by Jill Shalvis
“Not here,” she said, reminding him of where they were.
Yeah. He didn’t want to taint what they had with this place either. Instead, he drew her in, kissing her softly as he took the soap out of her hands.
Maddie looked into his eyes for a long moment, the water raining down over them, and Brody would have sworn he was looking right into her heart and soul, the moment so real and deep it was almost as good as sex would have been.
Brody came instantly awake in the dark when the warm, soft body wrapped in his arms tried to slip away all stealthlike. He had to give her credit—she was good, wriggling down his torso with hardly any movement at all, just a whisper of the sheets, but he was better than good.
He’d always slept extremely lightly, especially in places he hated, and Stone Cay with all its opulence and riches topped his list. He let her nearly make her escape and then tightened his arms on her.
She went still as stone.
He waited and was rewarded when she lifted her head and met his gaze in the dark.
“You’re up,” she said.
Instead of answering, he slid his hands down her back, cupped her extremely cuppable ass, then went for her thighs, pulling them up to his hips so that she straddled him. From there, he gave a slight rock of his pelvis.
Her gasp revealed that she understood he was indeed . . . up.
Very up.
“I have to go,” she said.
Right. Clearly, it was time for the breaking and entering portion of their evening. But it didn’t escape his notice that she didn’t move away.
“Really have to go—”
He kissed her, then pulled back. “We have to go,” he corrected, and with a fond sigh for the long life he might have lived if not for this stupid plan, he got out of bed with her.
Chapter 22
Leena and Ben were taken to the airport. Saul manhandled Leena onto Rick’s Cessna, then gave her a hard shove into her seat. When he left her there alone for the first time since she’d stepped foot into Ben’s gallery, she hurriedly reached into her pocket for Maddie’s phone and turned it on, quickly reading through the texts Maddie had sent until she understood exactly what was going on.
Maddie thought Leena had gone to Stone Cay, and believing that, she’d raced after her to protect her. Because that’s what Maddie did, protect Leena. Only now, because of it, her life was in jeopardy.
And so was Leena’s.
There was only one thing to do. Besides panic, that is. She somehow needed to make sure Ed and Saul continued to believe she was Maddie. It was the only way. Otherwise, Rick would hear about it from Saul and Ed, and he might hurt the real Maddie.
Head spinning, Leena put the cell phone back in her pocket. Wave after wave of guilt crashed over her, but before she could drown in it, Ben received the same treatment she’d gotten and fell into the seat next to her.
Then they were alone in the back of the plane. Just outside, she could hear Ed and Saul talking amongst themselves, waiting for their pilot.
And though she didn’t want to—God, she so didn’t want to see his hatred—she glanced over at Ben.
Eyes narrowed, jaw tight, he was looking out the window. Even furious and slightly roughed up as he was, he was still the best-looking man she’d ever met.
And soon, thanks to her, he was going to be the best-looking dead man she’d ever met. “Ben.”
His gaze slid her way. His mouth was bleeding, and he already had a bruise forming alongside his jaw. He hadn’t come easily, and she wanted to cry. This was her fault. All her fault. . . “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So damn sorry to get you into this mess.”
“What mess is it exactly?”
Oh, God. She’d wondered how long it would take him to ask. “It doesn’t matter. But I’ll get you out of it, I swear.”
His scathing look said he doubted that. “Why are they calling you Maddie?”
“Maddie’s my twin sister.”
“And they think you’re her?”
She looked at the opened door, but no one was paying them any attention. “Yes, and pretending to be her is very important, so you have to be sure not to call me Leena.”
He was quiet a moment, his eyes focused on her while he considered that. “Why?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“Being Maddie right now is keeping me from being dead.”
“Why would they want you dead? You’re invaluable to their operation, to the swindling of their clients.”
Regret and sorrow for what she’d done to him nearly strangled her. She hated that he thought that of her. “They don’t want me dead, but my sister, who is pretending to be me.”
“Clear as mud.”
“I know. Ben, I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry. I was just trying to fix things, and I made it all worse.”
He just looked at her, so furious, so absolutely heartbreakingly gorgeous. “Seems easy enough to fix things,” he said, sounding very Irish. “You just change employers.”
