Night Moves (G-Man Series)

by ANDREA SMITH

  "I'm only telling you what she told me," Lacee replied with a shrug. "She said Easton told her something to the effect that his royal bloodline needed to stop with him. He would have no heirs, period."

  I was silent for a moment, tossing this around in my head.

  Lacee leaned forward. "I mean she didn't say this right out, but the impression I got from her was that she had two options: get the abortion or spend the next eight months in fear for her own life. She chose the first one."

  Okay, that took a long second for me to swallow my WTF moment.

  "Did you ever ask Easton about it?" I asked tersely.

  "Are you serious?" she asked incredulously. "Easton has zero tolerance for prying. His private stuff's just that: private. I wouldn't have dared to share with him the fact I'd even talked to her let alone have divulged what she told me. Besides that, I had no aspirations of marriage or children back then. Now it's different. Now I realize what normal is and frankly, it's a helluva lot more appealing than his dark moods and idiosyncrasies."

  She stood up to leave. "I just thought you should know," she said, walking towards the door. "I wish you luck, Darcy. I hope you kick that stomach flu real soon."

  When I got home Friday after work, I immediately turned my phone off and climbed into bed. I needed to think, to reflect on what the hell I was going to do. Fuck me! Did I love Easton? My heart said I did but did I know Easton? My brain said not well enough to dispel the possibility that Lacee was being honest - or that Bianca had been honest with Lacee.

  I was still contemplating my next move when Eli tapped on my bedroom door. "Darce, can I come in?"

  "Sure," I called out, pulling my covers up to my chin.

  "Do you wanna talk about it?" he asked, taking a seat on the edge of my bed.

  "What?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

  "You've been puking every morning, doll. Doesn't take a genius to figure out something's going on and the possibilities are few."

  I looked up at him and busied my hands plucking at some random threads on the comforter. Sighing, I confessed solemnly. "I'm in trouble, Eli."

  I was shocked when I heard the low rumble of his laughter following my admission.

  What's funny?

  "Sweetie," he said, crossing his legs. "This isn't 1955, and you're not sixteen years old. I think it's okay for you to say words like: pregnant or knocked up."

  "It doesn't matter what words I use, the end result's the same: I'm in trouble!" I must've changed the expression on my face to one that he'd take more seriously.

  "What do you want to do about it?" he asked, taking my hand into his.

  I looked away. "I want to have the baby, of course. I just don't want Easton to know about it."

  "What the hell do you mean?"

  "I mean Easton doesn't like pregnant women, or babies for that matter. I know this firsthand," I replied, sitting up in bed.

  I saw Eli frown. "Wanna clue me in?"

  I told him everything, what had happened at Leeds, and what Lacee had shared with me just today. He listened to everything, taking it in and giving it objective consideration.

  "Well first off, I would take anything Lacee said with a grain of salt. Seriously, it's occurred to you she just might have her own agenda on this, right?"

  I nodded, still not convinced Lacee would take a grudge against me or Easton to that extent. I had to find out more. But how?

  "Where's Easton now?" Eli asked.

  "I don't know - London or Paris. He's back on Tuesday."

  Eli stood up, giving me one of his stern looks. "You need to think long and hard as to how you're going to handle this with him, Darcy. In the meantime, I'm going downstairs to make you some chicken soup. I hear it's good for the soul." He finished with his signature wink.

  I'd survived the weekend despite Eli's constant hovering and Lindsey blowing up my phone, both of them on the same mission: what are you going to tell Easton?

  Fuck - I don't know!

  [Seriously, what would you do at this point? Let's get this out of the way because I need to admit something. This relationship between Easton and I? It's a hot mess, I know. But hey, I'm fairly sure I'm in love with him. I will not, however, cop to insta-love. Insta-lust? Yeah, no doubt about that! Somewhere along the way it became super intense, equipped with a whole lot of angst and a lot of back-and-forth crap. And then, it just kind of . . . morphed into this kind of lopsided relationship. Add a baby to the mix? So not good. But, I digress . . .]

