There was a lump in her throat and it hurt worse than she thought it would. A lot worse.
“If I hadn’t said those things to you just before,” she said before she could stop herself, “would you have ended it now?”
“No.” There was absolutely no flicker of expression on his face. “What you said to me earlier has nothing to do with it.”
He’s lying. Of course it does.
“If I hadn’t told you that I cared about you—”
“Stop, Grace.” If his gaze had been an icy storm she would have frozen to death where she stood. “I told you this was only for a limited time. And now that time is up.”
But she wasn’t ready for it to be up. She wasn’t ready for it to be over. She wanted more. Just another couple of days, another few hours even.
Now you’re the one who’s lying. You don’t want another day or even a few hours. You want more than that.
Tears of pain were prickling behind her eyes, but she blinked them fiercely away. She suddenly didn’t want to give him any more ammunition than he had already. Because hadn’t she forgotten that he was deadly? He was a sniper, a precision shot. He could deal her a killing blow without her even seeing it coming.
Like now, for instance.
“So that’s it?” She didn’t know why she was arguing with him when every word she said revealed the true depths of her feelings. “Just ‘it’s over’? I don’t get a say?”
“No, you don’t.” He might as well have been a robot for all the expression he showed, his beautiful face a mask of indifference. “And yes, just like that.”
The lump in her throat was getting bigger and bigger, and her vision was wavering. It shouldn’t hurt this badly; it really shouldn’t. Because she’d told herself she wasn’t going to fall for him, that she’d keep a part of herself held back. And she thought she had. Sure, she’d given him her passion, but nothing else, right?
Nothing except your heart.
Much to her horror, a tear slipped down one cheek, and even though she turned her head and quickly lifted her hand to brush it away, she knew he’d seen it. Because for the briefest second she thought she saw something flicker in his cold gaze. Then it was gone as if it had never been, and she knew she must have imagined it.
No, he didn’t have her heart; he really didn’t. She’d held that back, kept it for herself.
But the ache in her chest told her what a lie that was.
She cleared her throat, blinking furiously. “Okay,” she said as if it didn’t matter and didn’t hurt. At all. “If that’s the way you feel then.”
He didn’t say anything and she desperately wanted to be the one who walked away, who left the room first, but he was already moving, heading toward the kitchen without even a second glance. Leaving her standing there staring after him like an idiot.
Everything hurt. There as a great, gaping hole in her chest, and she knew if she weren’t careful she was going to cry. But no, she wouldn’t do that here, not where he could hear her. She wasn’t going to go after him and beg him to change his mind either. That would be way too desperate, way too needy, and if she begged and he said no …
You’d never recover.
Swallowing hard, Grace forced herself to move toward the stairs, and a moment later she found herself standing in the little makeshift studio in front of the painting she had started only a couple of days earlier. There were streaks of reds and oranges and golds across the white canvas, the beginning she’d imagined before Lucas had burst in that day, taking her to the floor in a blaze of passion.
A shudder swept through her.
Why was she here? Painting was the last thing she felt like doing right now, especially when the last time she’d been in this room it had been with Lucas. His hands on her body, his mouth on hers, his cock inside her, lightning her up, making her blaze …
She hadn’t meant to move toward the paint, but she found herself doing so anyway, grabbing a few tubes and a brush before coming back to the canvas in front of her. There was a feeling inside her, growing bigger and brighter, like an out-of-control brush fire on a tinder-dry plain. Painful and raw and hot, making tears leak out of her eyes and her body ache. It was anguish and desire and guilt and grief. Happiness and sorrow. It was everything and she had to get it out of her one way or another, or else it was going to eat her alive.
“You create, Gracie. You don’t destroy…”
Grace tore the cap off one of the tubes and squeezed some fire red onto her fingers before dropping the tube carelessly onto the floor.
Then she began to paint.
