From Sanctum With Love (Masters and Mercenaries Book 10) (3 page)

She minded now. With a twist she managed to rear back and punch the fucker right in the nose. He didn’t get to touch her. Not ever again. He cursed, falling back and cradling his face. She was fairly certain he was walking a red carpet tonight. Let him explain a broken nose to the paparazzi.

“I will walk out of here and pack my bags,” she explained to him. “You will give me every single copy of those films you have and I won’t sue you or make a fuss about the fact that you stole my screenplay, but I swear to god if one of them slips through the cracks, I’ll go on every morning show and talk about our relationship. I’ve got photos and I won’t hesitate to use them. You remember that. Mutually assured destruction, Morgan. Don’t ever call me again.”

She heard him shouting something about how she’d be back or some shit, but he’d never known her at all if he believed that.

As the elevator took her down she knew one thing. It was time to leave. There was no happily ever after for her. Not in LA.

Maybe nowhere.

CHAPTER ONE

Present day

Dallas, TX

Kai stared at his patient and wondered if she was planning on spending the entire hour trying to win the quiet game. He had to give it to her. Erin Argent was damn good. She was good at deflecting, great at ignoring, positively magnificent at pretending.

But she couldn’t deflect, ignore, or pretend any longer.

“Erin, you came to me. I have to assume you didn’t come here to sit in silence.”

The woman sitting across from him looked gaunt, far too thin for what was happening to her body, but then she wasn’t concerned about herself physically. That was the problem. Erin had lost the man she loved in a mission a few months ago. Though she claimed she was “fine,” there was no way to mistake her for anything but a woman in pain.

“I came here because Case is an asshole who sticks his nose in everyone else’s business,” Erin said with a shake of her head. “I didn’t feel like eating. Since when was that a crime?”

“Case cares about you.” Kai felt the need to remind her. Again and again. Erin was the type of woman who needed to hear it until she believed it. It was how Theo Taggart had gotten through to her. When they’d left on assignment all those months before, Theo had been chasing her. They’d come back from Africa as a couple trying to find their way through, and Kai thought they could have made it work if Theo had lived. It was hard to believe that had only been a short time before. Sometimes it felt like forever. Case Taggart had lost his twin, Ian and Sean the brother they’d only recently known existed. Kai wasn’t even sure where his own brother was at the moment. How was Jared doing? He hadn’t talked to his brother in years, but that would change very soon. “We all care about you, Erin. And we’re all still hurting. The grieving process takes a long time.”

“I’m not grieving. I’m pissed. I want to get back to work and no one will let me.” She turned in her chair, staring out the window. “I’m starting to think McKay-Taggart isn’t the right place for me anymore. Maybe I should pack it up and start over again somewhere else.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d heard her say that in session. “Where would you go? Home?”

She shivered as though the idea was distasteful. “No. I wouldn’t go back there. I don’t know. Maybe I should get in my car and drive. There’s nothing left for me here.”

“Nothing except a whole family of people who love you. Ian doesn’t have you on desk duty because he’s punishing you. That’s not his point at all.”

“He thinks I can’t handle it anymore.” She turned around, warming to her subject. “And you know what? He’s gotten soft himself. He’s the one who can’t hack it. If he doesn’t want to handle business anymore, he shouldn’t put that on me. Li and I should be the ones out in LA dealing with the Bachman case. That’s our client. Ian sent Jesse and Simon. And I’m royally pissed that Big Tag decided to let Li go on that op alone two weeks ago. He wouldn’t have been in the position he’d been in if I’d been with him. He gave me some bullshit about how I wasn’t ready to go back to Africa. What? Does he think I’m going to cry because that was where Theo kissed me for the first time? Who the fuck does he think I am? He almost got Li killed and now my partner’s taken off on a vacation when we should be in LA. ”

That was overstating the situation. Way overstating what had been a minor hiccup on a short operation. Yes, she was determined to deflect. He couldn’t allow her to now. They were out of time. “Erin, why didn’t you eat the sandwich today?”

Apparently this particular session had been brought on by Erin refusing to eat. Case had ordered lunch for her. She’d taken one look at the pulled pork sandwich that had once been her favorite and walked right out of the conference room.

“I wasn’t hungry.” Her arms crossed stubbornly over her chest.

“Eve heard you throwing up in the bathroom.”

Erin’s eyes slid away. “Eve’s got a big mouth.”

He sat forward because this whole subject was so touchy. Though unlike Big Tag, he didn’t think she would run. Erin came across as brash and cold, but she wasn’t inside. The walls were there because she’d been hurt so terribly before. She might try to build them higher this time, might never open herself up again, but she wouldn’t leave Dallas. She would stay in the house Theo had bought for her. She would quietly mourn him to her dying day.

She didn’t have to do it alone.

This part had been left up to Kai’s discretion. He’d allowed her to avoid it the last few weeks because she needed time, but her family was starting to get nervous and with good reason. It was time to get the situation out in the open. Kai leaned in.

“Erin, we can’t not talk about what’s happening.”

Her face went mulish, lips flattening out. “Nothing’s happening. That’s the problem. I need to work and Big Tag seems to think that I should be chained to a desk like a good girl. Fuck him. Fuck all of you if you can’t see that I need to get out in the field and kick some ass.”

“And what about the baby, Erin?”

The room seemed to still as though everything had stopped with his words. Erin herself became motionless, her eyes widening. She shook her head. “I’m not. I’ve just been sick.”

Shit. How could she not know? Of all the scenarios, they hadn’t come up with this one. “Have you taken a pregnancy test?”

“I don’t have to because I’m not pregnant.” She stood up and squared her shoulders. “You can all go to hell.”

She strode out of the office, slamming the door on her way out.

Shit. He’d fucked that up royally.

