Protecting His Assets (19 page)

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, wary.

With that settled, he assessed the situation like he would assess any business plan or mathematical problem. Which sequence was going to ensure the result he was looking for?

“I assume the police have Veronica in custody?” he started slow, easy.

Her lips pursed. “Yes, but we all know what happened the last time I assumed you were safe.”

He knew where she was going with that and stopped her. “You couldn’t have known the woman would be lying in wait in the stairwell of my building.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Her face twisted into an expression of disgust. “If I’d been less interested in getting laid and better at my job, maybe I’d have known about a great many other things, too, like the photograph of us in the elevator, and Edward Fielding at the—”

“Whoa.” He wasn’t going to let her blame herself. “I’m the one who arrogantly insisted that this whole thing was probably a harmless business tactic, that there was no way it was personally motivated. I said there couldn’t possibly be a woman out there I’d hurt so horribly she’d be driven to violence over it. So let’s not compare who was more wrong, because I’m pretty sure that I’m going to win.”

A small smile pulled at her lips. “Okay, you’ve got me there.”

“It’s got to be a record, though, right?” he said. “Who else gets two stalkers at the very same time? Do we know which one of them wrote the notes, broke into my apartment, and slashed my tires?”

“Actually, Edward Fielding has an alibi for the night your apartment was broken into, and he says he didn’t slash your tires, either, even though he is definitely the man I saw outside the clothing store that day.”

“Why was he following me?”

She paused. “Apparently, he wanted to return the money that his father stole from your father ten years ago.”

“He
what
?”

She nodded. “He told the police that he didn’t know what his father had done—he’d only been sixteen at the time. He said he just remembered being forced to leave his home in the middle of the night and ending up in Colombia. His father did die in that car accident two years later. Edward apparently went away to school after that and only returned very recently to deal with his mother’s estate when she passed away. In the course of this, he discovered a lock box in a bunch of his father’s old things. It had some newspaper clippings and the key to a safety deposit box at the bank in Bogota. When he found the money there and put the facts together, he came to find you. He was outside your apartment that one morning the cameras got him on tape because he was hoping to talk to you, but you didn’t come out. He said he followed you Saturday morning when we went shopping, but lost his nerve because you weren’t alone.”

“How did he know I was going to be at the gala last night?”

“Maybe he heard that your mother was the coordinator and simply decided that it was too difficult to get you alone, so he might have a better chance of talking to her.”

“But why all the skulking around? If he really wanted to give back the money, there was no reason for him to be afraid.”

“It’s not
all
the money. It’s whatever is left over after ten years. And don’t forget, his father fled the country with the whole family. Fielding seems to have been worried that the police would determine they were all a part of it.” She paused. “He wanted to do the right thing, but he didn’t want to get in trouble. He slipped back into the U.S. without passing through an official border crossing.”

Steve’s side ached. He grimaced and shifted position with a bit of a groan. April immediately stepped forward and readjusted his pillow. He grasped her hand before she could jump away again.

“Why didn’t you go home to change?” he asked. “You haven’t washed. You look tired. Did the doctors check you out? When you fell down those stairs, I…”

She looked startled. Had no one else asked after her?

“I’m fine.” She carefully pulled away from him and straightened. She looked down at herself and smoothed a hand over her hip, as if it was the first time her state of attire had registered. His fist clenched in the blanket. He hated that his blood stained her skin, that her hair had come loose. He wanted to draw her close. Wanted to hold her. Wanted to lay her back in a steaming bath and wash her from head to toe.

“I had a job to do,” she said.

“Bullshit. Someone else could have done it.”

She snorted and put her hands on her hips. “You were worried about me, admit it.”

His head was starting to pound harder than before. His mouth was dry, and the ache in his side was a persistent stitch. “And you called
me
stubborn,” he muttered when she still refused to give him what he wanted.

April frowned and touched his hand. “Nolan, do you need more pain meds?”

He grabbed on to her with all the energy he had left. “If I take them, do you promise you’ll go get checked out?”

Her lips twitched. “Yes, boss.”

He winced. “As of this moment, you don’t work for me anymore.”

Her gaze widened with hurt.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get paid for the job, but your duties are completed.” He gritted his teeth against the increasing discomfort spreading through his body. “Which means you call me Steve, and you agree to go on a date with me when I get out of here.”

She automatically stepped back and shook her head. “Nolan, I can’t. It’s more complicated than the employer/employee thing, and you know it.”

“All I know is that we’re good together. We’re good in bed. We’re good out of bed. We could be fucking
awesome
, but you live behind these walls that are so damn exhausting to scale.”

“Maybe those walls are there for a reason,” she whispered.

“I get it, believe me I do,” he said, remembering how his father’s blood splattered across the bedroom wall had looked exactly like the Rorschach blots the psychiatrists had made him look at for years afterward. “But one day, the walls will be so high and thick, that what you thought you’d created for your own protection will have become a prison.”

