by Christa Wick
A minute ticked by with neither man making a sound except for Trent’s typing, an annoyed tic flexing rhythmically along his jaw at Reed’s continued presence.
“Okay,” Reed exhaled. “This is me telling you there’s a problem with Dani that I can’t handle.”
His black gaze lifted in warning.
"I've got her at Vivian's estate," Reed continued. "Working for the foundation."
As an initial relocation for Daniella and Christine, it made perfect sense. Vivian's foundation helped children injured in war zones get medical care in the U.S. and Europe. If the child was an orphan, the foundation also helped find new families. Daniella's background in ensuring that schools met their obligations to special needs children would make her well suited to work at the foundation.
Plus, the estate was extremely well guarded. It had to be—Vivian Lodge was Collin Stark's sister.
Trent stopped typing and laughed. "That's where Stark is hiding out, isn't it?"
Reed's gaze dropped to his hands, the simple gesture all the confirmation Trent needed, especially when the pieces all fit so smoothly together. Collin was intentionally giving Trent a hard time about resigning, so he went to the one place Trent wouldn't want to go, not just because Daniella was there, but because Trent had killed Vivian's husband.
To be fair, William Lodge the Third had been holding a knife to his wife's throat when it happened. The man was also a smuggler, using the foundation started by his family during World War II as cover for moving weapons and other dangerous technology across borders.
"You don't have a problem handling Daniella," he accused Reed. "You're just working with Stark to…"
Trent wasn't sure what the goal was. To make him stay as COO? To have him fall on his knees and profess his feelings?
“Well, the insurance company settled on her house and its contents. That's a couple hundred grand she could use to—”
Growling, Trent slammed the lid on his laptop. “You do know what I’ve been working on while you and Stark have spent the last twenty minutes wasting my time?”
It was Reed’s turn to shrug. “What’s a Congressional hearing or two? We know we didn’t bribe the general with any pussy or money—the man had nothing to do with our procurement contracts.”
Trent’s blood pressure rose just a little higher, a cold glitter of menace lighting his gaze.
“You know what your problem with Dani is?” Reed asked then.
“Of course. She thinks I’m a monster like the man who killed her sister,” Trent answered matter-of-factly. Nothing he could change about that.
“No. That’s not the problem,” Reed said after a few seconds. "Your problem is that you agree with her.”
Unfazed by the scowl Trent flashed at him, Reed pushed on. “Come on, man. Don’t do this to yourself—or to Dani. She’s miserable in those moments she believes she’s alone.”
“You’re the last person to be handing out advi—” Trent clamped down on the growling rebuke, his eyes shaping an apology for his mouth shooting off without oversight from his brain.
“Yeah, fuck you, too,” Reed tossed back, getting up from the chair and storming out.
18
Trent
Trent coasted to a stop in front of the sprawling, plantation era home that housed the Lodge Children's Foundation. The double doors inched open as he shifted into park. A feminine hand appeared. Not ready to face Daniella, Trent tensed for all of a quarter second until he saw the crimson sleeve of the woman's blouse.
Red was Vivian's favorite color.
She stepped onto the porch, head tilted in his direction so that her long, blond hair obscured one eye and half of a sharp smile he didn't trust.
"Collin left for a perimeter check."
"Of course he did," Trent said, unfolding his long frame from the cramped interior of his Maserati GranTurismo.
"There's a lot of perimeter to check," she said, her gaze shifting to the envelope Trent clutched in his hand. "I heard you were resigning—or trying to."
"News of my imminent departure is correct," he deadpanned, stepping onto the porch and waiting for her to invite him in.
Even after four years, he still didn't know how he should talk to the woman he had made a widow. Was he supposed to apologize for saving her life each time they met?
She cocked her head toward the interior, the accompanying sweep of her arm a subtle order for him to enter ahead of her. Trent walked past then stopped in the middle of the entry room as Vivian shut the door and reset the alarm.
Finished, she turned and eyed him with a discernible malevolent glee.
"You haven't seen the renovations to the west wing, have you?"
"I saw the plans," he answered. "The families must appreciate having their own living area when they are here for medical treatment."
"Plans," she said, plucking that one word from his answer as she led him down a hall. "I've never been one for lines on paper. Too impersonal, too cold."
Cold bastard. Cold and heartless…
She had cursed him with those words. Not for killing her husband, but for Trent flinging her over his shoulder like a sack of spoiled potatoes then shoving her in a tactical van for an hour, William's blood soaking through her clothes.
"Shall I put you in Collin's office?" she asked, hand already turning the doorknob.
Not waiting for him to answer, she pushed the door open.
Expecting an ambush, Trent scanned the room.
“I wouldn’t do that to Daniella,” Vivian said, reading his mind. “Even if I thought you deserved her.”
And we’re back, Trent mused. No matter how polite she started out, Vivian was always going to be sharp with him. She associated his presence with the worst memory of her life.
