Watch Over Me

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Watch Over Me Page 13

by Lucy Monroe


  “I know.”

  “Yet, you trust him almost implicitly.”

  “You think something about that fact means I shouldn’t?”

  “He lied to Frank.”

  “That wasn’t a lie. He simply omitted facts I preferred to keep to myself.” Lana’s expression turned solemn. “I didn’t want people looking at me funny. Or funnier than they already do. I didn’t want to be the subject of speculation and pity.”

  “I understand that, but for your safety, ETRD security should have been apprised of the potential threat. That includes Frank.”

  “They aren’t coming after me again.” She said it stubbornly, like she wanted to believe it, but part of her didn’t.

  “I agree.”

  “But—”

  “If the Kurd rebels who took you were interested in you still, they would have shown up before now, but that doesn’t mean your skills aren’t of interest to others. No security consultant, no matter how good, can prepare her team without key knowledge like the fact that your doctoral theses had unintended ramifications related to chemical warfare.”

  “I’m not a risk to ETRD.”

  “No, doc, you are not.”

  “So, why would anyone need to know?”

  “Because working for ETRD is a risk to you.”

  “I chose to take that risk.”

  “That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be minimized.”

  “Mr. Smith made sure it was.”

  “He should have told Elle.”

  “She wasn’t really a security consultant and Mr. Smith knew it.”

  “Wrong. It might have been her cover, but Elle still had every intention of upgrading ETRD’s security. Which, as you know, is exactly what she did do.”

  “It doesn’t matter that Mr. Smith didn’t tell her, though. She obviously found out on her own, or you wouldn’t know about it.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I thought my safety was the point.”

  “It is, and Mr. Smith holding back important information could have compromised it.”

  “He made sure I would never get lost again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me up.”

  “I like you where you are.”

  “I want to show you something.”

  Myk grudgingly allowed Lana to stand. She tugged up the hem of her T-shirt, revealing a sexy strip of skin above the low-slung waist of her capri pants. Nestled right in the center was her belly button, her pierced belly button. Tinker Bell winked merrily at him from her dangling perch.

  “The ring has a GPS locator on it. I can change charms, but I never change the ring itself.”

  “Mr. Smith has you Lojacked?” Myk asked in shock.

  “Yes. If I ever disappear again, he’ll be able to find me.”

  Provided her kidnappers didn’t remove her belly button ring, but Smith had been smart. Chances were, the belly button ring was safe. First, it was unlikely kidnappers would be expecting a belly button ring on the scientist. Second, even if they saw it, it wasn’t likely a GPS locator would be expected. There would be no reason to take it out.

  “You don’t mind him knowing where you are all the time?”

  “It makes me feel safe.” The way she said it kicked Myk right in the gut.

  “I’m not going to let anyone take you.”

  “I know you will try.”

  “Count on it.” He wanted to growl. Just like a damn bear. Having this woman doubt him while professing such absolute faith in the mysterious Smith, pissed Myk off. Royally. “You know he’s responsible for my sister getting let go by her agency. He blew her cover.”

  “On purpose?”

  “To Frank and Beau, yes.”

  “Her agency fired her because of that?”

  “No. There were mitigating circumstances.”

  “I’m sure there were. Anyone can miscalculate, but Mr. Smith’s intentions were good.”

  “You’re so sure of him.”

  “He saved my sanity and gave me back my dream.”

  For that, Myk could almost persuade himself not to detest the other man.

  Lana wasn’t surprised when Myk refused to let her cook and insisted on ordering dinner in. He had the alpha male need to care for those around him. Add to that his apparent inexplicable desire to take care of her particularly and ordering dinner in after her earlier outburst was a foregone conclusion.

  Of course, he instructed the Thai restaurant to leave their food with the guard downstairs.

  Lana did the same thing when she ordered takeout.

  She sighed, shifting restlessly in her chair. She was supposed to be interpreting data and had spread her papers out on the opposite side of the dining table from Myk.

  He looked up from his computer where he had been typing furiously. “What’s the matter? Are you missing something tonight you didn’t tell me about?”

  “That’s likely, isn’t it?” she asked with disgust at herself.

  “Is that what that sigh was all about?” He got up and came around the table to squat beside her, his eyes burning with a sexy glint. “You’re lamenting your lack of a social life? And here I thought I was enough for any woman.”

  She laughed; his conceit knew no bounds. “It could have been, but no. I just got another reminder that I wasn’t as far from prison as I’d thought.”

  “Because I had the restaurant leave the food with the guard? We’re still eating, Lana. Our choice of food. That’s hardly prison.”

  “It doesn’t bother me that you did that. It bothers me that I would have done the same thing. Last week. And the week before. Long before I knew about the Vega Cartel’s interest in my enzymes.”

  He looked perplexed. “Why would the fact that you have a smart sense of personal safety bother you? If more people took such basic precautions, criminals wouldn’t find it so easy to target their victims.”

