by Amy Olle
He gave Arlo a sidelong look. “We’re pathetic, you know that?”
The cat purred while they completed their check of the property. Just a couple of broken heroes trying to protect the woman who didn’t accept their brokenness.
When he returned indoors, Prue sat on the couch, her legs curled under her, reading something on her phone. She looked up when he came through the door, and her eyes brimmed with unshed tears.
The air squeezed from his lungs. “What happened?”
“Paul Cook.” One tear slipped down her cheek. “He’s dead.”
His world tipped on its axis and he gripped the back of the armchair as Arlo scrambled from his arms. Paul Cook, the journalist who, like Prue, was digging into Aron King’s connections, was dead?
“When?” he rasped.
“Just this week. On Tuesday.” She frowned at her phone. “He was only fifty-nine.”
Tuesday. The day before Prue was attacked.
His limbs shaky, he sat heavily in the chair before his legs gave out. “How did he die?”
With a small head shake, she trained round, vulnerable eyes on him. “His obituary doesn’t say anything about a cause of death. If he was sick, he never said anything.”
Mercifully, she bent her head over her phone again.
“Here’s a news article,” she murmured.
As she read to herself, he fell slowly through the tunnel of fear and chaos. Had they killed him? Had they sent the same man who attacked Prue to do it? His heart raced and he swiped viciously at the sweat collecting on his forehead.
“They suspect it was a heart attack.” She slid the phone onto the coffee table. “He was at home when it happened.”
“Where is home?”
“Washington.”
“State?” His voice croaked with the dryness in his throat.
“DC.”
Gulping for air, he shot to his feet.
“Leo? Is everything all right?”
He clawed a hand through his hair and yanked at the ends.
Her face drained of color. “You think they killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
What should he do? He tried to think clearly, but the panic was closing in, pushing out everything else.
He should talk to Claymore, and Owen. And his brothers.
But none of that would stop them coming for her. Should he take her someplace else? How long could he keep her hidden there? Had they already stayed too long?
Maybe he could throw them off the scent. But how? He’d have to convince them that she wasn’t a part of this, that it was all a mistake, and that Paul Cook alone acted alone. That she hadn’t, in fact, helped to discover proof of their criminal network.
What if he failed? What if they hurt her? He couldn’t bear it. He wasn’t strong enough to live through it again.
“I don’t think I ever thanked you,” she said, a tremor in her voice.
He gaped at her. “What?”
“For finding me and bringing me here. If you hadn’t, I might be de—”
“Don’t say it.” The words shot from like a cannon blast. “Jesus Christ, Prue, don’t you dare fucking say it.”
She blinked at him, her blue eyes huge in her pale face. “But it’s okay. I’m okay.”
Frantically he scoured the room, as though he might discover the way to save her from them, once and for all, sitting right there in front of him.
When his gaze landed on the wall covered in Post-its, he froze.
“We have to stop,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“All this.” His wild gesture took in the entire wall. “If we destroy the records and give up trying to expose them, maybe they’ll quit.” Slowly, he faced her. “Maybe they’ll forget about you.”
Her mouth fell open with her disbelief. “You want me to stop?”
“Yes.”
“They’re hurting people.” She pushed up off the sofa. “They’re hurting children. You want me to just pretend it isn’t happening?”
“I want you to be safe,” he rasped harshly.
“I am safe. I’m with you.”
He recoiled as though she’d struck him. “I can’t.” Palms out, he backed away from her. “I won’t do it again.”
“Do what?” A plaintive wail crept into her voice.
“These people are not like us. If you’re a threat, they’ll take you out. Period. At this point, they don’t even care who knows they’re doing it. They won’t stop until they know you’re eliminated.” He nearly bent over with the pain. “Prue, I need you—I need to know you’re safe. We have to drop it. For real this time.”
A slash of devastation crumpled her features. It shouldn’t hurt so much to see her upset, wounded, but it nearly destroyed him.
When the hell had she snuck into his heart? And how had she entrenched so thoroughly there?
He shook his head. It didn’t matter. All that mattered now was figuring out how he was going to keep her safe.
Her mouth turned down at the corners, she studied the wall.
Pain throbbed in his chest. He couldn’t allow her to be harmed, or worse. He wouldn’t survive it. If she wouldn’t protect herself, he’d have to make the choice for her.
In two large strides, he stepped to the wall and, with a vicious sweep of his arm, ripped down the yellow slips of paper.
Her pained gasp shattered him. “What are you doing?”
“We’re ending this now.” He made another brutal slash across the wall.
She rushed forward and grabbed his arm. “Leo, no. Please, stop it.”
His anguished heart cried out, but he ignored it and kept tearing stickies off the wall.
“Why?” She was crying now. “Why are you doing this?”
He whirled on her so hard and fast, she stumbled back. He wanted to pursue her, to get in her face and scream the truth.
Because I won’t lose you, too.
Instead, he wrenched away from her and moved to the sofa where he hunched over her computer, waiting for it to power on.
