Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  He looked over his shoulder. “Training.”

  “Training? What does that mean?” I was sick of not understanding the world. I knew things. I was on my way to being highly educated. I intended to get a master’s degree. I wasn’t some idiot who didn’t know basic knowledge. Yet, every time one of these Alliance men spoke to me it was like they spoke about a different planet I’d just landed on.

  He shook his head. “Let’s not do this.” He pulled two bottles of small portions of alcohol out of the mini fridge and brought one over. T extended it to me, and I took it. Yes, a drink sounded wonderful. Necessary, even.

  T spoke again. “Let’s not share sad stories or upsetting stories. Let’s be two people who had incredible sex. Really, surprisingly good sex. Let’s leave that alone. You don’t tell me your darkest secrets, and I won’t share with you things that you’re better off not knowing. Especially as we’re not going to know each other in six months anyway.”

  I unscrewed the top of the… What was it? I took a sip—ugh—vodka and nodded. “No sad stories.”

  He hopped into the bed. I bet he gave himself something better than vodka. I bet he had whisky in that small bottle. “Okay.”

  As he’d been the one to get the booze from the fridge, I supposed he could decide what he drank. I took another long swig of the vodka. It would get the job done.

  “You know dreams are supposed to be representations of things. I am not necessarily me in the dream. I may be representing something for you.”

  I shook my head. “No sad stories. No sharing.”

  “Fair enough.” He smirked. “You are really amazing in bed.”

  Well, that I could talk about. I side-eyed him. “I actually didn’t feel like I did very much for you. Next time, if we have a next time, I’ll be more reciprocal.”

  “Everly,” he laughed, throwing his head back. “Are you kidding? That was amazing. That’s all there is to it. I could eat your pussy all day long.”

  My cheeks heated up. “Um…okay.”

  “Did I embarrass you?”

  Now, this I could do. We had lines we couldn’t cross with one another, but this I could do. We stayed like that, talking about sex and then meaningless nothingness until we both crawled back under the covers. He liked a little light in the room so he could see immediately when he woke up. Tonight, I felt the same way. It was great to have a little bit of light in the room.

  I woke up to the sun streaming through the window. Next to me, T slept quietly. He never moved, hardly made a sound of breathing. But he’d wrapped his arms around me in the middle of the night, and I’d cuddled against his chest. I didn’t move for a little bit. This was going to be awkward if he woke up, but right now I’d take the moments before that happened.

  I didn’t want to analyze why I liked this so much. He hadn’t said he wouldn’t shoot me in the head. Why was I looking to him for comfort?

  That thought galvanized me and I left the bed, making my way to the bathroom. I quickly took care of my morning business and came back out to a still sleeping Trace. He had to be really out of it. I hadn’t been particularly quiet in the bathroom.

  It was a beautiful Caribbean morning. I’d only seen the Caribbean Sea once before. My father had taken us on a vacation to St. Thomas when I was six. I hardly remembered it. I opened up the balcony and walked outside, letting the morning sun hit me.

  It was already warm, but the breeze off the ocean was heaven. I closed my eyes and leaned against the bannister. The crazy of last night seemed to burn off me, even as muscles I hadn’t known could hurt ached just a little bit from the sex.

  I was never going to regret that. The way it had made me ridiculous afterward, however, that I was going to wish hadn’t happened.

  “Everly?” T’s shout in the room caught my attention, and I whirled around. He was looking around the room, not out on the balcony, and he didn’t see me. Trace ran to the bathroom and then back again before I caught his attention.

  He stopped abruptly, staring at me before running a hand through his dark hair. I’d scared him. He’d woken up and didn’t know where I was. T walked out toward me, a quickness to his gait.

  I stared at him, neither of us speaking. “Did you think I’d wised up and run for my life?”

  “Maybe.” He strode to me as I turned my back on him to stare at the ocean again. I couldn’t look at him rumpled and warm looking. It would be too easy to see if last night was a fluke or we could have that chemistry again. It would be too easy to let him bring me to that level of needy once more. And I didn’t even know if he was doing it on purpose. If that had been his plan all along.

  He’d been running a long con on people for years. I might just be the next diversion in some plan I didn’t understand.

  Still, T stood behind me a second before he wrapped his arms around me, tugging me back against him. I closed my eyes. If this was him faking it, I was just going to live with the consequences for a few minutes. I did want to be held. I’d never wanted it before.

  “I didn’t think you’d run away. I just didn’t like not knowing where you were. I should have thought about you running away. I forgot for a half a second that you weren’t here with me because you wanted to be.”

  I took a long breath. “The problem, T, is that right this second I do want to be here with you. I don’t like what that says about me.”

  He leaned his chin on top of my head. “It doesn’t have to say anything at all. It just means that right now you’re trying to make the best of things. You’re smart. You know running away won’t solve anything.”

  I hoped that was it. “You didn’t tell me to bring a bathing suit. I did. But you didn’t tell me to. You were going to let me come to the Caribbean with no suit.”

  He rocked me just slightly. “I can’t wear swimwear. I never think of it. Feel free. If you want Jim-Bob looking at you that way.”

