Might as well ask. “Where am I?”
She worries her bottom lip, indecision crossing her features. “In a private home of a sort.”
I frown, scanning the room. No photos. No paintings. No personalization.
“Whose home?”
She wags a finger at me. “No, no. That’s all you’re getting. My employer will be here soon. I’ve been instructed to leave you in the dark so you’ll behave.”
I scoff. “I’m probably the best patient in this place. No trouble.”
“You don’t have much competition, so I suppose you’re right.” She leans against the doorway, crossing her arms. “You’re lucky to be alive.”
“So I’ve been told more than once in my life.” Lifting the top sheet, I readjust the covers on my lap. “I’m bored out of my skull.”
“This is the first day you haven’t been on heavy painkillers, so I can see why you might be restless.”
I narrow my eyes. “I woulda remembered seeing you one of the other days.”
She taps the side of her head. “Your brain is fried. Also you had previous injuries that weren’t healed. They added to the complications of being shot half a dozen times.” She hesitates. “And I only came into your room when you were knocked out cold.” A smile touches her lips. “I heard you raving at the doctor about...well, everything. Wasn’t too keen on getting in on that.”
“Raving.” I scoff, crossing my arms. “I was asking questions.”
“You were demanding answers.”
I stare at her, and she slides out the doorway. I open my mouth to summon her back and realize I don’t know her name. “Hey—what do I call you?”
She laughs and reappears in the entry, shaking her head. “Eve.”
She glances over her shoulder, and with a frown, she disappears again.
“Eve!” A second surge of annoyance rushes through me at my helplessness. Earlier I tried to get out of bed and almost fell on my face. I snatch up the buzzer and press on it again. I’m not fucking amusing myself. No TV and one magazine will not cut through my boredom. I keep my thumb on the buzzer as I twist to grab the MMA magazine with my free hand. My stitches stretch with me, and I wince. Movement registers out of the corner of my eye, and I look up.
“You’re awake,” she says, her voice soft, familiar.
I release the buzzer, and the magazine slides off my lap, onto the floor, hitting the carpet with a thud. At least ten different emotions war for dominance. My heart squeezes in my chest, and my cock twitches under the covers, which occupies most of my brain. Like always, the sight of her is painful.
“It was you?” I shouldn’t be surprised.
Why hadn’t I considered her? She’s a meddler. A fixer.
She tucks a phantom piece of blonde hair into her fancy braid. Her nervous habit, and the realization she still does it, makes my heart kick. My fingers throb at the memory of being buried in her hair. There are a few things I’d love buried in her right now. Her short skirt, tight white T-shirt, and the navy blazer take me back seventeen years.
Seventeen years. Christ, I’m fucking old. She’s five years older than me and looks like she’s straddling thirty. How is that possible? She’s forty-five.
“Surprised?” She shoves her bulky purse higher onto her shoulder, but doesn’t leave the doorway.
“Yeah, considering I told you to stay the hell away.”
I’m pissed off and grateful at the same time. She saved my life...again. Her caught up in my messy business is what I don’t want, have never wanted.
Carys straightens, and her heels are muted by the carpeted floor as she ambles toward my bed. “I should have let you die?”
“You shoulda stayed out of it.”
“Maybe I could have if you hadn’t called me when you were dying in a field. Maybe if you hadn’t told me you suspected the FBI was involved.” Her amber eyes are thoughtful as she searches my face. “Maybe if I could stop giving a shit whether you’re still somewhere out in the world, alive.”
“A few months ago, when we had sex in Boston, we agreed I was...how’d you phrase it?” Not that I’d forget. “Paying my debt because you saved my life seventeen years ago.” I raise my eyebrows.
The memory is scorched into my synapsis. Carys teetering off the chair in the kitchen, drunk, me catching her, swinging her up into my arms. Her lips pressed against my neck and then she murmured in my ear, You’re alive because of me. How will you pay me back? Over and over again that night, I gave her my payment, and she screamed my name in thanks.