“What are you, a shrink now?” she snapped defensively.

“I’m just a guy who’s realized for the first time in his life that he wants something more,” he admitted.

“There’s no such thing, Nolan. Not between people like us. It’s too hard.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said, firm. He was making her a promise, if only she’d see it.

But she was already retreating. He could see it in her eyes even before her feet started to carry her back. She dropped the button for the self-administering meds drip on the mattress by his arm and was moving away from him faster than he could say morphine shot.

She paused before walking to the door. “I’ll call Nora and make sure someone stands guard outside your room overnight,” she murmured.

“Who hurt you? Who made you so afraid to take a chance?” He didn’t know how he knew someone had, but she affirmed his suspicion when she flinched.

She clutched the doorframe, ready to propel herself through it.

“I never would have taken you for a coward, April Porter.” The pain in his side exploded as his posture tightened with resolve. He’d made his case to her as best he could, but if she couldn’t see it, if she couldn’t let him in and trust in him—in
them
—he wouldn’t beg.

He gave her a crisp nod as the ice settled in his chest. “Thank you for your professional assistance.”

He ignored the hurt that broke across her face at his abrupt and harsh dismissal. It wasn’t enough. She wasn’t prepared to give him more, and he couldn’t settle for anything less. He went ahead and pressed the damn button. At least if the drugs knocked him out, he wouldn’t have to lie there all night feeling sorry for himself.

Chapter Fourteen

A
pril had no idea where she was going as she raced out of Nolan’s room like the devil himself had lit a fire under her ass. All she knew was that if she had any chance of holding the line, of staying in control, she had to leave. Leave now and never look back.

A coward. That’s exactly what she was.

She made it to the stairwell exit, but as she shoved open the door with a sob, she glanced up and saw the hospital directory posted on the wall.

5
th
Floor – Radiation

With a heavy heart, she went up instead of down. On the fifth floor, she hesitated before exiting the stairwell. But what else did she have to lose? She stopped at the main desk and waited for the pretty nurse in dark green scrubs to finish with her paperwork.

The nurse looked up, and the welcoming smile on her face froze as she took in April’s appearance. “Are you okay?” she asked.

April glanced up and caught her reflection in the window of the hospital room across the hall. She looked stunned, not to mention pale, bruised, and dirty. The rest of her—including the once beautiful dress she should never have bought—must look just as bad.

But inside, she felt…shattered. She was breaking apart into sharp pieces that cut and stabbed…and she wanted her father. “I’m looking for Mitchell Porter,” April said weakly.

The nurse nodded and pointed back down the hall. “His room is four doors down that way.” She flipped a few pages in her binder and said, “He’s scheduled for a treatment in about twenty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

April found the room and lifted her fist. She stared at it hanging there in front of her for what seemed like forever before finally knocking.

“Yeah.”

April’s throat swelled at the thin, tired sound of her father’s voice, and part of her wanted to turn and run.

Oh God.
First Mom, and now Dad? Every time she walked into a hospital room, it felt like she was saying good-bye to someone.

And Nolan wanted to know why she refused to let her guard down? How was she supposed to love him, knowing it was just a matter of time before he left, too? He might not have to actually die to do it, but it was better to choose loneliness than to be blindsided with it after she’d gotten invested and comfortable.

She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. “Hey, Dad.”

His head jerked up from the magazine in his lap. “April. What are you doing here?” His face lacked color, and his cheeks were gaunt. Even the breadth of his shoulders looked narrower. He wasn’t the same man they’d called Mitch “the Ditch” back in the day because that’s where he left all his opponents. He wasn’t the same man who’d tossed her over his shoulders and made her screech with glee, and who’d taught her to throw a punch and keep her arms up to protect her face.

She took a few steps closer, restraining herself from running to him like she would have done any other day of her life. Not because she was afraid he would spurn her, but because she was afraid she’d start to cry…and then he would cry. She knew it right away.
That
was the real reason he hadn’t wanted her to come. He’d known how hard this would be for her, and he hadn’t wanted her to see him like this.

Her father squinted and looked her up and down. “What the hell happened to you?”

She choked out a laugh and cleared her throat. “I was attacked by a lunatic stalker in a stairwell.”

He raised a brow. “In an evening dress?”

“Didn’t you know? It’s the latest fashion craze in bodyguard uniforms.”

His mouth twitched. “Do I need to ask what the lunatic stalker looks like right now?”

“Worse, trust me,” she said, gingerly touching her jaw. It hadn’t ached so badly before. Then again, she’d been desperately trying to ignore pretty much everything…before.

Silence fell, and so did his smile. His shoulders drooped, and he opened his mouth.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t make me go.”

He sighed and patted the mattress. She swallowed hard and collapsed beside him in relief, crossing her knee under her. He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “I wish you had let me do it my way,” he murmured. “I didn’t want you to go through this.” He took her hand and squeezed.

