Thomas remembered hearing about Tash’s assistant job from Mia, and disapproving—yo, Judge Gramps—because, in his opinion, she’d clearly settled badly, in terms of her post-college career. Now he just let her continue as he opened the gauze pads he’d chosen.
“But then this gossip blog posted a picture of us together—we were laughing at something—and they were all Who’s the redheaded vixen wrapping Prince Tedric around her little finger? or something equally ridiculous and demeaning, and he got the brilliant idea to just run with it. And after that worked so well, he decided what he really needed was to get engaged. You know, to shut his mother down even more completely. So we set this up. But it’s a hundred percent pretend. It’s like, I’m playing at being a princess again. We live together, yeah, but we have our own bedrooms—Ted snores.” She shook her head, as if annoyed with herself as he attached the bandage to her arm with tape. “But that’s not... What I mean is, we don’t sleep together.” She got even more precise. “We don’t have sex. We’ve never had sex. We’re friends.”
Friends. Pretending to be lovers.
As he helped her pull her bathrobe back up and over the gauze, Tasha added, “We play to the cameras, to annoy his mother. And to fool the world. That’s all it is.”
Play to the cameras. That video Thomas had seen, where she’d seemed to look directly at the paparazzi’s camera before giving the prince a Hollywood-worthy PDA...
Suddenly it made sense.
And yet.
“It sounds like something straight out of a rom-com,” he said.
“I know, right...? But that’s totally Ted’s MO. He’s... quirky and eccentric is the way you’re described when you’re next in line to be the king.” She’d tightly refastened the front tie of her robe, and had already slipped down off the stool to rifle through the first-aid kit for bandages for her knees. “So that’s why I wasn’t thinking about Ted. Because our relationship isn’t real. Outside of our friendship. Which of course is real.”
Thomas went back to the sink to wash his hands again. She was talking about this crazy arrangement—about Ted—carefully. Choosing her words to make sure he understood, instead of just letting the truth fly in her normal ebullient manner.
Either it was tremendously important to her that he believe what she was telling him—the caveman part of his brain liked that—or...
She wasn’t telling him quite all of the truth.
You’re leaving something out. If their roles were reversed, she wouldn’t have let it slide. She would’ve said that to him. Directly. Right in his face.
He turned to look at her as he dried his hands—she was almost done bandaging the first of her scraped knees. “Are you sure Ted feels the same way? Like it’s just a big game? Cause if this was a movie, he would’ve started the whole... what’s the romance trope called?”
“I can’t believe you still remember tropes.” She looked up to smile at him, both disbelieving and infinitely pleased.
“You were so into it—romance novels. Plus, it was interesting.” Thomas packed up the first-aid kit, since she’d taken out the supplies she needed. If they left the pod—when they left the pod—he was going to take the kit with them. Along with as much ammo as he could carry. And a supply of peanuts—but not in heavy glass jars. “I learned a lot. Read some good books, too.” The rom-com movies they’d watched endlessly were far less his thing.
“Marriage of convenience,” Tash told him. “Even though the trope’s called marriage, it includes pretend-to-be-my-girlfriend situations, too.”
“Right,” he said. “Right. And—correct me if I’m wrong—but I thought the trope was all about the way playing pretend turns friendship into real love.” He searched the drawers for the plastic baggies that Tash had found. “Because there’s something real there—some spark—from the start, even though no one acknowledges it. Except maybe one of them—let’s call him the prince, because there’s nothing like royalty to make a story extra extra—he’s got a secret.” He put the box on the counter then raised his voice as he went into the pantry to grab six jars of peanuts from the shelf. “And we all come to realize that he’s been jonesing for the, you know, plucky redheaded best friend, right from the start.”
“Oh my God!” she said. “No.” She shook her head emphatically as he came back into the kitchen and set the jars on the counter. “No! Ted isn’t... He’s not... He’s... No. I mean, I get why you might think that, because I am fabulously plucky, but absolutely not.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that how it works?” he countered as he popped open one of the jars and poured its contents into the baggie. The box said quart-sized—it was close to a perfect fit. “The plucky best friend is clueless until the prince rushes through the airport to stop her from getting onto the plane.”
“I think you’re mixing your rom-coms,” she said.
“Nah, I’m not. We watched a lot of movies on that pink settee. I just... I want you to take your time. Don’t burn your bridges with Ted before you think it through. Can you finish doing this when you’re done with your knees?” He gestured toward the jars of peanuts and the box of baggies.
“I’m on it,” she said. “But—”
“Grab us each three bottles of water and put it in that pile, too. I’mma find some kind of pack.” He headed toward the living room.
“I saw a small one, like a day pack, in the utility room,” she called after him. “Although I still don’t know how we’re going to leave here with an armed battalion outside of the hatch.”
“I doubt it’s a full battalion,” he called back as he went to look and—there it was. A dark blue day pack hanging on a hook near the orange raincoat. He grabbed it and headed back toward the kitchen. “And we’re not necessarily going to leave, we’re just ready if we need to.”
“So, we’re rushing around to then... sit around and wait?”
Thomas set the pack on the counter where he’d left the jars of peanuts. “You just described the majority of most military operations,” he told her.
