Ryan held Jenna close as she lay sleeping. Her silky hair fanned around her. Her smooth, bare skin pressed against him. A hint of coconut swirled around her. He could imagine every morning like this. Could Jenna?
He felt relief that everything tumultuous in Jenna’s life was settling. She had been through a tornado in the last few days and the wreckage would need to be mended, but she had survived and Cal was safe.
Maxine and Reece were headed back to Atlanta today. Maxine had missed her mysterious dinner date with Vladimir. Ryan still needed to confront his boss about that detail. Perhaps he’d loop Dorian in to get his take on the situation.
Barry was leaving Boston, Cal never knowing he had secret protection.
Ryan had texted Sonny last night to let him know everything had stabilized and he could put the funds back into investments. Sonny reminded him that he wanted to meet Jenna.
Ryan anticipated planning the next few months with Jenna—working around their schedules to see each other. They would sort out when he could meet Cal and she could meet Sonny. Maxine would have another job lined up in no time, but maybe he could eke out a week to spend with Jenna.
Direct flights between Chicago and Atlanta were easily accessible. He could see more of her if she lived in Atlanta since it was the company’s home base. And Atlanta was a shorter flight distance to Antigua. Both O’Hare and Hartsfield International had direct flights to Boston to see Cal.
Time. He needed to give her time. She needed to recuperate before he started spewing long-term plans and talk of relocation. He wouldn’t pressure her to move. He knew where he stood in the relationship and knew he loved her, but she needed it to progress at her pace.
“You look happy,” Ryan commented over his newspaper. They sat in the Miami hotel dining room over breakfast.
Jenna smiled, the joy within her reaching her eyes. “I am amazed at how this simple domestic moment feels reassuring and comfortable.”
He lowered his paper and sipped his coffee. “Good. Because I’m not sure I can maintain the level of adventure you’ve had over the last week.”
“Good. I don’t want that level of adventure.” She sipped her orange juice. She glanced at the cut on his head. Most of it was concealed by hair, but it was a reminder of the danger they had encountered.
“What level of adventure do you want?”
Her eyes sparkled at him. “Like last night will do.”
Last night had been phenomenal but also limited by jet lag. “I believe I can top that.”
“Oh?”
“But first, I need to come clean about some plans I made.”
Her smile faded.
He continued, “My line of work requires contingency plans. Situations can become beyond one’s control.”
Such as when ex-husbands lose an insurmountable amount of money.
Ryan imagined Jenna’s ex would have a lifetime of servitude to the Russians, however long that would turn out to be. Ryan wondered if Ernesto would ever find the clerical error or if Brad had even made an error at all. Perhaps the money was hidden somewhere though Brad didn’t strike Ryan as having the cojones to pull off a theft like that.
“And?” she asked.
“I had an escape plan if our meeting with Vladimir and or Ernesto hadn’t worked out. A plan that involved you, me, and Cal running and hiding. Out of reach of the Cubans. Out of reach of the Russians.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t share the back-up plan with you because I didn’t want to cause you more worry than what you already faced, but I’m telling you now because you need to know I will always have a back-up plan.”
“Sounds reasonable,” she said cautiously.
He hesitated for a moment before deciding to elaborate further. “The company I worked at for two years had many shady deals. One of which was sex trafficking—protection for the transport of high-end prostitutes. Most of the girls weren’t voluntarily in the business.”
He hated to confess his cowardice in not stopping Titan Enterprises. He had been caught between his training to be loyal, his morals, and the immense danger of what he had gotten mixed up in.
“By the time I put all of the pieces together, the most I succeeded in doing was covertly getting a few girls their freedom. If I’d had resources or ingenuity, perhaps I could have blown the lid off their illegal activities. I left after that, left all of those victims past and future to a terrible fate.”
Silence settled between them. Chatter from other tables and the clinking of dishes hung in the air around them. He didn’t look at Jenna’s face for fear of the judgment he might find.
A small, warm hand gripped his. He stared at Jenna’s hand.
He took a breath. “I never spent a dime of the money I made at that company. I gave it all to my brother, Sonny, who invested it for me. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to pay for new identities and disappear. If I never need to do that, then perhaps it will find its way to a charity someday.”
Soft lips touched the back of his hand. He looked up into Jenna’s compassionate expression.
