Once Upon a Marriage

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  He didn’t like where this was going.

  “I’ve asked around about him quietly. He’s got a really good reputation. I don’t think he goes around preying on helpless women. I think he got the wrong impression about me. I mean, I lied to him the first night I met him about who I was. He thinks he’s all part of my game. He also thinks I was traveling without a bodyguard. That I’ve got this whole other life that he wants in on.”

  Three miles. And he really didn’t like where this was going.

  “I’ve been invited to a fund-raiser at the police commissioner’s mansion in Denver,” she said. “It’s to benefit victims of domestic violence, which is the cause I’ve chosen to donate my energy and money to...”

  He wondered why. Didn’t ask. Didn’t want to get that close.

  “The commissioner knows my father, of course, and I know that’s why I was invited. But Dad’s not going to be there.”

  “Let me guess, Metcalf is.”

  “Yes. And so is everyone who is anyone in this fight. Political advocates, monetary support advocates and famous spokespeople, as well. They’ve invited me to be one of three speakers. I’m representing the magazine, explaining the different ways we are a benefit to the cause. I have to be there, Elliott, or look like I’m full of expensive air. I want to show everyone I can put my money where my mouth is.”

  One mile. And he knew what was coming.

  “I don’t want anyone, including my father, to know how stupid I was three months ago in Denver. And it was stupid, pretending to be someone I’m not. I just...”

  “It’s okay, Sailor. You stayed sober.” A big reason why he’d given her the respect of choosing which car she rode in.

  “I’ve been sober since that last time you escorted me in Denver two years ago. I can’t remember much about that night, but I remembered how disgusted you looked when I sat in the back of your car, ready to get sick.”

  She was probably working him on that one. He didn’t need this.

  “You’re the only one who knows about my night with Terrence the last time I was in Denver, other than him, and he’s not going to tell anyone that he picked me up in that club thinking I was a nobody. He might be decent, but he’s not dumb. He has people to impress who look down their noses at such things. Right or not. And you’ve seen him. You’ll be able to pick him out instantly just by his build.”

  She knew him well.

  “But I know a different side to him and I wouldn’t put it past him to follow me around at the benefit, and then catch up with me afterward, refusing to take no for an answer. He seems convinced that he’s going to have the same fun time with me that others have had. He thinks I was holding out on him, that I owe him or something...

  “I need you to go with me next week, Elliott. As my bodyguard, but posing as my boyfriend. Terrence never saw you that night. From what I hear, he has a definite code. Maybe just to keep his reputation sterling, or maybe because he’s not a horrible guy. But from what I hear, if he thinks I’m taken, he’ll leave me alone. Hopefully after that Metcalf will have gotten the message and leave me alone, period. If not I’ll figure out something else when I get home. Right now I’m just going crazy about next week’s gig. It’s a private affair. No press, so it’s not like your face would be plastered on a tabloid or anything. Please, Elliott. Help me out here. I already promised my father I’d call you or he was going to do so himself. Just like he always does when I’m in Denver. I just don’t want him to know about Terrence...”

  He got the picture. Problem was, he understood. And felt as though he owed her.

  He also felt as though he owed her father. Whether Rod knew what was going on or not. He’d hired Elliott to keep his daughter safe that night a few weeks ago.

  Clearly he hadn’t done the job well enough.

  And could now fix that.

  “And I’m paying you because I pay my own way these days.”

  He took his exit.

  “I’ll pick you up at the airport,” he said. “I’m assuming you’re flying in on your father’s jet?”

  “Yes. But only because he’s feeling hurt that I’m not letting him do more for me.”

  She didn’t have to convince him anymore. He got it.

  Just as he knew that he’d helped get her into this.

  And was going to help her get out.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SO THE NEWS wasn’t good.

  “The sports drink was spiked with cyanide,” Elliott said. He’d been the one to suggest Chinese takeout after picking up Liam and Gabi from work. But none of them were eating very much.

  Sitting at her own table, instead of Liam’s, while her husband told her and Liam and Gabi what he’d found out that day, Marie said, “So, if he drank it, it would have made him sick?”

  “It would have killed him.” Gabi’s cheeks were white. She’d set her fork down.

  “He knew I wouldn’t drink it,” Liam piped in, shoving food in his mouth, but chewing a lot more slowly than normal. “The seal was broken. If he’d wanted me to drink it, he’d have found a way to inject the stuff into the bottle without breaking the seal. He also wouldn’t have left the note on the label, clearly warning me that something was amiss.”

  Elliott nodded. He wasn’t eating much, either. Which was really unusual. Danger was his business. And he’d been protecting Liam from this creep for months without losing his appetite.

  “So he’s upped his tactics because it wouldn’t be any fun if Liam grew bored and started to ignore him.” It made sense to her.

  “Possibly.” Elliott nudged her arm with his elbow. And when she looked at him, he leaned over and kissed her.

  A reminder. That he was there. That they were going to be fine.

