Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Harper swiped away a lone tear that had escaped from her eye and willed her body to stop trembling.
Roman had buried a body in the woods with two of his uncle’s bodyguards. And yet, he was still standing before her, radio silent on the matter.
No way was it a deer in that black bag, either.
“Roman, talk to me.” Sure, they had a lot of important things that needed to be done right then, but this felt pretty damn important, too.
“Why’d you follow me?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” Thinking about meeting with Ezra had kept her awake with thoughts of Brandon.
She’d had a feeling when she faced her old informant, a whirlwind of emotions would hit her like she’d been in Dorothy’s house when it got picked up and tossed out of Kansas.
“I had planned on taking a walk for some fresh air, so I was already dressed.”
Apparently, it’d been fate, or she’d never have known the truth about Roman. She’d been torn as to how to bring up the topic with him, and then minutes before the car bomb exploded outside the restaurant, the words came tumbling out of her mouth that she’d followed him.
Then the truth had been temporarily knocked out of her head when Roman saved her from the oncoming car.
“At first, I thought you were going to take a walk, too, until I saw you get into someone’s car. Not an Uber. So, I was curious, and I had a taxi follow you.” Had he forgotten she used to be in the CIA? Spying was sort of in the job description.
She hadn’t expected that they’d head to a secluded area twenty miles away, though. She’d had the taxi wait for her down the road with the meter running so she wouldn’t get stuck in the middle of nowhere.
And when she cautiously approached the edge of the woods where Roman had disappeared, she was surprised to see him with two men. She’d shivered in the dark at a safe distance from the scene while Roman dug and dug. The other two men stood and watched before removing a body bag from the trunk.
Maybe it would have been better if she’d followed him to an old lover’s house. Strangely, her stomach had revolted more at the idea of him having sex with another woman than at what actually happened.
What is wrong with me?
“That was a dangerous move. You shouldn’t have followed me. If they saw you . . .”
Was he kidding? And if who saw me? Those men? “Who’d you kill?”
He didn’t budge, his dark eyes set on her, brows slanted. “No one.”
“Did they kill someone?” she asked, referring to the two guards out in the hall as she pointed that way.
“I don’t know who was in the bag or why.” Roman grimaced as if this entire conversation was not only intolerable but sickening.
That’d be a big ditto for her.
“We can’t do this right now.”
“Well, too bad. We’re doing it,” she shot back.
Silence greeted her for what felt like forever, and her maddening thoughts and worries percolated as she waited for him to fess up.
“Let’s talk about Zack instead. Did you two date? Was he the asshole you were talking about with Jenny in the video?” His eyebrows darted together. “Is he who you met with the morning after Natasha and Wyatt’s wedding?”
The questions hit her so fast that it took her a few seconds to understand what he’d said.
He leaned in closer as he held her eyes with an almost vicious stare, but she knew his anger wasn’t directed toward her. No, it was for Brandon. Only, he didn’t have a name yet, so he was mistaking “the asshole” for Zack.
She wanted to turn away, to pull her gaze from his heated stare, but she was stuck in place. And how had he managed to turn the conversation away from his guilty actions and onto her past?
“You said, ‘even the asshole wanted kids.’ Who is the asshole?” Roman’s words brought a cold bluster of air with them. “You didn’t use my name, but you were comparing me to this asshole. He wanted to have children with you, and you said I didn’t.” He kept his voice low and controlled.
Harper held back the tears that threatened to fall, his words cutting deeper than he could possibly understand.
But how could he know? She’d never told him about “the asshole,” which was Jenny’s name for her ex.
Her sister knew about the engagement, but she had no clue Brandon was CIA, or Harper, for that matter.
“We’re talking about you.” Her words sounded as flimsy as her body felt. Fragile and damn near ready to collapse from the weight of everything going on.
She’d just learned someone had stalked her, most likely someone she’d known and once trusted. Then bam, the memory of Roman burying a body slammed into her head. And now this conversation?
It was too much.
Too freaking much, and she was growing dizzy, and this time it wasn’t concussion-related.
“Who. Is. He?” Roman was relentless, his words punctuating the air with fury toward “the asshole” because one thing rang true for Roman and always would . . . any threats to Harper’s safety, even if they were from Roman himself, had him losing his mind.