  Thankfully, the pregnancy gods were with me on Monday. It was the first day I had no hint of morning sickness or fatigue. Maybe I was home free from that part of it. I got to work early to get a head start on the files Easton had uploaded to our shared drive. He'd phoned me Friday morning and told me he was preparing to leave for Paris the following day and he'd have the summit meeting input/output reports to me over the weekend. He asked that I put it into a summarization template which Lacee had trained me to do.

  Damn! There was a shitload of them waiting for me as I logged into our shared drive. Of course, they were in various types of files which made consolidation that much more difficult. Some of the sites had done spreadsheets, others had used power-point, and still others had submitted text documents. Geez, too bad I couldn't have some sparkly caffeinated coffee right now. This was going to take a while. There was one file that was different than the others I noticed right away. It was a text file that had been saved as the header on Easton's personal email account showing the date and how many unread emails he had. WTF?

  I opened it and it appeared Easton had saved an e-mail string to notepad. As I skimmed down through it, it was obvious he hadn't intended on moving this particular text file to our shared drive. I scrolled down to the bottom and started reading up from there.

  It was from his mom.

  Her email had arrived in his personal email account several weeks back. She had put "Your Father" in the subject line. Knowing that Easton hadn't intended to send this file with the others, I did what any other professional assistant would've done and deleted it before I read any further.

  Yeah, right! You know that didn't happen . . .

  I read through the email threads. His mother initiated the email in an attempt to open the lines of communication. It sounded as if they hadn't talked in a very long time. She said his father was ill, very ill. What?? She apologized to him for keeping him in the dark for all these years about his real father, but she felt it was time he knew the truth and paid his father a visit before he passed. His father had never met him, though he knew of him. She pleaded with Easton, mentioning that he was the only son and should carry his title with pride. She said it was his father's wish to meet his only son before he died.

  Holy shit!

  I read further up seeing Easton's response: "No." It was simple and to the point, leaving no room for argument.

  Apparently his mom hadn't taken the hint, because she'd responded back that she didn't blame him for hating her, and doubting her word but swore she was being honest with him. She apologized for the shock and anger he must be feeling, but asked him to contact the man who had raised him as his own, Trace Matthews. He would validate her story.

  Easton had responded a couple of days later, saying he'd talked with his father and they could both rot in hell as far as he was concerned.

  Geez!

  She'd replied back since he now knew the truth, he needed time to digest it, and she understood. She begged him not to take too long because his father only had weeks to live and he was the only man she'd ever loved. She wanted them to meet. If Easton agreed to do so, she promised she'd never bother him again.

  Easton had replied back to her that it would be worth it as long as she kept that promise. He told her he'd be in Paris on the 25th and 26th. He said he would contact her prior to his arrival. She'd confirmed back her gratitude, blah, blah, blah.

  Not good.

  Today was the 26th. He'd be back tomorrow. God only knew what kind of a m
ood he'd be in. I was fairly certain his mood wouldn't accommodate any greeting from me that included, "By the way, guess who's gonna be a daddy in seven-and-a-half months? And while we're on the subject Easton, what'd you think of your real father?"

  I hurriedly deleted the text file and tried my best to concentrate on the task at hand. I couldn't screw up his summary report or he'd have good reason to bring a leather crop to my ass. I smiled at the thought.

  That evening after enjoying a dinner cooked by Eli, I debated as to whether or not to call Lindsey to see if Taz had spoken to his father lately. I wondered if Trace Matthews Sr. would've shared the topic with Taz. Was it possible Taz already knew? It was hard to tell when G-Men were keeping things from you. I'd learned that with Darin. Just as I was having that thought, my cell rang. It was Lindsey. How weird was that?

  "Hey Linds," I greeted, smiling and hoping it carried through in my voice. I hoped she wasn't going to ask me for the millionth time as to when I was going to tell Easton, or if I was going to tell Easton. I didn't want to think about it at the moment.

  "Darcy, guess what?"

  "What?" I responded hesitantly.

