“Not an issue? Damn it, answer me! Are they waiting for you? Do you have time to get there?”
He took her hand again. “Airin—”
She sat up straighter. “You tell me right now, Hunter. And you tell me the truth.”
He sighed. “All right. If you calm down, I’ll tell you.”
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
“I’m calm.”
He studied her for a moment before speaking.
“No, they’re not waiting for me. But it’s fine. My backup is going in. A really good guy named Liam Jones. You’d like him.”
She leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. Tears pricked behind her lids, and as hard as she fought to hold them back, they leaked slowly down her cheeks.
Hunter had missed his window because of her. He’d missed out on the biosphere.
If there was one kind of person she understood, it was a person with a mission. Hunter had wanted to go into space all his life. The biosphere project was a crucial step on that journey.
She’d wrecked his career. And even if he thought otherwise right now, eventually he’d see what she’d done to him.
And he’d hate her for it.
“Airin. Don’t think about it, okay? This is not your problem. What I need you to do now is tell me your last name and how to reach your family. You lost your purse somewhere, angel. Nobody knows who you are or who your emergency contact is.”
Her eyes flew open. “My family,” she said.
“That’s right. We have to let them know what happened to you.”
“Oh God.”
Her family. Her mother. What time was it? Ten in the morning. Was there a chance in the world they hadn’t noticed she was gone yet? She was usually a very early riser. But maybe Thomas and the others would think she was sleeping in today. They wouldn’t go into her room, would they?
Of course they would. Who was she kidding? If they were worried about her, they would absolutely go into her room. They wouldn’t even have to ask the hotel for help, since they could get in through the connecting door to her mother’s suite.
Unless, please God, they weren’t worried. Her mother was on the Big Island, after all, and they all had plenty of other work to do. Maybe they’d give it a while longer before going in to check on her and sounding the alarm.
But even if she’d gotten lucky so far, noon would be the outside limit of her window of privacy. She had to get back to her hotel room now, and she had to do it without anyone seeing her.
“Hunter. Can you do me a favor?”
He leaned forward, and something in his eyes made her stomach do an odd little flip.
“You’re lying in this bed because of me. Hell yes, I’ll do you a favor. Anything. Name it.”
“I need you to get me out of here. I mean, they can’t keep me here against my will, can they? Then I need your help to get back to my hotel. Only . . . no one can see me. You’ll have to sneak me in somehow. I know the layout pretty well, but I’ve only ever snuck back at night, and—”
“Airin.”
Hunter’s quiet voice stopped her. After a moment he spoke again, his voice gentle.
“Is there someone you’re afraid of? Someone in your family?”
She started to laugh, and it turned into a cough. Hunter handed her a cup of water, and she took a swallow.
“Yes, there’s someone I’m afraid of. But not for the reasons you’re thinking.”
She put the cup down on the table beside her. Then she started to run a hand through her hair, stopping when she encountered the bandage on her temple. She explored its dimensions, noting without emotion that they’d shaved off a small portion of her hair—no more than an inch or two.
“In case you’re wondering, you’re still gorgeous as hell.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about right now, but thanks.”
She turned to look at him again, noting the shadows under his eyes. He’d endured a sleepless night and missed out on the biosphere mission because of her. If nothing else, she owed him the truth.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
“You can tell me anything, Airin. I mean it.”
“It’s about my family. Well . . . my mother. She’s the only family I have. She’s not—that is—I . . .”
There was a commotion out in the hall. Voices yelling, growing closer. One voice in particular, a deep and scathing contralto.
Oh God.
The door was flung open with sudden violence, and Dira Delaney stood on the threshold. She was flanked by three of her staff and a gaggle of hospital people.
At the sight of her daughter, Dira held up a hand imperiously. Airin wasn’t surprised when everyone who’d been yammering at her fell silent.
Her mother had that effect on people.
“Airin. There you are.”
Her voice sounded almost matter-of-fact, but Airin knew better. Beneath Dira’s tightly controlled exterior was a tangle of panic and fury.
She took three steps into the room, turned her eyes on Hunter for a moment, and looked back at Airin.
“Congratulations on not being dead yet.” She took another step. “Now tell me what the hell is going on.”
Chapter Nine
Hunter was a fighter pilot, and he’d been through NASA’s astronaut program. That meant he was trained to respond to all kinds of crazy situations, to analyze circumstances with cool precision, and to make the best decisions possible. His mind and his body had been disciplined for years to deal with the unexpected.
And yet, at the sight of Dira Delaney, his thought processes stuttered to a halt.
Dira.
Delaney.
Genius scientist, genius businesswoman. Nanowire technology pioneer. The inventor of a new process that was already beginning to revolutionize energy use here on Earth and had the potential, in the field of jet propulsion, to make it possible for humans to explore farther in space than they ever had before.
The woman who’d started a company with the sole purpose of beating NASA to Mars.
The woman who, apparently, was also Airin’s mother.