Her pale pink lips twist, and she crosses her arms. Her eyes narrow and then dance with mischief.
“Hmmm...is that how that night went?”
She’s close enough to the bed that if my wounds were healed a touch more, I’d snatch her, yank her onto my lap. Her laughter would echo through the room like it used to years ago. Amused, aroused. But she’s just out of reach, and when I shift too quickly my stitches strain at the seams.
“Happy to pay you back for this one too,” I say.
Her lips rise in a rueful smile, and she eases away from the bed, more distance between us.
“You overpaid last time.”
“Makes me feel like you’re undervaluing my life.” I stare, willing her to come closer.
She avoids eye contact and re-crosses her arms. “Who shot you?
“My deartháir beag.” I run a frustrated hand through my hair and wince. Everything hurts. “I honestly can’t fucking believe it.”
“Need more painkillers?”
I give a half-smile. “I got other things in mind to dull my pain.”
Something buzzes in her bag, and she slides one strap off her arm, rummaging around until she finds it. She bites her lip, and her brow creases. “I have to take this. I’ll come back to check on you later.” Carys heads for the door, her phone pressed to her ear before I can protest.
When she’s gone, my chest strains with an ache the painkillers can’t dull. The pain might be my stitches, or it just might be my traitorous heart.
Chapter Two
Carys
As soon as I’m out of Finn’s room and down the hall, I hang up on the telemarketer and lean against the wall. Seeing him so haggard, so injured makes my chest constrict. Flirting with him, getting close to him, half-expecting him to toss me onto the bed to have his way with me, causes the lower half of my body pulse with desire. Never before Finn, and not once after, has the mere sight of a man made me weak with longing.
“You okay?” Eve pokes her head out of her office door.
“Sure, yeah.” I straighten and tug on my jacket. “It’s just—yeah, I’m fine.”
“He looks rough, but he’s okay. Or he’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t get shot or stabbed again anytime soon.”
Dropping my phone into my bag, I purse my lips together. “He’s been no trouble?”
Eve laughs. “I’ve avoided him when he’s awake, until today. Some mild flirting. Thanks for loaning me the rock.” She flashes her ring finger at me.
The lights catch the diamond.
“I don’t need it anymore.” I frown. “Finn told me once that he always checked a woman’s ring finger before sleeping with her. Not that a piece of jewelry stopped him, just that he noticed.”
Perhaps I should have worn the ring when I visited Kim at the Donaghey house. Of course if I’d done that, I might not have been able to save Finn. He’d be dead or in jail. I swallow. Each time my mind drifts in that direction, I want to burst into tears.
“Have you talked to Eric lately?” Eve asks.
Dragging myself away from my dark thoughts, I sigh. “More than I’d like. He’s pissed about the missing content from the warehouse.” He doesn’t even know Kim might have accumulated dirt on us to turn over to the FBI.
“Must be hard.”
“He likes to forget we broke up for a reason. Our relationship feels like a long time ago.” The same can’t be said for the man in the other room. Finn and I
never came to an official end, and our whole affair is buried in me, like our relationship collapsed yesterday. The sting of what might have been is fresh. Breathtakingly raw. Impossible, but true.
Eve reads my mind. “Finn’s intense.” She leans her shoulder against the door and puts one hand on her hip. “What are you going to do about him? He can’t go back, right?”
“No, he can’t return to Boston.”
“Will the FBI know you have him?”
“Maybe.” I flutter my fingers to my hair before resting them on my purse. “They’ll never be able to prove I have him. There’s not much the FBI can do while we’re here.”
My phone buzzes, and I dig it out of my bag. This time it’s a business call.
“I’ll be back later.”
Eve springs off the door and into the office. She’s worked for the family long enough to understand how I operate. She’s earned my trust several times over. Learning Kim was a traitor was a blow to my ego. I’ve never been fooled before.
