Hitman's Captive: A Bad Boy Romance (50 page)

My
heart was beating a hundred times a minute and I glared at her.

“Last
time, leave it the fuck alone.”

“No.
Not if you’re too blind to see it yourself. I’ve always looked out for you,
babe.”

She
stood up at that, looking down at me with a strange mix of emotions in her eyes
that for once I couldn’t read. But instead of continuing the argument, she
turned to leave. Somehow, that made the nerves in my stomach redouble far more
than if we’d spent another hour arguing.

“Kaylee—”

“Tell
him. For once in your god-damned life take what you want. And do it before Seth
becomes your stepbrother in truth.”

Then she
walked out, leaving me sitting there as frozen as the ice in my too-cold glass.
Despite the warm summer sun, a chill swept over me, and I couldn’t help the
waves of fear and anger that pounded through my heart.

We
would tell him. Before the wedding. We just needed to work out how.

Chapter Twenty One

Seth

“Seth!”

I
turned at my mother’s voice calling out from one of the side-rooms I’d just
passed.

Just
my luck.

And
I’d been hoping to find Bella before anyone saw me. Refraining from sighing, I made
my way back to that room.

From
the looks of it, it was the “decorations, napkins, and random ideas” room.
Bella and I had taken to naming them based on their role in the wedding, and
the varied samples laid out within them.

“Hey
Mom, how’re you?”

She
turned and grinned at me before coming over for a brief hug.

“The
wedding’s only a week away, Seth! I don’t know whether to be excited or
terrified! Maybe I’m both.”

She
giggled and headed back to what she had been looking at laid out on the table.
I tried not to get irritated - at least this time she had genuinely put a lot
of effort into it, and she seemed to get on well with Terence. It was
understandable for her to be excited about her own wedding. Whatever I thought
about it.

“I
need a man’s opinion. The tailor just called and said that they’re out of this
cream colored cloth for the tables, which would have been perfect with all the
other place settings. So we need to decide between these and I don’t know
whether going with a lilac would be too feminine—”

“Mom,
I don’t do this stuff. You know that. Why don’t you ask Terence?”

She
hesitated for a moment, then sank into the chair with a sigh.

“He’s
busy. He’s always busy, Seth! I mean, I know he’s an important man, but it’s
our wedding and…”

Personally,
I didn’t think any guy would be interested in debating cream or lilac
tablecloths, their wedding or not, but my mother had always been a little
insecure.

“I’m
sure it’s fine, Mom. He’ll be happy with whatever you pick.”

“Yeah.
Probably. You don’t think he’s getting bored with me, do you?”

I
looked at her with surprise as her mind darted in another direction. I shifted
uneasily, suddenly wondering whether
this
was what she needed a man’s
opinion on.

“I’m
sure he isn’t. Usually guys say what they mean - and from what Bella’s said,
he’s always been busy with work. It’s nothing unusual.”

She
nodded, but it was a little disheartened.

“I
just…I really want this to work, Seth. It’s been so great for all of us, don’t
you think? And Terence is a wonderful man.”

I wasn’t
sure whether she was trying to convince herself or me, and I felt the familiar
doubt creep in as she continued.

“And
it’s been simply wonderful having you around so much. You seem to be getting on
handsomely with Bella, too. Isn’t it so good that in a week we’re all going to
be one family?”

She
seemed to dart from uncertainty to excitement faster than I could follow, and I
stopped trying to process it all, cutting myself off before snapping at
that
sentiment.

It made
me feel a little guilty, knowing that the reason I’d been around had nothing to
do with her, or with becoming a family. There was only
one
kind of way I
wanted a family with Bella, and it fucking wasn’t as her brother.

Still,
it was obvious how much she’d changed, and we hadn’t really talked about it…

“I’m
sure it will be fine, Mom. Look, I know where we came from and how different
all this is for you. I never said, but I’m glad you finally took that advice.”

The
beaming smile she gave me had me shaking my head slightly, but she was already
off at a mile a minute.

“You
are? Ohh Seth, you don’t know how much that means to me! I wanted to. I wanted
to make everything better for us. I’m just worried—maybe I’m not doing it
right?”

There was
nothing I could say to help with that, and I’d pretty much given all the
reassurance I felt able to.

“Why
don’t you talk to Terence about it, if you’re concerned?”

“Oh
no, you know guys - they don’t like to talk about things like this.”

Well,
I’m sure as hell not appreciating it…

But it
was more than that - my mother had always liked drama. Attention. Excitement.
Even if it was everything failing and falling to pieces, it seemed to make her
happier than calm and stability. It was part of the reason it was so hard to
get over what she’d done to my childhood.

She
must have known that a businessman like Terence, with his rich lifestyle and
calm, controlled manner wouldn’t be able to provide that. I’d thought for a
while that maybe she’d been beyond it - she seemed beyond the booze and crazy
highs, after all. But now I couldn’t help wondering.

And I
couldn’t help thinking that maybe, if it didn’t work out, it wouldn’t be such a
bad thing.

It was
a pretty terrible thing to think, but my mother had had her shot at happiness.
A good dozen or so times.

Surely
someone who would actually take it seriously deserved that chance?

I
shook my head. I wanted Bella. She wanted me. Whatever our parents did, we were
going to make that work.

I
extracted myself from any more of my mother’s concerns - I was pretty sure if I
wanted to give her the time, she could continue for another hour or so - and
picked out a random ‘masculine’ beige to replace the cream. That seemed to make
her happy enough and I managed to leave without getting tangled up in anything
else.

When I
let myself up into Bella’s room, though, it was empty.

