Jared shrugged. “It’s my mother’s recipe.”
I smiled at that. It was the first time he’d ever mentioned anything about his life. “Are you close with your mother?” I asked, settling into my chair.
“We’re close now. I spent a lot of time away from her when I was young.”
I raised my eyebrows with interest, waiting for him to elaborate.
“School was very easy for Claire and me—we finished at a young age—and we went on to train in more specialized areas.”
“Specialized as in what you can do? Fight, I mean.” Although I was prepared for an outlandish explanation, I was surprised that it began in his childhood.
“Right,” Jared confirmed. “My father taught us much of what we know; he took us all over the world to round out our training.”
“What kind of training?” I asked.
Jared squirmed in his chair. My insides wrenched as I watched him struggle; I wanted to somehow make it easier for him. I reached across the table and slid my fingers between each of his.
“This is why I’m here, right?” I said, offering a reassuring smile. Jared relaxed a bit and gently squeezed my fingers.
“We were trained to defend ourselves, to defend someone else, and received all the training each branch of the military receives, including tactical, structure penetration, reconnaissance, patrolling, hand-to-hand combat, demolitions, weapons, and field medicine. You get the idea.”
“Why?” I said in a more incredulous tone than I’d intended.
Jared took another bite, considering my question. I couldn’t wait for him to decide the best answer.
“Your father was in the security business?” I prompted.
“More along the lines of security detail.”
“Bodyguard stuff.” I nodded.
Jared chuckled. “Yes, bodyguard stuff.”
“So Claire went through the same training?” I imagined tiny Claire training with the Navy Seals and shuddered. I wasn’t sure if it was because I feared for her safety or because she was even more dangerous than I had previously thought.
“We were separated a lot. When she proved to be accelerated in most things, we trained together.” His face twisted with irritation.
“Accelerated?”
“She could hit a target from fifteen-hundred yards by the time she was eleven. She’s probably the best sniper the military has ever seen.” He waited for my reaction. After seeing the deliberate smooth features of my face, he continued. “You can imagine how many elite branches of government and private–sector organizations are falling over themselves for her, counting down the days until her eighteenth birthday.” He said the words with a hint of the tone a protective father might have when discussing his daughter’s first date.
“Are you close?” I asked, remembering the way they had reacted to each other in the pub.
Jared frowned. “I love her. She’s my sister.” The crease between his eyebrows grew deeper, “She’s also obstinate, and like most teenage girls, she’s self-absorbed but in a lethal-type of way because of her training.” He was suddenly far away. “Claire’s been through a lot. She didn’t get to have a normal childhood because of the way we were raised, and she’s angry about a lot of things.”
“Are you angry about the way you were raised?”
“No,” he said softly but with firm conviction. There was no pause between my question and his answer. He scanned my face with such affection that I felt myself fidgeting with unease.
“Why is that?” I bit my lip, still apprehensive about the intensity in his eyes.
“We’ll get to that later. Dessert?” he asked, squeezing my hand before letting go.
I noticed the absence of his touch instantly when my hand turned cold. He took my nearly empty plate and returned with the perfect-sized slice of angel food cake. No icing, no layers. Just the way I liked it.
I took a bite and closed my eyes as I chewed. “You have more than one talent, Mr. Ryel,” I said after swallowing the moist, spongy goodness. “Tell me more about you. I want to hear the little things, too. You know all of my favorites; it’s only fair that I know yours.”
Jared laughed once. “Okay.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and leaned against his chair. “The little things . . . I was born in Providence on May ninth. I’m twenty-three,” he explained. “Breakfast is my favorite meal. Summer is my favorite season. I don’t have a favorite color, but I’ve always been partial to that crazy green-honey brown color of your eyes. I have this addiction to sweet potato fries.”
“Well, there you go. I knew something about you after all.” I grinned.
“See? I’m an open book.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go on.”
“I think best when on my motorcycle; I don’t have time for hobbies. I have a sister, whom you’ve met.” I nodded. “And a little brother, Bex, who’s eleven. They both live with my mother, but Claire spends a lot of time here. Sometimes too much.” He grimaced.
I giggled. “And you have your own security business?”
The second I’d asked, I wished I hadn’t. Jared’s eyes clouded over into familiar twin storms.
“I brought you here tonight to be honest with you, Nina.”
“I know,” I said, trying to sound braver than I felt. Whatever it was, I would listen, believe, and figure out a way to live with it. I had no other option. Now that I’d met him, my life would never be the same again. It would be something too peculiar for anyone else to accept, but I had seen enough in the past months to know anything was possible. “I want you to tell me everything.”
Jared looked away. “You may feel differently before the night is over.”
I tilted my head to draw his eyes to mine. “After everything that’s happened, you don’t think I know there is something abnormal going on? I’m here, aren’t I?”
Jared leaned over and touched my cheek with the palm of his hand. I couldn’t help but lean into it; his skin was always so warm that it radiated into my bones.
“Okay, then. The truth.” He took a deep breath. “My father has been close to your father for a long time.” He watched my expression, but that part I was somewhat prepared for.