“What are you doing?”
Unable to bring himself to look at her, he stared at the black screen. “I’m going to delete everything.”
The outpouring of anger and pain that he expected, and deserved, never came. He lifted his gaze.
Drawing herself up, she wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands. “I know why you’re doing this.”
“I promised Owen—”
“No. You think you’re protecting me. But you’re not.” Her hiccup-sob caused her chin to quiver. “You’re trying to protect yourself. You’re afraid of wh-whatever it is that’s happening between us.”
The Fear laughed. She knew nothing of what he feared. “Tell me, Prue. What is it you think is happening?”
“Forget it,” she mumbled.
“I don’t want to forget it.” The Fear lashed out, adding a sharp bite to his tone.
Soft wounded eyes touched his face, and then she ducked her chin, shutting him out. “Nothing. Nothing is happening.”
Then suddenly her head came up, her huge eyes filled with disappointment.
Disappointment in him.
“You told me this would happen.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and she wiped it away even as she attempted a cheeky smile. “You said you wouldn’t fall in love with me, and you didn’t.”
“It’s not you. I won’t fall in love with anyone.” His voice sounded cool, clinical. “It isn’t worth it to me.”
“Because of her?”
Everything inside him went still.
“I’m not completely naïve, Leo. I can see you’re hung up on someone else. What happened? Why aren’t you with her now?”
The silence stretched out, and he knew the pounding of his heart must be audible to her.
“Did she hurt you? Break your heart? Did she di—”
He sucked in a sharp hiss of air. “Stop. Do not say another word.”
“Why? Why won’t
you talk about her?”
“So now you want to talk about our hang-ups?” He pinned her beneath his gaze. “Fine, let’s talk about yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a PhD. From freaking MIT.”
She lifted her chin defiantly, but her eyes filled with panic. “So?”
The spot in the center of his chest softened, but he hardened himself against it. “So why the hell are you making coffee and answering phones?”
Her cheeks flushed a bright shade of pink while hurt and anger battled for control of her features. Hurt won out.
“When I saw those pictures—” Her voice broke and she swallowed the painful words. “I don’t want to do anything that could be used to hurt someone like that ever again.” One shoulder hitched higher. “So I make coffee instead.”
He dragged a trembling hand over his mouth. His insides shredding, he lurched to his feet to pace.
An awful, angry silence smothered them. Until her quietly spoken words forever shattered whatever pitiful peace remained in him.
“I know what he’s capable of, Leo. I’ve seen it.” Her throat spasmed. “If I have to die in order to stop him, then so be it. I’m not afraid.”
Stumbling to an abrupt stop, he stared at her. She was bathed in the warm glow of the summer sun, and her beautiful heart called out to his. The organ in the center of his chest throbbed and bled, and in its half-dead state, it whispered a simple, elemental truth.
“I’m sorry, Prue. I can’t let that happen.” With a vicious yank on the computer cord, he ripped the plug from the socket, and then he tucked the laptop under his arm.
When he escaped to his bedroom, he couldn’t bring himself to shut her out behind the door.
She didn’t pursue him.
As daylight melted into dusk and then total darkness, Prue lay on her bed, too depressed to do anything other than shed tears for Paul Cook and for the corner of her heart left bruised by Leo’s pointed questions and his demand that she stop investigating Aron King.
She didn’t know why, exactly, it hurt so badly. He wasn’t wrong in his belief that she was too cowardly to do the work she’d once loved, or to be worried that their situation had become even more dangerous. He was right about all of it.
So why did she feel so raw and aching?
Maybe because it felt like all those times her parents commanded her to stop being who she was, and rebuked her when she inevitably failed to do so? Or maybe because she’d let herself believe, let herself hope, that Leo was on her side? That he cared for her as more than a mere fuck buddy?
It neared midnight when she started to doze, but then she became aware of him at her bedroom door. Standing just outside the doorway, he silently contemplated her, a strange expression on his face, of undeniable emotion mixed with heat and vulnerability.
She lifted her head off the pillow and pushed upright.
“You should eat,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
Slowly, painfully, he took one step inside the room. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m afraid for you.”
Her heart convulsed. “Did you… delete everything?”
“No.”
With the bloom of hope in her chest, a small gasp slipped from her. “Why not?”
He folded his arms over his chest, but his veneer of calm was betrayed by the ticking along his jawline and the frantic, cornered look in his eyes. “I don’t know.”
In the way he hung his head, she sensed shame and regret. She slid off the bed and went to him. For many long moments, they stood next to each other, only just touching, feeling the other’s nearness and the lick of fire that enfolded them.
He whispered her name.
She closed her eyes and his lips brushed her eyebrow, her temple, the corner of her mouth. Her hands trembled when she placed them on his shoulders.
A shudder passed through him, and with gentle hands, he removed her clothing and eased her onto the bed. His mouth explored her body, visiting all the nooks and hidden recesses, because no part of her would remain unknown to him.
