As it turns out, the end of the earth isn’t far away.
With a seemingly endless hallway of doors to choose from, it might have taken us hours to find out which one contained the treasure we were looking for. But just a few doors down, slumped against the wall with her arms wrapped protectively around her knees, is Tara.
At first, I think she must be hurt, because there are tears in her eyes and her face is a mess of running mascara. All jokes about being caught in the crossfire aside, I don’t actually want anything bad to happen to her. I make a motion to go to her side, but Riker stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
I can’t imagine why until Tara notices us. She doesn’t seem surprised to see us, nor does she seem particularly excited to be rescued. In fact, she looks as though she’s seen a ghost. Her face glows white against the charcoal trails down both cheeks.
“Don’t go in there, Pen.” Tara’s voice is strangled, and I think it might be the end of us both. “Whatever you do, don’t go in there.”
Riker flings out a hand to stop me, but it’s not enough. Death, danger, a trap set to destroy me… Nothing beyond that door scares me as much as the idea that Grant might not be on the other side of it anymore.
Heart pounding, I push my way inside.
27
THE AGREEMENT
(Fifteen Months, Six Days Ago)
Grant wasn’t expecting me.
I stood nervously on his front porch, out of place in his neighborhood of picket fences and carefully sculpted lawns north of the city. It said something that standing on this nicely kept street made me more uncomfortable than I’d ever felt trapped inside a box or vent, but there was no turning back. I’d already knocked.
He pulled open the door, looking incredibly gorgeous in his at-home attire—low-slung track bottoms, a shirt that clung to all the ripples and valleys of his torso, and bare feet. His expression registered that brief flash of almost-surprise unique to him. It lasted a second and then disappeared, replaced by the smile that had the power to crush my heart.
Except I was the one about to do the crushing.
“I can’t marry you,” I said.
Damn. I’d intended to ease into it, but that smile had me flustered. I don’t think anyone had been that happy to see me before.
He blinked, his hand still on the doorknob. “You can’t, or you won’t?”
I blinked back. “Um. Does it make a difference?”
“More than you think.” He jerked his head toward the interior of his house—a house I hadn’t seen before and wasn’t sure I cared to. He’d been very gentlemanly in always picking me up at my place for our dates, even if he had to cut half of them short for work. His home, like his heart, was still a mystery to me. “Come in.”
I hesitated. Even though I’d been to his mom’s house and sort of shared the holidays with him, it felt strange to cross that line. Into hearth and home. Into the space where the job ended and he began.
He saw my reluctance and swore. “I knew it was a mistake leaving your apartment before I got a firm yes.”
“How do you know I was going to say yes?”
His voiced dropped to a sexy rumble, and his hand reached for me with its big, warm palm and promises of tenderness. He rested it on my cheek, his thumb running its familiar path over my lips. “You were going to say yes.”
I bit.
Not hard enough to break the skin, mind you, but enough so he knew I meant business. He pulled his hand back with a louder curse and a sad smile.
“We’re going to do this the hard way, I see,” he said. “Come in. I think there are some things we need to talk about.”
I shook my head, eyes wide and heart fluttering, prey caught in the wolf’s snare. If he reached for me again—if he kept touching me and saying sweet things—I wasn’t going to be able to fight this.
And I needed to fight it. I needed to fight him. After he left my apartment yesterday, I should have been over the moon—after all, I’d finally won, finally gotten him to break his self-imposed restrictions on making our relationship a physical one.
But I’d never felt less like a winner in my life. I’d been vulnerable and alone, my apartment echoing with a cavernous silence it had never contained before he pushed his way inside. If one sexual encounter with this man could do that to me, what would a lifetime of them do?
“There’s nothing to say. I thought about it, and I’m flattered by the offer, but I think it’s time we break up.”
He didn’t move, not even to blink. “Come inside, Penelope.”
“Why? What are you going to do to me in there?”
The etched lines of his frown went soul-deep. “You think I’m going to hurt you?”
No. I knew he was going to hurt me. Nothing beyond that door would bring me anything but pain.
“Grant.” I was pleading—something I almost never did, but I didn’t know what else to do. If I entered his home and he turned the full force of his charm on me, there was a good chance I’d tell him everything he wanted to know. That wasn’t going to do anyone a favor. Not me and certainly not him. If he knew about half the terrible things I’d done in my lifetime, it would break his heart.
“Can we please just call this what it was—a good time? A fling?” I hesitated over the next one, but I had to say it if I planned to get out of there alive. “A mistake?”
“You and I are not a mistake.”
“But—”
He cut me off before I even knew what I was going to say. “Do you know how difficult it was for me to leave your apartment yesterday?”
I blinked at him, wondering where this was going, wondering if I really wanted to find out. “No,” I said slowly, not sure which question I was answering.
“I’ve done plenty of difficult things in my life before,” he said. “Physical challenges, psychological ones. I’ve been Tasered and maced, forced to go days without sleep, fought men two times my size and won.”
