Whatever fraction of doubt and reservation still lingered in the back of my mind drifted away, and I found myself lost in him and the way our bodies seemed to move as one.
“Eve?” His voice was rough, like words were a feat at this stage.
When I tried to reply, I found myself in a similar situation. “Henry?”
His fingers curled deeper into my body when I said his name. “I’m sorry,” was what he got out a moment later, panting as heavily as I was from our union.
As suddenly as it formed, a single tear rolled down the side of my face. “I’m sorry too.”
Gripping my hands hard, Henry flexed his hips against me one last time before we both found our release, curling into each other as our labored breaths became low cries. We stayed like that, wrapped around one another on my desk, for so long that my legs started to tremble from depletion.
Henry nuzzled me before pressing a kiss into my lips. “Thank you.” His voice was lower and groggy sounding.
“For what?” He was still inside me, and when I tightened around him, I felt him grow hard again.
“For giving me a second chance.”
As his mouth moved to my neck and his hips very gently rocked against mine again, the world and all of its harsh reality came crashing down around me. It was no longer just Henry and me in our own world void of history and guilt and revenge. All of those things settled back inside me until they felt as fresh and raw as they had the hour after I’d walked in on him with another woman.
My hands were already moving to his chest to push him away when I heard an all-too-familiar sound in my purse. It was my G phone—she was probably calling to check in on me going into Sheet night with Mr. Wallace . . .
“Shit. What time is it?” My back springing off the desk was sufficient enough to push Henry away from me. Reality seeped in another layer deeper.
With an expression that bordered on confused and hurt, Henry checked his watch. “A little after eight.” His voice had lost all notes of groggy and sated, replaced by higher ones filled with edge as he watched me lower my skirt and grab my shirt from the floor.
“Shit,” I snapped again as I pulled my shirt on, buttoning it in a rush. I was supposed to meet Damien Wallace at nine o’clock. I was a long ways from looking the part for Sheet night, and it would take me at least twenty minutes to drive to the hotel.
My panties were at Henry’s feet and I couldn’t risk getting that close to him again, so I let them lie. I didn’t need them for the rest of the night anyway. With every second that passed, more and more reality poured down on me, taking me further from Henry . . . or taking him further from me. I couldn’t be sure.
The only thing I was sure about right then was that I was in very real jeopardy of failing two Errands. I was about to lose the Wallace one by arriving late and fresh from being with another man, and I was about to lose the Callahan one because I’d let my misguided feelings for Henry supersede five years of feelings that centered around nothing but revenge. How had I let that happen? I was smarter than that. I didn’t play the part of the foolish woman. How had I let a few words and vulnerable looks from Henry work against my better judgment?
“What’s wrong?”
When he reached for my hand to stop me, I snapped it out of his way. “Everything.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, throwing him a warning look when he followed me.
“Everything as in what?” He threw his hands in my direction like he was at a loss, his expression looking the same. He wasn’t the only one confused.
“When someone answers ‘everything’ when someone asks them what’s wrong, it’s kind of like answering why with a because.” I threw the door open, barely slowing as I did. “It’s not good form to ask for the particulars.”
“Eve—”
“You just fucked me, Henry!” I shouted, spinning around. “You don’t get to have the particulars or anything else!”
His gaze flickered to the desk. “That wasn’t all I wanted of you. That wasn’t even close.”
My eyes narrowed on him. “That’s all you’re ever getting. You’ll never get any more of me again.”
His face broke for me to see. My heart broke for only me to feel.
“Don’t go,” he whispered, reaching for me. “Stay. We can talk this out, I know we can.”
“There are some things that no amount of talking can fix. We both know that.” I continued backing through the door, knowing that each second I wasted with him put me further behind with the Wallace Errand.
“I have something important to tell you.” He paused long enough to scrub his face. “I’ve got several somethings important to tell you.”
My head shook. “I don’t want to hear them.”
“I think you will.”
“I know I won’t,” I snapped, unable to look at him anymore. Even with reality heavy around me again, I could still feel his hands, the way his breathing sounded outside of my ear, the way it felt to have him inside me again. Reality might have numbed me, but it didn’t create oblivion.
“Stay,” he pleaded, sounding like he was losing hope.
Turning around, I knew that no matter what, I couldn’t see Henry Callahan ever again if I was going to keep a hold of whatever was left of my soul. “I can’t.”
TIME WAS MY enemy, at least the only enemy I focused on, as I sped toward the hotel I was expected to be at in less than five minutes. My adrenaline had kicked in, and I concentrated it on getting my head into the Wallace Errand.
The moment I’d stormed off of Callahan Industries, I’d been able to put all that had happened and everything that had been said in my office to the back of my mind. It wouldn’t stay there forever, or even for long, but I’d successfully quarantined it. Hopefully it would stay long enough so I could close this Errand, even though I accepted I’d just flunked the biggest one of my career.
But now wasn’t the time to think about regrets and failures and screwing Henry Callahan on my desk. Now was the time to forget all about that and focus on Damien Wallace and proving to myself that I had shoved aside whatever feelings of loyalty and affection I’d felt for my other Target. I needed to prove that to myself.