Buried a body? He warned her he was dangerous, but she’d thought it was a metaphor about breaking her heart. She never realized he was body-burying dangerous.
“I told you we both had secrets.” She reached for the necklace hidden beneath her shirt and clutched it, smoothing the trident pendant between her fingers to try and calm down.
“That asshole was before you, by the way,” she couldn’t help but toss out.
“Before I even met you. I hope you’re not suggesting I cheated on you while we were together. ”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.
” He swallowed hard as if trying to get a handle on his anger, and he was failing.
“I need to know his name and why he was an asshole. What did he do to you?” His nostrils flared as he continued to stare at her, rage burning in his eyes, expanding his pupils. “I need to know who has to die.”
“So you can put someone else six feet under?” She almost clapped a hand to her mouth at how ridiculous that sounded. This was Roman, for Pete’s sake.
He stepped back as if she’d slapped him and his eyes fell to her necklace. His body went lax. The rigid lines less pronounced, and shit, he realized what she was wearing.
She quickly tucked the pendant back beneath her shirt, but at least she’d defused the Roman bomb for a moment. They didn’t need another explosion.
“Please,” he said, his tone hollow with defeat this time.
She released an exhausted breath. Whenever they’d argued in the past about why they should or shouldn’t be together, it inevitably ended up being more of a one-way conversation with her doing most of the talking while he kept quiet.
Could that have even been called an argument?
And it typically resulted in hot make-up sex.
Well, until they officially called it off the first week in September.
After that, her monologues ended with one of them walking away so they didn’t slip up and sleep together in the heat of the moment.
“Fine,” Harper bit out and waved a hand in the air between them. “You want the truth? Zack isn’t the asshole. He’s a friend. My ex, Brandon, was a CIA officer, though.” Her shoulders fell as guilt bloomed in her chest. “We weren’t just dating, we were engaged.”
Roman’s eyes lowered to the carpet at the last word, and he swiped a hand through his hair.
“And then I discovered he was corrupt and that the very man I was sent to France to locate, my assignment, was in bed next to me.”
Roman let go of a deep breath and covered his mouth as he worked his eyes up her body and back to her face.
“I had him arrested,” she said in as steady a voice as possible.
“And yeah, he said he wanted to have kids with me, but surely that was a lie. I have no idea why I brought that up to Jenny, but I was . . . hurting because of you. Because,” she said around a sniffle, feeling as though she were falling apart, “we can’t be together.
” Her hands balled into fists, and she set them to his hard chest and bowed her head.
“I couldn’t possibly have been pregnant, but I—”
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching out and pulling her to him, then cupped the back of her head and held her tight to his body like he’d done less than an hour ago when he told her she had a stalker. “I’m so, so sorry.”
She cried into his chest, unleashing years of pent-up tears she’d withheld from him.
“I would love nothing more than for you to have my child.” The sorrowful sound of his voice almost had her knees buckling.
What am I doing?
She untangled herself from his strong embrace and swiped her hands across her cheeks to discard the evidence she’d fallen victim to his comfort instead of pushing him to share his own truths.
“But that’ll never happen for us,” she whispered. And she knew from experience to expect a “but” after his confession, so why not beat him to it?
He cupped his mouth again as if torn whether to share or hurt her. Maybe she’d be hurt either way. But one thing she couldn’t do was stay in that room and deal with his silence, so she sidestepped him to focus on what she could control, her work.
She reached for the door handle and looked back at him. “You don’t have secrets, Roman.” His eyes narrowed on her as his hand collapsed to his side. “You have lies.”
She left the room without another word. It was time for her to woman up and tell the team about Brandon.
Finn was the first to look up when the door swung open, and he was probably the only one to realize she and Roman had some type of heart-to-heart in the bedroom.
He was a good friend. In January, she’d dropped the truth on him in Monaco when they helped Emilia, Roman’s friend, take down a network of criminals known as The Alliance. They made the fictional group with the same name on the show Alias look like angels.
“You okay?” Finn mouthed while standing from the couch, pushing his hands into his navy blue cargo pants pockets.