Four years and five months ago…
“I’m guessing you aren’t going to invite me in.”
Ren would take what he could get where Candy was concerned, but he wasn’t an idiot. He somehow doubted quick, dirty sex in her carport was going to make her change her mind about wanting something more with him.
She dismounted, using both hands to smooth down her skirt and then her hair, and Ren found a wadded up napkin in his pocket to dispose of the condom—trying to act like his brain wasn’t still scrambled and he couldn’t still feel the imprint of her mouth on his palm where he’d pressed it over her lips to muffle her cries when she came.
“Thanks for the ride,” she said—and he almost laughed at the double entendre, but he had a feeling the sound would have been more bitter than amused and he didn’t want to give away his frustration. It wouldn’t help his cause.
“Anytime,” he answered instead, tucking himself away. Trying not to be pissed.
He’d gotten laid. And it had been fan-fucking-tastic. What red blooded American man complained when his fuck buddy didn’t want to talk about feelings afterward?
Apparently, he did. At least in the privacy of his own mind.
“G’night, Pretty Boy.”
She’d called him Ren when he was inside her. But now she wanted distance and he was Pretty Boy again.
“G’night, Candy. Get a car that works.” Though if she did, what would she need him for?
He yanked on his helmet with more force than necessary, dropping hers back in the storage compartment with brisk, jerky movements before driving away. Telling himself not to look back. Looking anyway. Nearly running his bike onto the curb watching her climb the steps to her condo. Such a freaking sap.
* * * * *
Present day…
Ren had been acting differently since the terrace, no longer pushing her to be buddy-buddy with her family, just watching her. Hanging back. Cautious. Like he’d just realized she was made of porcelain and didn’t know how to handle her anymore.
“Who told you?”
Ren looked across the suite they shared at her, the expression on his face confirmation enough. She hated that look. Nervous. Careful.
At least he didn’t pretend not to know what she meant.
“Aiden,” he admitted. “He assumed I already knew.”
It was a reasonable assumption. If they’d really been married, she would have had to tell him at some point.
Her family didn’t talk about it, but she’d worried it might come up. She’d been afraid it would. She’d almost told him so many times in the last week—but in the end, self-preservation had been stronger than her desire to make the marriage lie seem more authentic.
And now he knew anyway.
Candy reached for her Tums. “I guess you want to hear about it.”
“If you want to tell me.”
Of course she didn’t want to tell him. If she’d wanted to tell him, she would have brought it up years ago, but it was the elephant in the room now and the only way to get it out of here was to smother it with words. She looked over at her ex-lover.
His face was so fucking cautious. God, she hated that. When people treated her like she was fragile because of what had happened to her. She wasn’t. She was stronger. She was steel, damn it. Because she’d made herself invincible. She wasn’t a victim. She was a warrior.
Irritation made her voice sharper than she’d intended. “It’s probably not as bad as you’re imagining. I was drugged the whole time. I don’t really remember it.”
He looked at her like he could tell she was lying. Like he could hear the whispers she sometimes heard in her nightmares.
She had been drugged for most of it. Just not all. And the parts she’d been awake for… it was hard to forget the fear.
“How old were you?”
“Twelve. It was my birthday. And all I was thinking about was how badly I wanted to get my ears pierced. Zero situational awareness.”
“You were a kid. You shouldn’t have had to have situational awareness.”
She shrugged. “I guess not. We knew it could happen. Kidnapping was practically a cottage industry in Venezuela at the time. That’s why we had Kidnapping and Ransom insurance and bodyguards—though that doesn’t do much good when one of your bodyguards is in on it. He vanished after that, but I remember seeing him in the driver’s seat of the car right before they drugged me.”
Candy had been on her way home from ballet class, smug in the certainty that she was going to get her ears pierced because Charlotte had been allowed to get her ears pierced on her twelfth birthday. She hopped into her guard’s SUV like she always did, oblivious to even the possibility of danger, only to find a sticky sweet rag pressed over her mouth and a dark hood dropping over her eyes before the world went black.