  Or maybe just because he loved her and wanted to kiss her.

  Then, his face serious, he looked back at Liam and Gabi. “There were no usable fingerprints on the box. And none on the bottle or the letter stickers. The guy’s wearing gloves. Probably some kind of medical glove, based on the powder they found on both the bottle and the Bubble Wrap inside the box.”

  “They sent the Bubble Wrap to the lab?” Gabi’s question was more indication that the situation they were dealing with was more serious than anyone had first believed.

  “With the other various warnings that have been arriving over the past couple of months. Things are clearly escalating and because Connelly Investments is involved they’re giving this a lot of attention.”

  “And?” The question was Liam’s.

  “The same type of powder was on all of the letters that have come.”

  “We’ve got one stalker.” Marie didn’t want dinner.

  “Who’s either in the medical field—which would explain his access to cyanide—or knows someone who is.” Gabi closed up the half-filled cartons in the middle of the table.

  “He could have purchased the gloves at any medical supply place.”

  “But he can’t just go buy cyanide, can he?” Liam sat back, his hands on his thighs as he addressed Elliott.

  “No. But there are all kinds of ways to get it. Legally and not. They’re following up on all legitimate ways they can, but it’ll be a sheer stroke of luck if we get this guy that way.”

  “It’s possible, though, right?” Marie cleared away the paper plates, some with food still on them, and dumped them in the trash.

  “If he made a mistake, yes. And everyone does, eventually.”

  “And until then?” Gabi, who’d put the cartons of leftover food in the refrigerator, was back, standing at the corner of the table she and Marie had picked out together several years before.

  “We continue as we are,” Elliott said. “With the addition of the Denver police keeping someone nearby on every shift. We’ve got armed security on both the f
ront and back doors. I’ll be checking the mail every day. And none of the three of you go anywhere without an escort.”

  “Meaning you,” Marie said.

  He shrugged. Looked at Liam. “That’s your call,” he said. “There’s no way, as Marie’s husband, I can be considered impartial. If you want me to stay on the job I will. But there’ll be no hurt feelings if you need to hire someone else.”

  “Anyone else would drive me crazy,” Liam said. And then grinned. “Half the time you drive me crazy and I like you.”

  “We’re going to be fine,” Marie said. Life would throw them some curveballs. There would be challenges. But she knew that between the four of them, they’d handle whatever came their way.

  As long as they stuck together.

  She wasn’t going to worry.

  Or let fear run her life.

  She was going to let herself have her happily ever after.

  * * *

  ELLIOTT WAITED UNTIL after the rush Sunday morning to head downstairs to the coffee shop. He’d taken some time, first, to look around and figure out where the possessions he wanted to bring with him might fit in. How he could complement Marie’s décor, while having a piece of himself at the same time. As soon as the first rush was done, he and Marie were heading over to his place. To pack up the rest of his things.

  Overall, he thought the prospects of his stuff fitting in with hers were good. As long as she was agreeable to his antique gun cabinet in the room that used to be Gabrielle’s. They’d already discussed the fact that his bed would fit in there nicely. To have when her mother and Bruce came to stay. Or if his aunt ever did. He still hadn’t called to tell her he was married. He had to tell Marie the truth before he could accept congratulations from the woman who’d raised him.

  Hopefully Marie wouldn’t have too much of a problem switching out the nightstand on his side of the bed with the locking one he had next to the bed in his apartment. It was where he kept his ammunition.

  And there was no reason to think she’d have a problem. The wood actually matched what she had in her room. Just the style was a little different.

  He was walking around, frantically cataloging his possessions in his mind—looking for a place for himself to fit in, to make Marie’s apartment as much his home as it was hers—because he didn’t want to think about their life together disintegrating around them.

  Couldn’t think about losing her.

  And had to face the very real possibility that he might. He should have been honest with her from the beginning. And had waited far too long to tell her the truth once they got home.

  But with the threats against Liam hitting them the second they’d walked in the door, and then being so exhausted by the time they’d finally been alone that first night... The next morning, waking up beside her, he couldn’t even think about taking the happiness from her gaze.

  He’d screwed up. Bad.

  Yet, each time he’d missed his opportunity to tell her the truth, he’d done so for the same reason. Because they loved each other so much. How did you knowingly hurt the one you loved?

  He still didn’t know how.

  But before he moved his things into her home, he had to tell her the truth.

  * * *

  MARIE CLIMBED THE flight of stairs up to Elliott’s apartment with anticipation. She’d never been there before. Hard to believe, considering that she was married to him. But her work, her family, her life, were at the Arapahoe. He’d become a part of that life.

  Which made it easy to forget that he’d had an entire life separate from her such a short time before she’d so impetuously and rashly married him. Elliott was a man used to being his own boss.

  Answering to no one.

  Used to dealing with women—alone—and sometimes in dangerous situations. Guarding them, even.

