Stripped Bare (29 page)

Shane was quiet. Matthew snuggled back in, his hand caressing Shane’s stomach. “You weren’t even asleep when I came to bed. You were pretending. I know you too well.” He sounded hurt.

Shane’s chest tightened. He had no idea what to say but he needed to cover his exploration of the adoption somehow. It might be time to take the plunge he’d been thinking of taking. If the waters closed about his head and drowned him, so be it. He just hoped Matthew was there throwing him the lifeline he so desperately wanted.

“It was nothing. I just got scared, that’s all.”

Matthew shifted and looked at him. “About what? I’ve never known you to be bloody scared of anything. You’re my little pit bull. You can rip throats out with your bare teeth.”

Shane smiled despite his nervousness in what he was about to say. “Scared because of just how much I feel for you. How much I need you.”

Matthew stilled beside him. His hand stopped stroking Shane’s stomach and the younger man closed his eyes, trying to fight back the slight panic he felt.

“Exactly how do you feel about me?” The other man’s voice was husky, almost a whisper.

Shane took a deep breath. “I love you, Matty. More than anyone I’ve ever loved before.”

There. It was out. Consequences do your damnedest. There’s no going back now.

Shane wasn’t prepared for Matthew’s reaction. Whatever he’d expected, regret, denial, scorn, sympathy, even acceptance, he certainly hadn’t expected his lover to growl, pull him into a fierce embrace and take his mouth with a need so potent it made him reel with the sheer passion of it. Matthew’s mouth ground against his in a frenzy of need, his hands pulling Shane close to his own body, as if trying to wear him like a glove. It was exhilarating, mind-blowing and frightening all at the same time. When he was finally released, Shane’s mouth was bruised and his lip was cut where his lover had forced it against his teeth. Matthew pulled him over on top of him, holding him so tightly in his strong arms that he could hardly breathe. But he didn’t want to let this moment pass, so Shane remained quiet, listening to the fierce beat of his lover’s heart and simply feeling…loved.

Matthew’s voice whispered against his ear, his breath warm. “You drive me crazy. You’re bloody cheeky, you’re a maverick, and you never bloody listen to anyone. You do what
you
think is best, all the time. You also care so much about people—it’s what I love about you. But it’s not the only thing I love about you. I love the way you smell, the way you look, the way you make me feel.”

Shane’s eyes were prickling with hot tears at hearing words like this being spoken by his normally controlled boyfriend. “I love the way you look at me, as if I’m the only man in the world, and I love making love to you. I guess what I’m trying to say, Shane Templar, is that I love you, too. Heart and bloody soul.”

Shane knew what a momentous moment this was and for a second, he didn’t know what to say. Then his natural instinct for levity kicked in.

“Christ, Matty, trust you go all one-upmanship on me. I just tell you I love you, but you, you have to make a bloody poem out of it. A truly beautiful poem but still—”

His words were cut off as Matthew once again kissed him with lips that told him exactly how he felt.

“You are so mine,” he breathed into Shane’s mouth. “Always.”

“Always,” agreed Shane as he kissed him back with a heart that was full to the brim with every good feeling he’d ever had in his life. “I’m yours, Matty.”

Matthew hummed as he showered, getting ready for his dinner date with Bartholomew and Julia. He had never felt so relaxed and content since Sam’s death.

His and Shane’s declarations of love for each other earlier had seemed to seal whatever deal he and the other man had going on. Shane’s heartfelt words had seared his soul, reaching deep down inside to that place he thought he’d hidden. The minute Shane had told him he loved him, he just known he needed to tell Shane exactly how he felt, too. He couldn’t fight it any longer. This man meant the world to him. He couldn’t deny he was scared. For two years he’d fought any emotional involvement for fear of getting hurt again. And now he’d just made an emotional commitment to another man.

Who wouldn’t be paranoid?

“Matty, you’re going to be late, babe!” Shane shouted from the bedroom. “Your taxi is due in ten minutes.”

“Shit.” Matthew hastily rubbed water in his hair, gave himself a wash down below with shower gel, turned off the water and stepped out, wrapping a towel around his waist. He bounded back into his bedroom, seeing Shane lying there in his bed, flicking through TV channels.