Instead
of wandering around looking for her when she could well be out, my eyes lighted
on the bookshelves and I figured I’d explore some of her interests a little
more.

*  *  *

“What
are you looking at?”

Bella
had come in and shut the door as I was still glancing through one of the
well-used paperbacks that had been shunted to a small corner of her bookshelf.

“A
regency romance novel, from the looks of it.”

She
shrieked immediately, grabbing it out of my hand as her face went a quite
remarkable shade of red.

“Hey!
You can’t just go looking through my stuff—”

I just
laughed, grabbing her and bringing her into a slow kiss that stifled the objection.
Her cheeks were still flaming when I let up.

“I’m
not sure why you’re so embarrassed. There wasn’t even much sex in it - that I
could see, anyway. Did I miss the good bits?”

She
slapped her hand against my chest, then collapsed against me in what I thought
was laughter.

“You’re
terrible.”

“So
I’ve heard.”

“It’s
just…they’re silly things. Not like the other stuff I read. I don’t even read
them much…”

I
raised an eyebrow, looking at the dog-eared book and she flushed again.

“Okay,
maybe every so often. I told you - I always liked those fanciful true love
notions.”

I
laughed and kissed her gently, one hand running down her back as the other
brought her head back up.

“If
they put you in a certain mood, I’m not going to object, baby-Bella.”

She
looked at me suspiciously, as if not convinced I wasn’t going to mock her.
Seeing that, I couldn’t
entirely
resist.

“Of
course, it does explain a lot.”

“What?”

“Military
guys…uniforms…”

I
kissed her as I said it and she writhed against me, some combination of amusement,
arousal and embarrassment that set my pulse racing. Then again, most of what
she did had that effect on me.

“Maybe.
You can’t tell anyone.”

“Secret’s
safe with me, babe. Just so long as you’re not expecting some knight in shining
armor. I don’t do that shit.”

She
flushed again, but as we moved back towards the bed - our natural motion - she
gave me a speculative look and halted the advance.

“I
don’t know, Seth. You wouldn’t belong on a round table, but I reckon you’ve got
your own code of honor. I’ve seen how hard you fight for those you care
about…how protective you are. Maybe a special kind of knight.
Mine.
”

For
some reason the words affected me more than I’d thought they would. To so many
people, I’d only ever been a bad guy out looking for trouble - and hell, I’d
enjoyed my share of that. But the idea that she saw me as something more…it
made me feel unexpectedly warm, and I smiled back at her, laughing at the
silliness of the notion.

“Sure
thing, babe. Your badass Navy SEAL knight. If that’s what gets you going.”

And
from the look in her eyes, it seemed to, as I pulled her back with me onto the
bed and kissed her again.

“Missed
you babe.”

“It’s
been a day, idiot.”

“Are
you trying to say you didn’t miss me?”

She
laughed and pushed at me.

“Okay,
okay, maybe I did.”

She
started showing me just how much, but then I interrupted with the other thing
I’d wanted to ask.

“What
did Kaylee want, anyway?”

Her
laughter died and I sat up with concerned as she looked at me. She bit her lip,
then answered.

“Well,
she knew about you, of course - so she wanted all those fun details. But she
also wanted me to tell my father about us. She was quite insistent about it, in
fact. Seemed to think it would make a big difference whether we told them
before the wedding…and time is running out for that.”

I
stilled, thinking it through. That Kaylee had guessed at us was no surprise,
and in truth her advice made sense - even if it might have been a little strong
for Bella’s liking. I knew we had to tell them soon, I’d just wanted a little
time to think about how to do it. We both had.

I
nodded and took her hand again.

“She’s
right, baby. We need to tell them soon - just…let’s take a day or so to get our
thoughts together. Then we’ll let them know, and hope to hell everything
doesn’t blow up.”

She
smiled at the language, but the disturbed look in her eyes worried me, and I
leaned in again to kiss her and make it better. It didn’t take too long before
that started to develop into other things, before she pushed up again and cursed.

“Damn,
I promised I’d meet Cora in a few minutes. She wants to go and visit the cake
shop, check nothing has gone wrong. I only came up here to grab my bag - wasn’t
expecting to find you sneaking around.”

I
growled slightly at that.

“I
wasn’t sneaking, and don’t tell me she’s dragging you into this as well? I
swear the next week is going to be hell…”

Bella
muttered something in agreement, but resisted my attempts to drag her back.

“Alright,
alright. I’ll try again tomorrow then. I’m going to start thinking you’re
getting bored of me.”

“All
the time. Every moment. Definitely boredom on my mind.”

She
blew a kiss, grabbed her bag and left without another word and I tried not to
laugh.

It was
hard to stay pissed off at my mother for getting in the way when I had such
soft, sweetness to enjoy most of the time. I let myself out of her room and
headed back out to the truck, wondering whether there was anything useful I
could be doing at base. At the least, I could see some people I guessed. Now
that I wasn’t snarling at anyone and everyone, they were fairly willing to have
me around.

I
smiled as I twirled the keys around my fingers, feeling ridiculously happy.

My
step had a lightness to it I wasn’t used to, and some stupid part of me felt
like I was behaving like a silly teenager all over again. Or, since I’d never
been one of those, perhaps for the first time.

Strange
how some fiery eyed girl could do this to me, but for once in my life I wasn’t
going to doubt and question. I was just going to take what was given to me and
enjoy it.

My
thoughts were cut off by the buzz of my phone and I flicked it up to see Dale
on the ID. Frowning, I answered.

“What’s
up, Chief?”

“It’s
Ryan. He’s MIA.”