"Hello, Bailey." Hank's gruff voice was a quick dip in an icy pond.
She wanted to see him. Well, here he was. The little girl in her wanted to run into his arms and beg for the love she was denied. The woman in her wanted him to hurt, badly. She wanted blood. Maybe they were more alike than she was willing to admit.
She pushed open the door and entered the room, total focus on the man in front of her. “Hello, Henry.”
That wasn’t what she really wanted to say. He didn’t deserve the respect she gave him by using his given name, but nothing else came to mind at that moment. It was Theresa’s fault Bailey had manners.
He held up a hand. “Call me Hank. Everyone does. I prefer it.”
Everyone does. So, I’m everyone. She gave herself a mental slap. Be grateful he didn’t say call me Dad. Thank God. She pushed open the door and entered the room. “What are you doing here, Hank?”
His forehead puckered, drawing his brows into angry salt and pepper slashes. “You’re angry. That’s expected.” He scratched at his temple and flexed his fingers until he dropped both hands to his lap. “How are you, Bailey?”
What the fuck type of question was that? And how should she answer it? “I’m…” Not fine! She sat at the head of the table between the two men, because long or short, this conversation was overdue and beyond necessary. Hands folded in her lap, she didn’t take her eyes off Hank. Not that she wasn’t aware of Emmet’s gaze locked on her. She just refused to acknowledge it.
“Strange question.” She wanted to sound strong, in control, untouchable. Not like the broken little girl caged inside her chest. “I’m on the run because a killer you trained is after me to hurt you. I’ve been shot at, coerced, kidnapped, blown up, stitched up, and now I’m on a yacht talking to the man who caused all this. Does that give you an inkling of how I’m doing?” The last sentence was barely a whisper, which pissed her off. So much for being untouchable.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but a sorry is worth as much as a three dollar bill.” He studied the glass in his hand.
She’d waited a lifetime to hear two words, I’m sorry, and would keep waiting. Which was as pathetic as Hank not being able to say them.
Hank’s mouth, puckered into a tight asshole, mimicking his not so secret identity. “I’m sorry,” he spat as if she should be grateful.
Wow, that had to shave a decade off his life. Too bad it was seven years too late. But, she’d roll with it and use it to her advantage because that’s all she had. This moment. In front of her father.
“What exactly are you sorry about? And why should I care?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. Oh look, he’s pissed. Good.
“You didn’t deserve this.” A nonchalant wave of the hand not holding the glass of liquor summed up…nothing.
“This? Do you mean my presence on the yacht? Or maybe you mean the scar on the side of my head.” She angled her head so he could see the healing wound. “Maybe you mean the explosion?” His lips flattened into a grim line, but she wasn’t done. “Could be you meant your protégé kidnapping me from my vacation.” She pointed at Emmet. “I’m sure one of those things were what you were referring too, right, Hank?”
Features glacial. “Like I said, a sorry is worthless.”
Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Yep. It was confirmed. Hank was an asshole, and she was an idiot for holding onto a sliver of hope. Her gaze cut to Emmet whose gaze drilled into her. Her idiocy stretched to both men. Now, she didn't know who she wanted to cry over.
I can’t do this. She gave into the little girl crying in the corner of her mind and bolted.
Bailey rose, felt a cool draft shoot up the robe, and realized she was naked beneath a thin layer of silk. She snatched the two halves together over her exposed cleavage and spun. Emmet blocked her path.
And she was grateful. Blocking her path gave her a second to catch her breath and realize her mistake. Leaving wouldn't solve anything. She entered the room for answers, and by God, she would get them.
“Bailey, let me—”
She held up a hand, cutting off whatever trivial nonsense Emmet was about to spew. She didn’t need his help, not ever again.
Adjusting her robe, she planted her ass, again and locked eyes with Hank. “Tell me about my mother. Not Theresa. I want to know about the woman who birthed me.”
