Bancroft and Ford: Alpha Male Bad Boy Billionaire Romance (3 page)

Chapter Six

In the last hour, Leigh had begun to teeter between absolutely terrified and frighteningly numb. She hadn’t let go of Nigel’s hand because it felt good to hold on to something. That balsamic vinegar had begun to roll around in her belly and she began to wonder if it had been a good idea to eat in the first place. Well, either way, it’s not like she could have known what would happen.

She had become accustomed to the sound of boots every now and then roaming past the open door and she could imagine the chaos that could be happening right outside. By then, cnn would have caught wind of what was going on, along with all of the other main news outlets. They would be outlining the situation, minute by minute, to an international audience of nervous housewives and politicians. She could imagine local outlets would have been on it and maybe even national ones too. She had no doubt that President Obama was sitting in the situation room, ruminating over this. This was serious and she felt small.

Nigel kissed the top of her head. She was so vulnerable that she just let him.

That familiar static filled the room as the intercom came alive again. Leigh knew better than to wonder what these people wanted. It didn’t matter. These stories always ended the same way.

“Omar, be explicit about your demands. Neither one of us have time for a philosophical debate…”

It sounded like the President.

“Before you embarrass yourself, know that all of your people here in this airport are listening. So, go ahead, tell them their lives mean nothing to you.”

“You have brought them into this. I will not entertain your methods.”

“Very well. We shall see then. I challenge you to come and arrest me, or kill me, I forget your customs here, your morality.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have an army. Bring yours and see if you can me.”

There was a pause. Even over the intercom, Leigh could hear the shuffling of things: feet, paper…. “There are hundreds of civilians. I can hardly authorize that kind of unfocused force.”

“Why not? You did it all the time in Afghanistan.”

“What if I cannot give you what you ask?”

Omar chuckled. “Don’t worry. Don’t make a quick decision if you don’t to. But, for every hour you waste, I will take a child and kill it. I’ll start now, a down payment if you will, so you know I mean business.”

There was a click as he hung up the intercom telephone.

Leigh gulped. She wracked her brains for all of the terrorist hostage situations she had ever read about. Did they ever get out? What was the precedent for this? What would Obama do? Just as she was thinking all of this, one of Omar’s men came down the hall, dragging a young, blond child no older than six down the hallway.

Leigh could almost feel Nigel’s pulse through his hand. He stood up as the child got closer and closer.

All the sudden, Leigh began to remember things about Nigel, very specific things, like how he could be impulsive, like how he practically believe he was immortal. He stalked out of the room.

Leigh shot up from her seat, hoping to God he just wanted a better look for whatever reason. “NIgel don’t.”

“Let go of the girl.” His even voice practically bounced off the walls.

The man stopped.

The child’s cries lowered to a whimper.

He watched as Nigel knelt down in front of the girl, petting her head cheek and wiping her tears like he was some sort of alien. He clearly hadn’t expected any kind of resistance. The man thought quick, striking Nigel in the forehead with the butt of his gun.

Leigh darted out after him. She didn’t know what she was doing but God she couldn’t let go of him. “What teh fuck, Nigel?” she had to scream over the cries of the girl.

The man just stood over them, that same look of confusion on his face, like he was deciding what to do. Finally, “Get up. You.” He pointed at Nigel. “Come with me.”

As Nigel stood up, swiping the blood away, Leigh put herself in front of him, holding both of his arms as tight as she could. “No, I’m not letting him go.”

Nigel huffed. “What do you think he’ll do if you don’t?”

“Fine, both of you. Go, in front. Now.”

Leigh’s heart pounded harder than it ever had in her life. She couldn’t decide who she hated more, Nigel for trying to be the hero, or herself for falling in love with him all over again because of it.

Chapter Seven

Leigh assumed this would be the moment when her life would be flashing before her eyes, but it wasn’t. All she could think about was what the cnn correspondence would sound like about her. Would they call her a hero or a victim? Would they know that she had a history with Nigel? Would she become his lover fated to disaster? Would any of this matter?

As those two men marched her and Nigel down hallways and around corners, up to the third floor, across the terminal, she wondered what her life had ever meant. She never made it to the cover of Vogue and barely gave an interview that mattered. She hated herself so much in that moment, but not as much as she hated Nigel.

