17. A Place At The Table
A Place At The Table
Hope
I’m beginning to think HAVEN doesn’t understand the concept of a small dinner.
By the time Forest and I arrive at Ecstasy’s Table, there must be close to forty people filling the private room.
I stop just inside the doorway. Forest nearly bumps into me.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” I look around. “There’s just... a lot of people.”
His hand brushes mine.
“Want to leave?”
The fact he asks instead of assuming I’ll be fine makes me turn toward him.
“No.”
I curl my fingers around his. “I really don’t.”
Mercy spots us from across the room.
“There she is!”
My sister comes straight toward me, wraps both arms around me and squeezes.
God, I love her.
I laugh against her shoulder. “You saw me this morning.”
“I know.”
“And you’ve called me twice.”
“I know.”
“And sent four messages.”
“Five.”
“Of course.”
Jax appears behind her, and I brace myself for another interrogation about how I’m feeling, but he just kisses the top of my head.
“Nice afternoon?”
I glance at Forest. His mouth curves.
“Very.”
Jax’s eyes narrow slightly.
Oh, my.
Mercy catches his arm. “Leave them alone.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
I love them so much it hurts.
The room keeps filling.
Victor arrives with Adrian, Angus and the three new HAVEN operatives who went to Saint-Pierre. Riley and Destiny are with them, and the cheer that goes up nearly shakes the walls.
They made it back. They’re safe.
Whatever happened beneath that island today was a huge risk. Victor and Adrian walked straight into the heart of Legacy, and Angus and the others put themselves on the line to get them back out. Whatever information they brought home, I know enough to understand it mattered.
Angus brings the three new guys over and introduces them. All three are ex-military, and honestly, HAVEN seems to have a recruitment policy nobody’s mentioned to me.
Tall, muscly, ridiculously fit and unfairly hot.
Ethan, Noah and Mateo.
I glance around the room. Yep. Definitely a pattern.
They’re relaxed now, laughing and shaking hands as Angus introduces them around, but there’s something about the way they carry themselves that tells me exactly why Victor wanted them on Saint-Pierre.
Forest leans closer. “You’re staring.”
I turn to him. “Professional curiosity.”
“Sure.”
“You’re still prettier.”
His grin makes me laugh.
Then more people arrive. Dante and Sophia. Brian and Zara. Elena and Marcus Kane.
Forest glances from them to Adrian across the room. “More HAVEN people?”
“Sort of.” I lean closer. “You want some really good gossip?”
“Always.”
I grin. “Adrian, Dante, Brian and Marcus met at Berkeley. By their mid-twenties, they’d all built billion-dollar empires, and the press started calling them the Bad Boy Billionaires.”
Forest’s eyebrows lift. “That’s actually a thing?”
“Oh, very much a thing. Brilliant, ruthless in business and ridiculously charismatic. The name stuck.”
“And they’re all still friends?”
“Best friends. Their wives are close too. I work at Baby Bump Café often enough that I’ve heard plenty of stories.”
His mouth curves. “Anything useful?”
“Absolutely. None of which I’m repeating with all four of them in the room.”
He laughs.
I nod toward the group. “And Adrian isn’t the only one backing HAVEN. All four of them do. Money, resources, contacts, whatever Victor needs. They’ve backed this from the start.”
Forest studies them with fresh interest.
“Bad Boy Billionaires.”
I grin. “They’ve mellowed.”
Brian’s booming laugh rolls across the room, his Scots accent carrying with it, while Marcus reaches over and steals a slice of pizza from Adrian’s plate.
“Mostly.”
Forest grins. “I like them already.”
Ecstasy’s Table, San Francisco. 2130 hours.
Ecstasy somehow manages to find enough chairs for everyone, and before long the tables are covered with pizza, bottles of beer and champagne chilling in ice buckets, with sparkling water for Jan and Shereen.
After the day everyone’s had, nobody seems to want anything fancy. Pizza, cold drinks and a room full of people talking over one another feels perfect.
I grab another slice and settle back between Forest and Mercy, looking around the enormous table.
At Stanford, I don’t have many close friends. There are people I study with. People I have coffee with. People I’ll stop and talk to on campus.
I like them.
But I could never tell them about this.
I can’t tell them I was kidnapped because people connected to an organization that has spent decades trafficking women and manipulating governments decided I might be useful.
I can’t tell them my sister and her friends came after me.
I can’t tell them that today, somewhere beneath a freezing island in the North Atlantic, people sitting at this table got closer than anyone ever has to exposing the families behind it all.
And I definitely can’t tell them that tonight another woman was brought out after more then ten years of being brainwashed.
