The low mumble of talking from the other room filtered back to her. The thought of being alone, even if his men watched . . . she’d never sleep. “Do you . . .”
“Yes?”
“You know.”
He shook his head. “Actually, no. I don’t.”
Just once he could make a conversation easy instead of hard. “You’re going to make me ask.”
“Mind reading is not one of my skills.” But he knew. That hint of a smile suggested he did. “In addition to that, I’ve been accused of being controlling, along with other things. I’m not going to presume anything.”
She shifted her weight from foot to foot. She wanted to kick the cycle where she saw him, her insides started dancing and then the fidgeting began. She dealt in high stress situations all day and never shifted around like a nervous teen. Not until him.
“I never ask anyone for anything. That’s sort of my thing.” He had her babbling. She bit down on her bottom lip to stop.
“Understood.”
She was hoping for more of a response than that. “I don’t really want to now.”
His smile grew a little bit wider. “But you’re going to have to say the words. I don’t want any confusion. You’ve already used the word creepy at least once tonight.”
“With good reason.”
“Emery, ask.”
“Fine.” He could get her whipped around and ticked off faster than anyone else she knew. “Would you stay and help me direct the police traffic in and out of here?”
“Of course.” He nodded. “I’ll stay until you’re comfortable enough for me to leave. But my guards stay no matter what.”
Relief whooshed through her. But he got his role here all wrong. He didn’t make her feel comfortable. The exact opposite. She got all tingly and her brain went haywire. But when he said he’d keep her safe it felt like a vow. One she could count on.
“You still scare me a little.” She didn’t know why she admitted that, but it was absolutely true.
There was no mistaking his smile now. “The feeling is mutual.”
CHAPTER 12
Wren was pretty sure when he looked back on the last hour he would want to kick his ass. Getting called out into the open by his men to deal with a fizzled break-in was one thing. He talked with an old acquaintance and handled the police on Emery’s behalf. Now, alone with her in the apartment, he stood by the refrigerator as if this were a regular occurrence and any of this was normal for him to do.
He craved routine. He enjoyed going home at night, in the darkness. The last few nights he’d poured over every last scrap of intel he could find on Tiffany’s case. Rick Cryer was clear about one thing—they’d had potential suspects and no real evidence to charge any of them. Tiffany’s own father had been in the spotlight for a long time, but the detective thought he was clean.
Not that the case was the thing on Wren’s mind right now. No, the woman standing in the middle of her family room, looking around with a glazed expression on her face, took that prize.
She’d showered and changed into something she called lounge pants. Not really a concept he was familiar with, but he recognized sweatpants, and the navy bottoms looked close . . . except for the formfitting part. He’d hoped she’d walk out wearing bulky oversized clothing. No such luck. Even now she tugged at the bottom of her white V-neck T-shirt.
But he wasn’t a fucking animal. She’d been through a lot tonight and, well, for thirteen years. She needed a break and not for him to make an ill-timed pass. “Feel better?”
She spun around and stared at her hands as she turned them over. “It’s weird, right? Nothing is missing and nothing happened, yet I can’t stop shaking.”
“Nothing?” It appeared they had very different definitions of that word.
She shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
“There’s nothing weird about being scared.” Though he doubted she let herself go there very often.
His quick conversation with the detective suggested Emery had spent her entire adult life digging around in the investigation about Tiffany. She’d ticked off one of the detectives on the case when he insisted the runaway angle was more likely than the kidnap angle and she exploded.
She dropped her arms to her sides and stopped moving around. “You get scared a lot, do you?”
She’d made it clear more than once that she thought he was a robot or something worse. That sort of thing usually didn’t bother him, but hearing it from her had his back teeth grinding together. “It’s a normal reaction.”
“You’re familiar with normal?”
He stepped out of the kitchen area and walked toward her. Didn’t get right next to her because he needed her to be sure she wanted his comfort. “Tell me what you need.”
“I don’t know.” She let out a shuddering breath. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“This?”
“I have friends and my dad lives close,” she said as she took step after step. “I should have called one of them.”
Not him. That was the unsaid ending of that sentence.
She stopped in front of him. Despite her mighty personality and the way she stood up to him, she looked tiny to him right then. Probably had something to do with being in her bare feet. With the way she curled her purple painted toenails under.
She was pretty tall at five-eight or so. There was nothing fragile about her. She didn’t come off as easy to cry or break down. And her body . . . all curvy and hot.
So interesting.
So fuckable.
Right now he needed to forget that last part. “Why didn’t you ask someone else to stay with you?”
“I have absolutely no idea.” She lifted her hands as if she was going to touch him again, but then let them fall.
The memory of her touch still burned through him. The way she reached out, seemingly without thinking, and formed a physical connection when she needed it. He liked that side of her. All sides of her actually.
