Foolish Games

by Lilliana Anderson

  I chuckled a little at that. “He really is.”

  “You know, when Nate and I were first married, we had a few problems with jealousy. Another man declared his love for me and kissed me. I pushed him away and slapped his face, but Nate saw the whole thing and lost his mind. He beat the crap out of poor Toby and barely spoke to me for weeks afterward, even though it wasn’t my fault. He was just so deeply hurt that another man dared to touch his toy that he couldn’t see the forest for the trees. I was livid.”

  “Back up a minute. The other man was Toby?”

  “Did I say that?” She frowned like she was trying to rewind the conversation and see where she inserted his name.

  “You did. Is that why they’re a bit funny with each other?”

  Her lip curved up in a half smile. “You noticed that?”

  I nodded.

  “There’s a lot more to it than unrequited lust, but that’s when it came to a head. But, my point is that Cartwright men can’t stand sharing anything they consider to be theirs. Just seeing you with that biker would have turned those blue eyes as green as green can be. And they aren’t rational when they’re like that.”

  “That’s a bit hypocritical for men who make a living out of taking what isn’t theirs.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t say it was logical.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that I should just wait around until Kristian gets his head out of his arse and realises I didn’t do anything his mind has conjured up?” I shook my head.

  “That depends. Do you love him?”

  Pressing my lips together, I knitted my brow. It wasn’t something I liked to give a lot of thought to. We were mercurial. “Right now, all I want to do is hate him.”

  “That’s not quite the same as actually hating him though, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I whispered, downing the last of my now cold toddy. The whiskey burned my throat.

  “Maybe take the night to sleep on it. Things will seem a little clearer in the morning.”

  “You can’t be alone. I was worried sick.” Nate’s voice bellowed from the other room. I sat up in bed, giving up on rest. I’d slept in fits and starts, exhaustion being the only thing keeping me lying down. But when he got home, Holland had obviously forgotten to text him about her whereabouts, and he’d started yelling.

  I ran my hands over my face and through my hair as Holland argued back, telling him how she found me after Kristian accused me of cheating. “She needed someone to take care of her.”

  “And who was taking care of you? We aren’t safe at the moment, duchess. I need to know where you are at all times. You’re pregnant, for Christ’s sake.”

  Not wanting to eavesdrop on their domestic situation any longer, I gathered up my things and stuffed my feet into my shoes before pushing open the window and climbing out. Thank God the security here isn’t as crazy as Jasmine’s house.

  I left on foot, their arguing voices following me all the way to the road. As I headed toward town, the phone Breaker had given me started chirping in my bag. I pulled it out and flipped it open.

  “Hello?”

  “You were supposed to call me. Glad you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere,” he said.

  “Hey. I got caught up and lost track of time.”

  “It’s cool. I’m not your dad. Just wanted to check in. Everything OK? Your giant men welcome you home with open arms?”

  I smiled but there wasn’t any happiness to it. “Something like that,” I lied.

  “Something like that,” he stated, saying each word slowly. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Yeah. Well, I was thinking I might start working on my own again anyway.”

  “You need me to come get you?” The offer brought tears to my eyes. It would take him easily thirteen hours on his bike. Why would he come here for me?

  I shook my head. “No. Thank you. I think I’m better off alone.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. Tell me where you are. I’m leavin’ now.”

  “No, Breaker. Honestly, I’m fine. I don’t need anyone rescuing me. Turns out that doesn’t work so well.”

  “Yeah. I’m still comin’. Either to get you or to knock some sense in the head of that fiancé of yours. Text me the address or I’ll knock on every door in town lookin’ for you. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. Then he disconnected.

  Sighing, I closed my eyes and slid the phone back into my bag. “Just great,” I said, knowing that the moment Breaker showed up in town, it would somehow get back to the Cartwrights. Then it wouldn’t matter what I said anymore, Kristian would see it as proof. “Fucking men.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Eight Hours

  You never realise how essential a little thing like your ID is until you’re walking the streets at 10 PM trying to get a room to sleep in. It didn’t matter that I had cash, and offered to pay double. Policy said they had to record ID. No one was willing to risk their job for some girl they didn’t know.

  That’s okay. No one wants to take a risk on a girl they do know either.

  After that, I went to a bar, deciding to drown my sorrows instead—they surprisingly did not ask for my ID. I figured that if I drank enough, it wouldn’t matter where I slept.

  “Mind if I sit?” a familiar voice sounded beside me. Dragging my eyes from their TV-staring daze, I turned to find Toby, looking as well put together as he always did in black pants and a button-up shirt. Did he ever relax?

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake. What is with you people? Do you have a sniffer dog on me or something?” I frowned when the memory of his incredibly inappropriate dog surfaced and changed my analogy. “Are you having me followed?” I didn’t have my phone, the whole point of the Blackberry was that it was untraceable, and they had had no access to the phone Breaker gave me. They would have had to track me down the old-fashioned way.

  “I got a call that you were here.“

  “So the answer is yes, you’re having me followed, or at least watched.” I rolled my eyes and turned away, sucking down the rest of my beer then signalling the bartender for new one.

