Maddie was gripping the doorjamb in fists gone white, her shoulders and spine so stiff he was surprised she didn’t just explode on the spot. He wanted to say her name, her real name, but he didn’t dare, not here. “Are you okay?”
“Sure.”
She was a liar. Beautiful, strong, amazing, but a liar nevertheless. He might not be privy to half of what was really going on here, but the other half had been pretty damn clear. Maddie as Leena needed to do this job and keep it under wraps and out of the hands of the good guys, or Rick was going to go after Maddie.
A threat. Christ, he hated threats.
But what he hated even more was the look of sheer misery radiating off of Maddie. They might be The Princess And The Peon here, but he wasn’t stupid. Being back here was killing her. He wanted to drag her ass out of here and keep her safe.
Always.
Only, that wasn’t really an option. In fact, he had few options at all at the moment, which only served to make him feel all the more helpless, an emotion he especially hated and always had. Moving close, he set his hands on her shoulders, not surprised when she tensed. “Just me,” he reminded her, but stayed on guard because with Maddie he never knew. She could dropkick him. She could slug him.
She could kiss him.
He personally wouldn’t mind door number three but didn’t see that happening, so he remained alert.
Reaching back, she gave him a little go-away elbow.
But he wasn’t going away. Instead, keeping his hands on her, he peered over her shoulder into the room she was staring at so intently. Another bedroom, not yellow and white and girly, but blue with stark white trim. The furniture was pine and wrought iron. Very expensive and very Spartan and completely empty of all personal belongings. But he didn’t need personal belongings to know what he was looking at.
Maddie’s childhood bedroom with all its elegance and class.
Yeah, they’d grown up worlds apart, that was for damn sure. Tilting his head, he looked into her face, a virtual frozen mask of inscrutability. She was giving nothing away, but she didn’t have to, the self-loathing was escaping out her pores, and this bothered him more than anything he’d learned in the past two days.
Leena stood frozen in horror and humiliation on the steps to Ben’s art gallery as Ben looked through her as if she was nothing to him.
Less than nothing.
He was everything she remembered and more, including being the best-looking man she’d ever met. Not magazine gorgeous, but real guy gorgeous with the shaggy hair that he’d finger combed at best, faded jeans and a T-shirt, both splattered in paint, neither hiding his graceful, athletic body, the one that fueled her deepest fantasies in the dark of the night.
Once upon a time, his smile had been the only thing that could somehow reach deep inside of her and spread warmth where she was always cold.
But he wasn’t smiling now.
“Is that for me?” he asked in his quiet Irish voice, gesturing to the envelope in her hand. When she didn’t answer, he reached for it, but she had at least enough wits about her to take a step back.
Yes, the letter was for him. Of course it was, but the thought of him reading it in front of her was way too much.
Seeing him was too much. How had she thought she could do this?
She’d missed him incredibly but she’d also hoped never to see him again because she couldn’t handle watching his face when he learned the truth about her.
No, that she most definitely couldn’t handle. On the flight, she’d realized that to do this, she needed anonymity, she needed to be gone, long gone.
Or she couldn’t do it at all.
Motionless, unable to do anything, including walking away, she stared at him as he came down the two steps.
Run, she told herself, but her feet didn’t budge.
Slowly, he reached out, but instead of grabbing the letter, he took her free hand, then startled her by leading her up the steps and into his gallery.
“I can’t stay,” she managed, still letting him pull her inside.
“Okay.” Watching her as one might watch a deer stuck in the headlights, he very slowly and carefully took the letter out of her hands.
And she let him. Oh, God, she let him because apparently she really needed to completely and totally humiliate herself.
“I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” he said.
She hadn’t planned on it either… She really shouldn’t have come inside. She had no business being here…“Ben, I’ve got to-”
“Wait.” He kept his grip on her. Not hurting her, never hurting her, but not letting her go either. Eyes on hers, he tore the envelope open with his teeth, then let it fall to the floor so he could read the letter while still gripping her hand.
Two more times, she tried to pull free.
And two more times, he simply tightened his grip and held her at his side as he read.
Silently.
Without a single hint on his face of what he was thinking, he took in the words from the very depths of her heart and soul, the words that bared her to him like nothing else ever had. When he finally lifted his gaze, it was dark and unreadable. “So you did know about the gems,” he said. “I wondered.”
Sick at heart, she nodded.
“You knew they’d been switched, and you didn’t tell me.”
Again, she nodded.
He looked at her for an interminably long beat. “So I guess my next question is, why shouldn’t I nail your gorgeous ass for swindling?”
All the other times she’d seen or talked to him, there’d been a natural warmth about him, a light welcoming warmth that radiated such easy, sexy charm that she’d helplessly responded to him.
Not now.
Now he was holding back, no sign of that warmth anywhere.
She’d never seen him like this, so absolutely void of any expression on his face. She’d done that. She’d hurt him. But just as she opened her mouth to try to make him understand, two men stepped inside the gallery. They were big and beefy and dressed all in black, and with a sinking feeling, she instantly recognized them as two of Rick’s men, Ed and Saul.
Ed looked straight at her as he shut the door behind him. “Hello, Maddie. Been following you.”
Maddie?
“Good thing you finally used your credit card. Thank you for that.”
Right. She’d used Maddie’s card to fly here…but that didn’t explain why they were following Maddie.
Saul glanced at Ben, then spoke directly to Leena alone. “You’re coming with us back to Stone Cay.”
“What? Why?”
“Insurance.”
Oh, no. Oh, God. Suddenly, she got it. There was only one reason to need insurance. To need Maddie. Rick needed her to make Leena behave.
Which meant…he thought he had Leena on the island, but that meant he had Maddie.
And how had that happened? The whole thing was enough to make her head spin, and a sick sense of panic swirled low in her belly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Not letting go of her hand, Ben shifted a little closer to her, and she felt the heat and strength in his body as it brushed hers.
Saul shook his head at him. “We just need Maddie.”
But Ben didn’t back off. “She said she’s not going anywhere.”
“Look, man. We don’t have a beef with you, so don’t give us one. She’s coming with us.”
