Beyond Innocence

by Kit Rocha

  With just a few simple words, Smith Peterson had gone from necessary, irritating evil to being high on Jared's list of motherfuckers who needed to die.

  The O'Kanes' doctor was a drug addict.

  Perhaps addict wasn't the right word. As rough around the edges as Dylan Jordan appeared, Lili didn't imagine he was a man who had to make do with drugs that caused physical dependency. But she knew all too well that there was more than one way to need the quiet comfort of oblivion.

  If Lili's eyes had been half as haunted as Doc's, it was a miracle anyone had ever had any hope for her.

  "I wouldn't worry about it," he was saying. "The medications that restore fertility are short-acting. After three months, they're not even in your bloodstream anymore."

  Lili couldn't quite help her relieved sigh. "I hoped you'd say that."

  He held up a hand. "Some people are more sensitive to the drugs than others. There's a slight chance you could still get pregnant, but only if your partner was taking the meds, too."

  A thought so preposterous, she couldn't even bring herself to worry. Jared had been neatly carving potential responsibilities from his life for months now. He'd barely allowed himself to risk a friend. Paying the exorbitant expense of fertility drugs just to risk a child?

  "No," she said quietly. "That's not a concern."

  "Then you should be fine." He hesitated, then laid his arm on her shoulder. "How is everything else?"

  She couldn't tell if the question was from a doctor to a patient, or from one connoisseur of pharmaceutical dabbling to another. "Better. It was overwhelming at first, feeling things. But it's better now."

  "Good. Lex was worried."

  Even a few weeks ago, Lili might have argued that Lex was incapable of so soft and vulnerable an emotion as worry. But learning to see nuance had meant coming to see those around her more clearly.

  Lex wasn't hard because there was no softness in her. Lex was hard because she was strong enough to be cold without losing her inner warmth. Noelle couldn't have done the same without losing the sweetness that made her who she was.

  Lex could. And she did, so other people wouldn't have to. "If Lex asks, tell her I've never been better. It's the truth."

  A hint of a smile curved his lips. It lent his face a startling attractiveness, transforming it from forbiddingly handsome to something warmer. "Take care of yourself, Miss Fleming."

  "You do the same, Dr. Jordan."

  Lili left the office Doc used while he was on the compound, relief humming quietly beneath her skin. Relief for herself and for Jared, and for his mission and what it meant for the O'Kanes.

  But not as much relief as she'd expected.

  Not that she wanted a child. Maybe someday, in some hazy, less dangerous future, she could imagine the appeal. But the fear gripping her hadn't been the wild terror of helplessness this time, but wholly practical.

  It wasn't a good time to be pregnant. But if it had happened—if it did happen—it wouldn't be the end of her life. Because she was not her mother. Jared would never be her father.

  And the O'Kanes wouldn't abandon her to suffer through the ordeal alone.

  She traced her fingertip over her wrist as she stepped out into the sunny courtyard, remembering Rachel's words. Membership was hers for the asking, because Dallas O'Kane paid his debts.

  As if the thought had conjured her, Rachel stepped out of the warehouse a dozen yards ahead of Lili, a clipboard in one hand. The sound of metal grating against metal filled the air as the huge loading doors opened, quickly drowned by the rumble of trucks pulling in to the lot.

  Lili hurried her pace, stopping by Rachel's side as men began to stream from the warehouse, loaded down with wooden cases branded with the O'Kanes' logo. "That's a lot of liquor."

  "This?" Rachel blew her bangs out of her face. "This is your boyfriend, waiting until the last minute to stock his bar. Not that I blame him, I guess. Not under the circumstances."

  Worry immediately kindled in Lili's gut. "Did something happen? I haven't seen him in a few days."

  "No. Shit, no," Rachel said quickly. "I'm talking about his place getting busted up."

  Lili tried to school her expression, but it was difficult. Her guard wasn't up, and the pain slashing through her was a new sort of hurt, the kind she wasn't used to managing.

