Savage

by Michelle St. James

  “Thank you,” Farrell said.

  Adam stood. “I have to get back. I’ll be in touch.” He was a few feet away when he turned around. “Where did you hear about this?”

  Farrell shrugged. He was practiced at hiding important information, even where Adam was concerned. It was for Adam’s own good. “Was flagged by my guy on the Darknet.”

  Adam nodded. “Be careful asking around about this, Farrell,” he said. “This sounds like some heavy shit.”

  18

  “I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Kate said as Jenna packed her bag.

  Jenna went to her dresser, pulled out her underthings. “I can’t explain it,” she said. “I just… I need to know what Dad was doing.”

  “What does it matter?” Kate asked. “Just let him go.”

  She was sitting on the edge of Jenna’s bed while Lily colored in the living room. Jenna hadn’t yet explained to her that she would be gone for a couple of days. She hated leaving Lily behind, but she would be okay with Kate and Mrs. Hodges. Jenna would find out what was in her father’s safe deposit box and then they could go home.

  “It just does,” she said, sitting next to Kate with two pairs of socks in her hand. “I feel like…” She blinked back tears. “I wasn’t here for him, Kate. I just left. He never even got to meet Lily. I owe this to him, Something was important enough to him that he traveled to Spain to hide it. I need to know what it is.”

  Kate was silent for a moment. Then she leaned her head on Jenna’s shoulder. “Okay.”

  “Promise you won’t leave Lily alone with Mum?” Jenna asked.

  Kate laughed. “You have to ask?”

  “I just need you to promise.”

  Kate looked up at her. “Jenna, I promise. Lily will be with me or Mrs. Hodges the whole time.”

  Jenna nodded. “I’ll be back in a day or two.”

  “Maybe you can have a shag while you’re on holiday,” Kate said.

  Jenna laughed, shrugging Kate off her. “It’s not a holiday!”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  She stood and finished packing the few things she would need. Then she and Kate went downstairs. Lily was still coloring, humming to herself while Jenna’s mother did dishes in the kitchen.

  “Need some help?” Jenna asked.

  “I can do dishes, can’t I?” her mother snapped.

  “Of course, Mum,” Jenna said.

  Her mother shut off the water and leaned on the counter to face her. “You don’t trust me with Lily.”

  “Mum…”

  “Just admit it, Jenna. You don’t trust me with my granddaughter.”

  Jenna rubbed her forehead, fighting the urge to let loose on her mother. “My first responsibility is to Lily,” she said instead. “I can’t have her seeing you drunk. Kate will look after her with Mrs. Hodges.”

  “Mrs. Hodges isn’t Lily’s gran,” her mother said. “And I wouldn’t drink around Lily.”

  “You drank around us,” Jenna countered.

  Her mother’s eyes flashed. “I’m better now. I had a bit of a setback after your father’s funeral. It won’t happen again.”

  “How long has it been since you went to a meeting?” Jenna asked. Her mother turned back to the sink without answering. “Mum?”

  “It’s been awhile, Jenna, all right?”

  “I think it would be good for you to go,” Jenna said. “Especially now.”

  “An AA meeting isn’t going to make it easier to live without your father,” she said.

  Jenna was suddenly awash with sadness. She put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, kissed her cheek. “I know, Mum. But it will make it easier not to drink, and that will make it easier for me to feel like Lily’s safe with you. I hope you understand.”

  She went into the living room to get Lily. It was past her bedtime, and Jenna wanted to keep her on a schedule as much as possible. She’d already written out detailed instructions for Kate, although Jenna wouldn’t be surprised if she came home to find Lily up at midnight, eating ice cream and watching cartoons. Not ideal, but it would be a small price to pay to know that Lily was safe.

  “Come on, love,” she said, holding her arms out to Lily. “You can color more tomorrow. It’s bedtime.”

  She must have been tired because she allowed herself to be lifted up into Jenna’s arms without protest. Jenna started up the stairs, relishing the feel of her daughter in her arms. She would be okay, wouldn’t she? It wouldn’t hurt Lily to stay with Kate for a couple of days, and if someday she should find out about her father, that would have to be okay, too. Jenna didn’t have all the answers, and she wondered suddenly if her own mother had sometimes felt this lost. If she had ever felt like a fraud. A child masquerading as an adult. If maybe she had done her best, just like Jenna.

  19

  She tried to be quiet as she crept down the stairs the next morning. She’d booked an early flight, both because she hoped to get to the bank first thing and catch a flight home the same day and because she wanted to avoid a long goodbye with Lily. She’d explained that she would be taking a trip, that Lily would be safe with Aunty Kate and Gran and Mrs. Hodges. Lily didn’t yet understand the intricacies of Jenna’s relationship with her mother, and Jenna had no desire to poison her daughter against her grandmother. Her mum was a good hearted woman suffering from the incurable disease of alcoholism. The most they could hope for was that she would find her way back to sobriety, this time for good. But Jenna wasn’t naive. She knew that alcoholics, like all addicts, were alcoholics for life. There would never be a time when her mother wasn’t in danger of backsliding.