She expected him to shut her down, was prepared for a brutal rebuttal per his M.O. Nothing surprised her more than when he reached into his suit pocket and withdrew his wallet. From the leather billfold came a single 2x3 photo. He held it up, studied it as if he’d never see it again. And he wouldn’t. Regardless of the sadness plainly visible on his face, that picture now belonged to her.
His gaze met hers, and he slid the photo across the table. She stopped it from going off the edge of the table with a finger to the center of the picture. Trembling, she flipped it over and brought it close.
Yellow around the edges and a watermark in the right corner discolored the side of her head. The rest of the picture…
Her hair was jet black and fell in waves around her shoulders, similar to how Bailey kept her hair before the pixie cut. Their features were also identical, oval faces with strong jawlines, wide-set eyes. The color, a soft baby blue. In her lap, a chubby baby, dressed in pink and white. She looked radiant, her head thrown back in laughter, her eyes twinkling. Whoever held the camera captured a moment of pure happiness.
“Did you take this picture?” She managed to say through a throat constricted by a swell of emotions.
Hank cleared this throat. “You had turned a year old a week earlier, last warm day of the year. I was leaving for a trip and wanted something to take with me, though I didn’t get it developed until I returned.”
“She loved you.” Bailey could tell in every line of her mother's body. A woman in love can't hide it, and her mother clearly loved Hank.
“I loved her.”
Why did he sound dead inside, like a gutted fish left to rot, but he didn’t rot. Instead, he let his grief consume him and any potential relationship he could’ve had with his daughter. Bailey clutched the picture to her. She wouldn’t cry, not in front of them. There were more questions she had but didn’t care anymore. The answers were irrelevant when the questions didn’t matter.
“Her name. Give me her name,” she growled.
“Constance Michela.”
That was a knife in Bailey’s heart. It took everything she had not to sob.
With the picture in hand, she rose.
“Is that it?” He seemed confused. “Nothing else you want to ask me?”
She kept moving toward the door, ignoring him as he ignored her.
“Are you sure, babe? This is your chance?” Emmet touched her shoulder as she walked by.
She knocked his hand away. “My chance? To do what? Connect with a man who hates me?”
“I don’t hate you,” Hank murmured. “I regret you believe that.”
She refused to look at him. Instead, she focused her contempt on Emmet. “I don’t care what you regret. I got what I came for, and I need nothing else.” She waved the picture of her mother and walked around Emmet.
Back through the dining room, the private kitchen, to the master suite, she moved as quickly as her feet would carry her. She didn’t stop until she was staring the window at the bow of the ship gliding along the surface of the water.
“You should feel complete because Hank is here now.” She met Emmet’s gaze in his reflection on the window.
“Bailey.”
“Don’t bother. Whatever you have to say, tell it to Hank. He cares. I don’t.”
He cut the distance between them and paused only a few paces behind her rigid back. “How much did you hear?”
She looked over her shoulder at him, couldn’t help it. “This conversation is unnecessary. Get what you need and get out. Go bunk with Hank.”
“I want to know what you’re thinking.” Stubbornly, he stood in the middle of
the room, legs spread, arms folded, looking irresistible.
“Thinking?” She shook her head. “I’m not thinking.”
“Your opinion then,” he gritted out the words between clenched teeth.
“I have no opinion.”
"A woman without an opinion is an oxymoron," Emmet snorted. "When Rogers has been caught, and you go back to your life, I will walk away, and you will have the life you want."
“Aww.” She wheeled around. Now, he deserved her attention. With her hand pressed to her chest, she gave him her brightest smile instead of planting something sharp in his chest. “You’re such a gentleman. Thank you for agreeing to walk away from me. I’m so lucky. Very, very lucky to have spent quality time with you. Was the seduction Plan A.2, Plan B.1?”
“I didn’t seduce you. We seduced each other.”
God, she wished she could call him a liar.
“And it wasn’t a plan, Bailey.” He came closer.
She backed up, but there was no place to go. She couldn't ghost through the bulkhead to avoid him but suspected even if she could, she wouldn't escape his presence unless he allowed her to. Yet, there had to be a way. Had to.
