I let my arms drop and the bottom of my jacket brushed the sidewalk. “Hailey…”
“Don’t fucking say my name like that. Don’t say my name like I owe you something. Why are you here?” Her eyes were blazing, and it was making me hot. Her lips were pressed in a thin line and her cheeks had turned a bright shade of pink.
I took another step toward her and I could smell the scent of vanilla and roses. It hit me like a sledgehammer, taking me back to those days when nothing had been wrong between us. When we were kids, and we’d had our whole lives ahead of us. When we’d been happy.
“Hailey,” I said softly. “Just… Stay away from Gianni. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” Hailey’s eyebrows arched and anger poured off her in waves. It made me want her even more. My cock throbbed as she dropped her arms to her sides, shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable. Have you forgotten what I did for you? That my family disowned me because of you?”
“Wait, what?”
That wasn’t what her father told me would happen. That’s not why I left. Her father promised me that she’d be taken care of.
Hailey held up a hand. “You show up here on the biggest night of my life, when I’ve just sold every single painting in that gallery, and you tell me that I should throw it all away? Do you realize what you’re asking me to do?”
“Gianni…”
“Gianni is a creep, but he’s never tried anything with me. I can take care of myself, Freddy—you should know that by now. You should walk away and leave me to deal with my own shit, just like you did ten years ago. I didn’t need you then, and I don’t need you now. Goodbye, Freddy.”
Hailey turned away from me and I inhaled at the sight of her back. Her dress plunged down to her waist and all I wanted to do was rip it off her. The door to the apartment lobby opened and a man appeared, glancing from her to me.
“Everything okay, babe?”
Babe?
“Everything is fine.” Hailey didn’t look back. The man in the doorway narrowed his eyes at me, and I wanted to smash his face against the brick wall until his blood splattered across it. He slid his hand down Hailey’s spine and I almost lost it.
But Hailey glanced over her shoulder, her eyes so full of pain that I stayed rooted to the ground.
I did that to her. I caused that pain.
The apartment door closed, and the man’s filthy hand stayed glued to Hailey’s silken skin. I watched them until they disappeared into the elevator, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
5
Hailey
Jayden frowned at me as we stepped into the apartment. “Who was that guy?” His dirty blonde hair was messier than usual and he smelled like whiskey.
“No one.”
“Didn’t look like no one.”
I dropped my clutch on the coffee table and turned toward my boyfriend. “Where were you, Jayden? Why didn’t you come?”
“Oh, don’t give me that. I was at work, Hailey. One of us has to do it.” He spat the words like he always did when he wanted to hurt me. “Who was that guy outside?”
“This was the biggest night of my career, and you—what? You went out drinking? You said you were finished with work at eight o’clock. It’s almost midnight! You said you’d come.” I glanced at Jayden with as much venom as I could muster, but truthfully, I didn’t really care. Something had been off between us for months, and I’d enjoyed being on my own tonight. I didn’t know if it was because of the gallery opening or because of Freddy, but a part of me liked not having anyone by my side.
Jayden had never really supported me being an artist. He’d made comments here and there about me getting a ‘real’ job. Selling those paintings—without him there—was more satisfying than I could say.
It was callous, but I felt like I didn’t need him anymore. The part of me that had relied on Jayden for strength—strength which he seemed to sap from me whenever he felt like it—was starting to disappear.
“By the time I got off work it was too late,” Jayden said, turning away from me. I could tell by the twitch in his lip that he was lying. I always knew when he was lying, but I never seemed to have the energy to call him out on it. He fidgeted with his shirt before whipping back toward me. “Are you cheating on me?”
“What?” A jet of cold shot through me as Jayden stomped forward. His eyes were hazy. Maybe he’d had more to drink than I thought. He was a bartender, and some nights he drank on the job. If he’d finished work at eight, he must have stayed there and drank his tips away.
“Well, I don’t know, Hailey. You go tramping around town with nothing but a fucking handkerchief on your body and then you show up at our door with some dude. What am I supposed to think?”
“Excuse me?”
“I know you’re lying to me, Hailey. I can see it on your face. You’ve been sleeping with that guy, haven’t you? I saw the way you looked at him.” He grabbed my arms with his hands, squeezing until it hurt.
I yelped, shaking him off and staggering back. “Fuck you, Jayden. You’re drunk. You didn’t even have the decency to show up at my first major exhibition, and now you’re accusing me of cheating? What is wrong with you? Where have you been?”
“Oh, don’t turn this back on me. I see what you’re doing.”
My chest heaved as I took deep breaths, my anger brimming just under my skin. There were too many emotions warring inside me. I stared at Jayden and it felt like a haze was lifting from my eyes. This is what he did. He attacked, accused, belittled and berated me until he was in control.
I thought about the way that I felt when Freddy looked at me—it was nothing like this. A flash of emotion coursed through me and I knew that I wanted Freddy.
Needed him.
In a way, it felt like cheating. I shouldn’t have been having any feelings like that for anyone besides Jayden. We’d been together for two years.