  "Taz just told me Darin got transferred. You wanna guess where?"

  I felt my heart start beating again knowing her 'big' news had nothing to do with Easton.

  "I give - where?"

  "A freaking satellite office in Fairbanks, Alaska!"

  Well that's a bit anti-climactic . . .

  "Really?"

  "Oh yeah. And he's freaking pissed about it, too."

  "Hmm," I replied, twisting my hair. "Well, maybe he put in for a transfer on account of me breaking his heart. I mean you don't work for the FBI and get much farther away from DC than that."

  We both giggled in unison. I knew the truth though. I wasn't sure how he'd managed it, but this had all the earmarks of something accomplished by my incredibly controlling and possessive Easton.

  "So, anything new with you?" she pried.

  "Nope. It's all good for now. I'll call you when that changes, Lindsey."

  I heard her give me a one-syllable laugh. "I get the hint. That's all I wanted to tell you anyway. Talk to you soon."

  I shared the latest news with Eli as I helped him clean up the dishes. He was snickering in delight. "You know, dude deserves going there and freezing his cheating balls off," he said with a laugh. "Hey, you've gotta know your man had something to do with that."

  "I think I'm going to take a leisurely bath and then get to bed," I said, yawning, and thinking at the same time how I kind of loved when someone referred to Easton as being mine.

  "It's only eight o'clock, Darce."

  "I know," I said, smacking Eli's behind. "But the way I figure it, the sooner to bed, the earlier tomorrow gets here and I get to see 'my man'."

  Eli made the finger down his throat gagging gesture as I left to go upstairs.

  An hour later and freshly showered, I crawled beneath my sheets and drifted into a restful sleep. I thought it was the next morning when I awoke until I realized it was still pitch dark out and it wasn't the irritating buzzing from my alarm clock that had awakened me but the sound of loud voices from downstairs.

  Shit!

  I hoped it wasn't Eli and Cain arguing. They'd never done that before, but these were clearly male voices.

  "Dude, it's fucking two in the morning and you've already woke my ass up. You're not waking her ass up too," Eli said in an extremely loud voice.

  "I'll see her right now, or your fucking arse is fired, Mr. Chambers."

  Easton.

  I scrambled out of my bed and rushed through the hallway and down the stairs.

  "What the hell's going on?" I said, my voice quivering. Why was Easton here? Why did he look drunk? What the fuck's going on?

  "Evening, babe," Easton, said, a clumsy smile adorning his face.

  "He's trashed," Eli said, waving his hand. "I can't believe you didn't hear him leaning on the doorbell."

  "I've got it, Eli," I said. "Go on back to bed."

  "You sure?"

  I nodded, walking over to where Easton was now leaning against the closed front door. Eli gave me a second look, debating as to whether to leave me down there with Easton. I nodded to him again and he reluctantly went back upstairs.

  "Easton, it's the middle of the night," I explained to him, wrapping my bare arms around myself against the downstairs chill.

  "I'm still on Paris time, love. Its morning," he said and then laughed. "Time to get your arse up and outta bed."

  "No," I replied, carefully. "I'm taking this arse back to bed because you see, I'm on U.S. time and it's still the middle of the night. Now, what can I do for you?"

  "Not a thing. Just wanted to come by and let you know I was back is all." Even in his stupor, he gave my body a slow perusal, looking like he wanted to devour me right then and there.

  "Easton," I said, interrupting those thoughts. Upon hearing his name, his eyes traveled back to my face and that's when I noticed it. I'd seen him drunk before, but that's when he was angry. This time his guard was completely shot. The emotionless façade he usually wore was absent, and he appeared vulnerable at the moment. Something had unhinged him.

  "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?" I asked softly, forgetting what I initially was going to tell him.

  "Do you mind, love? I'm in need of company, it seems," he halfway slurred.

  "I am, too," I said, moving closer to him. He threw his arm around my shoulders and we trudged upstairs to my room. Easton quickly shed his clothes and crawled beneath the covers drawing me up against him.

