Haydn (Steele Protectors 5)

by Carole Mortimer

  And just like that, Hailey knew she had not only resigned from the job she loved but also separated herself from the people—the man?—who had become the only family she had known for eight years.

  Which was another good reason for her to leave.

  Friendships were messy, those friends often becoming inquisitive, and Hailey’s past said she couldn’t answer a single one of their questions honestly.

  She should go now and not bother with putting in her notice. Just throw some things into a backpack and go. She could book into a hotel overnight until she was able to relocate.

  Tears scalded her eyes at the thought of never seeing Haydn again.

  She wanted one more day with him.

  Just one.

  Please.

  Chapter Two

  “Whatcha doin’?” Logan brought himself a stool to sit down beside Haydn as he sat hunched over the laptop on his desktop.

  Haydn clicked out of the program he was running, the screen now filled with his generic screen saver. “Nothing.” He sat back to look at the youngest of his dark-haired, dark-eyed twin brothers. “Not busy today?”

  Logan straightened. “I’m still in shock at having Hailey hand in her resignation this morning.”

  A nerve pulsed in his jaw. “Yes.”

  His brother’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know anything about that?”

  He shrugged. “I can only assume she isn’t happy here, or maybe she’s had a better offer.”

  Logan didn’t look convinced. “That’s not the impression I had when I worked with her in Tokyo last month. She loves working for Steele Protectors. Loves all this shit. Even the surveillance and paperwork.”

  Haydn grinned. “And we all know how much you hate both those things.”

  His brother grimaced. “It’s boring as hell, that’s why. But Hailey is into all that. The tedious paperwork. The hours of watching and waiting until the time is right to pounce. And boy, does she pounce,” he said admiringly. “She has a lethal right kick.”

  “So I’ve observed in the gym.” Haydn rarely went out into the field anymore, his time much more valuably spent using his computer skills, but he did like to keep fit and used the company gym every evening he could.

  Logan gave him a sideways glance. “She seemed the same as usual when she left here last night.”

  He deliberately kept his expression bland. “I really can’t help you.”

  “So you’re just going to let her leave?”

  Haydn’s brows rose. “If she’s made her mind up to do so, I don’t see how you think I can stop her, or why I would even want to.”

  Logan regarded him for long seconds before speaking again. “It was my job to check the surveillance cameras this morning.”

  He tensed. “Oh yes?”

  His brother leaned back. “You entered Hailey’s apartment building and her apartment before she did last night and then left again fifteen minutes after she arrived home. Coincidentally, between leaving here last night and coming in this morning, Hailey seems to have made the decision to terminate her employment with Steele Protectors.”

  Haydn was once again reminded that anyone, including him, who failed to appreciate Logan’s intelligence simply because of his laid-back attitude to life and casual way of dressing in scruffy T-shirts and raggedy jeans was destined to very quickly learn they had underestimated him. As he just had. “And you think that has something to do with me?” Haydn scorned.

  “I think it has everything to do with you,” Logan stated evenly as he stood. “I also think that whatever you did, you had better make things right before Atticus hears about it.” Their eldest brother was away on assignment to New Mexico right now but expected back in the next few days. He refused to spend more than a week at a time away from his beautiful wife, Jenna. “Hailey is one of our best agents,” Logan added unnecessarily.

  “Then I suggest, if you feel that strongly about it, you try to talk her into staying,” Haydn dismissed.

  Logan grinned. “August has already invited her over to have dinner with us this evening.”

  “There you go,” Haydn snapped.

  “Rourke and Sophie will also be there. Lucan too.” He mentioned their other unmarried brother.

  Which pissed Haydn off no end. As it was no doubt intended to. “I hope you all have a good time,” he bit out tightly.

  “Want to come?”

  He would love nothing better than to spend the evening with Hailey, but he didn’t think she would appreciate him being there. That she might even walk out if he was.

  He had kept the surveillance on her apartment open on his laptop the previous night, keeping half an eye on that screen as he opened another window and started running the facial recognition program. He had half expected to see Hailey stealthily leaving the building sometime during the night. He’d breathed a sigh of relief when that hadn’t happened.

  But as she’d promised, her resignation had been on his desk this morning. “No,” Haydn answered his brother.

  Logan gave him a wink. “Lucan might be intense, but August tells me all that broody silence and glowering looks are a challenge to a lot of women. And we all know how much Hailey enjoys a challenge.”

  Haydn was well aware of how intense Lucan could be. He had never noticed Lucan showing Hailey any particular interest, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any. Lucan had always liked to play things close to his chest. “I hope you all have a good evening,” he bit out insincerely.

  “I’ll leave you to…continue whatever it is you’re doing, then.” Logan shrugged. “If you change your mind about joining us, we’re ordering in Chinese food for eight o’clock. I’ll make sure there’s enough for an extra guest.”

  “I won’t change my mind.” Haydn kept his back turned as his brother left the room.

  Shit. Bugger. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking damn!

  Haydn went through several other expletives inside his head, his hands tightly clenched on his thighs, before he calmed down enough to bring up the facial recognition program again. He had kept it running in the background all the time he was talking with Logan.

