Mrs. Whitmore would probably have a couture designer custom make me robes out of Pratesi sheets. And why does that matter so much? I’ve never cared about what someone thought of me, save sensei, until now.
What is wrong with you? Since when are you willing to live a cardboard existence in middle-class suburbia with a man?
The melee of thoughts forced her to grab everything and pack quickly. Her ingrained habit of rolling the clothes was left behind as she tossed everything into the case. Jaden lied to herself and pretended that she wasn’t in a hurry, but she knew the reality. She had no idea of where she would go, and even as she filled her luggage she was a loss of where to hide for a few days.
The first place he would check was the bakery, and that automatically was crossed from the short list. Jaden tried to think on where she could go. It shouldn’t be that hard. You have as much money as you need. Just throw a dart at a map or something. She did have a few debit cards under the faux accounts with her stashed funds. One of those would easily fund her hasty getaway.
If Jonah came back before she left, then so be it. She wasn’t trying to avoid a confrontation.
Wasn’t she?
It didn’t matter. Too much had happened in the last two days, more than she wanted to think about.
There were several more coats of blood on her hands. A few bombs had gone off, and not just the ones at the slaver’s house. She had almost lost him, almost watched Jonah die. Jaden loved him, but she couldn’t deal with the idea of being head over heels for a man that had a more than an average chance to be KIA. The idea of not knowing if he was dead or alive from day to day was more than she could stand.
For right now, she just wanted to get her head on straight. Loving Jonah was not the easiest idea to grow accustomed to, and she wasn’t running away.
Yes you are. Her conscious beat her.
No, I’m not. If he doesn’t find me, I’ll come back. Just not for ninety-eight days is all.
Yeah, you’re a chicken shit, Jaden. Even if you can’t admit it to the man you love, then at least be honest with yourself.
She ignored the wounds her thoughts generated. Instead she glanced over at the library shelf rimming the chair rail trim, and the first book to catch her eye was not entirely flush with the others. Jaden tugged the volume from the shelf in an attempt to reposition it and caught sight of the title.
Inspiration hit. She ripped the page from a book and wrote Jonah a message. If he was smart enough to find her when she didn’t want to be found, then he should be able to locate her much easier with a little help.
The trip off the island wasn’t hard to manage. Jaden stood at the side of the road and waited for the local taxi. The taxis in Jamaica were mostly unregulated, and only a few companies were given credence by the government. But for the most part, a buck fifty American was all that was needed to ride in a local’s car to destination unknown.
The local taxi wasn’t one that Jaden would recommend to another person. Riding with strangers was unsafe for most, but not her. With the thoughts plaguing her and the action she’d seen, anyone foolish enough to mess with her was going to regret it for much longer than she would. And at this point she could only promise five minutes of remorse.
Jaden walked into Montego Bay as herself. But she boarded the flight as someone else.
She made a hop from Jamaica to Miami first, under the Susan Jennings alias. There were accounts she had under that name and a valid US passport. That was the second and final clue she would give Jonah for free. Any other opportunities he got would be due to the fact that he made them.
After she exited the plane, she made a few purchases in the airport shops before she turned on her phone, and the device immediately rang.
It was him.
“Jaden, this is far from amusing.” He was infuriating, and she had never been so hot below the collar before.
She listened absently as he bandied threats about. He’d do what? There’s nothing he can do to me right now, but I will have to pay the piper his due once Jonah finds me.
He told her he was going to find her. But she knew that already. One of the best parts of the cat-and-mouse game between them was his tenacity.
Jaden hung up the phone and popped the battery out. She broke the small phone by “accidentally” dropping it facedown onto the concrete then compounded her mistake by stepping on the fallen device. She picked it up, removed the sim card, and cracked that in half as well.
She knew that he had her flight back out timed well. He must have guessed that to go anywhere international, she would most likely be sent back to the US, and Miami was the closest major hub. But it didn’t matter, as the Jennings identity would have told him that much with the passenger logs. It wouldn’t do for her to be run to ground yet. Jaden had just left, and though she anticipated the capture, that wasn’t to be so soon. It was evening on the east coast, and she didn’t have time to take a shower before she caught the connection to Zurich.
That wasn’t her final destination, but a stop she would make along the way and for only two hours. It wasn’t even enough time to leave the airport and see much more than parking lot. Then she hopped onto the last flight, the one that would take her where she needed to be.
When she had a moment to herself finally ensconced in her luxury suite on the first day in Venice, and the second day since she had left Jonah, Jaden wondered if he had even located the book she’d taken the paper for her note out of yet. But she wasn’t even sure if they had been apart for two days or three with the time changes.
On the seventh day, Jaden rode the gondola for the millionth time to the market. She had gotten used to the men, as Italian males seemed to like her a lot. Anytime she was outside she heard the word, “Bella!” more than a few times. But as she couldn’t care less to meet another man, she ignored the greetings as she perused the wares available in the open-air shopping. There were many a ripe fruit that called her name in the stalls along with some woven scarves that she was sure would appeal to Kris.
When she was back in the room, she called in an order for room service and took a shower. As she left the bath she heard the phone ring in her suite.
She picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“So this is where you decided to hide, huh?” Jonah asked. She was fairly certain he would be in Venice within the next week or so. Or rather, she hoped he would be, if her games hadn’t irritated the fuck out of him already.
“Yeah, something like that.”
“From the looks of it, exactly like that.”
There was a knock at the door, and she used the second to put on her robe. “Just a minute!” She called out to the person delivering her food, as that was who she assumed was at the door. “Hold on, Jonah.”
She sat the bedside phone down and tightened the belt to her robe. When Jaden pulled at the heavy wooden door, there was Jonah, who hung up the phone at his ear and slid it into his pocket. He looked tired. But even with his obvious exhaustion, he was a sight for sore eyes. His cheeks were hollow, and she knew that between healing, the search for her, and the briefing of agents, Jonah was probably lucky to get more than handful of hours of rest each night.
She didn’t have room to talk, as the last night of real sleep had been over a week ago. It seemed those days were so much longer, but all she had been away from Jonah was a single week. Seven days that she spent missing Jonah, on the second day she wished that he was with her on the first gondola ride she had taken. The third day she wished she could have shared the bottle of wine she had purchased after arriving. For every last one of those short days, Jonah was on her mind.
Everything she saw, Jaden wanted to share with Jonah. She really wanted to call him, but she refused to. And here he was, ahead of schedule. He walked inside of her room as if he wanted to get closer to her. And he would have, but for the simple fact that every step he took forward, she took one to match backward.
“Are you going to invite me in?” He arched an eyebrow
as if the hairs were capable of serving as the punctuation to the question he’d just asked.
“My bad. It seems like that would have been a question to ask before you stepped foot in here. But, come on in.” She chuckled as he looked around and realized that he had already entered the suite. The sole liberty he hadn’t taken was to shut the door, and when he noticed it was still open wide, he flung the wood hard enough to catch the latch.
“Don’t back away from me now.” His voice was somewhat menacing. The tone almost frightened her. For Jaden that was nearly an impossible feat. It had been too many years to count since she had been afraid of another person. There had been too many years since she had met an adversary she wasn’t sure that she could beat.
“I’m not…”
“Yes, you were. But I think we’ve both had enough of that already. I know I have.” He smirked. “Consider yourself lucky if you get to go to the bathroom alone.”
“You think you’re man enough to hold me hostage,” she asked jokingly.
“That isn’t the question.”
“Then what is?”
He walked forward the gleam in his eyes was territorial and darkly possessive, two things that Jaden had never seen in relation to her before. She felt strangely nervous, and she found her back to the wall opposite the door, and she had nowhere else to go. He continued forward, and she could feel the space between them shrink as if the very air around them was chased away by his presence.
“Actually, I’m not even asking, and there lies the rub.” He dropped to one knee, mere inches from her, and pulled a ring she hadn’t seen from the tip of his finger. Jaden had no idea that it was even there. That was enough to let her know she was shaken as the ring was on the hand that held the phone, and she should have seen that first. He took her left hand, and the fingers that clasped hers were shaky. The quiver made her even more nervous, as anything that would make Jonah shiver was definitely worth a sense of trepidation.
He looked up at her and slid the tiny band onto her finger. She stunned more so than anything, despite the fact that she had heard his intentions a week ago.
“So, Jaden Bishop, what date do you want to get married?”
“You really aren’t going to ask me?”
“It doesn’t matter what you say, Jaden. I know you love me. The way I’m looking at it, you may as well give in.” His face was one of triumph, and she knew that he had her, no matter what she initially thought.
“Fine, Jonah. How about next June?” She liked the idea of a summer wedding. And it would give her the time to get used to being a wife if she couldn’t talk him out of this madness.
“That’s too far away. Try again.”
“Maybe March?” That seemed like nowhere near long enough, but at least she would have enough time to try and change his mind. She had no problem living in sin for a while.
“Nope.” He scratched his head. “Since you seem to have an issue making a decision, how about next week?”
“Jonah, that’s not going to work. It takes much more than a week to plan a wedding!”
“Fine, you can have a month, but that’s as long as I can wait.”
“Jonah!”
“It’s your own fault, Jaden. You couldn’t come up with something reasonable, and now I get to call the shots. Come here.” He stood with open arms. She leaned into his firm chest and wrapped her arms around him.
And she finally looked over at the ring he’d placed on her hand.
The solitary stone was huge, and not a diamond. Instead she saw the perfect glint of an emerald. The stone was huge and unwieldy. The only bonuses to the ostentatious rock were that she could fuck up a couple of faces with one punch, maybe even put an eye or two out, and the fact that she could certainly keep her skills on point when bad guys tried to mug her for the diamond-paved, platinum band.
“I don’t have time to plan a wedding, Jonah. Especially one so close.”
“The only reason for a long engagement is lack of money, or for some mitigating factor. Since I don’t see you hankering to be wed on Valentine’s Day and neither of us hurt for money, the delay is not needed.”
“Maybe I need the time.”
“All you would do with more time is find another way to delay the wedding.”
