CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ella
“ H ere.” Balor hands Trace and me packaged toothbrushes and travel-size toothpaste tubes from the gift shop.
“I keep a set in my purse.” I wave it off and hope he returns it so someone else can use it. Or gives it away.
I started keeping them on me the first time Wes locked me out of the house. I rode the subway for hours a few times, waiting for him to cool off.
I’d been too embarrassed to crash on Hannah’s sofa. I didn’t dare go home to my dad, who would have seen bruises and flipped out.
Balor steers me to the elevator. “They’re putting out food in a little while. Get settled in your room and meet me back down here in the lobby.”
I go still.
My room.
Balor and I aren’t sharing a room. Why did I think we would? I hoped it, but...
“Here.” He hands me a keycard. “Do you want Trace to go with you?”
“He’s your bodyguard,” I say, brushing a hand through my hair, wondering what I look like after such a long, trying day.
“I don’t need a bodyguard. My brothers insist.”
I like that his brothers take his safety seriously, but it also makes me wonder why they insist. Is Balor in some kind of danger he’s not telling me about?
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“You worried about me, butterfly?” He pinches the collar of my coat. “I’ll stay here and grab us a table to eat. You need food, Ella.”
“Honestly, a bag of chips— ”
“You’re eating.” Balor hovers over me. “You barely ate lunch. And chips are hardly a meal.”
My heart flutters that he’d notice how much I’m eating. Or not eating. I’ve not mentioned that spikes of nausea attack me throughout the day. And I’m scared to death of what it means.
“There are a lot of people in this hotel. I don’t know how much food they are putting out. I want to make sure you get a meal.”
Nodding, I spot Trace rocking on his heels a few feet away, wearing shades and scanning the room. Sure enough, as we speak, the lobby is filling up.
“Trace, here’s the key to our room. Please sweep both.” Balor hands him the second keycard.
“Aye, boss.” Trace takes it and struts toward the elevator.
I turn to walk away and Balor tugs on my arm. The force sends my forehead straight for his mouth where he plants a kiss on my skin.
“What was that for?” I ask, swallowing hard.
“I... I don’t know,” he whispers harshly. “It’s just so damn hard not to.”
Not sharing a room is his way of keeping a distance he’s fighting.
“I’ll be right back.” I turn, and when I’m not grabbed this time, my heart sinks.
Trace and I ride the crowded elevator and on the fourth floor, others mill around with little kids, looking for their room. Trace takes the lead and strolls confidently down the right-hand hallway. At an alcove with two doors, he stands to the side.
“It looks like you’re right next door.”
Nodding, I key my way in and wonder if Balor hears me try to make myself come later, will he knock down the wall to get inside and help me finish?
TWENTY MINUTES LATER , I’m back in the crowded lobby, and Trace launches into full bodyguard mode. He’s visibly rigid, glaring at anyone who comes remotely near me and Balor.
While Balor saves us a place on the food line, Trace steers me toward an open table with his hand on the small of my back. He’s protecting me. But he’s Balor’s bodyguard. Does Trace see what I mean to Balor by protecting me like this ?
Trace Quinlan still makes me uneasy. He not only saw me in a robe after Balor fucked me, but he paid me for the sex we had. Now, here I am. Balor’s assistant. But sleeping in a separate hotel room.
Riding with Trace each morning, I never thought to bring up what happened in Los Angeles, but now that we’re in this hotel situation again and with Balor several feet away, I feel like I need to set the record straight.
“You know I’m not really an escort, right?”
Jaw tight and his thick body in a military posture, he says, “None of my business, lass.”
“Fair enough. But I’m not. I just told Balor that to have a little...” When I fade off, Trace finally looks at me with a cocked brow to finish. “A little fun. A fantasy.”
“Fantasy,” he says in a deep timbre. “Fantasy about sleeping with a rich, powerful man?”
“No.” I smile. “Getting lost with a stranger. Or... Being away from the world and not caring about anything.”
“Do women...like that?”
If I’m still around next December and there’s a holiday grab bag, I’m tossing in bundles of romance novels for Trace and the others at the command center. Tip them off about what women want.
“The accent does it for me, too.” I wink.
“Accent. ”
“That brogue. Yours is deeper than Balor’s.”
“He’s lived here in America since grade school. My brother and I just moved abroad around six months ago.”
“Makes sense.” I nod. “You were in the military in Ireland?”
“Aye.” He stiffens and just as there are so many American wounded warriors from two decades of war in the Middle East, Trace might have scars. Emotional or even physical.
I imagine this tall and broad man with damaged skin under his suit. Marks from an honorable duty to serve. Unlike my scars, which are permanent memories of how I couldn’t fight back.
Etching my own skin with tattoos was the only way I knew how to take back my power.
Shaking that away, I go to ask Trace some more questions about the tattoos I see snaking up his neck, but Balor joins us at the table.
Trace stands when Balor sits down. Looking at the plates of food that he made for us, I smile. It’s everything I like.
“Quinlan, sit,” Balor says, handing out wrapped plasticware that feels cheap in my hands.
I can only imagine how a billionaire feels using this crap.
“You two, eat.” Trace adjusts his suit jacket. “There’re too many people here for me to relax.”
