Chapter 4
Shana whipped her head around, dizzy and disoriented. She had to see if Dane was laughing at her, had to know if he really said what he said and what the hell he meant by it. Our wedding?
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.” He wore a lazy smile and a glint of mischief. Her heart hammered with the kind of anxiety that had no root, no cause. It was pervasive and world-shattering and she felt like her life was in peril.
“I could not have possibly heard you correctly.”
He said nothing, but kept his eyes on her and dragged her face to his with one hand behind her head and pulled her by the shoulder with the other.
She didn’t resist. She needed to feel his mouth, his lips, to gauge his meaning, to assess the world to get herself back on sure footing where she knew where she was and who she was.
And who this man was. And who he was not.
He was not the kind of man who proposed wedding receptions.
Hell, he wasn’t even the kind of man who joked about such things.
His mouth on hers softened, plied, nibbled and sucked and calmed her, made her feel like she was made of butter and she was melting from her center.
The cab stopped short and she pushed him away. He must be crazy. But she was not crazy. She wouldn’t take such chances with her heart. Believing him, believing he was in any way serious would be a crazy, foolish, stupid thing to do. She’d learned that much about him this past year.
“Stop playing games. Get serious.”
“What if I told you—”
“Stop it, Dane. I mean it.” Her heart thundered and she felt hot.
He was not serious. She wouldn’t believe him even if he said he was.
He had no idea. He was a forty-year-old reprobate who’d played at relationships and lost and now he was playing with her and as much as she loved him and trusted him with her life, she did not—could not—trust him with her heart.
He stared at her with those intense eyes, ignoring the cabby who tried prompting them to get out.
He held her arms. She remained perfectly still and trained herself to stare back at him, to meet his eyes, to refute his gambit to derail her.
Maybe he was having a desperate moment. Too bad.
She’d be there for him as a partner, as a friend, but that was all.
No more games. She hoped to hell she was capable of holding him off, of holding her heart from his grasp.
He spoke in a gravelly voice, still holding onto her with a steel grip and warm hands.
If his hands hadn’t been warm, she would have felt like she was being held by a machine.
His self-discipline was in full display.
Not a trace of anything showed in his face.
Even the gravel of his voice sounded like a rusty gear box more than a man in love.
“Are you telling me that you’re not in love with me.” There was no inflection of a question where there should have been. She made a derisive snort.
“In love with you? Hell, Dane. Every woman who ever met you is at least half in love with you—even the bad ones like Angelina Russo.” She felt a small vibration in his hands, but there was no change in his face. “Since when has it mattered whether I’m in love with you?”
He didn’t blink, didn’t move even the smallest facial muscle, not even a tic of his jaw. If he was trying to unnerve her, then he was succeeding.
She said again, “Stop it, Dane. Leave me the hell alone.”
He let go of her shoulders then and looked away.
“My bad. Another time.” He’d said the words almost in a mumble. She’d heard him, but she wasn’t sure she was supposed to have heard him, whether he’d been talking to her or to himself.
He opened his door and the hot air and city sounds swept away the surreal scene so that when she pushed open her own door with shaking hands she almost told herself she’d imagined it.
But the bubbles of anxiety in her chest told her it had been too real.
She stood in the gutter at the side of the road when Dane came around the cab and held onto her arm, pulling her to the sidewalk and back into professional mode.
His Ray Bans were back in place.
“So are we going to the authorities? Are we bringing this case to David for an official look?”
“Unofficial. In case we need some intel. Toly would have us strung up if we reported it officially.”
“Technically, Cap is a law enforcement official.”
“True, but no one’s done anything wrong on his watch. I’m not even sure if sending someone a dead kitten’s head is against the law.”
“No, but putting in an order for so-called rare arms has to be against the law.”
“Sure, but all they have to go on is Toly’s word and there aren’t too many in law enforcement who would be impressed by it.”
“You make it sound like we’re on our own no matter what.”
“Of course not, girlie. Don’t despair. The minute someone shoots at us, we’ll call the cops.”
She pushed away his hand when he went to touch her hair.
“Seriously,” Dane said, “we are putting David on notice of a potential problem, but we don’t have anything solid to give him right now.”
