by Amelia Autin
She nodded slowly. “Sean was my one and only, just as Bree was for you.” She touched Dirk’s arm. “You understand. Of course you understand. After Sean, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It felt as if I were being unfaithful. Then later, I...I threw myself into my work, body and soul. I turned down dates so automatically for the first couple of years, it got to be a habit. And I didn’t miss having a man in my life.” She caressed him, sliding her hand down his chest, over his abs and lower. “I didn’t know what I was missing,” she teased.
It bothered him. He didn’t understand why at first. And then it came to him. It wasn’t her statement that he was the first man she’d slept with in eleven years, although there was a message there he needed to comprehend. No, it was the seemingly casual way she’d said she didn’t know what she was missing that bothered him a hell of a lot. As if any man would have done. As if what they’d just shared hadn’t been as unique for her as it had been for him.
She must have sensed his internal withdrawal, because she turned over, propped herself on his chest and faced him. “Maybe that came out wrong,” she said softly. “I guess it’s been so long I’ve forgotten bedroom protocol.” She laughed beneath her breath, a rueful sound, and her eyes sought his. “I didn’t sleep with you because it’s been eleven years and I was desperate. And I didn’t sleep with you because you’re the sexiest man alive, either. Although you are.”
Her teasing smile coaxed one from him, but then her smile faded. Everything she was feeling was there in her face, and he knew she was telling the truth. “I slept with you for one reason and one reason only,” she told him, unafraid to let him see her vulnerability. “Because you needed me. And I...I need to be needed.”
Her solemn face morphed into tenderness. “Don’t get me wrong. I wanted you. I still do.” Her small, slender hand stroked his resurgent arousal, pushing him to the limit...again. “But I’ve wanted before—not a lot, but a few. And I’ve never had any difficulty saying no to myself and them.” She sighed. “You’re different, Dirk. I don’t know if I can explain it.”
“Try.” His voice was husky. “Please. It matters more than you know.”
“The very first time I saw you, I...I immediately disliked you. Not because of you, but because of me. Because you looked at me and I felt things I hadn’t felt since Sean. And that scared me. I didn’t know how to deal with those emotions, and...yes...desires. So I told myself I didn’t like you, and that was that.”
She laid her cheek against his chest. “Then, when I met you again—so wounded, so vulnerable—my defenses crumbled. And I knew you needed me. Not just to help rescue your children, but to rescue you, too.”
She rubbed her soft cheek against him, and though he wanted to say something...anything...words wouldn’t come. But it seemed she didn’t need words from him. “I’m not looking for promises,” she told him. “I’m not looking for anything from you other than the chance to rescue you from your personal hell.”
A rush of emotion inundated him, and once again he knew she was telling him the truth...if not the whole truth. His arms closed around her like a vise, holding on for dear life as an aching need washed through his body. He pulled her closer so his lips could find hers. Then he kissed her. And kissed her. As if he could substitute that for the words he wanted to say but couldn’t.
Because in that instant he knew what his heart had been trying to tell him from the beginning. What his subconscious had known almost from the start. He loved Mei-li. Not because she was beautiful and sexy and incredibly hot in bed. And not even because she’d brought him back to life and made him laugh again under unbelievably trying circumstances. He loved her because he’d never known anyone as giving as she was. Because she wouldn’t take no for an answer, wouldn’t let him refuse the gift she offered.
Because she loved him.
He didn’t know how he knew...just that he did. And the selflessness in her statement that she wasn’t looking for promises from him? That she just wanted to free him? She meant it. Even if it meant breaking her own heart.
* * *
Mei-li woke in the early-morning hours with an incredible sense of well-being...and the realization that strong male hands were wandering her body. Stroking. Caressing. She closed her eyes again, luxuriating in the delicious little darts of excitement shivering through her body...something she hadn’t felt in years.
“Mmm,” she said finally. “That’s the best part of waking up. Better even than coffee.” She lifted her head and squinted at the electric clock on the nightstand. “What time is it?”
“Early.” Lips closed on one bare nipple, suckling until it beaded. Then released that nipple and moved to give the other the same treatment.
She sighed and let herself enjoy the moment, but retained enough presence of mind to ask, “Did you sleep?” She’d wanted to make sure Dirk slept last night, but somehow she’d fallen asleep first.
“Like a baby.” He rolled on top of her, settling between her legs but bearing most of his weight on his forearms. “And now I have to express my heartfelt thanks.”
Her deep chuckle turned into a moan when he slid inside her. And that was her last conscious thought until Dirk’s very personal thank-you was thrillingly expressed.
* * *
Terrell Blackwood had just finished dinner when his disposable cell phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket before the second ring. “Yes?”
“The parts have arrived in Hong Kong and will be delivered this morning. Which means your packages should leave sometime today or tomorrow.”
Excitement kicked his heartbeat into overdrive. Finally, he thought, although he kept that to himself. “When will you know for sure?”
“The pilots can’t file a flight plan and register for a departure time until the repairs are made and inspected. While they originally stated the repairs should take less than a day, they won’t commit themselves. But they assure me they will depart no later than tomorrow morning. You’ll know when I know.”
