by Unknown
Actually, she didn’t. She didn’t see one single bit. He closed his eyes and made a quick decision that ran counter to the need-to-know philosophy that guided his life. But she’d shared a lot, and as much as he despised the thought, he believed her.
So he owed her a little honesty right back.
“The fact is,” he said quietly, “I never got over Isa. Over…you.”
“You’re the one who left without saying good-bye.”
In the scheme of things, that sin didn’t match up to hers, but who was tallying the score? It was all a mess. “I was pissed,” he admitted. “Went to Miami needing to pulverize someone.”
“I heard you did.”
He laughed softly. “Okay, I may have blasted a few too many bullets into the bellies of some Cuban gang members who were stealing little girls and selling them to the highest bidder. I mighta gone a little crazy.”
“Might have? I heard the price on your head in the Cuba Mafia could have fed a family of four for five years.”
“You heard right. And I didn’t care because it felt so fucking good to kill those dickbags, because I was so mad because…because…” He put his hands over his forehead, pressing on his eyes like he always did when he was trying to smash out a thought that wrecked him. “I never should have let her…you…Isadora go.”
“You couldn’t stop me,” she said.
That didn’t help. He kept his hands on his eyes. “I left CIA contract work completely, which wasn’t hard, because they didn’t love me much anymore for the crap that went down in Miami. I went up to Boston and started working for my cousins’ security firm. Hung out with Nino and…tried to forget…Cuba.”
“And me.”
“But I couldn’t.” He finally met her gaze. “It just got worse. I dug around old contacts, and no one ever told me you’d died, just that you’d disappeared. A few people said you’d been seen in Cuba. When I decided to start this hide ’n’ seek business, I happened to find this godforsaken island, and it fit every need—secluded, protected—and I had a friend in Luke McBain, a guy I’d met on an assignment when he was in the French Foreign Legion, and he offered me a cover. But mostly it was…”
“Close to Cuba.”
He nodded. “And I started the search for you. Mal heard rumblings through his contacts about Radio and TV Martí in Miami, so I went there and stole some files that supposedly had your name in them.”
“One of the things I did while I was pregnant was act as a distributor for Martí,” she said. “Handing out flash drives of real news.”
“That’s where I found your name, listed as deceased.” Damn it, his voice almost cracked. “And then my sister found out about…the baby.” And everything changed. “She and Mal went to Cuba to find out what they could, and what they found was…a continuation of my personal shit show under a grave marker.”
“I baptized him Gabriel Rafael Rossi Winter,” she said. “And when we put that fake headstone in Alana’s yard, we added her last name because she’d adopted him.”
“It wrecked my sister when she found it.” Not to mention him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I made a lot of mistakes, but I made them for the right reasons.”
They both made mistakes, even if hers were bigger and badder.
And right that minute, all he wanted to do was make another big bad mistake and kiss this woman. He wanted to kiss Isadora, and she was…sitting two inches from him, the scent of her perfume torturing him, the sight of that plump lower lip calling to him.
But she wasn’t the same.
Still, he put his hand on her cheek and drew her closer, holding this stranger’s gaze but somehow seeing, deep inside those bottomless eyes, the soul of the woman who mattered to him more than anyone.
“For the record, I would have waited for you,” he said just before he put his mouth against hers.
He felt her suck in a breath and tense, but he angled his head and relaxed into a real kiss, opening his mouth enough to taste her, to feel her tongue and hear a sweet, soft whimper catch in her throat.
Her lips were soft and warm, pliable and delicious, and he slid his hand under her hair to grasp her head and tilt her to get closer and deeper into the kiss.
With his eyes closed and his heart open, he could taste Isadora. Sweet and salty, a kiss that always made him hard and hungry and ready for more.
And this one was no different.
He pulled her closer and wrapped his other arm around her, tucking her into him as he finally ended the lip-to-lip but was already kissing his way along her jaw, headed for her sweetest of sweet spots. Under her ear, right beneath her lobe, where a kiss was guaranteed to make her—
“Stop.”
He instantly drew back, more at the sharp note than the word itself.
She pushed him away and stood, holding her hands out with fire and agony in her eyes. Real agony, like torture. Anyone from any country could read that body language: Do not make another fucking move, or I’ll kill you.
And the woman was armed, he remembered.
He reached to touch his lip, to dry it from the kiss and relive the touch of her mouth for one second. “Too soon?” he joked.
Her eyes grew darker, and threatening. Way more threatening than just a woman who wanted to slow down. She turned away, pressing her hands to her head. “It’s…no, Gabe. We can’t. I won’t.”
“Why not? If you’re really Isadora, we have nothing to hide from each other.”
“It hurts,” she whispered.
“What hurts?”
She visibly dug for composure and turned back to him. “You need to leave.” Her words were strangled, tight. “Just…leave.”
But he didn’t move, staring at her, trying like hell to figure out what was wrong. What hurt?
“Leave!” She pointed to the door, and he realized her hand was actually trembling. Why? It was just a kiss, and she was totally—
“I mean it, Gabe, get out.”
He stood slowly. “Cool your jets, blondie.”