“They’re poor schleps like us who got caught in the storm and had to find refuge off the highway. No one’s even looked my way.” Balor is next to me, our legs bumping. “I also hacked into the cameras here and sent feeds to Shane. If anyone does something stupid, Lachlan will track them down.”
In a lethal murmur, Trace says, “If something happens, I hope Lachlan will let me and Rhys help. ”
Even Balor stops what he’s doing based on Trace’s tone. “That would be up to Lachlan.”
Who in the world is this Lachlan character?
Trace’s jaw twitches. “I’ll be able to eat better when you’re back in the rooms.”
“The food will be cold then, Trace,” I argue, even if it’s kind of cold now.
“They have microwaves,” he says, looking straight ahead. “Not that I’d mind if they didn’t.”
I don’t know everything about fitness, but at six-five, that man must require several thousand calories a day. We had lunch with the CEO, but Trace stayed with the car. I assume he ate on his own somewhere in that small town.
Balor elbows me. “Eat. Don’t worry about him.”
Jealousy laces his tone, and I smirk, yanking the plastic wrapper away from the fork, knife, and spoon.
The hotel put out heated trays of baked ziti, wings, Swedish meatballs, eggplant rollatini, and at least thirty boxes of pizza.
Balor grabbed a little bit of everything.
“Oh, there was salad?” I ask, seeing someone walk by holding a plate overflowing with dark, leafy greens.
“Aye, I guess.” Balor stabs a tiny meatball, looking at it with suspicion. “I don’t know a lot about women, but handing one a salad unsolicited is a quick way to get kicked in the balls.”
I choke a laugh around my chicken wing. “I wouldn’t kick you in the balls. I wouldn’t kick anyone in the balls.”
Balor turns to me. “Not even your ex?”
Every muscle in my body tenses. “It never occurred to me. I’m not a violent person.”
Balor grumbles. “The asshole counted on that.”
He eats with more force like he’s annoyed. I hope not at me. He brought it up .
“I’m getting some salad.” I scoot away before he or Trace can stop me.
I’m no one, so I don’t need protecting the way Balor does. He’s mob royalty and a billionaire.
Seeing more plates put out, I juggle two and make one for Trace.
Returning to the table, I shove it at him. “Eat, Trace. Please. You have to be hungry. What good will it do if something happens and you’re light-headed?”
He glances down at the heaping plate I made for him. With a faint smile, he takes it and sits down to eat. “Thank you, lass.”
I devour my entire plate of salad while Balor speaks on his phone. It’s been ringing since we arrived.
One by one, each brother calls him, offering to drive up to collect us.
Over and over Balor tells them the roads are closed. He hangs up, and then another call comes in and it starts all over again.
“Your family cares about you.” I nudge him.
He nods, rolling his eyes. “It’s because I’m one of the youngest.”
“And how old is young?”
“Thirty-five. My sister Shea-Lynne is just a year older than me.”
Trace visibly tightens his fork hearing Balor mention his sister.
Balor and I hold each other’s gaze, and the depth in his eyes suggests he wants to open up more. I lay my hand on his thigh and watch his eyes flutter. I’m ready to ask him what bothers him about his brothers, but he cuts me off.
“My brothers are not used to me being out of reach. Lachlan often needs my help with intel if someone he dragged to the black site isn’t cooperating.”
“Black site?” I’ve heard that term in movies. “And what does isn’t cooperating mean?”
Balor’s body goes rigid, and his green eyes penetrate me.
“Never mind,” I say, figuring it’s best I don’t know.
“It’s the place we take people who deserve to be punished for betraying us.” The calmness of his voice scares the living hell out of me.
“I see.”
“It’s nothing you need to worry about.” He wipes his mouth. “My brothers forget how much they need me until I’m not around. They put Shane through the wringer while I was in Sydney.”
Mentioning Australia thickens the tension around the table.
“Or...” I smile. “Your brothers care about you .”
“Errr, I think it’s the former.”
Trace stands up with his empty plate and heads back to the serving trays for another round. I smile, glad I got him to eat.
“I’m sure it’s both.” I toss my plastic fork into the center of an empty paper plate.
“Have you heard from your dad?”
“Since I called him and told him I was here with you? No.”
“I just think considering what you went through he’d—”
“ I lied to him, Balor . I didn’t tell him the truth about the abuse until we left for Sydney.” I cover my mouth for a second. “I worried if my father found out about Wes, he’d try to hurt the bastard. Not kill him of course. My father isn’t a...” I hesitate to say killer, sitting with a mob boss. “I worried Wes would have him investigated. I think my father’s side work isn’t always on the up and up.” I wait for a reaction from Balor but get none.
“Go on.” Balor probably investigated my father and knows more than me.
Or Dad is that good at covering up his shady side-gigs.
“I explained when we prepared to move back here that he had to let what happened with Wes go. My ex isn’t worth having his life torn apart.”
“I’m not afraid your dick ex could tear my life apart.” Balor leans in, eyes above his horn-rimmed glasses. “I can run circles around anything that bastard might try to do to me.”
I think about that, but I just don’t trust what kind of connections Wes has.
Still, I smile at those green eyes and wonder if Lois Lane felt this way getting close to Clark Kent, only to see Superman behind the glasses.
And thrilled at how the Man of Steel punched a hole in the world to stop it from spinning just to save her.