“There wasn’t a plan to end up in bed with you. What happened between us was…”
He stumbled over the words, and she supplied them. "A mistake." And that's why he could walk away. "One we don't need to repeat." She swallowed down the hurt and focused on what was important. "What's Plan C, or am I still not allowed to know how you and Hank will use me next?"
A vein pulsed in his temple and she found herself fascinated by each throb. “We haven’t gotten that far yet. Hank was too busy interrogating me about our relationship and no one is using you.”
That was a surprise. Not the “no one is using you” part, but Hank questioning Emmet about their relationship. “What relationship? We had sex. Now, we’re not having sex.” Especially after he promised to walk away. Think of something else, anything else.
“After all this is over, and Rogers is in his grave, you go back to working with Hank where? In America? In Europe?” He opened his mouth to answer, but she wasn’t done. “The only reason I care is because I don’t need your super-secret agency coming after me because I know too much.”
With measured steps and open arms, Emmet came to her. “No one will come after you. I won’t let them, babe.”
She allowed him to wrap his arms around her and draw her into his body. She allowed his warmth to seep beneath her skin and sink all the way to her bones. Yet, she remained cold, as if her soul had walked into a freezer. “You won’t let them. Unless, Hank yanks your chain. Or is there someone higher than Hank who yanks his chain?”
His face gave nothing away, but everybody had a boss. Everybody had to answer to someone.
She drew back and met his gaze. “I’m not your babe.”
Carefully, she extricated herself from his arms and headed for the bathroom. She ran a bath. It filled quickly from two faucets at opposite ends of the sunken tub. She added bath oil for some much-needed aromatherapy. All the while, he stood there. Arms folded again as he leaned against the jamb, body a tense wall of muscle, watching her strip and lower herself into the hot water.
Eyes closed, she leaned back and let the water soothe what it could. Which wasn’t much as she listened to his footsteps draw near. She couldn’t ignore him, not when his presence was hotter than the bath water which had yet to thaw her soul.
He was there, on his haunches, inches away. It took everything she had not to reach for him. She did it. She resisted even when he scooped up a handful of water and poured it over her exposed shoulder. “You’re angry. I get it. You want to hate me. I get that too. But know this...” He gripped her chin and angled her head toward him, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I regret nothing.”
His free hand entered the water and slipped between her thighs. “Go ahead. Tell me you regret what happened between us.”
He parted her flesh with a single finger and circled her clit, then he dipped deep inside her. She could’ve stopped him, grabbed his hand, pulled away, told him to stop, not to touch her, leave me alone. All that came out of her mouth was a strangled sob bordering on a plea for more. Why? Because it wasn’t over, not in her heart. Not in her soul which melted at his touch.
So close they shared a breath, he breathed into her and said, “That slickness I feel, it’s not the water. Lie if you can, but, babe, your body doesn’t lie. And neither will I. I will protect you with my life and—”
“Walk away at the first opportunity.”
His icy gaze dipped into her soul, and it wasn't cold she felt, but a blazing inferno of desire. "Not the first." He pumped his finger into her depths and rubbed his stubble against her cheek. Her head fell back, and her knees fell open, granted him complete access to everything he wanted. "But if it keeps you safe, away from our world, then yeah, I will walk away and never look back."
Tears pricked her eyes, and she took his face in her hands while his fingers plied her body. He was right, she could lie to him and herself…tomorrow. "Then give me tonight."
Just one more night of make-believe where she wasn’t hunted, and he was there because he wanted to be not out of loyalty to Hank. One more night where they had a future in the morning. One more night to feel loved, even if it was all a lie.
Bailey kissed him, poured everything she felt for him into their joined lips. She didn’t know how he did it, but he stripped down to his birthday suit without breaking contact, or maybe she was lost in the ecstasy as he brought her to a swift release, then joined her in the tub. Water poured over the rim, soaking everything, though neither cared.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A phone ringing pulled Bailey out of the light sleep she had succumbed to after a long night exhausting night. She didn’t move as the bed shifted and the ringing silenced.
