by Lucy Score
They bumped along for nearly a mile before Waverly pointed out the red roofed shack on the right. A hand-painted sign read Chicken.
“Here?” Xavier asked incredulously.
Kate popped her head between them from the back seat. “Trust us. Would we lead you astray?”
“Yes and have on multiple occasions. You’re just dragging me here to give me food poisoning and get rid of me,” he grumbled.
“Man up, Saint,” Waverly taunted him and slid off the seat. They chose a picnic table close to the outdoor fire pit that was covered with a blackened metal cage that held dozens of chicken breasts over open flame.
“How do we order?” Xavier grumbled next to Waverly.
Kate patiently explained the system. People sat, chicken barbecued, and then everyone ate the same thing at the same time.
Waverly enjoyed his discomfort. It put her back on slightly more even ground after letting him talk her into seeing her wounds… and then after. He’d held her, and as hard as she tried to resist relaxing into him, she’d done just that. Her body still recognized his as her mate. Just like his kiss from the day before, everything physical between them was still as devastating and confusing as it had always been. But the difference was she knew better this time around.
There couldn’t be a working trust when all they had was a physical attraction, even one as ruthless as what they still shared. She just needed to keep him at a safe distance until she could shake him loose back in L.A. If she was ever recalled. Her phone had been painfully silent for days now. Nothing from Dante, nothing from Petra, and nothing from the studio. No answers, only questions. And no one to trust.
She knew Xavier was looking for his own answers. She’d heard his phone calls, seen him firing off messages. He was looking for Dante, and as much as she didn’t want Xavier to get involved, she needed those answers. She’d deal with the consequences of his involvement later.
Three paper plates laden with chicken, rice, and coleslaw magically appeared before them as did beers and waters. Waverly made a grab for one of the waters and slid her beer to Xavier.
He leaned in to whisper in her ear. “I knew the party girl image was fake.”
She shot him a glare and focused on her plate, and for just this evening, the three of them pretended they were normal. No wounds. No worries. No painful pasts. Just three adults enjoying the best barbecued chicken that Belize had to offer.
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She watched the palm trees dance in the hot Belizean breeze from the balcony off her room and plotted.
Waverly had been strictly forbidden from contacting any resources typically used by the studio. And the lack of contact was starting to chafe. They claimed it was to help sell her cover, but Waverly was sure they were keeping her on ice for a different reason. It had been nine days since the incident. And as beautiful as Belize was, she needed to get back to work.
Tomorrow was her self-imposed deadline. Ten days without answers, without contact, without instructions meant she would be returning to L.A. on her own and quite possibly stepping onto an unknown battlefield.
She needed answers, and right now, the only one doing any digging was Xavier, and he wasn’t sharing. There was one other person she could call, but that would be sticky, very sticky.
For half the morning, she debated the merits versus the consequences of asking Xavier what he’d found. He couldn’t force information out of her—at least not legally. But maybe she could give him just enough to protect her secret life.
Waverly found him working at the peninsula in the kitchen with a direct line of sight to the stairs to her room. Always working, always watching, she thought.
She gave herself one more second to reconsider, but she was out of options. “I’m going for a walk on the beach. Want to come?” she asked.
Xavier’s brows shot up. “You’re willingly inviting me?”
“You’ll just follow me and creep me out and generally ruin the peace of a walk on the beach. So you might as well do it next to me instead of ten paces behind.”
He shut his laptop and stood. “I’m all yours.”
Waverly slid on sunglasses and ignored his veiled entendre.
She called out to Kate who was working on her room’s balcony as they left. Kate waved and looked only a little suspicious.
He looked sexy as usual. He wore a pair of navy blue shorts and a short sleeve button down worn open. She figured it was on purpose. Xavier was well aware that she had no willpower when it came to his chest and abs… and other parts. He was barefoot, and the stubble had turned into a full on beard that was impossibly hot. She wondered what it would feel like against the soft skin of her neck.
Get it together, girl, she warned herself. Wandering off into sexy daydreams about Xavier offered up nothing but trouble.
Waverly waited until they were out of sight from the house and plodding north on pearl white sands. “I need to know what you’ve found on Dante,” she said without preamble.
“I need to know how you got shot,” Xavier responded.
She’d expected it, the tit for tat, but it still irked her. “You first,” she offered.
His grin made her heart flutter just a little in her chest. “Angel, how quickly you forget how well I know you. This may be an ocean instead of a pool this time, but I still see you setting a trap.”
“I’m not in any condition to be shoving your deserving ass into the water,” she countered.
“That’s the cost of doing business with me,” he said, his fingers twining with hers.
She gave a quick tug, trying to free her hand, but when he merely tightened his grip, she gave up for the moment. They walked on another hundred yards while she weighed her choices.
“I’ll share information for information,” she conceded.
