He’d ignored every last warning.
One kiss, one taste of her exquisite flesh, and he was eating out of her hand, ready to believe anything that passed between her delicate lips.
But on the other side of the trenches, opposite her betrayal, there was a darker enemy, one whose very name had Jared shaking with rage: Davidson, the man who’d so brutally marked her. Who’d threatened the lives of Arianne and her sister. Who’d been doing it—and probably worse—for years.
Jared didn’t just want him dead. He wanted him to suffer.
Jared blinked hard, trying to clear the images of Arianne’s bruises from his mind. He focused on dinner, transferring their takeout food from the cardboard containers into ceramic dishes while Arianne waited patiently in the living room.
Jared knew he could probably have Davidson spoken to—again, money greased the wheels for all sorts of unsavory deeds. But one wrong move could mean death for Arianne and Natasha, and Jared wasn’t willing to take that risk.
Bastard.
He tossed the takeout containers into the trash compactor, smacking the button and enjoying the satisfying growl as it ground up the rubbish.
Never before had Jared felt so powerless, so impotent.
It was a feeling he had no interest in getting accustomed to.
Jared arranged the steaming ceramic dishes on a large tray with napkins, plates, and silverware, and carried it into the living room.
“We need to review the options,” he said, setting the tray on the coffee table. “The primary goal is protecting you and Natasha. The secondary goal is protecting my estate.”
“Thank you. That means—”
Jared cut her off. He didn’t need to hear her gushing; it was hard enough to be in the same room with her knowing that he’d never hold her in his arms again, never feel those lips brushing against his chest, never hear that soft sigh she made right before he drove her to the edge…
He cleared his throat, steering himself back on course before he got himself hard again. He needed to figure this thing out—lay down the options, pick the best one, and set the plan in motion, not fantasize about their mutually insatiable carnal appetites. Those steamy nights had been pure bliss, but they were over. As far as Jared was concerned, this was now a business arrangement, a deal not much different from the hundreds he’d conducted over the years in the FierceConnect boardroom.
Except that you’ve never been in love with your business rivals, you git.
“As far as I can see,” Jared said, “we’ve got three choices, none of which is ideal. Eat.” He handed Arianne a plate, and lifted the lid on the chicken dish.
“I don’t expect this to be easy,” she said, serving up her chicken and helping herself to a samosa, too. “But I already told you, I just need you to play along. This is my life—my mess. I’ll figure something out. I need to—”
“Option one. I—”
“Jared.” Arianne set her plate down. “I’m not getting you any more involved than you need to be.”
Jared shook his head. “That’s fine, because this is exactly how involved I need to be. So, as I was saying—”
“No.”
“One,” he said again, shooting her a warning glance. She opened her mouth to argue again, but then thought better of it, biting into the samosa instead. He said, “I temporarily relocate you and Natasha to my family home in London, then let the robbery play out, having the thieves arrested on site.”
Arianne was shaking her head before he’d even finished his sentence. “And then what? My sister and I live out the rest of our lives as fugitives? Davidson has friends, Jared. The moment we set foot back in the states, we’re dead. And that’s assuming they didn’t track us down overseas first. You’re talking about putting your entire family at risk.”
“Not necessarily.” He leaned forward and loaded up his own plate, trying a bit of Arianne’s chicken tikka. He didn’t think she’d mind, considering she’d just inhaled one of his samosas without asking.
Incorrigible little thief.
“Best case scenario is that my sister could start over somewhere new,” she said, “and I’d be thrown in jail.”
“Jail? You wouldn’t even be near the scene of the crime.”
“Davidson would find a way to link me to it, along with every heist the crew has committed over the last decade. Probably other crimes, too—stuff I had nothing to do with.”
“Are you certain?”
Arianne licked her fingers, the flick of her soft tongue and lips derailing Jared’s concentration. Only a handful of days earlier, those lips were wrapped around his cock, his fingers threaded through her silky hair as she sucked—
“Never trust a thief, right?” she said, jolting him out of his fantasy. “Even one of your own. A good thief always has an insurance policy.”
“So what’s yours?” he asked.
Through a mouthful of naan, she said, “I’m not very good, as we’ve discovered.”
“You had me fooled.”
Arianne laughed, but it was nothing like the rich, musical sound he’d come to love. This laugh was hollow, filled with bitterness. “Sure, had you fooled, right up until I blew my cover by falling in… I mean, I…”
The words trailed off. Arianne grabbed her drink and took a sip, averting her eyes.
Jared shoveled in a few mouthfuls of spicy vegetable korma, ignoring the flame in his chest. It didn’t matter now. She’d betrayed him, just like his ex-fiancé—a scenario he’d never let play out again, no matter how good Arianne had felt in his arms.
“So you don’t have any evidence on Davidson and the others?” he asked.
Arianne shrugged. “I’ve got some, sure. But not enough to make it stick—not without implicating myself, which is why Davidson would never take me seriously. He knows I wouldn’t risk going to jail unless it was the very last option. I can’t leave Tasha.”
“So he knows your weakness, too.”
