Naked Risk (Shatterproof #3) (9 page)

Chapter Nineteen –
Catherine

I heard the click of the door lock, sat up on the bed,
quickly jumping off when Watts entered the hotel room. I ran to him, throwing my arms around his neck. He held onto me tightly, kissing my neck, my cheek, my forehead.

“Miss me?” he said.

I laughed for the first time that day. “God, yes.”

He pulled his head away from me so he could look me in the eyes. “I’m back and I’m not going to leave you alone again.”

“Good.”

His lips pressed against mine, hard, a ferocious kiss that would have ignited a passion in me if he hadn’t stopped and said, “I need to tell you some things.”

In the span of just a few seconds, I had gone from elation to dread. The wild waves of emotion were becoming a constant part of my relationship with Watts. I could have feared it, pushed it away, seen it as a threat to my stability, but I didn’t want to give in. I wanted to push myself.

He stepped toward the bed, and sat, asking me to sit next to him. I watched his face become rigid and determined.

“Is this about tonight?” I asked. “Where were you?”

He shook his head, looking straight ahead. “I went to take care of something.”

“Was it…the guy?” I didn’t even want to say his name.

Watts put his hand on my leg. “It’s taken care of.” He raised his eyebrows.

I could have asked all the questions I had—which probably numbered in the dozens—but there was really only one question about the guy that mattered. I didn’t have to ask it, though. I could assume the answer, knowing that I was probably right. Plus, I knew Watts wouldn’t tell me anyway. He was secretive about the things he did that didn’t involve me, and his last comment was all the assurance I needed that I wouldn’t have to worry about the guy anymore.

That dark part of
Watts had come out and got revenge for what had been done to me.

“Everything I’ve done for the last ten years…it’s over as of tonight. I can’t do it anymore. I’m ab
out to turn thirty, I’ve dedicated a third of my life to this. It was time to get on with my life anyway, but things have become so complicated, so risky.”

“Me,” I said.

“You?”

My chest
tightened as I felt more and more stressed by everything. “I’ve complicated your life. I know I have. I’m the reason it’s more of a risk now.”

“Catherine, stop.”

“No! I know it’s true. Whatever it was you did tonight, it was because of me, right?”

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even move.

“Am I right?” I demanded.

He nodded.

“So that’s what I mean.” I held myself together. I wanted this to come out strongly, firmly, so he would know how seriously I was taking all of this. “You put yourself in danger for me. And while I think that’s the most incredible thing anyone has ever done for me, I just can’t stand the idea that I would be responsible for anything happening to you.”

“I make my own decisions,” Watts said. “And so do you. I need you to understand something—”

I cut him off. “Do
you
understand what I’m saying? I can’t stand the thought of me being the reason you risk your life.”

His hands closed around my shoulders, then he raised one to the side of my face.
“
You
are my life now. Everything else is done. Nothing else matters. Only you. I want to live a real life, and I want to live it with you. So come with me. And I mean for good.”

I felt my eyes widen. I cocked my head. “For good…”

He nodded. “I can’t stay in the U.S. anymore. I’m leaving, and I want you to come with me.”

“For good,” I said, echoing the words that had meant the most to me out of everything he had just said.

“I’ve done this for ten years. It’s time to stop.”

“You’re not saying this because of what I said when you first told me, are you?” I wondere
d if maybe my suggestion a while back that he could “just stop” was still on his mind. Although he had reacted harshly to it at the time, maybe he had given it more thought.

Watts shook his head. “No. I’ve come to this conclusion because I could go on like this forever…and I don’t want to. I’ve done my part. Now it’s time that I live a somewhat normal life. And I want you to be a part of it.”

My eyes flooded with happy tears and my face formed what I was sure looked like an impossibly permanent grin. “You’re serious,” I said, the thought coming from deep within that part of me where self-doubt lived.

“As serious as I’ve ever been about anything.
I love you, Catherine.”

The words I had been waiting to hear. The words I had come close to saying first.

His lips crushed into mine before I could say anything. Well, clearly, anyway. I was saying “I love you, and I’ll go anywhere with you,” into his mouth as he kissed me, and against his lips. The words were muffled, but it didn’t matter.

We stood like that for a bit, and then I had questions.
“So where are we going? When?” I had so many questions, but I managed not to throw them at him all at once.

“
Can’t say where just yet. But we’re leaving in the morning.”

“What?”

He nodded. “It has to be in the morning.” He reached for me, pulling me against his body, kissing me.

I quickly thought,
How do you prepare to leave for good, and how the hell do you do it in one night?

But Watts was already on it. “Is there anything that you need from your apartment? I’ll get it, so you don’t have to go back there if you don’t want to.”

My mind was racing almost as fast as my heart as I thought.

In the meantime, Watts asked about my passport.

“How did you know I had one?”

He smiled. “The polygraph. You said ‘yes’ and I figured you were telling the truth. Where did you go, by the way?”

“Canada. It was three summers ago and I used a week of my vacation time. I went there because it wasn’t as hot as D.C., but also I got to see a lot of the Toronto area. That’s where Margaret Atwood is from. So, yeah, my passport is in my apartment. It’s in a lock box in the closet.”

“I’ll bring the box.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, working up my courage. “I’ll go with you.”

