Chapter 17
Caleb slammed down his coffee mug in a futile expression of frustration.
Unfortunately, the mug was halfway full, and the impact sloshed hot coffee over his hand.
He impatiently pulled his hand away, waving it in the air to dry and cool it.
It was almost five o’clock, and the whole day had passed on an equally exasperating keel. Only very occasionally, on the worst days, did he keep drinking coffee all day long like this.
He’d just hung up with his investigator, and there was still little progress on looking into Kelly’s background. After the one lead he’d gotten last week about the Russians in Brighton Beach, they’d run into a dead end.
At Caleb’s sharp comment, the investigator had been trying to explain to him just now that they had to rely on word of mouth or documented evidence. There was little documented evidence of any of Kelly’s relationships, and the Russians were, for obvious reasons, a closemouthed community.
Caleb hadn’t taken the reasoned explanation particularly well. He’d laid the man out in his coldest tone, the one that made his staff want to run and hide.
He turned his desk chair so he could stare out through the wall of windows in his office. His view of the DC cityscape was enviable, but he wasn’t even seeing it at the moment.
The tension at the back of his head was almost unbearable, and he raised his hand idly to rub at it.
If Kelly would just tell him who the man was, he could take care of it for her.
She didn’t understand the depth of his connections, so she might believe his confidence was inflated. It wasn’t. He didn’t have simply money and connections. He had the entire DiMauro family network at his disposal.
She didn’t know that, however. She assumed, despite his money, he was bound by the limits of the law.
He wasn’t. He had the number of a guy who cleaned up messes, no matter what the messes were. Caleb could have Kelly’s mess cleaned up for her without the slightest twinge of his conscience. He’d done it before, and in this case he’d do it with pleasure.
But he could only help if she gave him a name.
He picked up his mug and brought it to his lips, but the coffee was lukewarm now, so he put it down without taking a full swallow. He kept rubbing his neck, picturing Kelly’s face if he could tell her that she’d never have to worry about the bastard threatening her again.
“Mr. Marshall.”
Caleb heard the voice with one part of his mind, but it didn’t register immediately.
“Mr. Marshall.”
This time the words sank in. He blinked a couple of times and twirled the chair around to see Linda standing in the doorway of his office. She’d obviously just knocked and spoken to him twice.
“Oh, sorry,” he said with a rueful smile. “I was out of it.”
“I apologize for interrupting,” she said although she had nothing to apologize for. After working for him for fifteen years, she still wouldn’t call him anything except Mr. Marshall. “Did you miss the call to Jim Strait?”
Caleb made his brain focus and realized he was supposed to have called someone fifteen minutes ago, a call that had been scheduled for three days now. Linda had even reminded him of it five minutes before he was to make the call.
But then the investigator had called about Kelly, and he’d completely forgotten about everything else.
He stifled a groan. “Shit. I totally forgot. Can I call him now?”
“His assistant said that he had another meeting at five, so we’ve rescheduled for tomorrow, if you don’t mind fitting it into your lunch slot.”
“That’s fine. Thanks.”
Caleb massaged the sore muscles of his neck and wondered what was happening to him. He was never absent-minded. He never let anything distract him from his job.
“If you don’t mind my asking, sir,” Linda asked hesitantly, pausing in the process of turning to leave.
Caleb raised his eyebrows and waited.
“Is everything all right? Is there anything I can help you with?”
Damn. He must be in bad shape if Linda was willing to break her normal professionalism to ask him a question like that.
“No, but thank you. I’ve just been… distracted lately. It’s personal stuff.”
Linda nodded with a sympathetic smile. “You’re welcome. I believe it’s not uncommon with a new relationship. I do hope everything works out.”
Having said that, she made a quick exit as if afraid that she’d overstepped. Caleb stared at the door she’d closed behind her.
She thought he was in a new relationship. Maybe that was what everyone thought.
There was no reason for people not to think so. He hadn’t taken Kelly out in public or on any sort of date, but she was living with him, and he’d been going home most evenings far earlier than he usually did.
He hadn’t even gone into the office for the past couple of Sundays.
