After moments of stiff silence, Eli reacted. He shifted his weight and talked with his hands. “We were arguing. I got wound up.”
“Let me guess, it was nothing.”
“You need to listen to me.” Eli reached a hand out to Wade.
He shrugged it away. Didn’t even blink. “Fifty-nine minutes.”
• • •
Wade left the conference room in a stupor. Somehow his legs carried him downstairs. He didn’t remember entering elevator codes or swiping his security card. Music thumped through the wall from the bar and a few members of the cooking staff wandered by. He blocked it all.
Disappointment and anger hit him in waves. He couldn’t hold on to an emotion long enough to dwell on it. By the time he stood outside of Jarrett’s office door, all he wanted to do was hand in his resignation and get out.
Forgoing his usual knock, he slid the card and walked in. “Jarrett.”
“Did you get the financial reports on—” Jarrett glanced up and his eyes narrowed. “What happened?”
So much for thinking he could hide the bullshit bombarding his brain. Then again, Jarrett always knew. Wade realized early this man could read him. “Nothing.”
“Not believable.”
Wade dropped into the chair just inside the door. Didn’t even make it over to Jarrett’s desk. “I’m just going to hang out here a second.” He leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
Jarrett being Jarrett, he didn’t cross-examine or insist on answers. He waited the moment out.
When the quiet stretched on, Wade filled it. “Eli is moving back into the crash pad.”
“Any reason why?”
Because the man was a raging asshole who deserved to be alone. “It’s time.”
“How about I throw him off the building?”
The anger in Jarrett’s voice had Wade opening his eyes. “Not tall enough to do enough damage.”
Jarrett shrugged. “There are other buildings in D.C.”
In the olden days, Jarrett would have meant they should consider the strategy. If Wade needed something handled, Jarrett would have listened and formulated a plan. He’d always been a businessman, but he never balked at getting his hands dirty. That willingness built trust between them immediately. Wade knew Jarrett wouldn’t hide and save himself, letting his employees shoulder the burden.
Best thing Wade ever did was try to move in on Jarrett’s territory all those years ago. He’d been young and cocky, and Jarrett should have killed him. He groomed him instead. Also insisted years later they go legitimate and refused to leave Wade behind on the streets, which at the moment seemed like a fucking shame because there was an old-school way to deal with Eli. But Wade didn’t do that shit anymore . . . and he’d never be able to take Eli out.
So, that meant stewing in silence and hoping the pressure pounding on his chest would go away. “It’s fine. No big deal.”
“Is it?” Jarrett’s voice was soft, concerned.
If it had been anyone but Jarrett, Wade would have let the subject drop. He wasn’t the sharing type. No point in having a private life if you shot your mouth off about it all the time. But if there were a person in the metro area who would understand the joint beatings of betrayal and frustration and need to kick the ass of the person who meant something the day before, it would be Jarrett.
“It never should have started.” Wade leaned forward with his elbows balanced on his knees and stared at the floor. “There’s sex and then there’s the other stuff, and I couldn’t keep them separate.”
“It’s not easy to do that when you’re living together.”
Wade glanced up. “Are we talking about me or about you?”
“Just making conversation.”
He held out his hands. Turned them over and stared at the nicks and old scars on the palms then the backs. “You don’t need advice from me, but I’m going to give it to you anyway.”
“I’m ready.”
Which was good because Wade planned on saying it. “When you start out as one thing and try to change to another, the baggage from the past is still there.”
Jarrett didn’t move or cut off the conversation. He sat with his hands folded on the desk in front of him. “We overcame our pasts. It can be done.”
“It’s different when you’re dragging someone else’s baggage, too.” And Elijah and Becca had tons of it. They carried crap from their pasts and their jobs. Now they were on the run and unsure of what would happen next. Death waited. All of that made them desperate, and desperate meant trust came hard.
Jarrett inhaled deep enough for his shoulders to move. “Go ahead and just say it.”
Wade thought about putting this part off. He’d said it before but in shitty ways that made him sound like a dick. Now he’d say it with more respect because after stepping up to save Jarrett when she thought Eli would shoot him, she deserved some of that. “Let her go before her leaving shreds you.”
“Too late.” Jarrett rubbed his forehead.
Not a surprise, but still. “Shit.”
“Yeah, I know. But we’re talking about you and how I need to go upstairs and beat Elijah to death.”
And Jarrett would probably land a few punches if Wade gave him the okay. “He’s not worth it. Besides, I knew better.”
“Amazing how that doesn’t help, isn’t it?”
Wade nodded. “Fucking right.”
TWENTY-THREE
Jarrett headed up to the second floor to kick Eli out. Enough threats. This time it was happening. A punch to that smug face might do it.
The car came to a stop and Jarrett waited for the doors to open. The buzz of his phone stopped him from getting off and heading for Wade’s condo door. Wade’s text asked that he be the one to handle the situation. It was the one request with the power to stop Jarrett.
