“He was just coming on to me. I was telling him I’m flattered, but not interested.” She turned to look at the asshole and pointed to Kian. “He’s FBI. Dude, you so don’t want to hit him. You’ll have more trouble than it’s worth. I want to enjoy my manga. Now can we end the testosterone slingathon or what?”
The man grumbled and muttered, “Hiding behind the badge.”
“What was that?” Kian growled, starting for him as he walked away.
Once again, Evie leaped into his path and stuffed books against his chest. “I’d like these, please, and I want to go to the yogurt place.”
Amusement brought out his smile, and the anger drained away. “I thought you said you can pay for it yourself.”
“I have to get your behind to calm down.”
He gathered the books from her. “Okay, but you can’t take it back.”
“Dang it. I should have thought of some other way to keep you from wiping the floor with that dude.”
Kian started for the cashier. “He was pretty big. He might have gotten the best of me.”
She rolled her eyes when he looked over at her. “I’ve seen you in action. That wasn’t a possibility.”
Kian resisted crowing like an idiot.
Chapter Eight
Evie almost felt like she and Kian were getting back on track. Neither of them had confessed their love, and she darn sure wasn’t going to do it first. Sometimes she thought she saw the emotion in his eyes, the way he looked at her, the care he gave. The man in the store had said two words to her about how she should let him take her out, and Kian had been ready to tear him a new one. She pretended to be exasperated with him, but in reality, his protective nature thrilled her. Anthony had left her with so much fear. At first, when she came home from the hospital, she didn’t even want the curtains open, and any little noise made her think he was about to attack. Slowly, with Kian’s help, the panic passed, and each day she grew braver. She refused to let her psycho cousin steal her life, and she prayed he would soon slip up and let the FBI catch him. Still, her time alone spent with Kian brought them closer, and she could ask for nothing more.
“I think I did something wrong here,” Kian said, interrupting her thoughts of the past few weeks.
She moved to his side of the couch and curled up next to him. His arm came around her automatically, and she began to wonder if he pretended to screw up their game of Scrabble on purpose just to get her close.
“Really, Kian, you’ve used technology before.”
He widened his eyes as if he were innocent. No one would believe that look. “I don’t see why we’re playing this game on two different tablets when we’re both in the same room. What happened to board games?”
She studied his screen and found he’d tapped a button to play a new game with someone else on his friends list. “You’re thirty-five. Stop acting like you’re ninety-five and get with the program. This is the only way to play.”
“I saw a board—”
She tapped the screen. “It’s this or I read to you.”
He grinned. “Is it a dirty book?”
“You have a one track mind, sir. It’s a mystery. I read you one erotic romance, and that’s all you want.”
He squeezed her side and fondled her breast with the tips of his fingers. “That’s not all I want. In fact, the real thing would be tons better.”
“I bet.” She smacked his hand and moved away. “You’re not sabotaging this game just because you’re losing for the millionth time.”
“No fair. English isn’t my thing.”
“It’s not Shakespeare. Don’t you have to be smart to be an agent? Or did you bribe somebody?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, and she jumped to her feet, tossing the tablet on the couch as she ran. She made it behind the couch before he caught her around the waist and hauled her off her feet. Evie screamed and beat playfully at his hand. Kian nipped at her shoulder, and she squeaked louder.
“Ouch, that hurt, you bum.”
“That was payment for calling me stupid.”
“I can’t help it if you have a low self-esteem,” she shot back.
He burst out laughing and carried her to the couch. When he dropped down on it, she sat on his lap, unable to get away.
“We can’t play like this.”
The grin on his face said he already had ideas. “I disagree. There are lots of games we could play this way.”
His cock hardened against her ass. “That’s one game.”
“Which we can play over and over.”
She shook her head. “You never get enough.”
“I have a big sexual appetite. Will you take care of it for me?”
“What are you going to do for me, sir?”
He leaned close to her ear, and the words he whispered had her pussy wet in seconds. She laid a hand against his cheek and kissed his lips. Kian wouldn’t let her move away, but pressed a hand into her lower back and devoured her lips. She moaned, arching her back, her nipples pebbling. All he had to do was touch her or make a suggestion, and she was ready. Whatever he wanted, she ached to give to him.
“How about we take this to the bedroom?” he suggested when he raised his head.
She started to answer, but his ringing cell phone interrupted them both. Evie sighed while Kian checked the display. He frowned.
“It’s the office. I have to take it.”
She climbed off his lap and sat on the couch. Kian wandered into the kitchen as he spoke. Evie considered going to the bedroom to get a head start on Kian, but then her cell phone rang too. She had left hers in the bedroom. No one should have her number except Kian, so curiosity made her hurry to catch whoever rang. The display read Meghan Blyth, and she blinked.
“What do you want?” Evie said, dispensing with the niceties.
“Evie, I’d like to talk to you, alone.”
“Not happening.”
She thought she could hear the woman gritting her teeth. “Please. It’s important.”
Evie walked to the hall and listened. Kian was still on his call. “How did you get my number? Did Kian give it to you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then… Of course. Before I report you to your boss, why do you want to talk to me?”
“I’ll tell you when I see you.”
