by K L Clare
Tears and regret flooded her eyes.
“Talk to me, Elle.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. You don’t deserve to be spoken to that way.” She pushed her gaze higher into mine. “The dreams are the same, Will. Always the same. But, God, what if it’s not Simon Parker’s face that I see—what if it’s Devon’s face?”
“Devon Parker will never touch you.”
The tears spilled down her cheeks. “You’re planning to kill him.”
“Yes.”
“When did you know?”
“The day you went to see him in jail, he became a dead man walking. There’s no way I can let him live. You know who I am, Elle, and you know there is no other way round this for me.”
Her head moved up and down in a slight, corroborating gesture. “I really thought the worst was over for us, that we could be happy and normal and have a family.” She sniffed and wiped at the watery fear rolling down her face. I caught as many tears with my thumbs as she allowed. “I mean, I know we have a family now, but we deserve to add to it. We deserve to have our own children.”
“We will have that—I promise you we’ll have it. There is time, Elle.” A charged wave of angst ripped through me and was gone as quickly as it had risen. Time. The loss of it was the one motherfucking thing we both feared most.
She touched my face, her eyes questioning the truth of the matter, and I wanted to take the words back and eliminate them from my brain.
“I only mean that we need space to settle into our marriage before additional weight is added to our relationship. We’ll have children. But first, I need to know I won’t lose you.”
“When we got married, Will, I made a commitment to you. You and me first. Always. Remember? We said we would choose each other first every single day.” Elle kissed my mouth, the taste of salt from the tears lingering on her lips, then she presented me with a smile. “That doesn’t mean you can’t learn to share just a little.”
“Maybe . . . but not today.” The muscles in my face relaxed, and I grinned.
I slid my hand along the curve of her hip under the cover of my jacket, the silk of her gown all that separated our skin, and gripped her arse, using it to give her a slight lift until my mouth was on her neck. I sucked hard on the white birthmark located over her carotid, turning it a deep shade of red. Her pulse beat against my tongue when I licked it.
Mine, goddammit.
My clever wife, knowing that my cock was pushing above the waistband of my trousers, whispered in my ear. “Come to bed with me tonight. Please.”
And there it was in its richest form—her unquestionable power. I was desperate to shove into her tight, velvety heaven, but only a fool would believe the promise of sex could so easily influence a man like me. The power Elle wielded came from the way she needed me, the way she pleaded for me to give her what she needed. That she shamelessly wanted me was the force that crafted her power.
Maybe that was it—perhaps my desire for Elle to need me, for her to plead with me over it, was what made me the sick fuck I’d become.
I grabbed her hand and kissed the back of her fingers while contracting my glutes to redirect the blood away from my erection. The heaviness in my bollocks eased, but the ache for release persisted. “All right, baby,” I breathed. “I won’t leave you alone. I’ll come to bed.”
Sirens. Blaring sirens sounded, and flashing blue and red beams illuminated the vicinity.
Taylor stopped the car in the middle of the street.
The rotating blades of a helicopter thrummed above the stalled traffic.
“It’s the Met Police’s firearms command. There’s been an attack at Kensington train station. Command is searching all passenger cars. We won’t be permitted to pass.” Taylor lowered his hand from his comms earpiece and cursed. “They pulled your brother out of the car ahead, sir.”
26
The emergency lights of the Met Police armed response vehicles allowed me to see Thomas’s silhouette. He was facing one of the vehicles with his hands flattened against it, his head dropped between his arms and his legs spread wide. They were searching him for weapons.
Neither of us was armed. We were no longer forced to assume that risk because Taylor and Evans could now carry legally, and one of them was always with Elle.
“What the fuck do they think they’re doing?” I snarled. “Get your shoes on, Elle.”
“Don’t even,” Ben said from the front passenger seat. “They want nothing more than for you to give them a reason to take you into custody, and you know it. You’re not getting out of this goddamned car.”
“Commissioner Brown would never do such a thing,” Elle interjected.
Ben twisted to face her. “Not the commissioner. We know you’ve got him, and that’s quite an advantage you’ve gained for us, but the home secretary has bribed foot soldiers on the ground and given direction to apprehend your husband should an opportunity arise.” He turned to me. “They don’t want Thomas. They pulled him out to get to you. Don’t play into it.”
During our last meeting, Director Martin mentioned that his superior, the home secretary, who was also the commissioner’s director, was losing patience with the prime minister’s recent deference to the Crown’s rather discreet commands.
I made a mental note to visit to the prime minister soon to make certain he and the Crown and I continued to be on the same page. Our agreement provided protection for Elle and kept me out of prison. Most government leaders, like the home secretary, understood that I was one among a short list of killers who was permitted to walk free and prosper. I’d earned my place on the list by eliminating national security menaces as ordered by the Crown or the Security Service, before and after my father’s passing, as well as by way of financial blackmail.
“They will give me no choice—they’ll force me out of the car just the same. Identify yourself as an AFO, Taylor, and if they make her get out of the car, you cover every fucking centimeter of her body with your own. And Taylor, I want some goddamned names.”
