chapter nine
Diana was lying to him.
Rafe knew it in his bones. And he was the idiot who’d slept with her.
He was supposed to be the guy who could walk away. He was supposed to be the guy who wasn’t affected by any of this shit. But just the knowledge that he’d gotten it wrong twisted him up inside.
Give her a chance. There might be a reason for the lie. Because no doubt about it. She had been lying about checking her messages the morning he’d caught her in the kitchen. He hadn’t called her on it then. Because hell, he was a spy. He knew enough to keep his cards close to his vest until he was ready.
And with her naked in your bed, will you ever be ready?
Several days had passed since he’d crossed that line with her. And he kept trying to pin down the clues. Figure out what she was hiding. He wanted to be wrong. Prayed he was wrong.
The previous day when he’d left for the office, she had kissed him sweetly and told him she’d see him later. Her credit cards had arrived that morning, but neither one of them had uttered a single word about what that meant or about where this was going. When he’d gotten home, they’d continued in that vein, eating dinner together, neither addressing the elephant in the room. Diana didn’t seem inclined to confide in him either, Rafe thought grumpily.
When he’d asked her what was on her mind last night, he’d hoped it would at least start the conversation about what her plans were going forward. But she’d distracted him with kisses. You let yourself be distracted.
It burned a hole in Rafe’s chest that he really didn’t know much about her at all. Except her name. That was it. If you were smart, you would have done a background check. He shoved that thought aside. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.
Before he’d slept with her, she was just a woman he was helping. There was nothing she could gain access to in his apartment. His safe was national-security tight. Sure, she had access to his security panel, but that was just for the house. She was welcome to anything in there that she could carry. And if she tried to make off with the Decker, she’d get a nasty surprise. The thing was booby-trapped.
He didn’t use the same password for anything. Both his computer and his safe would require hacker-level decryption equipment.
So he’d had no need to worry about exactly who she was or finding out all the dirty details about her life. Until now.
Next to him, Diana slumbered, completely unaware of the direction of his thoughts. It made him feel like a pussy, but he couldn’t deny himself the privilege of watching her when she was so vulnerable.
It felt ridiculous that he wasn’t sure how to talk to a woman, but he honestly hadn’t had much practice in these types of situations. From his covert work, he was used to using… other methods when he needed information from someone.
It turned out that proving you were trustworthy so people voluntarily told you things was an entirely different game.
Finally she moaned and rolled toward him, pillowing her hands under her cheek. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks gently before her eyes opened. When she saw him watching her, her eyes lit up with pleasure. It did something to him to see her unfiltered reaction. She wasn’t even fully awake yet, so there was no artifice or calculation behind her reaction. Just happiness. She was genuinely happy to see him.
“Good morning,” he said softly.
“Morning.”
She moved closer and burrowed into the crook of his arm. He pulled her near, savoring the warmth and comfort of having someone with him. Due to the dangers of his job, he’d never allowed anyone to get close, so he’d missed this kind of easy intimacy. It wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought it would be. Somehow being with Diana felt like the most natural thing in the world.
The sound of her stomach rumbling broke the quiet in the room. Diana’s giggles made him smile.
“Hungry, sweetheart?”
She finally pulled her face out of his arm. “Sorry. I’m not sure why, but I’m starving.”
Rafe pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “That’s my cue. I’ll see what I can rustle up. Especially since you’ve been doing such a good job of taking care of me when it should be the other way around. Don’t want you to think I don’t take care of my guests.”
Her eyes lost some of their sparkle and her lips pulled down at the corners slightly. “Right. I’m just going to jump in the shower.”
Rafe made a decision. He needed to call Noah for advice. That wasn’t a decision he made lightly. This was the man he’d once mentored and thought of as a little brother. A man he’d trained to be a killer and who was now married to his little sister. Who’d knocked up his little sister. Rafe shuddered. That shit was still taking some getting used to.
Once Diana was in the shower and he didn’t have to worry about her overhearing, Rafe took his phone out to the living room.
When Noah answered, he sounded distracted. Which quickly changed when he realized who it was. Good to know he still commanded some respect.
Then he said, “You sound like shit. Who kicked your dog?”
So much for respect.
“I had a sleepless night. Fuck off.”
Noah laughed. “Hmm. Is that code for sex all night? If so, good for you. Diana seemed cool.”
“We are not talking about this,” Rafe gritted out.
“Okay, okay. I won’t ask you any more questions about the pretty blonde you brought to a family gathering who seems to have you on edge right now. I won’t say a damn word. But, on the off chance you did want to talk about it, I’ve been there. There was a time your sister had me all twisted and turned around. It was fucking hell.”
The last thing Rafe wanted to hear about was Noah and his sister. “This is an entirely different situation. Diana and I are… we’re not permanent.”
