by Doyle, S.
“What’s my name, Beth?”
“Liam.”
“That’s right. You’re not supposed to know that, but I gave it to you. Who fucked you hard last night?”
“You, Liam.”
“You know how many women I’ve fucked without a condom? Zero. None. Never did it once. This piercing is not something I swing around like a toy, banging every woman who comes into range of my dick. I had to do it for an assignment years ago, don’t ask what, and I didn’t want to go through the hassle of taking it out. I chase down bad people and I do it for my country. Trust me when I tell you that’s not as sexy a job as you might think. Now apologize for thinking I would treat you casually.”
My lips twisted, but I did it anyway. “I’m sorry. I just—”
“Assumed. Don’t assume shit about me, Beth. And oh, for the record, ask me how many women know my real name.”
“How—”
“One,” he snapped at me. “My mother. That’s it. I gave it to you because I wanted to let you know I was serious.”
“Okay, okay. But how was I supposed to know that? We’ve only known each other a few days, and for most of that time I was an assignment to you.”
“Last night was no fucking assignment. Last night was real.”
I twisted my hands in my lap. “Does that mean… I don’t know…does that mean I might see you again? Sometime?”
Wow, that sounded lame. Like some clingy-girlfriend shit. Or want-to-be girlfriend shit. Wait, did I want to be the girlfriend of a spy?
A hefty sigh from him and I realized he didn’t want to be the boyfriend of a travel blogger.
“Beth…my job…things are complicated. I don’t have a schedule. I’m rarely in the U.S., let alone Philadelphia—”
“And I’m not ever going to leave my condo again,” I cut him off before he said more words that were just going to hurt. “So yeah, I could see where a future relationship between us might be tricky. Besides, all I ever wanted from a relationship was a sense of normalcy. That is totally not you.”
“I’ve broken all of my rules for you. Only for you. You have to know that.”
I smiled because, yeah, there was some comfort in that. Like I mattered to him. When I knew there weren’t a lot of other people that did.
“That’s good to know. I mean it.”
“Good.”
Silence filled the car for a moment. “Okay, but now you have to tell me about the piercing story.”
He laughed. “Let’s just say it involved a Saudi Prince, a dare, a lot of tequila and a harem. I’m not divulging anything else.”
I bit my bottom lip and decided it was important he know what last night was for me. Not just good sex, but another wall I’d built inside me had been shattered. Watching my mom sell it had always put sex in the category of something people just did. Not that it was special.
“Last night…I’ve never had anything like that before.”
He snapped his teeth closed and focused on getting us back on the highway toward the airport. “That’s because you wasted your time with Jared, who, oh by the way, was totally fucking the yoga instructor.”
“I knew it! Asshole!”
“Ex-asshole,” he reminded me.
* * *
“I don’t like this,” Liam said, looking around the crowded airport. “If you give me time, I could arrange for a private jet—”
“No,” I said, cutting him off. “I want to go home now. I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“You go straight to the gate. You get on the plane. Anyone approaches you—”
“Scream like hell and find security,” I said. “There are, like, a zillion security cameras between here and the gate. Nothing’s going to happen to me in an airport.”
We stood just outside the line for security and, maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed reluctant to leave me. Or I was reluctant to go. One of those things was true.
“I’m never going to see you again, am I?”
He wore a shuttered expression. “Never is a long time.”
Yeah, that’s what I thought. It was ridiculous to think you could miss someone after knowing them for only a few days, but I would. Ted, Liam. Nice guy, hot guy. Fun to hang out with. Awesome in bed.
“Go,” he said after I didn’t move. “You’re going to miss your flight.”
I nodded and turned my back on him to leave. As soon as I did, he grabbed my arm to turn me around again. A second later his hands were cupping my face and he was kissing me like this was our last kiss. And I suppose it was. I’d never been kissed like this before. With passion and intensity and longing.
This was the big movie kiss. This was the end-of-days kiss. This kiss I would remember for the rest of my life.
Then he released me and started backing away. “Go. Now. Before I change my mind.”
This time when I turned, I ran away because he was right. If I didn’t force myself to leave, I was going to do something stupid like fall at his knees, wrap my arms around his legs and beg him to never leave me.
Because he made me feel different. He made me feel alive.
I made it through the airport and, ultimately, onto the plane without any issues. I took my seat on the aisle and tried not to think about how my heart hurt. I’d gotten dumped by Jared after a two-year relationship and that hadn’t even come close to affecting me other than disrupting my plans for a normal and secure life.
There was nothing normal or secure about Ted…Liam.
He was chaos and smoke. It was time to get used to the reality that I was never going to see him again. And never was a long time.
“Miss, you dropped this.”
I glanced up at the airline attendant wearing her company’s blue uniform. She looked oddly familiar and I was about to ask her if we knew each other when she dropped a scarf on my lap.
“Oh, this isn’t mine,” I said, reaching to hand it back to her. She took it and that’s when I felt a prick in the center of my palm.
Shaking my hand as if that would remove the sting, I looked to see what had caused the damage. Did she have a pin that had come undone? Something in the scarf.