“If by weakness you mean the one person in my life I’d willingly sell my soul to protect, then yes.”
There was a raw edge to her voice, one Jared thought unfair given the circumstances. Still, he felt the need to clarify.
“Loving someone isn’t a character flaw, Arianne. I simply meant that Davidson knows exactly how to get to you.”
Arianne nodded. “Doesn’t matter. I am weak. He knows I’d never turn him in. I don’t have the evidence, and I don’t have the courage.”
“You may surprise yourself one day,” Jared said. When she didn’t argue, he took a sip of Scotch, then went on. “Okay, that brings us to option two. I relocate my most valuable pieces to Tribeca. If they break in upstate, they’ll only find a fraction—”
“No good.” Arianne tore off another piece of naan, using it to mop up some of her tikka sauce before popping it into her mouth. “They already know what’s there. Every… well, just about every last piece.”
“Ah, right. I was sleeping with a mole—of course they know.” Jared tossed his fork onto his plate, the whole situation crashing down on him anew. What a fucking mess. “Jesus Christ, Arianne. I cared about you. You really took me for a fool.”
Wisely, she didn’t deny it.
“I know,” she said. “I won’t make any more excuses. I can only tell you that I’m sorry. I know it’s not much consolation, but if I get through this… well, I’ll spend the rest of my life regretting hurting you. I’ve done a lot of fucked up things, hurt a lot of people. But you, Jared Blackwell—you’re my one.”
“One what?”
This time, she didn’t avert her eyes. She met him dead on, and said plainly, “I let you get away. Regrets don’t get much bigger than that.”
She held his gaze for so long, he was certain it was a dream. He bloody well wanted it to be, some garish nightmare from which they’d awaken, tangled together in his bed after another passionate night. He’d kiss the spot on her neck just beneath her ear, his favorite part, and whisper to her about the craziest
dream he’d ever had.
“Aside from that,” she said, breaking the momentary spell, “Davidson has men watching the estate—they’d know if you tried to move anything out. And what would you do with the cars? No way. It’s too complicated.”
Jared’s stomach bottomed out. “They’re planning to hit the cars, too?”
“Not officially, but one of the men is a real loose canon, and he’s got a thing for cars, so—”
“Christ. How do you live with yourselves?” he asked.
“I don’t,” she said. “Being an art thief? What I do? It’s not a glamorous life, Jared. It’s not a life at all. I don’t have friends. I don’t date. I don’t work or learn new things or expand my mind. Until I met you, the only times I’d really gone out in the city were for intel jobs. The dresses, the hair, the makeup… it’s all funded by the operation. Technically, I don’t even exist.”
Jared met her gaze, hating the sad and empty look he found there. No matter how she explained it, he still couldn’t get his head around it. “How did you… for all this time… How do you even get through the day?”
“Tasha,” she said without hesitation. “When she showed up on my doorstep, everything clarified. My issues didn’t matter—not like that. Everything became about her. I made her my life.”
“But that shouldn’t be your sole reason for living, Arianne.”
“No, and I shouldn’t be stealing. I shouldn’t have dragged you into this mess. I shouldn’t have let Davidson sell off my father’s estate. I shouldn’t have done a lot of things, but those are the cards I’m working with now.”
Jared sighed, wishing that his sharp, analytical business mind could come up with a solution to make this all go away. But he was so far out of his league, so far removed from anything he’d ever faced before, he couldn’t even get his bearings. He wanted to kill Davidson—the thought had been crossing his mind in regular intervals ever since Arianne had named her abuser. But despite his outburst with the Scotch glass, Jared wasn’t violent. He knew how to fight—attending all-boys’ schools as a kid had taught him a lot more than math and literature—but he wasn’t a killer.
Maybe I should just hire someone…
No. Jared had a wild imagination, but he simply could not imagine navigating the criminal underworld as the woman on his couch had.
So he tossed out his final idea, relying on the one thing he did know a lot about.
Money.
“So here we are, then,” he said. “Option three: I buy your freedom.”
Arianne nearly choked on her gin and tonic. “What?”
“Your man Davidson isn’t an art collector, he’s a common thug. He’s only in it for the money. So look, I offer him a large sum, free and clear, no messy logistics like fencing and money laundering. He takes the cash and runs, and you get to live out the rest of your days on the right side of the law. Of course, you’d have to find a legitimate job, and maybe sell the penthouse—”
“No way. He’d never go for it.”
“We’re not talking about a few hundred dollars, love. Believe me, I’d make it worth his while.”
“Jared.” Arianne set down her glass and reached across the couch to touch his knee. The light caress was electric, radiating pleasure up and down his leg. Fuck, he still wanted her.
“I appreciate your offer,” she said. “But this isn’t the kind of job you just walk away from. I’ve seen too much. I know all of their secrets, even if I can’t prove it in court. The only way people like me walk away from this life is if we’ve got enough hard, irrefutable evidence to keep the other guy in constant fear of its release, or if we die—likely on the job.”