  She'd never trusted someone enough to feel betrayed before.

  Rachel glanced at her, then did a double take. "He didn't tell you, huh? He was probably right not to. I mean, it's not a big deal."

  "It's not?"

  "It happens. Anytime you're trying to do something that doesn't fit with Eden's image, they try to knock you down." Rachel slid an arm around her shoulders. "They trashed his bar, but no one was there. No one got hurt. And Jared probably didn't want you to worry, that's all."

  Except he'd worried. Alone. The nights he'd spent at the bar made a different, chilling sort of sense now, as did the late hours. Redoing all of his work, protecting it from further harm—and having to face coming home to her and putting on a good front.

  "I'm going to worry either way," she said, leaning into Rachel's support. "I want to help him."

  "You want to help him?" She took a step forward, pulling Lili along with her. "Come on. Let's grab a box."

  Just like that, Rachel dragged her into the warehouse and shoved a heavy crate into her arms. No one looked at her like she was too fragile or too delicate to pitch in. But she had been, not so long ago—and maybe that was why no one had asked.

  Maybe that was why Jared never asked. More than anyone, Jared understood how thin her protections were. Jared understood how easy it would be for her to view requests for help as conditions put on her continued safety. She'd been looking for the strings attached to every kindness from the moment she arrived here, starting with his.

  Of course Jared wouldn't burden her with stories of the political backstabbing she'd escaped in Sector Five. Of course he wouldn't ask for her help.

  She had to offer it. And as soon as these trucks were on their way back to Eden, she'd figure out how—and how much.

  No one in Sector Four wanted a trophy wife. But a man playing politics in Eden might need one.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In spite of his nonstop work, Jared had a hundred things left to do before opening night. Some things on his list were big and some were small, but they all needed doing.

  What he needed was a friendly face.

  He knocked on Lili's door and tried to manage the wave of relief that washed over him when she greeted him with warm eyes and a ready smile. "Jared. I didn't expect to see you until after your opening."

  "I wanted to—" He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. "No, I needed to see you."

  "I'm here." She caught his hands and stepped back, tugging him along with her. "Come and sit down. I actually have something to drink in here. Something Nessa gave me."

  Her hands were warm in his, and he wanted them on him—anywhere. Everywhere. "She must be fond of you."

  Lili laughed. "Free range of the kitchens makes it easy to bribe people. Everyone has something their parents or grandparents used to make. Finding the spices for Vietnamese recipes wasn't easy, but Zan helped. Which got him a bottle of the good liquor, too."

  She was finding her place, carving out a spot in the O'Kanes' hearts as surely as she had his, and Jared was glad. It made the distance bearable as he geared up to properly launch his mission in Eden.

  He might be alone, but she wouldn't be, and that was what mattered.

  Lili nudged him toward the edge of the bed and retreated to her vanity. "It's not what I imagined, you know. I thought I'd have to work all the time to put three meals a day on the table, but most of the O'Kanes are used to feeding themselves. And when someone wants something special, they offer to trade."

  "That's what most people in the sectors do. What they're used to."

  "Being paid for my work is novel." She smiled again and waved a hand at the
top of her vanity, which was cluttered with tiny tins and bottles. "I might have gone overboard with Tatiana's generosity."

  "You're happy," he murmured.

  "I was already happy." She returned with a glass of a honey-colored liquor and offered it to him. "I've been happy since you helped me see what was going on right in front of me. You gave my new life context."

  He'd only told her that what she needed was there, and that she could have it. Everything after had been entirely Lili's doing. So he lifted his glass. "To new beginnings."

  "New beginnings," she echoed. But instead of fetching a glass for herself, she picked up a shirt. His shirt, the one he'd been wearing the night of their dinner with Ace, Cruz, and Rachel. The shirt she'd ripped from his body.

  It was pristine now, expertly mended, the missing buttons replaced and the shirt itself as crisply pressed as if he'd had it done in Eden. "I don't know if this is really your favorite shirt, but if it is... I wanted you to have it. Maybe you can wear it tomorrow."

