Outside the Lines (21 page)

We lie in each other's arms for a long time before either of us moves, but we both know our time is limited. Finally, he reaches for his phone. “Their boat docks in a half hour,” he says, and I don't miss the dejection in his voice.

“When will we see each other again?” I ask.

“Monday at school,” he says with a smirk.

I smack his shoulder. “You know what I mean. Like this.”

“Didn't get enough?” he asks with a lift of his brow.

“No, actually. Did you?”

He shakes his head and his expression goes serious. “Never.”

I lift myself off him and sit up, then sort through the tangle of clothes on the floor. It takes a minute, and when I turn back and look at him, he's staring at the bedsheets, some mix of trepidation and anger on his face. “Did your period just start?”

I'm not due for my period for over a week. I could lie, but I think we're past that. “No.”

“Was this . . .” He trails off and looks back at the streak of blood on the sheets in horror. “Were you a virgin?”

Suddenly, I know I should have told him. “Yes.”

He rockets off the bed. “Jesus fucking Christ, Adri. You could have at least given me a heads-up.”

My gut twists into a painful knot. “Why? What difference would it have made?”

He throws a hand at me. “I would have . . . it should have been—”

A jolt of numbing fear shoots through me. “It was perfect, Rob. It was everything I'd ever fantasized.”

“Damn it, Adri!” he shouts, turning and pacing toward the window. “It shouldn't have been me! It was your first time. It should have been with someone who . . .” He trails off and shoves a hand through his hair.

My heart screeches to a halt in my chest. “Who what, Rob? Loves me?”

His gaze is full of anger and self-loathing when he turns and looks at me. “Yes.”

I slip my underwear on, then tug my shirt over my head. “That wasn't our deal. I told you I didn't need that.”

But the sting in my heart, far worse than anything I felt when Rob was tearing through my virginity, can't be denied. I was hoping that somewhere along the way, he might have realized he wanted more from me than sex.

He grimaces and drops his gaze. “But you deserved it.”

I finish dressing and grab my bag. “This was my decision. I wanted this . . . with you. I should have told you, but honestly, it isn't your choice who I give my virginity to. I chose you, so live with it.” I throw open his door and start down the stairs, but before I make the bottom, there's a knock on the front door.

Great. So much for my quick getaway.

I trudge back up to Rob's room just as he's zipping his jeans. “Someone's at your door.”

He doesn't look at me. “Ignore them. They'll go away.”

“But I can't leave until they do. Can you just deal with them, please?”

He rakes a hand through his hair and scoops his T-shirt off the floor, then turns to face me. The anger in his eyes nearly kills me, but it also pisses me off. He has no right to be angry with me.

He slips his shirt on and brushes past me. I wait as he trudges loudly down the stairs and makes a big production of ripping open the front door.

“I'm looking for Adrianna Wilson.”

At the sound of my father's voice, it's like someone tapped a vein and poured ice water directly into my bloodstream. I'm frozen, unable to move.

“Then you're looking in the wrong place,” Rob answer, cool as a cucumber.

“Her car is at the end of your driveway.”

“Good to know,” Rob says, all casual nonchalance.

“Son, you really want to tell me where she is.” Dad's voice, which initially had an edge of concern, has sharpened to a point, and I know he's about an inch from snapping.

“Have you tried the beach?”

“There's no one on the beach,” Dad growls.

“Then I can't help you.”

The hinges creak as the door starts to close, but then there's a crash that shatters the ice in my veins. I bolt down the stairs to find Dad pinning Rob up against the door by the shoulders, murder in his eyes. But the next second, Rob ducks out of his grasp and spins him into a chokehold, those eyes that were so warm and open when he was lying on top of me, now cold and determined. Hardened to stone.

“Stop!” I yell as Rob grabs for the gun in Dad's belt.

Both their heads snap toward my voice.

“Let him go, Rob,” I say, trying to keep my shake out of the words.

Rob hesitates, but then does as I ask, shoving Dad out of his grasp and onto the porch.

I move slowly toward them, blood pounding in my ears. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

There's a choking sound and I glance at Rob. His eyes are round as dinner plates. “Dad?” he growls at me, his face twisting with unmasked betrayal.

Something else I should have told Rob. I'll have to deal with that later. I turn my attention back to Dad. “I'm fine. Why are you here?”

His eyes narrow as he splits a glance between Rob and me. I know how I must look. I didn't even take a second to finger comb my hair. “Because my daughter's started lying to me and sneaking around to places where she doesn't belong.”

I hold up my hands when I see his glare turn on Rob again. “Dad, this is between you and me. Rob doesn't have anything to do with it. Let's just go home and talk about it, okay?”

