by Brooks, Anna
It takes the years and years of training I’ve had to keep a straight face and not give away the fact that everything she thinks she knows about me is a lie, and it’ll continue to be a lie until I get what I need. “I like your honesty. I like that you’re confident. I like that I don’t know what to expect from you. But I wouldn’t like it if you lied, Q… I-I’ve been lied to and manipulated a lot in my life. I’d rather hate the truth than love a lie.”
Swallowing down the guilt, I realize for the first time how upset she’s going to be when she finds out the nasty reality. I never really thought about it before now. All I was focused on is watching her back, not what would happen when she found out the truth. Everything I’m doing is keeping her safe, though, so I use that ammunition to keep up the façade. Instead of telling her what she wants to hear, because lying about not lying is an oxymoron, I stand from the table. Grabbing some cash from my wallet, I toss more than enough to cover the bill and tip on the table. “Let’s go, Madeline.”
Her face pales, and I also ignore the way her disappointment makes me feel like shit, knowing I’m just going to hurt her more than she’s already been hurt in the past. She slams the rest of her drink and stands from the table where I put my palm on the small of her back.
Thankfully, she leans into my touch, and I slide my hand over to her hip and tuck her next to me as we walk to my car. When I open her door, she gets in wordlessly, and as I’m heading to the driver’s side, out of the corner of my eye, I see her shudder as she inhales a large gulp of air. I drive us back to the apartment building in silence, and it’s not until we’re standing in front of her door that I finally say something. “Unlock the door, sweetheart.”
She shifts on her feet and drops her head as she digs through her purse for her keys. Once she disengages the lock on her door with a slight tremble to her fingers, I twist open the knob and push it open. She walks in before me, and I follow her, but only to take a quick look around to make sure she’s good before I leave. Not that I’m worried since I have her apartment rigged to notify me if doors or windows are open, but to be thorough because you can never be too safe.
And especially because I don’t know what I’m protecting her from, I have to be even more cautious.
She’s still in the same place I left her, right inside her door, and I stop a couple of feet away from her. Hopefully I can salvage the night, so I offer her a genuine smile. “Thanks for saving me from having to step foot inside the grocery store. I had a really good time. Maybe we can—”
The shock of her throwing herself at me makes me go back a foot, and I grab her waist to steady her. But her fingers are in my hair and her soft lips work against my own and her tongue caresses mine. All I want to do is push it back into her mouth and push her against the wall and shove up her skirt. I fight the desire to lower my zipper, slide her panties over, and slam into her in one long thrust.
I battle with every molecule and every atom inside me. I fight against every impulse and every motherfuckin’ yearning that calls to my primal instincts, and instead of pulling her in, I set her aside.
Her dual fields of violet swirl in a tornado of confusion and lust while she raises shaky fingers to touch her sun-kissed lips. The flush of her cheeks spreads down to her slender neck, and the rapid rhythm of her heart contradicts the even and heavy swell of her deep, steady breaths.
She looks like I feel, which, under any other circumstance, is something I’d practically beg for from her. But instead of this being a living, breathing dream, it’s turning into a suffocating nightmare. One that I wasn’t prepared for.
Shit.
Shit.
“Get some sleep, Madeline.” I turn my back to her and yank her door open. “Lock this.” Without looking back at her, I close it behind me and step out of the view of her peephole until I hear the deadbolt engage. “Fuck,” I whisper harshly to nobody but myself.
I have my phone out before I’m inside the place where I’m staying and wake up my monitors that are trained on the hallway outside her apartment and the ones aimed at her windows, all of which are strictly for her protection. Everything I’m doing is. But I’m realizing very quickly that, in the end, it’s going to be me she needs protecting from.
“You good?” Erik answers on the second ring.
“No,” I tell him honestly.
“You need backup?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
How do I tell him when I don’t even know? “That’s the problem, man. I don’t got shit.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I’m at a loss for words.
“You might not have anything of relevance yet, but you do have your instinct. That’s what you need to focus on right now. Keep her safe, and when you get a lock on why your gut told you to play house after her mother’s investigation into her, then you can figure out the rest.”
Again, I shake my head even though he can’t see me. “She’s into me.”
“That’s the point.”
“No, Erik. She’s into me.” Part of training for this job is learning how to read body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. And every single thing she’s giving me is telling me she’s falling and she’s doing it at a rapid pace. Plus, she just threw herself at me.
I wait for him to get it. And as I suspected, it doesn’t take him long. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.” I hate to admit that maybe I messed up, but he’s gotta know. “I came on too strong… man, I fucked this up. I should have just maintained my distance.”
“If you didn’t do it this way, and something happened to her, you’d never forgive yourself. You need to do this, Q.”
“No, I don’t. But I am, and the more I get to know her, the more I like her, and the harder it’s going to be to break her goddamned heart when this is over.” I don’t hide the anger in my tone because there’s no way to conceal it. I’m pissed. And not just because of me and what it’s going to do to her in the end, but when she finds out that her mother, who she despises, originally hired me, it’s going to kill her. “I should have sent someone else on her.”
