It was the last thing Max had expected Rosie to say next.
Did he believe in soul mates?
Until that evening a year ago, his cynical view of the world would have made his answer a definitive no.
But this aching hollow he’d been feeling inside his chest since then, and his disinterest in being with any other woman but Rosie, socially as well as sexually, was enough to make him at least question that opinion.
“Do you believe in soul mates?” he prompted huskily.
“Until a year ago, no,” she answered him with her usual honesty. “Since then, I’ve had to rethink the situation.”
Did that mean Rosie thought…? “You believe we’re soul mates?”
She gave a half smile. “I can detect the skepticism in your expression and the tone of your voice.”
“It isn’t directed toward you, personally, but to the idea of soul mates in general.” He gave a shake of his head. “If you had a soul mate, shouldn’t he be more your own age, rather than seventeen years older?”
Her smile was rueful. “I have an old soul.”
“Hey,” he protested lightly. “I didn’t say I was old, just older.”
Rosie chuckled before sobering. “Something inside me recognized you that night. Since then, I’ve needed to—and this is probably going to sound a bit creepy—but every month or so, when my shop is closed for the afternoon on a Wednesday, I’ve felt driven to sit in the coffee shop opposite the Kingston Security offices in the hope of seeing you again. Much like an addict needing a fix,” she admitted with a self-conscious wince.
Did that sound creepy to Max?
No more so than the battle he’d constantly waged with himself this past year not to go anywhere near Rosie’s shop and apartment so that he could watch her. In the hope it might momentarily appease that hungry need he felt to be close to her.
He looked at her searchingly now. “How can two people who don’t really know each other possibly be soul mates?”
She chuckled. “I think that’s the whole idea of soul mates. The soul recognizes its match and hopes that the people involved will catch up.”
“Eyes meeting across a crowded room?”
She smiled. “Our eyes might not have met that night a year ago, but it now seems we were both completely aware of the other. Nor have we forgotten each other.”
“In my case, not even for a moment,” Max confirmed. “I also haven’t touched another woman since that night, let alone wanted one,” he admitted gruffly.
“And you’re the reason those two dates Sinclair mentioned I’d been on a few months ago were such a disaster,” Rosie told him. “I only went on them in the first place to try to get over this…obsession I seem to have for you. But I then spent the whole of those two evenings comparing them to you, and neither of them came anywhere near matching up. They were always less,” she explained when he raised questioning brows.
Max scowled. “One was also a fortune hunter and the other an adulterer.”
Rosie tilted her head as she studied him. “You sound jealous.”
Murderous might better describe Max’s feelings when Sinclair had mentioned the two men Rosie had been out on a date with.
Was that jealousy?
Max hadn’t ever felt the emotion before, but he couldn’t think of any other explanation for the rage that consumed him at the mere thought of another man touching Rosie.
He nodded. “I’ve never felt the emotion before, but I believe that’s exactly what I am right now.”
Rosie raised a hand and placed it on his bare chest. “You have no reason to be,” she reassured. “Not now, nor at any time in the future.”
Did they have a future?
As Rosie said, only time, and the two of them getting to know each other would reveal that.
“Does this mean we’re in love with each other now?” he teased, not sure how he felt at the thought of being that emotionally vulnerable to anyone.
Who the hell was he kidding? He couldn’t be any more vulnerable when it came to Rosie. To the need he had to look at her. To talk with her. Even to argue with her. Was that being in love? He had no fucking idea!
“It means we might be one day,” she answered dryly. “Maybe,” she teased.
In the meantime, he ached to take her back to bed and finish what they’d started. He—
“Max!” A fist landed loudly on the door into Max’s adjoining suite, accompanied by Casper calling his name only a second or two before the door was heard opening. “Max, I’ve—” The silence indicated Casper had entered the suite and discovered Max’s absence.
