HOT needed to find the money and catch whoever was playing a game of cat and mouse. Only then would they get to the truth behind everything—and find out if the Helios project was truly compromised.
Dex caught Kid’s eye, and the other man shrugged. “It’s only been a few hours,” he said. “There’s still time.”
“Any word on Marshall Porter?” Dex asked.
Richie shook his head. “He seems clean. Nothing in his background to suggest collusion with Archer other than the fact he’s the brains behind Helios. We’ve got his credit card records. He hasn’t traveled to Africa. No charges over the weekend, so he must have been hiking like he said.”
“Is there a woman?” Ice asked.
“The most communication he seems to have with a woman not related to him would be his texts with Annabelle.”
Dex frowned. Could Porter have a crush on Annabelle? Sure, but that wasn’t a reason to steal half a billion dollars. And it certainly wasn’t a reason to steal it from her when she needed it to bargain for her life.
“None of this makes sense,” Dex said. “And we still don’t know if it’s the CIA, right?”
“Nope. Nothing from Mendez yet.”
“Shit.”
“They won’t tell him anyway,” Ice drawled. “You know how the spooks are. If they’ve got the cash, we’ll never see it again.”
“No kidding.”
Kid whooped and they all jumped. “Ha! Not true, my man. Not true.” He bent over the computer and started tapping keys. “I’ve got a ping.”
*
It was late when Annabelle finally got Charlotte and Becca to sleep. They’d been given rooms in a facility near the hospital. Molly was out of surgery and doing well, but she’d have to stay overnight.
Annabelle put a hand to the small of her back and stretched. She was tired, but she didn’t feel like she could sleep yet. After she’d put the girls to bed, she pulled the door to, going into the adjoining room to catch up on the news. The girls were clingy, which was understandable. She’d had to tell them a story before they would sleep. She’d told them one from memory, fudging the parts she couldn’t recall.
They’d had to talk to a crisis counselor before they’d been released to Annabelle. The counselor had told her it was good for them to be together right now. It was entirely possible they’d have nightmares or full-blown panic attacks for the next few weeks. She highly recommended counseling when they got home, just to make sure they were processing what had happened, but she expected them both to be fine in the long run. They hadn’t been abused by Leonov or his people, and they’d mostly had Molly to run interference for them.
Molly had made the trip into an adventure, and Annabelle teared up to think of Molly doing that. She had to have known the danger they were in, and yet she’d kept her cool well enough to pretend it was a game. Strong, courageous Molly.
Dex had said he was proud of her for being strong in the market, but it was Molly who really got the award in Annabelle’s book. All Annabelle had to do was hang around with a group of badass military black-ops people for a few days and do what they told her to do. Molly’d had to improvise and keep it together while under the power of Dmitri Leonov.
Annabelle shuddered. His voice had reminded her of snake skins rubbing together. His eyes were even worse. He had dead eyes.
A soft knock sounded on her door and she flinched. She went and peered out the peephole. Dex stood on the other side, looking rather hot in military camouflage. That was new. They’d done this whole trip in regular clothes and now he was clad like a soldier. She’d showered and changed at the hospital, so it was reasonable to expect he would have changed too.
She opened the door and stared. He was taller than her by several inches. Broad, beautiful, strong. His muscles stretched the fabric of the camouflage, and her mouth watered.
“Just wanted to make sure everything was good,” he said.
“We’re fine.” She glanced over her shoulder at the door to the adjoining room. “The girls are asleep finally. Molly’s resting in the hospital.”
“Can I come in?”
Her pulse jumped a notch. She stepped back. “Yes, please.”
He walked in and turned to watch as she closed the door. With him in the room, it was suddenly a lot smaller. Everything inside her ached. She loved him so much. Still. If she’d never had to go and ask for his help, she’d never know how much she hadn’t gotten over him.
She wouldn’t have to go home with a broken heart. She wouldn’t have to try to get through the rest of her life seeing him on a regular basis but having no right to touch him. Damn Eric—he couldn’t die and leave her in peace. He’d had to put her into Dex’s path in such a way she’d never be free.
She closed her eyes. That wasn’t fair. Even without Eric’s theft and involvement with a psycho like Leonov, there was still the matter of Charlotte.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come over sooner, but there were things to do.”
“I imagine so. That was quite the adventure today. Do you have to fill out reports like the police do?”
“Not quite, but yeah, there’s a mission report.”
“Did you find out where the money went?”
“Almost. The Kid’s tracer finally pinged him back. We don’t know precisely where the money is, but he’s working on it. Someone is covering their tracks pretty thoroughly.”
Annabelle shook her head. “Wow. I guess people will do almost anything for half a billion dollars. Steal, lie, kidnap, murder.”
“Most would. That’s life-changing money, Belle. It’s freedom and security and so many other things.”
She cocked her head. “Are you envious?”
“No, I’m not. But that’s what money represents. You know it as well as I do. Hell, with even a hundredth of that, I could make sure my dad lived in comfort and kept his farm. I could hire people to take care of it and him. But that’s not my lot in life. I’m not going to be a millionaire. Not unless I win the lottery.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you even play the lottery?”