  She slipped out of the house just as the sun was beginning to cast its light over the neighborhood. She’d shut the door behind her and had started down the front steps when she spotted Farrell Black, looking better than any man had a right to at that ungodly hour, leaning against the door of a black sports car that was so sleek, so low to the ground, it could have been a jungle cat.

  Every nerve in her body was suddenly on high alert, and her pulse quickened as she continued down the stairs. She kept a couple of feet between them, just to be safe.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  His eyes raked her body, and she felt a flush spread from her chest to her cheeks as she remembered his hands on her breasts, his fingers inside her. He was as beautiful as ever, his dark hair slightly damp like he’d just come from the shower, his face cleanly shaven. He was wearing gray trousers and a perfectly cut T-shirt under a bespoke jacket, his tattoos looking even sexier emerging from the conservative clothes. There was a bulge under the jacket that indicated a weapon. She was ashamed that the knowledge turned her on.

  “Taking you to Madrid,” he finally said.

  “How did you…” She shook her head. “How did you know I was going to Madrid?”

  “I have friends in high places.” He turned to open the door. “Get in.”

  “I appreciate your help,” she said. “But this isn’t your problem. I’m going alone.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said.

  She took a deep breath, trying to control the anger building inside her. Who did he think he was? He could say she belonged to him all he wanted. It didn’t make it true. And it didn’t mean he could tell her what to do.

  “It’s not your decision, Farrell,” she said. “Now… please. My cab will be here any minute.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “No, it won’t.”

  “And why do I have a feeling you know why?” she asked.

  “I do know why,” he said. “I canceled it. Now get in the car.”

  She switched tactics. “What makes you think I want you to come with me?”

  “I don’t much care whether you want me to come, Jenna.” He ground out the words, like he was reaching the end of his patience. The thought both frightened and thrilled her. “You have no idea what you’re going to find in Madrid. I won’t allow you
to go alone. I have a plane waiting. It will get you there and home much faster than a commercial flight.”

  His words struck a chord. She would be able to get back to Lily sooner. And then she realized, horrified, that Farrell’s daughter was asleep in the house behind her. That if Lily came to the window Farrell would see her.

  “It’s not necessary,” she said. “I just… please.” She was begging now. “Let me go.”

  His eyes darkened. “I’ve never been very good at that, Jenna. I suspect you know that by now.”

  She sighed. “I don’t suppose I’ve been very good at it either.” She cursed herself for the admission. What was she doing?

  His gaze softened almost imperceptibly. “Let me do this for you. I’ll get you there quickly. We’ll figure out what’s in the safe deposit box. You’ll be back before you know it.”

  She glanced back at the house. Lily would be up soon, and her cab wasn’t coming.

  “All right,” she said.

  He took her bag and opened the door. The brush of his fingers against hers caused a ripple of energy to travel all the way to her toes, and she sunk into the leather seat, then watched him move to the driver’s side.

  She was going to Madrid alone with Farrell.

  And she was in very, very big trouble.

  20

  Farrell kept his eyes on the newspaper in front of him, but he wasn't reading the words on the page. It was distracting having Jenna on board, knowing she was so close, and he’d spent the two hours since leaving London avoiding her gaze as he pretended to work.

  She’d been mostly silent since she agreed to let him accompany her. Of course, if she’d refused, he would’ve had her tailed anyway. He wasn’t sure what her father had been mixed up in before his death, but he wasn’t sure what Jenna was mixed up in either.

  After she left the loft, he read her letter for the thousandth time, looking for new clues. There was no denying their chemical attraction, the river of molten lust that still ran between them. Her body had responded to his touch like a finely tuned piano, and his had responded in kind. He’d wanted to come the minute he’d taken her tight, pink nipple in his mouth, the moment she wrapped her hand around his cock.

  But it was more than that.

  He didn't like admitting it to himself. Would have preferred to chalk it up to animal instinct. But he didn’t like lying to himself. It was a form of weakness. Avoiding the truth. Hiding from it. Pretending it wasn’t what it was in an effort to avoid an unpleasant reality.

  He'd done that enough where Jenna was concerned. She was back, and there was still something between them. Something more than sex. She still moved him in ways he didn’t understand. He’d grabbed her hair, roughly fingered her, bit her lip until she bled. But Jenna liked those things, as evidenced by her reaction. He wouldn’t have done them otherwise, because he was still in love with her. He had known it since the moment he saw her standing in the half-dark of her parent’s porch, the setting sun casting a halo of light behind her head. He’d been angry in the loft. He’d wanted to show her what she’d given up, what he could still do to her. Wanted to prove to her that she still belonged to him. But he also wanted to protect her. Wanted to give her all the safety and security she hadn’t had as a little girl. To shield her from anything ugly or dangerous.

  And she still felt something for him, too. He knew it with total certainty, saw it in the way she looked at him as he walked toward her in the loft. The way she’d gone soft in his hands, giving herself over to him the way she had when she had trusted him completely.

  He’d been delirious with his need for her. It had taken all his will power not to carry her to the bed, strip off her clothes, bury himself balls deep in her pussy, fuck her so hard she cried from the power of it, the way she sometimes had in the old days.