He points an accusing finger at Rob, his face reddening with his rising blood pressure. “He has everything to do with it, Adrianna. You never acted like this before his family moved to town.”

I shake my head. “If I've lied to you, it's only because you make it so hard to tell the truth. Telling you about things like this scares the hell out of me.”

“Get in the car,” he barks, backing away from the door and jerking his head at the cruiser in front.

I pass Rob and want so badly to reach for his hand, or say something to reassure him, but when I look at him, his gaze is cold and hard. What I see in there is hate rather than the love I was so sure he was feeling. I walk by and pretend that look didn't just pulverize my heart.

I head for the T-Bird at the end of the drive, but Dad grasps my elbow and puts me in the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“What about Mom's car?” I ask, finally feeling the shame that evaded me when I took it to meet Rob at the beach that night.

“I'll send someone from the station to retrieve it.”

My heart lurches at the disappointment in his voice. Mom would be so ashamed that I only started driving her car to go behind Dad's back.

He pulls out of the driveway and turns us for home. “I've been digging into that family's past—”

“Dad!” I say, terrified at what he's found. If he already knows about Rob, there's no saving this.

He shoots me a reproachful look that shuts me up. “Their Florida IDs all check out, and there are court papers giving the oldest, that
Robert
,” he says with disdain, jerking his head at the back window of the cruiser, “custody of the boy in your class. But other than that, there's nothing—no sign of where they came from before they landed here out of thin air. It's like they didn't exist, which means they're running from something, Adri. Probably criminal activity. I don't know what you've got going on with that boy, but it's going to stop. Now.”

I turn in my seat to face him, my heart pounding in my throat. “Despite what you and Chuck seem to think, I'm an adult. Who I spend time with is my decision.”

His eyes shoot to me as he skids to a stop on the sandy road. “You are
not
going to get involved. Do you hear me, Adri?”

A tear leaks over my lashes. “I love him,” I say, little more than a whisper.

Dad swallows hard and turns back to the road. We ride the rest of the way home in heavy silence. When we get there, I go to my room and close the door, then curl up on my bed.

“Mom, please, tell me what to do. How do I fix this?”

But she's gone. She's never coming back.

It's hours before I cry myself dry.

Rob

When my phone rings, I'm sitting at the kitchen table over a mug of forgotten coffee, wondering how an hour ago I was balls deep inside the sexiest woman I've ever known, and now I'm here, in my own personal hell. I turn it over slowly, bracing myself for Adri's number.

It's Elaine.

“Hey, Rob. Sorry to bother you,” she says when I pick up, “but Maurice just went down with the flu and he's got an assignment today. I know it's supershort notice, but you and the driver need to leave in about an hour for an overnight in Tampa. The client has an afternoon flight tomorrow, so you should be home by four at the latest. Are you free?”

“Hell, yeah,” I say.

I'm totally fucking imploding, all these emotions that I've never allowed myself to feel before colliding like the perfect storm inside me. Guilt over letting Sherm see what he did, anger over what my father forced me to become, sorrow that the only person who could have saved this family ended up a victim of it have lived in my gut for so long they're old friends. But I don't even have a name for what I'm feeling for Adri. Or about Adri. Or about what I just did to Adri.

I've been with more women than I can count, but I don't think anyone's ever given me her virginity. I don't even remember losing mine, it was so damn long ago.

She said she didn't need a fairy tale. I deluded myself into thinking she didn't deserve one because I knew I couldn't give it to her. She's a little pixie. A princess. She should have waited for her prince.

I'm no fucking prince.

And the cop who's been harassing me is her old man. If I'd intentionally set out to expose my family and put them in danger, I couldn't have planned it any better. With the local cops on my ass, we're not safe here anymore. Grant was never the problem. It's always been me.

I let everything with Adri distract me from my goal. Her father showing up here has brought everything back into sharp focus. I've got to get my family out of here, which means I need to take care of things in Chicago.

Now.

“Great. You're a lifesaver, hon,” Elaine says.

“See you in a few,” I tell her and disconnect.

I head to the shower to scrub Adri off me. A pained groan rolls up from my core when I remember how it felt to sink myself into that pristine body. She was so hot. So wet. So fucking tight. I should have known. I just never thought . . .

I brace my hands against the cold tile wall, hang my head between my shoulders. The water runs off my nose as I stare at my stupid dick, thickening from just the thought of her.

Christ, she went down on me. She rolled the fucking rubber on. What kind of virgin does that?

“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath. I told her I'd ruin her. I told her, and she let me do it. I slam my palm into the tile. “Fuck!”

There's a knock on the bathroom door that makes me jump. Lee's voice comes through the door. “Everything okay in there?”