I glanced up at her again and she seemed to have an expectant look on her face. But a second later that face became fuzzy. As if my whole body was suddenly out of my control.
“Miss, you don’t look good. Are you going to be sick?”
Sick? No, I didn’t think I was sick. I just felt super weird, all of a sudden. I stood and she wrapped her arm around my waist. She was surprisingly strong for someone so thin. And I couldn’t help but notice she had a nice rack.
She pushed, escorted me, whatever, to the front of the plane, but instead of helping me into the tiny bathroom, she asked a few people who were boarding to move aside for a medical emergency.
Where was the medical emergency?
People stepped aside and a door in the jet way opened. With a ladder leading down to the tarmac. There was a man there, someone I definitely didn’t recognize, wearing a yellow vest and an ID around his neck.
“We need to get her off the plane. She’s not well.”
Then the beefy guy picked me up and hauled me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes.
“No,” I tried to say, but it came out muffled. He was backing down the ladder and then I was being flung into the back of an empty van.
“Don’t worry,” the attendant, who’d joined me in the back of the van, said. “We’re here to help you.”
Help me? But there was nothing wrong with me. I was fine. Except I wasn’t. I wasn’t on the plane going home. Instead, I was in the back of a van. I lifted my head and saw the flight attendant remove her jacket. She also pulled off the top of her hair. Holy shit, why was she doing that? Oh, wait, it had to be a wig.
Why was she wearing a wig?
I saw a tumble of dark hair fall down her back right before she slammed the doors of the van shut.
Then it all went dark.
11
Rome
Liam
I was sitting at the bar sipping my beer, pretending to watch the football match on television, when a familiar foe sat next to me.
“How did you find me?”
“Are you shitting me? This is your favorite bar in Rome,” Dmitri said in his familiar Russian accent. “Everyone knows to find you here, Captain America.”
I called him Dmitri the Douchebag. He called me Captain America. I was winning this game.
“She is gone?”
“She is,” I said.
I looked at my watch and realized she would be landing now. I’d already called my colleagues in the States to let them know she was coming. She would have an escort home and twenty-four-hour, round-the-clock watch.
Top brass was furious with me. So much so, they’d put me on suspension, pending an appeal. I knew the game. I should have used her as bait to draw Gino out. She was a tool to be wielded, and, like a sucker, I’d caved to my more human emotions.
I realized I was okay with that.
Fuckers. I’d been thinking about a career change anyway.
With her tucked away back in the States, it would be harder for Gino to reach her. Which meant I could be putting the future of The Legacy Project at risk.
But it also meant Beth was safe from The Douchebag and his interrogation methods. Probably also meant she was safe from me. What the hell had I been thinking last night? Fucking her only made the wanting worse. Fucking her without a condom… It was like…like she was supposed to be someone important, when, in my life, I’d never done important with anyone.
I was the lone wolf type and I liked it that way. Or at least I had until I started reading a Lover’s Guide to Travel.
Damn. Fuck. Why couldn’t she have been whiny and butt ugly?
I wanted to kiss her nose. I wanted to fuck her again, hard. I wanted to make her laugh. What I didn’t want was for her to be gone.
I took another sip of my beer. “What do you want, Dmitri? We both know neither you nor Marta can touch her where she’s going. You might as well both call it a day and head home.”
Dmitri lifted a finger and pointed to my beer. The bartender brought him a pint and he took a sip and grimaced. “I don’t understand how you Americans drink this hoppy fizz. It tastes like a bitter piss soda. And I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is this Marta?”
I snorted. “Please, do not waste both our time. She tried to disguise it, but it’s not like I can’t tell a Russian accent when I hear it. You were using her to distract me. It didn’t work.”
Dmitri shrugged. “I don’t like partners. They slow me down. But if I tell you I don’t know who this Marta you speak of is, you will not believe me anyway. So I will not try to convince you. I will only tell you this matter is not done. You can hide the daughter, but I will still find the father.”
“Knock yourself out,” I told him. Dmitri had about as much a shot of finding him as I did. Which wasn’t much of one. The world, for a man with resources like Gino had, was a big fucking place.
“Happy hunting, my friend.”
I frowned as he left his stool and his beer behind. Not to mention he’d left me with the check. Douchebag.
My phone buzzed and I took it out of my back pocket.
Swell. Uncle Sam was calling. I accepted the call and held the phone to my ear. “Eyes on the target?”
“No.”
I frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean, the plane landed. She was not on it.”
Shit, shit, shit. “That’s not possible. I followed her as far as security. Who could have gotten to her behind security?”
I knew it was a rhetorical question and the agent on the other end of the line didn’t bother to answer. In fact, there was no point in talking to him any longer. I ended the call and pulled up the tracking app for the device I’d put in her shoe. I’d gotten her a new dress this morning, but she was still wearing the shoes from last night.
Except the radar showed nothing. The signal on the damn thing was only so strong, which meant all I knew was, she wasn’t in Rome.