She shook her head, almost like she was trying to clear it. “Just don’t…don’t.”
“Don’t kiss you?”
She pressed her fingertips to her temples, squeezing hard enough to leave tiny little white spots under her blood-red nails. “Don’t say you would have waited or that you loved me or anything like that, ever. I can’t handle it.”
He reached for her, but she backed away, skittish.
“All right, all right,” he said. “I’m going to get my stuff. I’ll send someone from the security team over here to watch the villa in the meantime and—”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re a client now,” he informed her. “You’re under my protection. Isn’t that why you came here? I’m not leaving you for any length of time until we know you’re safe, since you think you’re not. And there is the matter of our son.”
“You’re going to take him.”
Was that a question or a statement? He couldn’t tell. But something was seriously up right now, that was for sure.
“I’ll be back in a little bit,” he said.
“Okay.” The fight had gone out of her, along with the heat in her eyes. She turned and left him, and he heard the first sob escape right before she closed her bedroom door.
So she was still a crier, just in private.
Chapter Ten
Shame.
Pain and shame.
Lila’s constant companions were out in full force today, strangling her, torturing her, and making her waking hours a living hell. Everything in her ached to tell Gabe about the headaches and what caused them. To share how utterly debilitating they were and how they’d made her certain she could never be the good, loving mother her son deserved.
How do you explain to someone that it hurt to feel love? That the only time she was pain-free was when she visualized herself trapped in ice, alone. Away from anyone who made her feel emotionally attached. Or when she was
deep undercover taking on a new persona, again, but feeling nothing, only concentrating on work.
That’s what changing her identity had done, and even if Gabe understood, he’d blame her. And she’d deserve that blame, and the shame that came with it. The godawful humiliation and disgrace of giving up her own child—because loving him made her head feel like it was going to explode—would never go away, even if the headaches did.
It was obvious he thought she was off her rocker. She knew Gabe so well she could still read the subtext in his probing questions and decipher his expressions. She knew him, and she still loved every inch of the man.
And that feeling cracked her skull in two. In fact, it was so bad after that kiss that she figured why not steal another hour or two with Rafe? One Rossi man had wrecked her, so she might as well finish the job with the other one.
Slipping out of Casa Blanca Resort & Spa unnoticed wasn’t difficult, at least not for a woman trained in the art of spycraft. Lila knew Gabe would be true to his word and would waste no time planting bodyguards around her villa, so she watched him disappear into the gardens, headed toward the bungalow where he lived.
Then she bolted.
The last time she’d been at this resort, her “assignment” had been to find Malcolm Harris, but he was already in Cuba by then, on his own mission for Gabe. That left Lila to spend her time at the resort exactly as she pleased, and she’d done plenty of homework that week.
She’d known the Lila Wickham undercover gig was coming to an end. So while she’d been here, she’d mapped out her short-term plan to come back and secure a safe house for Rafe and started moving toward…good-bye.
Her head throbbed at the thought, and her heart didn’t feel much better.
She stopped at a four-way intersection in Mimosa Key’s quaint town, using the car mirrors to do a three-sixty scan of anyone who could possibly be following her. The streets were relatively deserted, although the convenience store was open, she noticed, with an older woman with a bad blond dye job sweeping the entryway.
On Christmas Day.
Oh, Lila, that could be you in a few years. Alone, alone, alone. Without a single attachment that would cause blinding pain. She’d live without love, but she’d live. If she had to continue this way, she could easily end up taking her own life.
Wasn’t there any other way out of this mess? What if she just bit the bullet and followed Gabe’s plan to live a normal life and raise their son?
She gave up normal the day she said yes to her last assignment.
The light changed, and she glanced around again, but this time, she didn’t look for a tail, but at the little town itself. Cute, but not in a kitschy way. An authentic Florida beach town with sun-washed stucco low-rise buildings and sweet little stores like a florist called Bud’s Buds and an ice cream parlor called Miss Icey’s.
Could she live in a place like this? With Gabe and Rafe?
Right on cue, sunbursts of pain shot through her head, forcing her to stop thinking about the two people who made it the worst.
She drove south into the lush residential area that made up the lower half of Mimosa Key. Here, Florida ranch homes with emerald lawns and graceful palms sat side by side in warrens of quiet, peaceful streets. Finding a safe house to rent hadn’t been difficult, and of course, Chris Sloane, her friend, nanny, and professional protection, had come along on this trip, thinking it was just another CIA assignment and Lila needed her most reliable employee on the road with her.
As she approached the beige stucco three-bedroom house where Rafe and Chris were staying, Lila’s handbag hummed, which meant her secret phone that only Dexter Crain used was vibrating with a call.
She fished through her bag to unzip the virtually invisible back pocket where she kept that phone, hoping it wasn’t bad news.
“Merry Christmas,” she said brightly.
“I wish it was.”
Her heart dropped. “What is it?”
She listened to him relay information about a call he’d had with CIA Director Hollings, but the details were only partially processing. The only thing she heard was credible threat.
And that made her drive faster toward Rafe.