“Yeah. Just dropped the soap.”

I finish in the shower and tug on my clothes. I head to my room, grab the garment bag with my uniforms, throw some regular clothes and all my extra ammo in a duffel. As I'm turning for the door, the sex-ravaged sheets catch my eye. I move back to the bed and stare down at the smear of Adri's blood.

My face pulls into an involuntary grimace as I tug the covers up to hide the stain.

I head to the stairs.

“Stop chewing my sandal!” Lee says from the kitchen. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, she's kicking Crash away from her feet as she cracks open a can of Coke. “I should have fed you to the sharks.”

“Hey,” I say. “I've got a job in Tampa tonight.”

She looks up at me with pleading eyes. “Take the dog. I'm begging you.”

I don't have it in me right now to make a joke. “Sorry.”

“What happened to the wall?”

I follow the flick of her eyes to the hole near the front door, exactly the size and shape of my fist. “I knocked into it when I was bringing in firewood. I'll patch it up when I get back.”

Her lips purse as she nods. I know she doesn't believe me.

Ulie's covering the living room furniture with sheets. Cans of paint are stacked in the middle of the room. “I have never in my life witnessed anything as repulsive as those sharks. I should have stayed home with you. I'm never going in the ocean again. Ever,” she says with a shudder.

I watch as she throws a white sheet over the sofa. The pang in my chest intensifies. I wish she had stayed home. Everything would have been different.

I move to Lee at the counter, pull her into a hug. We've talked about the Savocas, and I know she's been obsessing over them.

She doesn't need to worry anymore.

When I drop my client at the airport tomorrow afternoon, I'm on a plane to Chicago. Taking care of Oliver Savoca will be my first order of business, even if I have to pull the trigger myself. The only way I can fix this family is to bring them home, so that's what I'm going to do, even if it means taking down the entire Savoca family myself.

Even if it means dying.

“I'll see you tomorrow,” I say low in Lee's ear. When I draw away, she's looking at me like I have two heads.

“What was that?”

We used to be so close, and now I can't even hug her without her knowing something's wrong. I loathe myself a little more for being such a shitty person. “The kids are luckier than they'll ever know to have you. You're amazing, Lee. I should have told you that a long time ago.”

My eyes sweep over the place one last time. With the sheets over the living room furniture, it looks almost how it did when we first arrived. My chest tightens when it occurs to me I could have been happy here if I were the person Adri wanted me to be.

I give Ulie's shoulder a squeeze, then push through the door.

Sherm and Grant are on the porch. Burn is lying at Sherm's feet. Since Sherm coaxed him out of the box that first morning, he's never been far away. He sits and his ears prick when I step onto the porch, Sherm's ready protector.

Grant is pretending to arm wrestle Sherm's casted arm. Sherm is talking a mile a minute about something they saw on the boat. The instant he sees me, he stops. Over the last few weeks, the terror in his gaze has slowly given way to indifference. Grant has taken my place in Sherm's life. He doesn't need or want me anymore.

“Hey,” I say, trying to ignore the knife slicing through my gut. “I've got to take off for a while. I need you guys to keep everything together around here.”

“Bye,” Sherm says, then turns back to Grant.

Grant's eyes widen and lift to me, not missing the significance. It's Sherm's first word directly to me since we left Chicago. Sherm takes his hand and starts arm wrestling again.

A ball of emotion forms in my throat as I stride off the porch. I drop my stuff into the back of the Lumina and tear out of the driveway.

When I pull into Spencer Security, David is waiting by the stretch Town Car. There are seven other Spencer drivers. I was hoping I'd never see him again after my little escapade in the Escalade. No such luck.

“Your assignment folder is on the dash,” he says, lowering himself into the driver's seat. “You can change on the way.”

I climb in back. He pulls out of the warehouse.

“Did you give it to that little strumpet you were talking to weekend before last?”

I unzip the garment bag and hang my suit on a hook. “That's none of your fucking business.”

“You made it my business when you sexed her up in my limo,” he says with a glance in the rearview mirror.

I ignore him and strip. It's only when I unbutton my jeans that I remember I never put on any underwear after getting out of the shower this afternoon. I dig through my duffel for a pair.

He whistles through his teeth. “No wonder you've got the ladies lining up.”

I glare his direction when I find him looking in the rearview at my junk and put up the partition. “Pervert.”

I decide to stay in back even after I'm dressed because I don't feel like dealing with David grilling me about Adri. I took this assignment to forget about her . . . which reminds me that the folder is up front.

I guess it will be a surprise. Elaine said we were picking this chick up at the airport, so I should have some time to get a look at the file before whatever her gig is.

An hour later, we're parked at the airport. David has a smoke then heads in to meet our client at the baggage claim.