Her light laugh startled him. He studied Vivian's face for the source of her amusement. She shrugged and motioned him forward.
“Sorry, it’s just that you looked so dead serious for a moment. Or severely constipated. I can never tell with you.”
He smothered back an amused smirk. The woman was certainly getting her digs in early.
“You know why I’m here," he growled. "It's not a social visit."
Trent expected to see a flash of victory in her gaze, but there was a quiet sadness that was hard to reconcile with the laugh of a second before.
She probably worried that Collin would go back to more actively managing field operations, taking risks as he had in the early days. That particular worry was pointless, but only because she didn't realize just how active Collin had remained in the field. The man was always going to be a soldier first. CEO didn't even come in as a close second.
“I know why," Vivian agreed. "But your reasoning seems flawed. The hearings in DC aren’t going to affect business. And the company is privately held, so it’s not like the stock is going to tank…or that you’re the only senior executive who has…well, you know.”
Her cheeks colored a lovely shade of rose.
She was right. He knew that. There was no real need to resign. Except that he was falling apart inside. That made him unfit to be the Chief Operations Officer.
It didn’t help that Vivian was sheltering the cause of his disintegration and, from Reed’s reports, would continue harboring Daniella and the baby for the foreseeable future.
“Cell coverage is a little spotty at the tree line. I’ll send a guard out to find Collin,” she said, turning toward the office door. “And I’ll have a tray sent in while you wait—unless you’d like to wait somewhere else?”
“No.” The answer came out harsh when he didn’t mean it to. She was being kinder than he deserved or expected. Reaching out, he lightly touched her hand, the contact the first between them since he'd shoved her in the van.
"Thank you for letting me wait in here."
Her eyes closed, the smile on her mouth tremulous and fleeting. When she opened them again, she said nothing, her face a blank slate as she turned and walked away.
Vivi
an may have been above playing games, but Collin wasn’t. He returned several hours after Trent’s arrival and sent one of the guards to bring Trent to the back lawn where dinner was being served.
The gathering was painfully small, just Collin, Vivian, Daniella, Christine, and Nazarov, the big Russian tasked with providing Vivian flight security in the morning. That left Trent no chance of surreptitiously sliding through a crowd, cornering his boss, shoving the envelope down Collin's throat or up his ass, then beating a quick retreat.
"Kane! There you are," Mikhael shouted at him, jumping up from his chair and dragging him like a rag doll to the other side of the table. “Did you know that Miss Marquardt here speaks Spanish and German?” the Russian giant asked jovially as he stuffed Trent into the chair next to Daniella.
“If she jokes about moving to Costa Rica," Mikhael jabbered on. "You must tell her how horrible it is there. Bugs in the water, hurricanes—”
"Dinosaurs," Daniella added with amusement.
Hearing her sweet, lilting voice for the first time in so long had the same effect as a wrecking ball to his chest.
Forcing himself to turn and look at her, Trent stared into the soft gray eyes he hadn't seen for a month but had dreamed about each night.
“I didn’t know about the German or Spanish."
God, he was lame. Lame because he couldn't find anything better to say; lame because he should have just left his resignation on his desk back at headquarters instead of letting Collin play his games.
“Marquardt is a German surname,” she explained, her voice sounding too damn normal for Trent’s satisfaction.
Hadn’t Reed said she was miserable?
When she thinks she’s alone…
“My parents made me learn it. And the Spanish is from working at the school district.”
She turned away as she answered, her hands busy fussing with Christine's clothing. She also perched at the far edge of her seat, her voluptuous body angled away from him.
Trent coughed, then his cheeks colored at his blatant display of need—of having tried to call her attention to him.
Daniella missed seeing his flushed cheeks as she kept her focus on the baby. Trent couldn't believe this was the same woman who had fought like a wildcat to stay by his side the last time they were together.
“So, what happened to your tires?” Collin asked, seated a safe distance away at the head of the table.
Trent shot him a hard glance. “My tires?”
Collin didn't even try to hide the smirk as he answered.
“The Maserati, right? What are the odds of two flats? Hopefully they just need aired up. We have a compressor in the garage. Otherwise, it'll be until morning before we can source replacements.”
Daniella’s gaze darted between the two men, her eyes getting bigger with each bounce. Trent noticed an uptick in her breathing and the way her fair skin turned paler.
Really? She was worried about him having to spend the night?
Trent offered his audience a flat smile then turned his attention to the food being brought out from the house. Worst case scenario, he would have to walk the five miles into town and send a tow truck for the car in the morning. But he’d be damned if Stark was going to make him a hostage of circumstance.
Especially with that startled look on Daniella's face proving how unwelcome his presence was.
He would finish this awkward dinner, hand Stark his resignation and then leave. More than anything, he would damn well make sure he was gone from her life before the moon managed to make it into the night sky.
19
Trent
Stepping into the hall and closing the door to Collin’s office, Trent leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. It was eleven p.m., far later than he had planned, but he was escaping with his resignation more or less accepted and with Daniella only having to endure a brief and casual contact with him.