Immediately Jared’s mind flashed to the silver scar on Arianne’s hip, evidence of the dangers inherent in her profession. She said she’d been stabbed when one of her consulting deals went south, but now he understood what “consulting deals” really meant. And today, just a few hours before she’d cornered him at the JHS, her boss had nearly strangled her. Over what, money? Isn’t that what it always came down to?
Jared hadn’t always been rich, but he’d always been comfortable, a privilege he’d taken for granted. He tried to imagine Arianne as a child, doing her best to follow in her father’s tainted footsteps, never realizing that his footsteps would lead her straight to the grave.
The thought pierced Jared’s heart. Her father was as much a monster as Davidson. He may not have put his hands on her, but he’d driven her to the violence just the same.
The wall Jared had so firmly erected around his heart started to crumble, but he quickly reinforced it. Arianne’s past circumstances could not excuse what she’d done, and more than that, they couldn’t be helped. Jared and Arianne could only deal with the present moment, and then, the impending robbery.
That was as far as Jared cared to think about, because after that, Arianne would be gone from his life.
Regretfully, but necessarily, he slid his leg out from beneath her touch and got up to gather their dishes, looking down at the woman curled up on the end of his couch. Her legs were tucked up beneath her, the blouse hanging limp from her shoulders, her creamy skin marred only by the ugly purple welts her boss had put there.
Jared cleared his throat, shoring up his heart again. “Option four. Final answer.”
She glanced up at him, her hazel eyes full of fragile hope. “I’m listening.”
“We find a way to get that hard, irrefutable evidence, Arianne. And then we make that bastard an offer he really can’t refuse.”
Chapter Nine
“Once this is all over, I never want to see you again.”
Of all the things Jared had said—of all the heroic, save-the-day plans—that line had risen high above the rest, its sharp edges cutting deeper with every breath.
It’s really over.
Ari had known it the minute she’d discovered he’d found the robbery plans. Honestly, she’d known it from the start—their relationship, however intense, never stood a chance. But hearing it out loud was something different.
It made it all real. Final.
“You should be comfortable in here,” Jared said, escorting Ari to the game room. He’d made up the couch for her after they’d decided—for the sake of appearances in case Davidson or his men were still sniffing around—that she should stay the night. He’d tolerate her presence in his home, but Jared drew the line at sharing a bed. “If you need anything—”
“Actually, can I have some aspirin?” Ari pressed her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. The weight of the day had finally caught up with her; she’d barely made it through their after-dinner conversation, Jared grilling her for information they might be able to use against Davidson, Ari wracking her brain and coming up with nothing but a headache. Worse, her neck and shoulders were now throbbing in earnest, bruised and swollen, every movement sending a bolt of pain down her spine.
“Of course,” Jared said. “Go ahead and get changed. I’ll be back.”
While Jared went to get the aspirin, Ari changed into the loose T-shirt and running shorts he’d left for her, disappointed to discover that they’d been freshly laundered. If she couldn’t have him in her bed, she at least wanted to inhale his clean, masculine scent, but all she got was a nose full of generic fabric softener.
Soon enough, every remaining shred of Jared Blackwell would be scrubbed clean from her life.
She slipped between the sheets, also clean and crisp, trying to focus on the positives. Jared had promised to help her, despite everything she’d done to shatter his trust. And he had a plan—it hadn’t come together yet, but Jared was nothing if not driven and determined. Talking him out of it was pointless. He wouldn’t let this go down without one hell of a fight.
Ari just hoped he wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire.
“Here, this should help.” Jared returned with a glass of water and two aspirin, along with a few ice packs wrapped in towels. After she’d swallowed the pills, he instructed her to lie
back.
Too exhausted to argue, she settled herself against the pillow and closed her eyes.
With a clinical but gentle touch, Jared arranged the ice packs on her shoulders and neck, careful to ensure there wasn’t too much pressure. The cold seeped blissfully into her skin, soothing her aches—at least, the ones on the outside.
“Better?” he asked, his voice warm and soft, close enough that Ari could tell he was now kneeling on the floor beside her. With her eyes closed, unable to see the look of disappointment on his face, it was easy for Ari to pretend that this had all been a misunderstanding. That she was here because he loved her, because he wanted to care for her, because he’d always look out for her.
“This should ease the swelling,” he said. “Try not to move around too much, love.”
For a few sweet moments, she lost herself in the liquid honey of his voice, the feel of his warm breath on her cheek, bargaining with God and the devil and anyone else who might be listening to please, let me have this one more night.
But then things quieted between them. Jared was silent for so long that Ari feared he’d left, but when she opened her eyes to check, he was still kneeling in front of the couch, right by her side.
Watching her, his eyes were full of something she couldn’t name, a mix of anger and disappointment, wariness, and a deep, dark thing that looked an awful lot like rage.
Ari thought of him earlier, throwing the glass into the fireplace.
She shivered.
“Too cold?” he asked, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. She tried not to sigh with pleasure at the feel of his caress as he traced a path down her jaw.
“No, it’s perfect.” After a moment, she narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you thinking about, Jared?”
Jared lowered his eyes to ground, a deep sigh escaping his mouth. Ari scolded herself for pushing.
Bared to the Billionaire: The Complete Series Page 29