No one knew the politics of this city better than I did. The home secretary loathed me enough to allow this delay of firearms command resources during the chaotic aftermath of a terror attack, in which innocent people were frightened and injured or worse.
Panic was written all over Elle’s face. She dug her fingers into my thigh and said nothing, her words locked inside the anxiety that consumed her. Rage beat through my veins as I watched her suffer through another hell she didn’t deserve.
“Elle, stay in the car unless I tell you to step out. Don’t listen to anyone else. It doesn’t matter what they say. You will listen only to me.” My voice was low, my tone hard-hitting. I wanted complete obedience from her in this instance, and behaving in a hawkish manner was the only way to get that from her, to make her understand the severity of the situation. “You’ll look at me and agree.”
“Okay,” she breathed, her gaze sealed onto mine. “Only you.”
“This isn’t about us. We’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that’s unfortunate, but that’s all it is. We must keep it that way. Yes?”
If she were physically exposed in such a volatile setting, it would be impossible for me to maintain my focus on getting us the hell out of there without rousing my anger.
She nodded. “Don’t upset them, Will. Don’t lose your temper and make it about us. Get back into the car with me as quickly as you can.”
I bent to kiss her lips to reassure her of my compliance, and armed command officers wrenched open all four car doors.
“AFO,” Taylor quickly shouted with his hands held high. “I’m an authorized firearms officer for the Met.” He looked back at me. “Sir, put your hands above your head so my colleagues can see that you are no threat.” Ben had already done the same.
“The three of us will step out of the car if that’s your request. I insist you allow the Countess of Sussex to remain inside the vehicle and close the doors for her safet
y,” he added.
The home secretary—the smug prick who directed the armed response unit—wanted me, not Elle. He considered her an innocent party regarding my crimes, and his foot soldiers seemed to understand that. Thank Christ. This had been the most significant reason for me choosing to reclaim my grandfather’s title, to give it to Elle. Not only because she deserved respect but because she could more easily be identified in precarious situations where it may save her from harm.
“Countess, you may remain in the vehicle. The rest of you, get the fuck out, and keep your hands above your heads,” one of the command officers said. He was armed with a Sig Sauer semiautomatic rifle.
The temperature of my blood rapidly increased.
The three of us stepped out of the car while Elle slid across the leather upholstery to my side of the car. I held her gaze, warning her to do as she’d been told. She gave a small nod to reassure me that she would follow my instructions, and in turn, she narrowed her eyes to caution me about my next moves.
Reproving messages echoed inside my head.
Keep your shit together. Rein in the anger to keep her safe.
I spread my hands flat on the roof of the car and kept my mouth shut when I was forced against it and ordered to spread my legs. I would not risk being taken away from Elle.
Thomas’s form appeared in the headlights as he made his way to my side. “You’re wasting the people’s resources here,” he said to the officers. “There is a terrorist fucking off round the city somewhere, but instead of tracking him, you choose to harass an uninvolved citizen and his family?”
“Thomas,” I growled. “Go back to your car.”
I didn’t need my cocky brother provoking anyone into unnecessary action, least of all me.
“You know why. Go. Now.” I angled my head in his direction and nailed him with my stare. He needed to see the intensity of the anger rising in me. He would understand, and he would go back to his car and wait for us.
Thomas returned a knowing look and took a couple of steps backwards. “Move this along, then, brother, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
I said nothing, dropped my head between my arms, and submitted to the body search.
Another of the command officers stepped into my space, leaning in close. “Tell me, why does the Earl of Sussex choose to spend so much time in London?”
Breath stormed in and out of my nostrils, and my hands started to itch. Red. It was everywhere. I shut my eyes tightly for a minute and flexed my fingers against the metal of the car. “You know why, motherfucker. You know who I am.” Low and steady. A restrained warning.
Elle rested her fingertips against the window glass near my face. Her pleading eyes burned into mine. “I love you,” she mouthed.
I couldn’t say it back, not in the state of mind I was in. I wouldn’t soil words meant to express how I loved her by saying them when rage consumed me, so I dropped my eyes. “Get on with it, you corrupt son of a bitch,” I snarled.
He followed protocol and searched me as he was trained to do, but before he removed his hands from my body, he stepped even closer to hide the way he ran his riot baton between my legs and pressed it against my testicles.
“Devon Parker is a friend of mine. We couldn’t have predicted this opportunity, but I’m quite sure he won’t mind me delivering his regards to your pretty wife a day earlier than planned,” he said.
He was not only paid well by the home secretary, but also he had a personal connection.
And with that, he’d marked his own death.
Beautiful White Lies
From: Ellie
To: Isobel
It’s been a while. There hasn’t been much time for me to spend alone with my thoughts, so I need you to hear me, Isobel.
Will is falling back into the shadows that haunt his soul. I saw it in his eyes last night. A menacing combination of emotions stirs inside of him.
