Jessica let his words sink in.
“It might feel like it, B,” Harper pressed on. “But this is not your real life. It never will be.”
“I know that,” Jessica said, through clenched teeth.
“Good. Don’t forget it.”
***
She hadn’t strapped on her wire.
She’d changed her mind a hundred times. She’d started the car only to stop it. Pulled up to his apartment only to keep on driving. Stepped off the elevator only to get right back on. Lifted her fist to knock only to lower it once more.
And she hadn’t strapped on her wire.
After staring at the number on his apartment door for an alarming amount of time, Jessica knocked.
Leo opened it in less than a minute, wearing a pair of jeans and nothing else.
The smile that spread on Jessica’s face was impossible to fight.
But at the sight of her on the other side of his door, the smile vanished from Leo’s, and his eyes went wide.
“Hey,” she said.
Leo’s mouth fell open.
“I know it’s kind of weird for me to show up unannounced like this… I got your address from Zoey. I hope that’s okay?” Her heartbeat picked up when she thought about how ridiculous she must sound. She tightened her bag on her arm. “I just wanted to give you a real answer to what you asked me in the helicopter yesterday, because you deserve to know. You deserve to know how I feel about you, and you deserve to know the truth.”
The conversation they’d had in the helicopter had stayed with her, and the subsequent meeting with Chet and Harper the next day had the opposite effect Harper had intended. It had only made her care about Leo more. It had made her feel even worse about what she was doing to him, stirred something in her that she wanted to correct in any way she could.
And she was going to correct it with the truth. The whole truth.
“Ash?” His eyes went wider, and he released his hold on the door to reach out and take her arm. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I really care about you.” She exhaled when the admission finally left her. “And you deserve to know that. You deserve to hear it from me first hand. Even if the Wednesday Addam’s in me is urging me to shut the hell up already.”
Leo swallowed. “You care about me?” he asked, his voice breaking as he leaned forward with a smile, not realizing that the door he’d released had begun to creep open. “You mean that, Wednesday?”
“Yeah.” Jessica nodded, laughing as she wrung her hands together, wishing he would invite her in so she could show him just how much she meant it. “I really care about you, Leo.”
“I care about you too, Ash.”
“No, I mean I really, really care about you.” So much that she was sure if she ever heard him call her Ash again, she would rip her hair clear out. “And you deserve to know the truth.”
Leo frowned. “The truth about what?”
Jessica tried to say it. She tried once, twice, three times, but all that left her mouth was hot air. “You’ll fucking hate me.”
“Not possible.”
She looked down at her feet, taking a shaky breath before her eyes met his and she dove in.
“Leo, the truth is that my name isn…” She paused, motioning to the door. “Can I come inside? I’d really like to talk about this without worrying about your neighbors listening in.”
Instead of stepping back and inviting her in, Leo looked at the door, and when he saw that it had crept open, he snatched it back with panic in his eyes, filling the open space with his body.
Jessica faltered, squinting.
She knew that move.
She’d seen it a lot in her early days as an agent. Suspects who had something to hide always stuffed their bodies into the door the same way Leo was right then.
Her eyes went over his shoulder, peering into the small crack that he couldn’t hide away. What she saw made her gasp.
Leo looked over his shoulder to see what she’d spotted.
Taking advantage of his distraction, she reached out and gave the door a rapid shove.
It flew open before Leo could stop it. He jolted and reached for it, but his arm fell to his side when he realized it was too late. His head fell, as well, just as the door went slamming into the wall, and he covered his eyes with his hand when the living room of his apartment came into full view.
The first woman that caught Jessica’s eye was in a green bikini, strolling across Leo’s wood floors, not even acknowledging them before she disappeared down the hall. Then she saw the woman wearing a silky slip in the kitchen. The one sprawled out on the living room couch. The handful in the Jacuzzi on the balcony.
“What the fuck?” she whispered.
“Ashley—”
She was unable to stop herself as she pushed past Leo and stormed into the apartment, her purse strap clutched in a tight fist at her side. A tall, thin brunette stopped in mid stroll as Jessica charged in. She smiled around a finger that was pressed between her teeth.
“She’s pretty, Leo,” the brunette purred, her eyes traveling Jessica. “Maybe she can join us later tonight. Last big hurrah?”
She strolled away before Jessica could respond.
Jessica watched her go, and then laughed.
When Leo took her arm from behind, she snatched it away and faced him.
Her laughter grew.
“Ashley.” Leo’s eyes searched hers. “I can explain this. Let me explain, all right?”
Holding a hand up as a warning—a warning that if he touched her again, she might kill him—Jessica dashed for the door. She didn’t even know she was running until she found it necessary to grab hold of the doorframe as she blazed around it, fearful she might go tumbling to her knees.
She raced down the quiet hallway to the elevator, hearing Leo’s heavy stomps coming in close behind her.
“Don’t fucking touch me.” She yanked her arm from his grip when he took it from behind.
