Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (15 page)

She couldn't not cry.

She didn't know how long she stood staring out at the vast and endless ocean.

Long enough for the tide to roll in and over her toes, across her feet, up her calves.

Long enough for stars to twinkle against the darkness of the night sky.

More than long enough for her tears to dry and her heart to crack wide-open as the truth settled over her like a mantle. Like a weight she couldn't bear.

Marc would never believe in her. Even if he found proof that she hadn't stolen those diamonds, he still wouldn't trust her. No matter what she did, no matter how much she'd changed her life, no matter how much she tried to convince him that she wasn't the person she'd once been, it wouldn't matter. He would see only what he wanted to see, believe only what he'd always believed.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, one that shattered the last vestiges of hope she hadn't even realized she'd been holding on to. But it was also the catalyst she needed to get moving again, the impetus that got her started on the long walk back to Bijoux's headquarters—and her car.

And if she cried the whole way back, well then, nobody needed to know but her...

Eighteen

M
arc kept his staff working well into the night, trying to find out what had happened to the diamonds. Or, more accurately, trying to find proof that Isa had stolen them. Not because he planned to press charges but because he wanted to know.

No, not wanted. Needed. He
needed
to know. Needed the vindication that came with being proven right. He needed to know that the look on her face—in her eyes—as he'd gone off on her had been as fake as the tender words she'd whispered to him while they made love.

Because if that look wasn't fake— He shut the thought down fast. No, he wasn't going there. Wasn't going to think, even for a second, that he had made a mistake. Because if he let that idea in now, he'd never get it out of his head again. And he wanted to believe it so badly, wanted so much for Isa to be innocent, that he was afraid he would convince himself she was, even if she wasn't.

Or worse, he would convince himself that the theft didn't matter at all.

It hadn't been big diamonds, wouldn't cost his company much of anything, really, except the annoyance and manpower that came with trying to figure out how the theft had been accomplished.

He'd been over the tapes himself. He'd had Nic and Lisa and his most trusted security people go over them, too. He'd examined every second Isa had been in the vault, had studied every drawer she'd opened, every diamond she'd looked at. And he couldn't see it. Couldn't find where—or how—she'd done it.

And he needed to know how because he was never going to know why. They'd spent the past three nights making love and it had felt so good, so right. They'd fallen into old routines, old patterns of conversation, so easily. As if the six years he'd spent without her hadn't happened. As if the whole debacle back in New York was just a nightmare and not the sad, awful truth that had woken him up in the middle of the night for years.

When he thought about going back to that loneliness, thought about the fact that he would never hold Isa in his arms again, it made him crazy. Made him want to grab her and shake her all over again.

How could she do this?

Why would she do this?

How could the money from fencing the diamonds be more important to her than what they had between them?

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was only imagining that there were feelings under the heat. Maybe, when he'd been falling for her all over again, she'd only been using him. Only been looking for a way to get back at him for the way he'd kicked her out all those years ago.

It made sense—it really did. As long as he didn't take into account how hard she'd worked these past few days to help him debunk that ridiculous
LA Times
article. Or how her arms had felt around him after they'd made love, so warm and sexy and perfect.

But if all that mattered to her was the thrill of the boost, why had she held him so tenderly? Why had she gone so high, so deep, when he made love to her? Why had she given herself to him so completely?

The questions were driving him crazy, the lack of understanding made him hurt in a way he hadn't let himself experience in six long years.

Furious, frustrated, completely fed up with himself and the entire situation, he turned back to his computer. Pulled up the video footage for the third time that night. And once again, watched every second of film showing Isa in the vault.

Every single second.

Most of it was boring, with nothing happening except Isa studying the diamonds under a microscope and triple-checking the serial numbers. But the times she moved, the times she crossed the vault to get a new drawer or to put one away or, ostensibly, only to stretch, he watched those the most intently.

Because he was looking for the theft, he told himself. He wanted to know when she'd dropped the diamonds into her pocket and how she'd gotten them out of the vault, out of the building. But the sad truth was, even with everything that had happened, for most of the video he just found himself watching her.

The fluid way she walked.

