Aris: A Sexy Romance Novel (Thief of Hearts Series Book 1) (15 page)

Yes, I had some of the photos printed and framed.  You are very beautiful to me.   There have been more times than I can count where I have wanted to talk to you and couldn’t.  Yes, I kept your hair from the duct tape.  It wasn’t a conscious thing.  I shoved the tape in my pocket.  In training to do what we do, you never leave anything around that can be of use to the other side, not even trash.  Shoving it in my pocket was habit.  It wasn’t until several days later, that I found it again when I put something else in my pocket.  By then, I was already kicking myself for not taking you with me.  That’s been a huge argument with myself over the years -- should I have taken her or should I have left her. 

None of those items were hidden.  There’s no locks on any of the doors.  You’ve had free run of the house, the village, the island.  You could have walked into my office, or bedroom, any time you felt like it.  I had no problems with you, or Denise, being in my office the other day or getting the charger.  You saw the picture then, you didn’t ask me.  They aren’t hidden.  They are in the rooms of the house that I use the most.   

As for your room, and everything in it, everyone has a why.  Everyone has a reason they do what they do.  You were mine.  It takes a hell of a lot of courage to stand up to someone with a gun, on someone else’s behalf, when you’re scared to death.  There are so very few people in the world that can do that.  Most professionally trained men can’t do that.  Ling would call it stupid dangerous, and it is.  You have no idea how scared I was after you bolted in Hong Kong.  No idea.  I understand how you wore him out. 

I don’t know what it was that day in the bank, but I saw something in you, tasted something in your kiss or smelled it in your hair, I don’t know what it was, but I wanted to know you.  I wanted to take you with me, but I couldn’t.  I literally didn’t even have a roof over my head when I met you.  I couldn’t take you with me.  So I had to work at what we were doing until I could get myself into a position where I could know you. 

I had moments where I walked past something and a little voice would talk to me.
‘Saoirse would look good in that.’  ‘That would be beautiful on Saoirse.’
It was never a matter of you have to wear it or some life I built for you.  If I could have sent things over the years in a way that you would have accepted them, and enjoyed them, I would have sent them as I walked past them, but Ling didn’t get to that connection.  Ling might have been able to swing it, but after five years, he was toast.  You wore him out.  We had to get another one in place.  That one is good, but not as keen on the facets as Ling is.  He takes the challenge of getting information as a personal treasure hunt just to see how well he can do. 

I was working to accomplish something the only way I knew how.  While everything was coming together for me, I could only watch it sink for you.  You were putting in more and more hours.  You weren’t seeing friends any more.  You’d moved up in the practice, but Ling got access to Pierce’s emails because of questions I asked.  You should have been a senior partner by now.  Do you even know what he bills your services out for?  Do you know you’re the most expensive attorney they have on staff but you’re paid the least?  It was everything I could do to be gracious to Pierce and his bully boys. 

When I sat down to figure out how to do this, it was so late in the game that I wasn’t even sure that it could be done.  Maybe it can’t; but I needed a chance.  I wanted a break for you too.  I wanted you to come out here and be happy.  I wanted you to be able to wear beautiful clothes and jewelry if you wanted to.  I wanted you to come swim with me, or hang out on the boat, or just crash in the hammock.  Yes, we need the contracts dealt with, and we told you the truth about Martin, but I would have preferred you dealt with them here.  You could sit out in nice weather and breathe instead of being buried in your office behind tons of files getting heart burn because you’re trying to eat while you work.  You spend so much of your day rushed around, run to work, run to court and then back, take more shit from Pierce only to go home at a ridiculous hour of the night, to risk being mugged, or worse, in the dark.  I just wanted something better for you then where you ended up.  I know how hard you worked to get there but it’s not what you were promised it was going to be.  I wanted to protect you.  I want to take care of you. 

That’s not a world you know or understand.  I hadn’t taken into account how much you control your environment, how much you count on knowing all the rules.  I had expected you would react the same way Denise did.  But if Denise had been shown a bunch of seriously nasty, heart wrenching pictures, that was supposedly my handiwork, then she’d probably be reacting like you are now. ” Aris tightened his grip pulling her toward him a little bit more.  He knew she was in tears.  He could feel her crying but she was still facing away from him. 