He supposed he was in a new relationship although he and Kelly had both been running in circles to avoid using that language.
There was no reason not to use it though. He was with Kelly in a way he hadn’t been with any woman—maybe ever. He wasn’t about to give her the send-off anytime soon, and he would be very unhappy if she decided she wanted to leave him.
Over and over for the past few weeks, he’d been on the verge of running, aware that he’d gotten in so deep with her that he’d have a hard time coming out of it.
When she was crying in the middle of the night.
When she walked into his office with cords in her hand, offering herself to his hands.
When they’d had sex on the couch and she’d felt as real to him as she ever had before.
Each time, he’d been torn between the fear of her getting too close and the fear of her never being close enough.
His instinct for self-preservation was strong, but his need for her was stronger.
And his strongest need at the moment was to keep her safe from whoever was threatening her.
She wouldn’t tell him who it was because she wanted to protect him, but she didn’t understand.
Other people needed to protect themselves from him.
He needed to get working again. He needed to stop brooding about all these unanswered questions. And he needed to stop picturing her face when she came, when she cried, when she laughed.
How was he ever supposed to work if he couldn’t stop thinking about her?
He couldn’t though. For one of the few times in his life, he simply couldn’t focus on work. Not when there was something more important to do.
He stood up, compelled to go find Kelly and talk to her now. He wanted things to move forward. He didn’t like his current emotional limbo.
Just because he’d never done something before didn’t mean he shouldn’t do it now.
He wanted to do it now. With Kelly.
Linda looked startled when he asked her to call down for his car, saying he was heading home. It was just after five, but he usually stayed later than that.
He called out goodbyes to the staff he passed as he left the executive suite, and he was determined and inspired as he rode down the elevator.
He would talk to Kelly. He would get a few things settled. She would know that she could trust him to do whatever she needed him to do, that she could fully depend on him.
As he was passing through the lobby, a feminine voice stopped him.
“Mr. Marshall.”
He turned to see the cute blonde who had been temporarily working security for several weeks. She was wearing the coat that went with the uniform, so she must have been doing something outside. “Yes?”
“I have something to show you, if you have a minute.”
The woman wasn’t smiling, and she was doing security in his building, so he suppressed his impatience as he nodded and followed her into a back room.
“What is it?” he asked, trying not to sound like he wanted to get through with this conversation although he definitely did.
The woman smiled. “Today was my last day here. I’m not working for you anymore.” She opened her coat, revealing that she was completely naked beneath it.
Caleb stared at the woman’s body—small, firm breasts, flat belly, long legs, nicely curved hips.
His body tightened just slightly, the reflexive response to seeing an attractive naked female body, but that was it.
That was it.
Several weeks ago, he would have had her turned over the table and be rutting her hard with no prelude or hesitation. He’d had her in mind for a fuck from the beginning, and she’d obviously picked up on the signals.
But something had changed. Something really important had changed.
Caleb didn’t want her anymore.
He didn’t want anyone but Kelly.
He stood frozen, trying to process this revelation, which was even more disorienting than his reflections on being in a relationship up in his office just now. Somehow it drove the reality home a lot more fully.
It was one thing to admit to being in a relationship. It was something entirely else to admit that he wanted only one woman.
Never in his life had he experienced something like that.
He shook his head, finding his voice at last. “Close your coat and go home,” he said as mildly as he could manage. “I apologize for the misunderstanding.” Without waiting for a response, he turned to leave the room, heading back through the lobby to where his car was waiting.
He’d been using a car service for the past week, instead of driving himself, so he could get work done during the longer commute. He got into the back of the car that was pulled up to the curb.
Without thinking, he pulled out his phone and dialed Kelly. He didn’t have anything particular to say. He just wanted to talk to her.
The phone rang until voicemail picked up, so he ended the call, wondering what she was doing.
Maybe she was still with that client she was seeing this afternoon. It could have run long.
He tried futilely to do some work on the drive home, but he couldn’t focus on anything. He spent twenty minutes trying to compose a response to an email that should have taken him about three.
When his phone rang, he grabbed for it in an embarrassingly eager gesture, but it wasn’t Kelly. It was Wes.