I am on the verge of tears the rest of the morning.
JP and Dominique are moving to the new safe house ahead of Grant. He will drop me off with the smuggler first, but after that, he’ll join his friends… without me.
I don’t have anything to pack, so I just concentrate on tying up what few loose ends I can. At Grant’s request, I transfer three million to an offshore account for Marcel. Then I set up a string of smaller accounts that Grant can access – or give access to – in order to pay anyone who might help him.
I back up the laptop to a secret server – all the bank account information, plus the GPS tracking program I wrote. It’s someplace Epicurus will never find, and even if he could, any attempt to hack the files will cause them to overwrite and be lost forever.
Once that is done, I dilly-dally. I don’t want to leave, so I do the computer hacker version of surfing the web.
The last place I go is the forum where Mailin and I talked the other night.
There is a message for me:
Duplass agreed to your terms, no strings attached. You can come back with us to the United States. PLEASE CONTACT ME.
My heart rises up in my throat. I don’t want to believe him… after all, he lied to me before.
But…
I hit the button in the forum that will signal him.
A few seconds later, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice erupts from the speakers: “Hi honey, how are you?”
Cut the shit, Mailin, I type. I’m not in the mood.
I guess I fucked up yesterday, huh?
Yeah, you could say that.
But I’m determined to make up for it. I badgered Duplass, and he finally agreed to take you back with us to the U.S.
In exchange for what? Me having to testify against Grant?
I don’t think so. But they’ll probably want some information.
That’s not all they’ll want. I don’t trust that guy AT ALL.
So does that mean you’re not coming back with us?
No. I’m doing my own thing.
Oh.
I don’t know when I’ll be in contact again, so… this is basically me saying goodbye.
For how long?
I don’t know.
I’m sorry, Eve. I really tried. I know it doesn’t seem that way, but I did. But in the end, I have to do what they say. They still own me for another 14 months and 5 days.
Wow – you’re keeping track down to the day, huh?
Of course I am. I hate it here, Eve. I hate being their whipping boy. I know it sounds fucked up, considering how much danger you’re in… but I’m really jealous of you. I know you’re afraid, but you’re LIVING. You’re out there dancing on the edge of the cliff, and me… I’m in a fucking prison cell.
‘Dancing on the edge of the cliff.’
I think back to my dinner the night before with Grant. How I really had felt alive.
At least you get out in 14 more months, I type.
14 months, 4 days, and a glorious arising.
I smile. Good luck. And thanks for trying to help me, Mailin.
You’re welcome. Eve?
Yeah?
There’s something I want to tell you.
I wince. No – please, not now –
But the words appear anyway:
I love you.
Damn it.
I’ve always wanted to tell you, but… well, I’m telling you now. I love you.
I feel awful as I type, You’re a really good friend, Mailin.
There’s no answer for a long time.
Then, Is that all I am to you?
Mailin… you’re like my brother. I really care for you, but –
I get it. I understand. If I were you, Grant Carlson is the kind of guy I’d want to be with, too.
Except I’m not going to get to be with him.
Good luck, Eve. I hope it works out.
Goodbye, Mailin.
Goodbye, Eve.
And that was the end.
61
I walk out of the bedroom, laptop in hand. I want to talk to Grant about a few issues with his offshore accounts, the ones he’s planning to use to pay any future co-conspirators.
I’m about to head down the stairs when I hear his voice coming from the next room over.
It’s the bedroom Dominique shares with JP.
I’m about to knock on the slightly ajar door when Dominique speaks.
She’s talking in French, so there’s no way I can understand what she’s saying, but I can interpret her tone of voice just fine. She sounds tender… comforting…
Seductive.
Grant says something back in French. He sounds depressed. Anguished.
Shit!
I curse my high school Spanish. Super helpful in Los Angeles, but basically useless the last 48 hours.
I could interrupt them, but Grant and Dominique won’t tell me the truth about their conversation anyway. There’s no way to find out what they’re saying unless JP hears them and translates for me. But JP’s not around, so he can’t hear them –
Unless I record them.
I feel slightly dirty as I bring up the soundboard program, the one with Al Pacino’s voice clips, and press RECORD.
I remind myself that I’m spying on an international fugitive, that I’m a hacker who has broken dozens of laws in the last 24 hours alone, and that I’m now wanted by the FBI. Electronic eavesdropping? Pffft. Minor league.
That doesn’t make me feel any better.
They continue talking for almost a full minute. Listening is like torture – her voice is so velvety, so alluring… and he’s giving in. I can hear it. Whatever she’s saying, it’s working.
Then there’s silence, and I hear the unmistakable sound of a kiss. That brief, sharp mwah of lips breaking contact with skin.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
I push open the door.
They’re sitting on the bed. Grant’s back is towards me; Dominique faces his side. As soon as she sees the door move, she jerks back from his face like his skin is a hot stove.
I stand there staring at her. She straightens up rebelliously and stares me down like I don’t give a damn WHAT you saw.
