Hard Case (Hard as Nails #2) (16 page)

She closes her eyes, her expression one of full understanding. “And in order to get him out, you indentured yourselves to King again. Which is why you bailed me out of jail.” She opens her eyes and I see her horror. “It’s why I’m here now. It’s why you fucked me—”

“No,” I shout, startling us both. Quickly, I move to her, intending to sit beside her and take her in my arms, but she leaps to her feet and backs away from me, her hand held up to ward me off.

“Don’t come near me. Don’t you fucking come near me! God, what a fool I was. I fell for it. I fell for it and all you had to do was ransack my house and have those men pretend to shoot at us. I fell for all your talk about protecting me. All your supposed yearning for a relationship. Your fear I wouldn’t accept your past. Well, you’re right, I can’t accept your past. Not when it was all about using me and lying to me in order to protect your boss.”

“Rose, listen to me. Please. Yes, I lied to you. Yes, I came to you initially because King sent me, but—”

“Why do you call him King? Is that his real name? Why doesn’t anyone else call him that? The only name I could find associated with him was ‘Boss Man.’” She sneers the name, and I know exactly how she feels.

“King isn’t his real name. It’s a name he reserved for those of us at the orphanage. I do know his real name but I’m not going to tell it to you. You don’t need to know. In fact, you need NOT to know so I can insure your safety.”

“Stop it!” She’s the one to shout now. “Stop pretending you want to protect me!”

I can’t take it anymore. I stride up to her and grab her arms despite her attempts to get away. I’m careful not to hurt her, but I shake her in an attempt to break through the betrayal she’s feeling. “I’m not pretending, Rose. I’m a criminal and a liar, but everything I’ve told you about Street, my friends, Thornbridge, my father killing my mother, how I feel about you, it’s true. It’s all true, I swear.”

She stares at me and lets out a broken sound, and I can’t stand it. I pull her to me and bury my face in her neck, wrapping my arms around her. “I’m sorry, Rose. I’m so sorry. But please. Don’t take the truth I’ve given you and throw it back at me. Keep it and believe it. And then, if you want to have nothing to do with me on a personal level again, I’ll accept that. But I’m not going to let you go. I will still protect you. Always. King or no King. I’m not going to let you go to prison and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

As I’m pleading with her, I slowly sense her body relax. Only I’m too afraid to let her go. I’m afraid once she’s out of my arms, she’ll indeed disappear from my life forever, and I can’t let that happen.

I kiss her ear, and she lets out a shaky sigh.

“Slate,” she whispers. “Let me go. Please.”

I hesitate for a second, then reluctantly do as she asks. To my relief, she doesn’t move away.

“Josh called me out to a bar once, and Boss Man—
Kin
g—helped me get him in the car.”

I nod. “Yesterday, he told me for the first time he’d actually met you.”

She studies me, my clenching jaw and fits, and tilts her head. “And you didn’t like the idea of me meeting him face-to-face?”

“Hell, no, Rose. I didn’t like it. I hate it. I wish he’d never met Josh. Even though it means Josh might have stayed the Prince Charming of your dreams, and you never would have met me, I wish King hadn’t ruined your life.”

I’m telling the truth, I realize. If I could, I’d go back in time and prevent Josh Carter from ever meeting King. Hell, I’d beat sense into the prick until he realized what an amazing life he had, mansion or no mansion, and I’d make sure he spent the rest of his life making Rose happy. I’d do it, even though I’d hate it.

“You mean it, don’t you? You’ve come to care about me.”

“I mean it, Rose. And I more than care about you. Despite all this, despite knowing full well you deserve better than me, I want a future with you.”

She shakes her head and looks around at my lavish house, and I suddenly wish I lived in a run down duplex. I don’t want anything to make her think we can’t be together.

“I shouldn’t believe you. The crazy thing is, I do.” She bites her lower lip. “But it doesn’t matter. I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. I’m alone.”