“Have you seen the shirt and trousers I took out for tonight? In all the excitement of the afternoon, I don’t know what I did with them.”

Shane waved the remote at the far corner. “I put them on the valet rack. I didn’t want them to get all creased when we rolled around on the bed.”

He chuckled as his lover frantically got dressed, pulling on boxers and clothes in a panic. “Matthew, relax. You can put your makeup on in the taxi.”

Matthew threw a fierce glare his way. “Very funny. I don’t want to be late. I know Maxwell is pretty relaxed, but he is my boss I’m meeting for dinner for the first time.”

Shane sat up. “I’ll just stay here, all alone and amuse myself. Unless you want me to go home?”

Matthew shook his head as he finished dressing and leaned in to kiss Shane a quick goodbye. “No, stay. I like finding you here when I come home. You have Bushwhacker to keep you company anyway.” He cast a smile at the laptop case in the corner of the room. “Honestly, do you ever go anywhere without him?”

He stopped as he realised what he’d said and scowled as Shane laughed loudly. “That’s the spirit. You’ve just acknowledged my laptop is a man.”

Matthew shoved his wallet in his pocket. “I still say you’re bloody crazy. See you later, baby.”

He disappeared into the hallway, only to come back a second later.

“Love you.” He winked and clattered down the hallway and out into the street. He slammed the front door behind him as he went to meet the taxi.

Dinner with Bartholomew and Julia was a welcome affair, taking place at the rather swanky Balls Brothers venue just off Fenchurch Street station. The conversation was good, the food excellent and the drink definitely welcome. Matthew was still feeling light-headed after his confession of love for Shane. It felt good knowing his man was waiting at home for him. The trio chatted about work, life and the business in general and Matthew thanked whatever good fortune was smiling down at him on the day he first got the interview with his new company. He wasn’t a religious man, despite coming from a fairly Christian background. His mother and sister were still firm believers. Matthew preferred to reply on his own talents and abilities to get him where he needed to be. But his karma was definitely being good to him lately.

He and Julia were spending a lot of time together, both at and out of the office. It had become a thing to have a standing dinner date at the pub across the road from work. Julia was warm, mature, funny and great company. Matthew knew she had a few skeletons in her own closet, but she wasn’t ready to talk to him about them yet. Shane had joked that he might have a fight on his hands for Matthew’s attention.

His phone rang as he got in the taxi around eleven p.m. His heart lurched when he saw a number he recognised. It was a number from his past, a number he had thought he would never hear from again.

“Matthew Langer.”

“Mr. Langer. This June Carlinson. Do you remember me?”

“Yes. I remember you.”

Who wouldn’t remember the woman who had torn his heart out of his chest?

“I hope you are keeping well. I’m sorry to call you so late, but there is some news I really needed to give you. It involves a rather unfortunate security breach to our database, I’m afraid.”

“What does that have to do with me?” he asked, his heart beating rapidly.

“Mr. Langer, you know the detailed circumstances of the adoption you applied for. Little Emily.” Matthew’s chest tightened and he was having trouble breathing. “You were aware of the…sensitivity…of the whole situation around Emily’s potential adoption at the time. It’s why you had to sign a non-disclosure agreement for everything connected to the affair.”

“I remember,” he said mechanically.

“Well, someone hacked into our system yesterday and it was flagged up on our security database as a breach. You remember we had
very
special on-demand security around this whole case because of who Emily’s mother was and how she was conceived. We wouldn’t do this for all our cases. This was unique as you know.”

Matthew closed his eyes. He was well aware of the circumstances around Emily’s birth. It had been a dreadful, heartrending story and the reason he and Sam had decided they definitely wanted this specific little girl.

“Well, the agency running the security can’t tell who it was that hacked the system but they do know that someone did. Whoever it was covered their tracks very well, they are obviously a professional. But it means they got access to your name, your files and all the photographic evidence and video we had in our files about our investigation of you. Of course, there was nothing else in our files about the baby’s background or parentage or the events of her birth and potential adoption. That was always kept separate in another much more secure database than ours.” Her voice was slightly dry.

