The Negotiator

by Gadziala, Jessica

  He often reached for me first.

  And not just sexually.

  He reached for my hand. He grabbed my knee under the table. He pulled me up against him when we all watched movies in the living room. He was always finding excuses to be near me, to put his hands on me.

  He went out of his way to make me coffee. To bring me sweets when he happened to go into town. To praise my meals even when they didn't come out even halfway edible.

  He cared.

  How much, well, I couldn't answer that. Because I hadn't asked. It seemed invasive and premature to do so when I hadn't even fully figured out how much I cared for him, what it meant that I cared that much.

  I wasn't stupid.

  This time spent in this place—this was us playing house. This was not real life. This was not what our reality would be like.

  If we both came to the conclusion that this was something serious, something we didn't want to let go of when we eventually emerged from this paradise, what did that mean for the future?

  Because we both had lives.

  In different corners of the world.

  The idea of giving up my career and my friends pierced me. Yet the idea of going back to them and leaving Christopher behind was equally as painful.

  But I knew one thing about life.

  'Having it all' was an illusion.

  No one got everything.

  Only children and fools thought they could.

  The rest of us understood that life involved sacrifices.

  But what was I supposed to sacrifice here? What could I give up without feeling like a part of me was being ripped away? Without feeling like I would be living half a life afterward?

  "I give up," Christopher declared. Those were big words for a man like him, one so used to getting everything he wanted. "He's like a dog chasing after a bitch in heat. Hey," he called, voice losing the edge of frustration laced with the barest hint of humor it often had when speaking of his brother. "Are you alright?" he added, moving closer, dark eyes boring into me.

  Usually, I prided myself in my poker face, in the fact that no one could see anything that I didn't want to show them.

  But that was another thing about Christopher. He saw through me. I couldn't hide from him.

  And, what's more, I didn't want to.

  "I'm okay," I told him.

  "I think we can do better than okay," he decided, eyes full of promise as he moved closer, as he reached for a hand towel, holding it out to me, making me realize my hands were still in the steadily cooling water. When I pulled them out, they were pruny and stiff as I dried them.

  I barely got a chance to hang the towel off the handle on the side of the island before he was there, yanking my arms over my head, pinning them against the cupboard with one hand as his other anchored around my lower back and his lips sealed over mine.

  I'd been kissed before.

  I'd been kissed silly before.

  But with Christopher, this was the only time something as simple as a kiss could completely wipe my mind clean, leaving not a trace of any of the worries I had been contemplating the moment before.

  I don't know how long we stayed there just like that, but I knew my lips felt swollen and tingly, that my body was coming alive, getting all kinds of ideas about what we could do to keep my mind from overthinking anything for a good, long while.

  It was the clearing of a throat that managed to interrupt the floating nothingness in my head.

  Not enough to stop kissing him back, but enough to be aware we probably needed to move our activities to somewhere with a door. Maybe even a bed.

  "I am going to need you to get your hands off of her," a voice said.

  I knew that voice.

  I knew that voice as well as I knew my own voice.

  Hearing it was an ice bath to my overheated system.

  Because it didn't belong here.

  In this world.

  In this new, secluded, private, blissful world I had come to know and love.

  It belonged in my other world. One that was fulfilling, but painfully status quo.

  Christopher seemed to regain his full composure just a second before I managed to do so, lips and hands releasing me, turning so fast I could barely catch the motion, every muscle in his body tensing at the unfamiliar voice as he used his body as a shield for mine.

  If I wasn't so completely and utterly shocked, I might have been able to appreciate just how sweet that was.

  But all I could seem to think was: What the hell was Quin doing here?

  "Quin?" My voice croaked out of me, making Christopher half turn, looking over his shoulder at me, brows pinched.

  "Quin?" he asked.

  "My boss," I agreed, giving him a nod.

  His body didn't lose its tension. If anything, it got even more rigid as he moved to the side, allowing me to look across the room, finding Quin standing there in a slightly rumpled blue suit, eyes purple-smudged from lack of sleep.

  "There the fuck you are," he said, shoulders relaxing a bit.

  The guilt was overwhelming, strong enough to damn near buckle my knees right there.

  Because he looked tired and worried and rumpled because of me. Because he realized I was missing. Because he had no idea where I was, what could have befallen me. For as many friends as I had made in my life, I had racked up quite a few enemies as well, ones who would be happy to catch me, rip me away from my life.

  And Quin, being the man he was, would have felt responsible for recovering me. He wouldn't have been able to eat, to sleep, to think straight until he got a lead.

  While I played house.

  While I never once asked Christopher for the ability to call home and tell them that I was okay.

  God, I was such an asshole.

  "Quin..." I started, not sure what I could even say, what words there existed that could excuse letting them all worry themselves sick about me.

  "You're okay?" he asked, voice a little raw.

  "I'm fine," I assured him, taking a step forward, feeling Christopher's hand snag me at the wrist, stopping me.

  And Quin? He didn't miss that.

  His body stiffened, gaze moving over Christopher, appraising him.

  If it came down to these two men, I had no idea who I would put my money on.