“This seems to be our pattern.”
“Now you’re catching on. We operate in that very uncomfortable place between normal and something gone terribly wrong—the space where things are not right but not wrong enough for official inquiry.”
“Or official gun power.”
“We’ll get something better than that. We’ll get some official intel if there is any.”
“From David?”
“More likely from Acer. On the Q.T. I put him on it as soon as I heard about the kitten and the name Max the Ax.”
“You know more about Maxim Xavier than you’re saying,” Shana narrowed her eyes.
“Always, girlie.” He didn’t elaborate. She knew him well enough not to bother trying to pry anything from him. Too bad. He’d probably have liked her to try.
Dane concentrated on walking on the cobblestones, holding Shana by the arm to ensure she was between him and the buildings.
To ensure he blocked her from the street in case Max and his men decided to get aggressive.
Dane’s certainty that they’d lost their watchers wasn’t enough to override his automatic protectiveness of Shana.
He looked up and down the tony Beacon Hill street at the London-inspired red brick facades, stopped in front of the Young residence, and pulled his phone out to call David. He could be working at home, but odds were better that David was at his office.
Dane pressed in David’s private number and held the phone to his ear while it rang. Shana watched him. She still looked shaky. He desperately wanted to caress her face, to calm her, but he doubted that would help. It would probably hurt.
David answered, “D.B. I’m surprised.” Dane smiled at the man’s less than subtle code.
“I’m more surprised than you. I’m at the home front. What are the chances—”
“Excellent. Wouldn’t miss it. Your better half with you?”
“There is no one better than me.”
David laughed and said, “Within fifteen. Start without me.” That was Dane and Shana’s invitation to go inside David’s house to wait.
He would have anyway. He’d already given Max and Sal’s men more than enough time to catch him and Shana standing out front.
They weren’t coming. Dane slipped a card from his back pocket and pulled Shana through the gate to the back garden.
There he used the key card to gain entry to a rarely used door to a lower level. Once inside, they went upstairs.
While they waited for David to join them, Dane watched Shana wander around the main rooms marveling at the spectacular decor, the rich luxury and warmth cohabitating the space, the soaring windows with amazing light, the tremendous classic white carved fireplace mantle and the vibrant colors of the upholstery and plush wool rugs.
Dane had always felt at home in this place—ever since David’s wife Grace had worked her decorating magic.
Shana did not stop moving until she ended up at the wet bar in David’s study, pouring herself a drink of whatever the gold liquid in the decanter happened to be. She didn’t offer him a drink and lifted her lovely defiant chin to dare him to stop her.
He figured it was scotch and that she would regret tossing most of the small glassful down her throat. As she did so, David stepped over the threshold to join them, sliding the pocket doors of the handsome room closed behind him.
“You don’t mind if I join you,” he said.
Shana turned back to the decanter and poured David a drink.
When she handed it to him, her eyes were bright, but she’d otherwise handled the shot well.
Dane shook his head. The last thing he needed was scotch.
He found he didn’t want it either. David gave such a subtle lift of his brow that Dane wouldn’t have seen it if he weren’t expecting it.
“I’m driving.”
David lifted his glass and took a generous sip. Shana didn’t bother refilling hers.
“I’m not popular enough to assume this is a social visit.”
“I wish it were,” Dane said. “We’re conducting evasive maneuvers and needed a place to lay low.”
“Splendid. Stay for dinner. I’ll call my wife and talk her into coming home early. I’ll tell her to bring a chef with her.”
Shana laughed. Dane turned to the sound as if were a mating call. It tugged at his heart, his soul and his cock and not necessarily in that order. Shit. He needed to double down on channeling ice in his veins.
“We can’t stay. We’re on protection duty and it’s a bad one.”
David eyed his scotch decanter and nodded for Dane to continue. Dane told him the story of the kitten head Toly received and that they’d confirmed who the culprit was a half hour ago at the Parker House.
“Hmm. Let me guess. Who is it that would send a package such as this to a former SVR operative?” David said. Dane let him think. Knew he had a lot of intel running across his desk and might have seen it before.
“You have a name?” Dane asked.
“I might place a bet, albeit not my entire fortune, on a man named Salvatore Cannelloni.”