He walked beside her with a stern look on his face, his jaw set and the little girl’s hand in his. Her crying had been reduced to stray sniffles, her eyes had tried and she seemed to lean into. Leigh refused to let this sight soften her, refused to let her mind stray to what could have been. Eventually, they went out into the staircase and were marched up another flight of stairs. They eventually arrived at a heavy door. The man stopped and banged on the door with his gun.

The girl jumped at this, clinging to Nigel’s wrist.

A man dressed much like their own captor yanked the door open. He took one look at four of them and his brow furrowed with confusion. “What is this?”

The man shrugged. “They resisted.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And you didn’t shoot them?”

“That didn’t sound like my decision.”

Leigh clenched her jaw at the sound of frustration in that man’s voice.

“Omar!” Jerome opened the door wider, revealing a control room crawling with men in uniform. A man stood in the middle of a large switchboard at the center of the room. He wore a dark sweater, black dress pants and alligator print shoes. Leigh crumpled under the weight of his fierce stare. His green eyes contrasted with his midnight black hair.

Leigh shook in her shoes as Jerome grabbed her arm. She didn’t even realize how attached to Nigel she felt until she had been ripped away from him.

“I don’t need this right now.” Omar hissed at the two men. “I gave you one job: find me a child.” His body shook with his words, a kind of tension only extreme anger could produce. “And you fucked it up!”

Jerome glanced at Caled, a pointed look on his face. “I told him to just kill them.”

Omar ducked his head at the two of them. “We can’t just go killing them. The president will think we’re irrational. He won’t give me anything if he thinks I’ll kill all those pigs anyway.”

“We have to do something,” Caled said.

Omar shook his head, waving his hand in dismissal. “Just put them in the. You watch them, Caled. This is your fucking fault.”

Caled grabbed Leigh’s arm and threw her across the room. She gasped as her head his the concrete wall, the pain ringing through her skull. The girl was next, followed by Nigel. She started sniffling and her sniffles grew into full blown screams.

Omar grunted. “I swear to God I will kill that piece of shit. I don’t care if anyone is watching.”

Leigh gulped, her eyes watering as she picked up the girl and held her in her lap. Don’t cry. Just don’t fucking cry. Suddenly all those answers to those life questions came to mind. She could have been something, really meant something to someone. This child had an entire world in her parents and she was a world to them too. Now Leigh couldn’t feel anymore frigid than she did in that moment, disconnected to this tiny ball of life, a failure in every single sense of the word.

She held the child tight, taking in whiffs of the argan oil in her hair as she wished for her not to cry.

Nigel swiped the blood away from his forehead one more time before wrapping his arm around Leigh.

Her heart burst in her chest. She couldn’t handle how much of a family they felt like, albeit a screwed up one. She could have had this, she was so close to it. As she stared up at Nigel, the noise of the rest of the room had blurred into nothing. He trembled just as much as she did, the cool guy reduced to fear, fear born out of love, for her for life. He didn’t want to lose any of it. He held onto her as an anchor. In that moment, staring death in the face, she had never felt closer to him.

And yet she screamed her lie in her head. It begged to be set free.

“Nigel,” She whispered. This was not the right time, but she knew, just by looking at his bloodshot eyes, that there was no turning back now.

Leigh kissed the girl’s forehead, rocking her back and forth, holding her like she was her own.

“How did you get so good with children?”

The words slashed right through her heart. Leigh had never regretted anything so much in her life than right then and there. “I’m not. I’m terrible with children.” Their voices were lost in the sound of chatter filling the control room. Caled hardly looked at the three of them.

“What do you mean?”

Leigh couldn’t hold any of it in anymore. She let the hot, thin tears stream down her face as she leaned on him, burying her head in his neck.

He rubbed her back. “I know,” He whispered, “I’m scared too.”

“I can’t die yet. I haven’t done anything.”

He planted a kiss on her forehead. “You’re brilliant.”

“I’m evil and selfish.”

He held her face in both of his hands, forcing her to look up at him. Leigh could barely hear him over the whimpering of the little girl. “Where is this coming from?”

“I had a child and I left her and now I’ll stop existing and it won’t matter to her. It won’t make a difference. Because I wasn’t there. Because I was afraid.”