“Don’t say that, Rose. I’m here. I’m right fucking here.” I grab her waist and pull her to me. Then I lower my head and kiss her, so damn glad when she kisses me back.

She grabs my T-shirt and pulls me toward her, and as our bodies press against one another, our kiss transforms from a soft and tentative caress to something fiercer. Our heads tilt to the side as our lips begin almost fighting, our tongues darting out and twisting around each other.

She grinds her hips against me and moans in my mouth.

But then as quickly as it started, it’s over.

I’m still lost in her kiss when she pulls away violently and immediately backs toward the front door. It’s only then that I notice her overnight bag is sitting in the entryway.

“There’s a cab coming to pick me up just outside the gates,” she says softly.

I shake my head. “You can’t go, Rose. Damn it, are you forgetting the men who shot at us? Because that wasn’t an act. Are you forgetting the feeling we had in your house, like we were being watched? Where are you going go?”

She smiles sadly. “I don’t know. I just know I can’t be here. And in case you think you can stop me, I’ve instructed the cabbie to call the police if I’m not out in five minutes. You and King can keep your secrets, Slate. All of them. Just please, stay away from me. If he objects, feel free to clue him in. I can’t possibly pose a threat to him when there’s nothing left of me. Not anymore.”

Chapter Eighteen

Rose

It takes everything I’ve got in me to turn and walk through Slate’s door. I hurry down Slate’s driveway to the automatic gate, which opens when I activate some kind of sensor. I glance over my shoulder a few times, but Slate hasn’t followed me outside.

The cab is waiting for me at the curb. It is my freedom, my escape. A shabby cab with a driver ready and willing to take me anywhere I want to go.

I climb into the back with my overnight bag and immediately say, “Just start driving. Please start driving.”

The cab driver looks at me over his shoulder, then obediently starts driving away. I look out the back window, my heart tearing in two at the sight of Slate’s large house getting smaller the father away we travel. Finally, I can’t see it anymore, and I turn back around and lay my head wearily on the back of the seat.

“Where do you want to go?” the cabbie asks me.

And that’s when it hits me. I have no where to go. I refuse to go back to my house. Even if I could stomach it, I’m too scared of who might come looking for me there. I have no friends. No family. I am truly alone. I have nothing except the clothes on my back and my things in my bag.

I meet the eyes of the cab driver in the rearview mirror, and my tears start falling. A wave of sorrow and despair washes over me.

“Are you okay?” he asks kindly.

“I don’t know,” I sob.

I’m surprised I can even cry now. I’m surprised I can still feel as deeply as I do. I take a couple of deep, shaky breaths, trying to calm myself.

“Would you like me just to drive until you figure it out?” A sense of urgency starts to creep into his voice.

I take another deep breath, forcing myself to pull it together; now is not the time to let this break me down. “Yes. Just drive for now. Or…is there a hotel or something near here?” I don’t have much money, but I have my credit cards.

“Sure, I’ll take you,” he says with a smile, but then he glances into the rearview mirror and frowns. At the same time, I hear the roar of a motorcycle behind us.

I immediately stiffen and look out the back window.

My heart slams against my chest as I see Slate on his bike.

He’s following me.

He didn’t let me go.

And I am filled with such conflicting emotions that I actually feel dizzy.

I feel anxious. Angry. He lied to me. I can’t trust him any longer.

But I can’t deny I feel relief. That some part of me had been hurt he hadn’t come after me. Hadn’t tried harder to get me to stay. Hadn’t given all he had to begging for my forgiveness and winning me back, even if that meant declaring his love for me.

I laugh bitterly and shake my head. Obviously, I am a fool of the highest order.

“Anyone you know?” the cab driver asks.

“Yes. But no one I want to see or talk to right now.”

He nods. “Well, he’s staying several car lengths back. Do you want me to try and lose him?”