  He took it from her and ran his thumb over the starched collar. "You didn't have to do this."

  "I know." She settled next to him on the bed, slipped her arm around his waist, and laid her cheek on his shoulder. "I need you to believe that. I know what I have to do, and what I don't. I understand, finally."

  He couldn't stop looking at the white cloth, perfect, inviolate. As if it had never been ripped. As if that moment had never happened, had been erased from the fabric of time as well as the literal fabric of his damn shirt.

  He understood, too. Lili had meant to mend his shirt as a helpful gesture, a way to show she cared, but it resonated on another level. Slowly, piece by piece, he'd been separating himself from Sector Four. It had started as a half-measure, a matter of practicality, but what if that wasn't enough? What if the best thing was to simply let go?

  He didn't know if he could.

  Her arm tightened around him. "Jared?"

  A thousand things flitted through his head, and not a single one sounded reasonable, rational. "I'm tired, Lili. That's all."

  "I know." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "Let me help you. Not because I have to, but because I want to."

  The words made as much sense as the ones tripping over his tongue. "What?"

  "Rachel told me about what happened. I helped her load up the liquor this morning, and she told me you waited until the last minute because someone had wrecked your bar."

  Fuck. "That's… I don't like to bring that shit back here with me." Eden, always Eden, clinging to him like dirt and grime he couldn't wash away.

  Her fingertips skimmed up his back to rest between his shoulder blades, where muscles knotted from tension ached. "But you do, even when you don't speak of it. I'm strong enough to help you carry this weight."

  "It's not about being strong, Lili." He set his glass on the nearest surface—the edge of her piano—and rose. "I don't want to talk about it. It doesn't help. So when I leave there, I just want to put it behind me instead of letting it drag me down."

  "That's not what I meant." She rose, too, wreathed in a sort of confidence he'd never seen in her before. "This is what I spent my life training to do. I know how to put these men at ease—"

  "No." The word ripped free of him before his brain caught up to it, an instinctive reaction to the purpose radiating off of her.

  She talked right over him. "—and I know how to make them talk, Jared. I could do it in my sleep. I did it on drugs. Let me do it for a good cause. I can help you."

  On his worst days, Jared felt like the city was a great, yawning mouth ready to snap shut, not on his body—that much, he knew as fact—but on his soul. Nothing had ever been more horrible than the thought that he might lose himself to it, forget all the reasons he was fighting in the first place.

  Nothing...until now.

  "I don't need you to convince me," he told her, firm words through numb lips. "No, Lili. You could ask a thousand times—a million—and it would always be no."

  Her hands fisted. "Because you don't think I can do it?"

  He thought of Peterson, of his ugly comments and even uglier eyes. "Because no one can. If you don't understand that already, you have no business there, Lili. None."

  She went still, and her eyes turned cool. "I understand what powerful men do when you cross them."

  "It's not the same as your husband thinking your family was a threat to be eliminated." His throat wanted to close on the harsh words, but he forced himself to keep going. "Your mother could have rallied support behind her—maybe not in Five, but in the other sectors. She could have taken control from Beckett in a heartbeat. In Eden, you don't have to be a threat. They'll kill you if they don't like the idea of you."

  "I know." She didn't tremble. She didn't flinch. "If what you stand to gain wasn't worth the risk, you wouldn't be there. Why can't I make the same choice?"

  "Because I won't let you." The truth, stark and damning, but he'd rather have Lili out here, safely hating his guts in Sector Four, than anywhere near the fucking vultures in the city. "Sorry, love, but there it is."

  After a tense moment, she nodded stiffly and turned. Every movement was carefully precise as she poured herself a drink and took a sip. "You're wrong, you know. My mother never could have rallied support. She was no threat, and everyone knew it. She was broken." She eyed him over the edge of her glass. "She was obedient."

  But not Lili. Fire burned in her eyes, and Jared loved her for it even as it scared the hell out of him. "There are plenty of ways to spread your wings here."