Having had my outfit waiting in my trunk in the event I got delayed by emails, on-the-edge developers, or . . . with Henry Callahan above me . . . I’d changed in the parking lot of Callahan Industries. I didn’t care who might have been watching or what they might have seen. After freshening my hair and makeup and certain parts of my body, I hit the Mustang’s gas and didn’t let up.
By the time I pulled up to valet, I was only a minute late. Arriving late wasn’t my preferred method of kicking off a Sheet night, but it was a hell of a lot better than not showing up at all. Besides, I’d seen enough fascination in Damien Wallace’s eyes to know he’d wait longer than a minute for me.
Mr. Wallace had told me he’d be waiting in the room and to check-in at the front desk when I arrived, so after I told the receptionist who I was, she handed me a key and gave me directions to the room. Now that I was there, the adrenaline was trickling from my system, leaving behind images of Henry and a heap of feelings that spanned the entire emotional spectrum. It was a thirty-floor elevator ride to the top of the hotel, and as quick of a journey as it was, I wasn’t sure I’d ever experienced time moving so slowly.
The harder I tried to forget about him, the more Henry seemed to take over my mind. As the elevator doors opened, I tried to sequester him into the back of my mind again, but I couldn’t contain him there any longer. After everything that had happened, both in our pasts and in our presents, I couldn’t keep him repressed a moment longer.
As I slid my keycard into the penthouse door, I was certain I’d never been less mentally prepared to wrap up an Errand. How could I complete the final seduction of one man when all I could think about was a different man? Opening the door, I stepped inside, trying one last time to shove Henry’s face from the forefront of my mind. It didn’t work.
; Not when the very person I was trying to forget was the one I walked in to find stopping his pacing long enough to meet my surprised gaze.
“I’ve got some things to tell you,” was all he said.
My clutch slipped from my hand, crashing to the floor. My knees felt close to doing the same. “What are you doing here?” I inspected the room, half-expecting to find Damien Wallace waiting on the bed.
“What? Expecting someone else?” Henry lifted a brow, making a point of noticing my dress, or lack thereof.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting you. Not when I just left you in my office a little more than half an hour ago.” My voice trembled as I stayed in the foyer. I wanted to flee that room as much as I wanted to stay within it.
“I’ve been over this a hundred times, rehearsing the lines I’d use to explain this all to you, coming up with the words that would be best . . . but now that you’re in front of me, I’m not sure how to explain it all.” Henry was back to pacing, although his tempo was slower and more methodical than it had been when I’d entered.
My heart was beating so hard, I could hear it. “Why don’t you start with what you’re doing at this hotel, in this room, when I was expecting someone else?”
Henry glanced at me. “Someone else as in Damien Wallace?”
My breath caught in my throat. “How did you know?”
“Because I set this whole thing up,” he replied, his hands on his hips as he circled the room. “Damien and Ariel are old friends. We knew each other back before either of us ‘made it.’”
Was the room spinning? Was I spinning? Was the whole entire world spinning out of control? I had no fewer than ten million questions that needed to be voiced, but all I could do was stumble toward the nearest chair and fall into it. After I was settled, I stared into my lap and ran through everything Henry had just said.
“What do you mean you set this all up?” I asked slowly. “You couldn’t have.” To my knowledge, not a single man knew about the Eves. We made sure to pour the fear of God into those ex-wives who knew of our existence to keep who we were and what we did a secret. For Henry to have set up the Wallace Errand meant that he knew about us. That he knew of the Eves in any capacity was disastrous, but if he knew about everything everything, I didn’t want to wake up tomorrow.
“I did.” He studied the floor like looking at me was too difficult.
“How?” I asked.
“I had Ariel make the call and set up the appointment.”
I swallowed and kept checking off question after question. “Why?”
Henry’s jaw set. “Because I needed you to know I knew.” He paced another few revolutions before speaking again. “And I needed to explain some things and needed you to explain some things, and catching you in this world”—he thrust his arm my direction—“seemed like the best way to air both of our dirty laundry.”
Some things were making more sense. Most things were making even less sense. As much as I didn’t want to have this conversation, there was no way around it. He knew what I did and likely what I’d been doing for years. All that was left to do was try to explain myself while he tried to explain why he’d set me up.
“But how did you know I would get assigned to the Wallaces?” I asked.
That was when Henry’s pacing broke to a stop as he angled his body in my direction. His stance was rigid, his expression almost cool. “Because I knew you were already in the area working another . . . what’s the trade lingo? Errand, isn’t it?”
Again, the breath caught in my throat, but this time, my stomach decided to join in the shock. “How did you know—”
“That you’d been assigned to ruin my life as I knew it?” he interrupted, raising his brows.
My stomach twisted again. “How long have you known?”
He didn’t pause. “Before we so ‘coincidentally’ ran into each other that morning on the beach.”
When my stomach knotted again, I found myself searching for a bathroom. “You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have.”
