FORTY-SIX

FORTY-SIX


“How much of your world is already his, Wesley?”

He did not answer.

The message remained lit on the phone in his hand.

Still sleeping in his bed?

Wesley crossed the room and pulled the curtains apart. He checked the window latch, the frame, the vents, the lamps, and the clock beside the bed. He moved with calm precision, dismantling the illusion of privacy one object at a time.

I watched from beside the bed, arms folded over myself.

“Roy will sweep this room again,” he said.

“It was swept yesterday.”

“It will be swept again.”

He reached for my phone.

I pulled it back. “What are you doing?”

“Taking it downstairs.”

“No.”

His eyes lifted to mine.

“It is my phone.”

“It is compromised.”

“So is your house.”

His jaw tightened. “Give it to me.”

Anger burned through the fear. “You do not get to take everything out of my hands whenever something goes wrong.”

“Someone is watching you inside my home.”

“And your answer is to remove every choice I have?”

“My answer is to remove anything that can be used to reach you.”

I laughed without humor and turned toward the door.

He reached it first.

One second the way was open. The next he stood in front of it, one hand braced above the handle. He did not touch me, but his body filled the space.

“Move.”

“No.”

“I will not stay locked in your bedroom while you decide what truths I can handle.”

“You are staying where I can see you.”

The words carried more heat than they should have.

I stepped closer instead of backing away. “You keep saying that like seeing me is the same as protecting me.”

His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth.

“It has not been only about protecting you for some time.”

My breath caught.

He did not look away. Neither did I.

The room seemed to contract around us. I could smell coffee and clean soap on him. I remembered his body behind mine in the training room, his hand around my wrist, his voice at my ear.

Footsteps sounded outside.

Wesley stepped back as Roy entered with an evidence bag and two replacement phones.

“We traced the message through three relays,” Roy said. “Nothing useful yet.”

Wesley held out his hand.

This time I gave him the phone.

Roy sealed it. “We are checking everyone who accessed this floor in the last seventy-two hours.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Twenty-three.”

“Too many,” Wesley said.

“Then narrow it.” I looked between them. “The message was about the bed, not the room. Not everyone knows I am still sleeping here.”

Roy’s expression tightened.

“Private-floor security,” I continued. “Night staff. Anyone with camera access. Anyone who saw me enter at night or leave in the morning.”

“That cuts the list,” Roy said.

“Not enough,” Wesley replied.

“Then we make the list cut itself.”

Wesley studied me.

“We plant different information,” I said. “Three lies. Separate groups. We see which one reaches Marco.”

“Involving you makes you bait.”

“I am already bait. The only difference is whether I know where the hook is.”

Roy almost smiled.

Wesley noticed. “Out.”

Roy left without arguing.

“You do not decide strategy because you survived one training session,” Wesley said.

“I decided because your enemy knows where I sleep.”

“My enemy.”

“He was my husband before he became your war.”

Something hard crossed his face. “He stopped being your husband the moment he tried to kill you.”

The certainty in his voice hit too deep. I looked away first.

We planned at his desk downstairs.

The first group would hear I was moving to the east wing. The second would be told I had a medical appointment outside the estate the next morning. The third would hear Wesley intended to move me to a safe house near Sacramento.

Each lie had a different route and time attached.

I sat beside Wesley as we worked, close enough that our shoulders brushed whenever we reached for the same page. Once, when Roy leaned over the desk, Wesley’s hand settled on the back of my chair.

It stayed there longer than necessary.

I felt the heat of his palm through my blouse.

He did not look at me.

That made it worse.

By evening, the lies were moving through the house.

The east-wing story went to household staff. The medical appointment entered a restricted transport calendar. The safe-house transfer went through private security.

We needed the first lie to feel real.

That was how I ended up in the upper corridor with Wesley while a maid, a guard, and the night security supervisor stood within hearing distance.

“You are enjoying this,” I murmured.

“You suggested it.”

“I suggested a believable disagreement.”

“That should not be difficult for us.”

He moved closer.

“You are not leaving this floor tonight,” he said, loud enough to carry.

“You do not get to decide that.”

“I already did.”

The arrogance was real enough to spark my temper.

“You do that often. Make decisions, call them protection, then expect everyone else to live inside them.”

The maid slowed.

Wesley’s gaze sharpened. “Lower your voice.”

“No.”

That was not part of the script.

I stepped closer. “Maybe I am tired of sleeping in a room where every lock belongs to you.”

He leaned down. “You keep sleeping in my bed despite claiming you cannot trust me.”

My pulse jumped.

His hand came to my waist.

It was supposed to sell the argument. I knew that. The staff needed to see possessiveness and a marriage cracking under pressure.

His fingers spread against my side with slow pressure.

My breath caught.

Wesley felt it. His eyes darkened.

He drew me closer until almost no space remained between us. Then he lowered his mouth beside my ear.

“Tell me you are moving to the east wing.”

“I am moving to the east wing.”

“Louder.”

“I am moving to the east wing.”