* * *
Lucas leaned against the wall in the alleyway, ignoring the snow swirling in the air, and watched the chauffeur get out of the long black limo parked at the curb opposite the alley and move around to the passenger’s side.
In another minute the door of the mansion should open and Cesare de Santis would come out of it, ready to go to the regular morning meeting he had with an old friend at a cafe downtown. And Lucas knew de Santis would because he’d pretty much memorized the old prick’s schedule and this happened every day at 9:00 A.M. sharp.
At first Lucas had thought that getting inside the mansion and cornering de Santis there was the best idea, but then he’d hit on another plan. If he was quick he might actually be able to catch the bastard outside. Of course there would be bodyguards, but he knew how to deal with those. His SIG wasn’t as accurate as his rifle, but speed was the key here, not accuracy, and it would do in a pinch.
This shit had to end here and now, and he was going to make sure it did, because if he had to spend another day in the apartment alone with Grace he was going to go insane.
Yesterday he’d thought it would be easy to tell her that it was over. After all, he’d already told her he couldn’t give her anything more and she’d agreed to it. But the reality of it had been far harder than he’d thought. The shock that had unfurled over her face and the way her cheeks had lost color had felt like a knife in his heart. Then he’d seen a tear slide out the corner of one eye, and the knife had twisted, cutting deep.
It shouldn’t have hurt him to tell her the truth, but it had. He’d even found himself wanting to tell her why it couldn’t possibly happen between them, to justify himself. But then that would have hurt her even worse and so he’d thought that it was better that he simply walk away.
It was supposed to be a surgical, clean cut. Yet the way his chest hurt it had been more like a hacking amputation with a rusty ax.
He’d had to force himself to leave, because he knew if he didn’t he’d break and go to her, take her in his arms. Kiss away the tears and promise her things he couldn’t ever give her.
Wouldn’t ever give her.
He was broken deep inside and the only thing holding him together was his ability to cut himself totally off from his emotions. And if there was one thing that Grace deserved it wasn’t the person he was deep inside. The broken boy who’d burned his own mother to death in a fire and yet apparently hadn’t learned from the mistake.
Lucas had stayed in the kitchen for a good hour after that, sitting at the table, staring mindlessly at his laptop, going over de Santis’s schedule and plans of the street where he lived. He heard the moment Grace moved, her footsteps on the stairs going up and then the slam of the studio door.
And still he’d sat at the kitchen table, going over and over his plan without really thinking about it, all his senses tuned to the woman upstairs. Listening for movement. But there was nothing but silence. She’d stayed in the studio all day and hadn’t come out, not even when he’d paused outside the door on his way to bed.
There had been no sound from inside and he’d almost gone in to check that she was okay. But then he remembered the last time he’d burst in on her in her studio. How he’d put his hands on her, ripped her clothes, taken her in a blaze of passion he hadn’t been able to control. And he’d known right in that moment that if he went inside that’s exactly what he’d do a
gain.
He couldn’t. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them.
So he didn’t open the door. He went on past as if there were no one in that room at all.
He’d left early that morning and there had still been silence from the studio, and he’d had a sudden fear that someone had gotten inside and taken her. But just as he’d debated whether or not to go in, he’d heard a thump and a muffled curse. Definitely Grace was in there. And she was okay.
The relief had been acute, his hand moving to the door handle to turn it and go in before he’d even realized what he was doing. But again he’d stopped himself. No, best to go now, leave and tie up all the loose ends with this situation with de Santis. So that when he returned he could tell her that she was free to go. That she was safe.
So you can discharge your duty, walk away and pretend you’re doing the right thing, huh?
Fuck that. Walking away was the right thing. For both of them.
It sounded hollow even in his own head, but right then the door of the de Santis mansion opened and de Santis himself was coming down the stairs, flanked by two bodyguards.
Lucas, in the relative privacy of the alley, pulled his SIG and aimed, waiting for the moment when de Santis was in the car, but the bodyguards were still out of it. He was only going to have a split second to take down the guards and the chauffeur, and he could not fuck this up.