“Why not? You think she might be headed back to her family? Or where she’s from? Where is she from anyway?”
Rafe rubbed at the back of his neck. He knew what Noah was doing. Nosy as he was, he wasn’t just going to let it go. And then, no doubt, Lucia would join in, peppering him with questions until Rafe finally relented and gave in from the exhaustion.
With a sigh, Rafe said, “I think I need to use your boy Matthias.”
Silence, then Noah said, “Something not adding up?”
“I heard the end of a conversation a few days ago. I’m not sure exactly what I heard. So I’m trying to figure it out.”
“She had the look of someone running from something. Does she need to be saved from herself?”
“I don’t know yet. She has some asshole ex. He’s the one she’s running from. He also kicked her and almost broke her ribs.”
Noah’s voice went low and deadly. “You want Blake Security to have a conversation with him?”
While many of Noah’s clients were upper-class businesspeople, he also did pro bono work. People who needed Noah’s help getting rid of boyfriends and stalkers. The dregs of society. People the police couldn’t or wouldn’t help. And maybe Diana would’ve needed someone like Noah. Except she had him.
And if Diana wasn’t going to open up on her own, then Rafe would just have to help her along. “I just want to have a look into her past and at that asshole who’s still after her. I need to be able to protect her.”
“Holy shit, this isn’t just some random girl. You’re into her.”
“She’s running from something. I’m trying to help her. That’s all.”
Noah laughed. “If you think you’ll get away with that, you’re delusional. It’s written all over you. Protectiveness, the desire to kill whoever it was who hurt her. You’re staking a claim on her. Oskar said you got cagey when he flirted with her. But I didn’t believe him.”
“Mind your own business. She just needs help. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh. Whatever you say, man. I’m just saying it’s not like you to not do a thorough vetting first.”
Fuck. He already knew that. “I don’t know what the fuck happened. I was supposed to just be helping her. Next thing, she’s under my skin, you know? With that sassy mouth and all the crazy shit she’s doing to my house. There was a candle burning on the table while we ate dinner the other night. A fucking candle, for the love of Christ.”
Noah laughed. “This is awesome. I honestly never thought I’d see it. I mean, it’s not like I thought you were a monk but hearing you all confused… It’s fucking fantastic.”
“Fuck you. You going to lend me Matthias or what?”
“Mi hacker es su hacker.”
Rafe rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, man. You know I can do it myself if you’re going to give me grief.”
“Sure, you can do it yourself. But we both know Matthias will be faster, and you want to spend all your free time with little Miss Hot Blonde. Have to say man, you have excellent taste. She’s beautiful. And funny. Lucia loved her. Maybe she’ll finally get a sister out of you.”
“Don’t be a douchebag.”
Noah chuckled again. “I’m not exactly sure how to be any other way. Besides, I just want you to have what I found with Lucia. After the things we’ve done, to have someone look at you like that. I can’t even explain it. It gives your life meaning.”
Rafe swallowed against a swell of panic unlike anything he’d ever experienced. All his life he’d worked to protect his family, done unspeakable things, all with the aim of making sure they were safe. But he didn’t know how to be there for them anymore. He’d had to turn off that part of himself, the part that had once tucked Lucia into bed and read her bedtime stories. He didn’t know how to open the floodgates to all that emotion again without drowning in it.
He didn’t know how to be the kind of man Diana needed. Deserved. How did a man get that comfortable with putting himself out there? The way they’d been taught, feelings were a weakness. How had Noah gotten around that to open himself up to Lucia? How did he deal with keeping his darkness at bay so he wouldn’t hurt the woman he loved?
How did a man who’d been taught to assume the worst learn to trust?
“Rafe, you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I still can’t believe my kid sister is married with a baby of her own.”
“I know.” But Noah sounded proud instead of terrified. It had been quite a revelation to see the changes in him from being with Lucia. Rafe wouldn’t have thought there would ever come a day that he’d feel like he could learn something from Noah, but here it was.
“Has Lucia ever lied to you?”
Noah snorted and barked out a laugh. “Man, you don’t even want to know some of the things your sister has done. She’s a manipulative little thing when she wants to be.”
Now it was Rafe’s turn to snort. “Lucia? No way. She’s always been an angel,” he muttered sarcastically.
His sister had been raised to be the good girl. But somewhere along the line, she’d bucked that and started standing on her own. And sometimes that came with deception.
Like the time she and JJ had locked Delaney in the panic room so they could go after a killer.
Shit. He still lost sleep over that one.
He’d watched her grow up and been a surrogate father to her after their parents died. He’d always thought he knew her inside and out. But she had changed in all the time he’d been gone.
“You know as well as I do that your sister is no angel anymore. This is the girl who ditched her security by dressing one of the girls in her office in her clothes so she and JJ could hit a club.”