With his wicked fingers, he coaxed her until she could no longer hold back the pleading noises in her throat. He drove her close. She buried her face in the pillows and rode his hand. Reason tumbled into oblivion. Hurt into pleasure. Anger into love.
Just before she crashed to completion, he pulled back.
He repeated the torturous dance, taking her to the precipice and holding her there. She begged him with naughty words born of frustration and painful arousal until he rose over her, his eyes glittering in the shadow of his face.
The desperation with which she wanted him terrified her.
His erection reared hot and hard, and she surrendered to him easily when he nudged fully inside her aching flesh. Her arms raised above her head, she arched her back to take more of him. His arms wrapped around her rib cage and he clutched her tightly to him as he took his pleasure in her body.
For every plunge of his hips, she met him with eagerness. Her breath came in quick, sharp pants. His mouth moved near her ear, but she could hardly hear his whispers over the thrumming of her heart.
“I need you, Prue.” He dropped kisses on her face and shoulders, her collarbone, and the tips of her breasts. “I need you to let it go.”
When his words penetrated the luscious haze of her desire, her heart fractured.
“Promise me,” be pleaded.
There was a time she would have promised him anything. Everything.
Please don’t ask this of me, Leo. Not this.
With a delicious slide, he withdrew. Then he teased her with the head of his shaft, barely penetrating her before withdrawing again.
She whimpered.
“Prue.” The warning in his voice held a hitch of heartbreak and desperation.
In the absence of his prodding thickness, his fingers stroked her, and her arousal built to an unbearable agony. Just as she reached the edge, he retreated. He hovered at her entrance, withholding his hard fullness. Waiting.
On a sob, she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I want to make you happy, Leo.”
He gave it to her.
With deep plunges and slow, languid slides, he drove her higher and higher until she shattered with her climax. Then he buried his face in her neck and shuddered with his release.
The aftershocks still rippling through her, she wondered if she would ever forgive him.
Chapter Twenty-One
Prue woke in her own bed.
She listened for sounds of Leo moving through the house, but all was quiet. Her stomach wrenched at the thought of seeing him. What would she say? What would he say?
Loath to argue with him again, and unable to bear the massacre of yellow stickies littering the living room floor, she retreated to the patio. He seemed as reluctant to face her, and all morning left her alone to swing in the hammock.
Despite the bright sunlight, the dark haunts from her past taunted. Hopelessness whispered doubts in her ear. Insecurity reminded her that the very fact of who she was made her too difficult to love.
Her chest spasmed with a short, painful hiccup. Afraid she would start crying again, she bit down hard on her lip and tried to come up with a rational explanation to explain the misery she felt.
She was a scientist. Or she used to be. She followed the facts wherever they might lead. But the particular set of facts laid out before her kept adding up to one simple, devastating conclusion.
She was in love with Leo Nolan.
She was in love with him, and it was hopeless. Prue would never have his heart, because she still had it. She’d never be a part of his life, because he refused to share it with anyone who wasn’t her.
Her stomach tangled in knots, she had no appetite and skipped breakfast and lunch. She preferred to stay outdoors, letting the lake and the breeze cleanse the ache from her soul. Sometime in the early afternoon, while she tended to the heartening rose bush, she heard voices inside the house.
/>
Climbing to her feet, she moved to the patio door. In the living room, Leo and Shea stood talking amidst the carnage of Post-it Notes.
“Luke talked to his old boss,” Shea was saying. “And they’re going to send a patrol out a few times a day when they can, to help keep an eye on things.”
When she slid open the screen door and stepped indoors, Shea made a half turn and greeted her with a warm smile.
“Why didn’t Luke tell me himself?” Leo asked with a frown.
“He’s at the hospital with Emily,” Shea said, turning back. “She had the baby yesterday.”
Prue’s delighted smile faded when she saw the expression that darkened Leo’s face. His tawny skin drained of color, and for a moment, she feared he might be ill.
Without giving a thought to their earlier disagreement, she went to him.
He didn’t seem to notice her until she touched his arm, and then he flinched. His gaze swung to her face, and when she pushed back a strand of her hair, his eyes clamped onto her hand.
Pulling it away from her face, she looked down at the rose clippings clutched in her palm.
Confused, she whispered his name.
He blinked several times and the frantic anguish cleared from his eyes, but the blank emptiness that replaced it caused her heart to seize.
She knew what would come next, and even knowing it, it tore at her insides to watch him retreat into his bedroom, shutting her out behind a closed door.
“What’s wrong with him?” Shea wanted to know.
“I wish I knew,” she murmured.
Four years earlier
When they arrived in Damascus, airport security met them on the runway. A “tip” from an unnamed source had convinced local authorities that the TV crew were in fact a gang of drug smugglers. They were held for questioning for eighteen hours before being released with no charges, or apologies.
While they were detained, the warring factions negotiated an end to hostilities.
As their convoy of vehicles traveled through the city to their hotel, their progress was slowed by revelers crowding the streets to celebrate the ceasefire.