  He slid onto the barstool beside me and held up two fingers to the bartender. Two bottles of beer were set in front of us, and Toby handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change.

  “I don’t need your charity.”

  He gave me a very solemn smile. “Yes, you do.” I hated that there was pity in his eyes. What I hated even more, was that he was right.

  “Seriously, Toby, just leave me the fuck alone. I did fine without you Cartwrights in my life right up until a month ago. I’ll do fine without you for the rest of it too. I don’t want anything from you.”

  “I want you to tell me what happened to you up there.”

  I shook my head. “Ask your brother, Toby. He seems pretty set in his opinion.”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Oh, I get it. You need to decide whether to get rid of me or not. I can’t believe I forgot about the part where the only way you leave the family is in a body bag. How very blonde of me.” I kept my voice low but his eyes still slid around to make sure no one was listening.

  “That’s not what I want,” he said.

  “Then what’s the point of this?”

  “Remember when I told you it’s my job to look out for the others?”

  I nodded, still frowning.

  “Well, I take pride in that job. I thoroughly vet every person we work with, I analyse our marks, and perform risk assessments on every plan, right down to the finest details. It’s rare that we have to cut and run, but occasionally something goes wrong. In this case, it started when you took the wrong car.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So, you think I planned this from the beginning too?” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him it was Abbot who told me to take the stupid car, but I just shook my head and drank my beer. What the hell difference did it make, anyway? Another job I was a part of went sour. Of course they were going to blame
me.

  “What happened when the cop approached you?”

  I sighed. “He asked me to get out of the car.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I heard his radio confirm the car was stolen. He would have arrested me, and probably arrested Kristian too. I figured if they were busy coming after me then at least he could get away, and the rest of you could finish the job. I quickly called Kristian and told him to meet me at the hotel before the whole thing went down. But when I tried to text him to let him know I was okay, the phone spazzed out and sent the burn message. I thought they’d at least wait a fucking hour, or make sure I was caught before they cleaned out and ran.” Pushing the beer away, I got up from my barstool. “I’m actually not thirsty anymore,” I said, walking out of the bar and into the cool night air. I pulled the cardigan tighter around me.

  “How did you get away?” Toby said, jogging to catch up.

  “It wasn’t the first time I’ve had to evade the cops. A bit of fancy driving then a dump and run.”

  “What did you leave in the car?”

  I stopped. So that’s what he’s worried about. I pulled my bag under my arm and opened the pack, pulling out the walkie, the logbook, and the Blackberry. “I also wiped it for prints.” I slapped the items into his hand. “Like I said, this wasn’t my first getaway.” Again, I turned to leave.

  “Why were you with the Grim Order?”

  Stopping again, I sighed so hard it made my chest hurt. “Pure fucking luck. I was running. The cops were coming. Breaker saw me and helped me hide.” I turned around and faced him, those stupid tears burning behind my eyes again. I might have been a thief, but I’ve never been a cheat. “That’s it. Then he helped me get home. Well, to the place I thought was my home. But, I guess we all make stupid assumptions sometimes, don’t we? I assumed that when you all said ‘welcome to the family’ it actually meant that. Boy, do I have mud on my face now.”

  “Kristian said he saw you together.”

  “I don’t know what he thinks he saw, but he didn’t see that. The man did nothing more than give me a hug. Oh, and he kissed me on the cheek when I left, so if that’s infidelity, then yeah, I’m guilty. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and find somewhere to waste the next eight hours.”

  “Why eight hours?”

  “Because that’s when my ride is coming.”

  “You’re leaving town?”

  “Of course. You, of all people, Toby, know I have nothing left. No licence. No money. No clothes or a place to sleep. Thanks to my stupidity in trusting you guys, I have even less on me than when you took my fucking car. Or did you conveniently forget that part?”

  “How is leaving town going to change that?”

  “Because that same biker who saved my arse is the only person on this planet who seems to give a shit about me right now.”

  “Please don’t get involved with the Grim Order, Ronnie. Surely you know how dangerous that is.”

  “Oh my God,” I gasped, pressing my fingers against my eyes. “Just fuck off and let me survive. Please.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “No, Toby. No. I’ve had enough of your help. Just let me go.” I pushed against his chest and turned away from him, walking as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I only got two steps before the chink of metal hit the footpath in front of me. I looked down and spotted a set of keys then stooped to pick them up.

  “There’s an apartment on the Esplanade,” he called after me. “Use it. And please reconsider leaving. I think we can sort this out—seems this is all just one big misunderstanding.”

  “I don’t give a fuck what it is. I don’t want to be with some guy who doesn’t trust me.”

  “He was jealous, Ronnie. He wasn’t thinking right.”

  “That doesn’t mean he needed to be an arsehole and attack my integrity.”

  Toby nodded. “I won’t argue with you there. But he cares about you, Ronnie, more than he’d care to admit. If you saw him—saw the man I left to come find you—you’d think that too.”