  Yeah, maybe I’d stick to fully dressed. I didn’t pretend to not understand him. He couldn’t wear a bathing suit because his back was scarred so badly he’d never get away without questions.

  Training…

  Whatever that meant.

  Chapter 10

  I spent the morning freezing in JB’s Caribbean house, listening to him talk about rocket fuel. He really thought he’d come up with this idea just from a few passing comments T had made to him on occasion. From now on, I was going to pay more attention to what people said to me in passing. Or not. I wasn’t really important enough to warrant this kind of manipulation.

  I pretended to take notes. Trace had said I was good at that. I shook my head at the memory. Misogynist asshole. Of course, with that same nasty mouth, he’d licked me to completion in bed. I shook my head. What was the matter with me? Before this crazy interlude I would have said I was all about female empowerment. Now I was getting sex confused with emotion and trying to make my kidnapper seem okay in my head.

  I bit my lip. He really was more than okay. Fuck.

  Around lunchtime, T rose to his feet. “Well, I’ve got to get back to the hotel and get ready for my speech tonight.”

  He had to what? Trace had told me we were spending the day here. Was he done? Had Jim-Bobbery said something that told T we had to leave lest he screw up this path he was on? I got up, a smile on my face. If anyone had noticed that I hadn’t uttered a word all day, they didn’t indicate it. Maybe that was typical in their world.

  JB called a taxi, and soon we were shuffled into it and on our way back to the hotel. After a few minutes, when he’d said nothing, I had to ask him why we’d left. “Something happen?”

  He shook his head. “I’d had enough.”

  I guessed that was going to be it. “When we get back to the hotel, go put on your suit. I’m taking you to the beach.”

  “I thought you didn’t wear bathing suits.” I could only imagine the questions he would get about his back from strangers. Whatever this training was, it seemed counterintuitive. If the idea was for them to all have pos
itions of power without being obvious so they could work together to get what they wanted for the overall group, then marking someone like T up would only make him the target of speculation.

  Or maybe it had to do with that. Maybe they wanted him to always remember who was in charge.

  I could dwell on this all day, and he’d been clear he wasn’t going to talk about it.

  “I’m going to keep a shirt on. And shorts. We’re in the Caribbean. You should get some beach time.”

  I blinked. “Did you leave your… ah… meeting so you could take me to the beach?”

  “Don’t overthink it, Everly. Do you not want to go to the beach?” He shifted in his seat.

  “I do.” Who knew when or if I’d ever be back to a place like this. “Thank you.”

  He nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  This was a strange turn of events from a man who had just the night before told me he would shoot me in the head if he had to.

  We didn’t talk most of the day. Sitting on lounge chairs side by side, we stared at the ocean. At some point he dozed, obviously content with the fact that I wasn’t running away. I hadn’t actually gotten into the ocean although it had been tempting me. The only thing keeping me out was that Trace wasn’t going to swim. It was weird I didn’t want to leave him alone, but I was so past the point of odd at that moment I should probably just get over myself and go for it.

  I scooted off the chair and walked into the warm waters. It almost felt like a warm bath. I walked out until I was waist deep. I’d not brought a bikini but was instead in my oldest bathing suit, a plain black one piece that was more functional than sexy.

  I lifted my head to the sky. This was an okay moment. Life was screwed up. But this was okay. Movement on the beach caught my attention. T must have roused from his nap. His head snapped in my direction, catching sight of me in the water. He lifted his hand to wave, and I waved back.

  In other circumstances, this could be a normal moment. He might have been my boyfriend. He was sixteen years older than me, but relationships with that age difference happened often, and he was hot as hell. My older, more accomplished boyfriend who was here to give a speech to his colleagues at a conference. He’d brought me along and we were spending a little time together between obligations.

  I liked that version a lot better than the reality.

  I dove down into the water before coming up for air and then doing it again. As an only child with no mother and a busy father, I’d been good at amusing myself. Swimming had always been a favorite pastime.

  When I’d finally tired myself out enough, I made my way out of the water and back to our chairs. He tilted his head to look at me as I approached.

  “You look like sex personified in that suit.”

  My cheeks heated up. “It’s an old, nothing bathing suit.”

  “Not on you it’s not.” He linked my wet hand into his. “Maybe tonight after my speech we could come back out here, and without people looking, I could take you back out into that water.”

  I lifted my brows. “To drown me?”

  His smirk was ridiculously cute. “To kiss you in that water.”

  I caught my breath. “Okay.”

  I hated that I was going to anticipate that all day. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me. “What are you doing to me, Everly?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that because I didn’t have a clue what he was doing to me either. Or what all of this would mean the second he drugged me and put me back on an airplane to Vermont and the reality of my life.

  I didn’t understand most of what T talked about in his speech, but I listened. I clapped when everyone else did and sat through dinner as his assistant while every one of his colleagues laughed and congratulated him. They all had to think we were sleeping together especially since even I could tell he was constantly undressing me with his eyes.

  If anyone thought that was weird, no one said anything about it.

  After dinner, in utter silence, I changed back into my black suit and put on a cover up to go with it. In his requisite black outfit—this time shorts that showed off his long, muscular legs—we walked together back toward the ocean, a towel slung over both of our shoulders.

