by Amy Andrews
She was so tired of military bullshit.
She stood and stalked over to the kitchen. She was too angry to just sit. “Has he got something on you?” she demanded.
“No,” he denied vehemently. “He saved my life. In Afghanistan. Fifteen years ago. Your father personally hauled my ass out of the desert after I’d been shot in the leg. And when I moved to Australia he put me in contact with people to help me establish my business.”
Another hammer blow caught her right in the center of her chest. Dean owed her father. She was an…obligation. God, could this get any worse?
“Is any of the stuff you told me true? About your parents and where you grew up? The boarding school?”
She couldn’t believe she’d cried over this…jerk. Actually freaking cried! She didn’t care that her father had put him in a difficult position. He could have been up front with her and damn the consequences. But he’d chosen not to.
“It’s all true,” he said, his brow furrowed, his voice laced with conviction. “Everything I told you about my past is true. All of it.”
As if his truth was worth jack shit now. “Just not your present, right?”
He nodded again. “Right.”
Another thought suddenly struck her. “Did my father have me watched the entire year?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I swear I don’t know. He hasn’t told me and I haven’t asked.”
“Need-to-know basis, right?” Ivy snorted. “You must have made a good little soldier.”
His jaw clenched as her insult hit the mark but he took it without complaint. Somehow it incensed her even more.
Ivy crossed her arms. “What else is a lie?”
He looked uncertain for a moment. “I’m wearing contacts. My eyes are blue, not brown.”
Ivy suppressed the little whimper that rose in her throat. Somehow that omission was an even bigger blow. His story being a lie she could just about wrap her head around. She was, after all, used to the cloak-and-dagger shit of her father’s life. But now what she could see was a lie too? That was too much.
“Show me.”
Ivy watched him as he lifted his hands to his eyes and expertly popped the colored contacts outs. He blinked a couple times, then looked at her. His smoldering brown eyes were gone, replaced by a pair of eyes as blue and clear as the waters fringing a Portuguese archipelago.
They were perfect. From his father’s side, she guessed. Such a startling contrast to his olive skin. It lifted his level of sexy into the stratosphere.
Pity she hated him.
She turned her back on him, clutching the edge of the sink. It was hard to believe how things could go to shit in such a short time.
“I really am sorry, Ivy.”
She shook her head. It was a bit too late for that now. “You were never going to take my virginity, were you?”
“No.”
Ivy pressed her lips together. “I see.”
“I couldn’t Ivy. It would have been…unethical.”
Unethical? She whipped around. “Seriously? You think sucking my nipples and making me scream out your fake name as I came a few hours ago is ethical?”
He shut his eyes. “Of course not.”
“What was it, then? Just some way to pass the time? A spot of virgin baiting for your amusement?”
“No!”
“Well there has to be some reason because I’m pretty damn sure my father did not pay you to fuck me.”
Okay, they hadn’t fucked but she sure as shit was leaving this hotel a lot more experienced than when she’d arrived.
He flinched at her deliberate crudity and Ivy felt a surge of triumph. She hoped the barb hurt like hell. “No. I shouldn’t have. That was a mistake.”
It was Ivy’s turn to flinch now. “Mistake?” Her voice went high, cracking at the very end as the implications hit her hard in the chest. She’d given herself over to him last night and it had meant something.
Now she was just some mistake. An obligation that had gotten complicated.
“No.” He shut his eyes briefly. “I, uh…” He held out his hands in appeal. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Ivy wasn’t so sure. Sometimes, in tense, unguarded moments, the truth slipped out when a person least expected it. Tears threatened again but she blinked them away—she was damned if he was going to see how deeply he’d cut. She’d shed tears over him once, she wasn’t going to do it again.
She’d rather stay angry. With him and her father.
For damn sure she was going to tear the Colonel a new one just as soon as she got out of here.
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” she said, pushing off the sink and heading for her bag.
“Ivy.”
She ignored him as she shoved her clothes in. All she wanted now was to get out. Get away from him. Think.
“Ivy…please.”
Her hand stilled as the quiet plea wrapped silken fingers around her resistance, the gruffness roughing up the smooth timbre of his accent. But she refused to look at him.
“Can you call the number Detective Bridges gave you, please?”
She went back to her packing, relieved when he didn’t press anymore and made the phone call. He didn’t try to talk to her again, he didn’t pack himself, just sat on the edge of his bed and watched her with brooding blue eyes.
She’d packed in ten minutes, then headed to the messy kitchen. Dirty cups, plates, and cutlery sat stacked in the sink; the bin was almost overflowing. Just as well they were never going to be a real thing. Both of them had clearly missed out on the neat-freak gene.
Ignoring his presence, she cleared the mess from breakfast off the coffee table.
“Leave it,” he growled. “I’ll do it before I go.”
Ivy ground her teeth at what sounded very much like an order. Screw him and the horse he rode in on. “I’m doing it,” she snapped, stalking to the sink and turning on the taps.
She might as well while she waited to be picked up. The knock on the door ended the argument.
