Chad rested against the closed door, stifling an urge to bang his head against it. What the hell had he just done? How had he let it get that far?
I’ve only ever wanted you. Bull. Shit.
Not after the way she’d had the divorce papers delivered to him. In front of the press by a goddamned process server who looked like he should still be in junior high and hadn’t even started shaving yet. The kid was intimidated about serving a guy wearing a gun and had stuttered when he’d asked Chad his name. At least until he spotted the cameras. Then he’d adopted a swagger worthy of a rap star.
At least Sam had his back. Once they had Hauberk up and running, Sam had taken on that damned firm in a long bloody takeover. Hauberk had gained a lot of new customers when they’d finally emerged victorious and that had set them on the path to where they were now-the biggest, most reputable personal protection firm on the east coast.
He stomped into the bathroom and turned on the shower. He undid his shirt buttons, barely stopping himself from ripping the damned shirt off. His still-rampant hard-on caused him some grief with the zipper, but soon his trousers sailed across the bathroom to land in a heap in the corner. Goddamn her.
I’m not playing a game.
Damned straight she was playing a game. With his nuts as the dice.
He stepped into the shower, not caring that the water was too hot. Served him right. He grabbed a bar of soap and lathered his hands. Why the hell had he stopped? Why hadn’t he taken his due?
Because he’d be damned if he’d let her drag him back into the hell of thinking she cared for him.
His soapy fist wrapped around his cock, jerking it rapidly. He should have taken his time with her. Tied her to the bed. Teased her to the point of orgasm then left her wanting the way she’d done with him. Or taken her hard, worrying only about pleasing himself.
Fuck. He’d forgotten to use a condom. Who knew who she’d been with? How could he have been so fucking stupid? Because he’d let himself forget they weren’t married, forgotten that their rules for sex had changed with the stroke of a judge’s pen.
He’d walked on eggshells for too damned long around her. Let her turn away from him when they were in bed for almost a year. Only to come home and find she’d moved out, run all the way to fucking England. He fisted his dick with hard, angry strokes. So he’d made a decision at work without consulting her. That was his fucking job. To make decisions. Didn’t she understand he’d had no choice but to send Sam and Jill in undercover? That no one else was stepping up to the plate to protect Thalia? That it was his duty to protect his sister? The same as it was to protect Lauren? The way he’d failed to protect Emily.
With a roar, he slammed his fist into the wall, not caring that the tile cracked. Oh, God, Emily. Even after the coroner’s report proved there was nothing they could have done, Lauren had blamed him for Em’s death. Hell, how could he blame her? He blamed himself. There had to have been something he could have done but Emily had been cold and rigid even before he’d tried CPR. He slumped against the wall, letting the water cascade over him. Maybe if they had gotten up earlier instead of sleeping in that morning, maybe if…like it had every other time he tried to think of something he could have done, he came up blank.
Enough of this shit, he finally told himself.
After roughly applying the soap to the rest of his body, he ducked his head under the shower then shut off the water. He grabbed a towel as he considered the question of what he needed to do now.
Phone Sam. Find out if he knew that Lauren would be his principal.
Probably not, he decided. If he had, Sam would have moved heaven and earth to make sure Chad had not been assigned as her lead op; Sam didn’t like Lauren any more than she liked him.
So Sam had been manipulated too. No easy feat.
He tossed the towel over the shower rail and ensured the edges were aligned before picking up his clothes where he’d dropped them. Once they were properly folded, he strode naked into his room.
Maybe Weir had access to one of Sam’s contacts? Sam’s little birdie, the one who put the bug in his ear about the upcoming article?
He stopped in the middle of the room. That’s where he had to look. Would Sam tell him who had given him the scoop? Once he found out that he’d been manipulated, damned straight he would. Sam would be as pissed as he was right now. Then Sam would ensure that birdie would sing soprano for the rest of his fucking life. He grabbed a shirt out of the closet and replaced the hanger. The routine of dressing, doing up each button one by one helped him focus. His shirt properly buttoned, he grabbed a pair of underwear from the dresser, smoothing the pile he’d disturbed. A clean pair of freshly pressed dress pants were shaken out, and jerked on. Socks. Black. Calf-length so no ankle showed.
By the time he was completely dressed, his movements were smooth, his thoughts focused. Only then did he pick up his BlackBerry and punch in Sam’s number.
