Nothing Left to Lose (56 page)

Ashton groaned
and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around me and crushing me
against his chest. “Please calm down, Baby Girl,” he begged,
gripping his hand into the back of my hair, holding my face against
his neck securely. “I’m sorry. I should have stayed and showed you
I was okay. I didn’t think about that. All I could think about was
my need to have you safe and as far away from trouble as possible,”
he whispered, rubbing my back soothingly. As if he knew what I was
doing to myself, his hand closed over mine that was pinching my
inner elbow and he pulled it away, guiding my arm around his waist
instead. “Stop that,” he whispered. “I’m fine, I promise. Please
just breathe properly and calm down.”

“I hate you,” I
mumbled against the skin of his neck.

“No, you
don’t,” he whispered, pressing his mouth into my hair.

I sniffed and
wrapped my arms around him tightly, letting his familiar smell fill
my lungs. “I hate that I care about you,” I admitted, digging my
fingers into his back and pressing myself closer to him.

He laughed
quietly. “I know.” He kissed my temple softly.

I whimpered and
clutched him tightly. “You’re really okay?” I asked, trying to
regain control of myself.

“Yeah, I
promise. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think,” he whispered. His hands
traced a circle on my back as my breathing started to slow. His
arms wrapped around me, lifting me off my feet as he walked to the
bed and sat down on the edge, pinning me on his lap and rocking me
gently. When I pulled back to look at him, he smiled sadly and
wiped my tears away with his thumbs. “I hate myself for making you
cry.”

I sniffed
loudly as I took hold of his chin, turning his head one way and
then the other, checking for bruises. “You really didn’t get hurt?”
I asked, finally satisfied as I pressed my forehead against
his.

“I didn’t get
hurt.”

I closed my
eyes, and a little whimper left my lips. “Don’t ever do that to me
again. I was so worried about you. I started thinking all these
terrible things, and imagining you being hurt. I couldn’t stand to
see anything happen to you, Ashton. Please, don’t do that to me
again,” I begged quietly.

“I won’t, I
promise. I didn’t mean to upset you,” he whispered, holding me
tightly, stroking my hair. He moved under me and took hold of my
wrist, straightening my arm and looking down at the damaged skin on
the inside of my elbow. A bruise had already formed, blood was just
under the surface, and there were little scratches there oozing
with blood from my nails digging into my flesh. “Jesus, Anna,” he
groaned, shaking his head. “Why do you-”

“Don’t,” I
interjected. I reached up and tugged on the sleeve of my shirt,
covering it as best I could. I didn’t want to talk about it. I
couldn’t explain to him that sometimes pain was the only thing I
could control in my life, or that pain was the constant that never
left me, and was the one thing that made me think about something
else when all else around me crumbled.

His eyes closed
and his jaw tightened as his arms looped around me again, crushing
me against him. Silence lapsed over us as I just let myself relax
into his embrace. My body sagged against his with relief as I
rested my head against his shoulder. I was emotionally drained.

“What happened
in the café?” I asked a couple of minutes later.

He lay down and
rolled onto his side, holding me tightly to his chest. “I arrested
them,” he said simply.

I couldn’t help
but laugh. There were five guys in there, all looking to smash his
face in. “You’re a badass,” I chuckled. He just smiled and kissed
my nose and we just lay there for a few minutes, looking at each
other in silence. It was nice just being close to him, we only
really did this at night time and then we were usually trying to go
to sleep. After a couple of minutes, his cell phone rang.

He laughed and
shook his head. “Wow, good timing, Dean,” he grumbled, looking at
the screen. He answered his phone, still holding me tightly. “Hey,
what’s up?” he asked, rolling his eyes. I didn’t hear Dean’s
answer, but I felt Ashton’s body jerk in response. “Really? Yep,
okay, that’s fine. Yeah, in a bit. Absolutely.” He disconnected the
call. His face was tight with worry, but he was trying to disguise
it.

I smiled and
reached out, brushing a lock of his hair back into place. “If I
wasn’t allowed to hear the conversation, maybe you should have gone
outside,” I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes at him.