“What?” Emmet said to whoever was on the opposite end. “All right. I’ll be there in a few.” Then his lips were on her throat. “I have to go meet Julius Morgan. Want to join?”
She stifled her shock. He included her? Why now, her jaded half wondered even as she wallowed in the warmth his body provided. “I didn’t hear a helicopter.”
“We’re docked in Magdeburg. Have been for about an hour. He’ll be here in a moment.”
She snuggled deeper under the covers. “No.” She would’ve loved to meet the billionaire. “No. I’m gonna stay in bed most of the morning and catch up on sleep.”
“Okay. I’ll be back when I can.” He pressed a quick kiss to the side of her throat and then he was gone. She listened to the muffled sound of water striking his body in the shower, followed by him in the dressing room, and then the sound of the bedroom doors opening and closing.
Bailey whipped back the covers and went for the duffle bag in the closet first. She got out all the credit cards and passports and took them into the private kitchen to the tablet. Windows based, a few clicks got her into Programs and onto Internet Explorer. She considered doing this earlier in the week to check her emails and voicemails but knew what Emmet would say. Already conditioned to his wants and desires, she automatically deferred to his unspoken wishes. What an idiot. But that’s what women did. They put their desires, their best interests, on the back burner because of love, regardless of whether it was reciprocated.
Not anymore.
They had their final passionate night, one she would remember forever, but she had to go. It took all night to come up with her plan, while snuggled against his naked body, absorbing the indelible feel and smell of him into her mind, but she had one. And it was a good plan. She lived her life with the threat of Hank around her neck for two and a half decades and had taken a few things to heart.
Hank claimed to be the only one protecting her from all the bad in the world even though he was nowhere to be seen and probably lived thousands of miles in the opposite direction of her little enclave in suburban Atlanta. She'd never truly believed that and had taken precautions.
Emmet wasn't the only one with a g-to bag. All she had to do was get to Atlanta, get her stuff and no one would ever find her again, she hoped. A lot of things could go wrong; still, she had to make an effort to reclaim her life.
It took a precious thirty minutes to book all the flights. Quickly, she showered, dressed in a bathing suit and a plush robe with the name of the yacht emblazoned across the left breast. In the deep pockets, she hid the passports and cash. In a large towel, she rolled up her underwear, socks, and sneakers. Inside one of the sneakers, a nine-millimeter. She couldn’t get it on an airplane, but it would help get her to the airport in one piece.
Through the deck, she strolled, dodging crewmen as they hustled by. The owner was about to arrive. "Is there anything I can get you, ma'am?" one harried crewman stopped and asked.
“Oh, no. I’m just on my way to the sauna.” Which wasn’t far from the linen closet, a fact she discovered early on during her stay when she knocked a stack of towels into the pool. Fortunately, the linen closet held more than sheets and towels. It also contained the crew's uniforms, including outerwear.
She pushed open the frosted glass doors to the pool and sauna and pressed against the wall, waiting for the tide of crewmen to die down. Three bells sounded over the intercom, and all the crewmen headed for the stairs.
Bailey bolted for the closet. Once inside, she locked the door and stripped out of the bathing suit. Within two minutes she had changed into the navy blue pants, light blue button-down shirt, and navy blue sweater. The hooded down jacket matched the uniform along with the knit hats and scarfs. Julius Morgan cared about his crew’s warmth. She stared into her blurry image reflected off the shiny side of a metal cabinet. The only thing that gave her away were her white sneakers.
Nothing could be done about that.
Pockets full of cash, credit cards, and passports, Bailey inhaled a deep breath to steady her nerves and headed for the top deck. She emerged into the bitter cold and waited at the end of a long line of crewmen as Julius Morgan and two women arrived with him. One on his arm, the other holding a briefcase. As expected, he shook the captain’s and the steward’s hands. She didn’t expect the man to go down the line shaking everyone’s hand, including hers.
Plain Jane and the Hitman Page 17
