by K. M. Scott
“I have about a hundred more questions, but at the very least, you need to answer one more.”
“Fine. What do you want to know?” he asked, relieved she only wanted to know the answer to one more question.
Kate stared up at him for a long moment and asked the only question he didn’t want to answer for her. “What is your last name, just Roman?”
And there it was, the one piece of information he never shared with clients. Most of them didn’t ask, strangely enough. They were too busy hoping to live and doing whatever it took to make that their priority to care what his name was. To every one of them, he’d been Roman. It gave him a way to keep them at arm’s length so he could do his job more effectively. He didn’t want to ever get close enough to any client to share that part of him.
Letting a client in like that could endanger both of them. He never wanted to risk that again.
“You can just call me Roman, okay? Let’s go.”
He turned to walk toward the door, but Kate stopped him by grabbing his arm. Looking back, he saw she didn’t plan to give up on this.
“How am I supposed to trust a person who won’t even tell me his last name? You know who I am and things about me I’d rather you not know, for God’s sake. Do you think I enjoy having a near perfect stranger knowing someone out there might want to kill me and thinking I can’t take care of myself? I’m not asking for your blood type or how many people you’ve slept with. I just want to know your last name.”
“A and less than ten. Can we go?” he answered, pulling her toward the door.
“Damnit, Roman! You expect me to trust a man who comes waltzing into my motel room who won’t even tell me his whole name? No way. I’ll take my chances on my own. I’m not trusting someone who refuses to tell me something so simple.”
He closed his eyes and tried to remember he needed to be patient with her. That her world had been turned upside down in the past day and she’d lost someone she cared for. But the truth was, what she asked wasn’t simple. Telling her his full name meant sharing with her something he’d never shared with any other client.
It meant letting her in just a little more than he’d ever let anyone else in since…
“Kate, let’s go. My job is to protect you, and that’s what I intend on doing. If that means having to carry you out of this place over my shoulder, I’ll do it. I’d prefer not to go that route, but I will do it.”
Before she could argue anymore, a loud banging on the door a few rooms away stunned the two of them. A voice bellowed out, “Kate Sheridan! This is the New Orleans police! Open up!”
Roman reached back to pull out his gun from his pants and turned back to look at Kate. He saw all the defiance she’d displayed since he arrived disappear. Terror filled her eyes at the sound of the police officer outside.
But were the cops really the people she should be afraid of? He had a hard time believing they had any part in her boss’s death or that of his client’s.
Kate grabbed hold of his hand, her blue eyes full of fear, and pleaded, “I swear to you if they find me, they’ll make me disappear. They think I know everything about the case. I don’t, but it won’t matter. I can tell you’re a law and order kind of guy, maybe even a former cop yourself, so you instinctively think the cops are good, but they’re not. Not in this case. You can’t let them take me.”
Roman wondered if Persephone and Nicholas had been wrong about this woman. Was she in danger, or was she the one who’d killed her boss and his client? The papers were already claiming a love triangle lay at the bottom of this case. Were they right? Going against the cops felt wrong to him, but something about Kate made him want to help her.
Even more than want. He needed to help her, even though he couldn’t understand it since up until the cops arrived, she’d fought him every step of the way so far.
The pounding started on the door next to the room where they stood, and she begged, “Please just get me out of here and then you can go back to your happy life and forget all about me. Please, Roman.”
How wrong she was when she described his life as happy. When he returned to the estate, he’d go back to being alone, even in a house filled with people, and he’d crave the time when he received his next assignment just so he could fill his days with work.
The cop outside began barking orders to open the door, and Roman knew they didn’t have much time to escape. Taking her by the hand, he pulled her toward the bathroom as she grabbed her bag.
“We’ll go out through here,” he said as he threw up the window and looked out to see a short drop to the concrete pad below. “You first.”
She hesitated, unsure about escaping this way. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“You can. I’m right here. You’ll be fine. It’s just a few feet to the ground.”
After she tossed her bag out, he lifted her up to ease her out the tiny exit barely big enough for her to fit through and watched her land safely on the concrete. Stuffing his gun back in his pants, he began to squeeze through the window, careful of the small backpack he carried on his back. Just then, the police banged on the motel room door just feet away from him and he knew they’d run out of time.
“Kate Sheridan! We know you’re in there! Open up!” the cop bellowed just as Roman got his shoulders and chest out the window.
While the pounding continued on the motel room door, he wriggled his body to fit through the narrow space. Suddenly, he felt a searing pain in his side! Looking down, he saw a hole torn in his shirt and blood where a nail on the windowsill had cut him. But he didn’t have time to worry about how bad it was.
As pain streaked down his side, he made it out and down to the ground below where Kate waited. He grabbed her hand and they ran as fast they could from the Bayou Motel and the cops who wanted to speak to her.
Roman didn’t know if he’d just saved a woman in danger or helped a murderer escape. All he knew was he had to help her.
Even if he didn’t know why.