The door opened again and he turned, grateful she’d come back, except it wasn’t Erin standing in the doorway. It was his office manager. Kori Williamson stood there, a frown on her pretty face. She was wearing a skirt, V-necked blouse, and some Boho sandals, her normally wild hair pulled back in a messy bun. She wasn’t neat and professionally perfect like some of the women he’d known, but the minute she walked in a room his dick noticed.

“What did you do?” Her husky voice sent a wave through him. He wasn’t sure if it was pleasure or irritation. All he knew was the woman made him feel, and that was enough for him.

Unfortunately, she was his employee and he’d learned long ago not to play where he worked. Not that she seemed interested in him at all. In fact, he was almost certain he scared her a little. He put down his notebook and took off his glasses. He was getting a headache. “You know I can’t talk about what happens in session.”

“Erin took off and she looked ready to kill someone.”

“I’m sure she would tell you that’s just her face.” What the hell was he going to tell Ian? Ian Taggart ran McKay-Taggart Security Services along with his best friend, Alex McKay. They were a tight-knit family. Kai had fallen in with them after he’d met Ian, and the big guy had offered Kai a place to set up his practice.

The fact that it was attached to one of the most exclusive BDSM clubs in the country didn’t hurt one bit. And now, thanks to an anonymous donor—yeah, like he wasn’t fairly certain that was the Taggart brothers, too—he had enough money in the bank to continue his work helping soldiers returning from war cope with PTSD for a while. He charged his patients what they could afford, which was often nothing.

But at least he could pay Kori well now. She deserved it. He wouldn’t be here without her.

“Look, I know the woman has resting bitch face, and trust me I’ve seen her active bitch face as well,” Kori shot back. “That was not anger. She was afraid.”

He would love to talk to her about it, but there was the little problem of patient therapist confidentiality. He took it seriously. “I can’t talk about it.”

Kori’s eyes went wide. “Shit. You told her about the baby, didn’t you? Damn it. I knew she didn’t know. What is wrong with you?”

“Hey, that is supposed to be confidential information.”

Those pretty blue eyes rolled in a way that made him ache to spank her round ass. “Nothing is confidential around here. Not about the club crew. The subs have been talking about it for the last couple of weeks. We overheard Eve talking to Charlotte about the fact that Erin’s been throwing up every day around ten. She tries to hide it, but that sound is distinctive. Also, she was complaining in the locker room the other day that her boobs were sore. She said she thought her period was coming, but with the throwing up and stuff it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that girl is four kinds of knocked up.”

“How can she not know she’s pregnant?” He was going to have to have a long talk with Big Tag and his wife, Charlotte, about the club submissives running amuck. They’d recently brought in a new training class and apparently they were being taught to gossip.

Kori stepped back, glancing out the door. “I’m sure she does know on some level, but there’s no question she’s in denial. Did you treat her like she’s a delicate flower who might wilt at the news?”

“I treated her like a woman who recently lost her lover.”

She shook her head. “That’s where you went wrong, boss. I’ll go talk to her. She headed straight for the bathroom. You have a four o’clock with someone named Squirrel. Are we taking in the furries now?”

That made him groan. His brother’s best friend from high school was now a member of his entourage. The fact that the kid was at least thirty and still called himself Squirrel did not bode well. “He’s one of the guys from the film crew. I had to promise to show him around Sanctum.”

“Film crew?” Her eyes widened.

Had he not told her? It had only been a few days since Alex had explained what the FBI needed from him, but that was going to have to wait. He had other problems. “Can you go and see if you can coax her back in here? I would go myself, but…”

“You’re scared of the women’s bathroom,” Kori surmised. “You know it’s actually very nice in there. I made sure of it. The guys’ bathroom is a pit of despair.”

“It’s clean.” He wasn’t sure why women needed the place where they answered nature’s call to be some soothing spa, but Kori had insisted on it. “It’s got a toilet and a place to pee and a place to wash your hands. It doesn’t need anything else.”

“Then why do all the guys who know about it use mine?” She’d insisted on a budget to redo the ladies’ lounge, as she called it. Kori shook her head and strode out. “Hey, McKay. Boss, Alex is here.”

It seemed to be his day for fucking up. Damn it. He hoped Kori knew what she was doing with Erin because another problem strode into his office with the confidence of a man who knew his place in the world.

“Have you ever been in the ladies’? That is one tricked out bathroom.” Alex glanced back. “I saw Erin running for it as I came in. Is everything all right?”

Kai sighed and slid his glasses on before moving back to his desk. McKay wasn’t here for a therapy session. Kai would be the one who needed the couch if anything. No. He needed the sturdy feel of his desk under his hands to get through this conversation. And the beer he’d bought and put in the fridge upstairs to get through the next few weeks. “Apparently she didn’t know she was pregnant. I can’t say she believes it.”

Alex nodded as though his suspicions had been confirmed. “Eve was worried about that.”

Kai didn’t understand. “If I had lady bits I would track that shit. I would know the minute I missed a visit from Mother Nature.”

Alex grinned as he sank his big body into the chair opposite Kai’s desk. “I can imagine. But then Erin’s not likely to live the life of a manwhore.”

“Yeah, I’m living it up,” Kai complained. “Don’t take every rumor you hear as truth, Alex. I haven’t actually had a girlfriend since I came to Dallas and I’ll be honest, sleeping with my play partners has gotten boring.”

He wanted something more. He wanted the connection that came when a Dom and a sub truly fit together, when their needs dovetailed and they could give to each other.

“I thought you were humping Kori’s sister.”

Not for all the money in the world. Shawna was a hot mess with a tendency to addiction and a severe narcissistic bent. How they were even siblings he had no idea. “She’s a patient. I don’t fuck patients.”