When I understood how extensive Finn’s injuries were, Eve had to be the one watching over him. No one new, no one untested, would get near him. I didn’t call in favors to get him extracted, only to have someone rat us out.
Normally this building is a hospice my family sponsors, and Eve is the head nurse. We opened this place when my brother died of cancer. Since Finn has arrived, we’ve been turning away requests to stay in this section. Now that he’s better, I need to move him into a more secure location.
I breeze out the main doors, grasping my phone. The Alps loom ahead, and I let the call go to voicemail. It’s Eric, and I can’t be bothered to answer his questions about why I’m back in Switzerland so soon. The company has business here, and of course my family has a house and this hospice, but it’s not normal for me to be here when our warehouse in Russia is missing weapons, ammunition, and who knows what else.
The waiting car sits in the circular drive with Jay, my bodyguard and right-hand man, behind the wheel. Once I’m in the backseat, our gazes connect.
“Eric just called me, asking for you.”
“What’d you tell him?” I drop my phone into my purse and wish it would get lost in there.
“I was at home with my family. Didn’t have a clue where you might be.”
I laugh. “I bet that went over well.”
“He said the company trace on my phone told him I was a lying motherfucker and we were in Switzerland again. You don’t want him to know about Finn, but he’s going to wonder if you had something to do with the warehouse theft.”
My back stiffens at the implication. “Why would he think I stole from my company?”
“Because he’s Eric.”
When we began dating, my father took a shine to him. A corporate man. Smart. Athletic. He ticked my father’s boxes, and with my brother long gone, he gave my father the son he almost had. Eric can be an asshole, so he ticked the only box I seem to require in a boyfriend. When it turned out I had a cap on the jerk quotient, we broke up. He campaigned my father for control of the company when he retired. Another reason we would never have worked out. His confidence overrode his common sense. My father may love him like a son, but Eric is not family.
“I’ll call Eric when we arrive at the house,” I say.
“He said he’s flying here to figure out what you’re up to.”
“Wonderful.”
Jay chuckles. “You think Eric and Finn will get along?”
“Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”
Eric will be livid when he realizes the laws I broke and the favors I called in to lift Finn from the warehouse without a trace. Given how little notice I had to save him, I made sketchy deals and poor compromises. Eric will rake me over the coals for exposing the company. As the head of the Van de Berg Ammunitions, I should be more careful. His criticism is valid, but I don’t want to hear it.
We drive in silence through the streets of Zurich, headed to the countryside and our luxury chalet which cost my father a fortune years ago. Now we use the house as a hideout, or a base, or just a retreat from the real world. As soon as the large wooden structure looms ahead, my spirits rise. The gorgeous green hills, the snowcapped mountains, and the lake have a calming effect. It’s been hell the last few weeks, between keeping Finn a secret, discovering Kim is a traitor, and then the theft of the goods in our Russian warehouse. I’ve been spinning, and it’s about time I stopped.
When the car glides to a halt outside the chalet, I hurry into the house. Lena, my housekeeper, is in the kitchen getting dinner ready. The high vaulted ceilings, huge windows, and wide-open living room, dining room, and kitchen make this area of the house one of my favorites.
“Smells delicious.” I kick off my heels and collapse into a plush leather couch.
“Long day?”
“Long life at this point.” I shrug off my blazer. “We’ll be having a guest join us.”
“Eric is on his way?”
I grimace. “Yes, but not him. Well, perhaps him. I’m going to try to convince him a hotel makes more sense.”
Eric won’t agree, but the discussion was worth making him understand he’s not wanted.
“I need the room furthest from mine, the one with an attached bathroom, for my guest.”
Lena raises her eyebrows as she stirs something in a pot on the stove. She’s eleven years older than me and still as beautiful as the day I met her. Snow White comes to mind. Lena’s worked for my family for so long she sometimes treats me more like her child than her employer. She started just after my brother died. My dad consoled himself with this chalet...and Lena.
