Authors: Jenna Mills
CROSSFIRE (19 page)
The well-timed words hit hard, landed deep. Reeling, she did the only thing she could. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.
"What makes you think I'm scared of anyone?" she asked with a nonchalance that would do her mother proud. Cool, calm, collected. Unaffected and untouchable. Meet adversity with a smile, and no one ever had to know you bled.
But Hawk smiled. Damn the man, he smiled with a knowing edge that cut to the bone. "Ah, Ellie, you have to ask?"
Warning alarms reverberated through her, but she refused to tuck tail and run.
"I know you," he rolled on. His hand still curled around her upper arm, not with force but restraint. "I've seen you when you think no one is watching. I've touched you when you thought no one could. I was there in that cave, remember? I saw, and I heard, and no matter how fiercely you deny the truth, I know what drives you, and yes, sweetness, I know what scares you."
Her throat tightened. "Who, then?" she asked, even though caution demanded she walk away. "Who am I so afraid of?"
Morning sun poured through the plantation shutters, intensifying the glint in his eyes. "Next time you look in the mirror," he said, releasing her arm and bringing his hand to her neck. He didn't circle, just spread his fingers and caressed. "Ask yourself a little question. Ask yourself who you're most afraid of. Zhukov, maybe? Me? Or maybe, just maybe, you'll find the answer staring back at you, through the most amazing green eyes I've ever seen."
Denial rushed through her. "You don't have a clue what you're talking about."
"I wasn't part of your plan, sweetness, was I? I'm not neat and tidy the way you like. I'm not comfortable." Stepping closer, he slid his thumb over her chin and rubbed it along her lower lip. "But you got naked with me, anyway, and that scares the hell out of you."
Heat swam through her, awakening places she'd forced into slumber. She'd done a lot more than get naked with this man. She'd done more with him than with her only other lover. More than she'd known possible. Until that night, those blurry, almost desperate hours in his arms, his bed, she'd not known it was possible for a human being to simply unravel.
"Do you have to be so crude?" she asked, curling her hand around the wood of the banister.
He let his hand fall from her face. "No," he returned, "I don't. But any other way confuses you." There was a hardness in his eyes now, a light that gleamed somewhere between anger and disappointment. "When was the last time you did something unplanned?" he asked in that velvety voice. "When was the last time you acted on impulse, did something totally unexpected, just because you wanted to?"
The answer vaulted through her and hovered between them, unspoken, powerful enough to jam the breath in her throat. "I do plenty of things because I want to."
His smile was slow, knowing. "Like what?"
Like follow her bodyguard to a bar, look him in the eye, and vow there's nothing he can do to scare her away. Nothing that would make her run like a coward. Nothing that would make her lose control.
"Like this," she said, then turned and walked up the stairs. She wanted to feel triumph in the comeback, but a tiny voice deep inside accused her of retreat.
"
Elizabeth
."
She knew better than to stop. She knew better than to turn around. But the way he said her name, deep and dark, thick
with an edge of challenge and gravity, stoked a curiosity she wanted to ignore.
"What?" she asked, pivoting toward him.
He stood at the base of the stairs, arm propped against the mahogany wood of the banister, legs crossed at the ankles. "The best things in life," he said slowly, deliberately, "aren't planned. They just happen. Remember that."
Then he turned and walked into the kitchen, leaving her standing there, body on fire, heart bleeding from an emotion she didn't know how to name.
* * *
The smoky words stayed with her long after the man himself left with Miranda.
"I'm thinking remote," Sandro said after lunch. He sat at the small round table in her office and flipped through vacation brochures. "The fewer planned activities the better."
Elizabeth
looked up from the proposal she'd been skimming. "I suppose that rules out a cruise."
"No cruise," he agreed in that wonderful accented voice of his. His dark, dark eyes gleamed, just as they always did when he spoke of Miranda. "I want my wife all to myself."
The smile happened all by itself. If she'd custom designed a man for her sister, she still would not have come up with someone as perfect as Sandro. He respected Miranda's individuality, admired the free spirit that had always ruled her.
"That's what honeymoons are for," she said.
"Yes," he agreed, "it is." He stood and walked toward her, only a slight limp remaining from the leg he'd broken in the showdown with Viktor Zhukov, the man who'd tried to use Miranda as a bargaining chip. Since then, Sandro had been working intelligence stateside. "You can tell me," he said, propping a hip against her desk. "Where were Miranda and Hawk going?"
Elizabeth
closed the proposal. "Your guess is as good as mine." Her sister had been excited, though. Terribly excited. She'd whispered something to Hawk, who'd merely nodded and hustled her out the door.
She didn't understand their relationship. Miranda and Hawk could pal around like buddies. Everything between them was easy, uncomplicated. There were no challenges or tests, no taunts. He didn't push her buttons, didn't bring her to the edge.
"I'm back," Miranda announced, strolling into
Elizabeth
's office.
Sandro crossed to her immediately, kissed her as though it had been years since they'd last seen each other, not hours. "So where's my surprise?" he asked, pulling back.
Amusement shimmied in her eyes. "Somewhere safe," she said tartly. "Somewhere you won't find until after the wedding."
"Ah,
bella,"
he muttered. "You do not play fair."
Elizabeth stood and reached for her pocket book. It was time to head home and dress for the auction. Normally she looked forward to the event, but after the past couple of days, the black-tie affair carried no appeal. Hawk would be there, shadowing her every step, every breath, tracking her movements as if she was the criminal, not Zhukov.
She glanced beyond her sister. "Where's Wesley?"