He stood. “That’ll be your ride.”
Ivy turned off the tap and headed to her bag with her head high. No way was she going to betray how badly her heart was thundering or her legs were wobbling. The knock came again and she called out, “I’m coming,” as she picked up her bag.
“I am sorry, Ivy.”
Ivy tightened her grip around the handle, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “Why don’t you give my father a heads-up that I’m out and pissed off? You might as well work for your thirty pieces of silver.”
His flinch was the last thing she saw as she walked out of his life.
Chapter Thirteen
Seth sat in the dark on his crappy shoebox balcony in his crappy shoebox apartment at half past stupid hour the next night in nothing but his jeans, drinking a beer. He couldn’t wait to ditch the place, which he’d moved into for its proximity to Ivy’s apartment almost three months ago.
Seth had spent many a day/week/month/year in crappier digs, but it was amazing how soon a person became used to creature comforts. The place was tiny, the area was dubious, and he was sleeping on the floor. It was a far cry from his usual inner city address.
Now, that was nice.
Sleek, modern, and a few minutes’ walk to his offices.
Or his house at the beach. He didn’t spend a lot of time there but when he did he totally relaxed. It was secluded and private—fitted with the most up-to-date security system money could buy. It was his haven. His turf.
It also had a killer view.
This shit hole looked down onto train tracks and the street seemed to be a race circuit for the local hoons. As if to emphasise the fact, wheels screeched somewhere in the distance.
Seth took a draw of his beer. Two more days.
The Colonel, who had chewed his ass out for an hour yesterday, had then demanded he stay in the area until Ivy and Merry left for Canberra in two days. App
arently he wasn’t pissed enough not to screw Seth for all he could.
It didn’t matter to the Colonel that work was piling up for Seth back at the office. Kenny was handling the negotiations with the multi-national banking corporation over their security contract so everything else was getting backed up with him away. But Seth hadn’t been able to say no. He’d fucked up. He’d let both Ivy and the Colonel down.
It was the least he could do.
His phone rang and he frowned as he leaned forward in the chair and scooped it up off the faded plastic stool he’d been using as makeshift table. The words Colonel Danforth flashed on the screen.
Fuck. Speak of the devil.
Resigned to another ass-chewing, Seth swiped his thumb across the screen. “Sir?”
“Rodrigo, I want you to go and sit outside Ivy’s apartment and watch her until she leaves day after tomorrow.”
Seth’s pulse spiked at the briskness of his tone. It was true the Colonel wasn’t big on pleasantries, but this was more than that. Something had happened. Seth put down his beer. “Sir?”
“There’s been increased chatter and some direct threats made against consular staff. And I’m not taking any chances.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seth didn’t need to tell the Colonel the chances of a threat actually coming to fruition were low and the chances of some random person coming after Ivy even less so. The Colonel already knew that. But he wasn’t a crack military mind tonight. He was a father. One who had suffered through this kind of inhumanity before.
“Thank you. I want you to check in with me when you get there.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Colonel hung up in his ear and Seth groaned as he shoved the phone away from him.
Ivy.
Great…
This was his punishment for crossing the line with her. Sitting in a car and spying on her. Watching her every move for two long, torturous days and trying not to think about her naked and coming apart in his arms. Or walking in on her semi naked in the bathroom. Or hell, even painting her toe nails.
He was trying really hard to put the whole damn thing behind him and get on with his life and now this. He’d certainly breathe a sigh of relief when Ivy was back in Canberra where the Colonel could do his own damn babysitting.
But for now, he stood and drained his beer, he had to go to Ivy.
His phone rang again and he reached down to snatch it, wondering what the hell the Colonel wanted now. But the screen was blank and he realized that the noise was coming from behind him. From the burner phone he’d had for these last months while looking out for Ivy at the Cross Bar.
And only two people had that number—the Colonel and Ivy. He’d insisted she key it into her phone the first night he’d given her and Merry a lift home in case they’d ever needed a ride outside work. There was a text on it when he’d gotten home that night with all her contact details. Just in case you’re ever in Canberra.
Protocol was to ditch a burner phone when the job was done, but he hadn’t for some reason and now it was ringing and it had to be her because the Colonel knew he was back on his real number.
Something was wrong.
No way would Ivy be ringing him at one in the morning for an idle chat. Not after the way they’d left it. He strode into the apartment and snatched the phone up, his heart thudding in his ears and reverberating in his rib cage.
“Ivy?”
“Dean?” she whispered. “I think there’s someone trying to break into my apartment.”
Fuck. A hot fist rammed straight into Seth’s gut. His pulse spiked off the chart. “I’m coming.” He grabbed his keys off the counter and ran to the door. “Lock yourself in the bathroom, and don’t come out for any reason until you hear my voice.”
He hung up the phone as he slammed out of the apartment.
Fuck.
“Where are we going?”
Seth didn’t bother answering as he concentrated on the road. He had to get her to the beach house as fast as possible while keeping an eye on the rear and side mirrors for anyone following them. Her phone call so close on the heels of the Colonel’s had scared the crap out of him and adrenaline still flowed through his veins sharp and bitter.