Chapter Five
Roman tugged her arm, practically dragging her down the street as they headed toward the French Quarter. Kate had no intention of going back there where that suspicious man had followed her and Eve the night before, so she pulled away and stepped into a doorway to hide.
“Nope. Whatever you’re thinking, we’re not going back to the Quarter. No way.”
He narrowed his eyes to angry slits and stared down at her in disbelief. “What? Why? We need to get to a nicer place than that fleabag motel you were hiding out at. I need somewhere I can start to work on this case in peace and quiet where the cops aren’t going to be threatening to bust down the door.”
“I don’t care. The first place they’ll look is in the Quarter.”
“At six o’clock in the morning? I doubt it. The cops probably think you have no money or very little to be spending on places to hide out. They’re not going to suspect you of being at a five star hotel.”
She hated to admit it, but what Roman said made sense. Plus, the idea of a five star hotel with a bathtub where she could wash off the grime of the past twelve hours and a bed she didn’t have to worry would have something waiting to crawl on her sounded incredible.
Looking up and down the street, she saw people beginning to head to work. If they wasted any more time discussing his plan, the sun would be up and the cops might see her. They needed to get to the hotel right now.
“Fine. I hope you have money because I can’t afford much more than The Bayou.”
He wrapped his hand around her forearm and gently pulled her out onto the sidewalk. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered. Let’s go. I don’t want to be out once the sun comes up.”
They hurried down the street with Kate keeping her head down and Roman guiding her, his hand holding her steady. With every step, she wondered if they’d actually be able to escape being noticed by the police, but then she reminded herself where she lived.
New Orleans had its fair share of bizarre peo
ple, so a woman walking down the road with her head bowed while a man held her tightly to him likely wouldn’t arouse any suspicion whatsoever. Now if they were half-naked and wearing feathers on the half of their bodies that were covered maybe, but dressed as they were in ordinary casual clothes, they wouldn’t even be noticed by most people who passed them by.
That feeling of anonymity had always been one of the greatest things her city offered. To others, it might make them feel lost and meaningless, but not to her. The mixture of eccentric and bizarre lived right at home with the ordinary in New Orleans, and she loved that.
Roman hurried toward Canal Street in silence, making Kate feel like she needed to fill the silence between them with something. She wasn’t used to being this close to someone and not talking. It made her nervous.
“Is this your first time in New Orleans? If it is, you should definitely check out the Quarter at night. Also, I’m told those cemetery tours are interesting for people visiting the city,” she said, instantly feeling foolish.
She wanted to fill the space, not sound like some pushy tour guide.
He turned his head and looked at her like she was an idiot. Now she felt uncomfortable and irritated. This guy had quite an effect on her, and most of it couldn’t be worse. At least he was attractive. She couldn’t deny that.
Focusing on that as they walked toward the major chain hotel down near the waterfront, she took her first good look at the man who said his job was to protect her but refused to give her his last name. Tall, with short hair that made him look like a cop or some kind of military guy, he definitely had a pure Alpha male thing going. Looking down at where his hand sat wrapped around her forearm, she liked what she saw.
Strong and powerful, his hand held her just tight enough to keep her next to him.
He had a protective nature to him Kate had to admit she liked too. She suspected all the men he worked with had that same way about them since they’d signed up to willingly put themselves in danger to help women in need.
Kate thought about that and how honorable it sounded. As they walked toward the main entrance to the hotel, she asked, “Are all the men who work for this Project Artemis like you?”
He shook his head. “Yes and no.”
She wondered if he worked at being intriguing like that or if it came naturally, but before she could ask him which it was, he pushed her away from the building and began walking much faster. She tried to keep up, but he made it difficult by nearly running down the sidewalk.
“Why aren’t we going in there?” she asked, suddenly worried that the man she’d set her hopes on helping her wasn’t there to protect her but instead to do exactly what she’d believed he would when he walked into her motel room nearly an hour before.
Roman didn’t answer but kept walking so fast she felt like at any minute her feet would leave the ground and she’d take flight like a kite behind him. His hold on her arm began to hurt, but when she tried to pull away, he clamped down tighter, squeezing her skin.
“You’re hurting me! Slow down! I can’t keep up,” she cried out, hoping he’d do as she’d demanded.
Not that she expected it. Alpha males rarely listened to others, a trait she distinctly disliked in them.
When he didn’t slow down even a little, she tugged as hard as she could and yanked her arm from his hold. Tiny shoots of pain radiated up toward her elbow, so she stopped and rubbed her skin.
Roman stopped a few feet ahead on the sidewalk and glared back at her, but she saw fear in his eyes too. What had happened back there in front of that hotel?
“What’s going on? Why couldn’t we go in? Where are you taking me?” she asked, each question rattled off in succession as her own fear grew by the second that Roman wasn’t the honorable protector he’d claimed to be.