His conscience triggered a sudden concern over how the long delay might have affected the health of the little girls. While he cared not how Summers suffered, Terrell’s plan had never been to cause physical harm to Summers’s daughters. “Are the packages still in good shape?”
“As well as can be expected.”
Terrell wasn’t quite sure how to interpret this, so he added in a hard voice, “Our contract assumes the packages will be undamaged.”
The cold voice replied, “They are undamaged in the way you mean.”
He wouldn’t let himself dwell on the different shades of meaning that statement held. Physically, Summers’s daughters were unharmed, and that was all he cared about. How the kidnapping affected them mentally and emotionally? He couldn’t let it matter to him. He’d known from the start that wrenching the little girls from the only life they’d ever known would be traumatic, but he’d consoled himself with the knowledge the twins would be going to good homes, with parents who were so desperate for children they’d arranged for adoption through the baby black market. So he thrust that concern aside and asked, “What about the bill?”
A slight hesitation at the other end worried him. Then the voice said, “The bill will be presented today...once repairs have been made and we are sure the packages will be shipped.” Terrell waited, and eventually the other man added, “The sleight of hand I mentioned yesterday involved a portion of the bill.”
Sudden anxiety made him ask, “Payment was collected?” Ransom retrieval was the riskiest stage of a kidnapping. And if Summers had somehow involved the local police or the FBI...if this man had been followed back from a ransom drop...
“Negative. But the owner was kept too busy to pursue other actions.”
Terrell sighed in relief, then asked, “And the final message to the owner?”
“Will be delivered once the package
s are safely on their way.”
* * *
It was still early when Dirk walked into his hotel suite alone. Mei-li had wanted to come with him, but he’d told her to get another hour’s sleep, then take a cab to his hotel. “Cab,” he’d insisted. “I don’t like to think of you on the subway alone.”
She’d just smiled at him, the humoring kind of smile Bree had long ago mastered, and he smiled now just thinking of it. So, okay, he was overprotective in some ways. But the woman who’d loved him before and the woman who loved him now understood and humored his little quirks.
Yesterday, that thought would have driven the smile from his face. Yesterday, he wouldn’t have been able to compare and contrast Bree and Mei-li without pain. But today was a different story. Today, he realized that loving Mei-li didn’t make him love Bree any less—his love for one didn’t negate his love for the other.
But Bree was dead...and he was alive, as Mei-li had proved to him last night. If Bree hadn’t died, there would never have been Mei-li. Not just because he would never have fallen in love with her, but also because she would never have fallen in love with him. He didn’t need her to say it for him to know she would never have allowed herself to fall in love with a married man.
But Bree had died. He wasn’t a married man anymore. And now there was Mei-li. Mei-li, who loved him the way Bree had loved him, with every beat of her heart. Mei-li, who, because of that love, would sacrifice for him the way Bree had. Mei-li, who knew the darkness in his soul that he’d never confided to Bree—and she loved him anyway.
Is it really that simple? he thought as he measured coffee grounds into the filter, poured water into the coffeemaker and switched it on.
Is it really that simple? he asked himself as he stripped and stepped into the shower. He doused his head under the water and scrubbed vigorously, his thoughts swirling like the suds beneath his feet.
He was just drying off when he heard his iPhone ringing from the bedroom. He swiftly wrapped the towel around his waist and dashed for the phone, knowing by the “unknown caller” ring it couldn’t be anyone but the kidnappers. “Dirk DeWinter.”
“Nice job yesterday, Mr. DeWinter,” said a cold voice he recognized. “Four for four—you’re batting a thousand.”
“Just cut to the chase,” Dirk said roughly. “When am I going to get my daughters back?”
“There’s still the little matter of the rest of the money.”
“You know I’ll deliver it anytime, anywhere.”
“Ah, yes, about that. We want you to wire the money.”
Mei-li was right about that, too, he thought. But all he said was, “I can arrange that, no problem, but I’ll want another current picture of my daughters before I do.”
“Understood.” In the background was a sound—vaguely familiar—but then it ceased. Dirk waited, but he didn’t hear it again.
“So where do you want the money wired?”
“Don’t leave your suite,” the kidnapper answered. “Instructions will be forthcoming.”
Dirk was already dressed in black jeans and a matching, short-sleeved black polo shirt when Mei-li arrived. He hadn’t thought about the funereal aspect of his clothing until he caught sight of himself in the mirrored column in the study. He almost turned back to change, but the pealing of the doorbell stopped him.
When he saw Mei-li in the doorway, his second instinct was to kiss her. His first was to sweep her off her feet, carry her into his bedroom and make love to her until she confessed how much she loved him. But she’d chosen not to tell him for some reason, and he had to respect that. So he settled for satisfying his second instinct.
When he finally raised his head, he couldn’t help the unadulterated male possessiveness that surged through him at the sight of her bemused eyes, her rosy lips, the expression that said, Please don’t stop. Then she blinked and her expression changed. Her eyes gained focus. But her lips were still rosy.
“Good morning,” she said, as if they hadn’t already said their good mornings to each other earlier. Passionately. As if she hadn’t moaned his name the way he’d moaned hers.