“Sometimes I remember to buy a ticket. Mostly no.”
“So no ideas about who took the money?”
“We looked at Marshall Porter. You knew we would. He seems clean. So somebody else must have known what Eric was doing and helped him get the money in the first place.”
“I honestly don’t know who else it could be. Archer Industries is filled with engineer and programmer types. Some of them are brilliant. It could be anyone, I suppose. Though I have trouble believing any of them would betray their country.”
“If you have any names, that would help. Otherwise we’ll look at them all.”
Annabelle sighed and rubbed her hands through her hair. “God, there’s so much to do when I get home. Figure out where the business stands, deal with the insurance, try to get us up and running somewhere else. Oh, and scrutinize all my employees to decide who’s a traitor, right?”
He nodded gravely. “Sounds about right.”
Her throat tightened. “And then there’s us. You and me and Charlotte.”
A flash of something that might be panic passed over his features before it was gone again. Was he thinking of running away from the responsibility?
As soon as she thought it, she was ashamed. No, Dex Davidson would never run from responsibility. He was too loyal and too proud to do such a thing. She knew his family, and she knew what kind of people they were.
“Yeah, I guess there is.”
“Have you been thinking about it?”
“Yeah.”
He went over and folded himself into the single chair in the room. Then he rubbed his hands down the length of his thighs. In anyone else, she would say it was a nervous gesture.
“And?” she asked.
He gazed at her for a long moment. “I think we should get married.”
28
Annabelle’s mouth dropped open. Dex had expected that. He hadn’t decided
on this course of action until after he’d left the war room and started over here. There’d been so many damned things going on the past few hours, and he hadn’t been thinking straight since he’d found out the truth.
But he knew what he had to do. He’d been thinking about being a father, thinking about all kinds of things, and it hit him forcefully that the right thing to do, the thing that had always been drummed into him, was to marry a girl if you got her pregnant.
And maybe Annabelle wasn’t a girl, and she wasn’t pregnant anymore, but Charlotte was still his. He had a responsibility. He’d failed Annabelle five years ago when he hadn’t rushed over to her house and demanded answers. She’d married Eric, and the asshole had abused her.
He owed her for that. And he owed Charlotte a life with two parents, not with a full-time parent and one who only came for visits. He couldn’t leave the military right now even if he wanted to. His enlistment wasn’t up for another two years, so they’d have to find a place in DC while he continued to work for HOT. They could talk about what came next when the two years were up.
“I, uh… Wow, where did that come from?” she finally managed.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said firmly. “The only thing to do.”
She folded her arms over her chest and cocked a hip. That was his first inkling that maybe she wasn’t precisely thrilled with the suggestion. Which confused him because she was the one who’d as much as admitted she still loved him.
“Is that the only reason? It’s the right thing to do?”
His brows slashed down. “What other reason is there? I’m her father. You’re her mother. We’ll get married and I’ll provide for you both—”
“Now you wait just a minute,” she said, stalking toward him with a finger wagging in his face. “I don’t need anyone to provide for me. I’m a successful accountant, and I’m the owner of Archer Industries since Eric’s death. I have a company to run. So if you’re trying to suggest that I marry you and stay home to clean house and cook, you are sadly mistaken in your opinion of me.”
He wanted to grab that finger and bite it. Instead, he got to his feet and glared down at her. “You said I was the only man you’d ever loved. You seemed upset to think there was no future for us. That was fucking yesterday, Belle—are you telling me you’ve changed your damned mind already?”
She popped a hand over his mouth, startling him. “Quiet or you’ll wake the girls.”
He nodded, though he was fuming, and she pulled her hand away. “You’re giving me whiplash, Belle,” he growled.
“And you’re missing the point. The point being that, yes, when you said we were different people and we could never be what we once were, that upset me. We were crazy for each other back then. So if you think I’m going to settle for a bastardized version of what we used to have, you’re nuts. I’ve already been married to one man who despised me—I won’t marry another one who can’t love me, even if he thinks he’s doing the right thing by asking.”
Hot emotion swirled in his gut. He wanted to grab her and kiss her just to remind her what it was still like between them—and he wanted to storm out and go punch something in the gym. He needed to expel some of this frustration.
She got inside his head and churned his brains to mush. She also made him crazy with need. Not that it meant anything to want her. It was a physical reaction based on familiarity and history.
Except that, hell, when he’d been inside her, there was no other place he’d wanted to be. She did things to him that no other woman could do. Still.
But that was sex, not love. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking it was love just to make her happy.
“I don’t despise you,” he growled, picking up on that phrase rather than the part about love. “Hell, I think I proved the other night that I’m still attracted to you. I want you and you want me. We can be good together, and maybe one day it’ll turn into love.”
She didn’t look mollified. In fact, she looked angrier than ever. She poked him in the chest. Hard. “No.”
He blinked. “No? No what? We aren’t good together, you don’t still want me?”
“No, I’m not marrying you.”