  “You’re a little biased in this regard.”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged, then kissed her cheek. “I like you just fine the way you are, doc.”

  “Thank you.”

  He got up and went back to sit in front of his open computer. “Just consider one thing, Lana.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not the only home owner in this complex. I doubt a single one of them would consider living here indicative of a psychosis involving personal safety issues. And they would be right.”

  Myk went back to typing and Lana returned to her research, but her mind would not shut down. Finally, she laid her pen down and started talking.

  Chapter 11

  “When Mr. Smith found me, I was living in my parents’ attic.” Lana looked up to see if Myk was listening.

  He was, his attention centered completely on her.

  She took a deep breath and then forced words out that had been inside for too many years. “It was the only room in their house without windows. Even so, I had a single-room security system and I only left the house to go to work at the paper mill where my brother is a manager. I insisted on riding to and from work with him.”

  Why did she feel the need to tell Myk about that time? She had no answers for herself, just a burning need to share secrets no one except Mr. Smith knew. “I never went out. I didn’t talk to anyone at work for fear they would turn out to be another betrayer. The thought of ordering takeout at all during that time would have nauseated me. I didn’t trust anyone.”

  “You lived with your parents.” Myk’s dark Hershey eyes bore into hers. “You trusted your brother to get you to and from work safely.”

  “I knew they couldn’t be trusted. They’d already bailed on me, so they couldn’t hurt me anymore. In a twisted way, they were the safest people to be around because they couldn’t let me down. I expected nothing from them.”

  “You trusted them not to betray you to someone else who might want to exploit your knowledge and intelligence.”

  “Believe it, or not, they were ashamed of both. I wasn’t
normal to them. There was no chance they were going to go around bragging about where I’d gone to school and what I’d studied.”

  “Elle said they didn’t instigate a search for you when you disappeared.”

  “The university filed a missing persons report. My parents didn’t feel it necessary to duplicate the effort.”

  “Why not?”

  “They assumed I’d resurface without help. They thought I was too smart to let anything really bad happen to myself, so it had to be a voluntary disappearance.”

  “Have they been drinking the same water as the guards at ETRD?” Myk asked with undisguised anger laced with disgust.

  She found herself smiling. A little. “Maybe.”

  “Idiots.”

  “More like they just didn’t care enough to want answers.”

  “Criminally idiotic.”

  She surprised herself with a small laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

  “I bet they were pleased to have you working in the mill and rejecting your education.”

  “They were. The only thing that would have pleased them more would have been if I’d been willing to date, but that was something I refused to do.”

  “Understandable.”

  “They didn’t think so.”

  “They were intimidated by your intelligence and suspicious of your education. You wanted a life they couldn’t mentally grasp.”

  “They saw what happened to me as a means to bring me back into the fold they did understand. You know what I don’t understand?”

  “What?”

  “I was really glad my brother liked his job at the mill, that he’d worked his way to a management position. Why couldn’t they have been happy for my success, too?”

  “They were afraid it would take you away from them.”

  She stared. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “You’re a scientist. You told me already psychology isn’t your strong suit.”

  “The subtext of human behavior isn’t as easy to understand as y’s reaction to x in the lab.”

  “Your parents’ lack of follow-through in pushing for stronger measures to being taken in finding you is indicative that they had subconsciously accepted your loss before you ever went away to university.”

  “They should have cared. They should have worried about me.”

  “Yes, they should have. Their apathy to your safety cost them more than your choice for a different life ever would have.”

  “That’s true. Once Mr. Smith convinced me to come to work for ETRD, I left and never looked back. They invite me to go ‘home’ every year for Christmas.”

  “You decline.”

  “I do.”

  “Understandable.”

  “I’m not sure it is.”

  “I can’t believe Smith was the first person to offer you a job in your field.”

  “He wasn’t. I refused my university’s invitation to work in their research facility. I turned down job offers from half a dozen other scientific research facilities as well. I thought I could be safe if I didn’t use my knowledge. If I lived the life my parents had anticipated for me before I turned into some kind of freak. Their words, not mine.”

  “What changed with Mr. Smith?”

  “He made me see what I was doing.”

  “Living in a prison of your own making.”

  “Exactly. I couldn’t let the people who had hurt me win like that.”

  “I’m glad he convinced you to come to work for ETRD, but he was motivated by self-interest, you know?”

  “You think? There are other people in this country with my education.”

  “But none with your vision.”

  “That’s what Mr. Smith said.”

  “I never questioned his smarts.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “So, you never talk to your parents, or your brother?”

  “Oh, we talk. Probably once a month, but I don’t visit and I’ve never invited them to come out here. Once I woke up from the fugue I had been living in since getting back in the States, I realized how deeply I resented their lack of effort to find me. If they had insisted on a serious all-out search being done, maybe I would have been found. I don’t think Artie would have been that difficult a witness to break.”

  “That I believe.”

  “You were right earlier. I do still love them. I always will and I’ve even forgiven them, but I’ll never forget. I can’t.”