Max grimaced. “This isn’t going to be good,” he warned as he opened her bedroom door to walk the short distance along the hallway to look into his own suite. He placed a hand either side of the doorframe to gaze at Casper standing in the middle of the empty sitting room with a puzzled expression on his face.
His brother gave a shake of his head when he looked up and saw him. “I didn’t see you downstairs.”
“That’s because I wasn’t downstairs,” Max stated.
Rosie ducked beneath his left arm before wrapping her arms about his waist and leaning her head on his chest. “He was in my bedroom with me.”
Casper blinked, obviously taken completely by surprise at their obvious closeness when earlier Rosie hadn’t even been able to look at Max. “It’s three o’clock in the morning,” he finally managed to say.
“Is it?” she came back brightly. “Can you believe how quickly the time’s passed since you came into my bedroom, Max?” she teased.
He dropped his arm onto her shoulders. “Stop tormenting the poor man.”
She raised innocent brows. “Am I tormenting you, Casper?”
“Only with curiosity,” he drawled, obviously having regained some of his equilibrium. “A curiosity which will have to wait,” he added briskly as he straightened. “Cara tried to call you ten minutes ago. At least, your cell phone rang, and the caller ID was Cara’s cell phone.”
“Oh my God…” Rosie leaned weakly into Max. “What did she say?”
“The call was cut off too abruptly for her to say anything. But,” Casper continued at Rosie’s groan of disappointment, “her cell phone is still switched on, and it’s allowed me to trace where it and, hopefully Cara, both are.”
Max’s arm had tightened reassuringly about Rosie’s shoulders, her face having paled at this reminder of exactly why she had come to Kingston Manor yesterday.
As if she’d needed a reminder!
He doubted Rosie had forgotten for a moment that her sister was currently believed to be at the mercy of the son of Kirill Bortkov.
“Where is she?” Max prompted economically even as his arm anchored Rosie more tightly to his side.
“I won’t bother going into the details of how and why, but Junior obviously thinks of himself as being something of an expert at hiding himself and his possessions inside coded files.” Casper gave a derisive snort. “I was going through those files when the call from Cara’s phone came through. I’d already discovered that Bortkov senior left his son enough money to buy a chateau in France, a palace in Russia, a cottage in the Lake District, and an island off the coast of Scotland. I guess crime really does pay,” he added disgustedly.
“Get on with it,” Max told him.
His brother nodded. “Adam says that Cara’s passport is still in the safe in her house— Don’t ask,” he advised when Rosie looked as if she might be about to inquire how Adam had been able to look inside Cara’s safe without knowing the combination. “Armed with that information and the knowledge that no one of Junior’s and Cara’s description took off in a plane from any of the smaller private airports in the UK, and there were no reports of an unwilling woman being forced through customs at any of the main UK airports and then onto a plane, it’s best to assume they’re still in this country. I’ve pinpointed the call from Cara’s cell phone as coming from the Lake District.” He grimaced. “Cara might not be there too, of course, and this could all be a ruse to throw us off the scent. But Sinclair and Adam agree with me that we have to investigate. Sooner, rather than later.”
Max winced. “Sinclair and Adam are still awake too?”
“You know Sinclair can’t rest when he gets a quarry in his sights.” Casper shrugged. “And Adam has stated quite clearly he isn’t going anywhere, least of all to bed, until he knows Cara is safe. Talking of which, what’s going on with him and—”
“Not now, Casper.” Max wanted to protect Adam’s feelings for Cara for as long as he possibly could. Although he doubted that would be possible once they’d rescued her. If they rescued her, he grimly reminded himself. “What do you think, Rosie?”
Rosie wasn’t sure what to think.
Her head was still spinning slightly from that earlier conversation with Max where, although neither of them had realized it at the time, they had both been unable to stop looking at each other that evening a year ago. Or stop thinking about each other since.
They also seemed to have come to some sort of agreement to the possibility of them both realizing they were soul mates.
