Heart-Shaped Hack (29 page)

“How could you do something like that to me?” Kate said as soon as Ian shut the door and turned around. Her face crumpled as she started to cry. “You promised you wouldn’t leave without telling me, but you did it anyway!”

“I couldn’t tell you. If they saw you looking like your world had ended, they’d leave you alone. But if they spotted you walking down the street just once, laughing, wearing a smile, it would only draw them in closer, and I wouldn’t have been able to protect you. If I thought I could have done it any other way, I would have.”

“You left me behind,” she said.

“Would you have come? If I told you we had to leave immediately, no good-byes, no time to submit your resignation, no preparation, would you have done it? Lived on the run? How long would it have been before someone decided to start watching your family, Kate? All those texts I got, all that time I spent on my computer the day I discovered they’d hacked you? I was trying to come up with another way to pull this off, and I couldn’t. They found my weakness and named their price. I paid it, but I paid it on
my
terms.”

“I paid too,” she cried, “and it would have been easier to bear if I’d known about it. Because of you, I experienced the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. How can we be a team if only one of us knows what’s going on?”

Tears rolled down Kate’s face. Ian led her to the couch and held her as she cried. He waited until her tears had tapered off and she’d gone limp in his arms.

Stroking her head tenderly, he began to speak. “Leaving you behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I did it because I thought it was the only way to solve the problem permanently. Phillip made me promise that I’d wait until things died down and it was safe to contact you. In the meantime, I made those agents tell me about every single observation they made. I knew all about your tears and your shell-shocked expression, and it killed me.”

Kate’s mind was racing and her thoughts were jumbled. She was torn between the comfort his arms provided and the turmoil his actions had caused. His phone rang, and Kate lifted her head off his chest.

“That’ll be Phillip,” Ian said. “He’s the only one besides you who has this number.” He reached out and wiped away her tears. “We don’t have to go up there if you’d rather not.”

“You still have the same phone?”

He nodded.

“I left you a message on your birthday.”

“I know. I listen to it every day so I can hear your voice, and every single time I think about what I did to you and wonder if it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. I know you paid, but I wouldn’t have asked it of you if I didn’t think you were strong enough to handle it. I’m so sorry, Kate. I’m sorry for the pain I caused you. I’m sorry for what you went through. I’m sorry for all of it.”

During dinner, everyone tried to pretend there was nothing out of the ordinary about the circumstances that had brought the four of them together. Susan fretted over her and Ian, offering more salmon, more rice and vegetables, even though they’d yet to finish what was already on their plates. For the first time, Kate noticed how thin Ian looked. She’d dropped at least ten pounds herself and appeared worn and drawn, as if she’d recently suffered an illness and hadn’t fully recovered.

“Our home is open to you for as long as you’d like to stay,” Phillip said.

“I’d like to leave tomorrow, please,” Kate replied. As much as she hated the thought of being separated from Ian again, he’d raised the stakes and she needed time to contemplate what a future with him would truly be like.

The sound of silverware clinking seemed especially loud in the silence that followed, and neither Ian nor Kate even pretended to eat much after that. When the meal was over, Kate thanked Susan and Ian announced they were going to turn in early.

“It’s been a very long day I’m sure,” Susan said. “Please let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“Thank you,” Kate said. “I’m sure I’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

Once they’d returned to the guesthouse, Ian gave Kate one of his T-shirts to sleep in and they got ready for bed. They had to take turns because the tiny bathroom barely had enough room for one. Looking at Ian’s toothbrush in the holder and his razor made Kate think of the identical items that were still sitting on her own bathroom counter. The equally small bedroom contained a queen-size bed and a nightstand. Ian stripped down to his underwear, pulled back the covers, and lay down next to Kate.

“I know you’re upset with me, and you have every right to be, but I really want to hold you.”

“I want to hold you too,” she said. Regardless of how hurt and betrayed she felt, she couldn’t help but think of the dark days after Ian’s death when she’d mourned the loss of him. How she’d cried when she thought of never being able to touch him again. How she would have given anything to feel his arms around her.