The way her hips swayed with each step.

The way her hair curled over her shoulders, caressed her breasts.

And damn, this so wasn't helping. It wasn't helping him find whatever he'd missed and it sure as hell wasn't helping him forget what it felt like to touch Isa's beautiful body, to hold her in his arms as he slipped inside her.

He reached for his mouse, scrolled the video back several minutes and promised himself that this time he would pay attention. This time he wouldn't be distracted by thoughts of what she looked like and smelled like and tasted like.

Except he was only a minute into the video when a knock sounded on his office door. He froze the screen, and even though it was ridiculous, he couldn't help feeling like a kid who'd been caught watching porn. The fact that Isa had all her clothes on and was doing nothing more than counting diamonds didn't make him any less guilty.

Shoving his chair back from his desk, he walked to the door. Pulled it open. And found Bob standing there, looking as close to frantic as he'd ever seen his security chief look.

Marc's stomach sank even as he stepped aside so Bob could enter. “What's wrong now?”

“There's a problem with the video,” he responded, walking around Marc's desk so that he was stationed in front of his laptop. “Can you pull up your email?”

“What kind of problem?” he demanded, already logging in and opening the first email on the list.

“There's a time lapse.” Bob clicked on the attachment, then waited impatiently for the footage to download.

“A time lapse?”

“The feed in the vault was cut for a period of approximately seven minutes.”

“From which camera?” Marc demanded, impatience thrumming through him.

“From all of them.”

“Excuse me?”

Bob paled at his tone. “That's what it looks like, at least. Every camera in and outside the vault has a seven-minute time lapse.”

“And no one noticed that the feed had been cut? Where the hell was Security?”

“That's the thing. I don't think those seven minutes were cut out until after the theft—the footage was recorded, then deleted.”

“So, again, I'm asking you. Where the hell was Security?” Marc demanded with a glare. “People are paid to do nothing but watch those monitors twenty-four hours a day.”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out. We don't yet know if they fed other footage into the digital stream, but that's what I'm surmising. At this point, there's no other explanation that makes sense.”

“Someone hacked into my system—my specially designed, one-of-a-kind, cover-all-the-bases system—and took control of every camera in or around the vault. That's what you're telling me?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“And no one noticed.”

“That's not totally true. We noticed.”

“Not until after the theft!” he snapped, then bent down to look at the dates at the bottom of the footage. “This happened on Monday?”

“Yes.”

“How did they hack in?”

“We're still working on that.”

“Work harder. And get Geoffrey and Max on it. I want an answer—tonight.”

“I get that you're upset, Marc, but we're doing the best we can. The work was so good that it's damn impressive one of my guys even caught—”

“It will be damn impressive when you find the weakness he exploited and eliminate it. Until then, it's only sloppy.” He stared at the screen grimly. “On every single one of our parts.”

Bob didn't have much more to say after that—not that Marc blamed him. He was furious, absolutely seething now that he knew some thief had hacked into his computer system. He had two of the best internet security guys in the world on his payroll and some jackass had managed to completely hijack his security feed?

Enraged
didn't begin to cover what Marc was feeling.

He spent the next few hours snapping at his employees as every single one of them—including him—searched for the weakness. For how it had been done. By the time midnight rolled around, they still hadn't found the weakness in the operating system that had allowed this to happen. Which made him—and his computer security guys—even more suspicious.

Usually, hackers and thieves didn't care if you knew how they got in. They'd already gotten what they wanted, after all, so why should it matter to them if you closed the hole after they'd left? But this person had made sure to cover their tracks so well that Marc couldn't help wondering if this was the first time it had happened—or if it was merely the first time the thief had gotten caught? Maybe the person had been stealing from them for quite some time, taking only a couple small, inconsequential stones every few months, all in an effort to stay off the radar.

They only inventoried the vault fully twice a year. So if this hadn't been going on very long—if they'd only caught it because of the internal audit they were running—

He finally let himself acknowledge what had been racing around his mind for hours. He finally let himself admit how thoroughly he'd screwed up.