Holy fuck.
He could see the resemblance. But while Airin looked soft and vulnerable, her lips trembling, her mother looked fierce and implacable and a little bit terrifying.
She wasn’t a blusterer, though. After asking Airin for an explanation, she didn’t say anything else. She simply waited for her daughter to speak.
He looked at Airin. Like anyone interested in space, he’d read about Dira Delaney, and although she seldom spoke about her family or private life, it had gotten out that her only child had heart problems that had necessitated a series of surgeries. That tied in with what Airin had told him and what Sue had said.
Is it my heart? Airin had asked when she first woke up.
His own heart tightened in his chest. Dira Delaney would have taken on her daughter’s medical situation with the aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach that had gotten her where she was today. That was why Airin had led such a sheltered life. That was why she’d never had a romantic relationship or even kissed a man before.
And why she’d been so excited at her first taste of freedom.
She was a grown woman, and she’d said her medical issues were behind her. Why did she have to sneak out of her hotel room to see the world? Was her mother still so overprotective, even after her daughter was no longer in medical danger?
“Mother.”
Hearing that little tremble in her voice, he wanted to leap to his feet and stand over her. It was the same thing he’d felt after the car accident and when he saw Airin lying unconscious in her hospital bed. It was a fierce need to protect her—from everything.
His hands tightened on the arms of his chair. He might have an unaccountable desire to fight Airin’s battles for her, but he needed to stay out of this one. This was family shit, and he had no right to stick his nose in.
But he had no intention of l
eaving this room, either. Not until he was sure Airin was okay.
Airin cleared her throat. “Mother,” she said again, her voice stronger this time. “Please allow me to introduce—”
“I know who he is,” Dira said, turning her piercing black eyes on him.
She did?
“I was just on the Big Island, Mr. Bryce. I happened to be meeting with the people in charge of the biosphere project. I was there when Ted Barkley received your call. Of course I had no idea your unexpected withdrawal from the first team had anything to do with my daughter. Nor did I know you were involved when I learned she was missing. My staff discovered her location while I was en route back here, but they made no mention of you.” She looked back at Airin. “I’m still waiting for your explanation.”
Airin lifted her chin. “We were in a car accident. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Perfectly fine?” Dira’s voice rose a little, and she stopped.
Her lips firmed for a moment and then relaxed. She turned to Sue Jackson, who had moved to the front of the hospital staff group. “My daughter says she’s perfectly fine. I’d like some medical confirmation of that, please.”
Sue raised an eyebrow. “Your daughter is an adult.” She looked at Airin. “Do I have your permission to discuss your medical information with your mother? Including the results of CT scans and other tests?”
Airin looked both surprised and grateful to be asked. “Yes,” she said.
Sue turned back to Dira. “If you’d like to come with me, Ms. Delaney, I’d be happy to fill you in.”
Dira frowned. “Why can’t we discuss it here?”
“Because, to be quite frank, I don’t think your presence is very soothing for your daughter right now.”
Dira’s nostrils flared. “That’s an impertinent remark. There’s no one who cares more about my daughter’s well-being than I do. That includes you as well as this”—she looked at Hunter again, and there was venom in her expression—“person.”
“I would like a break, Mom,” Airin said, more firmly than she’d spoken yet. “If you’ll go with Dr. Jackson, I’ll be able to rest for a few minutes.”
“Your time would be better spent saying goodbye to Mr. Bryce. Then he’ll be free to focus on salvaging the remnants of his career.” She leveled those black eyes at him. “NASA isn’t very pleased with you at the moment, as I’m sure you can imagine. My daughter and I will be heading home soon, but we’ll be in touch if we decide to sue you for anything.”
Dira Delaney was going to sue him?
“No.”
Both Hunter and Dira jerked their heads around to look at Airin. He hadn’t known her for very long, so the fact that he’d never heard her speak so forcefully wasn’t too surprising. But Dira, who’d presumably known her daughter for her entire life, looked just as startled as he felt.
Within a few seconds, Dira had her expression back under control.
“Fine, we won’t sue him.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh? What did you mean, then?”
“I meant I won’t be going home with you. Not to our hotel, and not to Stonebridge.”
Stonebridge, he remembered, was the name of the town in western Massachusetts where Dira had built a mansion.
Her delicate black brows were exactly like Airin’s. Now they drew together slowly, creating the kind of frown you might see in your nightmares.
“What are you talking about? What do you mean, you’re not coming home with me?”
Airin turned to look at him for the first time since her mother had entered the room, and there was something close to desperation in her expression. But what was she desperate about? What did she need him to do?
“I’m going to be staying with Hunter for a while,” she said, and her eyes pleaded with him.
What. The. Hell?
All he could do was stare back at her. He managed to keep his jaw from dropping, but he hoped Airin would elaborate on this plan before Dira started asking him questions.
Airin seemed to take heart from the fact that he didn’t immediately contradict her, and she turned back to her mother.