I hear him sigh. “You’re a damn genius in every sense of the word. You know this, which is why your instincts told you, you need to be the one to get close to her. You know your skills and your talent are unparalleled. But you cannot spend your life behind a computer. I’m glad you’re out there. The other side of this business is equally as important, and you need to understand it to be the best at what you do.”
“I’m already the best, Erik.” Which is not a lie. There is no system I can’t breach, no information I can’t get, and no code I can’t crack. Hence the reason I do what I do for him.
“You are not an IT geek who does nothing but sit on his fat ass all day. You’re a highly trained, impeccably skilled security expert who can disarm a man with one hand and kill with a single finger. Your instincts are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and in order to keep that shit sharp, you have to go out into the field every once in a while. Training and sparring aren’t enough. This is easy, Q. Keep her close and make sure she doesn’t end up dead. That’s all.” I don’t agree with him even a little bit. This isn’t easy. “Are you falling for her?”
I’m actually glad we’re not doing this face to face because if we were, he’d be able to tell I was lying. “No. She’s just a cool chick who doesn’t have a lot of people in her life who care about her.” In all fairness, that’s partly true because if I’m being honest, I already started to fall when I was gathering information for her file a couple of weeks ago. But her touching me makes me want things I cannot have. Things I don’t deserve. Precious gifts I’ll do nothing but tarnish.
“Then you have nothing to worry about. This’ll be easy, Q. A week or so tops is all you’ll need to work your magic, then you can break the news to her and tell her everything.”
It’s gonna break her, and that’s what I’m worried about the most. I’m putting myself
out there on a hunch, protecting a woman I don’t even know for reasons that I can’t figure out. I will, though, and hopefully soon because the longer it takes me, the deeper it’s gonna get between us, and I don’t want to hurt her any more than I have to.
All I’ve done in my past is hurt women. All of it unintentional, but no matter the relationship, especially the last one, I just can’t do anything right.
I’ve tried. I’ve busted my ass to try to make someone happy, but it would seem I’m incapable. And the one woman now who looks at me like I’ve always dreamed a woman would, is only doing it because I know everything about her… including what she wants in a man. If I were the real me, she wouldn’t look twice in my direction. She thinks she wants me simply because I’m pretending to be someone else.
The line is silent for a moment. “Breaking her heart is better than the possibility of what could happen to her if your intuition is on. Remember that. You do what you’ve gotta do and do it with a clear conscience, got it?”
No. “Yeah.”
“Good. Later.”
He hangs up, and I’m left with a dial tone that buzzes in my ear. After a few minutes, I pull the phone away from my head and throw it across the room, knowing exactly what I have to do. “Fuck.”
Chapter 4
Madeline
My comfy clothes are on, my feet are kicked up on my coffee table, my lap desk is on my thighs, and I have a red pen in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. My eyes have been staring at the assignment I’m supposed to be grading for the past ten minutes, but whenever I try to focus on the task at hand, all I can do despite purposely trying not to, is think about Q.
I’ve never in my life thrown myself at a guy like I did him tonight. I’m embarrassed that he rejected me and feel like a moron for misreading his intentions. I can’t remember a time that I had so much fun with a man on a date, but I guess that’s because I haven’t ever had fun on a date.
But, God… I could have sworn Q was giving me all the signs he wanted to take things further. Not only with how he always found subtle ways to touch me, but also the way he looks at me, and how he talks about wanting to sleep with me, how he came home with me last night to have sex with. But obviously I was wrong.
How did I get it so wrong?
There’s a knock on my door, and I holler that it’s open, thankful Sadie came over as quickly as she did. “Mama’s here, girl, tell me all about it.” She plops down on the couch next to me, and I set my stuff on the floor and hold my glass out after she finishes pouring her own. “Spill.”
Needless to say, I was a wreck after Q left, worried I had completely screwed up something that I wasn’t sure had even started. Or if it was started, I had prevented it from going any further. So I called Sadie in near hysterics. She was already planning to stop by, but she rushed right over. Not just because she’s my best friend, but because me having issues with a man is not common. It’s actually nonexistent.
She’s the one with relationship drama, not me.
“Okay, so I told you about what happened with him last night and this morning, but when I was leaving the grocery store…” I recount the past several hours to her as detailed as I can. I don’t know how much time has passed since I’ve been babbling, but it’s long enough for her to refill her glass. “Then he walked out and told me to make sure the door was locked. And that was it.” I throw back the rest of my red. “Now you’re caught up, so tell me; what does that mean? What do I do?”
“Are you crazy?” She pulls her head back with pinched brows. “You’ve got a man who took you home, lectured you about keeping safe, took you to dinner, and walked away without fuckin’ you after you threw yourself at him?”
I run my fingers through my hair. “Yes! That’s what I’m saying.”
“Girl.” She sighs.
“What?”
“You hook that man with some strong-ass fishing line and don’t let go, that’s what.”
“So… you don’t think he’s not interested in me? Because that’s what it feels like, like he chased for a minute, then when he caught me, he decided I wasn’t worth the effort.”