His body jolted at the force she’d expelled in pulling away from him, and something in his eyes died when she did.
“I knew it, Leo.” Her teeth clenched, jamming her finger into the button for the elevator. When it took too long, she exploded. “God! I fucking knew it.”
Leo held his hands out. They shook.
“Just another number on your list,” she said. “Just another check to mark off.” She cringed when hot tears stung her eyes. She forced them shut to hide them, but not before she saw the stricken expression flashing across his.
“They’re just women,” Leo breathed. “Just bodies. Bodies… that I kept around to fill an empty space in my gut. They don’t mean shit to me, baby. I only want you.”
Jessica laughed again.
His eyes fell closed.
“Any man who can have a house full of women like that is a man that I could never be with.”
“Ashley, I swear to you.” He slapped his hands to his bare chest, and the sound bounced off the walls. “I’m not that guy.” He pointed down the hall to his apartment door. “I mean, I was. I was that guy. But the moment I met you… the moment I laid eyes on you? I stopped being that guy… Please believe me. Please just let me explain myself.”
“I’m such an idiot.” She’d almost told him everything. She’d almost blown everything. “Wow.” Her laughter deepened as she crossed her arms and stared at the elevator doors, almost screaming in relief when they finally dinged open. “Such a fucking idiot.”
When she stepped inside the elevator and turned to him, tears blurred her vision, but not enough that she couldn’t see the moisture that was surely blurring his too.
He clapped his hand between the elevator doors, stopping them from closing.
“Can you please just listen to me for one minute? Can I get one minute? Please.”
“Let go of the door.” When he didn’t, she stepped forward and shoved
him with all her might.
He didn’t budge, barely flinching at every strike she delivered. “Ashley, please.”
“Get out of the door. Get out of the fucking door, Leo!” She shoved him again.
Standing solid, his eyes searched hers. Then something made him step back, looking down the hallway with pain searing his eyes.
Chest heaving, Jessica jammed her finger into the Door Close button.
From the hallway, his eyes met hers once more. They begged, pleaded.
She took in his wounded eyes one last time, just before the doors slid shut.
21
You fucking idiot.
The voices in Jessica’s head had been playing on repeat all day long, and continued to play even as she moved through the bustling FBI offices later that afternoon. She didn’t make eye contact or say a word to anyone as she sped through the hallways she could navigate with her eyes closed, pushing through the door of the office she needed without so much as a knock.
She moved across the office and dropped Val and Tony’s credit cards on the only desk in the room.
Max Chang, Director of the FBI Cyber Division, eyeballs deep in the screen of his desktop computer, jolted when the cards dropped, ripping the headphones from his ears and swinging around in his desk chair, eyes laced with shock and irritation.
At the sight of Jessica wearing all black, with her waterfall mane hidden under a beanie, Max’s eyebrows jumped, and he couldn’t fight a grin. Her eyes weren’t visible through the sunglasses eating half her face, but he was sure she was in the midst of rolling them.
Jessica Borgia always was.
He looked down at the cards she’d dropped on his desk, clasping his hands together as he leaned back in his seat. “Val’s?”
“And Tony’s.” Jessica’s voice remained deadpan, even as Max’s smile bloomed. “I need records of every transaction ever made on those cards, and I need it now.”
“Oh, you need it now?”
“Max…”
The tone of her voice rocketed him back to their days as cadets. “You and every other agent in this city need it now, Jess. If you had any idea how little the words I need it now have grown to mean to me, it would blow your balls clear off. Yes, your balls, because you have bigger ones than any man I know for storming into my office like this.”
“Max, please.”
“Even your pleas sound more like fuck yous.”
“I haven’t had a chance to bring the cards in until now. It’s been four days. I need the records before Tony and Val realize they’re gone and find some way to wipe the transactions clean.”
“Why the hell did you wait four days to bring these to me?”
Because I’m a fucking idiot.
Jessica’s lips tightened, wondering if the voices in her head would ever relent.
When her silence stretched on, Max gave an overdramatic sigh. “I got you.”
“Thank you.” She exhaled. “And don’t tell Harper.”
“How did you get your hands on Val’s card? Word has it he’s closed tighter than a steel trap. You fuck him?”
“No. God.” She cocked her lip. “I got the card because I’m Jessica fucking Borgia, that’s how I got the damn card.”
Max chuckled.
“Can you please put a rush on it?”
“Gimme twelve hours.” His sly smile grew. “Jessica fucking Borgia.”
“Call me the moment you’ve got it.”
Max held his hands out, leaning farther back in his chair, so much so that he almost went tumbling right out of it, watching as she turned and left the room.
“Don’t I always?” he called, just before she slammed the door closed behind her.
***
Chet smiled, swinging in his rolling chair to keep an eye on Jessica as she stormed through the mansion. Since the moment she’d walked into the house that night fisting a case of beer, she’d been on another level. He didn’t dare tell her that it wasn’t a good idea to drink that beer on duty, fearful the warning would earn him a fist to the throat. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her this upset.