Nigel glowered, his lips folding into a frown, his eyes going to a far off place. “When?”

This was the hard part. Leigh didn’t know how to say this out loud.

“Don’t lie to me, Leigh.”

“I never lied to you. You never gave me that chance.”

“When?”

“After us.”

His hand melted off of her shoulder, he leaned back on to the wall, his eyes barely open. “I have a daughter?”

This was the absolute worst time for a man to learn he was a father. “Yes.”

He set his jaw. Leigh could almost see his heart shutting to her.

Chapter Eight

Leigh wanted to bang her head against the wall. “How could you be so selfish?” Her words echoed back to her, bouncing off the walls of Nigel’s villa.

Nigel slammed his glass on the dinner table, whiskey sploshing out of it. “Are you kidding me? Selfish? I’m doing the world a service.”

“How stupid do you think I am? You’re doing this for yourself.” Leigh couldn’t believe it. Just when she had fallen in love with him, he would do anything in his power to make sure they couldn’t be together. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Nigel’s eyes flashed wide. “This isn’t about you!”

“That’s exactly the point!” Leigh was seeing red. Her whole body shook with anger. She wanted to cry and scream, choke him and hold him all at once. “People are dying in Syria every day!”

Nigel sat back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Exactly.”

Leigh shook her head. “But you could be one of them.”

He shrugged. “That’s just a risk I’ll have to take.”

Leigh felt like her gut was being ripped out of her. She erupted into tears, the water washing the salt-encrusted makeup off of her face, her muscles going weak. She sank to the floor, because she needed him. Waves of nausea rolled around in her belly as the thought of losing him, really losing him, caught hold of her. She didn’t know what she would do with herself.

She heard him shifting his weight as he joined her on that cold floor.

“You have to let me come with you.” Leigh squeezed his cheek as if she could force him to do what she wanted.

He pried her hands off of him, holding them in his lap. “It’s too dangerous for you. You have your career.”

“And you have yours!”

“Don’t you understand? This is my career! People can ignore words, but pictures? Pictures are everything. There’s a revolution out there!”

Leigh didn’t know what to say. She had never learned how to contain him. Eventually, her tears dried. They didn’t bother to go upstairs and just fell asleep on the couch. The next morning, Leigh opened her eyes to an empty villa.

Chapter Nine

The control room had devolved into chaos. Leigh was beginning to realize that Omar was the worst hijacker in terrorist history. He barely had control of his own men and, in the face of ongoing, difficult negotiations with the leader of the free world, he was faltering. It had now been over an hour since his dramatic call to action and he still had not made a move to kill anyone.

With every passing minute, Leigh grew more and more anxious. She hated sitting there wondering over and over again which moment would be her last.

“Silence!”

Every stopped talking except for the child.

Omar flick his hand in her direction. “Turn on the camera.”

Leigh’s heart skipped a beat. This was it. Her gaze shifted to Nigel, but he still wouldn’t look at her. He wasn’t thinking about her, he was thinking about their child. Leigh didn’t know who to blame anymore. As she watched him gaze out of the large windows that overlooked the runway, she wondered if he would ever think of her again.

“Give me the child.”

Caled yanked her clean out of Leigh’s arms. She shot up, her head spinning. “Pl--

“Kill me instead.” Nigel stood. “You need to send a message right? You can do it with me.”

Leigh could see them considering it when she turned to him. “God, Nigel stop trying to be the hero.”

“Why? What else do I have to live for?”

Her eyes flashed wide. She couldn’t believe how she had just come full circle. “Me?”

“Fuck it.”

Caled dropped the girl, who then ran to Leigh’s side and grabbed onto Nigel.

“No!!” Leigh dropped to her knees. It was so strange. Just a day ago, she had been perfectly content with never seeing him again. But she had already let go of him once. She didn’t have the strength in her to do it again.

As Caled checked the settings on his gun, Leigh could just faintly hear the sound of a helicopter just far off in the distance. She caught the tears streaming down Nigel’s face as Caled pressed the gun against his head.

Omar raised his hand. “Stop!” He made his way towards the window and stared out of it. “Something’s not--” There was a pop, a sound barely louder than an airpuff.

Omar’s head shot back, before ricocheting forward. He dropped, hitting the ground like a bag of rocks.