She walked past him into the living room, dropped the purse and computer bag she’d carried slung over one shoulder onto the sofa, placed the take-out breakfast bag on the dining room table, then turned to face him. Her next words pushed his memories of last night and this morning into the realm of things he couldn’t afford to think about. “The parts to repair the plane have arrived in Hong Kong and will be delivered to the pilots this morning. Mechanics are standing by, waiting to make the necessary repairs.”
Dirk froze. “Which means...today? The kidnappers will smuggle my daughters out of Hong Kong today?”
“We have to operate as if that’s their intention. But I already told you, RMM won’t let that plane take off.”
“How—?” he began, but then he got it. “Sabotage.”
“I honestly don’t know. All the head of RMM would tell me is that the plane won’t leave Hong Kong with your daughters. He gave me his word.”
“If we don’t have to worry about the plane,” Dirk said slowly, “then we just have to locate where Linden and Laurel are being hidden and rescue them.” His eyes met Mei-li’s. “I don’t have a lot of faith that paying the ransom will accomplish anything, but I will pay it. I don’t have a choice.”
“I know.” She waved a hand at the breakfast on the table. “Let’s eat before it gets too cold. We can plan at the same time.”
“Coffee’s made,” Dirk said as he headed to the kitchen. “How do you take yours?” He poured coffee for both of them, and Mei-li shook her head when he offered cream and sugar. As they dug into the food a few minutes later, Dirk said, “One of the kidnappers called me earlier—the American who’s been calling me.” He took a long swallow of his black coffee. “He warned me not to leave the suite because instructions for wiring the ransom will be delivered here, just like the notes yesterday. Yeah,” he admitted before Mei-li could speak. “You were right. They want the other nineteen million wired somewhere.”
“I should tell you I was notified that none of the ransom drops we made yesterday were picked up.”
“Which means there’s no question they were a decoy.”
She nodded. “If we hadn’t figured it out yesterday, this would clinch it.” She hesitated. “I should also tell you RMM plans to retrieve the ransom packages today...assuming they’re still there.”
“Assuming? I thought you said they weren’t picked up.”
“The package at the Peak is still there. The one at the museum wasn’t picked up by the time it closed, and someone from RMM will be there as soon as the museum opens today, but...” She shrugged her shoulders. “Could a guard or a cleaning person have found and kept it? That’s possible. We won’t know until the museum opens.”
Mei-li balled up the paper wrapper from the breakfast sandwich she’d just finished and placed it in the bag. “As for the package left at the Tian Tan Buddha, they close that exhibit nightly, and the ransom hadn’t been picked up by closing time. But again, a guard or cleaning crew could have found it even though it was tucked away, out of sight. RMM operatives have been watching since last night, and they don’t think the bag was removed. But...”
“But it might have been.”
“Yes. The last package, the one we left by the harbor, was still there as of six this morning. If the kidnappers were going to retrieve any of the ransom, they would have done so by now. They wouldn’t risk having someone else find the money. So they never intended to retrieve it, they just wanted you occupied. RMM will retrieve the four ransom packages if they can and return the money to you.”
“You think I care about recovering the money?” Dirk shook his head. “I know I told you I’m frugal, but I honestly don’t care about that money—all I want is my daughters. You tell
your contact with RMM to keep it. Use it to pay for everything they’ve done so far, and everything they’re going to do to help me rescue Linden and Laurel.”
Mei-li’s smile warmed him. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. He knew what she was thinking, knew she approved his decision about yesterday’s ransom.
When Dirk was finished, she gathered up all the trash and carried it into the kitchen along with her coffee mug. When she came back, she retrieved her laptop from her computer bag and said, “If we can’t leave the suite, that means we have time to do something I mentioned yesterday—map all the locations where the pictures were taken. Remember? It might be meaningless, but we might spot a pattern.” She tapped her laptop. “I’ve got special map software,” she told him. “Let’s see what we can figure out.”
Chapter 18
“That’s interesting,” Mei-li said just as the doorbell rang.
Dirk cursed under his breath. “Patrick,” he muttered. “Or Rafe, or...”
“It’s okay,” she reassured him. “It’s better to have them all where we can keep an eye on them. You go let whoever it is in...but don’t say anything. Might as well wait around until they all arrive. I’ll keep going here.”
Mei-li watched as Dirk strode out of the study, carefully closing the doors behind him. She spent a moment thinking about what a decent man he was, despite his confession last night. What other man would let his conscience torment him the way he had? What other man would feel it necessary to tell a woman his darkest secret before he slept with her...especially when the woman in question made the first move? And what other man would think it important to admit he’d only ever slept with one other woman in his entire life?
She’d meant what she’d told him last night. She didn’t know...and neither did he...what he would have done if Lyon hadn’t tried to kill him. Yes, in that one instant he’d been furiously angry and determined that the woman he loved would never have to face her would-be rapist in court. But she honestly believed there was a strong possibility Dirk wouldn’t have killed Lyon...if Lyon had dropped the knife. “Give yourself the benefit of the doubt, tim sum,” she whispered, even though he wasn’t there to hear her.