Plus, Collin only had the air removed from the Maserati’s tires, which had since been refilled. Now it was time to disappoint Mikhael, who insisted on seeing Trent in the morning, by slinking off into the night.
Heading down a hall that ended in a T-intersection, Trent made a right turn toward the operations room of the on-site security team so they could let him out.
A dozen yards from his destination, he stopped cold.
The moon done set and the sun won’t rise…
Trent shook his head, assuring himself that he couldn't actually hear Daniella singing. Her song had been playing in his head for a month. Always in her voice, tricking him even when he knew he was alone.
All around me cold black skies…
Walking a few more feet forward, he stopped in front of a door.
I can’t see you.
He pushed at the door, finding it unlocked and the bolt not fully seated. Daniella looked up from where she leaned over a crib rubbing Christine’s back. Looking up, she stopped mid-verse.
“I was on my way to the ops room,” he explained, his voice at a whisper to keep from further disturbing the baby.
“Three more doors down on our left,” she replied in the same hushed tone before returning her gaze to Christine.
She was avoiding him as she had at dinner, not outright shunning him but gently turning her attention elsewhere.
“That’s too sad a song to sing to a baby,” he said, the unsolicited advice slipping out.
He expected Daniella to tell him it was none of his business in the same neutral tone she’d used all evening, but she shook her head.
“If that’s what you think, then you can’t have heard all of it.” A frown wrinkled the lines of her mouth and forehead. “I didn’t realize you’d heard any of it before now.”
He didn’t comment, wouldn’t confess to lurking at the perimeter of her life, crouching in shadows while he watched her light, witnessing the love for her niece glowing on her face and wondering if that same luminous shine could ever again be brought forth by his presence.
“I made it up when I was a child,” she went on. “The Marquardts weren’t affectionate. But sometimes I could feel—something…someone. After they died, I forgot about it until the first time I had trouble getting Christine to sleep.”
Her frown smoothing, Daniella dropped her head and rubbed at the baby’s back. She started over, her sweet voice wrapping Trent in cold.
The moon done set and the sun won’t rise,
All around me cold black skies,
I can’t see you.
Ghosts against the winter sky,
The years, like clouds, roll on by,
I can’t see you.
But I hear you in the night owl’s call
I feel you when leaves turn and fall
I am with you…
20
Daniella
Daniella didn’t actually see Trent leave without saying a word, or even register fully that he was using intentionally silent feet down the hall right outside her door. She felt it in her chest, in the sudden weakness of her knees and in the parching of her throat. Looking up to confirm the sensation, she saw nothing but a now partially-open door framing the void where Trent had stood silently, choosing not to make his presence known.
She tried not to read too much into it. For all she knew, the only reason he’d been near her room at all was because he’d simply been passing by after working in the ops room.
Her attention returned to the crib where Christine had settled back to sleep.
Entering the adjoining room, Daniella grabbed her phone from the dresser and texted one of the night staff she was friendly with, asking the woman to sit with Christine for a while. Waiting for a reply, she exchanged her sandals for a pair of runners and pulled a light shawl from her shoulders.
The phone vibrated with an incoming message.
On my way. Hope at least one of us is getting lucky tonight!
Daniella texted a wink but the expression on her face contained only a trace of optimism.
She wasn’t even su
re what qualified as “lucky” when it came to Trent Kane. She had learned so many things about him since the night she had shared his bed.
From the stories Reed and Mikhael exchanged, she knew that Trent could be as funny as he was fearless. She heard them recount moments of great tenderness that reminded her of that perfect window of time at his penthouse after she and Trent had stopped fighting their attraction and before that damn news article had jerked her back to reality.
Then there were the things Reed had hinted at, like the odd blood trail at Stoker’s house. She wasn’t sure if he didn’t know whether Trent had done something to silence Julie or if he simply wouldn’t tell her, but Reed was clearly communicating he believed Trent capable of such an act and that she and the baby were that important to the man.
Heading down the hall to the nearest exit, Daniella wondered how she felt about actions Trent might have taken on her or Christine's behalf. Ambivalent was the best she could come up with. She lived in a world in which a monster had forced her sister to sell her body under the guise of “love,” a different monster beat Lynn to death, then one lured Daniella to the trailer park so more monsters could kidnap her and sell the baby to yet another monster.
Daniella didn’t want a monster in her life. But a strong man capable of doing monstrous things to protect those he cared about?
Yeah, she was more than okay with that.
Stopping in front of the exit, she waited for the iris scan to finish and the door to click. The fingers of one hand bounced nervously against her side as they always did during the interval between scan and approval.
Open the pod bay doors, Hal…
Finally hearing the lock disengage, she exhaled and stepped outside as emotions began pinching the bridge of her nose, leaving her with the sting of impending tears.
She pushed the sensation away, refusing to let herself get so twisted up inside with all these doubts she now had over whether Trent wanted anything to do with her anymore.