Ian was
here
.

Not dead and cold, but warm and alive and holding her in his arms.

It was pitch-black in the small room. Kate couldn’t see Ian, but she could feel him—his strong arms around her; his bare chest underneath her; his legs entwined with hers. He kissed the top of her head, lips lingering in her hair.

“Is this where you’ve been the whole time?” Kate asked.

“Yes. Whenever I’m between apartments I always end up here. I’m the only one who really uses the guesthouse, and over the years it’s become a second home to me. Phillip and Susan are like family to me.” It made Kate happy to know that Ian wasn’t quite so alone in the world, but except for one brief mention of Phillip, Ian had never talked about the Corcorans.

He began to stroke her head and her body relaxed. “I missed you so much,” he said. “I missed talking to you. I missed walking to dinner with you and hearing about your day.”

“I missed those things too,” she said and tears flooded her eyes.

“Kate,” he said when her tears overflowed and trickled onto his skin. He adjusted their position so they were lying on their sides facing each other and wiped her tears away. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry.” He kissed her, and his lips were warm, gentle, fleeting.

But she couldn’t hold back the tears even if she’d wanted to. “Tonight at dinner I was thinking that no one loses someone and then gets them back like this. When someone dies, it’s all you wish for, but it never actually happens. Except that it did. You will never know what that feels like, but I do.”

“I know.” He was holding her tightly, but she wanted more, wanted him to squeeze her like he had on the plane. She wanted to know this was
real
. This time, it was Kate who brushed her lips against his.

He responded with a kiss of his own, raising his hand to the back of her head to hold her in place, deepening it. She didn’t want him to stop kissing her. He would if she asked him to, but she didn’t.

Their breathing grew ragged as they crushed their mouths together. He moved his hand to her backside and cupped it, pulling her closer until she was pressed tightly up against him. She could feel how much he wanted her, and she needed to make a decision about what would happen next.

She didn’t want to talk or cry or think.

She wanted to
feel
.

“Kate?” His voice trembled with need.

“Yes.”

He peeled off her T-shirt, slid his fingers under the elastic of her underwear, and dragged them down her legs. Starting at her neck, his fingers moved softly over her collarbone to the slope of her breast, his hands lingering as if he was learning the contours of her body for the first time again. When he closed his mouth around her nipple, she moaned.

His hand drifted lower, skimming over her belly and coming to rest between her legs. She took off his underwear, and he opened her legs enough to enter her. As soon as he did, Kate closed hers around him, holding him tight. They moved together, their movements frantic, desperate, and she cried out his name because it felt so good.

Maybe she shouldn’t have wanted to do this. Maybe she should have told him no. There were decisions to be made, and Kate still had some long, hard thinking to do. But she had missed him desperately, and right then he was what she needed.

He groaned, and Kate knew this wasn’t going to take long for either one of them. Already she could feel the sensations building, and she moved faster, chasing them. She caught up to them and found her much-needed release a minute or two later, and he must have been right there with her because he groaned again, longer and louder this time, and then shuddered and shook inside her as he came.

After, he held her tight, and their heated skin warmed Kate from the outside in, reaching a place that had not been warm since she lost him.

“I love you,” he said.

“You hurt me,” she whispered.

“I didn’t want to.”

They slept facing each other that night, Kate’s head nestled under Ian’s chin, arms around each other, a tangle of legs. Shortly before sunrise, she got up to go to the bathroom, and when she climbed back into bed, he stirred and pulled her back into his arms, holding her as if he couldn’t bear to let her go.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Breakfast was marginally less awkward than dinner had been the night before. Kate attributed this to Susan and Phillip’s easygoing nature and the ten hours of solid, restorative sleep she’d had. They’d gone to bed so early that Kate had awakened feeling, if not back to normal, at least well rested and a bit calmer.

When they were done eating, Susan declined Kate’s offer to help clear the table. “Relax. Have some more coffee,” she said, placing a carafe halfway between her and Phillip. “I’ll get the rest when I return. Ian is going to drive me to the garden center. Now that it’s getting warmer, I’m looking forward to getting my plants organized.”

