Because he had hidden them from her. It was a two way street, she realized. It hadn’t been just up to her to notice. Sebastian had to let her see, too.
Just as she had locked away the true depth of her love for him. It was just safer that way.
And it still was.
“Just like old times,” Winter murmured to the empty room. She sighed and went downstairs, her joy back under control.
Sebastian was studying blueprints for the Flatiron building, spread out over the dining room table. He straightened up as she approached, his gaze flicking over her. “These are updated and current,” he told her. “I’d love to know how Nial got hold of them so quickly, but I’m sure he’ll say something like ‘don’t ask,’ so I didn’t bother asking.”
“Pessimist.”
“Is your hair getting longer?”
“Yes.” She pushed it back over her shoulder.
“I love it,” Sebastian declared. “I really do.”
“Well, I’m kinda stuck with it.” She cleared her throat, bent over the table and began to study the blueprints. Sebastian started pointing out the entrances and exits, weak points, and all the other points that Winter would find of interest and the conversation slid back into normal work stuff. The tension left the room.
Later, she sat at Nial’s desk and started reading the profiles he had written on his computer. They were solid, workmanlike documents that gave her everything she needed to deal with any of the lawyers she might meet in the corridors—enough information to approach them closely enough to touch them and not alert them until it was too late.
Absorbed, she read, trying to memorise information and catalogue it.
“Is the ring bothering you?” Sebastian asked, placing fresh coffee next to her.
Winter glanced at the Claddagh ring on the desktop next to the keyboard. “No. But the skin on my finger underneath it is all pruned from the shower. I’m just letting it dry out.”
Sebastian picked up the ring. “I’d rather you wear the ring and suffer the inconvenience.”
“I know it has value to you.”
Sebastian sat on the edge of the desk with the ring on his palm. “Nial didn’t tell you anything about it, did he?”
She shook her head.
“Typical.” Sebastian showed her the inside of the ring. “See the initials there?”
She saw tiny letters that looked like scratch marks. An “R” and an “I”.
“They stand for ‘Richard Joyce’,” Sebastian said. “The goldsmith who made up the design of this ring to my father’s orders.” He gave Winter a small smile. “My real father.”
She felt her mouth open in shock. “You mean your real father invented the design? He designed the Claddagh ring, Sebastian? Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” Sebastian replied. “My mother never told me.” He lifted his hand with the ring on it. “This is all I have of him. This ring.” He lifted it up off his palm. “It’s too old and the design too precious to have the ring resized, now. Many years ago, I gave it to Nial.”
He lifted Winter’s hand and slid the ring onto her finger, with the crown oriented the way Nial had placed it. “Southbys have estimated it to be worth around two and a half million sterling.” His green eyes lifted to look at her. “I know you’ll take care of it.”
“God, Sebastian, no! Not something like that. You take it.”
He shook his head. “Nial knows exactly what he’s doing.” He stood up. “Done with the profiles, yet? I’ve got some first estimates on security timetables for you as soon as you’re ready.” He walked away, leaving her looking at the worn ring on her finger, winded.
Chapter Seventeen
THE WORK WENT smoothly after that. Too smoothly. Winter wondered if Sebastian was doing as Nial did—deliberately pouring oil on the waters and keeping the atmosphere untroubled and conflict free.
She found herself watching him more carefully, to spot any subtle signs of Sebastian’s’ charm at work. She had observed him using his ways with dozens of marks over the years. Surely, if he was trying to soothe her now, she would detect it.
But Sebastian just seemed to be happy.
Puzzled, she mentally dropped the matter and fully concentrated on the job at hand.
“You’re frowning,” Sebastian pointed out. “Problem with the timing?”
She smoothed out her expression. “No, it’s fine,” she assured him. “A bit tight having to go in so early, but we’re soft-shoeing it.” She shrugged. “It’s all part of the fun, right?”
Sebastian sat back. “That’s not what the frown was about,” he said. “You’ve been distracted all afternoon. Worried about Nial?”
She laughed. “God, no.”
“It’s not like you to let anything pull your attention away from the job once you’re into planning, Winter.”
She nodded. “I was thinking that this was just like old times…but it’s not, is it?” She looked him in the eye. “Once this job is over, you’re out of here, aren’t you?”
Sebastian put his pen down. “It’s not like I have much choice.”
“You were always leaving before, too,” she pointed out. “I never knew if you were going to come back.” She looked down at the notepad she had been writing on. “Two years of ‘just one job’,” she said bitterly.
“Bullshit, Winter,” Sebastian said, his voice low and rough with some emotion that made her head jerk up to look at him. He hadn’t moved from the lazy sprawl in the chair. His arm was still hanging on the back of the chair, the other flung across the table. He still leaned against the arm of the captain’s chair he sat in, his long legs thrust out toward the window and the late afternoon light. But his body was thrumming with tension and his eyes glittered with it.
“You knew,” he said flatly.
“Knew what?” Her heart was suddenly racing and she wondering about the wisdom of asking, but the question was already out there.