“I’ve decided it’s time to leave the nest. I want to consider my options for graduate school, and I’d like to do that away from—” She hesitated. “Away from home,” she finished, though Hunter was pretty sure she’d been about to say away from you. “Hunter has a place here on Oahu, and he’s very kindly offered to let me stay there while I consider my, um, next steps.”
He didn’t have a place anymore. He’d sublet his Kailua rental for the duration of the biosphere mission. The new tenants would be moving in at the end of the month, which was only two weeks away.
But he had a feeling Airin didn’t care about details right now. She was making a move to break away from her mother, and those big brown eyes of hers, back on him now, were begging him to help her.
Jesus.
Dira looked from her daughter to him and back again. Judging by the fury behind her eyes, he could only guess at what it was costing her to keep from yelling.
“We’ll discuss this after I speak with Dr. Jackson.”
And with that she turned and left, her staffers going with her.
The hospital people filed out as well. Sue, though, paused at the door.
“Everything all right here?” she asked.
For a doctor who’d just discovered her Jane Doe was the daughter of one of the most powerful women on the planet, she seemed calm and composed.
Airin nodded. “I’m sorry my mother is so . . . um . . .”
“Forceful?” Hunter suggested.
“That’s one way to put it,” Airin muttered.
“I asked about you two,” Sue reminded them.
Airin looked groggy but game. “I’m fine.”
“We’re both good,” Hunter added. “I hope you’ll be able to say the same in ten minutes.”
Sue smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I work in an ER, and I just said goodbye to my wife for eight months. I can handle anything—up to and including the forceful mother of one of my patients.”
When the door closed behind her, a short and extremely awkward silence ensued.
Then he said, “What do you—”
“I’m so sorry I—”
They both paused. After a moment, Hunter said, “You first.”
Airin took a deep breath. “Okay. So. I obviously took a liberty just now. I didn’t mean to put you in such a bad spot.”
Bad spot was an understatement. But the truth was, something happened when she looked at him. Those brown eyes were so earnest and vulnerable . . . and everything inside him just kind of melted.
What the hell was it about this woman that made him willing to fuck up his life? That made him want to do anything—anything—to keep her safe?
He tried to stay focused. “Let’s start with the fact that you didn’t tell me your mother is Dira Delaney.”
She looked down at her hands, which were twined together on her lap. After a moment, she started to fiddle with the medical bracelet on her left wrist.
“I know I should have told you who I am. But when people find out, it tends to . . . color everything. My mother has always been the most interesting thing about me. I guess I liked being around someone who wasn’t looking at me and thinking about her.”
Was that a fair point? Maybe. But: “You can’t honestly think that your mother is the only interesting thing about you.”
“I didn’t say the only interesting thing. Just the most interesting thing.”
“That’s not—”
She looked up and met his eyes. “I was just trying to explain why I didn’t tell you who I am. One reason was that I liked being with someone who didn’t know. The other reason . . . well. The other reason is that I had to sneak away from my mother and all her henchmen just to be at the bar that night.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t say henchmen. That’s not fair. She has a bodyguard—that
really large man who was just in here—but he’s not a thug. His name is Nathan, and he’s actually really nice. Thomas, too—he’s an assistant-slash-bodyguard. Everyone else is just a regular employee. PR assistants, personal assistants, that kind of thing. No henchmen. But I had to sneak around to get away from them, and I didn’t want to make you a party to that.”
“I would’ve helped you sneak around if you’d asked me to.”
She smiled for the first time since she’d woken up. “Really?”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t explain why you had to sneak around.”
She looked back down at her hands. “It’s kind of a long story. My mother is sort of . . .”
“Controlling?”
“Overprotective.” She paused. “Well, and controlling, too, I guess. I don’t know if you’ve read a lot about my mom, but if you have you might know that I—”
“Had heart problems growing up. Yeah, I read about that. And you told me you’d had medical issues.” A sudden pulse of anxiety went through him. “You said you’re recovered now. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true. The doctors told me last year that they didn’t anticipate any future surgeries and that there’s nothing stopping me from living a normal life. My heart is as strong as anyone else’s, maybe stronger. There are no restrictions on my activities at all. It’s as though it never happened.” She took a breath. “But my mother never seemed to get the memo. She still treats me like a heart patient. Like a little girl who needs to be protected and sheltered from everything.”
“So that’s why you—”
He stopped abruptly. He’d been about to say, So that’s why you’ve never kissed anybody.
But of course Airin knew exactly what he was talking about. Pink came into her cheeks, and she looked away for a moment.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s why. I’ve never really been out in the world on my own. I got my college degree remotely. Of course, my mother being my mother, she set up an arrangement with MIT.” She looked back at him. “I mostly interact with people online, which makes me like those bloggers who live in their parents’ basements and never see the sun. Well, except that we live in the Berkshires where it’s really beautiful even if it’s in the middle of nowhere, and I always do a lot of walking and hiking.”
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