CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER
YOU ARE THE MOST INFURIATING person of my acquaintance,” she snapped.
“Not my intent,” he replied calmly.
“You were sent to spy on me, and you no doubt have fed your masters everything they need to put me in prison for the rest of my life. Is that not so?”
He just watched her, warily, since he now knew of her formidable fighting skills.
She didn’t step forward, she stepped back, which instantly put Nash more on his guard.
“Is that not so?” she said again.
“Perhaps.”
“So why have I not been arrested then?” she demanded.
“That’s a funny question coming from you. I thought you wouldn’t bring it up for fear of what I might say.”
“None of what you just said makes any sense,” she barked.
“I think it does. If you ruminate for a bit you might agree.”
She drew a deep, filling breath and stood as tall as possible in her bare feet.
Still, he towered over her. She seemed to take offense at this because Steers lunged forward and pushed him.
However, he outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, so her thrusts barely budged him; indeed, the collision resulted in her falling backward against the bed.
This apparently incensed her even more because she then struck him with a hard roundabout kick that landed solidly against his shoulder.
Nash grimaced and absorbed the blow, but he held his ground, staring at her with a calmness that further infuriated her.
She screamed and kicked at him again, but he was ready and caught her by the ankle.
He lifted her leg up even higher and then pushed her backward.
Steers toppled onto the bed, but she was up in an instant, and she launched herself against him.
She threw fists and elbows and knees and legs; her breathing was labored, not really by her physical efforts, Nash knew, having seen her training before, but seemingly from raw emotion.
He blocked all the flung blows, and this seemed to ratchet her anger to a whole other level.
Nash was breathing more heavily now, too, because Steers was no slack opponent. He watched her cautiously as she fell back and seemed to regroup. Her features had gelled into a mass of hatred. Nash truly felt it was probably pointed more inward than at him.
He said as calmly as he could, “You’ve more than proven yourself, Victoria. Given time, you could probably beat me. But this is not helping either of us.”
She exclaimed, “I am not trying to help you. You are trying to destroy me.”
“If I am, I’m certainly taking my time about it,” he replied.
“You are cunning. You are patient. You are a bastard.”
“Maybe I am all of those things. But what are you, really? You keep telling me who and what you are. But I don’t believe it. So why don’t you try again?”
Instead, Steers charged him, but this time Nash was ready for her assault. He stepped forward before she could strike and wrapped his muscled arms around her arms and torso, and clamped her legs tightly between his powerful ones. And then he lifted her completely off the floor.
She struggled to free herself, but Nash was far too strong. She tried to head-butt him and managed to once, but then he dipped his head next to her neck so she couldn’t do that again.
She screamed and struggled. He held her tighter. She screamed even louder, fighting to free herself, but he would not let go. He breathed in her scent and then felt wetness on his neck.
He realized it was probably her tears.
“Please stop, Victoria. Please,” he said, in a hushed voice that still managed to surge with emotion.
At these words she ceased struggling and hung limply in his arms, her feet dangling nearly six inches off the floor, her chest heaving.
He lifted his head and looked at her. Her eyes were reddened, her features crumpled.
“I’m. . .sorry,” she whispered. Steers looked him in the eyes and then her gaze dipped to his mouth. She looked up again and then Nash’s gaze lowered to her mouth.
Their lips met spontaneously and then each hungrily gripped the other.
He carried her to the bed and set her down, then lifted her nightgown over her head.
She helped to undress him, quickly, ferociously.
He put his gun on the nightstand. She flung his pants and then undershorts across the room and pulled him down on her.
But then Nash abruptly lurched back.
“Walter?” she gasped.
He was rocking back and forth on his knees, his eyes closed, and he was shivering, as though he had been immersed in ice water.
“Walter?”
He backed away off the bed, put his feet on the floor, and grabbed up his clothes. He slipped on his undershorts and his pants.
“Walter, what’s wrong?”
He whirled on her. “What’s wrong? This whole—” He swept his arms around, dropping some of his clothing in the process.
“This. . .this whole thing is wrong. Wrong!” he screamed.
He picked up his gun and looked down at it.
His expression calmed, his brow relaxed.
It was as though he had found a measure of inner peace, or at least an answer to his dilemma.
“Walter?” she said cautiously.
“I’ll. . .I’ll be. . .back in a. . .minute. I just. . .just need some time to . . .”
He racked the slide on the gun and turned to leave.
Sensing what he might be about to do, Steers wrapped herself in a sheet and said urgently, “No wait, Walter, I need to show you something first. I should have done it long before now. But I realize it speaks to exactly what you are dealing with. And I have to show you. I have to!” she exclaimed. “Please look at me. Please.”
He did not look at her. Instead, his finger slipped to the trigger of the gun and he started to raise it with the muzzle pointed at his chest.
She jumped off the bed, rushed toward him, and gripped his arm. “Please, Walter, please. Listen to me. For just a few moments. Please.”
“Why should I?” he said coldly, the gun now aimed at his heart.
“Because you are a kind, decent man who has been thrust into a hell not of your making. I will not take up more than a few seconds of your time. Then. . .you can . . .” She glanced at the gun.
His breathing slowed and he gazed at her. “What do you have to say to me that would make a damn bit of difference?” he said in a bare whisper, as though that was all he had the lungs for.
“May I?” she asked, looking at the gun. “As Hiroko-san did for me that night? Please?”
A long moment passed as the two stared at each other.
Finally, he allowed her to take the gun from him and she carefully placed it back on the nightstand. Then she grabbed her phone and returned to Nash, tapping keys on it to access something.
“This will be a shock, Walter. And I want you to be prepared.”
Now alarmed, he gazed at her. “Victoria, what is going on?”
Steers tapped some more keys, checked the screen, and then held it up to him. With her other hand she clutched his shoulder tightly, as though she was single-handedly trying to buck him up against whatever was coming.
“Please just try to remain. . .s-stable, W-Walter,” she said.
When Nash looked at the phone screen, he immediately saw that it was a picture. And though a long time had passed, he had no trouble at all recognizing the person.
He drew his gaze from the phone and stared at Steers, the tears bubbling in his eyes.
“Maggie? She’s alive?”
“Yes.”