The thought had him sweating, had his stomach clenching and his heart beating too fast. Because if this was an inside job, which he and his security guys thought it was, and it had been going on for a while, then...then there was no way Isa was responsible for it.

He'd blamed her, cut her out, and she hadn't done it.

The thought made him sick, especially if he let himself think about what she'd looked like after he'd confronted her. How shocked, how hurt...how devastated.

She'd looked like he'd felt, as if her whole world had been yanked out from under her. Again.

And he'd done it to her. Just like he'd done it to her six years ago. He'd let his anger and his pride and his distrust get the better of him, again. The fact that he'd actually let her collect her things this time didn't make him feel any better about himself as a human being—or as a boyfriend.

With a curse, he shoved back from the conference room table they'd been using as command central.

Nic, Bob, Geoffrey—and all the others gathered there—stared at him in trepidation. It made him realize just how angry, and vile, he'd been to all of them since the theft was discovered.

“Go home,” he told them gruffly. “We'll pick this up tomorrow.”

“Home?” Geoffrey repeated, as if it was a concept utterly foreign to him.

“We've been at this for days, pretty much nonstop. Go home, get some sleep, relax a little. We'll pick it up in the morning.”

“Who are you?” Nic demanded. But Marc noticed that his brother shoved away from the table pretty damn quickly.

“The damage has already been done, right? I want two extra guards stationed on the vault floor—one right outside the vault and an extra guard running patrol and—weakness or not—the vault should be okay for another night, right?”

They nearly tripped over themselves agreeing with him.

“Okay, then. Go home and I'll see you back here at 7 a.m.”

Before they could say anything else, he turned on his heel and strode out. He had something important to do and it was already days—years—overdue.

Nineteen

I
sa woke up from a fitful sleep at the first round of violent pounding on her front door. Fumbling for her phone—just in case she had to call 9-1-1—she glanced at the time. One o'clock. Who on earth was at her door at one in the morning?

Snatching her robe from the chair by her bed, she shrugged it on as she made her way cautiously to her front door. A look through the window told her Marc was her middle-of-the-night visitor. He looked better than he had any right to, especially considering how haggard and exhausted she knew she must look.

Their gazes met through the glass and for a second she was mesmerized by the look in his eyes. But then her sense of self-preservation kicked in and she yanked her gaze away—at the same time she took a couple steps back. She didn't want to see him, didn't want to talk to him or even look at him. Not now, when the wounds were still so fresh. Not now, when it still hurt to breathe.

Marc must have read her intention on her face, though, because the pounding doubled. And then he started to call to her. “Open the door, Isa. Please. I just want to talk to you.”

She shook her head even though he couldn't see her anymore, backed away a few more steps. She didn't want to see him—couldn't see him. It hurt too much. Even knowing that she was responsible for his distrust, that she'd brought all of this on herself with how she'd behaved six years ago, didn't make the pain any easier to bear.

“Damn it, Isa, please! I just want to talk to you.”

But she didn't want to talk to him. She couldn't handle any more accusations, couldn't handle him looking at her as if she was trash. Or worse, as if she'd ripped out his heart. She hadn't done it, hadn't stolen the jewels, but that didn't make her feel any less guilty. Not when she'd been responsible for so much of what had happened to him, and Bijoux, six years ago.

“Isa! Please! I'm sorry.” For the first time, his voice cracked. “I'm so sorry. Please let me in.”

It hurt her to hear him sound so broken. Before she could think better of it, she cleared her throat, told him, “Go away, Marc. This isn't helping anyone.”

“Isa, please. You have every right to hate me, every right to be angry with me. But please, I'm begging of you, don't send me away.”

She didn't know how to respond to that. He sounded so different from the man she'd spoken to on Wednesday that it broke her heart all over again. She couldn't stand to hear the pain in his voice, couldn't stand to hear him beg when she'd been the one to hurt him so badly that he'd never be able to trust her again.

Her body moved before her mind made a conscious decision, sliding the dead bolt back and taking the chain off and opening the door to him. To Marc. The only man she'd ever loved.

The only man she'd ever hurt.

“I'm sorry,” he told her the moment they were face-to-face. “I'm so sorry.”