“Yes. Except Rick . . . doesn’t like the idea of me leaving very much.”
He processed that a moment. “So what does Maddie have to do with this? Does she do what you do?”
“No. She left Stone Cay a long time ago and never looked back. Until . . .” Her throat tightened so that she could barely speak. “Until she thought I was in danger there, and then she came running.” God. “This is all my fault, and I have to fix it.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t going to go back there. Not ever again. I was going on the run, but I decided to make a stop first. To you,” she whispered when he just looked at her. “I had to try to make you understand. But now, Maddie . . .” Finishing the thought nearly killed her. “She’s in danger.”
“I still don’t get why you came to me.”
At that, she opened her eyes and looked into his quietly intelligent gaze. “I—”
“Hey!” Saul stuck his head in the plane and pointed at them. “You two! Shut up!”
Their pilot climbed in then and started the plane. Leena looked at Ben, but he’d turned back to the window, her answer not important.
Brody followed Maddie down the dark stairs of the big house. It was two in the morning and felt like it. After the long flight last night, their off-the-charts sex for several hours, then the stress of watching Maddie go through her own personal hell of being back here, he could hardly move.
Not Maddie. She’d dressed all in black—black jeans, black form-fitting, long-sleeved top, black boots with that knife in one of them.
His own kick-ass Bond girl.
She’d wanted him to stay in the room, and he’d told her over his dead body. He still couldn’t get over her trying to protect him.
He was protecting her. She just hadn’t gotten that part yet. He watched her turn a corner and followed, admitting to himself that she might never get it. Other than when she was naked, that is. Then she seemed to get him just fine.
In any case, she was certainly in no hurry to let him inside her head or to reveal any more of herself to him than she had to.
Which had always been his own MO when it came to women, so why the hell he was brooding about it was beyond him. He should be wanting to get back to that no touch policy, but actually, that was the furthest thing from his mind.
The hallway was completely dark, so much so that he had to stop because he couldn’t even see a hand in front of his face. Then suddenly, Maddie’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and tugged. He heard a door quietly shut, and then a flashlight came on, flickering over a huge room decorated in the same lavish over-the-top style as the rest of the house.
“Rick’s office,” she said. “I’ll make it quick.”
Yeah. And hopefully, they’d not run into any watchdogs in the form of six-foot men with no necks who’d taken too many steroids.
“Look.” She flicked her light around the room, pausing at the large desk,
upon which sat a laptop. “Maybe that’s Leena’s.”
“Seems too easy.”
“Yeah, but—what the hell?”
Something in her voice told him it was bad, and when he looked, it was confirmed.
It was bad.
Behind him, on the far wall of Rick’s office, sat a bank of monitors. Security monitors, all in black-and-white. There were exterior shots, presumably showing all the entrances and exits of the compound, and then there were the interior monitors, some from downstairs reviewing various rooms such as the den and living room and along the hallway. There were the stairs, the upstairs hallway, and every room along it, including . . . ah, fuck . . . Leena’s bedroom.
And bathroom.
The shower was empty now, and off, but it’d been neither a little while ago, and even as he thought it, Maddie’s fingers started tapping on the computer beneath the bank of the monitors. “Ten years ago, there weren’t monitors in the bathrooms,” she said.
“That seems to have changed,” he said, sounding perfectly calm but actually perfectly pissed.
“Yeah.” Her voice was grim as her fingers worked, and then suddenly, the bathroom monitor flickered and changed.
Rewound.
And yeah, there it was—him in the shower with Maddie, standing face-to-face with her beneath the water. Their mouths were moving, but all that could be heard was the rush of the water, none of their words. Good to know that plan worked. He had his back to the camera, naked and wet, bare ass and everything.
Brody remembered that part distinctly because it was where Maddie had told him “not here.” At the time, it’d been hot as hell, standing there with a soapy woman, and under any other circumstances, even just watching would also still be hot as hell.
But this . . . this was an outrageous invasion of privacy, and the thought of anyone else’s eyes seeing it filled him with fury.
Not a new feeling for him here on Stone Cay.
The movie kept playing, probably because Maddie stood there, finger on the keypad, as stunned as he.
