“You’re back with me now.”
She bit back a smart-ass retort. It wouldn’t help things. God, the helplessness was like drowning. How could she take it? “I didn’t bring any clothes.”
“There are some in your suite, and we’ll get more when the time comes.” A moment passed with his gaze burning into hers. He arched a white brow, waiting.
“Yes, sir,” she said, making sure her voice sounded small, weak.
“Good. Now, go with Nick and get settled. I’ve put the boy next door to you, along with his nanny. I’ll expect you back here in an hour. Alone. We need to set some ground rules.” He smiled at her, but not with the warmth he’d shown Patrick. This was a feral smile, filled with the cruelty she’d learned to dread. “And we have some unfinished business to take care of, yes?”
She bit her lower lip to stop it from trembling as she nodded.
He leaned down and kissed her cheek, his breath a combination of mint and cloves that resurrected more of her past. She’d tried so hard to forget. But some horrors are not forgotten, ever.
He patted Patrick on the head. “Go. You haven’t much time. And, Jenny, I want your hair down.”
She turned, too fast. His hand was jolted from Patrick’s head. She’d pay for that sin, too.
NICK LEANED against the open door of the last suite on the private floor, next to a middle-aged woman he’d just met, waiting for Jenny and Patrick. The woman, Regina Norris, was a professional nanny, British, who, she’d just told him, had once taken care of William and Harry, when the princess had been alive. Of late, she’d overseen the three children of a British Lord, and had come to America after being lured by an unimaginable sum by C. Randall Todd. Nick was faintly surprised. He’d have figured Todd would find someone more malleable for the job of watching his heir. Someone, say, from an old European family, but then again, it was his only son. Never settle for anything but the best, that was Todd’s credo.
She looked like a nice woman. Well-kempt, prim. Sort of a Maggie Smith type. He quelled the urge to tell her to get out before it was too late. Before she made a mistake that could cost her everything. It wasn’t his business.
Unfortunately, Todd had made Jenny Nick’s business once again. He’d had to hide his shock at being assigned to her. It had been a long time since his bodyguard days. But when Nick thought about the other close associates of Todd’s, he couldn’t come up with anyone he’d trust to watch her.
It wasn’t a question of loyalty. No one on the inner circle would dare make an inappropriate move. It was about intelligence. His men weren’t exactly geniuses when it came to thinking on their feet.
Independent thought wasn’t conducive to slavish obedience. Which, Nick had learned early and well, could be faked. But this assignment wasn’t going to work at all. Not just because of their past, which would have been enough, but because of his future. Unfortunately he couldn’t approach Todd about either of his reasons. So he’d have to come up with something else. Something compelling enough to get him back to his old routine without sending up any red flags.
The only thing he could think of was to have Jenny insist that he go. It wasn’t a solution he cared for. He couldn’t tell her what he was doing, that would put her in too much danger. So he’d have to be a schmuck.
Damn. As if things for her weren’t terrible enough. But what was his alternative? Things were coming to a head here and he couldn’t afford to have it all blow up in his face. That would be very, very bad.
Todd’s door opened and Nick pushed off the wall, straightening his cuffs as he watched Jenny walk into the hall. She held her son tight and he watched her soothe the boy, touch him, hug him. He wondered who was more comforted.
Jenny had a kid. A son who looked just like her. Would Patrick grow more like Todd as he got older?
Nick still had a hell of a lot to think about, to work out. That he hadn’t known about Patrick or Jenny returning bothered him almost as much as Jenny’s return itself. At least he understood why she hadn’t rushed to tell him about her boy when he’d put her in the limo. She’d known he’d figure out the dates. That she had to have been pregnant when they’d gotten together.
Would it have stopped him from helping her? No. Would it have stopped him from making love to her? He had no idea. And he couldn’t afford to think about it now. His personal life was so far away from a priority, it had its own zip code. He’d given all that up when he’d taken the job with Todd. Nothing mattered but the gig. Not even Jenny.
What did matter was that his place in the organization was still safe. That Todd still trusted him. Henry Sweet didn’t, but then, he never had. Sweet didn’t trust anyone except Todd. Period. It had taken too long, at too great a cost, for Nick to get this far. He couldn’t blow it now.
“There’s my boy,” Mrs. Norris said, stepping out to meet Jenny.
Nick held himself back as Jenny and the nanny met, sized each other up. Jenny held on to Patrick as long as she could, but in the end, she had to let him go. Patrick, of course, didn’t care for that at all, and he let out a wail that was at once piercing and pathetic. Which wasn’t nearly as bad as the sudden silence that descended when the nanny closed the door.
Jenny looked inconsolable. Damn it to hell, he couldn’t have consoled her if he’d wanted to.
“So you’re back to being my watchdog, eh, Nick?”
She’d turned to him slowly, walked away from her son, her ponytail swaying behind her as if her pale green eyes weren’t half-dead with sorrow.
“Looks like it.” He accompanied her back up the long hallway, past Todd’s suite, to the room they both knew well. He opened the door to her suite, pocketing the key before he let her inside. She brushed by him quickly, but he still caught a whiff of her perfume. His body reacted quickly, but he ignored it.
“My God,” she said as she gazed around the room. It was half the size of Todd’s, but that still meant it was enormous. He’d redecorated since she’d gone, taken the once vaguely Persian decor and run with it. Pillows on the floor, silk curtain swathes hanging from the ceiling, great overstuffed chaise longues and ornate tables festooned with antique hookahs and cast-iron figurines. It was beautiful in a way, but so unlike Jenny’s character as to be laughable.
“It looks like something out of Scheherazade’s nightmares.”
Nick smirked. “You managed to come up with enough tales to keep your head on.”
Jenny whirled around, took a step toward him, her eyes fierce, her hands fisted. “What is it with you?” she said in a whisper that carried just to his ears and not the microphones studded throughout the suite. “Why are you being so horrible? It’s not enough I have to put up with him? You used to be human. What happened?”
He froze his expression. “I wised up.”
“You mean, you sold out.”
“I’d sold out long before I met you,” he said in that same strange whisper.
“So why did you help me? Huh? What was in it for you?”
He gave her a smile he’d perfected under Todd’s tutelage, then leaned in so his lips nearly touched the perfect shell of her ear. “I got you in the sack, didn’t I?”
When he leaned back, the fire had left her eyes to be replaced by nothing so much as utter defeat. He hoped… God, he hoped, the fire wasn’t gone forever.
EDWARD POTEREIKO SWORE and stamped his feet to keep his circulation flowing. He glanced at the stainless-steel watch he’d gotten as a retirement gift after twenty-five years in the GRU, and saw that it was two-fifteen.
Late.