No answer.
After leaving a voice message, he booted up his laptop and logged onto Hauberk’s VPN.
“Dear Sam, I respectfully request to be transferred…” No, that wasn’t right. “Sam, I need a favor…”
Not once had he asked to be taken off a case. Not with the FBI and not with Hauberk. So, damn it, he wasn’t taking no for an answer.
A half hour-and numerous deletions-later he finally hit send.
An hour later, he was checking his email for…well, he’d given up counting how many times he’d hit “check mail”, when there was a knock at the hallway door. Before he could respond, it opened and Troy walked in.
“Thought you’d like to know the extra men just arrived.” Troy closed the door behind him and rested against it. “I’ve handed out the rotation you drew up. Everything should be good to go.”
“Thanks, but I could have handled it.”
“I know but I was there checking out the cameras and everything else, so I took care of it.” Instead of leaving the way Chad had expected, Troy stayed in place. He tilted his head to one side as he considered Chad. “You okay, mate?”
Ah. So that was the purpose of visiting in person. Chad nodded. “I admit I was surprised to see her.”
His answer didn’t satisfy Troy. “Sorry I couldn’t give you any more warning than I did, but-”
So he hadn’t known it would be Lauren he was escorting either. “It’s okay. You were following protocol. You couldn’t call me. I understand.”
Troy pushed away from the door and wandered into the room. “Helluva a shock for me too when I recognized her.”
He’d recognized her? “How did you know her? You’ve never met her before.”
There was a long pause. When Troy responded he didn’t look at Chad, and he kept his voice low. “I know about the picture you keep in your desk.” He finally looked up. “I wasn’t trying to snoop but you were off somewhere-at some meeting with a client or something and we needed a file. Sandy wasn’t there so I went through your desk.”
Ah. Here he’d been thinking…who knows what he’d been thinking. “Don’t worry about it.”
There was another pause. “Are you leaving in the morning?”
In other words, was Troy to take over?
Would Troy keep Lauren safe? Of course. So why the hesitation in telling Troy he’d already asked to be transferred? “It’s under consideration. I tried to get a hold of Sam earlier, but I haven’t heard back from him yet.”
“Maybe he’s trying to smooth things over with Rosie for cancelling their vacation.”
Which meant they were probably jumping each other’s bones on the desk. Or in that fucking huge shower.
Maybe he was just jealous that Sam’s love life had finally come together. Damned stubborn bastard had been closing himself off since Jill’s death; it was good to see him finally find someone to love again. Which brought Chad right back around to his original hunch-he’d been set up. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Chad closed his eyes. “Fuck.”
He opened his eyes and shot Troy a hard glare. “Is this some way he’s come up with to try to force me to get over her? Or get her out of my system or something?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, mate.” Troy met his gaze evenly, his voice unaffected. If he’d been anyone else Chad would swear he was telling the truth, but Troy was a consummate liar.
“Why would Weir come to Hauberk if he knew Lauren and I had been married? No one in their right mind would go to an ex-husband to protect a woman.” He ran through their conversation again. “No. It’s too coincidental.”
“And you don’t like coincidences.” Troy took a deep breath but not once did he break Chad’s gaze. “I know you don’t believe me right now but swear to God, I had no idea it would be your ex that I’d be escorting.” Instead of shutting the fuck up, Troy continued, “You’re a better man than me. If it had been my ex, I would have shown her the gate and told her to fend for herself.”
He’d considered it. Seriously. Heaven help him if he had to be around her another day. Now he’d had a taste of her, a reminder of what she felt like around him, his dick had taken over his thinking and was seriously planning the various ways he could get her horizontal next time. Not good. “Look, since you’re planning on hanging around a couple extra days anyway, why don’t I just head back to D.C. now?”
Troy’s gaze might have been a laser beam from the look he shot him. “You still fancy her, don’t you?”
Fancy her? He’d just jerked off fantasizing about her; that was a big affirmative. “We’re divorced.”
“That’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it?” Troy tapped his chest. “But here, inside. That part of you wants another go at her, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
Annoyed at the line of thought Troy’s questions were taking, he stomped into the bathroom and picked up his razor, packing it neatly in its case. When had he decided to leave in the morning whether he’d heard from Sam or not?
“From the looks of your neck, I’d say you may have already had another go at her.” Troy had followed him, damn it, and now leaned against the doorframe.
