Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Nash scooped Delaney into his arms.
“Wait!” she cried. One arm was behind his head, and her fingers clamped onto his shoulder. “Is this a good idea? The last time you carried me, gunfire erupted.”
Nash turned his head to look at her. “We’re on a secure floor of the hotel. We’re in front of our honeymoon suite.” A grim nod. “I’m carrying my bride over the threshold because that is how shit is done.”
“That’s how it’s done for real marriages, but there is no one but you and I here to see this. It doesn’t matter what we do.”
They’d had to stay at the Love Heart Chapel for nearly two hours. The cops had come. There had been questions. So many questions. And they’d had to be incredibly careful with their responses.
Ryan had been taken to the hospital. He’d protested the whole time, but he’d gone. Eventually, Delaney and Nash had been escorted by the police to their hotel.
Now they were on the fifteenth floor. Right in front of the honeymoon suite. All alone. And he did not need to carry her over the threshold. “It doesn’t matter,” she said again.
His lashes flickered. “It matters to me. Swipe the damn key card.”
Her left hand flew out. She swiped the damn keycard.
He yanked open the door with one hand while his other arm held her, and he carried her across the threshold. Didn’t act like her weight bothered him at all. Considering all his bulging muscles, it probably didn’t. He kicked the door closed.
She expected him to put her down.
He didn’t. He went right on holding her. His head turned, and his gaze burned as he stared down at her.
“You can…let me go.” Why had her voice gone all husky?
A slow, negative shake of his head.
“I’m sure Ryan will be okay.” He’d seemed loud and grumpy as he ordered the EMTs around, so she took that as a positive sign.
“He’ll be fine. An in-and-out wound. He’ll have restricted range of motion with that arm for a few days, but he’ll be back in action in no time.”
Good to know. “I’m sorry he was hurt.”
“He shouldn’t have been fucking hurt.” Nash strode forward with her in his arms. “Should have been safe. We all should have been safe, but someone sold us out.” He’d reached the floor-to-ceiling windows.
With his free hand—because he kept holding her with the other—he pressed a button to lower the blinds.
Unease slithered beneath her skin. “You mean someone in the CIA.”
His eyes pinned her. “Yes.”
“That’s not good.” A hoarse whisper.
“Sweetheart, it’s a fucking nightmare. It means, with Ryan temporarily out of the picture, you can’t trust anyone but me.”
“You could have died on the steps of that chapel.” Her unease was getting way worse. More like transforming into full-on fear and panic. “When the bullets started flying, you covered me with your body.”
His head tilted to the left. “That’s the job.”
“No, you dying is not the job. Not in any way. That is nowhere in the job description.”
“Sweetheart, I think you’re having trouble with the meaning of bodyguard.”
She twisted in his hold. Both of his hands moved to tighten around her. He did not let her go. Breath heaving, Delaney fumed, “I think you’re having trouble with the meaning of don’t get hurt for me. Don’t risk your life for me. Don’t—”
“My brother was shot. You were sliced with a knife and stuffed in a closet. If you think this isn’t personal for me, you’re dead wrong.”
“Put me down.”
He turned away from the window and walked across the suite. He did not put her down. His hold did tighten.
“Nash.” Anger hummed in his name.
He took her past the small den area. Into the bedroom.
A massive bed waited. One with black, silk sheets that had been turned down.
Red rose petals dotted the floor and lead toward the bed.
Champagne chilled on a bedside table, while soft, classical music played from a small device beside the champagne flutes.
A room for romance. A perfect suite for a couple in love.
But they weren’t in love. They weren’t a real couple.
“When you’re involved,” he bit out, “it’s always personal for me.
” Then he finally put her down. Right in the middle of the bed.
Her body slid over the silk sheets. His hands slid over her.
Lingered on her, before he jerked them back.
His fingers fisted at his sides even as he took a step back. “You are personal. You’re my wife.”
A lock of hair had tumbled over her cheek. She shoved it back. “Pretend wife.”
He looked away.
“Where did you get the ring?” Delaney asked as she remembered all that Ryan had told her.
“Jezebel had the wedding bands for us.” He yanked his phone from his pocket and tossed it onto the small nightstand. “She sent me the bands.”
Jezebel. Someone they may not be able to trust. “I’m not talking about the gold bands. I’m talking about the engagement ring. The one with my pearl birthstone on it.”