Disbelief rolled around in his brain. His heart squeezed. He couldn’t say why. He was doing the logical thing. He expected her to be logical too.
“Why the hell not? It’s the perfect solution.”
If she’d looked angry before, she looked ready to burst now. She made an explosive noise and turned away, putting distance between them before whirling around again. “Why not? Why not? I’ve already told you why not—I won’t marry you if you don’t love me, and I won’t be guilted into it either. If you try to use Charlotte to make me say yes, you’re almost as bad as Eric and my parents. They didn’t care what happened to me so long as they got what they wanted. Well, I won’t do it again. Not for you, not for anyone.”
He was stunned by her speech. And stung because, dammit, he wasn’t like Eric or her parents.
“I’m nothing like Eric,” he grated. “Nothing at all. And you know it. I’m trying to do the right thing for all of us.”
She folded her arms over her chest again. Her eyes flashed and her cheeks blazed with color. “Nobody asked you to be in charge, Dex. You don’t have to make decisions for all of us. We’ll do what’s best for Charlotte, but I won’t marry you. I know you’re her father, I know you’re a good man—but she’s already had one father who was never interested in her, even before he had her tested, and I won’t suddenly subject her to another man who doesn’t even know what being a dad is going to entail.”
The urge to punch something at the gym was gaining strength. “Are you telling me that you think I’m going to suck at being a dad? That I’m going to abandon her because she’s four and probably a handful and I know nothing about kids? Are you really telling me that?”
She had the grace to look sheepish. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yeah, you did.”
She sank onto a chair, her urge to fight deflating before his eyes. “Fine, maybe I did. I’m sorry. But goddammit, Dex, this is a lot to process right now. I’m about as emotionally drained as a person can be.”
His own urge to fight ebbed. She’d been through a lot, and he needed to give her a break. At least for tonight.
“I won’t abandon her, Belle. She’s mine and yours together. I’m overwhelmed and, yeah, even a bit scared.” He pressed a fist to his gut. “But here, deep down, I’m so committed to her happiness and well-being that I can’t even think of abandoning her. I’d lay down my life to protect hers. And yours. If that’s not enough for you— Jesus, I don’t know what is.”
*
What had she done? That was the refrain echoing through her brain on the long plane ride home. Dex had basically been offering up her fantasy—a life with him like they’d once planned—and she’d told him no. It was almost like she’d been an observer, watching some other woman wreck her chance at happiness with the man she loved.
She’d also practically accused him of being prepared to abandon his responsibilities at the first sign of trouble. Definitely not cool. That wasn’t Dex, and she knew it.
But how could she say yes? It wasn’t the life they’d once planned. In that life, Dex had been crazy in love with her. He’d believed in her—and in them as a couple. He didn’t believe anymore. He’d said he would lay down his life for hers, and she believed him. But that wasn’t what she wanted out of him.
She wanted him. His heart. His soul. She wanted what she’d once had with him, and if that made her crazy and idealistic, then so what? Life was too short to spend it shackled to someone who would never be what you needed. She’d already been there, and she wasn’t going back.
She looked up a couple of times and caught him looking at her. But they didn’t speak. He made no moves to sit with her or to talk with Charlotte. It broke her heart in a way. She blamed herself.
They made it to DC, and she didn’t
see him again. She’d gone into a room with Colonel Mendez and a woman named Samantha Spencer and told her version of the story. They’d warned her that she couldn’t speak of it—any of it—to anyone else once she got home.
A night in DC and then she was on a small plane with the girls and Molly, heading for Lexington. The girls chattered nonstop and played games on the entertainment devices installed in the seat backs. They didn’t seem tired at all, yet Annabelle thought she’d never get the grittiness out of her eyes. She was perpetually tired after the past few days. Whirlwind trip to Africa and back again, not to mention a car chase, a kidnapping, and having a gun shoved against her skull.
Briar City would be positively dull after that. Thank God.
Molly sat beside her while the girls sat across the aisle. Her arm was in a cast and a sling. Annabelle still felt guilty for involving Molly. She’d apologized so much that Molly had forbidden her to speak about it again.
Molly turned from where she’d been looking out the window. The wan look on her friend’s face pained her.
“How are you, Mol? In any pain?”
Molly smiled. “No, I’m fine. They gave me good drugs. How about you?”
“I’m fine.”
Molly didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t think you are.”
Annabelle blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dex. You’re right about how seriously sexy that man is, by the way.”
“Of course I am.”
“You also aren’t over him.”
She dropped her gaze to her lap. “I know.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Do? There’s nothing I can do.” She lowered her voice after glancing at the girls. She’d told Molly about Dex being Charlotte’s father. Her friend had taken it in stride. In fact, she’d been thrilled. “Much better than that asshole, Eric,” she’d said. Annabelle took a deep breath before saying the words that she hadn’t stopped thinking about. “He said we needed to get married.”
“So when’s the wedding?”
“I refused.” She spread her hands on her lap. “You know what it was like with Eric.”
“Dex isn’t that kind of man, is he?” she asked tightly.
HOT Addiction: A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 10 Page 19