For a second, I imagine the cab driver gunning it down the road, taking one sharp turn after another in an effort to shake Slate, all to no avail.

“No,” I say. “Just keep driving. He’ll get tired after a while and give up.”

Only he doesn’t get tired. And he doesn’t give up.

At my urging, the cabbie drives for an hour. Then another hour. Miles and miles out of the city limits. Miles away from Slate’s home. And still Slate follows me.

“I’m going to need to stop for gas soon,” the cab driver says.

I spot a restaurant on the side of the road, a twenty-four hour diner, and say, “You can pull over here.”

“You sure?”

I nod. Then I say, “Looks like I’m going to have to talk to him after all. But I have to say…I think he’s earned it.”

He nods in understanding. “He’s definitely persistent.”

I slide him all the cash I have to cover the cost of the ride. “Thank you for everything.”

“No problem,” he says with a smile, fishing out a card to pass to me. “Give me a call if you ever need a ride, or if you need me to come back to get you.”

I take the card and slide it into my pocket. “Thanks.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cabbie with a business card before, but then again, how often do I take cabs?

He pulls to the curb in front of the diner, and I step onto the sidewalk. Slate pulls to the curb almost a block away from me. Even when the cabbie drives away, he doesn’t approach me. He simply watches me with his bike rumbling underneath him, like some panting, growling predator ready to pounce on its prey.

A voice in my head screams at me to go to him, to let him in and forgive him. To accept him as he his and trust that deep down he really cares for me, no matter how things started. But I can’t do it.

I love him, I realize. I’ve fallen in love with a man in a matter of days. I’ve fallen in love with a man a week after I’d killed Josh, and there’s something seriously wrong with that, isn’t there? And even if there isn’t, what do I think is going to happen? That smooth, suave, sexy Slate is going to fall in love with me and want to spend the rest of his life giving me orgasms and making me happy?

My relationship with Josh was charmed. We were the perfect couple, at least starting out, and for most of our marriage. And look what happened there, I remind myself. Look at how that ended up.

Yet, Slate’s still there. Waiting. Watching. Why?

Because he’s protecting me?

That is what he said he’d do, no matter what.

Despite his lies, I can’t deny he’s kept me safe. From those men who shot at us. And from King. Suddenly, I know that all his statements about how things had been between Josh and I had been his way of simply confirming what he already suspected—that I didn’t know anything that could incriminate King. He’d likely been spending the past week reassuring King of that fact, over and over again. Not because he wanted to work for King, but he felt compelled to.

And for a man like Slate, who’d grown up the way he had, and seen what he had, being at King’s mercy had to be incredibly difficult. Yet instead of doing the easy thing and leaving me to fend for myself, he’d spent his time and energy protecting me. Getting to know me.

Before I know what I’m doing, I’m walking toward him.

He watches me approach him on his motorcycle. His face is tired and weary.

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” I shout over the grumbling engine.

He shakes his head, then kills the engine, and in the absence of the noise, I realize just how loud it had been.

“You’d follow me anywhere, wouldn’t you?”

“You know I would,” he replies.

I take a deep breath and take a step closer to him, stepping down off the curb, standing next to him on the motorcycle. I know deep in my heart that he’s earned another chance with me, in spite of all the lies and the manipulation. But I’m still raw from his deception, and I’m feeling petty enough to make him prove himself to me, just once more.

“Our relationship has been based on lies,” I tell him. “You do realize that, don’t you?”

He nods.

“Against my better judgment, I want to move past that. But that’s going to be hard for me. Really hard. And in order to do that, I need you to do something that’s hard for you. I need you to give me a part of you you’ve never given anyone before.”

“How? Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it, Rose.”

I hesitate, not wanting to hurt him even now, but needing to know for sure that by taking him back, I was investing in something more than a sexual fling. I was taking a risk on a real relationship. One that might not last. One that would have its share of troubles. But one, despite the horrible things I’d suffered lately, I still wanted.