Sebastian turned quickly in the chair to face her, with a swiftness that wasn’t quite vampire speed, but was fast for a human. “In the back of your mind, in your subconscious you knew I was different and you liked it. For two years, we both picked up hints and signals, Winter. I must have known all along that there wasn’t something quite human about you, that you were hiding a huge part of yourself from me, but I didn’t dig it up because I wasn’t ready to hand over the truth about me, either. But we knew! In the back of our brains, we knew, Winter.”
Winter held her breath. Had she known? Had she?
Sebastian leaned forward. “You didn’t say anything because you liked that I was in your life and you were no longer alone.”
Winter recoiled, shocked.
Sebastian nodded. “It’s a curious thing. When two outsiders stand together, they’re not outside anymore. They’re inside their own world.” He shook his head. “But I’m not part of my world anymore. You took me out of my world. You made it just you and me. And then you took that away from us, too.”
Winter stood up. “Enough, Sebastian. Please.”
“No.” He was suddenly there, almost as fast as Nial could move when he had a mind to. Standing over her. “Let me finish. Let me say it all.”
“Another confession, Sebastian?” she whispered.
“The last one,” he ground out. “It pays for everything.” He reached for her hair and stopped himself. “I loved you, Winter. I think I fell in love with you the first job we did, when you laid out a guard with a round house heel kick then caught him and lowered him to the ground and told me that’s the way you wanted it done on your jobs. Cool as a cucumber, hot as pepper when your dander was up. It was like four seasons in one day and I loved it. I loved you.”
“Loved?” she breathed.
He took a breath, one so deep it made his chest lift. “I’m trying to be fair,” he whispered.
“Be honest,” she replied. “It’s cleaner.”
Pain touched his features. “Honesty hasn’t served us well, Winter.”
>
“I like honesty,” she admitted. “I’ve grown addicted to it, these last few days.”
“No matter how much it hurts?”
She nodded.
“Very well.” Sebastian let out a breath. “I love you. I love you so much every breath I take when I’m in the same room with you hurts now you’re with Nial. It’s like breathing in ground glass, Winter. I can see that you’re…growing around him and I’m happy for you and it makes me die inside.”
Winter looked away. It was as bad as she had thought. As wonderful. Two years. No, three years if she counted the year they had just wasted idling their time not working. Three years of pretending they were just team mates. Just friends. And all along Sebastian had loved her desperately. It wasn’t just Nial teasing him about an unrequited attraction.
Sebastian drew her face gently back to look at him. His eyes were hot with wanting, with desire. “All those men,” he told her. “The endless line of them. Do you know how much I resented them, Winter? How I imagined storming into your room, throwing them out of your bed and proving how much better a lover I could be than any of the world class billionaire play boys and Hollywood pin-ups and studs you were picking up?”
Winter bit back her moan. Her body was melting. Her mind crowding with images, memories and despair. She leaned back against the window, her legs weakening. “Sebastian…please don’t. I know I asked for honesty, but spare me this.”
“Like you spared me?” he asked, his voice rough. “Do you know what it’s like watching someone you love in another’s arms?”
“Yes, Sebastian, I do.” Winter mentally sighed. If this was to be his last confession, she would make it count in every way.
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “You do?”
She gave a laugh that came out shaky, on top of all the adrenal and arousal surging through her. “You, Sebastian. I’ve watched you. Two long years. And every conceivable type of lover possible. You’d walk into a room and turn heads. Then you could take your pick, with your charm and your beauty. And I’d be left with my imagination and my raging jealousy and breaking heart. So I would find someone to share my bed and pretend it was you.” She could feel her mouth trying to curl down at the corners. “It didn’t work.”
Sebastian stepped in front of her so that she was trapped between his body and the glass. He wasn’t touching her but she could feel the heat of him. It made the window seem even colder against her back. Sebastian’s hands were curled into hard fists. “Say it,” he growled.
Winter could feel tears burning at the back of her eyes. “What purpose does it serve, Sebastian?”
“You made me say it,” he said. “You want honesty. So do I. All of it. Tell me. I want to hear it, Winter.” His eyes were glittering with the emotions driving him.
“I love you,” she whispered. And her tears spilled.
Sebastian drew in a breath that shuddered. But still he did not touch her. He pressed his hand to the window very close to her head and leaned so that his lips were close to hers. His eyes gazed into hers. “I waited two years, Winter. At any time, you could have just lifted a finger and I would have made you mine in every way a man could, and more. And I would have made your lovers look like fumbling high school boys on a first date.”
Winter felt her breath push out as everything inside her leapt. She was drowning in Sebastian’s eyes.
“A night in my arms, Winter, and you would never have wanted to leave them again.” His voice seemed to thread through her thoughts like mist, making her want to lean through the scant few inches between them and press herself against him.
Winter found she was holding onto the windowsill. Clutching it. A lifeline. The edge bit into her palms.
“Do you know how much I want to kiss you right now?” Sebastian asked. “More, to tear those damned abbreviated garments you wear from your body and give you the sort of pleasure that makes you moan and scream the way you were last night?”