“For the record,” she said, making one last adjustment to the bandages on her knees before slipping down off the stool, “I’m ready to burn bridges whenever you are.”
The world stuttered, and it might even have stopped as he turned and looked into her eyes.
“I love you,” she said with a matter-of-factness that belied the softness and vulnerability he could see in her eyes as she shared her soul with him. “I’ve always loved the idea of you, but the real you... You take my breath away. I want you back in my life. And I know it’s only been a few days that we’ve been together again, but... God, I want us. In every possible way. And maybe that’s crazy, and if you still want to wait or take it slowly, I will absolutely wait and take it as slowly as you need, but... I just want you to know that once we’re done with this prep that we’re doing, I’m more than ready to burn it all down.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tasha flashed hot and cold in that endless millennium that she stood there, gazing into Thomas’s gorgeous brown eyes after essentially propositioning him.
She moved over to the counter, and began her assigned task of transferring peanuts from jars to baggies. And, because his silence was killing her, she spoke before he did. “I’m sorry if I’m pushing too hard. I heard what you said about needing time, and I respect that, I really do. I just had to respond to your don’t burn bridges comment so you didn’t think my silence was agreement, but I promise that’s the last time I’ll talk about this. I mean, unless you’re the one who wants to discuss—”
She didn’t see or hear him move, but suddenly he was right beside her, turning her to face him and—
Slamming her into a full body embrace as he kissed her.
Hard.
His mouth against hers, his arms tightly around her—but not too tight against her injured arm, because he was always, always thinking, considering, planning, strategizing.
Protecting.
As Tasha kissed h
im back, she poured her heart and soul into the breathtaking intimacy of this moment, hoping that he might feel as safe in her arms.
But then, reluctantly, because she wanted to keep on kissing him like this forever, but right now they had things to do, she shifted slightly away from him, and he released her, just a little. Just enough to look down into her eyes.
“You’re really that certain?” he whispered.
“I am.”
He shook his head. “Part of me loves that. But it also scares me a little,” he admitted.
“I’m so absolutely certain, I’d marry you right here and now,” she told him, swiftly adding, “Oh, shit, that sounds so much crazier out loud than it did in my head. It was meant to reassure you, not check off the Yes, you should be scared of me box. For the record, I’m not asking you to marry me or even suggesting that—”
“Thanks, but I know you’re crazy and I’m good with it—and that came out wrong, too.” He winced as he smiled at her. “God, we’re champions. What I meant was, yes, I know that you’re not afraid to say what you feel and sometimes it comes out extra-unfiltered and crazy-ish-sounding, and I’m good with that. I don’t want you to change anything about yourself for me. Not ever, Tash.”
She hugged him tighter, her head tucked in against his chest, desperately wanting to kiss him again, but not wanting to stop him from telling her things that made her heart leap and thrill.
Her cardiac gymnastics weren’t just because she was surprised by his version of the modern-Darcy-ism of I like you and your crazy-pants just as you are, but from knowing that he cared enough to try to explain how he was feeling.
And sure enough, Thomas kept going. “What I really should’ve said was, I’m scaring me, a little. I’m scared about what I could feel for you, if I let myself—and wow, that’s some serious denial right there. Let myself? Could feel? Like I wasn’t in free fall the dead-second you made me do the not-my-sister-not-a-child math.”
She looked up at him, at that, because now her heart was slamming in her chest. Was he saying...?
Thomas pushed her hair back from her face as he looked down into her eyes, his mouth twisting into the slightest of smiles as he let her see his own vulnerability, his uncertainty, his... hope. “You know, that you plus me equals two unrelated, grown-ass adults who love the shit out of each other,” he whispered, “the rest of the world be damned.”
He kissed her again, and Tasha let herself sink into the taste and sensation of his mouth, his tongue, his lips, his arms around her, his body so solid and warm. The swirling timelessness of the moment was delicious and intoxicating, and again she wanted to stay like this forever, but he had a list of things to do, plus she had to ask, “Did you really just say that you love me?”
He laughed a little. “I did, didn’t I? Bonus points for using the extremely romantic word shit in the same sentence.” He was actually embarrassed by that, but there was no fear in his eyes as he met her gaze steadily.
“I have always found Thomas-being-Thomas to be a five-hundred on the romance scale,” Tash whispered. “Which normally only goes to ten.” She wanted to kiss him again. Kiss him, and then pull him back to the bedroom, although, wait, that mirror on the ceiling was maybe not the best choice for anyone’s first time together. So, the sofa. Yeah, that would be better, except... “Let’s not die,” she said instead.
“That’s my current plan,” Thomas told her. “Survive this; live long, happy lives.”
Okay. More sentiment that made her want to kiss the crap out of him. Tasha made her mouth form words instead. “What else is on your pre-wait to-do list?”
He laughed a little as he made himself let go of her and even step back, as he gestured toward the lower kitchen cabinets. “I’ve got to dig a bit under the sink. See what’s in there.”
