CHAPTER 15
It had taken one hour for Sokolov’s suggestive little threat to screw with Nick’s mind. And that was when Dex reported that the electronic warning system attached to Nick’s security system at the penthouse was going off; when they pulled up the cams, everything was black.
All Nick could think was: Not Jane.
“Geo!” Nick clipped, confirming with a nod from Rothgar that the hit man was free.
The two of them took off at a run.
Cecily and Jane’s screaming at the top of their lungs from the living room was pretty funny once Nick satisfied himself that the back of the apartment was clear of danger; Geo was clearing the front. The men had gone in dark, just in case.
Hence the screaming. Ally didn’t make a sound, though, and when Nick whispered to Geo via his earpiece that he was turning the lights back on, there Ally was standing—well, swaying—in front of the hit man, drunk and determined to look, well, like Ally always looked. Brave and disapproving of Hudson Kings business.
Objectively speaking, Geo was a hell of a sight when he was geared up in black, packing heat, and rocking night vision. “The alarm went off at HQ. Someone covered the cam.” His voice was so low it was obvious he was calibrating it to be too low for microphones.
In one hand, he kept a loose grip on a gun with a long silencer; in the other, he was holding up a gray utility cloth smeared with crimson lipstick. He looked at Ally. “Everything here kosher?”
“Couldn’t you hear us talking through the camera?” Ally sassed.
“Everything kosher?” he clipped again, not answering the question.
She stared at him. “Like a babka from Zabar’s, Geo.”
He walked right up to her and put his arms around her, like a hug, and whispered something into her ear. Ally stared straight over his shoulder like a zombie, but she lifted her hand and gave his arm two squeezes. He let go of her, scanned the boozy, lobster roll–riddled detritus from the party, and then looked back at Nick.
“Mr. Dawes,” Jane said, from her place on the couch, where she was sitting bolt upright. “Um . . .” She looked spooked, nervous, and totally disheveled, with her black curls popping all over the place and most of her makeup wiped off on what looked to be a napkin sporting a happy lobster design.
Nick thought she looked wonderful. And he was beyond relieved to confirm that it was just a false alarm.
For a second there—for a really bad fucking second there—he thought maybe Sokolov had moved Jane into collateral damage territory. It was all the more reason to keep his hands off her—at least until he was out of the woods.
I can’t have Sokolov thinking I care. I can’t take the chance. And then, of course, even as he told himself to stay away, he walked away from the others and went directly toward her.
“Do I have something on my face?” Jane asked.
“Your face is perfect,” Nick said.
A couple of different emotions flashed over said face—pleasure, confusion . . . she wasn’t as good at concealing her feelings when she was drinking. He could tell that the minute the lights went on.
“You still look uptight,” Nick said.
“That’s because I’m trying to decide whether or not to acknowledge I’m having a party at your place.”
He shook his head, laughing. “Cat’s out of the bag.”
“Now there’s a cat?” she said in mock outrage.
“Okay, no cat. Just me and Geo.”
Jane finally relaxed back into the sofa cushions. “So, why are you here?” she asked. “No, wait, this is your house. Make that, why are you here with him?”
Nick looked over at Geo. Yeah, when you took it in from a distance and didn’t know all the background (and sometimes even if you did), Geo looked pretty damn scary. “It was a false alarm. Don’t worry about it. Go back to your night.”
“Go back to my night? You thought something happened to us. Something worthy of attending to with a backup dude carrying a gun longer than my femur. Why would you think that? Are you ever going to tell me what’s happening to you?” Jane asked. “I mean, like, meaningful details.”
God, where should he even start?
“What sort of problem is this?” Jane pressed. And then: “Maybe I can help.”
Nick thought for a minute about how to say it. But this was Jane. He didn’t need to try so hard. “Someone wants to kill me, if I don’t jump through the right hoops. And I’m not jumping.”
“Why does someone want to kill you?” Jane asked.
“I screwed something up.”