“It's okay,” she told him, stepping back to let him in the house. “I assume you've found the thief?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not yet.”

His words didn't make any sense. “I don't understand. If you don't know who did it, why are you here?”

“Because I know it wasn't you. Because I'm an asshole who let the pain of the past blind him to the woman you've become, the woman you are now.”

She stared at him stupidly. She could hear what he was saying, but she couldn't comprehend it. Not when it was so far from what she'd expected. So far from anything in their experience so far.

“How do you know it wasn't me?”

“I know because I know you.”

“You knew me three days ago. That didn't seem to matter.”

“Three days ago, I was a blind, bullheaded ass who was too busy trying to hide his wounds to think things through.”

“What things?”

“Everything. The idea that you would steal from Bijoux is ridiculous. And if you did, I'd like to think you'd have better taste than to take a few mundane diamonds that don't matter much to anyone.”

“Seriously?” she demanded, feeling as if she'd fallen down some kind of rabbit hole. For the first time, anger cut through the grief. “That's why you're here? Because the thief's taste wasn't good enough, therefore it couldn't be me who did it?”

“No,” he said, grabbing her elbows in his big hands and pulling her close. She wanted to shrug him off, wanted to back away, but her body yearned for his touch, his warmth. “I'm here because I made a mistake. Because I know you wouldn't steal from me, wouldn't hurt me that way. And because I want—need—to tell you how sorry I am for hurting you the way I did. Three days ago and six years ago.

“I've been an ass, more concerned with protecting myself than with protecting you, and that's inexcusable.”

“It's not your job to protect me—”

“That's bullshit. I love you, Isa. I love you more than I can ever tell you, more than you'll ever believe considering my actions. And it is absolutely my job to protect you and take care of you and make you understand just how precious you are. And I've totally screwed all that up.”

He shook his head, looking so disgusted with himself that she nearly cried at the injustice of it. “I did terrible things—”

“No, you didn't. You were young, and torn between two men you loved—neither of whom deserved you. I'm sorry, Isa. I'm so sorry.”

He pulled her even closer then and rested his forehead against hers. “I don't deserve you. Don't deserve your forgiveness and I sure as hell don't deserve your love. But I want it, Isa. I want it so bad.”

His words turned her brain to mush, and her heart into a ray of light. She threw her arms around him, pulled him close even as harsh sobs ripped through her.

“Don't cry, baby,” he said, holding her tightly. “Please don't cry. I'll make it up to you if you let me. I'll—”

She kissed him then, with all the pent-up passion and love and fear and forgiveness she had inside herself. She kissed him and kissed him and kissed him.

And he kissed her back.

Minutes, hours—days—passed before they finally came up for air. His hands on her cheeks, her arms around his neck. Their gazes locked together. “I'm sorry,” Marc said again. “I'm so sorry.”

“So am I.”

“You don't have anything—”

“I do,” she told him, pressing kisses along his strong and stubbled jawline. “You aren't the only one who made mistakes. I messed up six years ago, badly, and I don't blame you for thinking I messed up again.”

“You didn't, though. I know that even if we never find the thief—”

“Oh, we'll find him,” she declared adamantly. “No way is some jerk getting away with stealing from the man I love.”

Marc laughed even as he hugged her closer. “You sound so fierce.”

“I feel fierce,” she said, tugging him down the hall toward her bedroom.

“Do you?” He crooked that brow that always made her crazy.

“I do. And as soon as it's morning, we're going back to Bijoux and we're going to start figuring who did this to you. To us. Together.”

“Together.” He bent, pressed his own kisses against her lips, her cheek, her forehead, her eyes. “I like the sound of that.”

“So do I.” She held him tight. “I love you, Marc. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. I always have and I always will.”

His words reached inside, thawing out the last of the cold that had lingered there since that long-ago night in Manhattan. And as she pulled him into her room—into her bed—she couldn't help thinking that it had all been worth it. To get here, to this moment, she'd trade a million diamonds, go through whatever pain it took.

Because Marc was worth it. And so was the life they would build together.

* * * * *