  "What did I say about putting your hands on her?" Quin asked between gritted teeth.

  "You are trespassing on my property, and you think you can tell me what to do?" Christopher asked, voice low, lethal.

  "Okay, okay," I said, breaking free from Christopher's hold, moving into the center of the room, directly between both of them, arms raising like I could actually hold them off if they decided they wanted to go a few rounds. "I think there has been a misunderstanding."

  "There has been a fucking crime," Quin corrected.

  "I mean, we all know how Bellamy is," I started, watching as his gaze cut to me.

  "I'm not talking about fucking Bellamy, Miller," he corrected, gaze moving back to Christopher.

  "Alright, wait," I tried again, wondering where the hell my trusted negotiation skills were hiding.

  Probably somewhere getting nice and rusty, I decided, as no good ideas came to mind.

  "Don't try to tell me he hasn't held you against your will," Quin shot at me.

  "Okay, well, maybe."

  "Maybe?" he asked, voice a hushed whisper. "Are you fucking with me? How is there any maybe about that?"

  "Well, I mean, Bellamy drugged and kidnapped me. He brought me to Greece with Fenway..."

  "Fucking Fenway," Quin grumbled under his breath, making my lips curve up. Fucking Fenway. I'd heard that phrase more times than I cared to remember.

  "Yeah, but those two sort of... ran off as soon as we were on the shore in Santorini. Where Christopher and I... had a discussion."

  "A discussion?" he prompted when I didn't go on.

  "I had a business proposition for Melody," Christopher piped u[.

  Quin visibly shock
ed back at the sound of my name, his gaze shooting to me.

  He knew it.

  Of course, he knew it.

  He was my boss.

  He knew all my details.

  But he never used it.

  And no one else ever did either.

  I never offered it to anyone.

  So, obviously, he was starting to put the pieces together.

  "If you don't mind, I'd prefer to hear this story from Melody," Quin said, gaze holding mine, daring me not to tell him the whole truth.

  "Christopher's brother was kidnapped, being held for ransom by Chernev."

  "Of the heroin fame?" Quin asked, knowing damn near every major player in the world.

  "Yes."

  "Ruthless bastard."

  "Yes, well, that was why I was needed. To negotiate a deal. For a nice price."

  God, I hadn't even thought about the money in over a week. Honestly, I wasn't sure I had thought about the money at all since being back on the yacht.

  "Tell me, Miller, did you really have any say in this transaction?" Quin asked, too smart for his own good. Or mine in this situation.

  "Okay, no," I admitted, watching as his jaw tightened. "But, really, it was a good deal. Better than anyone has ever offered me. And the job seemed easy enough."

  "And yet you are still in fucking Greece for what reason?"

  "We got Alexander—Christopher's brother—back. But Chernev got away. And, apparently, he had turned one of Christopher's men. Which we didn't learn until he attacked me in bed."

  "He what?" Quin asked, voice a barely audible hiss as his hands curled into fists.

  "It's okay. I'm okay. Really, there was no, you know, physical damage or anything. Christopher came in and handled it."

  I knew Quin well enough to interpret the look in his eyes right then, to know he had picked up on my carefully chosen words.

  No physical damage.

  I charged on, though, because I wasn't ready to go there. If I ever would be.

  "And because Christopher wasn't sure if any of his men could be trusted at that point, he packed his brother and me up with just three guards and headed here to hide out while he had Holden called in to... do some interrogating."

  "Why were you the one almost killed?" Quin asked, turning accusing eyes on Christopher.

  "Because I had been on a call with him, distracting him while Christopher and his men made their way to retrieve Alexander."

  "And he hates women," Christopher added. "Especially ones in positions of power."

  "There's that too," I agreed, nodding.

  "How long have you been here? Instead of Santorini?" he asked, keen eyes landing on me once again.

  "Too long not to have found a way to call you," I told him, shaking my head. "I wasn't thinking straight," I admitted.

  "I bet," Quin agreed, looking again at Christopher, the accusation clear in his eyes.

  I knew I had been right.

  When I got back to Navesink Bank, he would force me into therapy.

  And they would throw around those words.

  Stockholm Syndrome.

  More startling than the idea of that, was the idea of leaving at all.

  "How did you find me?" I asked, looking for something to distract me from the thoughts about leaving.

  "We started to worry when we hadn't heard from you. No one had seen you. No activity on your credit cards. Finally, Nia pinged your phone. And you'll never guess where she found it."

  "At Bell's place," I assumed.

  "And he was oh, so conveniently off on a job and 'unable to be contacted' until further notice. But you know Nia; she won't settle for not figuring shit out. She traced some of his phone records to Greece. I took a shot and jumped on a plane."

  "How long have you been in the country?"

  "Four days or so. I'll say this for that bastard," he said, jerking his chin toward Christopher, "he has these people brainwashed into thinking he's a decent guy who would never actually kidnap someone."

  "He's done a lot for them," I defended immediately, knee-jerk.

  A shadow crossed Quin's face as he listened to me. "I'm going to need to speak to you alone, Miller. Outside," he added. "Is that going to be a problem?" he asked, tone seething as he glanced at Christopher.