  “I get that.” Something in his expression told her he meant those words.

  “You’ve got your own ghosts.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “Some are more horrific than others.”

  “Agreed. The trick is to focus on the memories that aren’t so bad.”

  “You mean like my time before I was kidnapped? I’ve tried that. It never works.”

  “No. I mean like the positive memories you have since then, even during the ordeal. There had to be moments that reminded you why it was good to be alive.”

  “I disguised experiments that were a precursor to what I’m doing now as chemical warfare development.”

  “Clever. Did you have any breakthroughs?”

  She felt herself grinning. “Yes.” They’d been worth the beating she’d gotten when her captors had caught on. “What about you?”

  “My last case was filled with really rotten stuff, kids being sold and hurt. But I saved as many of them as I could and each one was a victory for the good guys.”

  The buzzer from the guard desk in the lobby sounded.

  They ate their Thai food on the living room sofa while Lana’s favorite Air Supply CD played in the background. Mykola had balked at her choice until she’d told him it was either that or Disney show tunes. She had the entire collection from every Disney movie and musical produced.

  Having an eclectic ear, she had other types of music, too, but didn’t bother telling him so. Why bother when the other CDs weren’t what she wanted to listen to right now?

  Mykola had been less than impressed and offered his MP3 player loaded with techno. While she wasn’t averse to techno on occasion, like when Casey and she were working through the night on an experiment, she hadn’t been in the mood tonight.

  So, Air Supply. After all, it was her apartment and Mykola had admitted that in the right mood, he actually enjoyed the eighties band. Over dinner, he told Lana entertaining stories about his siblings from their childhood.

  Still laughing over an anecdote about the time his mother caught Elle playing cops and robbers, Lana shook her head in disbelief. “You’re kidding. You have to be. No way did she use your baba’s favorite wooden spoon from the old country as her gun. Even Elle isn’t that daring.”

  “But she is that stubborn.” Mykola had a wicked twinkle in his dark eyes.

  “You dared her,” Lana breathed in awe.

  “You bet.”

  She shook her head. “You are so lucky to have survived childhood.”

  “Tell me about it. I was even crazy enough to play practical jokes on our oldest brother. No one else ever did.”

  “Roman. The military brother.”

  “That would be the one.”

  “He didn’t have much of a sense of humor?”

  “Nope. Papa used to say he was born with a serious expression that didn’t crack until long after his first birthday.”

  “Wow.”

  “Now, there would be a study for your mythical anthropologist.” Mykola ate a bite of his pad thai with gusto.

  “My, huh?”

  “The one you think would like to study me, Cro-Magnon man.”

  She laughed. “Are you saying Roman would make an even better subject?”

  “For another scientist.”

  “Clearly. After all, I’m not an anthropologist.”

  “Besides, my brother isn’t your type.”

  She finished chewing and swallowed her bite of spicy red curry before asking, “What type would that be?”

&nb
sp; Chapter 12

  Mykola waggled his brows. “I think you know.”

  “Bad boys?” She was never going to live it down now that he’d overheard her subconscious rambling and gone snooping in her bedroom.

  “Not all bad boys.”

  “You think I’ve got a subgroup of particular interest?” She couldn’t remember having this much fun with a man and this wasn’t even a date. Not really.

  Mykola wanted to have sex with her. Weird, but true. However, he was in her apartment now because he was intent on protecting her. She’d noticed the way he’d set up shop, and the fact that there was a strange black duffel on the floor of her bedroom. The man had every intention of staying over, whether he shared her bed or not.

  He gave her a look that made her vaginal muscles clench spasmodically. “Yeah, I do.”

  “And what would that be?”

  He set both their takeout containers with chopsticks on the coffee table. Then he leaned toward her, invading her personal space and giving her a whiff of his masculine scent over the Thai food. “The type that might dress and look the part, but when it comes to living, he’s one of the good guys.”

  He was oh so right. “You mean men like you?”

  “Your picture is still too broad, sweetheart.” He leaned in and kissed the edge of her lips. Just a tease and she wanted more. “Guess again.”

  “We are talking about my preferences here?” She meant to sound mocking, but the words came out breathy and low.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Then it wouldn’t be a guess, would it?” She tried to focus on logic, but he was making it really hard. Impossible in fact.

  He nibbled his way down her neck, his knowing lips drawing a response she was helpless to squelch. “There’s only one bad boy in your preference bubble right now.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Oh, go her, coherent thought and a teasing comment to boot.

  “Call me arrogant, but yes.”

  “Yes,” she hissed the same time his lips latched on to where her shoulder joined her neck. Delight shivered through her while his tongue played over her skin. “That feels so good.”

  His only answer was his hand sliding under the hem of her T-shirt. Hot skin against hot skin. Callused fingers brushed smooth skin that never saw the light of day and rarely felt another’s touch. It had been so long. Her body was not accustomed to any touch, much less that of a master in the art of sexual gratification.

 

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