“I appreciate you having a backup plan, Ryan. I’m thankful it didn’t come to that, but I’m glad you told me—now rather than earlier. Because, yes, it might have tipped me over the edge. I’m sorry that your last employer was a monster, but I think your days before and after that time reveal your true character. You’ve helped people. You’ll continue to help people. Sometimes in medicine I wonder if I had done certain things differently would the outcome have been better for the patient. I can’t change the decisions I made, but I can learn from them and make different ones in the future. Better choices. You’ve done that. Those events, terrible as they were, have motivated you to help people.”
“Thank you.”
She straightened in her chair. “You would have left your family and Reece to go into hiding with me?”
“They would have understood.”
“But they’re family.”
“You wouldn’t survive in hiding without me or someone like me. Reece and I have been friends since high school. Maybe our idea of an ideal relationship isn’t the same, but he would have understood.”
“I would never want to be responsible for separating you from Sonny or Reece like that.” Her eyes dropped to rest of her uneaten eggs and bacon.
He leaned forward, still gripping her hand. “And you wouldn’t be responsible. The jerks who put your life in danger would be.”
She seemed to struggle with her thoughts for a moment.
Looking up into his eyes, she cracked a mischievous smile. “Okay. Now, what’s this you mentioned about topping last night?”
He grinned. “Oh, I have ideas.”
Maxine poured herself a glass of whiskey. She raised the bottle, but Dorian politely declined with a wave of his hand.
She sank into her chair opposite her couch where the slender, British man lounged. She felt bone deep tired from so much travel. She wasn’t a spring chicken anymore, but she needed to personally handle negotiations with Ernesto and Vladimir. She felt relieved to have the ordeal behind her.
“How are Kate and Dia?”
Dorian smiled. “Splendid. Kate’s on her third novel. Dia is starting college in the fall. Enter a whole new list of fatherly worries.”
Maxine took a sip and let the amber liquor pleasantly singe its way down her throat. She knew those worries. Her son, David, fortunately seemed a ball of ambition. He had been pre-med from the beginning and never lost focus. Maxine never met any girlfriends, but suspected, with his level of determination, anyone he perceived as a distraction would be swept aside. He didn’t seem to form lasting relationships, and she wondered if she were to blame somehow. The lack of a relationship made for a remarkable career. And a remarkably lonely life.
“Thank you for going to Buenos Aires.”
Dorian nodded.
“So the spook doesn’t want to sign on?”
Dorian pursed his lips. “He finds the idea of the occasional odd job acceptable, but he doesn’t want anything permanent.”
Odd jobs she could provide. Someone of Mort Hutchinson’s talents would be helpful on an as-needed basis.
Dorian crossed his legs and leaned back on her worn suede couch. “I think you won him over when he got to launch a Hellfire into the heart of a drug manufacturing plant.”
Maxine smiled. “Firepower is one way to win a man to my side.”
“You seem to have won Vladimir Pronin.”
She sucked in a deep breath and scratched her chin. “I’m still not sure what’s brewing between us. I once thought it was mutual respect.” She ran a finger around the rim of her crystal glass. “Now, it feels more like we slipped into bed together.”
“Do you want to be in bed with him?”
Her eyes shot up to his. “I was speaking metaphorically.”
“I know. I was not.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Max, have you considered the simple possibility that he is a man seeing you as a woman? Not a game. Not a conquest. Just a woman he fancies?”
She shook her head slowly as she took another sip of whiskey. “No. There’s a play he’s making. I don’t know what it is yet.”
A long silence settled between them.
“Well,” Dorian spoke at last. “You’re not in bed with the Russian mafia. You teamed up to kick a beehive in Argentina. You haven’t any other business together.”
She felt reassurance at his words, except—“Beehive, huh?”
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction except in the underworld where the reaction is usually worse than the action. They tried a hit on Vladimir, and you blew up their compound. As an example.”
She set her now empty glass down on the coffee table, leaned back, and crossed her arms.
“Mort mentioned a new player in town in Argentina’s white chalk market. Someone wanting to optimize the trafficking.”
“Oh?” Maxine knew those had been Vladimir’s plans before the violent message leave to Argentina alone was conveyed.