Matthew felt like throwing up. The photos and footage in that file was something he’d long put behind him, and the thought of anyone else seeing who and what he’d been at the time made him feel physically ill.

The other thing that made him feel like hurling was his immediate thought that Shane might have something to do with this. It was perhaps unfair, but it just seemed too much of a coincidence.

“Please don’t worry. They say nothing was copied, or downloaded, it was simply accessed. So the chances are there is nothing out there in the public domain that will cause you any harm. But I needed to let you know. My team is working on it, but they are not very hopeful they’ll ever find who did it or why. Would you have any idea who would or could do this, and why, Mr. Langer?”

Matthew felt cold, his hands freezing, his brain numb. “No,” he finally managed. “I don’t.”

“Well, I’ll let you know if I hear anything else. I am sorry about this, Mr. Langer. I’m going to text you the lawyer’s name that we are using in case you have any questions. If you need to speak to anyone about this, please call her direct. I think you may be getting a call from Mr. Busby too shortly after mine. Expect it. Good night, Mr. Langer.”

And with that dispensing of her responsibilities and a reminder that Matthew had signed an NDA that allowed for any eventualities and which he’d signed in sheer numbness at the time just to get the whole affair over, June Carlinson hung up.

Matthew put his phone back in his pocket with trembling hands. All the happiness he’d felt five minutes ago had suddenly descended into a nightmare. He sat numbly in the taxi, seeing nothing as he gazed out at the street and scenery outside. Five minutes later his phone rang again. This was a number he didn’t recognise but he had a feeling he knew who it was. He answered with a sense of dread.

“Matthew Langer.”

The quiet broad Norfolk tones of Neil Oswald Busby, well known Member of Parliament and close friend of the Prime Minister echoed like a bad memory in his ear.

“Good evening, Matthew. This is Neil. It’s been a while, son.”

Matthew’s mouth was dry. “Evening, Neil. I know why you’re calling. And I can assure you I know nothing about this whole thing. I would never jeopardise anything from that period of my life. I have too much to lose.” He stared blindly out of the taxi at the passing lights and glitter of the city. Faint music played from the front of the taxi and the driver hummed along.

Neil sighed heavily. “I didn’t think you would have. But I wanted to make sure. My people think it’s a random hack, as nothing was really ‘touched’ just accessed. If anything had been deleted or an attempt to get into the more secure files had been made, I can assure you we’d be having this conversation face to face.” His voice was mildly threatening. “At a police station.”

“I had nothing to do with it.” Matthew’s voice was tight. “And I don’t know who stands to gain from it either. I can’t even shed any light on that.” He hoped in his heart that he was wrong about suspecting Shane and that his boyfriend would put his mind at rest when he got home.

His gut told him that would be just too easy a solution.

“I believe you, son. You were always a good man, even if you went off the rails. How are you anyway, Matthew? Have you managed to move on?”

Matthew didn’t want to answer that one. He really wasn’t sure anymore. “I’m doing fine, Neil, thank you. How is Stephanie?”

“My daughter is doing as well as can be expected.” Neil’s voice was heavy, tinged with grief even after two years. “She’s still undergoing regular counselling, for both the rape and the loss of the baby. But she’s much better. Thank you for asking.”

Matthew knew better than to ask after Emily. Neil would never tell him anything about the child.

Neil Busby spoke gently. “Well, I just wanted to speak to you myself and reassure myself that this wasn’t your doing. I’m comfortable it wasn’t if you tell me such. You never lied to me before, Matthew. That was one thing I always admired about you. Sam was a lucky man. You look after yourself, son.”

The call was disconnected and Matthew stared at his phone blindly. His eyes flooded with tears at the emotions surging inside him, emotions he’d thought were done and dusted but were now welling up like sewerage from an overflowing pipe. He blinked back his tears fiercely and wiped his eyes with his sleeve as he said a silent prayer.

I can’t believe this is bloody happening. Please, Shay, tell me this had nothing to do with you.

Fifteen minutes later he let himself into his house. The house was in darkness. The bedroom door was ajar and there was only the faint glow from a light in the hallway.