s such a small world. You should know that your work is helping people on many levels.”
She loved hearing that and on any other night she would question the doctor, asking her about her research and practice. She’d often found that the doctors who used her work as a base came up with possibilities she’d never thought about. But tonight, that note was still in her bag and the shadows seemed to be chasing her. Tonight, praise might be a good transition to exit. “Thank you so much. I would love to talk to you about how you’ve used them. Perhaps we could have lunch sometime. I’m afraid I’m going to…”
She stopped when Owen stepped up beside Ariel, two glasses in his hand.
He was even more gorgeous than she’d remembered. Her dreams had nothing on reality. He was big and strong and those eyes pierced through her. His reddish and gold hair was slightly shaggy, and he had the hint of a beard across that chiseled jaw.
She kind of wanted to kiss that jaw.
How could she go from needing to be alone to wanting so desperately to be alone with him?
“I brought you a drink. I remember you didn’t mind whiskey,” he said, holding out the glass.
She took it and her first instinct was to down that sucker as fast as she could.
Her second was to wonder about that note she’d gotten and the way she’d felt earlier in the evening.
How well did she know this man? How well did she know any of the people in this room?
Owen offered his free hand to the lovely psychologist. “I’m Owen Shaw. I live across the hall. Just moved in this week.”
“Ariel Adisa,” she said, readily taking his hand and shaking it. “It’s good to know my husband and I aren’t the only strangers in a strange land. My husband works with Jax. We moved from DC, though obviously I’m a Brit like you.”
Owen’s brow rose. “I’m a Scot, love.”
She sighed. “One of those. I should have known. Are you in the medical profession as well?”
She didn’t like how pretty Owen looked with Ariel. But then he would probably look good with anyone. She didn’t like how long Owen held the other woman’s hand.
A very good reason to run because she shouldn’t get possessive about some guy she’d spent a couple of hours with.
That was when she realized that while she’d been watching that place where Owen’s hand held the other woman’s, his gaze had been on her. She looked up into his vibrant eyes. He glanced down at the glass in her hand and she could have sworn she saw a hint of hurt there.
“Darling, could you come and tell River about the new gallery you found in Junction Triangle?” Ezra put his hand on his wife’s back, gesturing her toward their host. “She and Jax have had a hard time decorating this place. Apparently they have different tastes.”
Ariel chuckled. “I’m afraid I can’t help Jax’s sad preoccupation with dogs playing poker paintings, but I can help River.” She sent Becca another of her brilliant smiles. “I’m so happy to meet you and to know you’re in my little circle. See you in a bit.”
And she was left alone with Owen. Not alone, exactly. They were in one of the apartment’s corners, but River, Ariel, and Ezra were already talking animatedly across the room. Jax and Robert walked in, bringing more drinks.
It was a party. A normal thing.
She could still feel her heart beating.
“Give me that,” Owen ordered.
She realized he was talking about the drink in her hand. The one she hadn’t touched. He took it and downed it in one long swallow before setting it on one of the coasters River had set on the tables in the room.
“Jax will pour you another one and you can watch him do it,” he said, his voice low but gentle. “We’ve been drinking from that bottle all night. He opened it in front of me. Now tell me what I did between Wednesday and tonight to put that look in your eyes and make you worry I might hurt you.”
He thought she thought he’d tried to drug her drink? She was about to protest, but she had considered it. She’d looked at him and wondered honestly why such a gorgeous man would want her the way he seemed to. She’d thought about the fact that two weird, frightening things had happened in the days after she’d met him.
But he’d been here for over an hour, according to River. He’d come early because his laptop wasn’t working and Jax had offered to fix it for him. While she’d been terrified, he’d been trying to get better Internet.
She was being utterly paranoid.
He’d seen right through her.
She stole his glass and took a long swallow, the whiskey burning through her in a pleasant way. “I had a rough day.”
“And walking in on your…it wasn’t even a one-night stand was it? Walking in to find out you’re having dinner with me couldn’t have helped.”