  He’d resisted. He was sure she still felt something, but now he was also sure she was hiding something. He’d gone back over the weeks leading up to her disappearance from London. They had been happy. Not just content the way some people mean when they say they’re happy.

  Truly happy.

  They’d fit, completed each other in surprising and unexpected ways. She’d known what he did for a living since the beginning. He’d never lied about that. So why had she left so suddenly? And why with the cop out of wanting different things?

  Something had happened. At first his money had been on another man, but he’d had Leo dig into her movements in the days before she’d left him the letter, and there was no evidence that she’d been doing anything other than taking care of her mother, looking for a job, seeing him.

  Yet she was still feeding him the same line.

  Whatever she was hiding wouldn’t stay hidden much longer, not with Leo digging through the years they’d been apart, going through every movement, every call, every meeting on record. When he was done with that, he’d continue tracing her movements through the moment she’d left with him for Madrid. For years he’d avoided anything and everything related to Jenna Carver, telling himself he didn’t love her, didn’t need her.

  But that had been a lie — and a weakness.

  Now he wanted to know everything.

  His cell phone rang, and he picked it up, glad for the distraction. “Leo. What’s up.”

  “It’s true,” Leo said. “Amos checked the listed transaction on the DarkNet, and there is some weird shit being bought and sold.”

  “Define weird shit,” Farrell said.

  “I emailed you a report.”

  “Good,” Farrell said. He felt Jenna’s eyes on him and chose his next words carefully. “Any idea of the buyer and seller?”

  “I’m tracing that now, but so far it looks like it might be a shell.”

  Someone was buying and selling materials that could be used in biological research. Someone who didn’t want to go about it through normal channels, which implied secrecy. Someone who had been careful to hide their identity. Which also implied secrecy.

  And secrecy almost always implied wrongdoing.

  Farrell wasn’t usually a critic of wrongdoing. He knew better than anyone that there was a time and place to buck the rules. But they were talking about some dangerous shit, and as he cut his eyes to Jenna, now back to reading a magazine, it suddenly felt like he had something to lose.

  “Keep digging and keep me posted,” he said, hanging up.

  He was still thinking about the call as the plane banked right. Madrid opened up below them in a sea of buildings and asphalt. He looked at Jenna, her eyes trained on the window. She was lovely in slim black trousers and a pink blouse that brought out the color in her cheeks. Her expression, as peaceful as a child, did something painful and unfamiliar to his heart. He’d once thought it was as hard as stone, incapable of feeling for any woman ever again. Now he knew that wasn’t true.

  He simply wasn’t capable of feeling for any woman but her.

  He turned back to the newspaper. He would help her put the questions surrounding her father to rest. Then he would find out what stood between them once and for all.

  21

  Jenna looked out the window, taking in the city as they made their way toward the bank. She was still in shock at the evidence of Farrell’s wealth. Kate had said he was rich and powerful, but Jenna didn’t know she meant that rich. That powerful.

  After they’d left her house, Farrell had navigated the Lotus to a quiet tarmac at Heathrow. A nameless man in trousers and a leather jacket, his face hidden by sunglasses, had taken the keys from Farrell and driven off. A moment later Farrell led her to a private plane a hundred times more luxurious than her own home and twice the size of her apartment in New York. The pilot had been waiting for them, and they’d been wheels up in under ten minutes.

  Farrell offered her the use of the bedroom at the rear of the plane, but she didn’t trust herself, Farrell, and a bedroom in the same vicinity. She’d played it safe instead, watching London disappear below the clouds and pretending to read a magazine she’d fo
und on the small table next to her seat.

  It was impossible to truly read or concentrate with Farrell reading the newspaper right across the aisle. He was larger than life, his electric energy filling up every inch of space in the plane’s cabin. It was a palpable current reaching to her from across the plane, setting her body on fire. Her eyes kept drifting to his big thighs, pulling taut the fabric of his trousers. It was hard to keep her gaze from the bulge between his legs, the muscular rise of his chest under his shirt. She’d had to force herself to look away, cross her arms to keep her body from trembling.

  She’d been relieved when they finally landed. Now at least they could move. They could go to the bank, look inside her father’s safe deposit box, and get back to London and their separate residences, the only way to be sure she would steer clear of him.

  They’d been met by a driver who had loaded their bags into the trunk without a word. Against all reason, she felt a little thrill that Farrell would go to such lengths to help her on such short notice.

  Not that she needed his help.

  But he was right. The faster she finished in Madrid, the faster she’d be home with Lily.

  She expected to go straight to the bank, but fifteen minutes after they left the airport they pulled up outside a gorgeous old building. It wasn’t huge — only six stories — but what it lacked in height it more than made up for in grandeur. Jenna recognized the architecture as Belle Epoque, which meant the building had to have been constructed sometime in the early 1900s. A sign at the top of a copper turret identified it as the Ritz.

  She sat up straighter in the back seat, then turned to Farrell. “I thought we were going to the bank.”

  “We are,” he said. “But we may as well leave our stuff here while we do it.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Aren’t we going back to London today?”