  Letting out my breath, I looked at the keys in my hand, noting the address in blue ink on the tag. “Then maybe he should’ve asked the questions you did, instead of telling me what’s what and fucking this whole thing to hell.” I turned and left again. This time I wouldn’t be turning back.

  “Are you at least going to use the apartment?” he called after me

  “It was nice knowing you, Toby.”

  “Use the apartment!”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The One Person Who Gives A Damn

  A thumping noise woke me out of the deepest sleep. I’d been dreaming about surfing and lying in the sun with Kristian by my side. We were laughing and having a great time until he said, “Race you?” Then we ran to the beach shack and he beat me by only a fraction of a second, locking me out. I beat on the door, screaming for him to let me in. But he wouldn’t.

  I sat up and rubbed my face as another round of banging assaulted the door.

  God, that had better not be Toby. I groaned and dragged myself out of bed. I had gone to the apartment in the end, not because Toby told me to, but because I literally had no other options. Plus, I was too tired to walk anymore.

  Grabbing the cardigan I borrowed from Holland, I wrapped myself up and went to the door. All I could see when I looked through the peephole was beard.

  Breaker.

  “How the hell did you get in here?“ I asked, pulling open the door and squinting at him.

  “Fuck. You look like shit. And you texted me the address.”

  “I know that. I meant the building. It has a security key.” I purposely ignored the comment about my looks.

  Half his mouth kicked up to side. “That was never gonna stop me.”

  I stepped back to let him inside and thumbed over my shoulder. “Just give me a minute to get my things and we can hit the road.“

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said, catching me by the wrist before I got too far. Then he pulled me against his chest and held me real tight.

  I tried not to cry. I really did. I even tried to push away, because comfort when I was hurting wasn’t a normal thing for me. But he just held on, knowing what I needed better than I did. But it only reminded me of what I no longer had.

  The tears pushed hard and fast at the backs of my eyes, flooding against the leather of his jacket and saturating my cheeks. My body felt so weak and incapable. I just wanted to stop hurting so bad.

  “How about you tell me what happened? Start from the beginning and don’t leave anythin’ out.”

  For nearly two hours, I poured my heart and soul out to Breaker’s sympathetic ears. Literally starting from the beginning of it all—childhood, right up until my pitiful now. I told him everything, only leaving out details that could compromise the Cartwright’s operation because I wasn’t about revenge…anymore. I’d lived that life and frankly, it got me nowhere.

  “Babe,” he said when I was finally done with my tale of woe. “You’ve lived a hard life. I’m not takin’ a moment of that away from you.”

  “But?” I sniffed.

  “But you’re in love with the guy. I reckon you need to try and make him see things right.” Love? I didn’t know if that’s what it was. If it is love, I don’t ever want to fall again. All I knew was that this side of things hurt like a bitch.

  “What? No. He should have trusted me, Breaker. He should have believed I’d do everything I could to get back to him. Fuck, I got into a car chase to save him. How could he not understand that?”

  He wiped a hand over his beard and sat against the couch, his arm draped over the back of it. “I’m just try’na put it in perspective. If a girl I was crazy about turned up with some dude who seemed a little handsy with her, I might have a similar reaction.”

  “We didn’t do anything wrong,” I insisted.

  He nodded. “I know that. And you know that. But he obviously saw somethin’ we didn’t.”

 
; Pressing my lips together, I frowned. “I don’t care, Breaker. If you can know me for a few days and feel strongly enough about my character that you’d ride interstate to come help me, why couldn’t he feel strongly enough after a month that he’d give me the fucking benefit of the freaking doubt? We were engaged. I did everything I was supposed to do.”

  “Hearts don't make a whole lot of sense, babe.”

  “Mine is making plenty of sense. It’s telling me it’s broken and it can’t live like this anymore. I don’t care what his excuses are. He hurt me, Breaker. I trusted him and he hurt me. Do you understand that?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I understand completely. You’ve gone through a lot of hurt in your life. It makes sense you wanna protect yourself against more.”

  Looking out the window, I shook my head. “I just…I want to go, Breaker. I want to leave this part of my life so far behind me that I struggle to remember what it was about. Can we do that?”

  “Yeah, babe. We can do that.”

  I got up and collected my things. It took less than a couple of minutes.

  “Where’s the rest of your shit? That’s less than what I sent you down here with. What are you even wearing?”

  I pulled at the skirt of the dress Holland leant me. With the big brown cardigan over it, I looked super frumpy. “It’s all gone,” I said. “Let’s just go.”

  Frowning, he took my bag from me and dug through it.

  “Breaker!” I yelled.

  “You have no ID. No change of clothes. The clothes you’re wearing aren’t even yours. Where the fuck is your shit?”

  “It’s with them,” I said. “Can we just leave it? I can sort it all out later. I have some money. I’ll be fine.”

  “No,” he said. “We’re going to get your stuff. They don’t get to keep that too.”

  “Please, Breaker. Can we just leave?”

  “You need your wallet, Ronnie.”

  “Surely you know someone who can make me a fake ID.”