They came to a low seawall built of thick black rock. The surf lapped gently at the foot. Xavier stepped down into the water and gently lifted her down to him. The body-to-body contact was enough to have her synapses frying for one glorious second as she felt his body lean and hard against her. She took an instinctive step back and stumbled. He caught her and guided her down to sit on the lip of the wall.
They sat side-by-side, shoulders touching, and stared out into the blue. Against the shore, the ocean was a translucent turquoise. Sea grass danced beneath the surface. Closer to the reef, the waters darkened to cobalt.
“Give me a starting place,” Waverly said.
“I have you and Dante Wrede on a flight manifest from LAX to Reno, Nevada, nine days ago. I have you and Kate in a flight log from Reno to Belize City in the early hours the following morning. I also have a few vague media mentions of a home invasion happening at the Lake Tahoe home of your friend Petra Stepanov.”
Waverly weighed her options. The truth was always easier to sell than a lie. The trick was determining how much of it to reveal.
“Petra invited Dante and I up to her father’s home in Tahoe for the weekend. We flew into Reno and rented a car and drove the rest of the way.”
“An Aston Martin,” Xavier filled in. “Which was returned in the dead of night to the rental agency two days later. It was parked away from the security cameras so their feed didn’t catch the driver.”
The studio cleanup team probably, she thought.
“We got to the house around four or five. Staff showed us to our room, and Petra met us there. We had dinner, the three of us, and watched the sunset on the lake. Afterwards, I suggested a walk.”
“In the dark?”
Of course he’d catch that. Waverly shrugged. “There was a moon, and the view was so beautiful, I thought it would be fun.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Great, she was already losing him. “Dante wanted to make some calls, and I didn’t want to rush him by hovering, so I told him to take his time and meet us on the beach if he was able to.”
“Was it just you and Petra?”
Waverly gave a half
-hearted laugh. “No, Petra brought her dog, Pixie, and two bodyguards.”
“Nothing like a nice quiet walk in the woods with an entourage.”
“The path and stairs that led to the beach were lit, so we had no trouble getting down there. But that’s when we heard gunfire. It sounded like it was coming from the house.”
“Where Dante was?”
Waverly nodded. She swallowed hard before continuing. “The guards couldn’t get any security in the house to answer on the radio, so they hustled us off down the beach. Someone started shooting at us, and I guess that’s when I got hit,” she added a tremble to her voice for effect.
He slid his arm around her shoulder and pulled her a little closer.
“I got separated from them. It was dark. I didn’t know where to go. Then the shooting stopped for good, so I went back to the house.”
His grip on her tightened reflexively.
“I can feel your disapproval,” she joked.
“Angel, you could have been killed.”
She shook her head. “By the time I got back up to the house, everyone was gone.”
“Dante?”
“Gone.” She didn’t need to fake the prick of tears behind her eyes now. “There was blood and glass everywhere.”
“No bodies?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. That’s when I saw headlights pulling up to the house, and I panicked.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid the shooters were coming back.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?”
“I was so scared. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was involved in some kind of kidnapping plot.”
“Is that what you think it was?”
Shit. She needed to keep her opinions to herself. She shrugged again. “I don’t know. It could have been a robbery, but it seemed kind of ballsy to do it when people are staying there since the house is probably empty most of the time.”
“How did you get out?”
“I went through the woods until I found another estate. No one was home, so I called Kate. She flew up to get me.”
“So you created the rehab story?”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” she said. “Petra’s father is very powerful, and if he thought I was involved in what happened, I knew I could be facing serious charges. I thought that I’d be able to talk to Petra and straighten everything out, but she hasn’t returned any of my calls. I don’t know where she is.”
Xavier swiped a hand over his face. “You just sat there in the woods, bleeding for hours?”
“I tried Dante’s cellphone about a million times, but there was no answer.” A tear escaped and cut its way down her cheek.
“You haven’t heard from Wrede since then?”
She shook her head. “I’m scared that the blood was his. I’m scared I’m never going to see him again, that I’m never going to have any answers.” And as she swiped away tears over another man, Xavier Saint stroked her back in slow, gentle circles.
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Grimly, Xavier paced his room. Waverly and Kate had gone to bed hours ago, but his mind wasn’t ready to shut down. His talk with her this morning played on an endless loop. She’d confirmed his suspicion that she’d been at the Stepanov estate. But what actually happened there was still veiled in secrecy.
There was no mention in the media of Petra housing guests for the weekend. The rental car had been returned, so no one had to come looking for it. And all of the players were effectively incommunicado. Someone was doing cleanup.
He’d put in a call to his old friend Agent Malachi Travers at the FBI looking for answers. Someone would have investigated a home invasion on that scale. Someone would have theories. He needed to know what they were dealing with and if Waverly was anyone’s suspect.
Xavier had shared with Waverly what he’d found so far, which was nothing. With it being an unofficial investigation, he had let his scary serious hacker, Song, off her leash. She’d turned up a whole lot of no activity. As in no credit card transactions, no emails, no social media since the selfie he’d taken with Waverly at LAX. Even Wrede’s phone was inactive. There’d been no calls or texts made from his number since the incident, and tracking it was proving to be impossible. It was as if the phone had been destroyed, Song told him.