Jayden’s nostrils flared as he looked at me. I could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. It was nauseating. He looked me up and down, his lips curled in disgust. “I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
“Out.” The door slammed behind him, and I listened as his footsteps faded down the hallway. I stood in the middle of my living room, unmoving.
He walked out on me. He missed the biggest night of my life to go drinking, then accused me of cheating, then walked out on me.
But, hey—Freddy wasn’t much better. He’d turned his back on me, too.
My lower lip trembled and I blinked away tears. I wasn’t going to cry. Not tonight. I’d just made enough money to support myself for a whole year, and already had three people interested in commissioning paintings. I finally had a foothold in the art world, and shitty Jayden and his shitty accusations wouldn’t ruin that for me.
No way.
I walked to the door and locked both the doorknob and the deadbolt, leaning my forehead against the frame. I took a long, shuddering breath before I finally straightened my shoulders.
Between Jayden, Freddy, and the stress leading up to tonight’s event, I was exhausted. I needed a shower and a trough full of wine.
The water washed away my stress and my worries. I spent extra time washing my hair and cleaning the makeup off my face. Then, I stood underneath the stream and closed my eyes, replaying the events of the night.
Gianni, Freddy, Jayden—they all swirled in my thoughts until I didn’t know what to think anymore.
Freddy was the past. He reappeared tonight, of all nights, and it threw me off. But he was the past, and I needed to look forward.
Gianni was my ticket out of this shitty apartment and into a better life. He believed in me. He made me believe in myself. He was my future—not romantically, of course—but I needed him.
And Jayden?
I sighed. Jayden had been there when things were tough. He was wicked and sexy and made me feel like a woman, but…
I turned the shower off, wringing my hair out and watchin
g the water drain away between my feet.
Jayden was distant. He had a short temper. Something inside me told me that he wasn’t being honest with me. Why explode at me about cheating unless he was hiding something? Being free of him tonight had been… nice.
I shook the thought away and wrapped myself in a towel. Picking the rented dress up off the bathroom floor, I felt the slippery fabric between my fingers and my heart squeezed. This dress belonged to a different world—one that I could only rent for a night. A world that my parents belonged to, but which I’d been shut out of for a decade.
The company I’d rented the gown from would take care of dry cleaning it, so I hung the dress up in my closet, running my fingers across the fabric one last time. Then, I swung my eyes around the room and sighed at the sight of Jayden’s clothes on the floor. He couldn’t even manage to put his laundry in the hamper.
I picked up the items one by one, draping them over my arm. His favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers tee-shirt, his boxers, his jeans—
Something fell out of the back pocket when I slung them over my arm. Lacy, pink fabric tumbled to the ground and my heart fell through my stomach. With the tips of my fingers, I picked up the tiniest thong I’d ever seen in my life.
It had just fallen out of my boyfriend’s back pocket, and it definitely didn’t belong to me. I gaped at the lacy panties for a second, and then gagged and dropped them. Stumbling backward, I caught myself on the bed and stared at the offending undergarment. I let go of the rest of Jaden’s clothes, gulping in a shaking breath as I backed away from it.
My heart thumped. My mind reeled. Surely there was some explanation?
He wasn’t…
He couldn’t…
But before I’d even made it to the living room, I already knew it was true. Somewhere, deep down in my heart, I knew he’d been cheating on me. Nights at the bar got later and later. He came home drunker. He hadn’t touched me in months, and he never held my hand in public. He changed his phone’s passcode and turned off his notifications.
I knew.
But I still went to his bag and scrambled to pull out his laptop. I still opened it up and typed in his password—he hadn’t changed that one, at least. I opened the browser and checked his social media accounts, my hands trembling as I navigated to the messages.
I knew it was wrong. I knew it was an invasion of privacy and I shouldn’t be reading anything, but he lost that privilege when he brought another woman’s thong into our home.
This day had gone from amazing, to bad, to worse, to devastating.
Right there, at the top of his messages, was a message from a girl that had started working with him a couple of months ago. She’d messaged him one minute ago and…
My heart leapt when I saw him respond in real-time from his phone.
My eyes blurred with tears as I clicked on the conversation, my whole chest feeling heavy and hollow at the same time. I knew what I would read, but I still clicked on the message. I still read it. I still put that dagger into my own heart and twisted.
Her: You wanna meet up now?
Him: I want to eat that sweet pussy of yours. Been dreaming of it all day.
I don’t know why I took a screenshot, but I did. Maybe I wanted proof. Maybe I wanted a reminder, if I ever decided to let him back into my life.
Maybe I wanted to torture myself by reading those words over, and over, and over.
I don’t know how long I sat there.
And then there was a knock on the door, and I jumped out of my skin. I slammed Jayden’s laptop closed, stuffing it back into his bag before scrambling to my feet. I waited for the lock to scratch open—for Jayden’s cheating, whisky-smelling face to walk back through the door…
…but he didn’t.
I shook my head, inhaling. He wouldn’t knock. He had a key. This was his apartment. I was still only wearing a towel, and I glanced at the door suspiciously.