“Lila, they want you. I don’t know why, I don’t know who, and I don’t know when they’ll let up, but someone could know your role in the operation and make you pay for it. You need to get your plan to disappear underway, and fast.”
She didn’t know why or who, either, but she knew these people well enough to know when they’d quit: when they got the silence or vengeance or whatever whacked-out thing they wanted. Most likely they’d quit when she was dead, which was why her “suckfest of stupid” plan to fake yet another death wasn’t exactly stupid.
She had to get Rafe settled and safe with Gabe and get moving.
“I’ve been released,” she said, turning off the ignition and pressing the phone harder against her ear. “No one officially wants me. Anyone I worked for has made that clear. Who could it be, Dex?”
“I don’t know. Someone rogue. Possibly someone associated with one of the cells. They know you, Lila. They know your face and name.”
But did they know Rafe?
“No one knows where I am, Dex.” She’d made sure of that. There was no trail. Cash for everything, even this house where her son and nanny were staying. She knew how to stay hidden, at least for a short while. “Not even you, and you wouldn’t tell anyone if you did.”
He was silent for a beat, then, “How are you feeling?”
Like I want to cut my head off. “I’m okay, really.” The hallmark of a good spy was never to let anyone see you sweat. “Listen, can we possibly get some intelligence on an identity? I need to know who and what I’m dealing with.” Not knowing the enemy was crippling; he could be anyone, anywhere.
“I’m trying,” he said. “He’s going to have to make a mistake and slip up somehow.”
“The thing is, I’m safe. I’m surrounded by protection…” Or she would be when Gabe put a wall of bodyguards around her villa and planted himself next to her. “And Rafe is, of course, in a safe house with Chris.”
“He’s not with you?”
“Oh, no, I have him somewhere else.” She dropped her head into her hands and rubbed, letting out a sigh.
“Are you okay, Lila? Healthwise, I mean?”
“Really good,” she assured him, looking up at the house and aching to run in and hold her son, no matter the cost. “I have to go. Give Anne a kiss, just don’t tell her it’s from me.”
“And give one to little Rafe. Tell him to make a good Christmas wish.”
“I will.” As she climbed out of the car and headed up a walkway tucked between six-foot hibiscus bushes, she made a wish herself. She wished her eyes weren’t stinging and her heart wasn’t so heavy. She wished her head didn’t hurt and her—
A man’s hand clamped over her mouth, yanking her backward into the bushes.
She instantly launched an elbow into his gut, which hit granite and got knocked away at the same second he managed to snag her weapon from the holster at her back.
Damn it!
She lifted her foot to find his toes but smashed on a boot, then jerked to the side only to get stilled completely by a powerful arm around her waist. She felt warm breath in her ear and the rock-hard chest of a strong man at her back.
“What the flippity fuck are you up to, Lila?”
*
Gabe whipped her around, easily balancing both of them against the bushes that had hidden him while she chatted on the phone. “You left without telling me.”
That second, the front door popped open, and a bruiser of a man filled the space, aiming a pistol directly at Gabe, full attack stance, a grip that screamed experience and fearlessness. “Drop her and the weapon, or you’re dead.”
“Who’s that?” Gabe asked into Lila’s ear.
“The nanny. And he’s not kidding.”
He loosened his grip, and she squirmed away.
“The nanny…” Holy shit. That meant… “Rafe’s here? In this house?”
Lila shot a glance toward the man in the doorway. “It’s fine, Chris. He’s…a friend.”
The guy didn’t budge. “I’ll believe you when he hands you that weapon and gets five feet away from you with his hands in the air.” He finished that with a blistering dark brown gaze as deadly as the Walther still directed at Gabe.
Lila managed to get her hand out. “Give me back my weapon,” she ordered Gabe. “You’re done testing my vulnerabilities.”
“And finding them.” Gabe pointed her Glock to the ground and handed it back to her, ignoring the rest of the fathead’s orders. “Finding…all kinds of things.”
Like my son. He swallowed hard, not quite ready for this, but not willing to wait one more second. “Take me to him,” he ordered her.
“No.” She stepped out of the bushes away from him. “Close the door, Chris. I’ve got this.”
The other man didn’t immediately react but still scrutinized Gabe closely, as if memorizing every detail, a shift in his expression—if it could be seen under three days of scruff—showing that he did not like what he saw.
Normally, Gabe would slice and dice Hollywood Face with a few well-placed insults, but he had more important business than the nosy nanny. His son was in that house, and right now, that was all that mattered. After a moment, the man disappeared behind a solid wood door with at least three locks clicking in his wake.
Each dead bolt shot a new arrow of anger through Gabe. “You and your lug nut manny can’t keep me from Rafe.”
“Gabe, you can’t march into the life of a four-year-old and announce you are his father.” She spoke in a hushed whisper, glancing around as if a neighbor might be lurking.
A whole new wave of pissed-off splashed through him, white-hot and ready to fight for his rights. “You can’t lock me out of the house where my own son is living.”
“Shut up! This is a safe house, unless you scream it out to the world.”
He leaned closer, right in her face. “Why did you come here alone, without telling me? Did you really think I wouldn’t follow?”
“How did you?” she asked.