  "I know," she said again, and this time there was pain in her words. In her eyes. "I can't say you didn't warn me. But I thought we'd grown past friends. I thought—" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Maybe I'm still naïve after all."

  "I'm sorry." Not for his actions or words, but for the necessity of them. There was nothing he wouldn't risk to keep Lili safe—his happiness, his heart. His life.

  "What do you want from me?" She finished her drink and met his gaze. "Or, more to the point, what will you allow me to give you?"

  "Does it matter?" he asked softly.

  Her lips curved in a tiny, sad smile. "You're the one drawing the lines. I'd give you everything. That doesn't obligate you to take it."

  She wanted proclamations—or maybe even finality. "I can't do this right now."

  Wordlessly, she retrieved his empty glass, refilled it, and offered it to him. It was mindless, automatic, as if she'd reverted to habit. Shut down.

  He grasped her chin and tilted her face up to his. "Lili."

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you when you're under so much stress."

  It chilled him to his core—not just the words, but the flat, careful tone. "Lili, stop."

  "I can't." Her eyes glistened, and she blinked rapidly. When that didn't banish the tears, she fought his grip, trying to twist her face away. "You can't deal with my feelings right now. So I can hide them or I can lose you."

  You could never lose me. Hollow reassurance, considering the harsh reality of their situation, and he couldn't bring himself to say it. Instead, he released her. "Tomorrow night, after the opening," he whispered. "Wait for me?"

  She rubbed at her eyes, as if she could wipe away the evidence of her melancholy. But when she looked back up at him, her cheeks were smudged with eyeliner and tears glistened on her lashes. "Will you let me make you breakfast? And actually eat it?"

  "Anything you want, love." But his chest ached, and the knot between his shoulders had twisted tighter, because there was nothing left to say. No right or wrong, only two people in pain, and no way to fix it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The grand opening was an unqualified success.

  Jared had stopped trying to count the number of people who showed up—plenty he recognized, but many he didn't, as well. Influential people, ones who had always remained outside his circle of acquaintance because their tastes ran more to drinking and gambling than whoring.
/>   And the politicians. Men from the Council, who were careful to pretend they'd only answered their invitations out of civic duty, to make sure nothing untoward was going on in his illegal underground bar. Men who aspired to the Council, but who were biding their time in lower positions, waiting for their turns to come.

  In and out the door, men and women, old and young, rich and richer. Jared smiled, shook their hands, suggested the perfect drinks. He even made a few introductions. The consummate host.

  All the while, he was ticking them off in his head, sorting them, making lists. Which ones carried secrets close to their chests. Which ones carried other people's secrets, like burdens they couldn't wait to lay down. Who could be persuaded, and who could be bought.

  Outside, he was smiling. Inside, he was deadly, cold, as efficient as the data skimmer Noah had created.

  The last stragglers stumbled out the door, and one of the servers shut it hastily behind them, leaning against it for good measure. "Thank God. If they'd stayed much longer, they'd have been wanting breakfast cocktails."

  A quick glance at his watch confirmed that the sun would be rising soon, if it hadn't already peeked over the vast horizon far outside the city. "Dianna, you did a wonderful job tonight. Thank you."

  The brunette grinned at him. "Don't thank me. Just tell me I get to keep some of the credits I have stuffed in my bra."

  "They're yours. You earned them."

  Her grin widened as she pushed away from the door. "No taking that back after you see how much I made. These Eden bastards will swoon over a bare ankle and imagining my tits."

  Of course they would. Add to it the heady adrenaline rush of doing something forbidden, something dangerous, and Jared was surprised they'd been as well-behaved as they had—something that might not last.

  More security. Another mental note to add to the list. "Make sure you lock up," he advised. "If you need me, I'm stepping out back for a minute."

  "I'll be here." She eyed the sticky tables and the piles of glasses. "Until noon."

  "I'll come back and help," he assured her, already reaching inside his jacket for his cigarettes.