Someone nabbed Beth between the time after she’d passed security, and before she’d gotten on the plane. That was nine freaking hours ago. She could be anywhere in the world right now.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket, tossed some euros on the bar and hit the busy Rome streets. I had to think. I had to clear my head and refocus. Dmitri didn’t have her. He could have been telling the truth about Marta, and she could have been a separate operator all together.
Someone working for Gino maybe. Did it make sense he might use a woman to snatch his daughter so she might feel less threatened? It was a slim chance, but right now I had zero to work with. If I went with the assumption that Gino was behind the kidnapping, then I had to think about where he might be.
With her.
Without her, he could be anywhere in the world. But with her, he might want to take her to her favorite place. Impress her. Connect with her.
Beth had never been anywhere until this trip.
So where might he think her favorite place was?
Where did A Lover’s Guide to Travel start?
* * *
Beth
I blinked open my eyes and yawned. I had that feeling like I’d overslept, which I didn’t like to do. As a person who worked from home, it was important to me to have a schedule so I didn’t let myself slack off.
Turning in my bed I came to two realizations pretty quickly. This wasn’t my bed and I was still wearing the sundress from the plane.
The plane that I didn’t stay on. That didn’t take me back to Philadelphia and my condo.
Where the fuck was I?
I pushed myself out of the posh, king-size bed and when my feet hit the ground, they wobbled a bit, but I was able to stay upright. Glancing around the room, I considered the fourteen-foot ceilings, the gold-sheened wallpaper, the heavy maroon drapes over the massive windows.
Windows that led to wrought-iron balconies. Nothing looked American and everything looked old-world European. I walked over to one of the windows and pulled back the curtains and gasped.
The Eiffel Tower. THE FUCKING EIFFEL FUCKING TOWER!
I’d wanted to see it my whole life, and now I was standing in front of a window and it was so close it seemed like I could reach out and touch it.
I was in Paris. Were the French after my dad like the Americans and the Russians? I thought they were on team U.S.A. but what the hell did I know about global politics right now?
What I did know was that I’d been drugged. Kidnapped and brought here against my will.
Did Ted…Liam…even know? Were there people waiting for me in Philadelphia who were going to come looking for me?
I had no idea. Which meant the first priority was getting out of wherever I was and getting to the U.S. Embassy in Paris…with maybe a side trip to the Louvre.
No! This was serious. This was international shit going down with me in the center of it, and I had to focus.
I checked the room for a door. I walked over to it expecting it to be locked. I nearly jumped when the old-fashioned knob turned in my hand. I pushed the door open and heard the squeak of it and winced.
The room I stepped into was something out of my dreams. The same fourteen-foot ceilings, crown molding, a rich green paint that made me think Marie Antoinette herself might walk into the room at any moment. Certainly, I was underdressed in my simple, cotton dress.
I turned the corner and jumped again when I saw the older man sitting on the chaise lounge staring out the window. He had a blanket over his legs despite the room being perfectly comfortable, and an oxygen tank sat on a table behind him. He turned his head in my direction, and I knew I was looking into the face of my father.
Except for the sallow-colored skin, the bald head and prominent nose, I sort of looked like him. At least I had his green eyes.
“Hello, Beth
.”
I swallowed. “Dad? No,” I said instantly. I wasn’t doing this. I wasn’t doing some sad sack reunion bullshit. I didn’t know this guy. I didn’t care about this guy. All I wanted to do was go the fuck home and have nothing to do with him again.
He was the reason I had spies chasing me. He was the reason the FBI had followed me. He was the reason I’d been drugged and kidnapped again!
So no, I didn’t want to hear his story. I didn’t care if he was dying. And definitely no, I didn’t want anything from him when he’d not been part of my life for twenty-three years.
“Please. I know you’re angry. But all I’m asking is that you humor me for a few hours. Then I’ll let you go, and you’ll never have to see me again.”
At that point, the brunette with the big rack stepped out of the hallway and into the living room. She moved to stand beside what I imagined was the door leading out of this massive apartment. I recognized her from the hotel when she was all over Ted…Liam! Then again as my friendly neighborhood drugging flight attendant. C-cups.
“Marta is my nurse. She has been caring for me. Protecting me. I didn’t know any other way to do this.”
“You mean other than drugging and kidnapping me,” I clarified.
“Forcing you, yes.”
He took a breath and watching him was almost painful. Like the act of inhaling took all his energy. I was sorry he had cancer. I was sorry he was dying. Like I would be for any other human on earth who I had no emotional bond to, but I wasn’t going to let sympathy keep me here.
“How about you let me go and write me a letter?” I said. I glanced at Marta and watched as she kicked her feet a little wider. Like she was prepared for a fight. Given my size in comparison to hers, I didn’t see me winning that battle.
“An hour, Beth. Two tops. I don’t have energy for more than that. Then I promise I’ll let you go.”
An hour. Two at the most, then this would be over.
Deciding on the path of least resistance, I walked over to the fancy chair situated across from the lounge where he was stretched out. While pretty, the chair wasn’t comfortable at all and I thought again of Marie Antoinette and how maybe that was why she was such a bitch.
