And this woman. Ana. She has no idea what she's gotten herself into by hitching a ride with me. I need her continued silence on the matter of my true identity, but I also need to ditch her for her own good.
As we churn the rain-washed road beneath my tires, I wonder how much of her posturing back at the motel was a bluff. And not just any bluff—one that I fell for wholesale. This woman was clearly on the run from something—going to the media, or even the police, about the fact that I'm still alive and kicking will bring her unwanted publicity as well. If she's as intelligent as I've gathered her to be, there's no way she could realistically risk being at the center of that sort of reveal without bringing whatever guillotine hovers over her down on her own head.
Evidently, I wasn't fully awake this morning to process the facts, and now I feel like a God damn idiot for letting her sweet talk-slash-blackmail her way into getting another ride from me. Well, two can play at this game, Ana. I haven't lived on the road for three years without learning a thing or two about losing unwanted baggage.
… even if it's baggage I can't allow myself to want.
"Where are we headed?" she asks me quietly. I realize we've been riding in silence for a long time; evidently her line of questioning about my past had been satisfied by my last answer—for now, at least.
"Omaha. We'll hit the city limits in about ten minutes," I reply. "Let's just say I have unfinished business with someone who lives there."
"One of the men who shot you," she surmises.
"Only one man shot me."
"But the others were in collusion, weren't they?" she insists. "Your friends who betrayed you? Is this what your ride across the country is all about?"
"It's really none of your business why I'm riding," I respond. "Just like I'm not sticking my nose into yours. My wheels may be at your command, but my answers sure as shit aren't."
Ana doesn't appear to notice how raw and salty our conversation up until this point has made me. "You're not seriously going to meet with one of the men who tried to kill you." It's not a question; a statement. "Besides, they all think you're dead. Obviously, my blackmailing you wouldn't have worked out so well for me if you didn't have so much staked on the fact that you need people to continue to think you are dead. None of this is adding up, to be honest."
"Not my problem." I merge into the next lane over and take the exit road that loops into the city.
Ana is almost right. I'm going to meet with someone, but that someone doesn't know I'm coming. He's going to tell me exactly where I can find the first man who left me for dead.
And after tonight, one of us will really be dead.
#
We pass most of the day on the road together, stopping only occasionally at gas stations to buy food and refuel. Night is already starting to fall, blanketing the Omaha cityscape in velvet-blue darkness.
No rain tonight, but the wind is bitterly cold as we pull into the parking lot of the bar. This bar is larger than the one where my path fatefully crossed with Ana's, and the patronage seems less feral than what you find on the outskirts of most major cities. I park the bike, and Ana slips off first. She studies the sign glowing over the entry as I study her. Even bathed in neon light, this woman is a vision. She looks like an urban goddess standing there in the flickering orange hue cast by the sign. An ill feeling tugs at my conscience, but I push it aside before it can make itself fully known and understood. I replace the feeling with the cold, calculating logic that once made me the CEO at the head of a Fortune Five Hundred company. I undertook this mission with the understanding that I have nothing left to lose; that justice, above all else, will prevail. Flynn Carter is as dead as the magazines and talking heads say he is. I am embarking on something bigger than he is now.
And I can't let this woman get involved.
"Come on." I let my gloved hand fall on the crevice between her shoulders, and Ana glances up at me, blinking in the harsh flare of the light. She lets me steer her up the steps of the bar and through the front doors. She's trusted me from the beginning, I realize, even if neither of us noticed it at the time. Another hitch in my plan, but I'm confident it's nothing I can't surmount. If everything goes according to the new plan, she'll want nothing to do with me by the end of the night.
"This meeting you're about to have…did you set it up in advance?" she asks uncertainly as we wind between the tables in the darkened bar. I pull a stool out for her to indicate that she should post herself up. My eyes hunt the room in the meantime, glancing over shadowed faces, looking for an indication of my mark. I have it on good authority that he will be here. In fact, the authority is all but certain.