“Who is it?”
There was a beat of silence, and then Freddy’s deep voice shook me to my soul. “It’s me.”
6
Freddy
I was still waiting for Gary to show up when Hailey’s boyfriend stomped out of the apartment building in a hurry. He wavered on his feet, drunk. Tapping on his phone, he headed down the street away from me.
My gut told me something was wrong.
I don’t even know why I followed him. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the Russos, or with the operation. I just acted on instinct.
Actually, scratch that. I know exactly why I followed him. I wanted to know what kind of guy had managed to get Hailey. I wanted to see where he was going. I didn’t like the way he had looked at me, or how he’d put his arm around Hailey so possessively. Something about him was off.
So I followed him.
I was crazy, paranoid, out of line—it didn’t matter. I was following him as he stumbled down the street and made his way to the nearest bar. I took a seat in the back corner and ordered a soda when the waitress came. I watched him order a shot and a beer, all the while tapping on his phone.
I watched as a woman walked in and draped her arm over his shoulder. He ground his crotch toward her and squeezed her ass with his hand. He lay a sloppy kiss on her mouth. It only took him a few seconds to slap some bills on the bar and stumble out with her. The two of them got into a cab and took off in the opposite direction.
And my blood boiled.
Hailey didn’t deserve that. She deserved to be treated like a queen. She deserved to be worshipped. Not cheated on by some drunk asshole.
Not betrayed by her high school love. Not forced to change her name and forge a new life for herself.
My heart squeezed. No wonder her paintings were so full of pain. She’d been through so much. She attracted hurt like a magnet, absorbing it all and regurgitating it onto a canvas. And most of it had started with me. All that anguish stemmed from what I’d done, and what she’d taken the blame for.
I needed to see her. It was past midnight, but I didn’t care. I needed to tell her to be careful. If anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself.
Jogging back down the street, I couldn’t even think straight. I knew it was a bad idea. What was I going to do? Barge into her apartment and tell her that her boyfriend was cheating on her? Beg her to forgive me and to choose me instead? Explain to her that I was working for the CIA and Gianni Russo was dangerous?
I couldn’t do any of those things. I arrived at her apartment and stared up at the grey brick building, my heart jumping in my chest. This plan—if you could call it a plan—was idiotic. I couldn’t even get into the building, let alone talk to her. And even if I did get inside, I was the last person she would want to see.
But something compelled me forward.
I waited a few minutes until an older man walked out of the building. I waited until his back was turned and I then slipped inside before the door clicked shut. Once in the lobby, I bit my lip. My heart thumped as I scanned the inside of the building. The carpet was worn, but clean. The paint was peeling and there was a water stain on the ceiling, but the lobby smelled fresh.
I stood frozen. I didn’t know what apartment Hailey was in. I did know she’d taken the elevator…
A stack of junk mail sat forgotten in the corner by the mailboxes. I rummaged through flyers and envelopes, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one surprised me. When I found her name on a piece of junk mail, my mouth went dry and my heart hammered.
Apartment 412.
I was running on adrenaline as I made my way up to her floor. My singular focus was seeing Hailey’s face again. Making sure she was okay. Warning her to be careful. Nothing else mattered.
And when I heard her voice through the door, asking who was there, a wave of heat washed over me
“It’s me.”
There was rummaging on the other side of the door. “One second,” she called out. My heart beat harder. That wasn’t go away, or what are you doing here. On
e second meant she would open the door. One second meant I would see her, smell her, be next to her.
When the door opened, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to see the rawness of her. The closeness. The blinding, inextinguishable light that came from her. She was… everything.
I sucked in a breath. “Hey.”
Hailey was wearing a black tank top and plaid pajama pants. Her hair was wet, hanging down on either side of her face and dripping onto her shirt. My eyes drifted from her eyes, to her lips, and down her irresistible body. Her top hugged her curves, and my jeans grew tighter.
I looked at her face again. She’d been crying. She glanced down the hallway behind me and frowned. “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”
“Slipped in as someone was leaving.”
“You were always good at sneaking into places.” Her eyes flashed and I remembered scaling the brick wall up to her window when we were teens. For an instant, I felt like I was a kid again—hormonal and desperate and in love.
She opened the door wider and my heart tried to run away from me again. I walked in as she closed the door behind me. She locked it and put her hands on her hips, arching an eyebrow. “So, why are you here?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay. I saw your boyfriend leave.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she corrected me, looking away. Her eyebrows knitted together.
Ex? That shouldn’t have made me as happy as it did, but my pulse quickened and I forced myself not to smile. I bit my lower lip and she dragged her eyes back to mine.
“I’m fine,” she said to my unspoken question.
I took a step toward her, and the whole world felt off-balance. Hailey’s apartment fell away. The distant sound of a siren faded. All I could see was her face, angry and sad and open, staring back at me. We stood chest-to-chest, and I brought my hand up to her cheek. I brushed my knuckles over her skin and she exhaled, leaning into my touch.
The Protector: The Complete C.I.A. Romance Series Page 39