She sets her glass down and pats my hand. “I don’t know this guy, but from what I remember, he was very handsome and confident in a cocky way, which is normally a turn-off, but with him it was like you knew he could back it up. Not like most guys who can talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. You’re lucky, Maddy. To find a guy who cares enough and respects you enough to build a relationship before getting in your pants?” Her eyes actually look watery, and she turns her head. “Let him do what he’s gotta do to show you he cares and enjoy every minute of it. Not just because you deserve it but also because you’ve earned it.”
I listen to her, let her words penetrate, and I make a decision. “You’re right. I’m just afraid that he… that him not sleeping with me is like a sign and I’m missing something. Most guys don’t walk away from a sure thing, especially when he came home with me last night. It just made me self-conscious because that’s never happened before.” My relationship with sex is a complicated one. Because with how I was raised, I view it differently and have different standards than most people. And when a guy finds out that I’m not sleeping with him until we’ve been with each other long enough to meet his family, he usually bails.
It’s a good way to judge them, and a few have let me meet their parents, but none of them have ever lasted far beyond that. And for some reason, I didn’t even think about my own rule with Q. It’s like nothing else exists except him, and instead of me wanting the man to prove himself, I want to prove myself to Q. And what better way to do that than with sex?
But he’s different, and different isn’t bad. It’s actually really good, so I need to just let this ride and not overanalyze everything.
Enough about me. “It’s your turn to spill.”
“Spill what?”
I shake my head. “Don’t play dumb. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Just the same shit. When I went took Cassie to Kai’s, his stupid ass wife…” She tilts her glass and finishes off her wine. “I mean, this bitch… let me tell you. I drop Cassie off at her dad’s, and when I walked into the kitchen, she literally got up off her stool and left the room. Left it! Who does that? Crazy, psycho bitch, that’s who.”
“Did Kai say anything?”
“No, he didn’t even notice, I don’t think, because he was all about Cassie.” She bites her lip as she pours another glass, and I know tonight’s going to be a night that she takes a cab home.
“What’s that look for?”
Her lips pop. “He told me he’s leaving her, that he had divorce papers written up, but she refuses to sign them, so he’s just continuing to live with her until she finally caves, or I tell him I want to be with him.”
I shake my head because I know what her answer is on that. When she brought Kai home one night a couple of years ago, he didn’t tell her that he was married. It wasn’t until she found out she was pregnant and hunted him down that she discovered he was a cheater. Yet for some reason, his wife Carla stayed with him. “What kind of douchebag does that?”
“Ya know, I have days where I wish I never even found him and told him I was pregnant.”
“I know you do.”
“But he’s such a good dad. So good. He loves her so much, and in all the terrible stories there are about women not getting child support, he has never once been late on a payment. If I didn’t have his money coming in, I wouldn’t be able to give my daughter the kind of life she deserves, so in that aspect, I’m glad I told him. And he always takes her more than his scheduled time if he can. I had to pay a sitter last night, but I can’t remember the last time I had plans when he didn’t take her. I just wish I didn’t have to deal with his bitch ass wife. God, why doesn’t she leave him already?”
I shrug and rearrange the toss pillows at my back. “I don’t get it either. Especially because he got a woman pregnant with an affair. I mean, c
heating is bad enough, but to get someone pregnant…”
“Exactly, and it’s not like it’s my fault he’s a cheater. I didn’t know he was married. I have no clue why she’s mad at me, why I get the dirty looks and hate directed my way when I drop off her husband’s child.”
“I wish I had an answer for you, but unfortunately, sometimes people do things in life that don’t make sense, and no matter how hard we try to figure it out, we’ll never know why.”
She crosses her legs on the couch, puts her elbow on the cushion, and holds her head in her hand like she’s too tired to hold it up on her own. “Let me ask you something.”
“Ask away.”
“Would you think less of me if I gave him a shot? If I told him that he could move in with us, and we could try to be a family?”
“Sadie, I—”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
I shake my head. “No, you don’t. You’re my best friend, and I’ve told you absolutely everything about me and you never once have judged me, so if you think for one second that I’d judge you or think less of you for any reason aside from murder, you’re wrong.” She smiles just a tad. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I already am, though.”
“Do you really think he’d leave her if you told him you’d give him a chance?”
She shrugs. “I hope so. He’s said it for the past two years, but apparently, now he has the papers to prove it.”
“And you don’t think that if he really cared, he’d leave her on his own to prove himself to you and Cassie?”
Another shrug and the wetness returns to her eyes.
“Why would you give him a chance? I think that’s what you need to ask yourself. Would you be doing it just because you’ve always dreamed of having a happy family?” She blinks, and one tear falls. “Or would you give him a shot because you’re in love with him and you truly want to try to form a relationship with him?”
“I think it’s a combination of both, honestly. I feel like I really just want a happy family. I want my daughter to grow up better than I did, and if I have the power to provide her with a home that has both a mom and a dad, shouldn’t I try? And on the other hand, I feel like, selfishly, I want a good man at my side. And it’s nearly impossible to find a good man when you’re a single mom. They hear that you have a kid and run away. But just because he’s a good dad doesn’t mean he’d be a good husband to me. I mean, shit, look at what he’s doing to Carla.”