“I’ll grab my keys,” Ian said. He bent down and kissed Kate’s forehead. “Back in a little bit.”

“The pilot can take you home later this morning,” Phillip said. “We’ll need to leave in about an hour.”

“That’ll be fine. Thank you.”

Phillip poured Kate some more coffee.

“Did Ian ask you to talk to me?” His departure had seemed a bit too convenient.

“Yes,” Phillip said, looking sheepish. “I’m not here to argue on his behalf. That’s between you and him. But maybe I can help you understand where he’s coming from.”

“How long have you known Ian?”

“Since he was twenty.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I arrested him.”

Kate choked on her sip of coffee. “You arrested him?”

“I had to. He’d hacked the Pentagon, and he hadn’t tried to hide it all that well. I knocked on the door of his dorm room, flashed my badge, and led him away in handcuffs.”

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. That sounds exactly like him.”

Phillip chuckled. “I could tell right away he wasn’t a bad kid. He’s brilliant, but he didn’t have a lot of impulse control back then.”

Kate smiled. “Sometimes he still doesn’t.”

“I scared him pretty good that day. Then I gave him a choice. He could show us how he’d done it and tell us what we needed to do to make sure it never happened again, or he could go to prison. He opted not to go to prison of course, and we were blown away by what he could do. When he was younger he liked showing off just to make sure we hadn’t forgotten what he was capable of, but now I think his involvement gives him a sense of purpose. Pride even. He won’t work
for
us although we’ve tried countless times to recruit him. But he’s continued to work with us long after he paid for his transgression, and I hope he never stops. He’s gone places we couldn’t get to on our own. Places where the stakes were high and there was considerable risk.”

“And you know about the money he…?”

“Steals from cyberthieves?” Phillip nodded. “I pick my battles. That one isn’t worth fighting.”

“Ian told me last night that you and Susan are like family to him.”

“My wife and I never had any kids of our own. It just wasn’t in the cards for us, I guess. Susan treats Ian like the son she never had. Considering his own mother isn’t in the picture much, it suits them both. Our relationship is a bit trickier. Sometimes I’m his friend, sometimes his mentor, and when he’ll let me, a father figure.”

“It sounds like you really care about him.”

“I do. I try to give him his space, especially now that he’s older. But I offer advice when I think it’s warranted. When he told me what he wanted to do after he discovered you’d been hacked, I tried to talk him out of it. I argued that it would be too much for you, but Ian said you were strong enough to handle it. Putting that car in the river would require a considerable amount of FBI resources, which aren’t always easy to obtain. He’d also be throwing away a company he loved and that he’d spent ten years building and would have to start over from scratch. He was undeterred. He couldn’t get past the fact that his enemies knew who you were. He’s not easily rattled, but I’ve never seen him that distraught.”

“So it’s true he has enemies.”

“He’s been working with us for far too long and angered too many people to not have them. Frankly I’m surprised no one had found him yet. I disagreed with Ian about several things. But the one thing we unanimously agreed upon was that if we did this, your reaction had to be genuine because we knew they’d be watching. Ian would have never put you in any kind of physical danger, and the FBI surveillance was purely a precaution. I told Ian I thought one agent would be plenty. He argued for two.” Phillip smiled. “We compromised with four. He’s very driven, Kate, but he needs a strong woman by his side. Not just because he’s headstrong, but because he needs a partner who’s as strong and smart as he is. Someone he can confide in. Build a life with. He’s going to have to open himself up completely, and he’s never really had to do that. For as much as he likes being in charge, I think what Ian wants the most is to belong to someone. To know that someone loves him unconditionally. That’s hard to find in a woman, especially when you consider his line of work. His love for you is immeasurable, and he trusts you.”

Kate was not one to hold a grudge, and in time she could forgive Ian for what he’d done. He and Phillip had explained why they’d kept her in the dark, and though their actions had hurt her, she understood them. But being with Ian in any kind of permanent capacity required a level of trust and tolerance Kate wasn’t sure she possessed. Her mind was still reeling, and she needed time to regroup.