"Not exactly."
I spot a man over by one of the long green tables shooting pool by himself. He's the only patron in the establishment wearing a ball cap, and the bill casts a deep black veil across his eyes. I think I recognize the jaw, though, and the build. Matt Keating has put on a few pounds since the last time I saw him.
Unlike me, Keating was never an upper-level employee in the company. Also unlike me, he still works for Green Star. He benefited from a promotion and accompanying salary raise around the time that I mysteriously vanished.
"Here." I toss a wad of bills down on the counter. "Buy us drinks. I'll be right back."
"Aye aye, Captain Carter," Ana responds. I pretend not to hear her as I move off into the depths of the bar; and I pretend not to like the nickname she's come up with for me.
Keating is just shy of six feet, which already puts me at a physical advantage as I approach him. I'm not expecting a fight, or even to be met with much surprise; he was always unflappable, and I'm certain the contact I was in touch with has already relayed a hint that I'm coming.
He's currently bent at eye-level, assessing his next shot. I slant my body against the pool table and cross my arms. He notices me almost immediately, but he doesn't straighten until after another moment's quiet, careful consideration of the table's spread.
"Well, well. Look who's back from the dead." Keating raises himself up to look at me, and his wormy lips form the words around a soggy unlit cigarette.
"I can see you aren't alarmed by my resurrection," I return.
"Don't act like you expected to get a big rise out of me, boss." He emphasizes the title, but not in a way that implies he is using it ironically. It's possible that Keating still considers me the true face of Green Star, but I think it more likely he's being sentimental.
"I'm guessing you didn't leave the grave to chat with me," he continues as he bends forward and lines up his shot. I don't move, even though I'm certain I'm casting a distracting shadow across the chosen field of play.
"Richards," I say finally. Once again, I note that surprise doesn't register on Keating's face. "A little birdy told me he's in town."
"The same little birdy that told you where to find me?" He knocks the cue ball; he's a fast, steady shot. It rolls across the table and scatters the other balls into various, seemingly random positions. I narrow my eyes, trying to scrutinize whether or not the move was intentional. He has the bearing of a decent pool player, but is he really?
I continue my own line of questioning. "I want to know where he's staying. Even my little birdy wouldn't chirp that much."
"Neither would I, after looking at you. You look mean as hell, Carter." Keating withdrew, plucked the cigarette from between his lips, and took a long pull from a brown bottle. I was of the impression that he was only really looking at me for the first time, but he didn't withdraw his statement. "Not a good look on someone who was formerly the world's youngest leading humanitarian."
"I'll pay you," I interrupt him. "You know I'm good for it."
Keating raises his eyebrow in mild disbelief, but makes no response. He likely knows that my vast fortune mysteriously vanished alongside me…and while much of it was funneled into the pockets of my would-be murderers, he can rest assured that I had means of my own to secure the rest. He has never been a man who cared much for money, o
utside of what he was able to live off of comfortably. His flippant attitude toward financials was something I looked for when hiring Green Star employees to populate his department. I wanted to build my company on the shoulders of men and women who weren't driven solely by greed—intelligent, displaced souls who wanted to make a difference. I was so ambitious to the cause that I was completely blinded to the cancer spreading throughout the upper offices.
But that was a long time ago.
"Play me," he says finally. It was exactly the sort of deal I had intended to broker all along, should the promise of money fail. But I hadn't planned this far ahead. If money isn't something Keating is interested in, then I have nothing to offer him as payment for his winnings. Time to improvise.
"Here you go, Captain Carter."
Ana waltzes up beside me and plunks a drink down indelicately on the side of the pool table. Her timing couldn't have been more perfect. Keating's eyes fix on her at once, and I see a spark of interest behind his dull gaze as he assesses her. The final stages of tonight's plan to gather information click into place.
"Ana, meet Keating." I raise my drink, never breaking eye contact with my new opponent. "We're about to play a round of pool. If I win, I get what I want."