This time he took the lead. He’d peeled off his suit jacket earlier and now stood in front of her in the rest of his usual outfit, right down to the perfectly knotted tie. He rested his hands on the sides of her waist. “You’re going to be okay.”
“You don’t have to stay.” But she moved in, leaned her weight against him and the side of her face against his shoulder.
He could smell the soap she used. Feel the softness of her skin. They combined in gentle torture. The kind he couldn’t walk away from.
His fingers slipped through her hair. “You should eat something.”
“I’ll throw up.”
He winced, but not that she could see. “Or we could skip food.”
Vomiting and crying—he wasn’t really great at handling either. The sound of gagging made him join in, and that was the kind of thing that ruined a guy’s tough image.
She glanced up at him with a frown. “Do you want something?”
Now, there was an open-ended question. He went with what he guessed was her actual intent. “I do eat, you know.”
She didn’t look convinced. “There’s leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator.”
The magic words.
“My favorite.” If the rice didn’t result in extra gym time, he’d eat Chinese food every single day. Easy, fast and didn’t require more than a fork. It appealed to the time management part of his brain.
She pulled back as the frown deepened. “I don’t think of you as having a favorite food.”
“What do you imagine me doing?”
“That sounds a bit naughty.” Her hands clenched against him as she talked.
Some of the blood left his brain. “Does it?”
“You come off as the type to go out and have power dinners. Sit around with the other rich guys, smoking cigars and talking deals.”
That was about as far from how he lived his life as she could get. “Never.”
Her fingers all but massaged his muscles now. “Which part?”
He too
k a second to clear his throat. Tried to ignore the feel of her lower half resting against his and how her face was right there in front of him. “All of it.”
“Surely, you have friends.”
At first the conversation struck him as strange. Mundane yet weirdly personal at the same time. It took a second for his brain to catch up and for him to realize she was trying to get to know him. Not a bad plan since he was standing in her apartment and danger did seem to be knocking at the door. He just wondered if she realized it.
Not one to play games, he tested. Ignored the tension ratcheting up and dove in. “You know that in some conversations you like to highlight how different I am. In other conversations you seem to want me to be like everyone else.”
“Oh, I don’t think you’re like anyone else.” She flattened her palms and ran them across his shoulders. “I just wonder about the everyday things.”
The nerve endings kicked to life everywhere she touched. “Like?”
“I can’t see you standing over the sink, eating food out of a white container.”
That’s exactly how he did it. “Should I use a plate?”
“It’s just . . . well, the sink thing sounds like something I would do.”
Were they really talking about food? He couldn’t tell. “Maybe we have more in common than you think.”
“That’s scary.”
Yeah, no kidding. “For both of us.”
She jabbed a finger into his chest. “See, I think that was a joke.”
“I have the ability to form them now and then.” He was quickly losing the will to talk, but that was something else. Had more to do with the pounding need to strip her naked and see how all that fire inside her translated in bed.
“Now I think you’re trying to make me forget about the police and what happened tonight, which I’m still not sure was an actual ‘thing,’ but who knows.” She brushed her fingers along his jawline. “That’s sweet actually.”
He felt anything but sweet at the moment. Hot, punishingly turned on, half-ready to dunk his head in the ice cube tray. Those fit.
Despite the need growing inside him and how much he wanted her, he focused on trying to level her out. He’d never considered himself selfish when it came to women. He aimed for satisfaction and all that, but admittedly, that was sex. He did fine there. Talking? Not his strongest skill.
He tried anyway. He rubbed a hand up and down her back. “Emery, you had a scare. You are allowed to feel shaky.”
“Do you ever feel shaky?”
“Other than right now?”
“Oh, please.” She laughed, but then her hand flew to her mouth and she stepped out of his hold. Kept moving until a good three feet separated them.
This was new, or rather it was a return to their first meeting. “Problem?”
“Do you have a wife?”
He had no idea how her mind got there . . . or why. “What?”
“It just hit me.” She rubbed a hand over her forehead as she went back to walking in circles.
“My marital status?”
“Oh, my God. I’m rubbing my hands all over you.” She shook her head.
He watched her, fascinated by the amount of energy that must surge through her. She seemed to get nervous and then every muscle needed to move. The pacing started. She traveled back and forth in front of the love seat, nearly tripping over the boxes she had stacked there.
Watching her gave him a bit of a headache, but he couldn’t look away. “Any chance you could stop moving around for a second?”
“This is ridiculous.” She stared at him. “I don’t know anything about you, starting with the basics like your marital status and actual name.”
“Is it possible you’re fixating on all of this to avoid your concern about the break-in?” First, she thought he was a criminal. Then creepy, which was a term she still threw out now and then, and now married. He was quite the catch in her eyes.
He knew he should be offended, but he got it. He hadn’t exactly opened the doors and provided a wealth of information to her.
