As he ambled over to the bank of windows, Grace thought of that joke about lawyers, that a hundred of them at the bottom of the sea was a good start. She had an urge to get the trend started.
"Are you blackmailing me?" she asked.
"Not at all." He turned to her. "And neither, of course, is my client."
When she remained silent, his brows rose.
"So, what do you say, Countess? If we come to an agree-ment on a figure right now, this messy part can be over with. The two of you can issue a joint statement to the press indicating that it is all very amicable and no one will ever see the photo that suggests you've cheated on your husband. Ranulf and I, we were thinking something with eight digits will be sufficient."
Grace's first thought was that he and his client could go to hell.
Instead, she smiled calmly. "Thank you for coming by."
"There's nothing you want to say to me?"
Telling the guy to go screw himself probably wasn't such a hot idea, she thought.
"I believe you've stated your position clearly and I'm not negotiating anything without my own counsel present."
Grace walked over to the door and waited for the man to leave.
As he was walking out, he said, "Don't be foolish about this."
"Thanks for the advice," she said wryly.
chapter
21
That night, Smith called Eddie. It was getting late, pushing eleven o'clock.
" 'Lo?" came the groggy greeting.
"We're having an early start tomorrow."
A groan came through the line. "What time we talking, Boss man?"
"Six."
Another groan. "You'd figure a looker like her'd be into the whole beauty sleep thing. We headed anywhere special?"
"She has a breakfast meeting just over the border in Connecticut."
"Okay, I'll be there with bells on. But they may be hanging off my pj's."
"Eddie?"
"Yeah, Boss?"
"Tell Tiny to give me a call when he checks in tomorrow."
"What for?"
Smith pushed a hand into his hair. It had grown in since he'd been working for Grace. He needed to get it cut again.
"I'm thinking about giving up this job."
"Why do you want to pull out?" When he didn't answer, Eddie said, "What's going on?"
Smith was reliving what it had been like to discover Grace was gone. Part of his horror over what had happened was his own failure. When he'd left the bathroom, he'd been distracted, dawdling with those rings, thinking about marriage, for Chrissakes. Because he hadn't been focused on the job, it had taken longer than it should have for him to figure out she'd left and that delay was bald evidence his objectivity was shot to shit.
The first rule in the security business was pretty damn straightforward: Always know where your client is. She'd risked her life by taking off without him, but he'd compounded the danger by flaking out. It was precisely what he'd feared would happen, a perfect storm of bad thinking on both their parts.
"Boss? You still there?"
"Yeah, I'm here." Smith sat on the edge of the bed.
"Doesn't she need you anymore?"
He deflected the question. "Turned out she was being tailed by her half-sister."
"She's got a half-sister?"
"She does now. I'm running a check on the woman but so far, she is who she says she is."
"But why are you leaving? Did they find the killer?"
"No."
"Boss, do you want to tell me what's really going on?" When he didn't reply, Eddie said, "You worried about being involved with her?"
Smith opened his mouth but the lie sputtered and died on his tongue. "Is it that goddamn obvious?"
"No, I've just known you too long. Hey, not that you're asking, but that's a good woman, there. And she's got the eye for you. Like you're wearing her home address on your chest, you know what I mean?"
"You're getting real poetic as you age," Smith said, growing uncomfortable with the conversation.
"It's the writing course."
"Look, I'll see you tomorrow."
"Hey, Boss?"
"Yeah, Eddie."
"It's about time you settled down."
"Men like me don't settle down. You know that."
"Don't you ever think about it?"
Not until recently, Smith said to himself.
"You know," Eddie barreled along, "Black Watch can keep going without you. Tiny, he's as on top of the boys as a hammer on nail heads."
"Now you're into metaphors?"
"That was a simile, Boss."
After he hung up, Smith began pacing around the room, realizing that somehow, in the midst of all his discipline and self-control, he'd lost his way.
For years, he'd had one and only one goal. He wanted to make a lot of money doing what came naturally to him without getting himself killed. It was a simple and straightforward kind of life, assuming you knew how to handle yourself with a gun, which he did. But, after years of succeeding admirably, he was confused and conflicted. Black Watch and all it stood for felt arbitrary.
Holding Grace in his arms did not.
He tried to remember when he'd last taken stock of what he wanted or needed as a man and thought about something she'd thrown at him when they'd been arguing once. She'd told him he was a ghost. That she wouldn't miss him because he'd never really been in her life.
She was right, he thought, on a practical level and maybe in some deeper, more troubling way. What had he really given her except pleasure? And some heart ache? She didn't even know his real name, for God's sake.
Come to think of it, he hadn't used his real name in years.
A ghost.
It dawned on him that maybe he'd disappeared awhile ago and it was only now he was noticing. Perhaps he'd just been hiding behind the drive to succeed in his peculiar, violent, and dangerous line of work. After all, what could possibly be more distracting, if you didn't want to think about yourself, than protecting other human lives?
He wondered when the dissolving had started. Way back when he'd escaped his father's brutality? During his stint with the Rangers? Or was it during those shape-shifting years right after he'd left the military, when he'd relied on aliases and subterfuge so his enemies couldn't find him?
More likely, it was an accumulation of all the shadows he'd masked himself with.
How f*cking ironic, he thought. The culmination of his life's work was to make himself disappear.
He thought back to what Eddie had said about settling down, starting over. The idea would have struck him as ludicrous coming from anyone else, except maybe Tiny. But if he unplugged from Black Watch, then what? What would he do with his hours, his days? Would he and Grace ever be able to have a life together? As he contemplated the expanse of time ahead of him, he felt the choices he had as a deadweight on his chest.
Nice frigging simile, he thought.
While he was cursing Eddie and his candor, Grace appeared in his doorway. She was wearing one of those nightgowns that hung from her delicate shoulders like a cloud of mist, the kind he could almost, but not quite, see through. His eyes traced the outline of her hips and waist and traveled up to her breasts.
"What is it?" he asked roughly.
"We're all set for tomorrow?”
"Yeah."
Silence stretched between them and Smith could feel the air change as their eyes met. Time began to melt. Slow down. Halt altogether.
He went over to her, thinking there was nothing he wouldn't do to protect her.
Even if that meant leaving.
He reached out to touch her, his fingers brushing across her collarbone and continuing downward over silk and lace. He came to a stop at the low point of the gown's bodice, right over her heart. He felt it pounding.