Henry cocked his head to the side. “Couldn’t I have?”
I dropped my head into my hands and focused on my breathing. Surely if I could just think coherently, I would understand. If I could just make sense of the words being said, everything would be clear. “But how could you have known? It was your wife who made the call. She was the one who called us. Your wife.”
After weeks of dodging the topic, it felt strange to voice the Mrs. Callahan elephant in the room. The very woman I wouldn’t want to sit next to on an airplane was the Client I’d taken on to bring down a man I’d once loved. The cause and work I’d devoted myself to for so long seemed less and less noble as I followed Henry through this confounding maze.
Henry’s eyes continued to bore into me. “I don’t have a wife.”
I gave myself a moment to feel the shock of his words. “No? Then who was the lovely woman with a black heart who handed me a file detailing your life in an airport bathroom weeks ago? A mere figment of my imagination?”
He shook his head. “Not a figment of your imagination, but an illusion.” My eyebrows had just pinched together when he continued. “That was a woman I’ve hired to pose as my wife so the public, and most importantly the Eves, would believe I was a married man, but I never actually married her.”
What he’d been saying before had been confusing, but what he was relaying now utterly boggled my mind. “Why would you pretend to be married? Why would anyone pretend to be married?”
Letting out a long breath, Henry stepped toward me. “To get to the woman I’d lost but could never forget. To discover if she still harbored any of the feelings I’d held onto for years. To pave a way for me to redeem myself for my past sins.”
When I looked at the emotion on his face, I had to look away again. There was too much coming at me—both what was being said with his words and being said with his body language. “Henry . . . I don’t . . .” I took a breath, focusing on the words I was trying to form. “I don’t . . . understand. I’m . . . I’m . . . confused.” Even those poorly stuttered words had taken such an effort, I almost felt sweat beading on my forehead. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me. None of it.”
Henry came closer until he had kneeled beside me. He didn’t touch me, but his presence calmed me some. “It took me years to orchestrate. I’d hardly expect you to grasp it all in the span of a few minutes.”
“You’ve been working on this for years?” I closed my eyes, considering it. “Why?”
“For you.”
My head started shaking. “That makes no sense. For you to have been planning this for years, you would have had to have known what I’ve been . . . doing . . .”
He didn’t blink as he said, “I’ve known for close to three years.”
“If you’ve known for that long, why go through all of the hassle of waiting and setting up a scorned-wife scheme in order to get to me? Why not just walk up to me on whatever street I happened to be walking down three years ago and save yourself the headache?” If what he was saying was true and he’d known about my work for that long, I didn’t understand why he’d waited three years to initiate our meeting. If he’d been so desperate to ensure our paths crossed again, why go through the expense and patience of putting something like this together?
Henry clasped his hands. “What would you have done had I walked up to you on the street three years ago?”
I didn’t need to voice my reply—we both already knew the answer.
“I went about things the way I did because I knew when you were faced with a chance to exact the revenge on me that you’d no doubt been holding your breath for, you wouldn’t say no. After what had happened between us, I couldn’t rely on your forgiveness but instead your thirst for revenge.”
What he spoke was the truth, but I was embarrassed to hear it. Up until the last few weeks, the only thing I’d felt for Henry Callahan had been my thirst for revenge. Of course, that had changed—apparently just
as he’d hoped and planned it would. I couldn’t decide if I was more outraged or impressed by his scheming.
“Why were you so concerned with coming back into my life? After everything we’ve been through, why did you want to find me?” My voice sounded empty, hollow almost.
“For several reasons. First, to apologize as I’d never gotten a proper chance to, next, to give you an explanation about what happened, and finally”—Henry’s hand dropped over mine, folding around it—“to try with everything I had to get you back.”
I tried to ignore his hand touching mine. I tried to convince myself I felt nothing. But I wasn’t good at lying when it came to Henry. “I see why you didn’t want to just wander up on the street to me and try to say sorry, explain, and beg me to take you back.” A small laugh rolled from my mouth, although there was little humor in it.
“You understand now?” His voice was high with doubt.
“No, not at all. The only thing I understand is why you didn’t want to come face to face with me out of nowhere three years ago. The rest I can’t even pretend to understand.”
“But will you try?” His hand gently squeezed mine. “Will you try to understand?”
How could I promise to try to understand what he’d done when Henry Callahan had again deceived me? How could I not promise to understand when Henry Callahan’s hand around mine made me feel certain that life wasn’t so bad as long as he didn’t let go?
“You’re asking me to try to understand why you faked a marriage for years so that this woman could call the Eves and complain about an unfaithful husband, banking on the fact that no one other than the best, aka moi, would be assigned to as big a case as Henry Callahan’s, also banking on the fact that I wouldn’t tell the woman who is my boss about your and my previous relationship, and then banking on the fact that eventually you could endear yourself to me like you had once before?” I took a breath. “You’re asking me to try to understand why you’d play ignorant to me planting myself into your life in order to obliterate it and then, after all those years of planning, setting up a friend and his wife so as you could stage this moment right now?”
Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) Page 4