“As for Jerith and Khar, they’re protective too.  It’s what they do.  Jerith takes care of most of our personal business.  He also looks after everyone else’s legal and financial well being.  Khar has been busy training his people so he hasn’t been around, but he catches conversations from Jerith and Noah.  Noah doesn’t like you because, in his mind, you’ve been a distraction to me over the years.  He’s put a hundreds of women in front of me over the years hoping that I would take an interest and forget about you.  It hasn’t worked.  So, he finally gets to meet you, for the first time, but you’re angry.  You’ve been angry since you got here.  He measures that against Denise’s reactions.  His conclusion is that I would do better with someone else.  So, he’s not happy your here, that gets back to Khar. 

Khar hears all the negative stuff.  Then when he does finally get to talk to you at any length, you’re mad at him.  He’s mad because his operation is messed up.  Jerith hears it from Khar so it goes round again.  We’re all very close to each other.  We’ve literally lived in each other’s space for years.  Even as late as seven years ago, we were sleeping wherever we could because the money we had was spent storing the gear we needed.  Looking back on it, it was crazy.  We’ve been running at break neck speed for the last few years.  We’ve all had to learn everything as we go along, sometimes that makes things nuts.  Jerith and Noah are probably more upset than Khar because they know the terms of my will, they know how serious this to me.  In the event that anything should happen...”

“I don’t want to know.  I don’t care.” 

“I care.  My will says that in the event of my death for whatever reason, those three are responsible for caring for you as my widow.  Jerith knows that.  Noah does as well.  I don’t know if Khar does or not, but that puts them in a tough spot because they’ve only seen you from the outside.  They’ve never seen the woman that was sitting in the market feeding someone else’s baby girl like she were her own.  They’ve never seen her floating around in the bay worried about a wobbegong under me, or tell me to put a little octopus back where he won’t get eaten.  They’ve never seen her worry at me about sleeping in the sand.  They’ve never seen her feeding me the breakfast she doesn’t want to eat.  They weren’t there when you admonished me about not covering our butts enough with our contracts, or saw the smile in your eyes when I shoved money in Umiko’s book.  They didn’t see the panic on your face when you realized I was hurt.  You didn’t even know they would be able to figure out where we were.  You could have done anything, but you stayed beside me.  That hasn’t occurred to them yet.  They didn’t get to see you try to take care of me in the alley.  Or hear the fear in your voice that Noah wasn’t coming fast enough.  Noah thought I told you to try to get the bleeding stopped.  He didn’t know until last night, when we talked about what happened, that you did that without even thinking about it.  They didn’t hear Ling tell me that when you looked down at my blood on your hands you got that vacant look on your face again.  Ling was afraid you were going to tailspin on him.  That’s part of why he called Khar.  Khar is technically his boss, but he also needed Khar to let him know what he could and couldn’t tell you.”  Aris started laughing, “Ah, laughing hurts.  I’m sure they would never conceive in their wildest dreams that you and I have made love together.  So when they think about you all they ever get to see is you mad at me.  Since they don’t understand why you’re mad, that makes the light on you harsher than what it really is.”  Aris pulled on her again trying to get her to come into his arms. 

“You and I have a little more than a week left.  Pull the folders down from the shelf, curl up in my bed, read them.  Try to see yourself through Ling’s eyes.  Try to see what I got out of those reports.  Look at those reports as if you’re reading about someone other than yourself.  See what you think about her when you’re done.  Try to think what you must have looked like to a professional thief, to be a woman in straight skirt with a white blouse and pearls, bitching him out about how stupid he was to think he was going to take a pregnant woman with him as a hostage.