Jane didn’t ask the obvious question, which Nick found pretty interesting. After a while she said, “I was hoping you were going to say that someone didn’t actually want to kill you, and it was an exaggeration.”
“I wish.”
“Are you in danger now?”
He looked her square in the eyes. “Yes. But when the alarm here sounded, you should know that I assumed it was a false alarm. I wasn’t actually worried.” Maybe concerned just for that one second. Mostly, I was surprised. The timing was right after Sokolov’s call. If I’d been worried, that would mean that I actually believed you were in danger because of me, and that can’t happen. “I needed to check it out because of . . . because of a recent interaction with the person I’ve fallen out with, let’s just say, but it was, as I expected, a coincidence. A false alarm.”
“Ally’s lipstick,” Jane said with a nod.
He watched her face, and then suddenly his heart sank as he imagined her asking the obvious next question: “Does being near you put me in greater danger?” “I want to make it clear that I don’t believe you’re in danger because of me. This was a precaution. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, and there’s no reason it should. That’s not how these things work. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
Eyebrows up, eyes wide. “I wasn’t thinking that,” she said.
“You weren’t?”
“Maybe I should be?” Jane looked a touch confused. “It just seems highly unlikely you’d blithely let me walk straight into danger for the sake of some fish.” She added hastily, “However lovely those fish might be.”
Nick fought the urge to sit down next to her. If anything, maybe they needed more distance between them. Instead, he hovered in front of the fireplace. “How to put this . . . the people in my circles, even the ones who could profit from offing me, aren’t sloppy, and they have some respect for the idea of collateral damage.” He shrugged. “I’d expect a bullet to my head or something if they get close enough. But nothing for you.”
Jane picked up her drink, stared at it, and then took a gulp. “This is a very odd conversation. I’m starting to feel a little sick.”
“Don’t worry, though. I’m on it. Gonna fix it . . .”
“You’re not freaking out,” Jane said.
“That’s not my MO.”
“Are you freaking out inside?” she asked.
I feel better when I’m around you. “Gonna fix it.”
“You don’t seem like the sort of man who screws things up to the point where people want to put a bullet through your head. But that’s just my gut,” Jane said.
Nick thought about making a joke. Instead, he said, “If I’m being honest, I brought this on myself. It was a split-second decision where I wanted to prove something. Fucking stupid.”
Jane didn’t say anything, but she got up and joined him where he was standing. She was close enough to touch, and Nick stayed silent until he couldn’t take it anymore. “You’re quiet,” he said.
“It’s all a lot to absorb, sir.” And then she said out of nowhere, “I like talking to you on the phone.” She grabbed the poker and started poking at (and missing) big chunks of ash. “If you ever just want to talk about this stuff you’re worrying about, you can call me. It doesn’t have to be about the fish. I mean, you don’t have to, or anything. I’m just saying that you could.”
“I know I don’t have to,” he said gently. “Just like you don’t have to pick up.”
But I hope you do. Because when you talk to me, I don’t feel so alone, and it takes my mind off the things I might have to do and the person I might have to become in order to get out of this mess I made. Or the fact that maybe I made the wrong move in front of the wrong guy, and things are getting real.
A chime sounded, signaling an incoming text. With her free hand, Jane pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the message. And then she just deflated.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asked.
“It’s nothing,” she said, the slur in her voice from the alcohol sounding a little more defined. “Nobody’s punching me in the face. Well, not literally.”
“Tell me,” Nick said, a little surprised by how badly he wanted to grab her cell phone out of her hand and throw it out the window just for making her sad.
Jane sighed. “Talk about stupid,” she said, chewing on her lip. “My ex-boyfriend cleaned me out. He cheated on me and then cried when I broke up with him, and then he moved on to the next stage, which was to dismantle my joy. I’m still working through the repercussions.”
“And yet you’re fairly matter-of-fact about it. You’re over him. You’re over it,” Nick confirmed, realizing this was important for more than one reason.