“You won’t. Kian and I are never apart.” Damn, saying that gave her a sense of satisfaction. This time, she knew she heard the frustrated growl.
“I hate you. You hate me,” Meghan snapped. “We understand each other on that point. I’m hoping you’ll let me come by the house and talk to you. Before you say Kian won’t go for it, I know for a fact he’ll need to leave tomorrow.”
“If you’re setting him up, I will kill you!”
“Another thing you already know is I want him. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”
Evie wanted to deny the claim, but she couldn’t. Meghan had been after her man forever, and Evie doubted that had changed. “Your issues aside, Kian won’t leave me alone. He’ll have another agent stay with me, and it sure as hell won’t be you.”
“Let me take care of that.”
Evie ran through all the reasons Meghan might want to talk to her. Could she want to challenge Evie for the right to be with Kian? She must be crazy. Or maybe she wanted to try to convince Evie to give him up because being with her wasn’t what Kian needed. Evie thought about all they had been through, both together and apart, and how the situation with her cousin wasn’t resolved. Her life and Kian’s seemed to be on hold, even while they laughed and joked together. She knew he deserved more than to feel someone had hit the pause button on his life, but Kian could walk away at any time. He chose to stay with her. Call her selfish, but she didn’t care. Right now, she wasn’t willing to let him go.
The rest of the night, Evie enjoyed time in Kian’s arms. Their intimacy satisfied her and him, but she sensed something on Kian’s mind, distracting him. She didn’t press because she didn’t want to remind him t
hat she’d received a call too, just in case he’d heard the phone ring. She bet Meghan banked on her wondering what the conversation between them would entail, and she was right. Evie didn’t want Kian to stop it from happening.
The next morning, Evie woke alone, but when she rose from bed, she found Kian in the kitchen fully dressed and biting a piece of bacon in between sips of coffee.
“Hey, sexy,” she said from the doorway. “What are you doing up so early?” She played it off, but Meghan had said he would leave for work. The fact that the woman knew her man’s movements ticked her off.
Kian glanced at her, guilt in his expression. He stood from the table and put his plate in the sink then approached her to kiss her lips. “I’m sorry, baby. I have to go to the office. Something came up.”
Once again, she didn’t ask him why. “When will you be back?”
“I’m not sure. I have Joey coming to stay with you. You remember him, right?”
She nodded and began fixing his tie. As she smoothed her hands over his shirt, her fingertips bumped the holster under his arm. Dread tightened the muscles in her stomach. What would she do if anything happened to him?
“You’ll be careful, right?”
He raised her chin and kissed her lips. “I’m coming home, okay? You don’t have to worry. I have men who watch my back, and I watch theirs.”
They stared into each other’s eyes. She knew just like she did, Kian thought of Brad and how he had been killed. No one had been watching his back.
“Don’t be a hero,” she whispered, and he drew her into a hug. Evie lay her head on his shoulder and shut her eyes.
“What I’m more worried about is your safety,” he said. “Don’t leave here. Not even with Joey. I already told him if he let’s you leave, he’ll have me to deal with, and it won’t be pretty.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Scrabble when I get home?”
She grinned. “Sure, I can kick your butt one more time.”
He smacked her ass. “That’s my girl.”
Kian waited until Joey showed up, and he gave him some instructions while Evie leaned on the arm of the couch. She dug a finger as far as it would go into her cast and tried to scratch. Nothing worked. As Kian said good-bye, she watched him go.
“It’s really good to see you again, Evie,” Joey said.
She ignored him and watched Kian until he left the driveway and his car disappeared down the road. Evie spun away from the window and walked toward the stairs. She needed to shower and put something other than sweats on if she was to meet with Meghan. At the base of the stairs, she paused and looked back at the agent. “Let’s not pretend, Joey. You don’t like me, but I think you’re a good enough person and agent not to let anything happen to me on your watch. Just stay out of my way, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
His brows almost disappeared in his bright red hair. “I don’t dislike you.”
She put a hand on her hip. “You were good friends with Brad. When it wasn’t Kian and Brad, it was the three of you, but there was one problem. Brad was married to the woman you loved. Tell me. Are you two seeing each other now?”
Red spread from his roots to his cheeks, down to his neck. “I don’t appreciate—”
“I’m sure you don’t. I’m not blaming you, but don’t come in here acting all friendly.”
“I was the one who pulled Deidra off of you at the wake.”
“Yeah, after she’d walloped me. I saw your face and how you looked at me.”
“So why didn’t you tell Kian and get him to put someone else to protect you?”
“Like I said, you’re a good person, and a good agent from the way Kian tells it. Besides, I have a feeling you know Meghan’s coming, and you’re only too glad to keep it from Kian.”
Anger flared in the hazel eyes, and then resolution. “Clever woman.”
“Got that right. I learned a few things from the best.”
He acknowledged her words with a nod of his head, and Evie headed upstairs. After her shower and change into form-fitting jeans and a cute blouse, she wrestled her hair into order and added simple earrings and a touch of makeup. She smirked at her reflection in the mirror. You’d think I was preparing for a date.