Maybe you can find enough trust in me to stop fighting me about everything?  Maybe you could just let me take care of you for a week?  You don’t have to do everything I say that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about coming out in the boat with me, or swim, or anything that you won’t otherwise do just because it was my idea and you don’t trust me, like letting me make love to you.  Just try?  I told you in the alley I love you, and I do, breathing fire at me, and everything else that comes with it.  I promised you after twenty-one days if you really don’t ever want to see me again, you won’t.  I’ll keep that promise.  I just want a chance.”

“Hey.” Noah stopped short.  “Sorry, I didn’t realize Saoirse was still with you.”

“I was just leaving.” 

Chapter 12

“Hey!”  Denise bounced in and flopped on the bed.  “What are you doing in here?”

“I’m reading through th
e reports Ling wrote.”

“I thought they creeped you out.”

“They do, but it’s kind of a homework assignment from Aris.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s no wear on the bed.”

“Huh?”

“You remember the night Aris fell asleep in the sand when we were drinking and you were going snorkeling with Jerith?”

“Yeah, what’s that got to do with the bed?”

“I made Aris come inside.  I couldn’t really get with the idea of him sleeping in the sand.  I said he had to sleep in bed, he muttered something about there was no point, his bed was empty anyway.  There’s no wear on the bed.  When you look at my bed at home, you can see the impression where I sleep in the middle of it all the time.  There’s no impression in his bed.  He said my pictures are in here because he is either in here changing or showering or he’s in his office so that’s why the pictures of me are where they are.”

“Well, do your homework and see where it leads you.  I’m going to lunch with Jerith!”

“What are you going to do when we have to go back?”

Denise shrugged, “I don’t know.  Hope he misses me?”

*****

The sun was starting to go down.  Seer had been in Aris’s bedroom nearly all day.  She was almost done reading the reports that Aris had asked her too.  She began to understand about three quarters of the way through the first year that Ling had sent information on her shopping habits, foods, and other miscellaneous items just because she hadn’t done anything that day.  If you’re trying to show someone you’re doing an honest day’s work when your target didn’t do anything more than grocery shop and read contracts in her apartment all day how do you demonstrate that?  Ling’s reports were mostly factoids and other observations until he got to know her later on, before her life turned into a circus.  She had finished with the Feds by the time Ling started minding her, but when they showed up every once in a while to see if Aris had contacted her, Ling got photos of the Feds watching her.  He made a note of that to Khar in the reports.

Saoirse switched on the light beside the bed as she finished reading the last couple of months of the reports.  She didn’t think she had been working that many more hours above the ridiculous ones she already kept, but apparently she had.  There was an excerpt from an email Pierce sent to the other partners.  Apparently he doubled her rate, when Aris had asked specifically for her and Denise, figuring that Aris didn’t know what their standard hourly was anyway.  Dirtbag. 

Aris came into the room setting a tray on the dresser.  He walked over to the bed picking up the folders she was done with returning them to their racks.

“My love, you skipped lunch.  How about some dinner?”

She opened her mouth to say no, “You’re going to insist that I eat something.”

Aris nodded his head, “You haven’t eaten since breakfast, that’s not generally a good thing.  Mata tells me that you’ve been down to the kitchen for several cups of coffee today.  At the very least your body needs some water to offset the dehydration of the caffeine.  Mata made a roasted vegetable dish you might like.  Why not try a little bit of it with some water?”

Seer ran her hands over her face, nodding her head.

“Do you want to sit on the balcony?”

“You could just say you don’t want cracker crumbs in your bed.  I’m okay with that.”

“There aren’t any crackers on here.”

“It’s a reference to why you’re not supposed to eat in bed.”

“Ah.”

They sat together in the chairs out on the balcony while Saoirse ate.  They talked about Ling and Khar.  They talked about what was in the reports.  She picked at what was in the bowl eating some potatoes, a little bit of zuccini, there were a couple of green beans.  She fed the garlic chunks to Aris, along with a pepper and tomato quarter.  Aris assured her that Ling liked her a whole lot more since he wasn’t responsible for minding her any more.  She hadn’t realized she gotten so wound up in the last couple of years. 

“You really can’t help it, can you?”  Aris leaned over in the chair beside hers.

“What?”