Shadow Alpha (17 page)

Kat stared down in horror at the shattered cell phone. “I didn’t think you could really do that, I believed it just happened in those high-tech criminal investigation programs they show on the TV…”

Dair gave a humorless smile. “No, it’s all too real, I assure you. And I should know; I’m one of the experts those TV directors bring in as consultants regarding authenticity. Nurse Palmer worked exclusively with you, on behalf of the Orlovs?”

“Yes…”

He nodded. “Well how long did you think it would take for them to add two and two together—your disappearance at the same time as her cell phone went missing—and come up with the correct answer that you took it with you when you left?”

“I didn’t think—”

“He knows, Kat, okay,” Dair had no more time to waste on this conversation. “I told you I had men watching Sergei in New York, and three hours ago they started leaving messages on my cell telling me that Sergei had boarded a private plane with his men, with a flight plan to the Caribbean—and don’t ask how we know that, we just do, okay.” And Dair would have known all of it that much sooner if he hadn’t left his own cell phone in his bedroom and spent the evening in Kat’s bed instead! “Now get your beautiful ass out of that bed,” he added grimly. “We’re leaving here in five minutes tops.”

“I didn’t know—please believe I really didn’t do this on purpose, Dair!” She looked at him pleadingly.

Dair knew exactly who was to blame for their present predicament, and it wasn’t Kat. His initial carelessness in not checking for that cell phone, added to the distraction of making love with Kat, had almost resulted in the two of them still being in bed together when Sergei arrived here with his men.

He had allowed himself to become totally distracted by Kat the past twenty-four hours, and it was time he started thinking with the head on his shoulders rather than the one between his legs.

“Dress warmly, Kat,” he instructed bleakly. “We’ll be taking the chopper out of here. And if you can think of anything else you have secreted away that you shouldn’t have, then make sure you leave it behind when we go. I’m really not in the mood right now to do another body-cavity search.”

Kat’s face went pale at exactly what he meant by
that
remark. “I did not do this on purpose, damn you!” She climbed out of bed and began to pull on her clothes.

A furious Kat was something to behold—

Focus, damn it, Grayson, and get your head out of your ass. And Kat’s…

“Am I allowed to ask where we’re going?” She struggled into her denims.

“You can ask.”

“But you aren’t going to tell me.” Kat frowned her frustration. Dair thought—he really thought that she had knowingly… “You’re a suspicious bastard, did you know that?” She glared at him angrily after she had fastened her bra and pulled on her sweater.

He nodded. “I’ve heard that a time or two, yes. Oh and Kat,” he paused in the doorway. “When we get to our destination there are some questions I want—no, some question I’m going to demand answers to.”

Her chin rose in challenge. “I have nothing to add to what I’ve already told you.”

His eyes were icy slits. “Oh I think you do, Kat,” the very mildness of his tone conveyed how angry he was. “And I think that it’s time you told me the truth, don’t you?”

“I thought you said you were in a hurry to leave?” Once again Kat avoided meeting that compelling gaze.

He gave a humorless smile. “I’m a patient man, Kat, I can wait. Just not indefinitely,” he added warningly.

Kat turned her back on him to sit on the side of the bed and pull on her shoes, only allowing herself to start breathing again once she knew Dair had left the bedroom.

Her shoulders slumped dejectedly. Dair was furious with her. And Sergei—the fact that he was on his way here with some of his men showed that he was determined to bring her back to New York.

Worst of all, she had now placed Dair in danger. His cousin Lucien, too, as this was his private island.

Kat had never flown in a helicopter before.

And, after only a few minutes of being in the air, she knew she never wanted to fly in one again either.

Besides the fact that it was noisy and cold, there was the buffeting of the wind for her to contend with, as the helicopter dipped and swayed in the air currents. Dair, of course, remained completely immune to the noise, the cold, and the buffeting as he flew the helicopter with his usual calm efficiency.

And in stony silence.

Apart from telling her to buckle up, and handing her a pair of earphones to cut out some of the noise, Dair had pretty much behaved as if he was alone in the helicopter. He certainly took no notice of Kat as she sat beside him, white-knuckled and white faced; she had felt all the blood drain out of her face the moment they took off, and so far she hadn’t felt it come back again, and after almost an hour of this torture her lips felt completely numb.

She also felt extremely sick and totally miserable, and her throat ached from holding back the tears she refused to cry. She was through crying. She certainly wouldn’t give that bastard Sergei the satisfaction of allowing him to take anything else away from her.

Dair was obviously furious with her right now, but last night, with him, had given Kat back her pride and self-confidence as an attractive and desirable woman. Especially after he had made a point of telling her she hadn’t been just a job to him almost from the beginning.

Dair may have changed his mind about that now, of course, and he may even wish he hadn’t accepted this job at all, let alone met her again, but no one—
no one
could ever take those hours with Dair away from her.

Now if she could just survive the rest of this flight without puking everywhere!

“How much longer before we land?” she spoke loudly so that he could hear her; her jaw was clenched so tightly it felt as it if were in danger of breaking under the pressure.

“Five, ten minutes, at most,” he answered distractedly, his face appearing eerily pale in the lights of the control panel.

It was pitch black outside, and Kat had completely lost track of her bearings within minutes of them taking off, so she had no idea
where
they were going to land. Didn’t particularly care either, as long as they landed on
terra firma
soon.

Even if it did bring her closer to the time Dair was going to start ‘demanding answers to his questions’.

The expression on his face when he had made that statement warned her he wasn’t about to be fobbed off with any attempt at half-truths from her this time.

