by K. M. Scott
How I wished that was true. “We’re still in danger, I think, but at least for tonight, Gage and I are going to get a few drinks in the French Quarter and try to forget this whole mess.”
“Just don’t get in trouble, Jordan. Remember the police in Hilton Head are still looking for you,” Nina said in her usual worried way.
“I won’t. Gage will be right next to me the whole time, so I’ll be safe and sound. Don’t worry.”
“Okay. I’ll try. Just be careful but have a good time. You two deserve it. Love you, Jordan.”
“I love you too, Nina. Tell Tristan and the kiddies we said hi and we’ll be back out there at the house as soon as we can, okay?”
I ended the call, happy that my mother believed I was fine, even if that wasn’t the exact truth. But we would be fine soon enough, and that’s what mattered.
As I daydreamed about what life would be like for Gage and me after all this madness was over, the bathroom door opened and he stepped out into the bedroom looking even more stunning than usual. The light blue dress shirt looked perfect next to this dark hair and blue eyes. For a moment, I wasn’t sure I wanted to share him with the rest of the world.
“A quick shower washed away a day’s worth of grime, and these clothes look pretty good, if I do say so myself,” he joked as he stood modeling his new look.
I walked over to him and ran my hands down his chest. “You clean up nice, Gage Varo.”
He looked down at me still standing there in my towel and shook his head. “Just like a woman. Now I’m going to have to wait while you get dressed. The eternal male struggle.”
Grabbing my dress and shoes from the closet, I stomped past him and rolled my eyes. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Eternal male struggle. Hmmph. I might just have to make it fifteen for that remark.”
“I don’t want to toot our collective horn too much, but we look great!” I announced a few minutes later as I opened the bathroom door and showed off the body-hugging, knockout black dress that hit the middle of my thighs.
It was clear that he agreed with me as he stared at me with a look that said he was having second thoughts about going out. Taking me in his arms, he kissed my neck. “You look incredible, Jordan.”
“If you keep this up, Gage Varo, we’re never going to make it out of this bedroom,” I teased as he ran his hands down my back to cup my ass.
“Fine, but when you look this good, it’s hard to keep my hands off you.”
He kissed me and my head swum, but I knew if we kept this up, we really wouldn’t leave this room, so I said, “You ready to paint the town red?”
“After you, my lady.”
The French Quarter was even busier than Manhattan, if that was possible, but it was a different kind of busy. In New York, everything was rushed. People rushed from place to place. Cars rushed up and down the streets. Conversations were rushed.
This place was so different, even though we were in the middle of hundreds of people at any given time. Still in the high seventies, the humid Gulf air hung over the Quarter and slowed everything down. People didn’t hurry from building to building but meandered down the streets as they partied. The heavy bass of dance music playing in a second floor bar mixed with the soulful guitar coming from a blues club and the drunken chatter of people around us to create a mixture of sound I’d never heard before in my life.
Gage held my hand as we slowly weaved our way through the crowd. Even though my neck still ached, I couldn’t stop looking left and right at all the sights around us. The modern neon lights of bar and restaurant signs mingled seamlessly with the French and Spanish architecture of the Quarter, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
While I admired my new favorite place, Gage’s head was on a swivel too, but for a different reason. I knew we had a better chance of being safe here than we had in Wyoming, especially since Denise wasn’t with us, but it was obvious that Gage wasn’t taking any chances.
Too often it showed through that Gage was the one with military training, not me. I looked like a tourist even in the city I lived in, whereas Gage always looked like he knew exactly where he was and where everything and everyone else should be.
I spied a club advertising a masquerade party and nudged him. “Look! They’re having a masquerade party there. We can wear masks.”
“Perfect,” he said as I tugged him toward the dark green entrance to the bar.
Inside, we paid the cover and put on our masks. Gage’s was white with ornate black trim around the edges. My mask was emerald green with purple lace and flecks of gold around the eyeholes. Both masks covered from our noses up, so only we knew who we were.
“Stay close to me,” Gage said low in my ear as we walked past the bar manned by a freakishly tall man nearly seven foot tall clad in a tux and top hat.
Staircases on either side of the long rectangular room led up to second and third stories. Both levels were framed by black wrought iron posts and railings that formed balconies in front of the adjacent hallways. There were places to sit and enjoy a drink or the strange music that didn’t seem to be coming from anywhere but could be heard everywhere.
The music became louder as we got drinks and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Taking a seat on a red velvet couch, I looked to my left and saw a man and woman barely keeping their clothes on as they kissed and to my right saw a woman dancing alone to a beat that didn’t match the music.
“I think we picked the wrong level,” Gage joked.
There was something about the club and the anonymity the masks offered that made me feel like a whole new woman. “Let’s go upstairs and see what we find,” I yelled over the music, gesturing towards the third floor where balloons and bubbles were pouring down into the center of the club as people danced with bottles of champagne.
Gage winked and held out his hand. “Lead the way!”
It had been ages since I had let loose in a club but a quick finish of my liquid courage had me feeling like I was on cloud nine. Gage finished his drink and joked about trying to keep up with me even though we both knew he wouldn’t consider letting himself get drunk when we were still in danger.
I couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol, the atmosphere, or our situation, but Gage stuck to me like glue. We danced against one another, and I found myself eagerly anticipating when I would have him all to myself later. The dance we would do in bed would be much better than this one with our masks on.
As we pressed our bodies together, I laughed as he went to kiss me but ended up knocking our masks against one another. Mine went so askew that my vision went dark and I couldn’t stop laughing. I looked away to adjust my mask and that was when I saw her.
It didn’t matter that she wore a black and gold mask. All it did was make her more frightening. I saw her moving through the crowd and instantly knew I was in danger.
Hailey. I’d spent enough time with that woman to remember how she moved. Like a snake.
“Gage, we have to go,” I said frantically into his ear, trying to keep my eyes on Hailey as she weaved back into the crowd. How had she found us here? We had only been in town for less than a day. There was no way unless she and Justin had been tracking us, but Gage had been sure to keep an eye out for that.
“What are you talking about? We just got here,” he said into my ear, pressing his hands softly against my back to calm me down.
“She’s here, Gage. I just saw her,” I answered, my heart pounding wildly as terror filled me.
“Where?” he asked as he turned his head left and right to scan the crowd.
My eyes studied the people around us, but she had disappeared. “I don’t know, but I saw her. We have to go.”
“Jordan, everyone has masks on, so how could you see her? How could she be here?”
My emotions began to spin out of control and I yelled over the music, “I don’t know, but I saw her! She’s here!”
Gage cupped his palms on my shoulders to calm me down. “Don’t panic. I’m here. Nothi
ng’s going to happen to you.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. The person who had drugged me, kidnapped me, and forced me to marry a man I didn’t love before trying to kill me had found us and now she was going to finish what she started.
The party happening around us, which had moments before been exciting in its anonymity, was now terrifying. My hands began to shake uncontrollably and a thin sheen of sweat almost instantly covered me. I was hot and cold at the same time, and I needed to be somewhere safe, somewhere I knew Hailey wasn’t going to be.
I wanted to go home.
Not home to the foreign and extravagant house in the Garden District, not to that cabin in the woods. Home to my little apartment in Sunset Park with my goofy refrigerator magnets and oldies seventies music. I wanted my normal life back. I wanted to brew a cup of coffee in my old coffeemaker and eat a scone from the local bakery down the street where the old man always asked me how the kids at school were. I missed my students, my job, and my life. Who had I been kidding coming out to party? We needed to be safe so we could be happy by each other’s side, not scared like I was in the middle of that crowded club.
All the joy and excitement had been sucked right out of me. Gage parted the sea of people for me as he led us to the edge of the club away from everyone else.
“Are you sure it was her?” he asked as he began to lift his mask.
Startled, I reached up and stopped him from showing his face. If it was Hailey in the club, the only defense we had was to remain anonymous for as long as possible. Hailey was a bitch, but she wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t going to approach random people and cause a scene. She would wait until she knew where we were and pounce. No, we had to make sure we stayed invisible in case she hadn’t recognized us.
“Leave it on. I’m not totally positive she saw us, so we need to leave the masks on.”
Something in what I said convinced Gage that I truly had seen her. He nodded and said, “You’re right. Let’s get out of here. There will be plenty of people outside to get lost in.”
“I just want to go back to the house,” I said, wishing more than anything to be back in Brooklyn. What if she found us at Tristan’s house in the Garden District? Alone in the house, we would have no witnesses and no one to send for help.
Gage took me by the hand and led me through the crowd down the stairs and out to the street. Happy to be out of the club, I took a deep breath as we walked away toward the house. “It’s good we didn’t drink that much,” I said quietly.
He nodded but didn’t say anything as he continued to look around and us. After we walked another block, he turned to look at me and stopped. “I don’t think Hailey was in that club. We’ve been walking for a few blocks now and not a single person has been tailing us. I think you may have been imagining it.”
“You think I’m crazy?”
Gage shook his head and put a hand on my right shoulder. “I don’t think you’re crazy at all, Jordan. I think you’re scared. I understand. I just haven’t seen any sight of her since we left the club.”
People flowed past us as what he said echoed in my brain. He didn’t believe me.
“I know what I saw, Gage. I don’t care that she was wearing a mask. I felt her there. If you don’t believe me, then there’s nothing I can say to convince you. But she was there.”
I turned away from him and moved to walk away, but he caught me by the arm and held me to the spot. “Jordan, I believe you, but I don’t see anyone following us.”
“Let me go! I want to get the hell out of here!” I yelled over the noise of the crowd as I tried to yank my hand away.
He grabbed me by the shoulders. “Stop this! You can’t just run away this time. We need to stay together.”
I knew what he said was right, but at that moment, all I wanted to do was run as fast as I could away from everything. Tears welled in my eyes at the thought that maybe I was wrong about Hailey being at the club. Was I losing my mind?
Gage kissed me and gave me a forced smile. “Let’s get out of here. We can talk at the house.”