He understood now why Waverly was wound so tightly. To her, the bullet holes in her back and abdomen were the least of her problems.
Xavier’s dilemma would have been comical under different circumstances. There was one thing he could do to win Waverly’s undying gratitude. He could find Wrede for her. But what would happen when he delivered her missing boyfriend to her? Who would she choose?
So he paced his room weighing his options and wondering what Waverly hadn’t been telling him today.
CHAPTER SIX
Waverly’s Day Ten arrived with still no contact from anyone, including the studio. So she took matters into her own hands and called for the jet. She was done healing, done sitting back and waiting. It was time to go home. And send a message.
They arrived at LAX at six o’clock at night. With Xavier on her right, Kate on her left, and a phalanx of airport security, Waverly expertly navigated the crowd.
The questions flew fast and loud from the swarm of photographers who went nearly hysterical when they recognized Xavier.
“Waverly! How was rehab?”
“Are you ever going to drink again?”
“Xavier, are you on the job, or are you dating again?”
She smiled and waved and looked every bit the happy to be home again actress.
Xavier shoved their way through the crowd to the waiting Invictus SUV at the curb. He held the door for Waverly and Kate before sliding in next to them and slamming the door on the hoard.
“Well, that was pleasant,” he said dryly.
Waverly smiled grimly. That entrance should send a message, she decided, peering out her window.
They pulled away from the curb, and she realized she hadn’t given Xavier her new address. “We’re not going to my parents’ house are we?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Your house.”
Invictus’ research department, most likely. Waverly wondered if he’d kept tabs on her all these years. While refusing to use his name in conversation, she’d fallen down the rabbit hole of Internet searches occasionally over the years. Every office opening, every high-profile case, and because the tabloids never forget, every date he was captured on. Had he shut her out completely, or had he slipped, too?
They made their way north on the freeway toward Calabasas, and Waverly used the drive to text her parents and Mari to let them know she was home. Four seconds after she sent the text, her phone rang.
“Hi, Mom,” Waverly answered.
“Darling! I’m so glad you’re home,” Sylvia Sinner chirped in her ear.
“Me, too. How are you and Dad?”
“Oh, we’re just fine. We just finished up with the trainer trying to regain our youths. I’ve got a late dinner tonight with a producer to talk about a certain part,” she said airily.
“You got it, didn’t you?” Waverly asked with a smile. Her mother had been up for a part in a family drama that was creating quite the pre-production buzz.
“Of course I did. We’re talking about casting tonight for some of the other parts, and there’s a daughter role. It’s not a huge part, but it’s tortured and beautiful.”
“Really?” Waverly said, knowing where this was going.
“No pressure here, darling. But it would only be about two weeks of shooting in January, and how much fun would it be to do a movie together?”
A few years ago, it would have been an impossibility. And now? Sylvia’s sobriety had changed their entire family for the better.
“Can you send me the script?” Waverly asked. It wouldn’t be bad to be attached to a project to help dilute the rehab news.
“Alread
y in your inbox,” Sylvia said brightly.
“I’ll take a look tonight.”
“Glad to have you back, sweetheart! Now, we’re still going to have to talk about this rehab stuff. Dinner tomorrow?”
Waverly pinched the bridge of her nose. “It really wasn’t a big deal, Mom. I told you on the plane it was more for stress than anything else.”
“I know, but we’re still going to talk about it,” Sylvia said firmly.
“Dinner tomorrow is fine. I need to talk to Dad anyway,” Waverly said, eyeing Xavier. “He sent me something that I’m not happy about.”
Xavier winked at her.
“It will be good to clear the air,” Sylvia predicted.
“Yeah. Listen, set an extra place. I have a feeling someone is going to tagalong to dinner.”
“Wonderful! We’ll see you tomorrow night. Say, seven?”
“Sounds good.” Waverly said good-bye and disconnected. “We’re going to dinner at my parents’ house tomorrow night and getting this mess straightened out,” she told Xavier.
“Looking forward to it.”
So was Waverly.
The driver paused at the Hidden Vista gate and showed his ID to the guard. The gates opened. Waverly shot Xavier a look. “How is Invictus on my access list?”
“Just expediting the process,” he said innocently.
There were a lot of things that were going to get straightened out in the next twenty-four hours.
But Waverly set it aside as they pulled into the driveway of her home. She’d been here two years and still loved every nook and cranny of the rambling two-story traditional. Here, she’d finally found the home and the privacy she’d longed for all her life. The yellow house sat cozily on two acres up a winding concrete drive. The wraparound front porch was crowded with comfortable furniture, inviting guests to sit down and take a load off.
Xavier and the driver unloaded the bags from the back of the SUV and piled them up at the front door before he sent the driver off with instructions to drop off another SUV for their use. Kate yawned and stretched her arms over her head.