Winter clutched at the windowsill as one thought dominated all others. She wanted it. She wanted Sebastian. Life was utterly unfair. She kept herself motionless in case she gave away anything of her desire for what he was offering.
Sebastian was gazing into her eyes and she knew that if she gave him the slightest hint, the smallest positive sign, he would press his lips against hers and she would be lost.
How long did they stand there, with lust beating between them so thickly they could have touched it?
How long before Winter found the courage to speak the word that would destroy the sweet tension? She didn’t know, but it took time before she was able to do it.
“Nial,” she breathed.
Sebastian groaned and pushed himself away from her, to lean his forehead against the cold pane of the window. She watched his eyes close.
Winter was trembling. Adrenaline aftershock. Slowly, she set about restoring her body to normal. And she wiped away her tears. There was nothing more to say.
She had a headache. Just like every other human on the planet, she had to suffer through headaches or take something for them. She had never figured out how to cure them for they usually had no point of origin.
Winter rolled her head to look at Sebastian, next to her. He was a still, silent, wounded form leaning against the window.
“It’s still better to know it all,” she said softly. “Later on, I’ll be grateful you told me.”
He made a soft noise. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Right now I feel like a white hot poker is turning circles in my torso, Winter. I don’t have your internal off switch.”
Winter lifted a hand toward him. She could offer to ease his pain. Reach inside him and soothe the agony. But suddenly she did not trust herself to touch Sebastian at all. She put her hand back on the windowsill and let the silence stretch out again.
“You two look less than happy,” Nial said.
Winter looked toward the kitchen. Nial dropped his jacket over the sofa as she turned her head. He had quietly slipped into the apartment as they wallowed in their misery.
“Then it’s game, set and match,” Sebastian replied, standing up and heading for the table where most of the paperwork for the job was laid out. “I feel fucking wonderful, too. Let’s get this job wrapped up and done, shall we?”
Nial rolled up the sleeves of his business shirt and loosed the tie. “If you like,” he agreed easily. “I was going to suggest we all go out tonight. The three of us. Dinner and a show.”
“For which you magically have tickets?” Sebastian replied.
“I got them this afternoon.” Nial paused to press his lips to Winter’s. “You look pale, dilecta,” he added softly.
“My mood is not spectacular either, Nial,” she warned. “Although if you went to such trouble…”
“One of our marks will be at Sorrento’s tonight,” Nial added.
Sebastian threw the notepad he had picked up back onto the table with a sharp slap and stared out the window. “What time is our table booked?” he asked with a remote tone.
“Six-thirty,” Nial replied.
“I’ll go and get ready,” Winter told him, pushing herself away from the security of the windowsill with a silent sigh.
* * * * *
There was a dress bag lying on the bed when she got out of the shower, which filled in more of Nial’s afternoon activities for her.
The filmy dark green beaded concoction she revealed when she unzipped the bag was seductive and gorgeous. It suited her perfectly, which didn’t surprise her. Nial had good taste and knew what he liked, and had spent the night running his hands all over her, so he knew her sizing intimately.
It made sense for him to arrange that she have a suitable dress for the job ahead tonight. She just hoped he remembered shoes and smiled when she found them in a box at the foot of the bed.
There was a satin and chiffon stoll to cover her bare shoulders and back. Winter pinned her hair in big loose rolls at the back of her head, which hid the pins, and let the rest
cascade down her back.
She couldn’t help but admire the total effect in the mirror. They were working tonight, but she was going to enjoy the stunning effect from moment to moment, anyway. Nial couldn’t have picked a better dress for her if this had been a personal date and he had been set on making her feel like a princess. But if it had been a personal evening, she wouldn’t have let him buy a dress for her in the first place.
She twirled once more and watched herself in the mirror, smiling a Cheshire cat grin. For now she could enjoy a dress she would never have bought for herself, and being on the arm of a man that most of New York would glance at twice. It would be fun, when she paused long enough to enjoy it.
* * * * *
The mark’s name was Martie Shakeel. He was a recently made junior partner in the firm and trying hard to move up and tonight, oddly, he was dining with friends, not clients.
Perhaps that’s why he felt it was okay to blow them off, because even while he and his two male friends were waiting for their table, sitting in the lounge, Martie Shakeel spotted Winter sitting at the bar with Nial and Sebastian and made a move.
That was fine. All three of them had been ready for something unexpected like that to happen. They were professionals, after all. Coping with the unexpected was part of the routine.
None of them had factored in that Shakeel was a serial date rapist, though.
Chapter Eighteen
WINTER GOT HER FIRST hint when Martie bought her a drink at the bar. He was practiced at separating her from her friends and establishing her precise relationship to them. He did it fast and smoothly. He spotted her ring, although that didn’t seem to bother him overly much, either.
Nial and Sebastian she explained with a quick shrug. “My friends. They’re partners. My husband is in DC on business and they’re taking me to a show tonight to keep me from going out of my mind with boredom.”
Martie grinned. “Your husband is in the House?”
“Congressional aide,” Winter corrected downwards. Power, but not too much of it.
Blood Knot Page 17