On the monitor, he hugged her to him. He watched her arms go around his shoulders, grip him tight, then gently push him away.
Then his black-and-white self brilliantly shifted to expose Maddie full frontal, her gorgeous face tilted up, eyes closed as the water ran over her.
Needing to rip the monitor off the wall, he stepped forward, but Maddie reached out and slapped a hand to his chest, holding him back, her gaze still glued to the screen.
Reluctantly, he once again watched, struck by his black-and-white expression—he was looking at Maddie with everything in his eyes.
Just seeing it brought it back, how he’d felt in that moment. Apparently for her, too, because next to him she swore, and with a tap of her fingers, the images were gone.
There was a beat of silence.
“I should have known. I’m sorry, Brody. I’m deleting the whole thing.” She said this tightly as her fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard. “The entire night. Hold on.”
He was clenching his jaw so tight he was surprised his teeth didn’t shatter, but then all the monitors went blank, and she smiled grimly. “Look at that—there’s been a little mishap. Okay, a major one. All the security monitors are down.”
“For how long?”
“I’m thinking until they can get a tech here to fix it, which means a boat, which means it won’t be until after we’re gone. But there’s no guarantee.” She reached for the laptop. “I’ll be quick.”
Brody paced behind her, one ear cocked for the slightest sound, his gut twisted with stress and the need to protect this woman at any cost.
“There’s nothing here,” she said after a moment, sounding bitterly disappointed. “Nothing I can take with me.”
“Shut it down then; we’re done.”
“Yes,” she said, agreeing with him for once, though the victory felt hollow because she was quiet, too quiet, which meant he had to rein in his own urge to go postal. If she was going to be coolheaded and calm, then fuck it, he’d be coolheaded and calm, too. Being taped while in the shower? No sweat. He wasn’t even going to blink.
Hardest thing he’d ever done.
“You look all calm,” she said. “But I know you’ve got to be just as pissed off as I am.”
That she knew him, that she’d admit it, completely disarmed him for a moment. Disarmed and charmed. “Yes.” He let out a breath. “Very.”
“I’m not sure what to do now.”
This admission was even bigger, and he reached for her hand. “We can’t leave until dawn.”
“No.”
“Then I think you know exactly what you want to do next.”
“Yeah. I know you think it’s stupid to search, but . . .”
He hated buts. Unless it was her butt. Her bare butt—
“But I have to get some proof of Rick’s activities. If I don’t and he follows through with his threats, it won’t be Leena going to jail.” She let out a breath. “It’ll be me.”
“For what?” he asked in disbelief.
“If I tell you, this conversation is going to deteriorate pretty quickly.” She turned away. “In fact, your feelings for me are going to deteriorate pretty quickly.”
“Not possible,” he said flatly, turning her back to him. If she thought she’d be going to jail for killing Rick, then no way, because he was going to be the one to do it. “Tell me.”
She let out another long breath. “Leena didn’t kill Manny. I did.” And with that, she headed to the door.
Maddie got as far as reaching for the door handle before Brody managed to grab her hand and halt her progress.
She couldn’t blame him—she’d just dropped quite a bomb. She’d hoped to never have to tell him about killing Manny. She’d hoped to never have to tell anyone.
Brody just stared at her, the air weighted with his disbelief and shock. “What did you say?”
“I killed Manny.”
“Come on.” He didn’t want to believe her. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously.” He probably hadn’t slept with very many murderers. She understood that, too. He wanted answers; of course, he wanted answers. He might have grown up rough, but he had morals and values, and right about now, he had to be wondering at hers.
She’d wondered herself, many times. She had killed Manny. Nothing could change that, not more time and certainly not discussing it, so she went to move away again, but he caught her arm.
“Wait.” Backing her to the door, he cupped her face, tilting it up to look into his.
She put her hands on his wrists to tug clear of him but somehow ended up holding on because he felt like the only steady thing in a world gone a little crazy. “Searching,” she said. “We’re supposed to be—”
“In a minute. Tell me about Manny. Leena was dating him?”
“She liked him. As in she was sixteen and she had a sixteen-year-old silly crush on a twenty-two-year-old thug.”
“Let me guess. And he took advantage.”
Clearly, he’d been here on Stone Cay long enough today to know