Grant turns around, looking guilty as hell.
I want to scream, I want to run –
But then I notice the lip-shaped outline of lipstick on his cheek, not his lips.
He wasn’t kissing her. She was kissing him – and on the side of his face.
That makes me feel marginally better… the way that breaking one leg feels better than breaking both of them.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Grant says.
“Doesn’t look like nothing.”
“We were just talking.”
“About what?”
“Nothing.”
“About what?” I demand.
He gets defensive and the slightest bit angry. “If you must know, it’s going to be really hard letting you go.”
Letting you go.
Ouch.
Total breakup language right there.
“You’re the one forcing me to leave,” I snap.
“To keep you safe – ”
“And I bet Dominique here is more than happy to ‘comfort’ you when I’m gone,” I sneer as I stare right at her.
She says something in French to Grant.
“Go FUCK yourself, bitch,” I snarl, then turn and run down the stairs as fast as I can.
I hear Grant’s voice call desperately after me. “Eve – ”
My chest is heaving and I’m sobbing when I reach the small room over the restaurant.
JP is sitting at a table in shock, watching me lose it.
Grant comes tromping down the stairs. He takes the laptop out of my hands and sets it down on the nearest table, then grabs my shoulders. I might not be able to jerk away, but I refuse to look at him.
“Eve – look at me. Look at me.”
I don’t want to – but his commanding tone
… and the pain I hear in his voice…
I finally look at him, tears blurring my vision. He gazes deeply into my eyes.
“I love you,” he says, never looking away. “I don’t love her, okay? I’m not getting involved with her again, ever. I love you. You know that, don’t you?”
He sounds so sincere that it hurts. I break down sobbing again.
“I love you,” he whispers, and pulls me to him and kisses me.
All the fear and doubt leaves me, and I kiss him back. Because I love him, too.
He stops kissing me and brushes the tears off my cheeks. “You okay?”
I nod silently.
He kisses me again, then backs away and smiles sadly. “Look, I need to get some things ready – did you need me for something?”
It’s only at that moment that I think of the laptop – and realize the soundboard program is still recording.
“…no,” I say, lying to his face.
“Okay,” he says, then smiles and kisses me again. “Get ready… we have to leave soon.”
I nod, and watch him turn and go back up the stairs.
Once he’s gone, I check the laptop.
Three minutes of recording, and still going.
I got everything.
62
When JP hears what I want, he flat out refuses. “No.”
I lean over the desk. “JP… if you don’t tell me what they’re saying, I’m going to walk down into the main restaurant and find somebody who will. And if I can’t find them in the fucking restaurant, I’m going to go out in the street and find somebody there.”
He looks at me fearfully.
I wouldn’t do it. No way. It would be insanity. Suicide. What I would do is upload the audio to an outsourcing service and get it translated that way.
But he doesn’t know that – and with my red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, I’m pretty sure I look just unhinged enough to follow through on my threats.
“We both know you didn’t sign up for this,” I say. “I get it. You hate being part of somebody else’s love triangle. But I’m leaving in a few minutes, and you’re never going to see me again, so either you tell me what they’re saying, or I go find somebody who will.”
He looks at me worriedly for a few seconds more… then gives in.
“Putain d’merde, this is a bad idea,” JP says as I play the file for him.
He listens intently. There comes a point where Dominique speaks, and he winces – and when Grant replies, JP closes his eyes in pain.
“What?” I ask.
“Listen to me,” he says, almost pleading. “You do not want to know.”
“Oh, I want to know, alright.”
“Please. Please,” he begs. “It is nothing. Just… let go of it. It is nothing. It is not how he feels.”
“Tell me,” I hiss.
He sighs, resigned to his fate, and plays the file over from the beginning.
“He says, euh… it is very hard to let you go. He loves you.”
That’s not bad at all! In fact, that’s awesome!
But if it’s awesome, that means JP is playing me –
“Bullshit,” I snap.
“No, no, this is not the bad part,” JP says quickly, like he’s trying to ward off a crazy woman – which he kind of is. “Dominique says, ‘You love this. Admit it, you love it. And if you stay with her, she will never let you do it again.’”
Love what?
What would I never let him do again?
And then it hits me:
Stealing.
Danger.
Excitement.
I remember his words from two nights ago:
I just assumed when you said you loved me, that you meant you loved the actual me – not some safe, sterilized version with my balls cut off. ‘Cause that’s what you’re asking for.
JP keeps going.
“He says, ‘She cannot stop me,’ and she says, ‘She will, because you will do what she asks. You will stay with her, and a little more of you will die every day. You would give up who you are to make her happy.’”
Jesus…
It hurts to hear this, and not in the way I thought it would.
That is, not until JP says, “Then Grant says, ‘I know.’”
Ow.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…
For a second I think of playing the martyr – of casting myself willingly on the funeral pyre so that he can go on living his life and being the man he truly wants to be. The man he truly is.