After a tense and quiet walk home, I left him downstairs and headed up to the bedroom. I didn’t know what to say to him to convince him because now I doubted that I had really seen her. That he doubted me hurt, though.
He followed me a few minutes later and I saw in his eyes how much he wanted to fix what had happened. I guess I couldn’t blame him if he hadn’t seen her.
God, every brief moment of joy that came our way was tainted by this awful mess, and Hailey sat spinning at the center of it. I hated her like I had never hated anyone before.
Gage crossed the room and sat down next to me on the bed. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I wasn’t saying you were crazy or you were lying. I just didn’t see her.”
I buried my face in my hands, wishing we weren’t having this conversation. “I think I am going crazy, Gage. I was so sure I saw her there, but maybe I was wrong.”
He pulled me to him and held me close as I began to cry. I didn’t know why exactly I was sobbing into his shirt, but it felt good to let it all out finally.
Lifting my head, I sniffled and tried to explain myself. “I didn’t want to run away back there. I don’t want you to think that. I just wish this was all over and we were back to being just Jordan and Gage in my little apartment back in Brooklyn. Is that too much to ask?”
With the pad of his thumb, he wiped the tears from my cheeks and smiled one his crooked smiles that never failed to charm me. “I can’t wait to be that again. It’s not too much to ask. I wish I could make it happen right now. I do. But until I can, we need to stick together.”
I hung my head and nodded. “I know. I was just being a whiny girl. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things worse by getting all emotional. I know how much men love when women do that.”
Gage lifted my chin with his finger. With a wink, he said, “We don’t actually hate that too much, you know. It gives us a chance to be strong and heroic.”
That was Gage in a nutshell. Strong and heroic.
“I’m going to do my best to keep it together. I promise.”
He smiled at my attempt at bravado, knowing me all too well. As much as I wanted to say I’d be tougher, the reality was emotions were a huge part of who I was.
“Why don’t you relax right here for a while? I’ll scrounge around in the kitchen and make us something to eat if you’re hungry.”
“I’m not hungry. I just want to lay down with you and feel your arms around me. Can we do that?”
Gage nodded, taking me in his arms as we lay back on the bed. Closing my eyes, I thought about how great it would be when we finally got back to our life together in New York. Our boring, ordinary life complete with too much heat in the summer and broken furnaces in the winter.
A life I’d taken for granted for far too long.
Chapter Seventeen
Jordan
Opening my eyes, I saw Gage next to me staring intently at his phone. Looking over, he smiled. “Feeling better?”
“I’m beginning to wonder if I’m a narcoleptic. I’m constantly falling asleep on you,” I said in an attempt to be funny.
“It’s been a rough stretch. I’m not worried about it,” he said in that sweet way I loved.
“So what are looking at?”
“I was trying to find something that would give me the answer as to why Dalton Spear would want to marry someone like Hailey.”
“He’s got a thing for psychotic women who wear too much makeup and spend money like a sailor on leave?” I joked.
Gage chuckled. “That nap seems to have put you in a good mood.”
I shrugged¸ unsure if my mood was as good as I sounded. “I think I might be going crazy, so this could be the first step in madness. I think you should be prepared. It’s probably going to get worse.”
“You’re not crazy,” he said, kissing me softly on the lips. “Well, not any crazier than you’ve ever been.”
Looking down at his phone, I saw the webpage he’d been reading about Dalton Spear. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
He shrugged as he scrolled down the page. “He’s rich, so maybe you saw something on the news or in the paper.”
“Maybe.”
“He owns a chemicals company, but judging by the website, it looks like he’s got his hands in a few other things as well. I’m seeing the word conglomerate a lot.”
“Is there a picture of him?” I asked, curious to see what this unlucky fiancé of Hailey’s looked like.
Gage brought one up, but the man’s face didn’t register anything with me. “He looks about forty there, but I don’t think I know him.”
“Me either. I’ve never worked for him and can’t say that I even know anyone who has. He looks intimidating. I’ll give him that.”
That he was. The man on the screen looked every bit the part of a powerful and wealthy titan of business and had surely used that look to his advantage more than once. I had seen men like him before. They exuded strength. The chiseled jaw. The piercing eyes. The self-assured smile they wore even as they dismantled their competitors.
What he’d want with someone like Hailey and her homicidal tendencies I couldn’t imagine, though. Whatever it was, he was supporting her in making my life a living hell, and I found myself instantly resenting him.
“He looks very dark, actually,” I said as I looked away from the image of Dalton Spear.
Gage spent a few more minutes searching for information on him before finally drifting off to sleep. After over a day of nothing but catnaps, he deserved a full night of uninterrupted sleep. He looked so peaceful lying there, and for a moment everything else in the world faded away, leaving only the two of us there. If only that were the case.
I wasn’t tired, so I kissed him and quietly left to head downstairs.
There was something about Spear that I couldn’t get past. His name sounded familiar. I knew it did, and it was unlikely that I only knew it from the news. I didn’t spend my time watching news on chemical conglomerates and billionaire older men. That simply wasn’t my style.