  If she was still worried about what might have or have not been said or done at his meeting with Gwen Menard—apart from the obvious Liam information that she’d passed along—how was she ever going to deal with the rest of what she didn’t, and sometimes couldn’t, know?

  “Funny how all this time, you’ve only lived a few miles away...” she said to him. “You’ve been here in town what, four years?”

  He’d told her once, back when they were chat mates in her coffee shop. “In this apartment, yes.”

  The glance he gave her was swift. Minus a smile. He’d been searching for the key on his ring. And yet...for the first time since she’d known Elliott Tanner, Marie knew a moment of fear. Real fear. Not imagined.

  Not of him. At all. But of...something.

  The intuition her father had spoken about?

  “I warned you, I’ve only done a little packing up,” he was saying as he pushed open the door. He’d slipped over a couple of times during the past week. In preparation for this Sunday move. Boxes were stacked along one wall. Packing paper and tape were there, too.

  And Liam and Gabi, along with a small rented moving van, were on call for later that afternoon. The hope was that by evening Elliott would be able to turn over his keys and permanently vacate the apartment.

  In Marie’s mind, that would be when their marriage would really begin. When the only home either of them had was the one they shared.

  “You don’t even have your computer unhooked.” She blurted the first thing that came to mind. Pushing aside uncomfortable feelings—a surge of them from the strange look she was pretty sure she’d seen on Elliott’s face just before they’d come in the door—she focused on the task at hand. Getting the man she loved moved out of his old place and into his new one. With her.

  “I hate dealing with the cords,” he said. “Besides, with my laptop at your place, I wanted something hooked up here in case something urgent came up while I was here this week.”

  He was never without multiple forms of access to information. She knew that about him. He smiled at her. Kind of sheepishly. “I’m sorry I left so much undone,” he said.

  Maybe that was why he’d looked strange just before entering the door. He’d been feeling guilty about how much work there was ahead of them.

  Shaking her head, Marie chuckled. And let the insidious doubts that plagued her slide away. “I expected to work hard today,” she said. “We talked about going through things together to decide what to keep and what to donate. Or—” she walked over to peek into his bedroom “—we could check out the mattress first and see if we want to put it in the spare bedroom, or switch it with the one in ours.”

  His was bigger. And Marie liked the idea of going to bed every night in her apartment on the mattress Elliott had occupied before he’d met her. Melding their lives until the two became one.

  * * *

  EVERYTHING THAT COULD fit in a box was packed and stacked along the appropriate wall. The far end of the living area was for the things that were going to charity. The bigger pile, closer to the door, would soon be going on a truck bound for the Arapahoe. They had the truck already.

  And were just waiting for a member of the Arapahoe security detail to drive Liam and Gabrielle over to help them.

  His time was up. He’d told himself he’d tell her before he moved out of his apartment into hers. He’d been putting off the inevitable ever since.

  All afternoon, as they’d packed box after box, he kept telling himself he still had time.

  In less than half an hour Liam and Gabrielle would be joining them. The moving out would begin.

  He had no more time.

  Marie looked exhausted, but exhilarated, too, as she surveyed the less than nine hundred square feet of space that had been home to Elliott for four years—and to them for the past six hours—as though she couldn’t wait to get home and officially settled in to their new life.

  For a second there he talked himself into not saying anything. T
he time wasn’t right. And what did it hurt, really, if he told her before he moved in, or afterward?

  When the thought occurred to him that it would be better to wait because it would be harder for her to kick him out of her life if he didn’t have anyplace else to go, if his things were already comingled with hers, he knew that he had to get off the slippery slope.

  He was on the verge of crossing the line into manipulation.

  There was no justification for that. Except selfishness.

  He had two choices. Protect his client. His career. And hope that Marie would never find out the truth and his marriage would be saved. Hope that he could learn to live with the man he’d become, knowing that his integrity was a farce. Knowing, every time he saw his mother-in-law, that she’d know it, too.

  Or he could tell Marie the truth and risk losing everything anyway.

  “What’s wrong?” Marie had finished taping the last box and was looking at him.

  He opened his mouth. Tried to fill his lungs with air. To find believable deniability. To tell her nothing was wrong.

  “I have something to tell you.”

  The blood drained from her face, leaving her pale, as she slid down to sit on the box of books she’d just packed.

  “It’s Gwen, isn’t it?” she asked. And it took him a second to figure out she was referring to the FBI agent.

  “No! I haven’t heard anything else about Liam’s case, if that’s what you mean. I need to talk to you about something else.”

  He sat on the floor in front of the box. Wanting to take her hand, but afraid the act would be a purely selfish one.

  “I’m not going to like it, am I?” Her gaze was direct, which was why he could feel her fear all the way through him. He shook his head.

  And all the words he’d rehearsed over the past week flew out of his mind as he said, “I knew your mother before you introduced us in Las Vegas last week.”

  She frowned, clearly just confused at first. “You’d met her before? Why didn’t you say so? For that matter why didn’t she? Are you telling me she didn’t remember you?” Her voice had started to raise.