  We didn’t go back where we’d been but walked awhile until it was quieter. I’d had sex with the man the night before. He had his mouth on my most private of parts. And yet this was making me more nervous than losing my virginity.

  He ran a hand through my hair. “Everly.” Whatever he would have said next, he stopped as he jerked left, like he was listening for something. “Fuck. Get down.”

  T threw me down on the ground. I hit it with an oomph. What was happening? I asked him just as a whizz sounded over my head before exploding into one of the palm trees nearby. Was that a bullet? I’d been around guns a lot, even taken Derrick’s away from him. But this was different. Someone was shooting at us.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Stay down. It’s dark. I don’t know if they have night scopes or not. I can’t tell yet what they’re firing. We might have to run for it.”

  People rushed at us. Three of them. I thought. I lifted my head to watch. This was like… a bad movie. Except it was really happening. All dressed in black, they had guns strapped to them. I had a moment to register this before T rushed one of them, knocking him to the ground. He had the man’s gun in his own hand a second later. That was all I could register before two men ripped me off the beach. My arm burned where he squeezed it.

  “Take her. She’ll be useful to get him to do what we want. The mighty Trace finally falls for a girl. He’ll never be able to handle us torturing her.”

  Torture me? Oh no. No. No. No. I struggled for my life. I was taller than one of the men holding me, and I took advantage of it, kicking him hard in the shin as I wrenched my own body weight away from the other man. I got away from the shorter assailant before the larger one punched me in the face. I went down, blood streaming from my nose, my ears ringing. Dizziness assaulted me.

  A shout sounded and a large bang struck the man who had hit me before a bullet fired into the shorter man still to my left. The bangs continued. Again and again. Until they stopped.

  I tried to raise my head.

  “What the fuck, man?” Derrick was suddenly in my vision.

  “I’ve never been so fucking happy to see you.” Trace answered him.

  I was having trouble following the other things they said. Derrick picked me up, staring into my face. Was I imagining things or did he have a baseball bat?

  “Everly,” Trace held my face in his hands. “Fuck. They hurt you.”

  “You took my girl and you got her hurt.” Derrick shouted at Trace, his words ping ponging around in my brain.

  Trace shook his head. “Can we focus on something else here? Everly is hurt. And she’s not your girl.”

  Dizziness swept me under, and I thought I might puke. What was happening? I was so confused. That was it. Nothing made sense except the pounding in my head. The world went black.

  I woke up with my head in Derrick’s lap. We were in the hotel room, all the lights on, and across the room T stared out the window.

  “She’s up.” Derrick said and T whirled around.

  Everything hurt. How was that possible from one punch to the face? I lifted my hand to touch my aching cheek, but D grabbed my hand instead. “Don’t touch it. That’s only going to make it hurt worse. Pretty sure you’re concussed. We’re icing your face, and when we get back, which will happen as soon as the plane is gassed, Judson can look at you further. I’ve been concussed. A lot. This isn’t going to be fun, but you’re going to live.”

  “What happened?” I didn’t try to move. I believed him. That was going to hurt more.

  “You were attacked.” Derrick said simply. “Mostly because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time near Trace.”

  Trace came into my vision, holding a bag of ice. He settled it down on my head. “I’ve apparently had a kidn
ap ransom put on me. I had no idea. It just happened. Or, obviously, we’d not have been here vulnerable to attack.”

  “That’s why I came. Or one of the reasons I came. I was also here to retrieve my girl.”

  Trace shook his head. “I’m not doing this merry-go-round with you again. We settled this ten minutes ago. Trust me, she’s not your girl.”

  “Fucking her doesn’t make her yours. Trust me, she’s mine. I knew it that night by the lake. She’s mine.”

  I groaned. This was too much. I couldn’t focus on the important things with the blasting—scratch that, pounding—in my head. I had to tell them something. “They wanted to torture me to make you compliant, that’s what they said.”

  “Fuck.” Trace ran a hand through his hair. “Coming after me like this? In relative public? They’re desperate. What do they want?”

  “Well,” Derrick shifted slightly, and it jostled me. I groaned, and he placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, Everly. Trace, you could let yourself get taken in and find out. Of course you’ll never be able to tell us because you’ll be, you know, dead.”

  A thought dawned on me. “Did you have a baseball bat?”

  “He always has a baseball bat.”

  I closed my eyes because the light hurt. “Why? Did you travel with it? Why do you always have it?”

  “You really don’t recognize him. We wondered. Sorry, Derrick. You’re not famous to Everly.”

  He jerked again, and I cried out. I opened my eyes to plead with him to either stop moving or put me down, but he’d placed a kind hand on my head this time, and I decided to just keep quiet about it. “Should you be famous to me?”

  “He used to play professional baseball.” Trace supplied. “In the major leagues. For the Yankees. He had a following of female fans. We wondered if you knew him right away.”

  I stared at Derrick for a second. He didn’t seem the least bit familiar. “We don’t have a professional baseball team in Louisiana, and I’ll be honest, I don’t follow it much on the college level. Football is kind of religion in my house. My father. My grandfather. Oh shit, he must be Alliance, too.”