  "You know, I've not been with anyone else since you," he murmured against my neck. "God knows, I've wanted to but whatever the fuck it is about you has kept me from it. It's bloody rubbish, too."

  "Really," I whispered back. "I kind of think it's nice. I love you too, Easton."

  I felt his soft, warm lips kissing my neck and my special spot he savored beneath my ear. He pulled me closer against him, his arms wrapped around me possessively. Several minutes later I heard his deep, even breathing. He was at rest . . . for the moment.

  My morning sickness was back with a vengeance Tuesday morning. I barely made it to the bathroom before hurling. I was still kneeling in front of the toilet when Easton came sauntering in the bathroom looking gorgeously disheveled - and gorgeously naked.

  "Are you alright?" he asked, raking a hand through his tousled hair.

  I looked up from the toilet as I pushed the handle to flush it. "I must have that stomach bug that's being going around at work," I lied. "Better keep your distance."

  He grabbed a clean wash cloth from the shelf and ran cold water over it, squeezing out the excess. He knelt down, lifting my hair and pressed the coolness against the back of my neck.

  "Easton," I said in a low voice. "You're standing there naked. Eli and I share this bathroom, you know?"

  "I'm sure it's nothing he hasn't seen before," he replied, giving me a wicked smile.

  "Still," I said, gesturing at his lower and impressive . . . regions, "I'd prefer he not get the full, panoramic view, if you don't mind."

  Easton helped me up from the floor.

  "I don't want you coming in to work today," he said briskly. "You're to stay in bed and rest until you kick whatever it is that's ailing you, is that understood?"

  That could be a while . . .

  "Yes, sir," I said, trying my best to present him with a smile. He went back to my bedroom giving me some privacy while I finished up in the bathroom.

  When I got back to my room, he was sitting on the bed, fully dressed, putting his shoes and socks on.

  "So," I said, "I got the summarization finished yesterday. It's on our shared drive."

  "Excellent," he said, looking around for his other sock on the floor.

  "How was your trip?" I asked, cautiously.

  "You saw the minutes of the meetings and the figures. It went well."

  "I meant your trip to Paris," I
replied, studying his reaction.

  He immediately looked up at me from where he'd been putting his other sock on. "Why do you ask?"

  "No reason," I faltered. "I just wasn't sure if you had anything for me to summarize on that meeting. Did you send more files?"

  "No," he replied abruptly. "My trip there was personal business meaning it's none of yours."

  "Sorry," I said, climbing back into bed. "I wasn't trying to be nosy."

  Easton stood up, rubbing his sexily unshaven face. "I've got to go back to my suite to shower and change. I'll phone you later to see how you're feeling."

  "You know, if I feel better later, I'll go ahead and come in to work."

  "No. You're to do as I instructed. No need in passing whatever bug you've picked up on to the rest of the staff. It hinders productivity."

  You've no idea . . .

  "Okay, whatever," I said, mentally flipping him off. "You're pretty grouchy this morning for being the one that interrupted my sleep - not to mention Eli's."

  His expression softened momentarily. "I blame it on jet lag and too much bourbon on the trip back. Am I forgiven?"

  "I'll think about it," I said, hugging my pillow to me.

  He leaned over the bed, brushing a soft kiss on my forehead. "Don't pout, baby," he gently admonished. "I'll make it up to you when you're feeling better, I promise."

  With that, he was gone. Leaving me laying there wondering where that vulnerability I'd glimpsed the night before had gone. Probably tucked away with the rest of the emotions he kept securely locked-up in the back of his mind.

  Ten minutes later, Eli was in my room asking for the skinny on what had happened during the night.

  "I didn't hear the sounds of any squeaking bed, so I guess that means our shit-faced boss couldn't get it up, huh?" He let out an overly enthused sigh. "Happens to the best of us, really."

  "Eli," I said, rolling my eyes, "all we did was sleep. Then of course this morning he witnessed my stomach bug."

  "You're gonna have to tell him sometime, Darce. Is that the only thing you haven't told him?"