De Santis got in while the two bodyguards did a reflexive check of the street. Lucas squeezed the trigger, taking bodyguard number one in the shoulder, then moved, fast and with purpose, stalking out of the alley while he fired again at bodyguard two, who was being slow to react, thank fuck. The limo was in the way, but the guy was tall and Lucas managed to get him in the arm as he reached for his piece. The chauffeur was also reaching, but by this stage Lucas was almost across the street and was able to put a bullet in the man’s leg.
The three men were on the ground and de Santis was in the car, which meant Lucas had another couple of seconds to get into the limo before de Santis noticed. If, in fact, he’d noticed his bodyguards dropping suddenly to the ground at all.
The street itself was relatively empty of people and traffic, and Lucas had counted on surprise, so that if anyone happened to see a guy pointing a handgun at a limo and three men suddenly collapsing maybe they wouldn’t believe what they’d seen or they’d do a double take. Of course by the time they looked again, he’d be inside the limo and no one would be any the wiser. Apart from the three men on the ground, but he couldn’t do anything about that. It wasn’t going to take long anyway.
Reaching for the door handle, he pulled it open and slid inside.
De Santis was sitting opposite, his attention bent on the phone he had in his hand. Obviously he hadn’t noticed the sudden disappearance of his bodyguards.
“I want you to speak to Clarke, Barclay,” he said without looking up. “I need an answer on the Tate question—”
“And which particular Tate question would that be?” Lucas enquired coldly, keeping his gun trained on the prick’s head.
De Santis’s head jerked up, the blue eyes he was famous for widening in shock as he took in Lucas sprawled on the limo seat opposite him.
But the shock only lasted a second.
“Lucas Tate,” Cesare de Santis said. “Jesus Christ. Who will rid me of this turbulent family?” He did not look, unfortunately, very cowed by the muzzle of the SIG Lucas had pointed in his direction. He didn’t look at the gun at all, and probably fair enough. It wasn’t as if Lucas were going to pull the trigger right here in de Santis’s limo, no matter how badly he wanted to. Murder, was, after all, frowned upon, and apart from that, de Santis was a civilian and, like Lucas had told Grace, he didn’t kill civilians. Not even asshole civilians.
“Quoting Henry the Second isn’t going to help you.” Lucas met the other man’s cold blue eyes. “I’m here for a very specific reason. Basically if you don’t do what I want you’re fucked. And not only you, but your company too.”
De Santis let out a long sigh and glanced out the window. Probably checking to see where his security had gotten to. “I see,” he said. “Spit it out then. Tell me what you want.” Without any hurry he glanced back at Lucas, then leaned back against the seat and put his phone in his pocket. “No doubt the prettiest Tate wants something extra special.”
Lucas let the insult pass over him. Instead he eyed de Santis dispassionately. The man was handsome in a heavy way, radiating a certain kind of charisma that all men used to lots of power and lots of money did. He was also quite cold.
That was fine. Lucas was cold too.
“This is about a friend of mine,” he said. “You employed him as a go-between for certain arms deals.”
De Santis frowned. “Arms deals? Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” There was a faint edge of mockery in his tone. “With the government, right?”
Lucas said nothing. Instead he pulled out of his pocket the photos he’d gotten from the file his father had sent him and held up one in particular, of Griffin and de Santis talking on the street.
De Santis laughed. “Is that supposed to be proof?”
Again Lucas didn’t respond. He pulled out a second photo, of de Santis handing Griffin a black briefcase. “If you’re curious I also have pictures of Griffin Riley—the man in that picture, which I’m sure you already know—in conversation with a couple of well-known arms dealers. Plus financial records linking you to him.”
The expression on de Santis’s face didn’t change. He tilted his head and looked at Lucas. “What do you want, Mr. Tate?”