He took a single step toward her and stopped without saying a word to answer anything she’d asked. Glancing around, he took another step until he stood less than a foot away, still glaring but now so close she could practically feel his emotions coming off him.
But were they borne of fear or anger? She couldn’t tell and he didn’t seem to be willing to even speak to her now.
“Why have you suddenly gone mute? Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
Roman grimaced like he was in pain and looked over her head back toward the hotel they’d just run away from. “We couldn’t go into that hotel because there were two cops standing at the check-in desk. I’m trying to figure out where we can go now, so that’s why I’m not answering the thousand and one questions you feel the need to throw at me.”
So he believed her about the cops. Maybe he was on her side and trying to protect her after all.
Kate’s mind raced with ideas about what other hotel they could go to. There were dozens in the area within walking, or in their case, running distance, but which would get them out of view quickly? Then she remembered Jonas telling her about a lawyer get-together he’d gone to last Christmas at the Allton Hotel located just a block away from where they stood.
Now she grabbed Roman’s arm, her hand getting nowhere close to making it all the way around it, and tugged him down the street. “Come on. I have someplace I think can work. It’s a beautiful hotel. Even better than that one back there. It’s just on St. Louis Street right down here.”
He resisted her taking the lead for a few moments but then relented and caught up with her. “Let’s just hope the cops aren’t there too.”
She hoped that too. After the night she’d had, she needed somewhere nice to rest and clean the grime from that awful place off. A mint on her pillow would be a nice touch too.
They turned onto St. Louis Street, and Kate saw the Allton Hotels sign above the main entrance. “There! My boss attended a party there once and told me it was gorgeous.”
“I don’t need gorgeous so much as Wi-Fi, something to eat, and a place to start working,” Roman answered as they walked toward the grey building with black wrought iron railings so typical to the French Quarter.
“I’m sure they’ll have all that and more. You said five star, and this is it.”
She just hoped when they walked in that they wouldn’t be met by New Orleans finest and be forced to run for their lives through the Quarter. She also hoped that all the Mardi Gras partiers had left town already and they even had a room to give them. But she didn’t mention that to Roman since he already looked stressed out.
They exchanged a quick glance, and Kate took a deep breath as Roman guided her through the front doors. One look at the white marble floors and enormous glass chandelier above their heads as they stepped into the lobby told her this place was no Bayou Motel. Her eyes darted left and right looking for any sign of the police, but she saw no one other than the single man at the check-in desk and a bell man standing in a lounge area watching a TV.
“I think we’re good,” Roman said quietly. “All we need to do is check in and we’ll be fine.”
She let him go attend to getting them a room as she took in the opulent surroundings of the Allton Hotel. No wonder Jonas had raved about it. The furniture in the waiting area alone convinced her she loved this place. Plush burgundy couches and chairs arranged around a large circular mahogany coffee table made her want to sit down and relax, but the less time they spent in the lobby out in the open the better.
As she avoided the bell man’s gaze, she turned to look at Roman and saw blood on the side of his tan shirt. Had he been hurt helping her get out of that horrible motel room?
Then on a TV in the waiting area, she heard the beginning of a news report about her boss’s murder. She spun around to see her picture from her driver’s license right there on the screen as the reporter said, “New Orleans police are looking for Kate Sheridan, the victim’s legal assistant. Anyone who’s seen her is asked to call 9-1-1.”
Horrified, she prayed to God the bellman hadn’t been paying attention and hurried over to where Roman stood speaking to the desk clerk. Burying her face in his shoulde
r, she asked, “Done yet, honey?”
He looked down at her, confused by her sudden coziness with him, and arched one eyebrow. “Almost, honey.”
The front desk clerk, a handsome young man with slicked back hair and bright blue eyes, smiled and handed him the room key and his ID. “Thank you for staying with us, Mr. Madson. You’re in room 243. Just take the lobby elevator to the second floor and turn left as you get out. Our restaurant, Bon Temps, is open late tonight, and if you want a drink, Roxanne’s is available starting in a few hours. They’re both located just down there here on the first floor. If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call down to us here at the front desk.”
Kate eagerly tugged on Roman’s arm, desperate to get away before the desk clerk paid any attention to her. “Come on, honey. I’m tired after our trip.”
Instead of just smiling and walking away, Roman said, “Women. They can be so demanding, but what can you do, right?”
His brand new friend behind the desk chuckled knowingly. “Have a wonderful stay, you two.”
Hysterical. Just what she needed at that moment—male bonding over how demanding women were. What she wanted to do was slug him in the arm and remind him how she’d found that place, not him, but she didn’t do anything but grimace as they walked toward the elevators.
Another hotel guest waited there already, so Kate once again buried her face in Roman’s shoulder and hoped they wouldn’t be riding up to the same floor. She didn’t mind hiding, and his shirt smelled pretty damn incredible from either the sexiest laundry detergent or cologne that made her want to close her eyes and take a deep breath in. But it was hard to be angry with him while she had her face pressed to his body.
