Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Present Day…
“Sloane, Sloane, I am all right, I promise.” Lily gripped the phone tightly in her hand. Since her phone was long gone, Atlas had brought her a replacement. “I’m in a safe place.”
“Define safe place for me,” Sloane Armstrong demanded, voice tight. “Because I saw the story on the news. The reporter said a cop is dead, and you were kidnapped. Nothing about that is all right.”
“I’m with Atlas Bennett.”
Silence.
Lily paced quickly across the guest room. She peeked out the curtains. Darkness had fallen again. The darkness had fallen long ago because it was edging close to midnight. She should have been asleep but, when you woke up at 4 p.m. you weren’t exactly tired when midnight came rolling around.
“Atlas…Bennett.” Sloane inhaled. “He’s cooperating with you?”
Yes, this would be where things got tricky.
“You will probably see stories soon that say he’s my fiancé.
” After Gage had finally left, Atlas had begun pulling strings like crazy.
He’d talked to certain powerful reporters, an effort to get his story out there.
Probably because he realized Gage wanted to take him down.
But in getting his story out, Atlas had been very clear that she was linked to him. His fiancée.
“We don’t talk for a few days, and suddenly you are engaged?” Sloane’s voice rose. “That’s fantastic! Congratulations!” Her enthusiasm poured over the line.
That was Sloane. Brighter, happier than Lily. They’d met in college. Sloane had been interested in pursuing a PhD in psychology while Lily had been determined to get her MD and work in the field of psychiatry. Sloane had been bright, bubbly, a flame that drew everyone to her. Lily…
I’ll never be described as the flame that draws people close. Lily knew she was quiet, withdrawn.
But she and Sloane had sat next to each other in an abnormal psych class, and Sloane…
Sloane had kept talking to her. Walking with her after class.
Inviting her to lunch. Sloane had been the president of her sorority.
She’d always had an eager circle of people around her.
Lily had never understood why Sloane wanted to be her friend so badly.
Then she’d learned the truth.
Sloane glowed so brightly because her darkness was buried deep inside.
“Lily.” The enthusiasm had faded from Sloane’s voice. “You’ve said nothing here. This is making me nervous. Do you love him? Are you happy?”
“It’s…not like that.” She let the curtain fall back into place.
“Uh, yeah, yeah, it’s exactly like that. You marry someone because you love them, no other reason.”
“It’s to keep me safe.”
“What?”
“So, I don’t want you to worry—”
“Too late! I’m worrying like mad! I’m about to jump on a plane and hunt you down because I am so worried about you!”
She fully believed that Sloane was about to take those very actions. “I believe the individual who took me—who took Atlas and I both—I think he broke into my rental house. He stole my laptop, Sloane.”
“It’s password protected,” Sloane’s instant response.
“You know he’ll eventually get past any password protection. He also took my physical files.” There was no getting around this. “He has the data on our potential subjects.”
“Shit.”
Yes.
“But so what?” Sloane demanded in the next breath. “Most of that intel is public information. And the stuff that isn’t, what is he going to do with it?”
“I don’t know.” She turned from the window and stared back at the bed. “That’s what worries me.”
“Let me tell you what worries me. The guy took you. Then he—what? Broke into your house? That’s not good on a thousand levels.
Lily, he’s got you in his sights. He’s coming for you.
You need an army around you, you need—oh, the engagement.
” Her breath heaved out. “Got it. I’m following along now.
Atlas Bennett is giving you an army, isn’t he? ”
Yes, he was. “I’m pretty sure half a dozen guards are patrolling the grounds as we speak.”
“He’s telling the world you’re under his protection. That’s what the engagement is about.”
Right. “Not like it was going to be about him taking one look at me and falling helplessly in love.”
“Lily Gallo, you stop that right now! If the man has any sense, he absolutely would look at you and instantly fall in love! You’re an amazing person, and, uh, hello—you saved his ass!
He needs to be grateful to you. He needs to be thanking you.
Preferably on his hands and knees in full grovel form. He needs to be—”
A soft knock on her closed door.
“Worshipping the very ground upon which you walk,” Sloane finished tightly.
“Don’t really think he’s going to be doing that anytime soon,” Lily told her.
The door opened. A few inches at first. Enough for Atlas to peek inside. “Thought I heard your voice.” One dark eyebrow rose. “You’re on the phone. Got it.”
Not like I was in here talking to myself. She wasn’t that far gone. Yet.
He started to back away.
“Atlas!” Lily called.
“Is he with you right now?” Sloane demanded.
