Chapter 14 Chloe
FOURTEEN
CHLOE
Everything was a blur after I saw him smile.
It lit up his features in a way I’d never seen before, and I committed the entire scene to memory.
I remembered him turning off the shower.
Scooping me into his arms. I briefly remembered the feeling of a towel against my skin.
And when I came to the next morning, something strong and tight wrapped around my waist.
“Mmmm, morning,” he murmured.
I giggled and turned myself around in his arms before kissing the tip of his nose. The sleepy smile that crossed his face before his snores started back up made me want to grab his cheeks and kiss him even deeper. But I wasn’t a fan of morning breath. Especially his.
“Ugh,” I whispered as I turned back around.
Hey, not everything can be romantic, right?
The second my phone vibrated on the bedside table, though, I quickly snatched it up.
The sound caused West to turn over, releasing my waist in favor of getting comfortable, and I took the liberty of checking the message.
I mean, I knew who it was. It wasn’t Lexi; if she needed me, she’d just come knock on my door.
Plus, she was much too preoccupied with her new family.
Not that I was complaining or anything. It did make things a bit lonely, though.
Well, whenever West wasn’t railing me.
The memory made me smile before I checked my text messages, and my perfect little sexual bubble burst.
Agent Baker: We need to talk. Call in fifteen.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Well, at least he wasn’t asking me to go anywhere, which was a plus. I peeked over my shoulder at a snoring West before I attempted to ease myself out of bed. I rummaged around for a long t-shirt before settling on wearing his, and as I scooped it up from the bathroom floor my phone buzzed.
Chad was calling.
Of course, he wouldn't wait the entire fifteen minutes.
“I thought you said fifteen,” I whispered before I pulled the shirt over my head.
“Meeting got out later than usual. And you know I don’t operate on your schedule.”
I scoffed before I closed the bathroom door. “I wasn’t the one who set the schedule, Chad.”
“You mean, Agent Baker.”
I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Look, I’m glad you’re calling, because we really need t—”
“Still at that retreat, I see.”
I froze. “What?”
“Your GPS still says you’re out in the middle of nowhere. Sure you don’t have an address change you want to update with us?”
I rolled my eyes. “Just because I’m getting away from it all for a little while doesn’t mean I need a damn address change.”
“So, if I come out there to find you, I’m going to find a luxurious retreat you’ve been on for two and a half weeks now?”
God, it felt so much longer than that. But I chose to ignore his goading.
I knew he was trying to get me for something.
Anything. The man had always treated me like shit.
But I knew that if he figured out where I was, who I was with, and who I had suddenly become involved with, he’d use it against me.
He’d ruin my life with it, and he’d try to get me to ruin everyone else’s as well.
“Anyway,” he said, bursting the silence, “I have more information on this case you’re working on for us on. Can you meet me at—”
I closed my eyes. “I can’t work on the case any longer. Something has come up.”
He paused. “You know that isn’t how this works.”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. It’s a personal issue and it has to be dealt with, but I can’t work at least for the next month or so.”
He snickered. “Nice joke.”
“I’m not joking, Agent Baker. I’ve got an emergency in my life that can’t wait. I have to deal with it. I understand our agreement and why I entered into it, but it can’t take precedence over my family.”
“You don’t have family, Chloe.”
I blinked. “I’ve got Lexi and her daughter. They’re my family.”
“And I’m sure they’ll be just fine without you for an hour when you meet me—”
I cut him off again. “I can’t, Agent Baker. I’m sorry.”
“You listen here, Chloe. There are protocols you need to jump through. Things you need to abide by. You signed a contract, and you know what’s going to happen if you break it.”
“I know it puts you guys in a bind, but all I’m asking for is a month. That’s it. After that, we go right back to the agreement until the contract is fulfilled.”
He chuckled. “Or maybe you really don’t care about being arrested and tossed into prison. Maybe you wouldn’t care about being ripped away from…what’s his name? The guy you were arguing with in the parking lot with the leather cut?”
My blood went cold. “What did you just say?”
“You women are all the same. So quick to save yourselves until you get dicked down by some guy. You backing out wouldn’t have anything to do with him, now, would it? Miss ‘I’m All About Family’?”
My voice grew unsteady. “Leave him out of this.”
“Ah! West. That’s right. Sorry, had to find my file on the man.”
I narrowed my eyes. “This has nothing to do with him. Like I said, it’s about family. I have a family emergency that you can’t keep me from. It’s in my contract.”
“With proof, yes. You bring me proof that there’s some family emergency, and of course you can have your time off. But even still, you’d have to meet with me, so you might as well get some work done while we meet up.”
His laughter made me sick to my stomach. I wanted to reach through the phone and claw his fucking eyes out. Bile worked its way up the back of my throat and it took everything I had not to turn around and vomit in the sink.
Because I knew if West heard me gagging like that, he’d be out of bed and at my side in a heartbeat.
“This has nothing to do with him,” I said as calmly as possible.
But Agent Baker simply snickered. “Whether you like it or not, I’m not the idiot you think I am.
You think I don’t keep tabs on my informants?
I know what you’re up to. I know who you’re fucking.
I know where you are and who you’re with at all times.
And if I don’t know currently? I’ll know soon.
I don’t ever stop my surveillance. I don’t ever allow my informants to have slack they don’t deserve.
And until you prove to me that you can be trusted, you’ll never be let out of your contract. You show no remorse for what you did—”
“For what I did almost seven years ago,” I hissed.
“Sounds like a personal problem, doesn’t it?”
I wiped at the hot, angry tears threatening to spill down my face. “What the hell do you want from me, you sick fuck?”
He chuckled. “You give me the information I want on who you’re with as well as this case, or I’ll make sure West and whatever crew he’s part of gets wrapped up in all of this shit. I’ll take them all down, and it’ll be all your fault, Miss Chloe.”
I sank to my knees. “Please, leave them out of this. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Then, we can start by meeting up for lunch. One o’clock. The restaurant. And come alone this time, would you? The last thing I want to do is put a bullet in some hefty motorcycle rider because he thinks he’s above the law.”
I gagged before I swallowed it back down. “Fine. I’ll see you then.”
“Wonderful. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”
He hung up the phone and I pulled myself up from the floor.
I turned on the water flow of the sink as high as it could go before I threw up stomach bile into the porcelain crater.
My body shook. Sweat broke out on my brow.
And as I perched on the edge of the bathroom counter, my head spun with so many things.
I have to find a way out of this once I’m done with this case.
I just didn’t know how the hell I was going to ditch West again in order to meet up with the man.