“A faceless man or group called The Phoenix.”
“Oh, shit.” Maxine scrubbed her hands over her face.
Dorian arched an eyebrow at her response. “Someone you know?”
“Maybe. Probably.” Crap. She needed Claire to dig for confirmation, but Lucius Titan, mastermind of the security company Titan Enterprises had once executed a military operation entitled the Phoenix. The massacre gave him the reputation of someone who cleans others messes without pesky moral impediments. Few people knew of the covert mission. Fewer still new its code name.
“Is that going to be a problem for us?” Dorian asked.
“Maybe. Probably.” She needed another drink.
Jenna adjusted the strap of her red dress. She looked around the club as she clutched her glass of water. “What are we doing here, Ryan?” She had to raise her voice over the sounds of music playing.
“It’s Miami. No one leaves Miami without first going to a nightclub.” He winked at her.
“I lived in Miami. I’ve been to nightclubs.”
Two shot glasses arrived filled to the brim with golden liquid.
Ryan leaned over and slid one hand along her thigh. “Not with me you haven’t.”
She sucked in a ragged breath at the instant heat she felt by his touch. They had spent a glorious day together. It had begun with conversation over a breakfast of eggs and coffee. The conversation was delightfully normal; they discussed work and travel and Cal. They planned when next to visit Antigua, and Ryan talked about his next job with Rider SI. She explained the way rotations worked in the ICU. They planned to go together to pick up Cal when school was out for the summer. Later they walked in a park, sipping lemonade and holding hands. When they came to a women’s clothing store, he mysteriously had her buy a dress.
Ryan slid one of the shot glasses over to her. “Drink.”
She tipped her had back and downed the shot. The liquid burned down her throat before landing in her stomach with a thud. “Whew. I don’t remember the last time I had a shot of tequila.” She took the lemon he handed her. After sucking on it, she dropped it in the empty shot glass.
“You’ll remember this time.” He stood out of his barstool and pulled her up with him.
“Banner?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
With a smile and those sexy dimples, he led her to the dance floor. Holding her close, he started to sway.
“What are we doing?” She moved with him.
The crowd around them danced to the rhythm of the band playing.
“We’re dancing. No more running. No more fear. No more threats. You and me and the music.”
He spun her and then brought his arms down around her, his fingertips caressing her skin.
“Oh my god, you know how to salsa.” She felt the rhythm with him and moved to the beat. The hem of her dress swirled slightly with the swish of her hips.
“You sound impressed.” He smiled at her.
“I just fell in love with you.”
He laughed. “You mean all of this effort I’ve put forth over the last week, and all I needed to do was salsa with you?”
“Definitely. If we had done this the first night, I would have asked you to marry me.”
“I didn’t know you liked salsa back then.”
“I love dancing, but particularly salsa.”
Their bodies moved in synchrony. He took her into a cross body lead.
“So you want to marry me? First a vacation invitation and now a proposal? I admire your ambition, but it’s all a bit fast paced for me.”
She felt her cheeks redden. He was twisting her words again, and she suppressed a smile that might encourage him. “I want to get to know you better first.” She didn’t want to be that nineteen-year-old girl again, rushing into a relationship.
Then again, she had waited a long time for the right man—Ryan Walsh—to come into her life. Why wait longer?
“I like the sound of you getting to know me better.” His voice was a seductive purr.
“I meant your personality, your history, your likes, and dislikes.”
He pulled her into him and moved his waist against her. Her heart raced like a thoroughbred and hummed with excitement. He was driving her hormones insane, and by his expression, he knew exactly what he was achieving.
He gave her a boyish grin. “I was talking about the same thing. What’s on your mind, Doctor?”
She pursed her lips to avoid giving him the satisfaction of an incredulous open mouth gape.
He sidestepped into the next move, leading her left and then right.
“Call me your sunshine again.”
He leaned toward her ear. “Solnirshko moyo.”
“I am in love with you.” She watched the words she spoke float into the air, into the troposphere. Unleashed, for better or for worse.
Ryan gave her a wry grin as he leaned close to her ear. “You’re only saying that because you want to sleep with me.”
She laughed as he pushed her away and spun her.
Their bodies came back together flawlessly, drawn like magnets.
“I do want to sleep with you. But I am also in love with you.”