Keating inclines his head, very slowly, his chin sinking as he studies the beauty at my side.
"And if you win?" I nod my head to the side, indicating the appearance of my unwitting arm candy. "You can have her."
CHAPTER 7
ANA
My jaw nearly unhinges at Flint's words.
And if you win? You can have her.
"Excuse me, but may I fucking speak to you for a minute?" I inquire, straining myself to sound polite. Obviously I have not altogether succeeded.
Flint's lips tug upward in amusement as I grab his arm without waiting for his consent and drag him toward one of the long, high tables, out of the pool-shooting stranger's earshot.
"Just what the hell deal are you trying to make?" I demand, as soon as I'm satisfied that we're relatively alone. His smile only continues to grow by degrees, and I realize he is actually enjoying himself at my expense.
Is this payback for blackmailing him this morning? Disgust rises in my throat, and it chokes me more bitterly than the lingering aftertaste of beer I ordered with his money.
"What you are suggesting is human trafficking, in case you weren't aware," I continue. I fist my hands on my hips and stand my ground. "If you lose, there's no way I'm going home with him."
"I'm not going to lose," Flint replies confidently. "And if I do, mark my words it will be on purpose to get rid of you. So if you want to continue this dance, you better check the attitude, sweetheart."
"So that's what this is all about," I mutter as he raises his drink and looks at it for the first time. I brought him a Shirley Temple, but I was compassionate enough to ask the bartender for a double to go with it. "I seriously can't believe the man who saved me from being roofied is about to bet me in a game of pool. Like I'm some sort of commodity, and not a person."
"I won't lose," Flint answers effortlessly. "What is this?" He shakes the drink and watches in horror as the cherries sink to the bottom.
"You must really want to get rid of me," I say bitterly.
He doesn't answer my question directly, just sighs in deep resignation and bypasses the straw as he takes a long sip of his drink. "If you don't like the terms of engagement, the door is that way," he says. "I can find something else to wager with."
So that's it. He wants to scare me off. I cross my arms and glower at him, chewing on my lower lips as I consider my options. If I leave now, I'll be alone in Omaha, Nebraska, without any resources. If I stay, there is the potential that Flint will lose, and I'll have to…what? Go home with this strange red-haired man as a result?
"Terms of engagement," I echo him, without quite realizing that I'm speaking out loud. "Great idea. I'll just change the terms of engagement."
Flint's eyes flex a little wider, but I don't stay to savor his reaction. I turn and walk back over to the pool table, rolling my hips a little more than I do naturally. The man—Keating—plucks an unlit cigarette off the side of the table and studies it, before raising his eyes as soon as he notices that I have returned.
"Hello. Keating, is it?" I smile broadly, and wish I had a little lipstick to kick it up to the next level. Keating doesn't appear to care that I'm bare-lipped; his pale eyes are drawn to every movement of my mouth. Perfect. "I'm willing to go along with this. But I hope you realize that I'm a grown woman. To use a clichéd turn of phrase, I'm an independent woman. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to weigh in on what happens to me in the extremely likely event that my friend here loses."
"Hey." Flint has rejoined us at the table, and evidently takes offense to my lack of faith in him. As if I care about wounding his ego—I'm furious with him. He's lucky I'm being so cool and collected.
"I agree to the wager," I continue as I purposefully ignore him. This becomes a little more difficult when he whips his leather jacket off and rolls his muscled shoulders, one after the other, as well as his neck. My mouth goes dry suddenly, but a quick sip of my beer allows me to continue as if I hadn't experienced a hitch at all. "But I want to define the terms of what 'having' me actually entails." I notice that Flint's eyes raise to look at me, but I pretend to carry on as if his opinion, much less the heat of his lingering gaze, matters little to me. I am already holding my beer glass, and I raise it a little for dramatic effect, as in in toast.
"A kiss," I say simply.