He chuckled and
rolled so that he was on top of me. “Hmm, you know you’re not
interested in the secret agent’s stuff,” he teased, smirking at
me.

“Yep, totally
boring stuff,” I confirmed, gripping his hips with my knees,
stopping him from going anywhere.

He laughed and
brushed my hair back from my face tenderly, smiling at me. “So,
about that date… shall we say seven?”

I sighed
dramatically. “Can’t you just tell me what it is now? You know I
hate surprises.”

“Nope,” he
answered, kissing my nose and pushing up off me.

I tightened my
grip on his hips, smirking at him. “If you don’t tell me, then I’m
not letting go.”

He shrugged as
his emerald green eyes sparkled with mischief. “Hmm, well maybe I
don’t want you to let go. This is a kind of nice position to be
in,” he retorted, waggling his eyebrows.

“Pervert,” I
scolded, slapping his chest as I released my grip on him.

He stood,
bending to grab my hands as he tugged me to my feet. “I’m only a
pervert around you,” he replied, laughing sheepishly.

“Yeah right,
player.” I scoffed sarcastically as he pulled me from the room.

“I’m not a
player!” he protested.

“Mmm hmm, yeah,
whatever.”

As I turned to
walk off, a small slap to my behind made me squeak in surprise.
“I’m not a player! I’m a one woman man,” he stated, shaking his
head.

“Oh really? So
that just means that you’ve never had a threesome?” I joked.

He rolled his
eyes at my comment. “Miss Spencer, you are the only girl for me,”
he answered, bowing theatrically.

I giggled.
“Whatever you say, boyfriend.” I blew him a kiss and headed to the
lounge to work on my project for school. I didn’t bother to try to
listen when he slipped out of the front door to talk to Dean about
the secret agent’s stuff that I wasn’t allowed to know about.

I smiled to
myself. The word ‘boyfriend’ was bouncing around in my brain as I
made my way to the door to go and speak to Dean. When I stepped
into the hallway, I saw him standing there waiting for me, his face
pale and worried.

I slapped his
shoulder and took the letter from his hand, trying to appear
unconcerned. “This it?” I asked, swallowing my anger. He nodded in
confirmation. I looked at the address on the envelope. It was
addressed to Anna but had been sent to the College’s office
address, so at least he didn’t know the address of our
apartment.

“The school
just sent it over by messenger,” Dean replied, shaking his head
nervously. I scowled when I flipped it over, seeing the prison
address on the back. I didn’t want to read it, but I had to. “Maybe
we should send it on to Senator Spencer and not open it.”

“No, I’ll send
it on to him after,” I disagreed. I needed to know what he said. If
this was a threat against her, I would be wasting time sending it
over to the Lake House and back again. I tore it open and held my
breath while I read it, thankfully it was fairly short.

Dear
Princess,

I see you’ve
started a new school. You’ve already been there for a couple of
months from what I hear, so hopefully you’ll stay at this one
longer than the last.

I miss you and
can’t wait to see you. The trial is less than three months away
now, and I can’t wait for us to be together again. I dream about
you every night, how I want to run my tongue over every inch of
your body and hear you call my name. God, I’ve missed your
beautiful face so much and I hope that you’ve missed me.

Maybe once all
of this is over, we can move away somewhere nice. I know you didn’t
much care for Miami, so we can talk about it. I hope you’re
behaving yourself while I’m not there. If I find out that you’ve
been with anyone else whilst I’ve been locked in this shithole, I
will be very angry, Princess. You’re mine, and mine alone. I can’t
even bear to think about you with other men, but I know you
wouldn’t do that to me, so I try not to dwell on it too much. I
guess that’s just me being my usual jealous self. I’ve just been
apart from you for so long now that it’s starting to drive me
crazy, I can barely think about anything other than holding you in
my arms and taking you into our bed again.