“Oh yeah, that night when I tried to get her back. You should have done something about that.”
“Like I could stop her. Have you ever tried to get between Lucia and something she wants? Not if you want to keep your balls.”
Rafe chuckled. He had to admit that despite being such a good kid, Lucia was really good at getting her way. She could just turn those big gray eyes on you and you’d cave and give her whatever she wanted. But not like this. She’d always been more… persuasive than sneaky. Nothing like he was seeing with Diana.
“You’re right. She could be a handful when she wanted. I blame JJ.”
Noah barked a laugh. “You know what, I’m inclined to believe that, but I think sometimes JJ just gives her permission to do things she always wanted to. She sent me a strippergram here at the office when she was pissed at me one time.”
“Wait, what? Lucia sent strippers? Why didn’t I know this?” Rafe wasn’t sure he wanted to continue the conversation. There were certain things he just didn’t want to know about his sister.
Noah’s laughter carried through the phone, and Rafe couldn’t help smiling too. Although it did make him a little sad, as it always did when he was reminded just how long he’d been gone, just how much his time with ORUS had really cost him.
“I don’t think I need to know too much about my sister as an adult. I’ll just keep thinking of her as a little pip-squeak with pigtails.”
Noah’s laughter finally trailed off. “That’s probably best. But in short, the answer to your question is yes. Lucia has lied to me before. Sometimes when it’s minor, and sometimes when it can get her killed. But it’s always because she feels like she’s doing the right thing.”
Rafe suddenly wasn’t sure he wanted to borrow Matthias anymore. What the hell was he doing assuming his relationship, or whatever you wanted to call it, with Diana was anything like what Noah had with Lucia? His friend and sister had known each other for years and had been through a lot together. What did he have with Diana?
“Woman troubles, Rafe?”
He grunted. Noah had always been an intuitive bastard. It was part of what had made him such a great assassin.
“I’m just not sure I can trust her. She’s different from any woman I’ve ever met. Nothing between us has unfolded in the usual way, and I’m not sure how to handle her.”
Noah was quiet for a while. Rafe didn’t rush him. From experience, he knew that Noah liked to look at things from all angles before he offered an opinion.
“Do you think she cares about you? Because in my experience, when the woman you care about lies, it’s because she’s scared. Your girl have a reason to be scared?”
“Yeah, but she doesn’t trust me enough to tell me why yet. Some asshole hurt her. Right now she’s not telling me a thing about him.”
“Until then, it might not be a bad idea to put a tracker on her.”
As soon as Noah suggested it, Rafe wondered why he hadn’t already done it. Damn, he was getting soft already. “Definitely doing that today.”
“I can give you ideas for some really good trackers that she won’t even notice. But most important, keep your eyes on her. You’ve always had crazy good instincts. If there’s even a chance that this girl is into something bad, you might be her only chance to get out of it alive.”
Diana took another bite of her pad thai and chewed mindlessly, not tasting a thing. She glanced over at Rafe. This had been the weirdest day. Ever since they’d woken up, she’d been getting a weird vibe from him. It wasn’t that he’d treated her any differently or ignored her, but the previous open, raw intensity she’d gotten from him was gone. Cautious. That was the best way she could describe the way he seemed now.
Like you’re any better.
Diana put down her fork with a sigh. It was entirely possible that Rafe was just reacting to her shifting emotions. How was she supposed to reconcile the man responsible for her father’s death with the same man who seemed hell-bent on protecting and sheltering her?
“Is it good?”
She jerked her gaze up at the sound of his voice. They’d been eating their takeout on the couch, watching a movie, but she hadn’t paid attention to any of it. Rafe didn’t look like he much cared about it either. He’d been sneaking glances over at her the whole time but hadn’t said anything to her directly until now.
“Diana? Are you okay?” Rafe’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked her over.
“Yup. I’m great.” She winced at the cheesy response. “Just really hungry.”
His eyes dropped to her almost-full plate of food. She’d been pushing the same pile of noodles around for the past half hour. He didn’t call her out on the obvious lie though, just took the plate from her and placed it carefully on the coffee table in front of them. Then he knelt on the floor at her feet and took her hand, her fingers small in his larger ones.
“Rafe, what are you doing?”
He moved forward until he was between her legs. She sucked in a breath as his body insinuated itself right between her thighs, brushing against her everywhere. The desire that had been simmering in the background burst forth and raced through her, stealing her breath. Damn, the man could just breathe and turn her on.
Diana tried to look away, but he put a finger under her chin and held her still so she couldn’t avoid his eyes. Even that was sexy, the way he just took control and handled her. She wouldn’t have thought she’d like that, especially coming from a background of such domineering men. But Rafe had a way of doing things that made her feel safe and protected instead of trampled over and ignored. Everything he did seemed to be for her benefit and pleasure.
Especially in the bedroom.