“How long did it take them to get you back?”
“Four days. But I was drugged pretty much whenever they weren’t feeding me.”
* * * * *
The words were a blow, but Ren had been taught how to take a hit and he breathed through it. No wonder she didn’t trust people. The person hired to protect her had betrayed her. His chest felt tight. He knew she’d lied about not remembering and he hated thinking of that younger version of Candy, scared and alone, but he needed to know whatever she was ready to tell him.
“Did you have much contact with them?”
“They never touched me, if that’s what you mean. Have to keep the merchandise in prime shape. They were pros. Kept me blindfolded, their faces hidden, only spoke in Spanish, which I didn’t understand then.” She smiled without humor, her eyes blank. “My mother thought French was a more elegant language. We all went to the American School, surrounded by children of diplomats and international businessmen, so I rarely even heard Spanish and the closest we ever got to local culture were the maids who cleaned up after us.”
“You must have been so scared.”
She seemed startled by the comment. “Kidnapping is a business in many parts of South America. You’d be surprised how common it is.” As if the commonplace couldn’t be frightening. “I was lucky. There was another girl taken with me. Her family didn’t have as much pull. It took them weeks to get her back, though I didn’t know it at the time.”
Ren wanted to cross the room, to pull her into his arms and tell her how grateful he was that she’d been one of the lucky ones, but throughout the conversation she’d been putting more and more distance between them and he didn’t want to make her feel crowded by closing it now.
“I got better security after that,” she commented, her tone dispassionate, as if they were talking about the weather. “A former Secret Service agent who ended up being my first mentor. She taught me about martial arts and guns and disguises and situational awareness. Everything a rebellious thirteen-year-old is desperate to learn. She’s the one who introduced me to Max.”
“Where is she now?” The affection in Candy’s voice when she mentioned her mentor spoke volumes about their relationship.
“Lung cancer,” she said, blunt and unflinching. “Smoked like a chimney, but she was a tough lady. One of the first female agents in protection. She taught me that you have to be tougher than all the guys. Never let them see you flinch.” Candy eyed him. “And never sleep with them because they lose all respect for you the second you do.”
“I didn’t.”
She looked at him for a long moment, as if evaluating the truth in his words before shrugging. “You’re the exception.”
He wanted to be. He wanted to be her exception. “You don’t have to always be tough, Candy. Not with me.” The pieces she’d added filled in more of the gaps in the puzzle that was Candy Raines, but there were still so many pieces missing. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She looked out the window, but it was dark beyond the glass and all she could be looking at was blackness. Or her own face reflected back at her. “It’s not the kind of thing that comes up in everyday conversation. And I didn’t want you to know.”
She turned back to him and something of his disappointment must have shown on his face because she rolled her eyes. “It isn’t about you, Pretty Boy. People look at me differently when they know and I didn’t want you to look at me like that. Like you’re looking at me now.”
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like this defines me. It doesn’t, you know.”
“Are you sure about that? It seems like you’ve been putting up walls to protect yourself ever since. Did you ever talk to anyone about this?”
“We don’t talk about our feelings in this family.”
“What about a therapist?”
“I’m fine.”
On any other day he might have let it go, but he was so frustrated with her, so frustrated with being locked out of her life that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut this time. “You have nightmares every other night. You spend most of your life hiding behind one disguise or another and push away anyone who might want to care about you. You refuse to ask for help, let alone trust anyone. Is that your definition of fine?”
Her expression locked down tight, eyes blank. “It’s nobody’s business but mine if it is.”
“What if I want it to be my business? What if I’ve been trying to make it my business for years? Trying to be worthy of your trust. Does that matter at all? Do I matter at all?”
She pursed her lips, tight and angry. “I like you, Pretty Boy. But you aren’t my husband. You might want to try to remember that.”
She turned and walked into the bathroom, leaving him alone in their luxurious suite.