. . . . .

As we stepped out into the hallway, the door next to ours opened and a man came out.

“Watts,” he said, an urgent tone in his voice. “Oh…” he said when he noticed me.

I had no idea who he was. Watts, of course, hadn’t mentioned anything about him.

Watts looked at me and said, “Catherine, this is Chris Spencer. Chris, Catherine.”

Chris smiled and nodded his head once in my direction. “Pleasure.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, looking at Watts, confused.

“Chris is my oldest friend.”

“
And
most trusted,” Chris added with a grin.

Watts nodded. “Yes, and most trusted. He’s been with me all of this
week. And he was here all night, when I was gone.”

I looked at Chris. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. It was nothing, really. You were very easy to babysit.”

I laughed. Watts rolled his eyes.

Chris had a great smile, wide with perfectly straight, white teeth. His hair was cropped close around the edges, very much a military style cut, very much unlike Watts’s hair. Chris had a loud, booming voice, and spoke in a quick, excited manner. Again, very different from the way Watts conducted himself. I thought about how these guys were nearly completely different, yet had so much in common and had obviously forged a bond years ago that still held strong. I had no idea what that was like and I envied them for it.

“S
o, mate,” Chris said. “This is the end of the road, as they say.”

Watts nodded.

I noticed then that Chris had a bag slung over his shoulder. He closed the door behind him, stepping completely out into the hallway.

“I’m heading back to pick up Stephanie. Should I assume I’ll see you in a few days?”

“Count on it,” Watts said. He looked at me. “We’ll both be there.”

“Be where?” I asked.

Chris smiled and patted Watts on his shoulder. “Just like Stephanie. Can’t stand a surprise.” He turned toward me. “Great finally meeting you, Catherine. See you soon.”

He started to walk down the hall, singing something, but I couldn’t tell what it was. He was too far away and his voice trailed off into an unintelligible echo as he entered the stairwell. He seemed relaxed and happy. More so than Watts did, which worried me a little.

“So, you’re not going to tell me where we’re going?” I asked.

Watts took my hand and we headed down the hallway. “Soon. Promise.”

. .
. . .

As we drove to my place, my nerves were working overtime. It was infuriating to think that I was going to my apartment—the place I had called home for years—and that I was nervous to walk in there. The creepy bastard had alienated me from the one and only safe place I had in the entire world.

It made me think of how I had so quickly agreed to go
away forever with Watts…wherever it was we were going. I guess I had done so because there was nothing tying me to my apartment, or D.C., or anywhere for that matter. I had spent the better part of the last eight years making myself feel at home in this area, but that could have happened anywhere.

“My job,” I said, as I suddenly realized I hadn’t thought about how to handle that.

“Already thought of it,” Watts said, concentrating on the road and looking straight ahead. “You need to email a resignation letter to your supervisor. Fuck all that two-week notice bullshit. It doesn’t matter, anyway. You’ll never need them as a reference. But you do need to make them aware that you won’t be coming back.”

“Right,” I said. If I had worked almost any other type of job, I could disappear without a care. But since I worked for the FBI, there was more of a risk that they’d take an interest in an employee who stopped showing up for work. “I guess I’ll never get to use my impressive lie-detector deception skills.”

Watts glanced at me. “Don’t count on it, as long as I’m around.” He grinned and his eyes returned to the road ahead.

Flirting. Exactl
y what I needed, even though it was only a brief respite because a couple of minutes later we were pulling up to my apartment building.

“My car,” I said, remembering that we had left it at the gas station.

Watts shook his head, frowning. “Sorry, can’t bring it with you. It stays where it is.”

I liked my little car. It wasn’t the greatest thing in the world—it had more than its
fair share of problems and it was shaping up to be a money pit—but still I would miss it a little.

There was no activity outside the building. It was late Sunday night, g
oing into early Monday morning.

“
Let me go in,” Watts asked.

“I want to do this myself.
”

“
Okay,” he said. “But let me go in first, just to check on the place. Wait here.”

He was gone for five minutes. When he came back to the car, he said, “It’s fine. Go ahead.”

I looked out the windshield at the steps leading up to my door. “I’m going in.” I looked back at him.

Watts raised his eyebrows.

“I can do it,” I said.

“I know.”

I got out of the car and walked toward my apartment with quick, deliberate steps. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to change my mind, but I wasn’t taking any chances by going slow or hesitating.

I unlocked the door
and walked in.

The place seemed foreign to me. I had been here less than twelve hours ago, yet it seemed almost like it wasn’t mine any
more. Maybe because of what the guy had done. Or maybe because I was resolved to leave it behind.

Moving down the hall and straight for my bedroom,
I got my lockbox out of the closet. Before closing the doors I took one last look at my clothes. Watts had already grabbed some when he’d been here alone, and I didn’t want any of the remaining items.

Back out in the den, I stopped at my little desk and turned on my laptop. I sent a quick resignation email to my boss. Then I thought of Tara. I didn’t have her email address, so I decided to text her:
I’m quitting work. Sorry for the short notice and sorry that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Thank you for being a friend.

She texted back almost immediately:
Is this a joke?

Me:
No, it’s real.

Her:
Well shit, girl! Are you okay?