Nobody here will post about it. Nobody needs or asks for recognition.
Tomorrow, most of the world will have no idea what happened today.
But I will.
I look around the table again.
Mercy is laughing at something Serenity says. Janice has one hand resting protectively over her stomach while Steve argues with Angus about something across the table. Victor is listening to Adrian with a smile.
Bliss checks her phone again, then suddenly pushes back from the table.
“They’re here.”
Conversations falter.
Chairs scrape as everyone turns.
Matthias steps through the door first.
Thandiwe is beside him.
She pauses just inside the room, taking in dozens of unfamiliar faces, pizza trays, bottles, laughter and far too much attention all at once. Her expression goes vague for a second, like she’s trying to work out what she’s supposed to do with all of it.
Then Bliss reaches her.
She doesn’t rush her. She just smiles and says, “Hi, Thandiwe. I’m Bliss.”
Thandiwe studies her face.
“You were on the phone.”
Bliss’s eyes fill immediately. “Yeah. That was me.”
Thandiwe looks around the room again. “Are all these people with you?”
Matthias smiles beside her. “Pretty much.”
Crew calls from the far end of the table, “Don’t worry, most of us are house-trained.”
Laughter rolls through the room.
Thandiwe startles, then something shifts in her expression.
A tiny smile.
Matthias sees it too.
Bliss reaches out, stopping before she touches her. “Would you like to sit with us?”
Thandiwe nods.
And just like that, space appears at the table.
Plates move. Chairs shuffle. Somebody passes down pizza. Somebody else slides a glass of water toward her.
No fuss. No questions.
Just room.
I watch Thandiwe sit between Matthias and Bliss, still looking a little lost, but not frightened.
Maybe being dropped into this much family all at once should be overwhelming.
But looking around the table, I’m not sure there’s a safer place she could have landed.
Ecstasy’s Table, San Francisco. 2200 hours.
I look beside me. Forest is already watching me.
There’s warmth in his eyes that makes my stomach flutter.
“What?”
“You look happy.”
I smile. “I am.”
His fingers tighten around mine. “I like seeing you like this.”
Around us, the table has dissolved into half a dozen conversations. Plates have been pushed aside, glasses refilled, and somebody at the far end is laughing loudly enough that three other people join in without knowing what they’re laughing about.
I’m beginning to understand that this is normal.
Dante leans forward, looking past Victor toward Adrian.
“So, brother. Just curious. If Legacy comes back and offers you that extra seat on the Council, are you taking it?”
He grins as he waits. Conversation dies around the table.
Adrian stares at him.
Dante’s grin widens. “What? It’s a legitimate question.”
Adrian picks up his wineglass and considers it for a second before setting it down again.
“I watched Westbrook shoot Whitmore directly in front of me today.”
The humor disappears from Dante’s face.
Adrian continues, his voice perfectly calm. “I’ve spent two days in the company of people who discuss corruption, trafficking, murder and political manipulation as though they’re reviewing quarterly earnings.”
Victor’s mouth twitches.
Adrian looks around the table. “So, to answer your question, Dante, no. There is not a chance in bloody hell that I’ll ever join them.”
Laughter erupts.
Dante raises both hands. “That clears that up.”
“Glad I could assist.”
Steve lifts his glass toward Adrian. “Reckon that’s the diplomatic version too.”
“It was.”
That earns another round of laughter, and even Adrian smiles as he reaches for his wine.
I look around the table again.
These people have spent the last few days rescuing me from kidnappers, infiltrating an international criminal organization, jumping onto buildings, crossing borders under fake vacation plans and uncovering secrets powerful people have killed to protect.
Now they’re teasing an earl about joining the Council of Twelve.
Maybe I don’t have many close friends at Stanford. That’s okay, because somewhere along the way, Mercy’s HAVEN family became mine too.
And it’s huge. Loud. Slightly insane.
Full of people who would cross countries, oceans and international borders for one another. People who care about me. People I care about just as fiercely.
My gaze drops to my hand entwined with Forest’s.
And one person I’m starting to care about in an entirely different way.
Beside me, Mercy follows my gaze to our joined hands. When I look up, one eyebrow is raised. Then she winks at me.
I bite back a smile and turn toward Forest.
He catches me looking and leans closer.
“You okay?”
“Better than okay.”
His thumb brushes slowly over the back of my hand.
For days, everything has been about surviving the next hour. Getting through the next door. Listening for footsteps. Watching faces. Trying to figure out what my captors wanted and how much they knew.