She nodded as she forced her attention back to the peanuts, opening another jar and dumping it into a baggie, wanting to check off this task and move closer to the post pre-wait-prep part of this, which she was hoping would be wait while the bad guys continuously fail to get through the hatch, giving them lots of time to wait, and wait again. “Build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom. What else?”
“Whoa,” he said, laughing. “Did you just...?”
“The cover story for that al Qaida magazine,” Tasha told him as he got to work pulling all of the various cleaning supplies—potential ingredients in a homemade explosive—out from beneath the kitchen sink. “Remember? That stupid rhyme was the headline.” It had been all over the news. “I was so freaked out—and you told me it was propaganda that was supposed to make Americans believe that Muslims as a group were ‘inspired’ by the attacks, when al Qaida was really just a tiny subset of haters, looking for frightened, angry boys to join their death cult. You talked me off the ledge a lot back then. Finding anything good? And by good I mean dangerous and prone to exploding when mixed with other chemicals?”
“Yeah, I think I can work with this,” he said.
“Don’t forget about the gallons of alcohol in the pantry.”
“Oh, I won’t,” Thomas told her. “But I’m looking for something that’ll have a noisier presence. More like a sound effect than a tool of flaming destruction.”
“You want it to go boom,” she interpreted.
“As loudly as possible,” he confirmed.
As Tasha opened another jar of peanuts, she tried to figure out how that made any sense. There was one entrance to the pod—and it was currently surrounded by the nasties who wanted them dead. As soon as Thomas opened the hatch, they’d be fired upon—unless they went out waving a white flag. And even with that obvious symbol of surrender, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be instantly shot and killed.
Unless Thomas wasn’t intending to open the hatch.
“Do you want them to think something exploded down here?” she asked. “Except that’s not going to make them pack up and go home. I mean, I wouldn’t if I were a bloodthirsty asshole hunting down two innocent fellow human beings who never hurt anyone—except I kinda did shoot one of them, didn’t I? God, I hope he didn’t die. Still, they started this. And they did try to shoot me, too, so actually I’m not sure what I hope, so maybe I’m bloodthirsty now, too. And I’m sorry, I asked you a question and then gave a soliloquy.”
He laughed a little as he moved some of the cleaning supplies to the counter on the other side of the sink. “It’s a potential diversion. I’m really just reviewing our supplies and considering options. Lot of what we do depends on one of the next items on my pre-wait to-do list, as you called it.”
“Which is...?”
“Find this bomb shelter’s escape hatch.”
Rio took the time to shower.
The truck stop might not have looked like much on the outside, but the showers were sparkling clean. He stepped in immediately, already lathering up his hair.
After he’d found the iPhone-needle in the dumpster-haystack, he’d handed it to Dave to wipe down and unlock, see if the prince had left any secrets hidden inside. Not that they needed it. They all knew exactly where the royal pain in the ass was going—back to the now burned-out ski lodge, to search for his girlfriend, the admiral’s niece.
Natasha Francisco.
Rio had, along with Thomas and Mike, his besties from BUD/S training, watched Tasha grow from a tomboyish pre-teen—although Thomas had known her for far longer—into a strikingly beautiful young woman.
She’d gone from being stocky and strong to curvaceous, yet still capable of kicking ass. She’d full-on skipped the waif phase that too many girls went through when they looked at the too-skinny actresses and models on their TVs and realized Hey, I don’t look like that, and started ordering salads in stead of the burgers and fries they really wanted to eat.
Rio had always really liked that about Tasha—her refusal to pretend she wasn’t hungry when she clearly was.
True, she wasn’t perfect. When she was younger, she’d been drawn to drama. About five or six years ago, the
re was one mysterious incident that had left Thomas badly scarred, but the man hadn’t even dropped a hint about what had happened. He’d just actively started avoiding the girl.
Who wasn’t a girl anymore.
She was engaged to a freaking prince—assuming Rio and Dave could find the son-of-a-queen before he got his royal ass killed.
Although maybe that wouldn’t be too tragic. Because even though back in the day Rio had teased Thomas mercilessly about having a fourteen-year-old girlfriend, he and Mike had always privately believed that when Tash finally grew up, she and Thomas would connect. Before their rift, they’d always been so freaking perfect together—finishing each others’ sentences the way they always did, laughing at private jokes, and communicating silently through shared looks and smiles. Best friends who turned around one day when they both were ready and, bam, just fell in love, forever.
Except, forever was harder than it looked.
Case in point: Dave and Air-Biscuit Jon. They’d started out as friends, too. Dave had told Rio that he thought that Jon cheated because he was scared of the intensity of his feelings. How flipping stupid was that? Although, okay, yeah, Rio was not unfamiliar with self-sabotage, so maybe he should lighten up the grim condemnation.
Still. Air-Biscuit Jon was a grade A hemorrhoid of epic proportions, and Rio couldn’t wait to introduce Dave to Luc.
He shut off the water and toweled dry, moving as quickly as he could, now that he’d successfully destunk himself after getting dumpster-slimed. In any other situation, he would’ve ignored the godawful stench, but he and Dave were heading up into the mountains where intel reported some dozens of hostiles were roaming around.
What’s that stench?
I dunno, Klem, maybe Kody farted again.
King's Ransom: (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 13) Page 22