Yes, I thought, staring at this flawless, infallible man. As Riker would call him, a real prince.
“And you know what? None of it took more out of me than putting my clothes back on and saying good-bye. Nothing hurt as much as walking out that door knowing you might still need me.” He lifted a hand toward me, dropping it only when he saw how close I was to bolting. “I could get kidnapped tomorrow, face down ten firing squads, claw my way through deserts and mountains, but leaving you would still be the hardest thing I’ve done.”
“But you did,” I pointed out, my throat tight. He always would.
“Then marry me, dammit.” The ferocity of his words took me by surprise. “Marry me so I won’t ever have to leave you again.”
Yes.
My body answered for me, drawing me forward until I was in his arms. It wasn’t the direction I wanted to go, and my mind recoiled at the thought of how easy it would be to give up everything for the sake of his embrace.
Nothing felt better than this man’s heart beating against mine. Nothing made me happier than hearing him speak my name.
“Does this mean you’ll do it?” he asked, the words spoken directly into the sensitive skin at the base of my earlobe.
I stiffened almost immediately.
“I’ve got a whole speech planned, if that helps,” he added.
It didn’t help, and I twisted to get out of his grip. “You don’t want to marry me, Grant. I’m a horrible person and I don’t get along with others and you’ll regret it. You’ll regret it every minute you’re stuck with me.”
He held firm—both his obstinacy and his arms. “I think that’s for me to decide, isn’t it?”
“I’m dangerous.”
“Not to me, you aren’t.”
“That’s because you’re overly confident in your skills. I could become dangerous. I could ruin everything you’ve worked toward.”
>
He paused long enough to toss me aside, but, of course, he didn’t. He devoured me with that stare of his instead. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Before I could come up with any more excuses, he pulled me toward the living room. Now that I paid attention, I could see that his house wasn’t what you’d expect a hot bachelor FBI agent to call home, but exactly what you’d expect a deceptively gentlemanlike mystery collector who loved antique stores and flea markets to mark as his own. I saw the painting he’d talked about before. It was perched on the living room wall, the colors as bright and vivid as he’d promised.
This wasn’t just a place he put his head down for the night before he went to work the next day. This was his home. And I wanted to share it with him so much, I almost couldn’t bear it. It was like looking directly into the sun.
He placed me on the couch, and my body slid along his as I fell into a sitting position. He sat next to me, and I thought he might use the moment to his advantage, pressing me against the cushions and kissing me until I capitulated, but he maintained a decorous distance, my hands clasped in his.
“Look, I think we should—” he began, but I shook my head and refused to look up. I couldn’t.
He was about to confess all and destroy everything: his position, our relationship, my life. The moment he admitted out loud what he was doing—that he’d been assigned to watch me, that I was part of an elaborate plan to uncover the Blue Fox’s fortune—the future I’d pictured inside this house was gone. More than anything else, I wanted a chance at that future. For the first time in my life, I wanted hope.
“Don’t say it. Not yet,” I said. My words slurred as I tried to make sense of what I was about to ask, and my head felt heavy and hot. “If I agree to marry you, can you promise me something?”
“Anything,” he said so fiercely, I almost believed him.
“That day we picked out my couch together—do you remember what we talked about?”
“Of course I do. I picked you up at the ferry terminal, and you looked like you’d just stepped out of a hurricane. You were beautiful.” Then he stiffened, his fingers turning to stone in mine. “Wait a minute—is this about Riker?”
Riker, who’d been there that day. Riker, who’d met Grant for the first time and didn’t hesitate to show his displeasure. Riker, who would never get over the fact that he wasn’t my number one choice anymore.
What I was about to say wasn’t about him, not even a little, but I must have delayed for a second too long. It was an important second—a life-changing second—because part of Grant withdrew in that moment, retreating behind a wall I’d constructed myself. If I didn’t know him as well as I did, I might not have noticed, but this man was already so much a part of me that it felt like a slash to the heart. It was a reserve, a hesitance, a too-quick smile that burned like fire. And it stayed there for much longer than I ever realized.
More than a year, in fact.
“No. It has nothing to do with Riker,” I said, but it was too late. Even saying his name gave Riker power. It told Grant that he wasn’t the only man in my life I cared about, the only one who cared about me.
Not that Grant would admit as much out loud. He was too far committed to retreat now. He’d admitted as much at his mom’s house. I play to win.
As if there was any other way to play. As if we’d ever be anywhere but on opposite sides of the equation.
“I see,” he said slowly.
That time, I took his hands, pulling them into my lap and worrying my fingers over the rough skin of his palms until it felt safe to continue. It took longer than it should have, my courage flagging at the idea of laying so much of myself on the line.
Bravery was easy when it meant putting yourself in physical harm’s way. It was the emotional stuff that really scared me.