And then…
“Dominique says, ‘When did you decide to send her away?’”
Oh God… no… please, no…
“And he says, ‘When you and I were huddled together on the roof, when Epicurus’s men attacked.’”
My stomach turns.
He made the decision to get rid of me while doing something with Dominique. Something I can’t do. Something I can’t share with him.
And it wasn’t about me being safe. It was never about me being safe.
It was about I’m not enough for him. That he has to play small for me.
He can’t be who he wants to be when he’s with me.
If the two of them had slept together, I don’t think it could have hurt me more.
JP continues.
“Grant says, ‘Do you remember what you said?’
“And she says, ‘Of course. How could I forget? I would rather die with you when you are truly alive – ’
“‘ – than watch me die slowly, not being the man I was meant to be. That was when I decided I had to let her go.’
“And she says, ‘My love, I am sorry’… and then…”
There is the sound of the kiss, then a door opening, followed by my voice, shrill and accusatory: “What’s going on?”
JP stops the recording. He looks more hangdog than I have ever seen him, and that’s saying something.
I don’t blame him.
I wouldn’t want to be the emotional Angel of Death for somebody else, either. I wouldn’t want to be the one to take their love, their dreams, their hope away.
He raises his head to look up at me – then focuses past me and inhales sharply.
I turn around.
Grant is standing at the foot of the stairs, listening, his face contorted with pain and guilt.
63
I stare at him. I feel shell-shocked. Numb. Emotionally dead.
“Eve…” he whispers.
“Is that really why?” I ask him, my voice flat and monotone. “Is that why you want me on the boat?”
“It’s… no. No, it’s a lot more complicated than that.”
“It’s okay,” I say quietly. I’m in total control now. Why wouldn’t I be? I can’t feel anything. “I understand.”
“No, you don’t – ”
“I do. We’re just two totally different people… and it didn’t work out. It’s not your fault… it’s not anybody’s fault.”
He looks like I’m stabbing him, he’s in that much pain.
He walks towards me, arms out to hold me. “Eve – ”
I shy away from his touch. “Don’t. Please – just, don’t.”
He stands there, forlorn. Then he turns to JP. “You fucking son of a bitch – you just had to stick your goddamn nose where it didn’t belong, didn’t you.”
“Stop,” I say. “Stop it.”
Grant shuts up.
“Don’t be angry at him,” I continue. “I threatened him. He begged me not to make him. But I wanted to know. I deserved to know.”
Grant looks into my eyes again. “Forget what you heard on that recording – ”
“But I can’t. I can’t forget.”
“Eve – I love you – ”
“I know. But it just wasn’t meant to be.”
I walk past him in a daze – then remember something.
“If that’s the way you really feel, then I don’t want to wait for you in some other country. I want to go back to the U.S. with Mailin.”
“No – Eve – ”
“He contacted me again. He said Duplass would leave me alone.”
“You know that’s a lie,” Grant insists.
I shrug and don’t answer.
“You know they’ll try to get to me through you.”
“I won’t tell them anything,” I say, my voice monotone. “I’ll go to jail before I help them hurt you.”
He looks ashamed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” I say, and shuffle back to the stairs. “I know. I need to go now… I need to contact Mailin before they leave…”
“Eve,” Grant calls after me, but I don’t answer.
I don’t remember walking up the stairs. I don’t remember contacting Mailin, either, but I know that I did.
What I remember is sitting there on the squeaky, single bed, the one where Grant and I had made love… and breaking down and sobbing like a dying animal because it hurt so bad to lose him.
64
Grant and I are on an island in Paris. There are two of them, both in the Seine River. This island is the more famous one, because it has the Notre Dame cathedral on it.
It’s a beautiful sight. One of the most beautiful views I could possibly pick before I leave Paris.
But it’s impossible to enjoy it, because I am clinging to my last few minutes with Grant like a dying woman clings to her last few breaths.
We’re in an alleyway, surrounded by seven of Marcel’s men, all armed, all wearing black masks. The smuggler is waiting in his boat on the river, just in case Epicurus shows up – or if Agent Duplass gets any ideas about trying to arrest Grant.
Speaking of Duplass, he and Mailin are a hundred feet away at the other end of the alley, next to a black SUV. Just like yesterday, Grant led them on a wild goose chase to get them here, but it appears they were telling the truth about coming alone. There’s neither hide nor hair of any French policemen – just two other American suits who were part of the raid on the Eiffel Tower.
I’m supposed to leave with them in the next couple of minutes.
I already said my goodbyes to JP earlier at Marcel’s. I didn’t bother with Dominique; I’d had enough of that duplicitous bitch to last seven lifetimes.
Now it’s just a matter of saying goodbye to Grant. Which, despite the revelation earlier in the restaurant, is the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my entire life.
The Billionaire's Redemption (The Billionaire's Kiss, Book Five): (A Billionaire Alpha Romance) Page 18