“Oh, I’m over it. I was over it the night he left me standing at the coat check after a big party. He said he’d be right back. Turns out he was having sex with the bartender under a champagne pyramid. And then somehow I was the bad guy.” Jane shook her head. “All of the stuff he did was basically to show his power, to show what would happen if I made a thing about any of it, like file a lawsuit. I never intended to make a thing. Relationships happen, and nobody needs to be spending negative energy on making a thing unless it really deserves to be a thing. I don’t know what he was thinking. Why would I publicize our relationship and call myself out as sleeping with the boss? That never goes over well for the women. Anyway, I like to save my energy and figure out the next path.” She tossed her phone to the couch and looked over at him. “Which led me to you.”
Nick tried to read her face and then just asked, “How much did he take from you?”
“It’s embarrassing. It’s a lot.” She raised the fireplace poker and started flailing at the ashes again.
“How much?”
“He claimed it was the value of money and gifts he had given me, which was just not true. Unless you counted my actual salary, which seems like the sort of thing you really should not have to give back.”
“How much?”
“A lot.” Poke. Flail. Poke. Flail.
“How much, Jane?”
“My entire nest egg. About fifty K.” She winced, apparently waiting for his horrified reaction.
Nick stared at her for a moment, and then he looked away. That’s a lot?
Jane froze. “Oh, Jesus, you don’t think that’s a lot. Of course not. Your bathroom faucets probably cost fifty K.”
“What’s his name?” Nick asked.
“I don’t want to say.”
“What’s his name?” Still low-key, but not a question this time. An order.
“No,” she said, with the snap in her voice. “This is personal, okay? It’s shit and it’s personal. It’s my personal shit. You’re my boss, and you now know why I need a job so badly I’m willing to overlook the weirdness that comes along with it, but I don’t have to tell you my personal details.”
“I’m sorry, Jane, I didn’t mean to make you angry,” Nick said quietly.
“Well, I am angry,” Jane yelled, throwing the entire poker into the fireplace with a clang.
Ally, Cecily, and Geo looked over from the dining room.
Jane stood staring at Nick, two fists at her sides. “I am angry. I’m very angry. And it’s not just because I’m a little drunk. I don’t want you to die! I mean, I can’t even believe I’m standing here having to say that. Do you realize you’re still holding a gun? This isn’t a movie. This is serious, and I don’t know how to fix this, and I’m very good at fixing shit. I mean, I just want to go to whoever is doing this to you and be all, ‘Look, sir, this can’t go on. My boss is . . . well, it turns out he’s a good guy and there must be a compromise or a solution that will suffice, and let’s just sit here and hash it out until you stop wanting to kill him.’”
Her mouth snapped shut after that speech. Her pale skin was trying to decide which shade of red to settle on.
Nick stared at her, gripping the gun in his hand so hard that he thought he might sprain something. He was gripping it that hard to stop himself from doing what he really wanted to do, which was to let go and touch her, hold her body in his arms, and let her just be the anchor he’d been looking for, for so long.
Which was right at the moment that she turned on her heels and walked away from him. Nick watched Jane belligerently start to clean up, slamming dirty plates and napkins into a ripped delivery bag. Angry cleaning, he quipped silently. This made him smile through the pain boring a hole in his heart. Because, holy shit, it seemed like everything about her had started having that effect on him.
“Maybe we should all call it a night,” Ally said, a little unsteady on her feet.
This made him frown. “Maybe we should stay,” Nick said.
Cecily’s eyebrows flew up. She looked at him and then looked at Jane.
“You’re all drunk at the same time,” he added.
“Well, that happens,” Ally said. “It’s called a party.”
“I just want to make sure there’s someone to hold her hair back if she needs it,” Nick said, before he could stop himself. He tried to fix it, crossing his arms over his chest and explaining in his boardroom voice, “She has a lot of hair.” Okay, yeah, that sounded more like a bedroom voice. Not better. He sighed, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
“Oh, Nick,” Ally said, her face softening.
What was happening to everyone? Why were they all going soft?
“What?” Nick asked.
“Nothing.”
“Done here,” Geo said gruffly. He took Nick by the shoulder and steered him to the door.