He opened the door fully. He was dressed all in black, even black boots. And she could feel a tension clinging to his body.
Atlas was planning something.
“Yes,” Lily said into the phone.
“Is that good…or bad?” Sloane wanted to know.
“Yes,” Lily said again.
“Ohmygosh. I’m coming to you. I am getting on a plane, and I am coming to you.”
“You don’t need to do that!”
“You are my best friend. My family. I definitely need to do it. So expect me. It’s a done deal. I figure I’ll find you at his big-ass mansion.”
Atlas filled the doorway. He didn’t approach.
Just stood there wearing all black, looking dangerous and sexy.
His eyes were on her, seeming to brand her.
He looked even bigger than normal. His shoulders so wide they almost touched the wood of the doorframe on either side of him. His right hand gripped a manila file.
“That’s where I am,” Lily agreed quietly. In his big-ass mansion. Though she wouldn’t have described it quite that way.
“I am on my way. Seriously, moving now, as fast as I can get there. And don’t you dare get kidnapped by some psycho killer again before I get to you, do you hear me? I will be so pissed at you if that shit happens.”
“We’re not supposed to call them that, Sloane.”
“Fuck it. Like I care. A man kidnaps my best friend, he blows up a house and kills a cop, then he counts as a psycho killer. Sorry if he doesn’t like the label, but that’s too bad for him.
You stay safe. Wait. Know what? Better plan.
Stay close to Atlas Bennett. Stick to him like glue.
No way his guards are gonna let anything bad happen to him again. ”
The guards were certainly working in overdrive.
“You do not get separated from Atlas. Twenty-four, seven, you stay with him, got me? Lily? Lily? You’re not responding. I am giving you an order from your best friend.”
Sloane was her only friend.
“Tell me that you will follow my order.” A plea had entered Sloane’s voice. “I need to know you’re safe. Tell me that you will stay with Atlas.”
“I will stay with Atlas,” she dutifully confirmed as she held his stare. “Twenty-four, seven.”
His eyes gleamed.
“Goodbye, Sloane,” she said.
“Stay alive, Lily,” Sloane returned. “If you don’t, I will never, ever forgive you. Friends don’t die on friends, understand?”
“I understand.”
Sloane hung up. Lily slowly lowered the phone. She put it on the nightstand, then stood by the bed, her hands rising to twist a bit awkwardly in front of her. “That was my friend Sloane.”
He took a step into her bedroom.
“She’s my partner in my research, too,” Lily added. She forced her hands to release and fall to her sides.
He advanced another step.
“I wanted her to know what had happened—with our files, that is. She’s insisting on flying here to see me. Told her that I was safe.”
Another step. His eyes were locked right on her. Blazing so blue that it almost hurt to look into them. That gaze of his was really quite unsettling.
“I explained to her about the fake engagement bit. Said it was for my protection. Not real. Not because you looked at me and fell hopelessly in love.” Immediately, she wanted to yank those words back.
Why, oh, why had she just uttered them? So unnecessary.
Why was she rambling? She didn’t ramble.
She didn’t talk unnecessarily. Often, she’d been accused of not speaking enough.
She was the shy one. The quiet one. The reserved one. Not the oversharing one.
That would be Sloane.
Atlas stopped right in front of her. He lifted the file. “The NDA. The one I signed for you. So you’ll know that I’ll go to my grave before I ever reveal secrets you tell me.”
Not that she was a legal scholar, but Lily didn’t think that was quite how NDAs worked. “You didn’t have to sign that.”
“Neither did you.” A twist of his lips. “We both know I wasn’t walking away from you, no matter what.” He put the file on her nightstand. Hesitated just a moment.
“Atlas?”
His hand shoved into the pocket of his pants.
What was he doing?
He pulled something out of that pocket. And he…he reached for her left hand. She glanced down and realized—“Is that an engagement ring?”
Because now Atlas held a gleaming, glittering ring. What appeared to be an incredibly expensive ring. No way the man just casually had that thing lying around his house. “When did you get it? Where?”
“Lily…” A smile seemed to be in his voice. “It’s me. I make phone calls, and things happen.” Gently, he slid the ring onto her finger.
Lily shook her head. “It’s…too much.” And it was.
She was certainly no expert when it came to jewelry—she typically didn’t wear any jewelry at all.
When you were going in prisons to interview killers far too often, you tended not to bother with jewelry.
After all, you’d just be constantly taking the pieces on and off at check-in.
Better to just not wear anything fancy. And this ring… She swallowed.