So the guy wasn’t even going to protest? Good. That was going to make things a whole lot easier to deal with. “Griffin Riley did a deal on your orders with a man called Oliveira. He took his money but neglected to supply him with the goods they wanted. Now Oliveira’s men are after his widow to get that money back. I want you to call them off.”
De Santis tilted his head. “Call them off? Why should I? It’s not my problem. That deal was something Riley did on his own, it wasn’t anything to do with me.”
Lucas found himself struggling not to let his shock show. “I don’t care whether it was your deal or not. You were the one who brought him into this, which means you can be the one to clean it the fuck up.”
“Riley made his own decisions. I didn’t force him. He wanted money, just like everyone else. But nothing comes for free, so I made him earn it.”
Lucas bared his teeth, forcing away the shock. “If you don’t call them off I’m taking this information to a contact I have in the military. I’m sure the top brass will be very interested to know that DS Corp has been involved in the illegal arms trade. Especially when it comes to experimental weaponry.” Wolf had called him early that morning to tell him he’d gotten the names of some Navy people de Santis had apparently paid a lot of money to in order for them to turn a blind eye. Lucas had decided not to ask Wolf how he’d known who to target or what questions to ask; it was enough that he had.
De Santis merely laughed, clearly not appreciating that he was in very deep shit right now. “I’m sure they would be interested. Except you’ve got nothing, Mr. Tate. A few pictures, a few financial details…” He lifted a shoulder. “That’s not enough to—”
“Deal with your mess,” Lucas cut him off, in no mood to screw around, “and I’ll ensure that this information stays exactly where it is. On the hard drive of my laptop.”
The other man said nothing for a moment, staring at Lucas, his gaze absolutely unreadable. “You’re assuming it’s my mess to clean up.”
“And you’re assuming I don’t know you have half the military in your pocket.” Lucas held the other man’s gaze. “Unluckily for you, I do know. And I have proof that you’ve been paying a couple of the higher-ups to look the other way for years now.” Wolf hadn’t just gotten Lucas names; he’d also gotten a couple of very incriminating e-mails between de Santis and several commanding officers that would ensure all parties w
ent away for a very long time.
Again de Santis showed absolutely no expression whatsoever. “So you’re absolutely okay with all this apparent evidence linking me to treasonous activity. All that matters to you is that some idiot called Oliveira stop threatening some woman?” De Santis’s gaze had turned sharp, probing, like a general surveying an approaching army for weaknesses.
Lucas kept his own face equally expressionless. De Santis was a predator who would exploit any chink in his armor, especially a chink like Grace. “Do you agree to my terms or not?”
“What assurance do I have that the information will stay on your hard drive?”
“Once I have proof you’ve dealt with Oliveira, I’ll send you the information.”
“Which you’ve made copies of, naturally.”
“No,” Lucas said, all ice. “I haven’t. And your assurance is my word.”
De Santis gave another cold laugh at that. “The word of a Tate. Jesus, if only you knew how worthless that was.”
There was something in the other man’s voice that Lucas knew he should be following up, but that wasn’t the most important thing right now. The most important thing was Grace’s safety.
“Well?” he demanded. “Do we have a deal or not?”
De Santis shrugged, then reached into the pocket of his pants and took out his phone again. “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Tate. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make this call. You’ve injured my security staff and they need medical attention.” Punching in a number, de Santis raised the phone to his ear. “Lawson? Get me Dr. Blake. Now, please.”
It was a dismissal pure and simple, and Lucas had to battle the burst of anger that went through him. He wanted to squeeze the trigger and put a bullet through de Santis’s smug face anyway, but that wouldn’t help Grace. He was going to have to trust that the information he had and the threat he’d just delivered would be enough to get de Santis to call off whoever was after her.
He got out of the limo and walked away quickly without looking behind him, retreating to the alleyway where he’d parked his bike. He was getting onto the machine when his phone buzzed. Hauling it out, he checked the screen.
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 26