He continued, “My father served as protection for your father, and as you can imagine, Jack was a full-time job. He made a lot of the wrong people very angry on a regular basis.”
I winced. I had come to this conclusion after reading the Port of Providence file, but hearing it from Jared rubbed salt in the wound.
“I’m sorry, Nina. I don’t like telling you this; it goes against the very principle I was raised on.” Jared reached his hand across the table to mine.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s what my family does, Nina. We protect your father and your mother and you.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Your family protects mine? Since when?”
“My father has known Jack since before you were born, before he married your mother.”
I felt my eyebrows pull in. “Why haven’t we met before?”
Jared squeezed my hand. “We have. One of my earliest memories is of Jack encouraging you to take your first steps. We went on family vacations with you; I watched you blow out the candles on your birthday cakes; I saw you drive your first car; we were always in the background.”
I shook my head. “When we had lunch, I asked you if we’d met. You said we hadn’t.” Frustration made my words sharper than I had intended.
“We hadn’t met in the way you were inquiring,” Jared pointed out. “From the moment I sat beside you on that bench, I’ve been careful not to lie to you, Nina. I promised myself that if the day ever came that I could finally be in your life—in a real way—I would always be honest with you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Your father protected mine?”
Jared nodded.
“Who is your father?”
“Gabe Ryel.”
“Gabe is your father? But I don’t remember yo
u. I spent time in his home. You weren’t there.”
“Claire and I were away. We had to start our training early to be ready in time. Bex is eleven and he’s already finished school. He’s been in training for the last eighteen months. It’s just the way it works.”
“It’s the way what works?”
Jared winced at my irritated tone. He was struggling with each piece of information now. He spoke as if he expected me to run away with every new fact he revealed.
“I’m getting to that.” He shifted nervously.
I pulled my hand from his and lowered it to my lap. “I don’t remember any of that.”
Jared watched me pull away from him with a pained expression. “You weren’t supposed to. Your father did everything he could to keep you from the dark parts of his life. He did love you, Nina.”
I shook my head, trying to keep the tears at bay. I couldn’t think of any words. Jared stared at me for a moment and spoke again. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
I blinked, composing myself. “Yes, I’m sure.” Knowing something real, even if it was hurtful, was far better than living a lie.
Jared sucked in another breath. “About the time I was ready to work alone, you were becoming more independent. It was eighteen months before there was a need for my training. Up until then, I’d felt like a babysitter.”
I cringed at his choice of words.
“Five days before your sixteenth birthday,Jack had begun a deal with the cops you saw in the surveillance photos. My father told Jack it was a bad idea, but the bottom line was always the money, and those men,” Jared spoke with disdain, “were the easiest way to bypass the system.
“Once Jack realized that dirty cops are a different breed of criminal with even less regard for the law, it was too late. Jack was used to being targeted, but he wasn’t prepared for them to go after you. No one had ever been stupid enough to push Jack that far.”
“After me? We’re talking three years ago, and I had no idea? How is that possible?”
“Because I’m good at my job, Nina. I had to be.” Jared tensed as he continued, “I’d hoped your father would be honest with you—although at the time I wasn’t sure why—but it only made Jack even more determined to keep you from the truth. He didn’t want you to live in fear, and I couldn’t argue with that logic.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Jared’s hands locked together on top of the table. “The first time you were targeted I took a bullet to the shoulder. The training made it automatic for me to stop that bullet, Nina, but in that one instant, my eyes were opened. The moment I saw Tipton’s finger press against the trigger, I wasn’t protecting you because I had to. For the first time, I realized that I could lose you.”
“You were almost killed?” I gasped. I imagined him bleeding from a bullet wound while I went on with my life, oblivious. My heart faltered.
Jared crossed his arms on the table and smiled. “Not even close.”
“So these feelings you have for me . . . You had them before I ever knew you existed,” I said, more of a statement than a question.
Jared grimaced, incensed at my choice of words.
“Nina.” He shook his head. I had obviously offended him somehow. “I was in love with you before you ever knew I existed. It was difficult to be around you for hours on end and not be able to comfort you or touch you or even speak to you. I wasn’t allowed to let you see me, but it was my job to watch your every move. That included standing by while people lied to you, betrayed you, and caused you pain.
“Jack reminded me constantly that it had to be that way. He could see that every day it grew harder for me to be nonexistent, to be invisible to the woman I loved.” His eyes were unfocused, mulling over the memories that troubled him.
Jared had now said it twice: He was in love with me.
“You can’t imagine the rage I felt seeing some sleaze who didn’t appreciate you take you to dinner, take you for granted, kiss you, and make you cry. It was my duty to protect you, and I wasn’t allowed to protect you from that; although, I would have gladly murdered Howard without a second thought the night of your sixteenth birthday.”