Miranda looked around Sandro. "Something's come up. He had a statement to give or something."
Sandro's expression turned downright lethal. "He left you alone?"
Miranda swatted at his ann. "Be real. He brought me here, to you, then left."
Leaving
Elizabeth
alone. She watched the way her future brother-in-law looked at her sister, with pure love glittering in his eyes, a hand always on her body, and didn't understand the disappointment whispering through her.
"Aaron's on his way up," Miranda added. "I think he'll be with you at the auction tonight."
"I see," she said through a throat suddenly raw, tight. Hawk wouldn't be there. She wouldn't look up from some stuffy conversation with one of her father's politician friends and find him watching her through those hot, burning eyes. Wouldn't feel his presence no matter how far away he stood, no matter how many guests separated them. Wouldn't have to worry that if she turned, he might be standing too close.
Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she waited for the shawl of relief to settle around her.
It didn't.
* * *
"Looking for someone?"
Elizabeth
spun to find Nicholas standing behind her, a glass of merlot in his outstretched hand. "Just seeing who's here," she answered vaguely, taking the wine. "I haven't seen Ethan yet."
"Ah." He slid a hand to the small of her back and steered her toward a less crowded corner of the historical hotel's ballroom. "All eyes are on you, you know," he murmured, brushing his mouth against the side of her face. "Your dress is stunning."
Once, his words would have pleased her, but now a chill slithered deep. She didn't want all eyes on her. She didn't want to be watched. Not with Zhukov unaccounted for.
Not with Hawk absent.
"
Elizabeth
?" Nicholas tilted her face to his. "Something wrong?"
She shook off his concern. "Just chilly." Her dress extended to the floor, but the halter cut of the bodice, with a plunging neckline, a triangle cutout beneath her breasts, and no sleeves, bared a good portion of her upper body. Hawk had circled the dress with a black marker in a catalog two years before, then looked up at her and dared her to place an order.
"Maybe this will help," Nicholas said, drawing her closer. "You know what they say about body heat."
She felt herself stiffen, could do nothing about the flash of memory. Yes, she knew what they said. She also knew it was true. At least sometimes. When Hawk had eased her against him in that cold dark cave, the blast of heat had been immediate.
Slowly Nicholas ran his hands along her arms. "That bastard is not going to hurt you, Elizabeth. You can mark my words on that."
She looked up abruptly, into the startling blue eyes she'd fantasized about as a young girl. "What?"
"Zhukov," he clarified, and the tightness in her chest relaxed. "Who else?"
She forced a smile. "No one."
"Dance with me, then," he said, leading her to the small wooden floor where a handful of couples swayed to the soft jazz played by the band Miranda had selected for her wedding.
The sensation hit so hard she stopped dead in her tracks. It crawled over her, the awareness of being watched, tracked. Shadowed. She spun around, searched the throng of guests for someone who didn't belong.
Aaron Wright broke toward her.
"What is it?" Nicholas asked.
Constricted airways made it difficult to talk. "I … I don't know," she said honestly. "Just a feeling." One she'd fought all evening. The same feeling she'd fought in
Calgary
.
"
Elizabeth
?" Aaron took her arm and hurried her off the dance floor, as far from the windows as possible. "Did you see something?"
Her heart hammered hard. "No," she told the tall man Hawk referred to as his number two. Aaron Wright towered over her, a hand hovering inside his tuxedo jacket, where she knew a Glock hid. "I…" She didn't know how to put the sensation into words. "I can't shake the feeling someone is watching me." Waiting.
Wanting.
Aaron's crystalline blue eyes hardened. "Under normal circumstances I'd hold your dress accountable, but tonight that's not a chance I'm willing to take." He shifted his attention to Nicholas. "Keep her here a few minutes. Let me make a sweep, check with security."
Nicholas drew her close. "I won't let her out of my sight."
"Hawk was worried about tonight," Aaron commented, then vanished into the throng of auction attendees.
The sense of loss made no sense. She tried to focus on the guests swirling around the dance floor, on Miranda and Sandro perusing a grandfather clock up for auction, but could see only a cold dark cave in the mountains of western
Now, though, reality, with all its splintered edges, pressed close, the hurt that always, always came from walking too close to the edge.
"You trying to hold up that wall by yourself?"
Elizabeth
blinked, saw her brother striding toward her. "Eth!"
He captured her in a bear hug, crushing her against his chest. She winced as he squeezed her tender ribs, but said nothing, didn't want him to pull away. "You look gorgeous, as always," he murmured against the hair she'd twisted off her face.
She pulled back and smiled up at him. "And you look ready to steal a million hearts." She paused, drank in the sight of him all tall and dashing in his black tuxedo. "As usual."
"Nick." He extended his hand. "It's been a while."
"Too long," Nicholas agreed. Once, a long time ago, the two had been the best of friends. After school they'd taken different paths, Ethan's quest for justice taking him to D.C., while Nicholas's desire to expand his deceased father's business interests kept him in
Richmond
.
"May I borrow her?" Ethan asked. "Just for a little while."
Nicholas took her hand and brushed a kiss along her knuckles. "Just for a little while."
Her brother slipped an arm around her waist and steered her toward the drink table. "You okay?"
The question didn't surprise her. This was Ethan. He knew her as well as she knew herself. "Just tired. I didn't get much sleep last night." Not with Hawk prowling her town house, only a heartbeat away, close enough to be in her room if she so much as breathed the wrong way.
Ethan ordered a Scotch. "You don't have to be here tonight. You know that, don't you?"