His stare shot back to her.
“Where did you get it?”
“A jewelry store.”
Hardly an enlightening answer. So she’d just ask a different question. “When?”
“You don’t want to know. Stop asking these questions.”
The hell she would. “If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t ask!” Her legs dangled over the side of the bed. A very high bed. “When did you get the engagement ring?”
He surged forward. His hands slapped down on either side of her. “Eight years ago.”
It was a good thing she was sitting on the bed. “Liar.”
“The only thing I’ve ever lied about…fuck it. It’s not loving you. When I said we were done, when I said I didn’t care—I fucking lied.”
She felt those words drive straight in her heart.
“I had the ring eight years ago. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to grow old with you. I wanted to live until we were old and gray and be in a freaking rocking chair watching our grandkids play.”
Why didn’t you? Why. Didn’t. You? The words were caught in her throat as pain ravaged her.
“But…” His jaw clenched. He shoved away from the bed. “That wasn’t meant to be. You had a life to live. I had to walk away.”
She grabbed his arm. “Why?”
“You don’t want to know.”
She jumped to her feet. Their bodies brushed.
Anger crackled in the air between them. “If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked!
You just put yourself between me and bullets.
You kept an engagement ring for eight years.
Those are not the actions of a man who does not care.
” Her hands locked around his powerful upper arms. She wanted to shake him. “Tell me why. I deserve to know why.”
Why he’d wrecked both of their lives.
“You can’t take some things back.” Gritted. “Once a deed is done, there is no going back. Let the past go, Delaney. Please.”
No. The past was still ripping her apart. “I want to know what happened.”
He looked down. “I still have my brother’s blood on me. I need to wash it away.” He pulled back. Put several steps between them.
He was heading for the shower. She surged forward, dodged around him, and physically put herself in the bathroom doorway. “Don’t you dare take another step until you tell me what happened eight years ago.”
He froze in front of her. Torment flashed on his face, only to be quickly masked. He was so good at doing that. Masking his emotions.
“Something happened. Something that made you leave me. That made you destroy us.”
His hand lifted. Pressed to her cheek. “Let it go, baby.”
“No.” She’d let them go years before. She hadn’t fought for him. She’d run away, and she’d wrapped herself up in pain.
His forehead lowered and pressed to hers. “Just let me be a villain in your backstory. That’s what I’ve been for years, isn’t it? Let me stay that way.”
Yes, dammit. No, no…
You were the man who made me happy. Then the man who broke my heart. Hero and villain all at the same time.
“I had a choice to make.” His voice was rougher, deeper, than it had ever been before. “I chose to walk away from you. I am the villain. See that shit.”
No, she would not. “I’m pretty sure the villain would be the man who locked me in a closet and shoved a knife in my side.”
“I’m going to kill him. I am one hundred percent certain of that fact. My very willingness to kill should tell you that I am dangerous to you.”
“Not to me. To other people, to the bad guys? Yes. But not to me.” A sharp inhale. “What do you think will happen if you tell me the truth? That I’ll forgive you for the past?” His touch was sending her system into overdrive. “Or that I won’t?”
“Can’t we just screw the past? Forget it and go forward?”
Is that what they were doing? Going forward? “You kept the engagement ring for eight years.”
His head lifted. “Yes.”
“You took it with you, wherever you went.” Had Ryan been right about that?
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His breath heaved out. “I have to wash my brother’s blood off me.”
Her shoulders sagged. He was not going to tell her. “There are no secrets that I kept from you. I told you everything about my life.” She moved out of the way. Headed for the bed even as she wrapped her arms around her waist.
“You are my life.” His words stopped her.
“And I’ll be the bad guy a million times over if it means that you get to keep living and that you’re safe.
I will sacrifice my own happiness again and again because that is nothing compared to the fucking darkness I’d feel if I didn’t know that you were alive somewhere in this world. ”
What? She whipped around.
Too late.
The bathroom door clicked shut.
Dammit.
Nash stripped. He tossed his bloodstained clothes into the trash. Yanked on the hot water in the shower and heard the thunder as the stream poured into the massive tub.
He glared at his reflection in the mirror. He hated keeping secrets from Delaney. He wanted to be able to tell her everything but…
I am still trying to protect her.
Even from himself.
He stepped into the water. It was on full blast, and the surge hit him hard. Steam began to rise around him, drifting tendrils in the air.