She blushed. The man definitely enjoyed putting her pleasure first and seemed to consider it a challenge to make her lose control.
“I’m talking to you. I’m making sure you know that you can tell me anything. Anything. I’m not going to judge you.”
Diana bit her lip. It was so stupid that she had this sudden urge to cry. But he was being so sweet and gentle with her. Was it so wrong that she wished it could be real? That she wished they were just normal people who’d met one day and could actually have a relationship? Instead, he was a dangerous former assassin, and she was a stupid girl who’d actually believed she could investigate her father’s death on her own. Her investigation was a joke because she still had no idea who had actually ordered her father’s death, and worse, all she’d accomplished so far was falling halfway in love with Rafe.
Not that she thought Rafe was a saint. It was obvious that he was exactly who her research had revealed him to be. Lethal. But he seemed to use his not-quite-legal talents to help protect those who needed it instead of hurting others. So why hadn’t he done the same for her father? Everything inside was screaming for her to make sense of this mystery.
Rafe was still watching her closely, his eyes scanning her face like he could hear her twisted thoughts. “Are you in trouble, Diana?”
“No, I’m fine. Why would you think I’m in trouble?” she answered automatically.
He looked disappointed but didn’t say anything else, just rubbed her arms until she felt like purring. Diana let out a little sigh and then cleared her throat to cover it. It was dangerous to let down her guard with him. With him rubbing her like that and looking at her with his dark, liquid eyes, she’d be lucky if he didn’t have her spilling all her secrets in no time.
“I’m going to tell you what I think is going on. Okay? You don’t have to say anything, you can just listen.”
She nodded to let him know she’d heard him, but her tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of her mouth. His fingers were still dancing over her arms, and she was melting bit by bit with every stroke.
“You are a beautiful woman. I can see that you don’t truly understand how beautiful you are. Women like you often end up with men who don’t appreciate you. Men who take advantage of your sweet nature.”
Rafe’s voice was a quiet rumble between them, the gentle power of it making her feel so safe. Diana had no idea where he was going with this but couldn’t ignore her body’s response to him telling her she was beautiful. Her pussy clenched hard and her nipples drew up so tight that if he looked down, he’d be able to tell. Calm down, she thought, annoyed at the instant physical response. Her overeager nipples reacted like he was talking directly to them. Another wash of heat ran through her as she remembered how Rafe had worshipped her breasts every time they made love. It was no wonder her body reacted so quickly just to the sound of his voice.
“But you don’t have to worry about that with me. I would never hurt you. All I want to do is protect you. I need to protect you. Do you understand?”
Diana pulled him closer and held him against her. He softened and folded himself around her. It was a completely unique feeling to want to curl up in his arms and just stay there forever. Before this, she wouldn’t have thought herself a particularly emotional or demonstrative woman, but with Rafe all her vulnerable parts were flayed open, and worse, she was okay with it.
“You can’t save me from this,” she murmured. It was so tempting to confide in him and just tell him the whole story. But no matter how wonderful he was being right now, she had a lifetime of experience with her father and brothers, men who acted one way and then changed when you displeased them. She simply couldn’t take the chance.
“He’s not going to get anywhere near you, sweetheart. I would never allow anyone to hurt you.”
Surprised at the fierce certainty in his voice, Diana pulled back slightly. What was he talking about?
“Some men have trouble letting go after a relationship, but that’s no excuse for raising your hand to a woman. I’ll never understand those types of men. How can you harm someone who trusts you?” Rafe brushed her hair back from her forehead and pressed a gentle kiss there.
Diana stared at him in confusion before she figured out he was talking about her fabricated boyfriend. The one she was supposed to be running from.
She flushed, startled to see how quickly she’d lost the thread of her own lies. It was so easy to get caught up in this fairytale, to forget who she was and why she was really here. But she could never allow herself that luxury because Rafe wouldn’t feel this way about her if he knew who she really was. People always talked about unconditional love, but there was no such thing. All love was conditional, based on the person being who you thought they were. All Rafe’s love would turn to hate if he found out she’d come here with the sole purpose of exposing him to the authorities.
“I’m terrified,” she said truthfully. The enormity of the situation she’d gotten herself into swelled up until it seemed larger than life itself. She buried her head in the curve of Rafe’s shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t see her tears.
“I wasn’t there before, but I’m here now. You don’t need to be scared ever again. None of that ugliness can touch you now.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” she whispered, burying her face against his neck. “You can’t protect me from this. No one can.”
“I can. You have no idea the lengths I will go to for you, baby.”
His endearment just made it worse. She couldn’t even speak because there was nothing to say. Nothing would make this situation right except for turning back time and changing the past. Even that wouldn’t help because then they never would have met.
They were just two people who weren’t meant to be, and to Diana, that was the most heartbreaking thing of all.