“Is this guest a man?”
“He is.”
“Would that person be the fugitive the FBI is searching for? A certain Finn Donaghey?”
I pucker my lips and turn away.
“He can’t return to America.” Lena comes around the island and perches on one of the couches across from me.
“I know.” I stare at the beams running across the ceiling. “I’m getting him on his feet.”
“In your house.”
“Yes.”
The heat of Lena’s gaze is palpable, but I won’t meet it. She’s wondering what else I’ll do to get him on his feet. But I’ve been down that route with Finn before, and I don’t intend to go there again. My father taught me men can’t be faithful. That kind of loyalty isn’t in their DNA. My engagement experiment with Eric proved I can’t turn a blind eye. At least not anymore.
“I’m not a twenty-eight-year-old girl addicted to bad boys and danger. I’ve grown up. I’m a forty-five-year-old woman who knows better.”
A smile is in Lena’s voice when she says, “Let’s hope so.” She rises and goes back to the kitchen to stir her pot. “He’s a fugitive from the FBI. That’s not a life for anyone. Certainly not the head of an international arms company who likes to pretend she’s squeaky clean.”
I sink deeper into the couch and put my feet on the coffee table. Pretending might not be an option about a lot of things.
Chapter Three
Finn
I hold the buzzer again. Eve pokes her head in the door and doesn’t quite suppress her sigh.
“Come fluff my pillows.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“Please.”
As she walks toward the bed, I lean forward, and she bunches the pillows, making them bigger. I just wanted to see if she’d do it. I’ve been coming up with shitty jobs for her since Carys left. No phone. No internet. No TV. No books. I’m not sure what Carys thought I would do with my time, but annoying the nurse seems to be it. And digging for whatever she doesn’t want me to find out.
“That ring.” I gesture to her left hand. “What’s your boyfriend’s name again?”
“Uhh.” She bunches her hands into the sides of the pillows with more determination. “Peter.”
I smirk. She said Paul earlier.
“It’s funny. Looks a lot like something Carys would wear.”
Stifling a groan, I ease onto the pillow. There’s nothing about Carys I don’t notice. Nothing in this room is to her taste, which is surprising. The yellow and brown tones aren’t colors she’d choose.
“So Peter-Paul lives around here?”
“In Zur—” Her eyes grow wide and she blinks.
Zur-Zur-Zurich? She smuggled me to fucking Switzerland. “Ah, the Alps.” I wink at her. “I won’t tell her you spilled the beans.”
Eve’s accent makes a lot more sense now.
“When do you have to return her ring?”
She stares at me, turns on her heel, and hauls ass out the door. Right now, I guess.
I sink further under the covers and wonder whether I can get the nurse into the room again. Perhaps I went a bit too far. Amuses the shit out of me that Carys gave her a fake engagement ring to wear, but didn’t coach her on the backstory. After having my ass handed to me by Kimi, my very own undercover FBI agent, Eve’s ineptitude is laughable.
“I’m glad you find this whole thing funny.” In the doorway, Carys has her arms crossed.
Gone are the skirt and tight white shirt, and in its place are dark jeans and a flowing, girly shirt. The other outfit was better.
“You gotta admit,” I say, giving her a ring and not helping her build a backstory is careless.”
She shrugs and then wanders into the room. “I wanted you deterred, not deceived.”
“We’re in Switzerland, huh? You woulda had to break a shit-ton of laws to get me here.”
“You won’t be able to go back.” She stops near my bed, out of reach.
She must be able to sense what will happen if she gets too close.
“What information do the feds have?” I say.
“You’re missing. That’s the news story.”
“Kimi will make sure they suspect you.”
She squares her shoulders and stands taller. “There’s nothing they can do if you’re here. I paid everyone involved very well. I had to string the extraction together last minute, so I didn’t use my best, most trusted people, but it’ll be fine.”
Resurrection Page 2