When she ripped her third beer from the fridge with too much force, making it fly clear out of her hand and sail across the room, crashing into the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen, she didn’t even flinch. She stared at the shattered glass, watching the amber liquid drip onto the counter and down to the floor before she went back to the fridge and fished out another.
This time, she took it with a gentle hand, opened it with her teeth, and demolished half of it in a few deep swallows.
Chet clasped his hands together. “You ready to talk yet?”
She slammed the bottle on the counter, causing some of the liquid to jump out of the spout, and gaped at him.
He threw his hands out. “Okay. Let me know when you’re ready.”
A long silence passed, Chet peeking at her from the corner of his eye, pretending to tap away at his computer. When he realized she was truly upset, his smile disappeared.
“This is why you have to wear your wire at all times,” he said. “How the hell am I supposed to make you feel better with smart-ass puns and quips if I have no idea what scenario I’m smart-assed punning and quipping?”
Jessica rolled her eyes.
When she spoke, Chet sat taller.
“I went to his place…” She took another healthy sip of beer, slammed the bottle down, and then laughed into the distance.
Chet followed her eyes, wondering what she was laughing at, and then looked back to her with worry when he realized she was either laughing at the wall, or the voices in her head.
She continued to smile into nothingness. “I went to his place, and found an apartment full of naked fucking women. I’ve never seen anything so disgusting in my life.”
“Why do you care?”
Her eyes shot to his and damn near caught fire. “What?”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
He cocked an eye, squinting. “You sure?”
“Can a girl take a moment to appreciate how absolutely disgusting and pathetic it is for a grown-ass man to have a harem in his apartment? A harem? I had no idea that was even a real thing. It was so degrading and horrifying.”
“But, why do you care?”
She looked like she wanted to send that beer bottle sailing at his head.
“Leo is not your boyfriend, Jess. Or have you already forgotten that?”
She stared at him.
“He is not your boyfriend. He is your job. Your prey. Your sacrifice.”
“My prey? My sacrifice? God, you’re making me sound like a monster.”
“There are parts of this job that are monstrous. It’s difficult to close this kind of case without that being true. That’s why it’s so important to keep a clear head.”
“I have a clear head.”
“No. If you had a clear head, you wouldn’t care. You wouldn’t have broken up with a man who isn’t even your boyfriend, just because you feel slighted by the other women he has in his life.”
“Who said I broke up with him?”
“Didn’t you?”
Her eyes fell.
It was all the answer he needed. “You don’t get to break up with the man who paves the unobstructed way to the prime suspect, just because your feelings are hurt.”
Jessica was off in the distance again, smiling that smile that was more homicidal than happy, jamming her eyes shut when the truth seemed to hit her.
“He’ll come back,” she whispered.
“I’m sure he will. What I’m not so sure of is if you’ll be able to handle it.”
“There’s nothing Leo Romanovsky can throw at me that I cannot handle.”
“Really? Because you’ve been pouting something serious since the moment you stepped in here. You just sent a beer bottle soaring across the kitchen and look about two seconds from sending another one straight for my head, because you can’t stand that I’m sitting
here telling you the truth. You forget how well I know you. Truth is, I don’t even need you to be wearing your wire most of the time, because I know your moves before you even make them. I know you’ve got feelings for this kid, and I know you went to his place to tell him that, only to get the shock of your life when you discovered you’re just another notch on his bedpost.”
Jessica abandoned her beer on the counter, left the kitchen, and crossed the room to the bathroom.
“Walking away won’t make me any less right,” he called, just as she stepped into the bathroom and slammed the door closed.
***
Leo jolted when the white wood creaked and teetered above him, staring up at the underside with a screwdriver clenched tight in his hand. He only allowed himself to exhale when he was sure the crib wasn’t going to collapse and rearrange his face. After finishing up, he wiggled out from under the crib and craned his neck to look across the room.
Val was where he had been since the moment Leo had stepped through the door of his and Zoey’s apartment. Sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away on his laptop.
“Do you plan on giving me a hand with any of this?” Leo asked, motioning to the crib, the dresser drawers, the high chair, the baby swing, the rocking chair, and the various other baby-related items he’d spent the entire evening assembling, by himself.
Leo liked working with his hands. Building things had always been a huge stress reliever for him. A way to help take his mind off his life. After what had happened with Ashley, he needed his mind clear. Even more than that, he needed his heart clear.
Even though putting most of the baby’s things together had calmed his mind, it hadn’t mended his heart. It certainly hadn’t helped him forget. Not the way it usually did. Ashley popped into his head at various intervals, a breathtaking reminder of how royally he’d fucked up, and the amazing woman he’d lost.
There wasn’t a screwdriver or monkey wrench in existence that could piece his heart back together, and the fact that his twin hadn’t lifted a damn finger to help was not making Leo any less agitated.
Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) Page 22