  It had been a small search to begin with, just the bare bones of what she’d written on her employment form: Hailey Frost, born twenty-five years ago in Gloucester, England.

  On the surface, that identity still panned out, but when Haydn dug beneath that surface, he discovered that the original Hailey Frost had died.

  From there, he had programmed in all Caucasian women aged between twenty-three and twenty-seven and born in the UK.

  Hours later, the program was still churning through that information.

  If that failed, Haydn would expand the search further.

  Then expand it again.

  He intended to keep searching until he found exactly who Hailey Frost was. Or had been.

  Besides being the woman he would protect with his life.

  Hailey really wished she hadn’t given in to August Steele’s pressure to join her and Logan at their apartment for dinner this evening. But she considered August a friend, as she did all the Steele wives and partners, and August could be very persuasive when she set her mind on something.

  Hailey really shouldn’t still be in London at all. She should have taken the opportunity last night, even knowing Haydn had those security cameras fixed on her apartment, to quietly disappear into the night. It was what she’d been told to do, a new identity already waiting for her at a predetermined drop point.

  Except she hadn’t been able to do it last night.

  Or today.

  Not yet.

  It wasn’t helping Hailey to relax that Rourke and Sophie had been invited here for dinner too.

  Lucan, the most enigmatic of the Steele brothers, was also present, his dark gaze appearing larger and darker behind those black-rimmed glasses. It also remained fixed on Hailey in that totally focused and unnerving way that he had.

  She breathed deeply—in disappointment?—once the food arrived and it became ob
vious Haydn wasn’t joining them.

  Curiously, so far no one had mentioned the elephant in the room either, namely Hailey having handed in her resignation this morning.

  She really didn’t want to leave Steele Protectors. For the first time in a long time, she’d felt as if she belonged somewhere. Even more so than when she was in the military. It was Haydn’s questioning and probing into her past and present that ensured she had no choice but to separate herself from Steele Protectors and the Steele family. The only ties of friendship she’d allowed herself for such a long time.

  In order to ensure her continued safety, Hailey knew she couldn’t delay any longer and would have to leave tonight. She needed to collect the documentation for her new identity and a new location and just disappear. The identity, she knew, would be as impregnable as this one.

  Yet she was still here, hoping to spend just a little more time with Haydn before she had no choice but to leave.

  And even this brief time of hesitating to let go of the Hailey Frost persona could cost me my life.

  Yes, it could, but she—

  “What did Haydn say or do to you last night?”

  To Hailey’s surprise, the question came from Lucan. She glanced quickly around the kitchen where they were all sitting, eating the Chinese food that had been ordered in. Logan and Rourke were indulging in their usual twinnish verbal tormenting of each other, while their wives looked on indulgently as they all sat around the table in the middle of the kitchen. Only Hailey and Lucan were seated at the breakfast bar, Lucan’s plate piled high with food, Hailey’s with barely any food on it. What there was, she kept pushing around her plate rather than eating it.

  She kept her expression bland. “Sorry?”

  Lucan’s glance was reproving. “Don’t play games and answer the question, Hailey.”

  She used her fork to continue pushing the food disinterestedly around on her plate in order to avoid looking into those piercing obsidian eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t treat me like a fool.”

  The warning in his voice was unmistakable. “Why don’t you ask Haydn that question?”

  Lucan gave a tight smile. “Because I’ve always believed in going to the source.”

  She sighed her impatience. “Haydn didn’t say or do anything. It’s just time for me to leave Steele Protectors.”

  “I don’t believe I mentioned Haydn having anything to do with your resignation.”

  Damn, this man is good.

  He was better than good. Hailey knew Lucan had worked as an interrogator during his last years in the military. His nickname within the company, “the accountant,” had nothing to do with the fact he maintained the business side of Steele Protectors and everything to do with the fact he ensured any wrong done to his family or a client was returned tenfold. No one talked about it, but she knew. Rourke might have been Special Ops, but Lucan had been something much darker.

  “That was the implication,” she dismissed lightly.

  He tilted his head as he studied her through narrowed lids. “In my experience, it’s better to meet a problem head-on than try to run away from it.”

  Anger flickered to life and then grew until it was all Hailey could feel. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!” She glared her fury at him.

  He leaned his elbow on the breakfast bar as he turned to face her. “Then explain it to me.”

  She gave up all pretense of eating as she pushed her plate away. “I don’t have to explain anything to you. I no longer work for your company, remember?”

  “I’m asking as your friend, not your employer.”

  Hailey stilled, shocked to her core that Lucan considered himself her friend.

  The two of them had worked together on a couple of assignments during this past year, and they had done so successfully. But never at any time had Hailey thought Lucan thought of her as a friend.

  She swallowed, aware of how silent the room had become as the four Steeles seated at the table now listened unashamedly to their conversation. “I appreciate the friendship of all of you.” Her gaze took in the two married couples as well as Lucan. “But I can’t allow that friendship to prevent me from accepting a better offer in another company.”