Quite what that would mean for the future, Rosie had no idea. She really couldn’t see the arrogant Max doing things like asking her out on a date, let alone buying her flowers and giving her compliments like a normal man would when he was attracted to a woman. From what Rosie knew of him in the past, Max didn’t do any of those things. He didn’t do relationships at all.
And now wasn’t the time for her to think too long about any of that anyway.
In truth, she was trying to avoid the elephant in the room, namely her sister being in the vengeful clutches of Caesar Bortkov.
Rosie’s earlier panic for her sister’s safety had returned with a vengeance, swamping every other emotion, until she felt as if she couldn’t breathe—
“Look at me,” Max soothed softly as he stepped in front of her to grasp the tops of her arms. His voice compelled her to look at him and only him. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. I won’t let anyone harm you.”
Rosie knew exactly what he was doing, and there was no denying she felt an inner calm settle inside her from hearing those words. “Reassuring as that is, that approach isn’t going to work every time I look in danger of losing it,” she mused. “Nor”—she sobered—“am I the one currently in danger.”
“It’s enough for me to know that you could be if we don’t deal with this bastard now,” Max grated as he stepped back. “I want you to stay here with Sinclair and Casper while Adam and I go—”
“Absolutely not,” she stated without heat. “It’s my sister that bastard has in his clutches. Besides, if you’re going, then so am I.”
Fire blazed briefly in Max’s eyes before it was quickly dampened. “Rosie—”
“Er, Max,” Casper interrupted. “Sinclair is already changing out of his suit and into tactical gear in readiness for coming with you and Adam. I’m coming too. I have a feeling you might need to call on my computer skills once we get there. This guy is absolutely no match for me,” he stated without ego. “But he’s deluded himself into believing he’s something of a tech expert. As such, he might have security measures in place about and inside the cottage that I could more easily find and deal with than any of you.”
“Fine.” Max threw up his hands in surrender, his impatience barely contained. “It seems we’re all going on a family outing to the Lake District!”
Casper eyed the two of them speculatively. “Family, huh?”
Despite the direness of the situation, Rosie couldn’t help laughing at the scowl Max gave his youngest brother.
Which only made Max scowl more. “When did I suddenly become surrounded by bloody comedians?” he muttered as he strode forcefully through to his bedroom.
“Rosie, I don’t think either of us should give up the day job, if Max’s reaction to our humor is anything to go by,” Casper drawled as he joined her in the doorway.
“Maybe we just need to practice more?” she suggested.
“Maybe what the two of you need to do is move your butts if you intend coming with us to the Lake District,” Max growled from his bedroom doorway.
Casper made a face. “Touchy, touchy.”
Rosie shrugged. “Jealous, probably, that you and I are getting along so well.”
“Really?” Casper speculated. “Can’t say I’ve ever known Max to show that emotion before.”
“In all fairness, he hadn’t met me before,” she said as the two of them fell into step to walk down the hallway together.
“Oh for fuck’s sake…!” Max could be heard muttering his frustration with their verbal antics.
Casper gave her a conspiratorial wink. “If he didn’t shave off his hair, I’m pretty sure he’d be pulling it out by now!”
Rosie chuckled. “You’re a bad influence on me, Casper Kingston.”
He shrugged. “I don’t get out much, so I have to take my amusement where I can get it.”
She came to a stop outside her assigned bedroom, her expression deadly serious. “Thank you for helping us, Casper.” She placed her hand briefly on his arm. “I really appreciate it, and I know Cara will too.”
“Apparently, we’re all family now.” He grinned at her before sobering. “We’ll get Cara back. Safe and unharmed. We’d better, or Adam is going to transform into the Grim Reaper in front of our eyes.”
Rosie grimaced. “I don’t understand what’s going on there.”
“Let’s just get Cara back and then wait and see, hm?” He gave her a last reassuring smile before hurrying down the hallway, presumable to his own suite to change into more suitable clothing for a visit to the Lake District.
Rosie needed to do the same.