He swore under his breath as he thought about acting now and apologizing later. After replaying Wade’s voice in his head, Jarrett turned toward the open conference room door instead of directly for Elijah. The all-out assault could wait. Jarrett would give Wade a chance and if he faltered, Jarrett would step in. He owed it to Wade to clean house.
Seeing Becca sitting there, right at the head of the long table, halted Jarrett’s steps just outside the doorway. Hair in a ponytail and her usual tank top in place. This time a thin strip of a white bra peeked out from underneath.
She alternated between writing notes and typing on the computer. So serious. So dedicated to ferreting out the truth.
“You need to work on your undercover skills. I can hear you breathing.” She didn’t face him but a smile crossed her lips.
More than likely she knew he was on the same floor before the elevator opened. She didn’t need cameras or an elaborate system of security cards that also tracked movements throughout the building. She had a sort of sense that told her things were about to happen or people were right behind her, which was part of what made her a good field agent. Also made her spooky as hell and hard to trick.
He took the seat to her right. “I wasn’t trying to hide.”
The smile faded as her gaze traveled over his face. She set the pen down. “You look awful.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m serious.” Her eyes narrowed the longer she stared. “What’s going on?”
Normally he’d shrug off the question and turn the conversation to something else. Something not about him or Wade or anything personal. But she had a right to know.
When she left here, she might throw in with Elijah and she needed a warning about what that would mean. Some days the guy acted like he lacked a conscience. “There’s a problem in the building.”
She nodded. “You talked to Wade.”
Looked like, once again, she’d jumped ahead of him. Made him wonder if maybe she did plant a device in his office and li
ve-streamed every conversation. Hard to do since she hadn’t been on the main floor since her first day back in the building, but Becca was crafty.
“You did?” he asked, knowing the answer.
“I was there when Elijah gave the ‘it’s just sex’ speech. He was talking to me and the message was loud and clear—Wade doesn’t matter.”
If possible, the truth of what happened was worse than Jarrett had imagined. A heated rage roared through him. Jarrett shoved back his chair and stood up, determined to do more than kick the asshole out. “I’m going to kill the bastard.”
“Don’t.” Her hand landed on his arm. “From the look I saw on Wade’s face, I think he might beat you to it. It’s possible he needs to be the one to do it.”
No matter how hard he tried to block it, Jarrett couldn’t keep Wade’s warning out of his head. Wade wasn’t the only one walking a thin line.
“He’s not in the position to do anything.” Jarrett remembered Wade’s blank expression. “Hell, right now he can’t muster the energy to get out of the damn chair in my office.”
“He wasn’t detached. Eli meant something to him.”
Jarrett blew out a long breath and sat back down. The chair creaked under the force of his grip on the armrests. “It was that way from day one.”
“I didn’t realize they were actually a couple.”
Jarrett winced over the word. Instead of focusing on Wade, his mind flipped to his own living arrangements. He’d tried to make living with her mean nothing more than sex, but she threw out the word “couple” like it automatically applied to these types of situations.
He cleared his throat as he tried to clear every thought from his head. “I told you they were living together.”
“I mean they were serious.”
Jarrett turned around every word she uttered. Tried to make it fit into their situation and see how they could end up in a different place than Wade, but couldn’t get there.
With his elbow on the armrest, Jarrett tapped his fingers against his temple. The thudding matched the boom of the headache inside. “Is that even possible with Eli?”
“You didn’t see his face. He didn’t expect Wade to overhear, and Wade’s reaction in kicking him out stunned him. Honestly, I think Elijah was spewing and didn’t mean most of the garbage he said, but I’m not sure he can un-ring that bell now.”
Jarrett got a look at Wade downstairs, after the fact, and that was enough. Wade grew up poor and stole because that was the career path laid out by his father, taking other people’s stuff. The upbringing made Wade tough, which Jarrett appreciated. It also made those rare times when Wade dropped the shield all the more excruciating to watch.
“I don’t care if Eli went off or regrets his words or whatever. I’ve got Wade sitting in my office and . . .” The visual image popped back into Jarrett’s head and the pain in his head shot down to his feet.
“What?”
“Nothing.” But something.
Wade today. Jarrett wondered if he’d suffer the same fate tomorrow.
She reached across the table and put a hand over his. “Jarrett, don’t shut me out.”
He didn’t move. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“What are we talking about?”
He turned her hand over and traced a line down her palm. “How you try to make something work and you keep moving it around and shoving it on this side and ignoring how that side doesn’t fit.”
Her arm tensed. “Are we still talking about Eli and Wade?”
With a surge of willpower, he let go of her hand and sat back. “Sex is sex.”
She didn’t back off. If anything, she leaned in. “Jarrett, no.”
“You don’t give the orders. I do.” He had to stand up, walk away. Sitting this close he could see deep into her eyes and smell her hair. If he let his mind wander for even a second, he’d replay the last few nights, her in his bed, everything back the way it was.