I slide into the passenger seat, pull the folder off the dash, and freeze when the name of our client jumps off the page.

Sophie King. My goddamn ex. The universe is fucking shitting on me today.

I bound out of the car and storm toward the terminal to grab David and tell him I can't do this job . . . and run smack into the luggage cart David is pushing as they make their way out the door.

Sophie looks as beautiful as ever. Her skin is peaches and cream, and her eyes are stunning green. She looks like a classic thirties movie star, Ingrid Bergman or Greta Garbo, in a retro dress with her long auburn waves trained into a loose chignon.

“Miss King, this is your bodyguard, Robert,” David says.

I lower my face, turn my back to them before she looks up.

“Hello, Robert,” she says. I know they're all waiting for me to answer her.

I take a deep breath, turn slowly and watch her face go from a pleasant smile to dropped-jaw shock.

“Robby?”

“Hello, Sophie. It's been a while.”

“Oh my God! It's really you!” she chirps and launches into my arms. “Oh my God,” she says lower in my ear. “This is unbelievable. You're supposed to be somewhere in Europe. What are you doing here?”

“At the moment, being your bodyguard.”

She tips her head and looks at me funny. When she opens her mouth to say something, I flash a glance at David, and I give her a subtle shake of my head.

“You two know each other?” David asks with unhealthy curiosity in his beady eyes.

“Your bodyguard broke my heart,” Sophie says, releasing me from her clutch and looping an arm through my elbow.

He whistles through his teeth again. “Lining up,” he says under his breath as he turns and pushes the luggage cart toward the limo.

I stick to protocol and ride up front with David, but before Sophie ducks into the back, I press a finger to my lips and mouth, “We'll talk later.”

She nods and slips inside.

At the hotel, I escort her up to our suite. I dump my garment bag and duffel in the smaller of the two bedrooms.

“What happened to you?” she asks after the bellman drops her luggage and leaves. “The story in the news was that there was a shooting and you and your family fled the country. Figured you'd be living large in Greece or something.”

I shrug. She wants to think my siblings are in Greece, the better for me. “I came back.”

She throws a disbelieving glance at our surroundings. “So you could be a bodyguard in Tampa?”

I keep my expression flat. “It's a long story. But no one can know, Sophie.”

She smiles, lifts her perfectly plucked red eyebrows. “I'm intrigued.”

“Don't be. It's just a detour. I'm heading back to Chicago tomorrow.”

She looks at me a moment longer and then turns for her bedroom. “I'll be ready in a half hour.” She spins back to me at the doors. “And when we get back, I'll have all the time in the world to hear that long story.”

I watch her pull the sliding doors to her room closed, then sink into the sofa in the sitting room. How the hell did this happen?

I think about calling the DOJ, telling them to get my family the hell out of Florida, but I'm going back to Chicago, and Sophie doesn't even know the rest of them are here. In forty-eight hours, Oliver Savoca will be dead and Chicago will be ours again.

It will all be over.

*   *   *

Sophie has an evening speech at a local college, where she's mobbed by adoring students and faculty alike. She decides on the way back that she's tired. “Room service and a long, hot shower sounds like the best idea I've had all day.”

David brings us back to the hotel. When we get to the suite, she calls in a room service order that's basically one of everything on the menu. She opens the courtesy bar and pulls out a bottle of red wine. “Will you do the honors?” she asks, handing it to me. “I'm going to shower and change.”

I take the bottle. She disappears through her bedroom door. I hear the water start in the shower and think about changing out of my monkey suit, but decide against it. Best to keep this professional. I tug loose my tie and kick off my shoes and socks, though.

Half an hour later, there's a knock on the door. I let the waiter in and he arranges everything on the small dining room table.

“Oh my God, that smells good,” Sophie says as she throws open her doors and sweeps into the sitting room in a pair of jeans and a vintage Van Halen T-shirt with nothing underneath. She's barefoot and her damp red hair is loose down her back. She slides into a seat in front of the feast. “I'm starving.”

I tip the waiter and show him out, then come back to the table.

She looks at the open wine bottle and the glass I've poured for her. “I'm drinking alone?”

“Can't,” I tell her with a nod at the glass. “It's in my employment contract.”

She slips me a devious smile and pours a second glass, holding it out to me. “I'm not going to report you, Robby. Sit and tell me how one of the richest men in Chicago ended up my bodyguard in Tampa.”

I take the glass, sit across from her.

“And take whatever looks good to you,” she adds with a nod at the table.

I tug the plate with a bacon wrapped filet mignon and baked potato toward me.

“I knew you'd pick that or the lasagna. I ordered them for you,” she says with a smile.