  "I need to talk to him," I added to Christopher in a quiet voice.

  "Okay," he said, to me, though, not to Quin. "Send Collis in so you can have some privacy."

  I gave him a tight nod as I followed my boss outside.

  "Your boss said to head inside," he told Collis, who turned his gaze to me instead, brow raising.

  "He did," I told him, giving him a reassuring nod.

  "Look at that," Quin said when we were alone. "They listen to the woman of the house."

  "Quin..."

  "Look, Miller. I know. You have a thing for the clients sometimes. I get it. They're your type. Tall, dark, and dangerous enough to be a little fun. I get it. But that man had your friend drug and kidnap you, drag you to a foreign country, and then forced you into working for him."

  "A financial agreement was reached," I told him, chin raising.

  "Did you have a choice, or were you simply making the best of a bad situation?"

  Quin didn't get to be the boss because he was dumb. The man had great observation skills. And he knew all of us pretty damn well.

  "I didn't have much of a choice," I admitted. "I knew that as soon as we made it to shore, there was no coming home until the job was done. And since Bellamy and Fenway had already made up their minds on who they were loyal to in this situation..."

  "I'll deal with Bellamy and Fenway," he said, a promise in his voice, and I didn't want to ever be on the receiving end of a man like Quin's wrath. "But, for fuck's sake, Miller, you're fucking a man who held you against your will? What the hell is going on with you?"

  "I don't have a good answer to that. It just... happened. A lot has happened since that day on the yacht, Quin. And I think we can all agree that worry over a loved one can make us do crazy things we wouldn't normally ever even consider. I mean, can you look me in the face, and tell me with one-hundred-percent certainty that if someone took Aven, you wouldn't move heaven and earth to bring her back? That if you heard about someone like me who could help, you wouldn't do exactly what Christopher did?"

  I knew he couldn't.

  "There are channels, Miller."

  "He didn't have time."

  "We handle emergency situations every month, babe. No one is more equipped to handle setting up hostage negotiations on the drop of a dime than we are."

  "He didn't know that. Or he didn't want to risk us telling him no. And he had Bells there in his ear saying he could cut out the middle man. I think we both can see why he did it this way."

  "That doesn't mean it's right."

  "No," I agreed, nodding.

  "And it doesn't mean you should be able to look past it enough to fall into bed with him."

  As a general rule, not many people could bring me down. I had worked really hard to build myself up, made of materials no one could chip away at.

  But Quin, the man who gave me a chance, the man who offered me a life I knew I never could have gotten without him; he could make me feel really small and really breakable.

  "He has been good to me."

  "He's kept you against your will."

  "To keep me safe."

  "I keep you safe," Quin shot back, voice raising. "Gunner, Smith, Kai, Finn, Lincoln, and even fucking Ranger if need be, keep you safe. But he didn't give you that option, did he?"

  No, no he didn't.

  But at that point, I wasn't even questioning him.

  "Look, I get it," he said, even though I really, really didn't think he did. "Things have been survival, life and death. And he has fed you and clothed you and kept you alive. I understand how that can foster feelings that the Miller I know, the Miller I helped train, the Miller I have worked side-by-side with for years, would never feel toward s
omeone who did this to her. And I am asking you to see this situation through the eyes of the woman you were just a couple weeks ago."

  That was the problem, wasn't it?

  I wasn't the woman I was a couple of weeks ago. So much had changed. Parts of me had opened up. I let down guards. I learned new skills, explored new passions.

  I learned that a man could be a hard and a soft place, somehow, at the same time. I learned that they could actually want me for more than a night. And that I could want them for more than that as well.

  I couldn't think like the Miller from a few weeks ago. Because I wasn't her anymore.

  "Mills," Quin tried, voice going softer, eyes pleading with me. "You have to leave with me. You see that, right? You have to come home."

  "Chernev is holding a grudge against me," I told him, unable to say what he wanted to hear.

  "And you more than anyone else, knows that we are equipped not only to keep you safe, but to chase that bastard down, and take him out. I know you have some sort of... feelings for that man in there," he said, casting angry eyes at the house. "But you know that we are better at this than he is."

  That was likely true.

  We were, after all, the people that men and women like Christopher turned to when they couldn't solve their own problems. Precisely because we were good at it, because we could produce the results desired.

  And if Quin—not to mention Smith and Gunner and Kai and Lincoln and Ranger—wanted Chernev rooted out and strung up, that was exactly what they would get. They wouldn't rest until it happened.

  "You have a life, Miller," he tried, voice softer, more coaxing. "I get you maybe had some fun with this guy, but you need to come back to your life."

  The thing was, he was right, wasn't he?

  I had a job.

  I had a home.

  I had friends.

  I had a life.

  And it was half the world away.

  And I knew better than to put my everything into a man. I'd seen the blowback of that many, many times in my career. When it ended. And, let's face it, it usually ended. The deck was stacked against love and relationships. People changed. Life tore them apart. And there would be devastation and uncertainty.

  And if I were stupid enough to throw everything I had worked so hard for, fought tooth and nail for, to be with a man who might eventually toss me aside, I would be left with absolutely nothing.