“I know. But you have to let me, and you have to trust that I can take it,” she promised. Could she, though? She was so afraid of losing him, it was crippling. She was so afraid of losing
any
more people, she’d just
thrown away
the possibility of love. Her heart squeezed. “What I can’t take is you shutting me out, because I love you too much.”

“I know,” he repeated in a soft voice. “I’ll promise not to shut you out, if you promise not to shut out the world.”

She frowned. “What makes you think I would—”

“Big Joey gave me a call,” he said.

April groaned. “He was supposed to just get your answering machine,” she grumbled.

“What’s this about you and some highbrow client tossing sparks at one another on the mats?”

Her mouth dropped open. “Big Joey told you
that
?”

He chuckled. “You don’t think he dialed up four different people to find out how to reach me just because you were looking good in a pair of gloves, do you?”

She groaned. “It was no big deal. Maybe I went a little easy on the guy, that’s all.”

“You don’t go easy on anyone, ever. If they can’t handle my girl at her best, they don’t deserve you at any time.” He chucked her in the arm. “So, does the suit deserve you?”

She sighed and stared out the window into the late afternoon sun. “It’s…complicated, Dad. We have very different lives, and it’s just…not a good time.”

He tipped her face to look at him. “There’s never a good time to fall in love. When I met your mother, I was hell-bent on becoming the next middleweight champion of the world. I wasn’t thinking about romance and kids, but I saw her there at the train station, and everything changed just like that. She blew me off my feet.”

Tears blurred her vision. “But if you hadn’t married her, you wouldn’t have had your heart broken when she died, and you wouldn’t have had to give up on your dreams.”

“Your mother became my only dream. And then you came along, and I realized that dreams were made to evolve and grow, like we all must evolve and grow.”

He clutched her hand. His body might be frail, but his hands were still strong. Still big. Still capable. They were still her father’s hands. “April, honey, you aren’t going to make any dreams come true by locking your heart away out of reach.”

Her breathing hitched with emotion. “But what if it all falls apart? It hurt so much to lose Mom, and then after Jeremy…I can’t open up like that again.”

“You’re going to lose people. That’s a part of life.” They both knew it wasn’t just Nolan they were talking about now, and April couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “And when it happens, you start over again, and you make new dreams with all the good memories from the old ones,” he said.

“Dad.”

“I want you to have every good thing that the world has to offer, and if this silver-spooned society boy”—she chuckled and shook her head—“makes you happy, then maybe that’s where you should start.”

She laughed but her world was spinning. “I would have to give him some boxing pointers,” she teased. “He leads heavy.”

A nurse came into the room. Her long red hair was peppered with silver, but she’d pulled it back into a fresh-looking ponytail that showed off flawless skin and bright green eyes. April discreetly wiped her cheeks and stood up from the bed.

“Hi, Dory.” There was something in her father’s voice as he greeted the nurse.

“Hey, Mitch.” The woman’s radiant smile could have lit up the room. April raised an eyebrow, and her father actually blushed. “Are you ready for your last treatment?” Dory asked.

“Um, can I come?” April said, hands twisting in front of her.

Her father nodded. “You and Dory can get acquainted. She’s promised me we’re goin’ on a date when I get out of here,” he said with a grin.

A
couple of hours later, after helping her dad back to bed and getting him to drink a protein shake, April went back downstairs to Nolan’s hospital room, but it was empty and the bed was already being turned down by a candy striper.
Too late.

She went back out to the nurse’s desk. “Did the patient in this room get moved?”

The nurse looked up with a frown. “Not exactly. He insisted on being released and left the hospital about an hour ago.”

He’d left. Just like that.

April swore. She thanked the nurse and walked a few steps away for some privacy as she dug out her cell phone and called Nora. “Is Nolan still being covered?”

Her boss clucked. “Nope. That bankroll ship has sailed. He sent John home and said that after Edward Fielding and Ms. Ash, if someone else decided to stalk him anytime soon, he probably deserved it.” She paused. “I’ve got another contract coming in as we speak, though. I can probably have you working in Manhattan again by tomorrow morning.”

She sagged against the wall of the corridor. “Sorry Nora, but I’m going to need to take a leave of absence. I want to spend some time with my father and help him get back on his feet.”

“I understand. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, okay?”

She smiled weakly into her phone. “Thanks, but I think we just need some time to see if the radiation therapy worked and for him to get his strength back.”

She hung up and checked for messages, but there were none. She tapped the screen to her contacts page, scrolling down until she found Nolan’s number. Her thumb hesitated over the bubble that only had a shadow-figure inside it because she didn’t have a photo to attribute to his profile.

Is that what these last few days were destined to be relegated to? A shadowy break from reality they were both going to forget had ever happened? Or could she make her dreams a reality with someone like him?

The answer was obvious…

He had already left.

She looked at that shadowy bubble for a long time before finally dropping her phone back into her purse.