But everything had changed. Somehow her being there made him want to forget it all, the frustration, the seething anger, the heartbreaking disappointment. He’d been thinking about buying her a ring eight months ago, and she’d been meeting with her bosses about whether to keep him as an assignment.
He knew she’d been fed a line about the drugs. He got that now. Even understood how she tried to get Todd to call the whole thing off. He believed it all, but in the end the fact remained—when it came down to choosing between him and her job, he lost. He would always lose, just like Wade gambled and lost.
She might insist things had changed but he’d always be wondering when the day would come for her to make another stand and she’d pick someone else. Something else. A cause, a belief, a job.
The answer was simple. He needed to make the deal with Natalie. Save Becca because he fucking loved her and that’s what a man did when he was dumb enough to fall in love with the one woman who could destroy him.
She’d go on. He’d rebuild. Probably move his living space out of the building. No way could he live up there after losing her a second time. There wasn’t a choice and the clock kept ticking.
She dropped to her knees on the floor in front of him. Her hands skimmed up and down the top of his thighs. “Why are you acting like this? What happened downstairs?”
He clenched his back teeth together and kept his fingers wrapped around the armrests. “A dose of reality.”
She sat back on her heels. “And now you’ve returned to being an ass.”
“Returned? You made it clear before that I never stopped.” He tried to swivel the chair so he could get out and step away from her.
She grabbed the armrests and held him steady. “You know who else does this type of crap?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“Eli.”
At the comparison, Jarrett’s heart hardened and his mind went blank. “Do not push me, Becca.”
“What will you do?”
She made everything so fucking hard. Staying with her. Leaving her. No way would he physically hurt her, and she knew it, but this torture had to stop. The days of wanting her to pay had passed into oblivion along with his dreams of revenge. He didn’t need any of that now that he understood her role.
“Just know that my goodwill only extends so far,” he said when he couldn’t think of a suitable threat.
“How far?” One hand brushed up the inside of his thighs.
Immediately, his cock jumped to life. He grabbed her hand, squeezing to make her stop. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t pull away. “You have to ask that?”
Old habits died hard. She wanted something and used her body. He wanted to keep her in line and used sex. It was a sick cycle they couldn’t seem to break when the tension rose.
“Know that if you go one inch farther it’s just sex.” He’d hold himself back like he had the first time in the guest room. Show her indifference and disdain in an attempt to make her believe she meant nothing.
“Maybe for you.” Her fingers tightened against his thigh.
“No.” He couldn’t do it. The façade crumbled just looking at her. He scooted the chair back, rolling just a few inches away but enough to break her hold. “Stop.”
Her hand fell to her lap. “You’re saying no?”
“You’re not that irresistible.”
“And you’re replaceable.”
The verbal smack landed harder than he expected it could. “I’m sure I am.”
She pushed to her feet and grabbed the laptop and notebook off the table. Her hands were constant movements as she made piles and loaded down her arms. When she spun around to face him again her skin had turned a chalky white. “When you’re done being afraid and hiding behind old feuds and wasted anger, let me know.”
He called up his last bit of fury, reaching for the
one thing he fought to forgive and couldn’t get there. “I went to jail because of you.”
“Ever notice that’s the one excuse you use when you don’t have anything else?”
He hated that she spied his defenses and tried to rip those down, too. “I can give you a list of sins.”
“I’ll pass. Far as I can see, you’re not offering anything I need.” She opened the door and walked out.
Just as he wanted her to.
• • •
Becca didn’t exhale until the elevator doors closed in front of her. The car sat there unmoving, waiting for her to enter a code. She lifted a hand toward the keypad but tightened it into a fist when the tremors shaking her body made standing still impossible.
Jarrett was running scared.
Something about the Wade and Eli situation had Jarrett stumbling. Reverting to his clipped voice commands and verbal bruising. She accused him of being like Eli. Though they shared the same instincts to strike out, Jarrett was different, but he had no trouble hiding his decency under a thick layer of stubbornness and attitude.
In those moments when he dropped the barrier and let her in, when he joked and even smiled once in a while, a sensation of pure lightness moved through her. Buried under the gruffness and the distrust beat something good. He wasn’t perfect or even innocent, but she’d never demanded either from him.
She messed up. She got lost in her pain. She’d lashed out and hadn’t stepped in to back him up. Hadn’t saved him.
All the mistakes and missteps ran through her mind as she stared at the keypad. Her fingers touched the number buttons. One after the other, she entered the code for the third floor. By the time she finished, exhaustion whipped through her.
She needed distance, so tonight she would stay in the guest room. Say no to him for the first time. If he even tried to come in.
The elevator gave off a fine hum as it moved. The sound buzzed through her head and cleared away the cobwebs. She came to the club, or that’s what she’d convinced herself. Really, she came for him to see if there was anything left since everything else in her life was gone. Now she knew the truth—she loved him and the feeling wasn’t going away.
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