Tonight, I’m sitting beside the man who landed on the roof and broke through a penthouse slider to get me, surrounded by the people who helped him do it.
I smile and squeeze his hand.
I’m grateful I know what HAVEN does. Even more grateful I get to be part of it.
And after today, I think I understand why they keep fighting.
Because making a difference doesn’t always mean the world knows your name.
Sometimes it means forty people sitting around a private table knowing the world is a little safer tonight because they refused to look away.
Ecstasy’s Table, San Francisco. 2230 hours.
The chatter around the table is still lively, but Forest leans in close.
“Ready to head out?”
I give a small nod.
We say quick goodbyes to the rest of the team before stepping into the cool night air.
Beside the car, Forest looks at me. “Do you want to go to Mercy’s or come back to MacLeod’s Summit with me?”
I squeeze his hand. “Your place.”
It’s a short, quiet drive to the building. Forest parks in the secure underground garage, and the private elevator whisks us up to the secure floor just beneath the penthouse. I text Mercy where I’m staying so she doesn’t worry.
“My mates are still out hitting the clubs,” Forest says with a grin as the door opens. “They’ll probably have massive hangovers tomorrow.”
The suite door clicks shut behind us. I pause by the windows, taking in the lights scattered across the city and the dark sweep of the bay beyond. It’s one hell of a view, but I’ve got something better waiting behind me.
I turn from the windows, snag the collar of his jacket, and pull him down into a fierce, open-mouthed kiss. Forest groans, meeting me with equal hunger.
Jackets, shirts, and jeans are shed in a frantic trail across the timber floor as he walks me backward toward his bedroom.
We tumble naked onto the expansive king bed.
Forest shifts down the mattress, his fingers gliding between my thighs to part my soft folds.
He slips a single digit inside to test my readiness, then glides back up to circle my swollen bud with firm, steady pressure.
A ragged gasp breaks from my throat as heat surges through my veins.
He drapes my calves over his broad shoulders, settling himself directly between my parted knees. He tastes me with a slow, flat drag of his tongue.
“Sweet,” he rumbles against my flesh.
He laves and feasts on me, his mouth drawing my sensitive core into a rhythmic, relentless suction. He fingers me, making me dripping wet until the tension snaps. A loud, shivering climax shatters through me, my heels digging into the bed.
“Oh my god,” I pant, tugging at his shoulders. “Come up here. I need you inside me now, Forest.”
He glides up the bed, his dark eyes searching mine. “Are you covered?”
“Implant,” I whisper, parting my thighs wide in clear invitation.
Forest aligns his rigid length and sinks home in one seamless, breathtaking glide.
The sensation of being stretched and filled steals the air from my lungs.
I hook my ankles behind his hips as he starts an urgent rhythm, his hips driving forward in powerful strokes.
He catches my mouth in a bruising kiss, and I meet every thrust with an upward roll of my own hips.
As the pressure starts to crest again, I place my palms flat against his chest and push him gently onto his back. He lets me take over. I swing a leg over, straddling his waist, and take him all the way to the hilt.
Sitting tall, I grind my pelvis against him in tight, rolling circles. Forest’s large hands grip my hips, boosting me up and pulling me down against his rigid shaft. I ride him harder, chasing the pressure building between us until Forest’s hands tighten on my hips.
“Hope.”
The way he says my name pushes me straight over.
I come with a cry, gripping his shoulders as every nerve seems to fire at once. Forest watches me through it, his expression wrecked in a way that makes something inside me flare all over again.
Then his restraint goes with mine. His hips drive up beneath me, once, twice, and he groans my name as he comes.
I fold against him afterward, laughing breathlessly into his neck because somehow, after everything this week has thrown at us, this feels wonderfully uncomplicated.
Our skin is slick and damp, our racing hearts gradually slowing together in the quiet room.
Later, as we lie tangled in the sheets, Forest traces a lazy line down my spine.
“I wanted you from the second I saw you at Jax and Mercy’s wedding.”
I smile against his warm skin. “I wanted you too. I just didn’t know how it could work with us living in different countries.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “I’ve been thinking about that too.”
“Well, I hope you decide to stay here with me and take a role with HAVEN.”
Forest chuckles softly. “They haven’t even asked me.”
“They will,” I tell him, tracing the curve of his jaw. “If they’re smart.”
“Oh, you think so?”
“Yes. I think they know a good thing when they see it.” I smile. “I know I do.”
His expression softens before he kisses me and pulls me closer, settling me against his shoulder.
I close my eyes with his arm wrapped around me, warm and safe and happier than I’ve been in a long time.
Sleep comes easily.