“Dean?”
Seth barely heard her as an image of her opening the door to him with her phone in one hand and a massive, if somewhat blunt, kitchen knife in the other played on a continual, horrifying loop.
She could have been fucking murdered with it.
“Seth!”
The use of his real name snapped his head back to the here and now. He liked the way his name sounded coming from her mouth, even if it had rolled off her tongue with a large dose of pissed off. “Somewhere safe,” he said as he careened through the tail end of an orange light.
Apart from answering the rapid-fire questions he’d shot at her about the incident as he’d bundled her in his car, she hadn’t said much. Seth guessed her own adrenaline was starting to dissipate and she was thinking now instead of reacting.
“Shouldn’t we tell the cops?”
“No. Not until I know what’s going on.”
“And how are you going to know that without talking to the cops?”
“I have my ways. I own a security company, remember? As soon as you’re safe I’ll get straight on to it.”
Not to mention the strings her father could pull.
Seth didn’t want to speculate about what the break-in meant. About who it could be. Enemies of the Colonel or a hit man that just hadn’t heard the news about Kade’s death yet? But there’d been very definite signs of an attempt by somebody to get inside and he wasn’t taking any chances.
Ultimately it didn’t matter who the perpetrator was to Seth—it just mattered that Ivy was safe.
And he’d take on whoever he had to to ensure it stayed that way.
He sped through another orange light. “Don’t you think you’re going a little fast?”
Seth flexed his fingers around the steering wheel and checked his speed. He was only going eighty but it felt more in this piece of junk he was driving around in. He’d bought it cheap from a second-hand place because it looked more like the car a bouncer would drive than his powerful BMW, but it clearly was well past its days of easy acceleration as the whole car rattled to the sound of the straining engine.
Now he was sure they weren’t being followed, he pulled back on the speed, conscious that she was right and the last thing they needed was for him to be pulled over by the cops. Not that there was any traffic on Sydney’s roads at this hour of the morning—a fact that should cut the journey in half.
But she was wild eyed enough without him driving like a maniac and scaring her all over again.
“Do you think it was the hit man?”
“I don’t know,” Seth answered truthfully, glancing across at her briefly. There were two possibilities and he wasn’t sure about either. Hell, maybe it was just some random thing and not related to either option. But he wasn’t going to achieve anything by telling Ivy there could be more than one person trying to kill her. “It should have been called off as soon as news of Kade’s death leaked.”
She didn’t say anything for a beat or two. “So are you going to”—she paused to yawn—“tell me where we’re going or not?”
“To my house. In the northern beaches.”
She murmured in surprise and he could feel the weight of her speculative gaze. “You have a house on the northern beaches?”
“It’s a weekender. I have an apartment in the city.”
“Security pays well, then?”
“Can’t complain.”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“Just over an hour with no traffic, so why don’t you go to sleep? I’ll wake you when we get there.”
She laughed. “You think I’m going to be able to sleep?”
Seth shrugged. “I think you should try. It’s not like you’ve had a lot of it this last week.”
&nbs
p; “I’m too wired.”
“Just try,” he coaxed. “I know you don’t trust me, but you are safe, with me.”
“I know.”
Seth glanced at her briefly. She clearly hadn’t forgiven him but she trusted him with her safety and that was going to have to be enough. He looked back at the road. “Just shut your eyes and see what happens.”
He could feel her skepticism rolling off her in waves, but she sighed and said, “Fine,” squirming over onto her side a little, pulling the headrest lower and placing her cheek against it. She fidgeted for a bit, but sure enough, within five minutes her breathing had evened out and her shoulders had relaxed.
Which allowed him to finally look at her. Properly. His mind had been on other things until now and even if they hadn’t been he wouldn’t have been game to look at her for too long given that she was in her pajamas and not the ones she’d worn in the hotel. This was a very slinky, very clingy scrap of pale yellow with a lacy cleavage and a hem that brushed mid-thigh.
It was not a sight good for his sanity.
He’d thought of practically nothing else other than Ivy since he’d left her a couple days ago. And now here she was again. In the flesh. In lots of flesh.
He hadn’t expected this. For her father to send him back into action. For her to call. For the connection that had been so brutally and messily severed to be re-attaching itself.
For her to be curled up asleep in his car so close he could actually reach out and touch her but still be as far away, as off limits as she ever was.
Probably more so. Because her protection was entirely up to him now and he couldn’t afford any blurred lines.
Seth dragged his eyes back to the road, exiting onto the motorway and stepping on the pedal. The car whined in protest but finally got up to speed. He’d give anything for the quiet torque of his 435i but stopping to change cars had not been an operationally sound idea.
He’d needed to get her out of the city and to a safe house ASAP. Nothing else had mattered.
Now the lights of the city were in his rear-view mirror, Seth’s brain turned to strategy. He’d rung the Colonel once he was in the car on his way to Ivy’s to let him know the situation and had tapped off a quick text to him again as he’d shoved Ivy in his car.