His thumb shifted at my waist.

“So determined to leave my bed,” he murmured for me alone. “Yet you shake when I touch you.”

Heat swept through me.

I pulled back enough to see his face. His control remained, but his body had betrayed him in the narrow space between us.

He wanted me.

He saw that I knew.

For one second, the performance disappeared.

Then the elevator chimed.

Wesley released me.

“I will have my things moved tonight,” I said.

“Try it.”

That was not in the script either.

The trap closed less than three hours later.

A black vehicle appeared on the road leading toward the supposed Sacramento safe house. It passed once, circled back, then stopped where the driver could watch the turnoff.

The security room filled with quiet movement. Screens changed. Men relayed plate numbers and positions through their earpieces. Wesley stood behind the main console, one hand planted beside a map of the access roads, while I watched the dark vehicle remain motionless on the grainy feed.

It had come for information that did not exist.

For the first time since Marco began reaching into my life again, we had made him move where we wanted.

The satisfaction lasted only a moment.

Private security had received that lie.

Roy pulled the access records. Only six men had attended the briefing. Four had been watched since. One had no outside communication.

The sixth was Felix Rinaldi, the night security supervisor I had seen by the elevator.

That was what made it hurt.

Felix had opened doors for me. Walked me from the library after the west-wing fire. Stood outside Wesley’s suite while I slept.

They brought him to a lower office.

He sat in a straight-backed chair with his wrists secured behind him. Roy stood near the wall, two guards by the door. Wesley faced him with his hands in his pockets.

“Who received the safe-house location?” Wesley asked.

Felix stared at the floor.

Wesley waited.

“It was not like that,” Felix said.

“Then explain.”

“He knew things.”

“Marco?”

Felix flinched.

“What things?”

“My brother’s debts. My daughter’s school. My wife’s medication.” His voice cracked. “He knew where they went. What time they slept.”

“He did not buy you,” I said.

Felix looked at me, shame filling his face. “No, ma’am.”

“He frightened you.”

“He told me what would happen if I refused.”

Wesley’s expression stayed still. “And you believed him.”

Felix laughed weakly. “You would have.”

The room changed.

Wesley took one step closer. “Be careful.”

Felix’s fear sharpened into desperation. “You think this is about a bed or a route? He is buying men because he knows what to use. He knows Sacramento. He knows what happened before you took it.”

Wesley went cold.

Felix kept talking.

“He knows your past. That is what he is trading. Secrets. Names. The old story.”

“Enough,” Wesley said.

Felix looked at me.

Wesley saw it.

“Everyone out.”

Roy hesitated. “Wesley.”

“Now.”

The guards moved first. Roy followed after one hard look at Felix. They took him through the adjoining door into a smaller interview room, leaving Wesley and me alone.

The lock clicked.

I turned on him. “What old story?”

“Not now.”

A bitter laugh escaped me. “Of course.”

He moved toward the desk, gathering papers as if the conversation were over.

I stepped into his path. “What does Marco know about you?”

“Move.”

“No. I am done accepting silence as an answer.”

“You are angry.”

“I am paying attention.”

“That does not mean you understand what you heard.”

“Then explain it.”

He said nothing.

The restraint in him made my anger burn hotter. “You use silence the way other men use restraints.”

His gaze locked onto mine.

I should have stopped.

I did not.

“You tighten it until everyone around you gives up fighting.”

He came toward me slowly.

I backed into the edge of the desk, but I did not move aside. His hands planted on the wood on either side of me.

“You have no idea,” he said quietly, “what I want to do with restraint.”

Heat dropped through my body.

The anger remained. So did the suspicion. Beneath both lived the memory of his hand at my waist and the proof of what my nearness did to him.

I looked at his mouth.

His eyes darkened.

“Then prove it,” I whispered.

Something in him broke.

His hand closed around the back of my neck and his mouth came down on mine.

The first impact stole my breath. The second stole thought.

I grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. Nothing about the kiss was staged. His mouth moved against mine with weeks of held control finally turning hungry.

I matched him.

Every argument, every withheld truth, every moment of unwanted awareness drove me forward. I bit his lower lip. His breath caught, rough and low, and his hand tightened in my hair.

He lifted me onto the desk.

Papers slid to the floor. My knees parted as he stepped between them, one hand at my waist, the other cradling the back of my head. He kissed me until my lungs burned and my fingers twisted in his shirt.

His mouth moved to my jaw.

“Wesley.”

He stopped.

His forehead pressed to mine. His breathing was uneven. His thumb rested beneath the edge of my blouse, touching a narrow strip of bare skin.

I wanted more.

That frightened me almost as much as everything else.

He looked at me. “Tell me to stop.”

I opened my mouth.

From the adjoining room came the scrape of a chair, followed by Felix’s raised voice.

“Ask him what he knew before your car went off that road.”

Every part of me went still.

Wesley’s hand froze against my skin.

The heat vanished so fast it left me cold.

I stared at him.

For the first time since I had known him, Wesley looked caught.