  “Which company?” Lucan demanded.

  “Tempest Security in LA.” She didn’t hesitate to give him the name of the company she’d been advised to use if asked where she was going. She felt confident that if one of the Steele family decided to call the company, the person the other end would assure that caller she was indeed taking up employment with them.

  Neither the country nor the company were her real destination.

  Despite Haydn’s demand she work her month’s notice, red-haired Hailey Frost would arrive in Los Angeles tomorrow and disembark the plane in LA before disappearing. Dark-haired and brown-eyed Stella Winter would board another plane twelve hours later, heading for Hong Kong. It wouldn’t be her final destination.

  Lucan’s intense gaze remained fixed on her face. “Have I ever talked to you about the years I spent as an interrogator in the military?”

  She moistened her lips. “No, but I’m guessing you were good at it.”

  A humorless smile curled one side of his mouth. “I was very good at it.” He sobered. “But I don’t need to use any of those skills to know when a person is lying to me.”

  A bead of moisture gathered at the base of Hailey’s spine. “That must come in handy with the women you date.” Her smile was overly bright.

  “I don’t date,” he dismissed. “I also despise being lied to.”

  That moisture now slid downward, beneath the waistband of her jeans. “Lucan—”

  He stood abruptly. “Hailey and I are leaving.” He took hold of her arm to pull her to her feet. “Would one of you call Haydn and tell him to meet us in reception room two?”

  Hailey knew he meant interrogation room two. There were three of these interrogation rooms situated at the Steele Protectors offices.

  She pulled ineffectually at the grip Lucan had of her arm. “Let me go,” she demanded. “Did you and Haydn plan this?” she accused.

  “No,” Lucan dismissed. “But I know my brother well enough to know that even if you manage to get away from here, he isn’t going to stop looking until he finds out exactly who you are and what or who you’re running away from.”

  Hailey stilled, too shocked to continue fighting the inevitable.

  Chapter Three

  “Has she said anything?” Haydn prompted Lucan quietly as the two of them looked through the two-way mirror at the woman in the room on the opposite side of the glass. There were only three pieces of furniture in the room, a slightly oblong table with two wooden straight-backed chairs placed either side of it.

  Hailey wasn’t sitting in either of them. She was pacing up and down the room like a caged animal, her face deathly pale. Her eyes were a stormy blue as she kept that narrowed gaze fixed balefully on the mirror on her side. Hailey obviously knew of the two-way glass, but at the moment, it was almost as if she could see both of them as clearly as they could see her, and she was warning them of the retribution she intended raining down on them once they were face-to-face.

  Looking at her, Haydn wanted nothing more than to go into that room, throw her over his shoulders, and carry her off like some fucking marauding and victorious Viking. A smile curved his lips at the thought of Hailey’s reaction if he did that. He knew she would take great pleasure in kicking him in the balls, beating her fists against him, and scratching her nails down his back.

  Lucan frowned. “She hasn’t said a word since we left Logan and August’s apartment.”

  His brows rose. “Why do you think that is?”

  His brother snorted. “Probably because I warned Hailey that running away won’t stop you from looking for the truth about her. If that’s even her name.” He shot Haydn a questioning glance.

  Haydn scowled. “It isn’t, but nothing else has
come up in its place as yet.” Which meant whoever had hidden Hailey’s real identity had done a better than average job of it.

  Lucan nodded. “Then I suggest we go in.”

  “You good cop or bad cop?”

  His brother stared at him quizzically. “How about we just talk to her as her friends, Haydn and Lucan?”

  He grimaced his discomfort. “Good idea.”

  Lucan gave a shake of his head as they stepped out into the hallway. “And in whatever universe would I ever be anything other than the bad cop?” he drawled.

  Haydn gave a snort of laughter before quickly sobering again when Lucan opened the door into Room 2.

  Hailey turned to glare across the room as Haydn closed the door behind them. “Care to share the joke?” she accused, revealing she’d heard his laughter out in the hallway.

  Lucan arched one dark brow. “Haydn?”

  Bastard. “No,” he answered Hailey coolly.

  Her nostrils flared. “You have no right to keep me here.”

  Lucan leaned against the edge of the table. “You’re free to leave any time you want. But I repeat,” he added softly as Hailey marched over to the closed but unlocked door. “You’ll do so in the knowledge that it isn’t going to stop Haydn from continuing to search for who you really are.”

  Her expression remained stoic. “I’m Hailey Frost.”

  “Today.” Lucan nodded. “But who will you be tomorrow?”

  Hailey felt the hot flush of color she knew darkened her cheeks. “I’ll still be Hailey Frost,” she lied.

  Haydn stepped forward. “I might not know your real name yet, but I do know that Hailey Frost, daughter of James Henry and Mary June Frost, and born in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England, died in a car accident twenty years ago at the age of five.”

  Hailey ensured she didn’t blink or her gaze so much as flicker away from meeting his. “I’m the other Hailey Frost.”

  “My search tells me there is no other Hailey Frost with those same two parents and that birthplace.”