“That wasn’t exactly how I viewed it.”
“Robert said you were probably embarrassed,” he said with a frown. “I don’t understand what you have to be embarrassed about.”
She felt her cheeks heat and she forced herself to swallow her second mouthful of whiskey. “You told Robert?”
It was his turn to blush. “I did. I wasn’t supposed to? I guess I didn’t think about it. It was the best thing that happened to me in a long time. I wanted to talk about it.”
Those words did strange things to her heart. And he was right. A little of her tension seemed to seep away. Maybe it was the whiskey, but she kind of thought it was the man. Now that she was standing here alone with him, she remembered how comfortable she’d been with him. They’d been stuck in that dumb elevator for hours, and it had been easy to be with Owen. He hadn’t flinched at all over her dweeby talk about science fiction shows she loved or rolled his eyes when she started feeling tight in her own skin. He’d shared her dinner gratefully and offered her half of everything he’d had.
And when she’d needed it, he’d kissed and fucked away every ounce of stress in her body.
“I told some people too,” she admitted with a half-smile. She would probably tell Cathy. She’d definitely talk to Melissa about it. “Well, I told one person and this other guy overheard, but I didn’t really care because I would tell anyone who asked. Your friend is wrong. I wasn’t ashamed.” She glanced over at Robert and frowned. “Is he unhappy? He looks angry.”
The man had the fiercest frown on his face and he seemed to be staring at Ezra, Ariel, and River like he might murder one of them. Or all of them.
Jax had walked over with a plate of crostinis. “Who’s angry?”
Owen’s brows went up and he looked over at his friend with a grimace. “Robert. And not at all. That’s just his face, love. He’s one of those guys who can’t seem to smile much. I’m absolutely sure it’s not because he can’t stand to look at a couple who’s obviously in love because that would make him a crazy man.”
Jax sighed. “Definitely just his face. I’ll tell him to watch the resting bitch face. Dinner’s in ten.”
He turned and walked back to the other group.
She wouldn’t call it resting bitch face. Maybe resting serial-killer face. She watched as Jax walked up and whispered something to the man and his face flooded with red. He sighed and turned to his friend.
“So you’re not afraid of me then?” Owen’s words brought her attention back to him. “When you walked in, I thought you looked scared. I couldn’t stand the thought of you being afraid of me.”
She wasn’t. Well, not in a physical way. Emotionally she was worried he might wreck her in a way her ex never could, but she wasn’t going to let that happen. Maybe they could enjoy each other. Why not? As long as they were both open and honest about what they wanted, why couldn’t they have some fun?
Of course, she might be reading him wrong. He might be simply trying to be friendly.
“Not afraid. Not of you,” she admitted. “Something weird happened at work and it freaked me out a little.”
“What happened?” His gaze sharpened and she could buy that this was a man who’d been honed in battle.
“It was nothing. The lights went out when I was about to come home. I was alone and it scared me,” she replied simply.
“Was it the darkness that frightened you?”
She shivered as she remembered that feeling. “It was nothing. Primal fear of the unknown, I suspect. It’s weird. I don’t hate being alone. I like it most of the time. I’ve lived alone here for two years and I’m usually one of the last people out of the office at night, but today something felt different. Like I said, it was dumb instinct.”
“Instinct isn’t dumb,” he insisted. “Fear isn’t something to be ignored. Fear is the lizard part of your brain, the part that concentrates on survival.”
She stared at him. “Are you seriously mansplaining the amygdala to a neuroscientist?”
His lips curled up in the sexiest smirk. “I got no idea what that is, but it’s sexy when you say it.” He sobered a bit. “And you might be the brain expert, but I assure you, I’m the expert in fear and survival. So let me soldiersplain this to you. Fear is the first ingredient to survival. You can’t survive an attack if you don’t know it’s coming, and fear is the first sign. Did you feel like you weren’t really alone?”