The years he had with his father trouble him more now than ever, though he doesn’t share the details with me. It’s not difficult to see that Richard Hastings abused his power and his sons. Will promised we would talk about it one day, and I know that he will keep his word.
And now, enemies we thought were gone are finding their way back into our life through others left behind. My husband will eliminate these threats. I know him. I know this.
He’d said after Connecticut that he would take no more lives. I don’t fault him for the lie.
White lies. The untruths we tell and the secrets we keep from our loved ones to hold them safe from harm, to spare them emotional pain. Everyone lies. Everyone who loves tells white lies. Some are little, some are not.
We tell them knowing the truth will ultimately come to light. We convince ourselves that we can hold them close, never let them go. But we know the deception will be revealed in good time. It rips our hearts to pieces when we tell these lies. Still, we tell the lies.
You lied to keep me safe and again to keep Lissie safe. Your intent was good. I can see the beauty of it now. Your deceit gave us Will. He’s everything Lissie needs. His soul is the only thing that can free me. He is everything I’ve waited for, the one person I can’t live without.
From the moment Will and I returned to England after he’d been shot, he has been committed to finding the power to control his anger, to harnessing its influence in order to change his legacy. He has done well, but my own efforts have set him back.
I thought protecting him from Ethan’s obscurity would spare him the pain.
I was wrong.
My secrecy only hurt him more.
27
Mrs. Bates stood near our bed and spoke low in her rolling Irish lilt. “Thomas and the other lads are waiting in the kitchen. He says you must get up, that you and the countess have important plans this morning.”
We’d arrived home soon after the Met’s armed command had finished searching our car. I feared the man who’d patted me down had no idea with whom he was fucking and what kind of enemy he had created for himself. One day he would face the consequence of being Devon Parker’s messenger.
I had carried my exhausted wife from the car to our bedroom. She’d fallen asleep straightaway with the side of her face resting on the center of my chest, her long locks of hair blanketing parts of us both. I had monitored her breathing, bracing for the nightmares.
I hadn’t been able to sleep. The urge to quietly slip out into the night and track down that motherfucker who dared to place his baton between my legs and deliver that message to Elle had been strong.
The number of faces that inhabited the worst part of me would soon increase.
Anger had punched me in the gut, reminding me who I was born to be, showing me that my father’s purpose for me would never change, no matter how I strived to be a different man. It was a madness. It had encouraged me to leave Elle alone in our bed for the hunt, to make another kill to secure her future.
Still. Nothing was stronger than my determination to shelter my angel inside my arms when she was distraught, so I had stayed. She had been panic-stricken, though she’d tried to hide it.
My mind had finally shut down at the break of dawn, and I had fallen asleep after pulling Elle’s backside tightly against my body. She had rolled from my chest onto her side. That was her tell when she found peaceful rest, a sign that she was clear of the nightmares.
Mrs. Bates tidied the bedside table and waited for my response.
I pulled the sheet above my waist quickly as if she had never seen my naked body. Our housekeeper was a fixture in our homes, caring for my wife as if it were her life’s work, so it was sometimes unavoidable. She was entirely focused on her tasks and didn’t seem to notice, and if she did, she didn’t let it show. I supposed she knew before taking us on that there would be nudity in our bedroom given it was the only place we could find peace from the rest of the world.
Elle and I had accepted that a sense of dang
er and urgency would often take over parts of our life together. Our peace was limited to small fragments of time in between.
“He’s quite right, Mrs. Bates. What time is it?” I covered my eyes as she opened the draperies, letting the frequently scarce sunshine beat against the windowpanes to wake Elle.
“It’s quarter to nine.”
“Christ.” I sat up. “I’ll ring Sean and have the commissioner sent here.”
“I brought breakfast up with me, dearest,” she said to Elle, handing me my mobile from the table. “Let me fetch the tray from the landing so you can get started on coffee and toast.”
“I don’t want to get up,” Elle grumbled. She hadn’t bothered to open her eyes.
“We’re due to see Commissioner Brown at ten o’clock, baby.” Her pretty arse was there next to my hand, mine for the taking. I watched Mrs. Bates exit the room and slid my hand along the curve of it.
Elle complained about the appointment and pushed back into my hand for a firmer touch.
No time, goddammit.
By the time I found some pajama bottoms and came back from the toilet, Elle was sitting up in bed, knees pulled to her chest beneath the sheet, sipping on coffee. There was a smear of raspberry jam near the corner of her mouth. Her hair was a wild mess.
She is so beautiful. Need her.
She smiled. “Stop staring and come eat these fried eggs she carried up for you.”
On my hands and knees, I prowled from the foot of the bed to get to her. “Come here. . . . There’s something on your face. . . .”
Her face lifted to mine. I feigned wiping away the jam with my thumb but then licked the red sweetness off of her face.
“It’s quite good. Give me more.”
Elle set her coffee aside on the bedside table and dipped her finger into the pot. She painted her bottom lip with the jam, and I sucked it off.
“More,” I ordered.