This time, I glance openly at Flint. I'm surprised to find a bewildered look on his face, and something more...it's almost as if my sudden rewriting of the terms bothers him. I would laugh at the absurdity if he didn't look so intensely serious. Instead, I feel my heart give an odd kick in my chest, and something stirs in the molten core of my belly. I hate the feeling of losing my breath, of having the rug pulled out suddenly from under me, that being around Flint seems to give me.
But this is more acceptable to me, and it should be more acceptable to this sometimes-gentleman than outright giving my body away to a total stranger as winnings in a game of pool. Right? There's no universe in which a 'kiss' is more of a violation than the things inferred by trading a person bodily to another.
"Deal," Keating says at once. I realize that the time I've taken to study Flint's look has only amounted to a few seconds. At Keating's agreement, Flint's expression hardens into a handsome mask. He turns away to lay his coat on a stool and extract a pool cue from the standing rack. I notice his glass has been drained and left on the table, and suppress a smirk at yet another of my perceived victories.
"Fine by me," Flint says as he sharpens his cue on a blue block of chalk. "Winner gets a kiss. Seems a little old-fashioned, even prudish, but I guess some action is better than none."
I feel my face flush as dark a red as my hair. I wish I wasn't so naturally pale and prone to blushing; my body continues to betray me in the presence of Flint Carter.
"Excuse me?" Maybe he didn't notice his word choice. "I didn't say 'winner' gets a kiss. Don't you already have it arranged so that you'll win something you actually want?"
"I'll break," Flint offers as he moves away from me to stand beside Keating. The two men converse amongst themselves, and I feel myself growing hotter by the second. If Flint is going to put me in yet another compromising situation, I'm not sure whom I want to win anymore. Maybe Keating deserves to earn a kiss from me, because the man who doubles as my ride over here certainly doesn't. In stark contrast to how I sashayed over here originally to try and vest some control back from the situation, I stomp back to the bar now to lay down more of Flint's cash on drinks I doubt he'll like the taste of. I try to convince myself that I haven't lost, but it's proving difficult. Maybe a shot will help lubricate my feelings and get me in the proper kissing mood.
The press of the cool glass to my lips is doing nothing to prepare me for what is to come; if anything, it is
priming me for the taste and the heat of another's mouth against my own. The thought of Flint's crooked, insincere smile forming itself into voluptuous purse, and one that's coming straight for me…
… isn't such a horrendous thought, actually. In fact, I bet he's an incredible kisser. A man doesn't go through life looking the way he does without getting a lot of practice in. Besides, I doubt he would approach it in the cartoonish way my less-than-flattering thoughts are picturing it for him.
I lose myself in thought as I wait for the bartender to pour our next rounds. I can't help it. Sure enough, my mental image of Flint's kiss is transforming into something hot and unexpected, something that sends a chill racing through me that has nothing to do with feeling cold. I flinch and shiver as I let the fantasy overtake me, if only for a moment.
He wouldn't push his lips out. He would part them, and take me from an unexpected angle—sweep up from below, maybe, or slant his head to the side. I would be surprised by his assault. I'm not sure I would be able to stop him…and I'm not sure I would want to. What woman could resist the pull of having a face like his so close to her own?
So he would kiss me, and I would let him, submitting myself to an instinct much deeper than what my personality might normally allow. And yes, I would be startled—so startled that when the time arrived, the lips that captured my own would find my mouth parted, as if to speak out against what was happening to me.
But Flint Carter would silence any and all protest. He would direct the proceedings without question, the same way he directs our course on the road. He would grasp the back of my neck and cement me to him, and his tongue…
God, I must be drunk already.
My depraved thoughts are interrupted when the bartender finally returns with my drinks. Took him long enough, I think mutinously, even though he is absolutely not to blame for the direction my own thoughts have taken. I don't even bother taking the shot of tequila back with me to the pool table; I throw my head back and let the liquid fire race down my throat. Then I depart the bar to see what fate has in store for me.
BILLIONAIRE BIKERS: 3 MC Romance Books Page 5