“How about a real answer?” Her eyes grew wider. “Is there a wife?”
“Not anymore.”
“Is she dead?”
What the hell? “That is quite a question.”
“Feel free to answer it.” She still looked ready to bolt. Never mind that this was her apartment.
He didn’t talk about his personal life—ever. Not just because he coveted privacy, though that was a substantial part of it. He didn’t want to put anyone else’s life in danger by association. The people he dealt with, some of those who found themselves on the wrong side of his negotiating tactics, grew desperate fast. Landing anyone else in the crossfire due to his work choices was not a risk he was willing to take.
“We’re divorced, have been for years,” he explained. Shauna had remarried and been out of his thoughts for years. His office kept tabs on her, only to the extent they knew where she was and that she was safe.
That was a different time in his life. He lived under a different name and focused on different things. Back then he was emotional, driven for answers about his mother. On the edge and always a single step away from doing something that would turn his life inside out and destroy it forever. With the benefit of age, he now considered Shauna collateral damage to that life. He repaid her for all she lost by leaving her alone.
Emery’s half glare and all that wariness hadn’t abated. “But she’s alive somewhere?”
He was starting to get annoyed. “I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Can you really blame me for wanting a straight answer? The surveillance and all the secrecy.” Some of the tension left her body and the fidgeting decreased. “You’re an odd man.”
“I guess that’s better than being called ‘creepy.’ ” Or a killer. No wonder he was so good at his job. Apparently his mere presence scared the crap out of women.
“I’m serious.”
“Being different doesn’t make me a killer.” He was starting to feel defensive and that never happened to him.
“It does make you feel a little dangerous. Maybe in a sexy way, but I can’t tell yet.” She winced. “Okay, I didn’t mean it that way. I just—”
“We married in college.” He broke in because if she used the word sexy again or went even a little farther down that road he would be all over her. Forget that she saw him as this hulking mess who didn’t eat food or do anything normal people did. He could overcome that. Getting through what would happen if they slept together was a different issue. One he hadn’t worked out in his head yet.
But he would.
“Okay.” Something in her body language changed. It was as if each cell sparked to life. She definitely listened and turned over every word.
“We were too young and did it for the wrong reasons.” She didn’t say anything. Just stood there, as if waiting for the next sentence. For some reason he decided to give her one. “We knew each other since we were kids and it was safe. We should have been friends and left it there.”
“It was a mutual split, then.”
He couldn’t figure out if that was another way to ask if he murdered Shauna or not. “She left me, but I’ve come to realize I deserved to be left.”
“What does that mean?”
“If you think I’m difficult now you should have seen me then.” A vast understatement, but sufficient to make his point.
Emery stepped closer again. Treated him to a flirty little walk. “Was that so hard to tell me?”
“Yes.”
She grinned. “Did you give her your name or was it a big surprise back then, too? I’m trying to figure out how you said your vows without mentioning it.”
“Are you asking for my full name?” He liked how she made the move. The confidence proved very sexy.
“I think I’ve asked a bunch of times since we met.”
She stopped right in front of him, so close that he could look down and see t
he vee to that shirt and the edges of the lacy light blue bra beneath.
She was going to be the death of him.
The woman tempted him on every level. The body, that mouth. The brain. The way she moved and how she signaled her interest. It didn’t amount to a flashing green light, and he required one of those, but she called out to him in fundamental ways. Something raw and primal awoke inside him.
He’d cut himself off from so much. Sex was an act he shared with like-minded women who wanted a release and no strings. He was honest about that much even though he never gave his real name. He was sure that made him a complete asshole, but he couldn’t shake the need to control and protect his identity.
He also couldn’t explain why he’d relaxed every personal rule when she came along. He didn’t have an excuse, but he did have a choice not to drag her further into his fucked-up mess of a life. “You really should eat something.”
“I don’t want to eat. I don’t want to settle down. I don’t want protection.” She played with the buttons on his shirt. “I can’t even explain what it’s like.”
Her mood morphed again. Back to sharing with a hint of vulnerability. “The worry about the break-in?”
“Tiffany. The idea that she could be out there and I’m not working fast enough or making people care enough.” She balled his shirt in her fist. “It’s like this constant, sickening spinning you can’t stop.”
She absorbed it all, the guilt and the pressure. He understood her personality. He’d stomped out that part of him long ago.
“I’m more worried about you right now.” He skimmed his fingers over her hips and around to the small of her back. Held her there, close with their bodies barely touching.
“Meaning?”
“Someone came in here. Someone who didn’t break a window or trip your alarm.” He hated to bring that up now, but the facts would not leave his head. He needed her on guard and thinking about herself and not just about Tiffany, though he was pretty sure whatever happened tonight was related to her friend.
Emery bit her bottom lip. “The police think I left it off.”
The Fixer Page 10