Kat’s attention was drawn to the window as she finally thought she could see some lights flickering on and off on the ground beneath them. “Is that where we’re going to land?”

“Maybe.”

“Either we are or we aren’t!”

“Then I guess we are, yes.” Dair couldn’t remember the last time he had been as angry as he was right now. If he ever had been.

And his anger was directed at himself, no one else.

He had totally fucked up, it was as simple as that. When he was in the army and he’d gone on a mission he had always remained focused and detached; it was the way he had kept his men and himself alive. He had taken that focus and detachment with him when he left the army and entered private security.

Not this time.

The minute he had seen Kat sitting in that chair at the clinic, so pale and withdrawn, when she had once been so vivacious and outgoing, all detachment had left him. Once he had seen those restraints at her wrists and ankles— Jesus, what sort of man ordered that sort of treatment of his own wife?

Whatever Sergei’s reasons, Dair had lost his cool detachment in that moment, and it had only gotten worse since then. To the point that he had put both Kat and himself at risk.

If he hadn’t seen the message light flashing on his cell phone—

He
had
seen it, and that was the important thing.

But still, he’d let Kat down. Had put her in danger because he’d been too busy fucking her to think about protecting her—

No, that was unfair to Kat. He’d fucked plenty of women in his life, and being with Kat, the sexual chemistry between them, had been nothing like being with any of those other women.

It had been something more than just sex.

Meaning what?

Meaning that in future he needed to concentrate on protecting Kat and keep his dick in his pants.

He wouldn’t—couldn’t fail Kat like that again, just because he couldn’t keep his hands and other body parts to himself.

As for Sergei…

Dair had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on there. Why the other man had locked Kat up in that clinic in the first place, and why he was now so determined to get her back again. There was male pride—a lot of men would baulk at the idea of having their wife walk out on them, and Sergei Orlov was such an arrogant prick he wouldn’t have taken it well—and then there was obsession. Dair hadn’t believed a man as shallow as Sergei was capable of the latter. He still didn’t.

Back to pride then.

That still didn’t sit too comfortably as an explanation for the extreme measures Sergei had used to isolate Kat, and was now using to track her down.

No matter how reluctant she might be, Kat
would
give him answers once they were somewhere safe.

In the meantime, Dair sincerely hoped that Sergei did nothing to trash the island when he arrived there and found the two of them had already gone, otherwise the other man would have to answer to Lucien, and Lucien could play as dirty as Sergei if he needed to. Dair had a feeling that any damage done to Lucien’s ‘honeymoon island’ would be cause for him to ‘need to’.

“We’re going down,” Dair warned as he was given the correct signal from the ground, banking the chopper sharply to the right, eyes narrowed as he kept his gaze and attention on the landing lights below.

Kat barely had time to tighten her fingers on the grab-hold before the helicopter dipped, feeling as if the contents of her stomach had stayed feet above them. Not that there was much content in her stomach; she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten—

No
, do not think about food—

Too late!

She barely had time to grab the sick bag from the leather side pocket before hurling those ‘contents’ into it.

By the time she finished being ill, Dair had landed the chopper on the ground, and Kat didn’t waste any time waiting for him to turn off the engine before throwing off the headphones, unbuckling her seatbelt and thrusting open the door. She almost fell out of the helicopter, onto a soft landing of grass, luckily. She kept in a crouched position as she quickly got back up onto her feet and stumbled across the grass a short distance, before falling back down onto her knees and throwing up all over again.

“Virgin, huh?”

Kat was feeling far too ill to care what a mess she must look as she looked up at the man looming over her.

The two of them hadn’t spoken the last time they met, but the heavy boots, black clothing, shoulder-length black hair, and the dark Stetson above dark, navy blue eyes told her this was Lijah, the pilot from the plane yesterday.

And, if she wasn’t mistaken, those dark eyes were glittering with unwelcome humor, despite the lack of a smile on those chiseled lips.

“I meant flying in a chopper, of course,” he added mockingly as he held out a hand to help Kat back up onto her feet.

Kat didn’t know which surprised her more, the obviously educated English accent—what was with the Stetson?—or the fact that Lijah was here at all. She had assumed when he left them, only hours ago in real time even if it seemed much longer, that Lijah would be flying back to England. She had obviously assumed wrong.

“Best not,” she refused the offer of help up as she instead wiped her soiled hands on her jeans before wobbling back up onto her feet unaided.

She straightened just in time to see Dair striding towards her with a face as dark as thunder.

Chapter 11

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” Dair took a painful grip of Kat’s arms as he began to shake her. “Don’t you know better than to get out of a chopper before the pilot tells you it’s safe to do so?”

Kat’s head ached, the ground was tilting beneath her, and even though there couldn’t possibly be anything left in her stomach, she felt as if she might be sick again, this time over Dair if he didn’t stop shaking her.

“I didn’t think—”

“You didn’t
think
,” he repeated harshly, eyes blazing with his anger. “
You-didn’t-the-fuck-think—”

“Hey, lay off her, Dair,” Lijah cajoled ruefully. “Remember the first time you went up—or rather, down—in a chopper, and have a little mercy, man.”

If looks really could kill, then the other man would have been struck instantly dead by the ice in Dair’s glare. “We aren’t talking about me, we’re talking about
her.
And she—”

“She’s sick, okay,” the other man reasoned impatiently. “Besides which, I’m pretty sure Lucien appreciates the fact that she didn’t hurl in his chopper.”

“She did that too, but luckily into a sick bag.” Dair continued to glare at the other man for several tense moments before releasing Kat so suddenly she stumbled and almost fell again.