A glance in the mirror revealed Lauren had left a mark on his neck. Damn it, why hadn’t he seen that earlier? Because he was too damned busy whacking off. He grabbed the toothpaste and toothbrush and tucked them into their compartment. “Why are you so interested anyway? What the fuck is it to you?”
Troy moved aside when Chad pushed past, trailing him to the bedroom like a goddamned lost puppy. “I may not have been married, but I do know a thing or two about women and how they wind up a man’s guts.”
Maybe Troy knew about fucking them, but he knew jackshit about keeping them. Then again what did Chad know? He was batting O for one right now, wasn’t he? “I’m not about to go crawling back on my hands and knees. She was damned clear she didn’t want anything to do with me. She thought…”
Troy waited a long moment before prompting, “What did she think?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does, though doesn’t it? Otherwise you wouldn’t have mentioned it.”
Unwilling to slog through that emotional swampland, Chad shrugged one shoulder. “She put up with a lot of shit when we were married. Not to mention how the press dragged her through the mud right along with me. Everyone at the bureau thought she’d known what I’d done and had helped cover it up. They made it impossible for her to work there anymore so she ended up having to quit. Even in our personal life-friends she’d had since high school dumped her because of what the press was saying about us.”
He’d already lost her by then. She’d pulled away from him after Emily’s death. He’d not realized why until that last big fight. By then it had been too late to do anything.
“I’d say they weren’t good friends if they walked away when she needed them.”
It took Chad a moment to realize what Troy was talking about. “It doesn’t matter. Lauren was right. It was my fault the marriage didn’t work.”
Chad walked to the window and stared out, assessing the guards patrolling the grounds. What were the guards he couldn’t see doing? Were they alert to their surroundings? Or were they goofing off, texting their girlfriends or playing some game they’d downloaded on their cell phone?
“Do you really believe that? That it was your fault?”
“I’m the one who fucked up. I’m the reason she ended up with her picture splashed over the fucking tabloids.” How they’d managed to get that video of the two of them in their bedroom he still hadn’t discovered.
“Bugger that,” Troy snarled. “Stop feeling so goddamned sorry for yourself, man. From what I’ve heard, there was nothing you could have done to have saved your daughter’s life. People die and most times there’s nothing you can do about it but suck it up and move on.”
Chad whirled to face him. “You’re preaching to the choir about death. I know all about it. My father was killed in the line of duty-shot by a goddamned drug addict during a routine traffic stop. My mother was murdered eight years later.” He clenched his fists “Less than a year after Emily died, my sister got shot. She may not be dead but she’s in a wheelchair because I couldn’t protect her. So do not talk to me about how people die.”
“Take your head out of your goddamned arse for once and stop blaming yourself. You were, what, eleven when your father was killed? There is no way you can blame yourself for that. You were living in Boston when that sick bastard lured your mother into showing him that home she had up for sale. There was nothing you could have done to have helped. There was nothing anyone could have done. As for your daughter, her death wasn’t your fault either. It is what it is. Stop blaming yourself.”
It is what it is. How he hated that phrase. Nothing was as it should be. The anger, the ire, drained from Chad as if Troy had pulled a plug, leaving him with an emptiness that was even worse. “I keep thinking I should have seen something, some sign.”
Troy squeezed his shoulder. “Lauren feels the same way. Not about you being responsible, but that she should have seen something too. You two need to talk before you leave, about that if nothing else.”
“How would you know?”
“I just do.”
They’d been stuck on a plane together for hours with nothing to do. If Troy had recognized her, maybe they’d talked. He closed the cover on his suitcase and zipped it shut. Stay. I don’t want to be alone tonight.
What about tomorrow night? Or last night? Or the night before? She’d been the one to run away last time, now he was walking away from her. Self-preservation, instinct, he didn’t know which was placing the suitcase by the door, but he’d be damned if he’d let her rip his heart from his chest again.
Maybe that was the question he should be asking himself: why did she still have the power to hurt him after all these years?
“Because you still love her. More’s the pity.”
He stared at Troy. “What?”
“You asked how she still had the power to hurt you.”
He’d said that out loud?
“I know you look at that picture in your desk a half dozen times a day. You still love her.” Troy tapped the top of Chad’s suitcase. “So, what are you going to do about it? You going to run? Because that hasn’t worked for either of you so far, has it?”