Two Weeks' Notice

took seats at the round kitchen table. Joe had a neatly applied bandage on the side of his head.

“I forgot to ask,” Bryn said. “Joe, how are you?”

“Flesh wound,” he said. “But Fast Freddy got me with a Taser from behind. My own fault. I should have known that little fucker is sneaky.”

She pointed at the bandage. “That’s from a Taser?”

“Nope, that’s from the gratuitous boot to the head after the Taser. Your friend Freddy’s a real piece of work.” Joe popped his jaw and winced. “Should have sawed his damn head off when we had the chance.”

“There were other problems at the time,” Pat said. “How’s Annie?”

“The shots are working. She seems better. Just tired. I’m letting her sleep.” She cleared her throat. “I canceled the Protocols. And just in case, I locked her door.”

He nodded, gaze lingering on her as if he was trying to tell without asking how she was. For her part, she wondered about him. He’d taken an awful risk, dropping Freddy like that with Joe’s life at stake. Even Joe had been rattled, and he didn’t spook easily.

Ice water in his veins. When Patrick had spotted the grenade, he hadn’t hit the deck; he’d calmly, methodically taken it away.

There were times when Bryn would swear Patrick, rather than she, was part machine. He could just…switch things off. She envied that a little.

As he accepted his hot cup of cocoa, he just seemed like a normal guy. His five-o’clock shadow was pronounced, and he looked tired, but not like the same ice-cold professional who’d done the things he’d done tonight. When that switch was off, it was off.

He looked like a man who badly needed human contact, just now. And when he saw her watching him, he smiled. There was warmth in that, and understanding. If we were alone…But they weren’t. All too often, really, they weren’t.

Liam joined them with his own drink. “So,” he said. “I gather tonight was productive? And, from Mr. Fideli’s bandage, eventful?”

“You could say that. Pat almost shot me in the head,” Joe said, with remarkable cheer. “Mmm, good cocoa.”

“Almost doesn’t count,” Pat said. “I told you, he was going to drop you if I didn’t drop him first.”

“Yeah, and I’m still partially deaf in that ear from the round he popped off on the way down. Next time, just give me a signal first, ’kay? I’d like to get a last prayer sent up.”

“I thought working with me, you’d be fully paid up on that account at all times.”

“Point,” Joe said, and toasted him. “You know what would make this so much better? Alcohol.”

“Irish whiskey, coming up,” Liam said, and rose to get it. He came back and poured a shot into each of their cups, including his own. “To surviving. May it happen every day.”

“Every day,” Joe said, and clinked china with Liam. Pat and Bryn echoed him, although Bryn’s had a strong taste of irony to it. Joe sipped, and winced. “Damn, I think I cracked another rib.” He held out the cocoa. “Medic?”

Liam added a second shot.

“Aren’t you driving home?” Bryn asked, and saw Joe and Pat exchange a lightning-fast glance.

“Nah, thought I’d stick here tonight. No sense in waking up Kylie. I already let her know I’d probably be out.” He sounded casual, and if she hadn’t caught the look that had passed between the two men, she would have thought it was legitimate. “Besides, staying here at the Millionaire Home for Wayward Orphans ain’t exactly stressful.”

Something was up. Bryn drained her cocoa, and the warm flush of the alcohol only stayed in her system for a few minutes before it faded, carried off by those industrious little nightmare machines. “I’m going to check on Annie,” she said. “Good night. Thanks for the cocoa, Liam.”

He nodded to her with another of those warm, gentle smiles. “I’m glad you found her safe.”

As she pushed her chair back, Patrick rose as well. He took both their cups to the sink and rinsed them, then put them in the dishwasher. Liam watched him with, Bryn thought, a certain amount of alarm, as if he hated seeing anyone else touching things in his kitchen. Which was probably the case. “I’m off, too,” Pat said, and Joe raised a hand in lazy farewell.

“Usual time for breakfast?” Liam asked.

“I’ll be off early tomorrow. I’ll catch some coffee on the way in the morning. Don’t get up.”

“But it’s the most important meal of the day!” Joe called after him, and then, to Liam, “Listen, if you want to make me breakfast, I’m damn sure going to let you.…”

His voice faded behind her as she followed Patrick through the dimly lit rooms. One of the estate’s many dogs—a greyhound—watched them from the comfort of his bed in the corner of the gorgeous sitting room but didn’t get up; they were all more Liam’s pets than Pat’s or Bryn’s.

She wasn’t planning on catching up with Patrick, but she found herself moving faster nevertheless, and by the time he was at the top of the stairs to the second floor, she was beside him, step for step.

Patrick stopped. “You’re checking on Annie?” His voice was neutral, and she couldn’t read his face at all.

“I should,” she said.

“Good night, then.”

“Yes, good night,” Bryn said, and watched him walk away. He didn’t glance back, just opened his bedroom door and closed it with a firm click. She went to Annie’s room and checked her door: still locked. Bryn turned the key in the lock, slid it open a crack, and peeked inside.

Annie was asleep in a tangled mound of covers and a storm of disordered brown hair. She looked so young this way and so thin that it made Bryn’s heart ache.

But she was breathing steadily, and she looked…alive.

And she was safe. Safe, finally.

Bryn shut the door again, turned the key, and leaned her forehead against the heavy wood. It smelled of lemon polish, a comforting, normal thing, and for a few seconds she didn’t move at all.

Then she pushed away and looked down the hall.

Patrick McCallister was standing in the darkened doorway of his room, looking back at her. His black shirt was unbuttoned halfway, as if he’d stopped in the middle of the task, and he looked deliciously, warmly rumpled. Like someone awakened from a vivid, sensual dream.

“She’s all right,” Bryn said. “Sleeping.”

“I suppose we all should be,” he said again. But he didn’t go in. He just kept watching her.

She walked to her door, passed it, and kept moving toward him.

He stepped back to let her inside, and for the first second they just…looked at each other. Then Bryn reached over, swung the door shut firmly, and said, “You look tired.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She pulled in a deep breath. “And…no. Not particularly. I thought maybe we could…continue what we started earlier tonight. In your office.”

He didn’t speak, but the incendiary look in his eyes answered for him. She reached out and drew her fingers gently down the exposed skin of his chest until she hit cloth and button, and began to undo the rest.

It was as if she’d unlatched a cage, and the tiger leaped out. Her reactions were by no means slow—faster, if anything, with the addition of the helpful nanites—but she wasn’t prepared when he lunged forward and pushed her against the door, then put his hands on either side of her head. He got kissing-close…but their lips didn’t meet. “I want this,” he said, and there was a rich, focused intensity in the words that made her shiver. “I want this very, very badly, Bryn. So don’t start this if you don’t. Just tell me no, and I’ll back off. You can go. And everything can be as it was yesterday.”

It was as much a warning as an invitation, she thought. And there was definitely something different about him now; Patrick was such a careful, controlled man, and seeing him trembling on the edge of letting go was like standing in front of an oncoming hurricane.

It was exhilarating and frightening.

“I need to know something first,” she said. “Don’t you care?”