True. But that didn’t mean that she should be rushed into her nuptials either.
“B–but…”
“Yeah? B–b–but what, Jaden?” His tone deliberately seemed to mock her stutter, and she had the urge to smack him upside the back of his head. Like Gibbs in NCIS. The thought made her laugh, almost uncontrollably.
She looked at him. He seemed far from amused, and she laughed even harder.
“So you think this is funny? A man bares his soul to you, and what do I get for the trouble? Laughter?”
“Well…it’s not my fault. You come in here waving around rings worth enough to fund a small country, and you expect to get your way without a fight. Spoiled ass.”
“Spoiled, huh?” He unbuckled the Italian leather belt at his hips and whipped the length from his belt loops. “Let me show you what spoiled looks like then.”
Jaden couldn’t stop herself from jerking like a skittish horse when he cracked the folded belt loudly. He dropped the leather strap with a smug grin and unfastened his pants. There was never a zipper in human history as noisy as the one Jonah tugged down. Jaden could hear the whisper of each tooth as the metal scraped metal. His shirt was next, and Jaden watched as her mouth watered at the sight of him. He still had a bandage on his arm, yet another scar to add to the collection he already had. When the wound healed, it would be another mark to highlight his raw masculinity.
Even as she watched him hungrily, Jaden knew she was lucky that she could fight. There would be many a disappointed woman itching to get in her face. She licked her lips and thought about how good he would feel inside of her. Jaden tugged the woven cotton holding her robe closed and allowed the heavy fabric to fall behind her with a soft swoosh, then a thud when she was bared of the entire garment.
“Jaden, how could you run from this? From us?” he asked her, but his gaze was so intense on her flesh that she was unsure if the query was rhetorical.
“It’s a long story.”
“I have nothing but time to hear it.”
“I’ve never been able to believe that people will stay with me. Everyone that I love dies, Jonah. It was hard enough to do this with you…” She stilled and didn’t even breathe for a long moment. “Fall in love with you.”
He sucked a deep breath as she told him everything. There was no stone left unturned as she told him the truth about who she really was.
Jonah didn’t seem surprised. He didn’t blink an eye as he heard about her father and mother’s passing. He just listened at first, and as her voice broke when she described the visage of her mother’s body, he prodded her to lie next to him in bed. He still remained silent, but he gave her his strength to tell him all of it with his embrace as he cradled her. “I was so afraid of caring about another person that I had to make myself help Kris. But even it took a year for her to worm her way in totally. For me to admit that I loved her. And here you are, able to break my walls down within six months.”
“Not quite six months.” His face was a study in smugness. “I have waited forever to hear you say that.”
She knew he had wanted to hear the words from her mouth, and yet, she selfishly held that from him, too. As if keeping the love she felt quiet would make the hurt less, later on when he was no longer around.
“I know, Jonah. I do love you. With everything I have. When I thought that you were dead, that everything I had done was for nothing? It was as if every misgiving that I had ever had was made valid. As if I had gotten the one thing I’d prayed never to get. Because I couldn’t handle losing that much.”
“I know. But we all stand the risk of loss, Jaden. There are no guarantees in life. But I will love you forever, whether I have you or not. So being the logical man that
I am”—he chuckled—“I may as well spend whatever time I have on Earth with the one woman who makes my heart beat faster.”
“Stop it, you’re making me blush.”
He chuckled. “Not yet, but give me a few minutes.”
It only took him two.
* * * *
When Jaden left, Jonah was irritated, but he had never imagined that the spirited woman running away would make his cock hard. Every time he thought about it, he rose to the occasion. Jonah had never spent so much time rubbing his cock as he had the week Jaden was gone. And most of the team had the good sense to not even say Jaden’s name after her disappearance became common knowledge.
All but his resident crazy lady. Anatta seemed to take pleasure in pouring salt in his wounds when she blamed him for Jaden’s departure.
Not even two days after Jaden left, Anatta was on his back.
“She left you, huh? Makes me curious as to what a virile man like you could have done to run her away. Is it because you like that freaky shit Stein likes?”
But he could tell that Anatta wanted him to go after her. That Jaden had earned her respect and admiration. Whether or not Jonah liked it, he had to wait. The rescue mission to locate Jewel was paramount. He finally found out the identity of her purchaser, and he sent Stein to recover the “Crown Jewel” from the person foolish enough to buy her. Stein knew Jonah was in bad shape when he allowed the other man to make the plan without his input.
“You need to get Jewel. The sooner, the better. And you’re on the clock, no more than a week from yesterday.”
“I can do that. Who’s my partner?”
“You choose.” Stein’s eyebrow went up, but the man said nothing to the contrary.
“All right then, what’s the plan?”
“Your choice, you’re heading this one. I have to locate the rest of the sold women.”
He knew where Jaden was the night she left him. Or rather, he knew where she was headed. It took a moment, but he pulled down several books and flipped the pages. But none of those were the book he sought. There were hundreds of books that spanned the shelves, and he had read all of them personally at one time or another.
The Laughing Assassin [Assassin's Diary] (Siren Publishing Classic) Page 22