Adrenaline rushed through my veins, and my mind burned through the memories of that night. Stacy Howard was my first and only boyfriend. He personified the stereotypical supercilious rich boy, complete with rebellious nature and bad attitude. The longer I put-off a physical relationship with him, the more acerbic he became. It didn’t take long for me to grow tired of him, but just when I’d decided to end things, Cynthia insisted on it first. Playing the part of the stubborn fifteen-year-old daughter to perfection, I grudgingly stayed with him just long enough to show my mother that I would make my own choices.
We had been together for just over a year when he’d chosen my party to break it to me that he was in love with Emma Noble, my then best friend. His plans were unnecessary when I caught them having sex in the pool house before he had a chance to tell me. I was so relieved I barely noticed.
“You’re referring to Stacy.” My eyes narrowed.
Jared nodded with an angry expression on his face.
“You knew about that?” I wailed.
Jared shook his head and closed his eyes. “From the moment it began. It was hell watching him go back and forth, not being able to tell you or kill him. He was just a kid, and I wanted to end his life somany times,” he whispered in a low, intimidating tone.
I buried my face in my hands. Fire exploded across my face and ears. It was worse than anything I could have possibly imagined. Jared hadn’t just been hired to protect me since my father had passed away; he’d observed my awkward tween years, my humiliations, and every one of my embarrassing failures.
The degradation was unbearable. I sprang from my seat and headed for the door, but before my first step, I heard Jared’s chair grate against the floor. In the next moment, he gently wrapped his arms around my waist from behind.
“I know this is humiliating for you,” he spoke quietly in my ear. “I wanted to tell you. I begged Jack to let me expose that cheating little maggot so many times, but he wouldn’t let us interfere unless it was absolutely necessary. His doing that to you on your birthday,” he said, fuming, “was the breaking point for me. That night was the first time I’d fought Jack on anything.”
I flipped around and pushed away from him. “I’m not humiliated about Stacy! That was years ago! I’m humiliated because of this!” I said, gesturing to the space between us. “When you meet someone new, that’s the way it’s supposed to be! New! You know all of my bad habits. You’ve seen me do God knows what. You’re only supposed to know the best parts about me in the beginning!”
He stood there for a moment, shaking his head with an expression of confusion and awe. “I love everything about you.”
It was at that moment that I realized why his eyes seemed so familiar to me. “You were there,” I whispered, scanning his face.
Beyond the cocktail dresses, the twinkling lights draped from every tree and light post, and the smell of the freshly cut grass and imported flowers my mother insisted on, his eyes flickered in my memory. I pressed deeper, feeling the light sheen of perspiration on my skin from the exceptionally warm night, the smell of the chlorine from the pool, and the sounds of the crowd humming in happy, flowing conversation.
When I’d glanced across the lawn at my father, I’d caught the glowing blue eyes of a stranger standing by the koi pond. His tailored suit and absent tie set him apart from the sea of tuxedos. Our eyes had connected for only a second before he’d reluctantly pulled them away to face my father, who was having a low, serious conversation with him.
My memory replayed in slow motion as the chiffon of my short white dress waved gently against my legs. Once again his stormy blue eyes had singled me out of the crowd, and I’d shied away from his stare.
I snapped back to the present when Jared called my name.
“You were speaking to my father by the pond
. That was you,” I said, my eyes wide with realization.
Jared’s brows pulled in. “You remember that?”
“It was just before I’d gone to the pool house. Jack was by the pond, talking with that face he made when he was giving orders.” I tried to recall every detail I could. “You were throwing rocks in the pond; I only saw you for a moment, but that was you, wasn’t it?”
Jared nodded slowly. “I wanted to throw Stacy out, take him somewhere, and, I don’t know, punish him, I guess. Jack refused, but he realized how I felt about you then. He insisted that my family, including me, be kept a secret from you indefinitely. That was a rough night.” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I am so sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say. My heart ached for all the years he’d spent as a ghost.
Jared took my hand in his and pulled it to his chest. It was then that I realized I’d been absently twisting my peridot ring around my finger.
“I picked up this ring, you know,” he said, brushing his lips against my fingers. “Cynthia was up to her neck in party details, and she’d forgotten to get it.” He smiled. “Because you were in my father’s presence, I was sent to pick it up for you.”
“Great. They used you as a gopher.”
“I volunteered. I wanted to,” he explained. “I can’t describe the way it made me feel to see your smile when you opened the box. You were so pleased with it, and I had a part in that,” he said. His smile faded. “Later, it helped a little with the misery of never being able to console you when I’d see you twist this ring around your finger. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it has always been comforting to see you reach for it when you’re upset.”
I stared at him, bewildered. I wasn’t sure how to feel; even with the suspicions I’d already had, I couldn’t have prepared myself for what he was telling me.
“Please don’t leave,” Jared whispered, still holding my hand to his chest.
I looked down at my feet and then reached down to unbuckle the straps of my shoes from around my ankles. “You’d just follow me if I left, right?” I said, kicking off my shoes.
“Even if it weren’t my job,” he said with an impish grin. He looked down at my bare feet. “I’m glad you’re staying. We still have quite a bit to discuss.”
The Providence Trilogy Bundle: Providence; Requiem; Eden Page 11