“I was actually referring to the conversation we had at my apartment, when you told me I could ask you anything,” I said. “Remember?” I did. I’d played it over and over inside my head—that feeling of power I had over him, the precious way I still held that power, close to my heart. “After we kissed, you said you were so flustered, you wouldn’t be able to help but tell me the truth. Government secrets and everything—they were mine for the taking.”
“I meant it, Penelope.”
No rhyme that time. Just my name. Just me.
“I felt the same way,” I said softly, toying with his fingers. “I still do. When your lips touch mine, when your hands are on my skin and your body is next to mine, I know there isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t confess. All you have to do is ask.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I stopped him. I squeezed his hands so tightly, he couldn’t mistake the urgency of what came next.
“You can’t ask, Grant,” I said. “You have to promise me that no matter how much you might want to, you won’t ask. You can never ask.”
He wanted to ask—he’d never wanted anything that much, I was sure of it. The struggle I saw in his eyes was the most clearly his thoughts had ever been revealed. He wanted to kiss me right then and there and demand answers. He wanted to push me to the couch and extract every last one of my secrets.
Oh, how I wanted to let him.
I almost took back my words—almost gave him everything—but then I pictured all the terrible things I’d done in my life, all the terrible things I still planned to do. There were so many parts of me that belonged solely to my dad and to Riker, to the dark, dishonorable places that would make Grant look at me with loathing instead of desire. So I held firm. We played the game this way, or we didn’t play at all.
He waited just long enough for me to say something more, to surrender to the overwhelming force of his personality. When I didn’t, he cupped my face and forced my gaze to lock on his so I could see how much he didn’t like this request of mine.
I saw.
“This is what you really want?” he asked.
No. “Yes.”
“This is the only way I can have you?”
Never. “Yes.”
“Then I accept your terms.”
Holy shit. Was I engaged? “Really? Just like that?”
“If that’s what it takes to get you to marry me, I’ll do it.” He issued it as a challenge. He was ferocious in his words and bearing, daring me to contradict him. “I might not like it, but I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t do to make you mine—and there are things I’ve done in my lifetime that no man should admit to. That’s how much I adore you, Penelope Blue.”
My heart lurched into my throat. Adore. Not as big as love, but not as small as desire. It would have to be enough.
I wasn’t familiar enough with the protocol for marriage proposals to know what was supposed to come next. Chances were good that the standard reaction wasn’t to burst into tears, but that was exactly what I felt like doing. I had no idea why. I’d gone into this situation with my eyes wide open. I knew what the stakes were and still chose to play—but there it was. I wanted to curl up in Grant’s lap and cry like a baby until he made it all okay again.
Which was why I did the opposite. I did the only thing I could think of that would take this ache away, the only thing between us that I knew was one hundred percent real.
I kissed him.
With my arms around his neck and my body pressed to his, I kissed him so hard, he couldn’t deny me any longer. I kissed him so deep, I still haven’t come up for air.
28
THE END
(Present Day)
It’s a strange thing to know you’re a widow.
I’ve seen good, decent women react to that news before, falling to their knees and screaming in agony, a part of their soul ripped away. I’ve also seen Tara react to that news before, in a huff of irritation and outrage, her bags packed and the cab waiting before it had time to settle.
I
feel neither of these things. Standing outside the room that contains all that’s left of my husband, I have neither voice nor body. I’m only numb.
“Pen, don’t—” Riker tries to prevent me from twisting the doorknob, but I have to know. I have to see.
I notice his body right away, a huddled lump near a desk on the far side of the room. It’s almost funny how much one man’s body looks like another when the life has been extinguished. From here, it looks like he shares several characteristics with the man Riker felled over by the elevators—the same tilt to his head and slack jaw, the same eyes closed against the world, fluttering to wakefulness.
Wakefulness?
With a cry still lodged in the base of my throat, I take stilted steps toward the body. It isn’t dead. He isn’t dead. I’m not too late.
I stop before I get far into the room as the man groans again and rolls onto his back. I don’t recognize the pug nose or the pointed chin, and I would never have fallen for someone who could so casually wear that shade of green. Not only is the man on the ground not dead, he’s also not Grant. I cast a wide-eyed glance around me, scanning for the familiar dark-blond curls that run like silk through my fingers.
I see more slumped bodies, groaning bodies, huddled bodies…none of which are his. Nor is he the man standing behind the desk, the one with his arms raised as if there’s a gun pointed at his head.
“Penelope, you’re blocking my aim.” Grant’s voice sounds from behind me before I can make sense of my surroundings. “Do you think you could move about two feet to your left?”
I turn and release the scream that the good, decent woman inside me has been holding hostage—and for once, I’m not ashamed. I’d scream a thousand times if it meant I could capture this moment forever.
“Grant!” Even though the gun is now technically pointed at me, I don’t hesitate in throwing myself the remainder of the distance and burying my head in his chest. I’ve always loved the smell of him—soap warmed by skin and sweat, the fabric softener all our clothes share—but I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated it as much as I do right now. “You’re not dead. You’re here. You’re alive.”
Stealing Mr. Right Page 27