At last, she was ready to return to the living room and walked down just as the doorbell rang. Joey gestured to her to wait where she stood and removed his gun from its holster as he crept toward the door. Evie rolled her eyes and folded her arms under her chest. Just as she suspected, the visitor turned out to be Meghan, and Joey let her in.
“Meghan,” Evie said with zero warmth.
“Evie,” the woman echoed. She glanced at Joey and back to Evie. “Anywhere we can talk in private?”
Evie hated realizing Meghan would know as well as she did if there were, but Joey spoke up. “I’ll just make myself scarce in the kitchen. Mind if I find something to eat, Evie?”
“Knock yourself out.” Evie never turned her attention from Meghan. Now that the woman had arrived, Evie’s stomach did somersaults, and she felt like she wanted to either scream for Meghan to leave and never come back or say what she had to say. The sense of betrayal had no reason to exist, since she’d been the one to leave Kian. She had divorced him. He had every right to see whomever he wanted, but tell her emotions that, and they pretended not to get it.
Meghan moved across the living room and took a seat without being asked. She clutched trembling fingers in her lap. At least Evie wasn’t the only one nervous. “I thought about it long and hard and decided I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Before what?” Evie demanded.
At Evie’s caustic tone, Meghan raised her chin. The trembling stopped, and she narrowed her eyes, lips compressed. This was the agent, small but strong. “Before talking to Kian.”
“You have nothing to say to him.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Evie. I came to speak my piece.”
“Then stop stalling and get on with it.”
Evie suppressed a laugh at the reaction to her words. Meghan could smack her right then, but Evie wasn’t under the weight of guilt this time around. If Meghan attacked, she’d have a fight on her hands. The woman didn’t move from her position.
Meghan sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out. “I’m pregnant.”
The entire room dumped sideways and then righted itself. Evie grabbed onto the couch to hold herself up. “C-come again?”
Meghan firmed her backbone. “I’m pregnant. It’s Kian’s.”
“You’re a filthy liar,” Evie shouted, bile rising in her throat.
Joey stuck his head in the door and looked from one to the other of them. “Everything okay, ladies?”
Evie ignored him, and so did Meghan. They stood there looking at each other, scarcely blinking until Evie’s eyes burned. She blinked only to keep them from watering and the witch thinking she’d brought Evie to tears. When neither of them responded to Joey, he seemed to take it as a good sign that they weren’t going at it and ducked out of the room again.
Meghan pulled her purse onto her lap and unzipped it. With precise movements, she searched the contents and then produced a document, which she handed over to Evie. A good thirty seconds passed before Evie could bring herself to take the paper.
She did everything she could not to shake as she unfolded the sheet, but her hands wouldn’t listen to the command. At first the words swam before her eyes, and she couldn’t focus. She blinked a few times, and the damning truth jumped out at her. Meghan was thirteen weeks pregnant.
The emptiness of Evie’s womb brought her hand to her own stomach. She’d come on her period a week and a half ago, and the fact that she’d not come off the pill made pregnancy all the more unlikely. Two years ago, she and Kian had been trying desperately to have a baby without success, and here was this woman sitting in her living room telling her she was having Kian’s baby. Maybe without even meaning to, she was giving Kian the one thing he’d longed for that Evie had failed t
o give him. All Evie wanted to know was how life could be so cruel. How could she and Kian build the relationship they lost with such a strong barrier between them?
“I…” Evie fell silent and considered what she intended to say. Her thoughts jumbled together, reasoning an impossible task. She touched her fingers to her temple and shut her eyes. Tears welled, and try as she might to will them away, they insisted on falling. When she glanced at Meghan, the woman had stood and turned her back to look out the window. From the set to her shoulders, Evie knew she had no intention of backing off. “Are you sure it’s his?”
Meghan whirled around. “Of course it’s his! Kian and I… We were getting closer before you came back into his life. I was going to move in, but here comes Evie with all her neediness, and he decides it won’t work out. Well, we were only seeing each other. I haven’t been with anyone else in a long time.”
“Because you were too busy lusting after my husband.”
Meghan’s eyes snapped fire. “Whatever you think of me, I am having his baby.”
Every time she said the words, they dug deeper into Evie’s heart and tormented her with what she couldn’t give him. Then a new thought occurred to her. Meghan intended to tell Kian. What would his reaction be? Joy? Of course he would be happy. At last, he would have a child. Maybe a little boy the spitting image of him, who’d look up at him with hero-worship and call him Daddy. The baby could be a sweet little girl. When they had begun discussing children, Evie watched Kian’s face light up at the prospect of a daughter and how he’d talked about running off boys when she grew up. Evie had laughed and told him he was crazy. All during that time, she had never considered some other woman might enjoy those experiences with him and not her.
“What I don’t get is why you’re telling me first.”
“Maybe I hoped you’d get out of my way and realize you’ve lost him for good.”
Evie’s mouth fell open. No snappy comeback could counter such raw truth. She couldn’t believe the woman had even admitted it, because anyone with sense could figure out that’s what Meghan wanted. “Next you’ll tell me I should think of Kian’s happiness and leave him. Better yet, I should dump him for your baby’s welfare.”
Unwritten Page 9