Life here is
much the same as usual, nothing ever changes in this place, I guess
that’s why I hate it so much – well, that and being away from you.
I wish you would visit me, even just for a few minutes so I could
hear your voice and see your face again. Sometimes I think I’m
losing grip of you, at times I cannot picture the exact shade of
your hair, or the exact fragrance of the perfume you favoured. All
of that will change soon my Princess, just a few more months and
then we’ll be reunited, and nothing will keep us apart this
time.

Well, I’ll
write you again next week. Good luck in your new school; see you in
a couple of months.

As always, I
love you.

Carter

xxx

I could barely
breathe through my anger. Dean was watching me curiously, so I
shook my head. “It’s not a threat. It’s a love note from Carter,” I
stated, almost spitting his name. Dean’s face turned angry too.
“I’d better call her father. You tell Peter about this when he gets
up. Don’t say anything to Anna, I’ll ask her father again if she
can be told, I really think she should know about this.” I shoved
the note back into its envelope and slid it into my pocket. I
didn’t offer to let Dean read it, there was nothing of interest in
there, and if these notes ever did get back to Anna, I knew she
wouldn’t want people to know about them anyway. She valued what
little privacy she had.

Dean was
watching me, waiting for more directions; I closed my eyes and
thought everything through. He wouldn’t get to her; if anyone came
anywhere near her, then I would kill them. He was talking about
seeing her at the trial and about the future, so he wouldn’t order
anyone to hurt her in any way. He loved her.

I opened my
eyes. “Okay, she already has pretty tight security; I think we need
to pull in a little further. We’ll cut far guard distance from a
hundred yards, to fifty instead. Make sure you have your gun with
you at all times. We’ll still go tonight otherwise she might get
suspicious, but I think that both you and Peter should come, if you
don’t mind. I’ll authorise overtime payments for you both for any
extra hours that we need when we go out and stuff,” I instructed.
Forcing a smile, I tried not to show the panic that was building
inside me because she was in the apartment on her own, even though
I was standing outside the only door.

Dean nodded, so
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialled Maddy’s number.
“Senator Spencer’s office,” she answered cheerfully.

“Ma’am, it’s
Agent Taylor. I need to speak to the Senator, please.”

“That’s not
possible, Agent Taylor. He’s in a meeting at the moment,” she
replied apologetically.

“Ma’am, please
put me through immediately and tell him I need to speak to him,” I
ordered sternly.

“Um, okay, hold
on,” she answered nervously. I was put on hold for a minute then he
came on the phone, sounding slightly panicked.

“Agent Taylor,
what’s happened?”

I took a deep
breath. “Sir, we’ve received a letter from Carter here at the
college. It was addressed to the college offices, thankfully, and
not the apartment, so there’s a good chance he doesn’t know our
exact location. It’s another love note, not a threat,” I
stated.

He drew in a
sharp breath. “Oh God. Do you think she needs to leave school and
come home?”

“No, sir, I
don’t. I don’t think he wants to hurt her at all. He refers in his
note to seeing her at the trial; I honestly don’t believe that he
would actually strike against her.”

He sounded like
he breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, so what do we do?”

“Well, I’ve
already tightened her security. I’d like your permission to
authorise overtime payments for times when I want to take extra
agents out with me. Like tonight, for example, it would be helpful
to keep Agent Michaels on for an extra couple of hours because
we’re going out in public. That kind of thing,” I explained.

“Yes, yes of
course, you authorise whatever you need. Do you want me to send you
another agent as well?”

“Not at the
moment, sir. If a threat comes in then I may request one, but at
the moment I don’t believe the danger is any greater than it was,”
I admitted. Sure, he knew which college she was in, he obviously
had someone keeping tabs on her because he knew that she’d been
here for a couple of months – but that didn’t mean that he was
going to do anything about it.

“Okay. Let me
know if there’s anything that you need,” Senator Spencer sighed
heavily.

I cleared my
throat. “Sir, I really feel that now is the time to tell Anna about
these letters. It would make her safer if she understood why we’re
always being so cautious with her security,” I explained, closing
my eyes and hoping he would say yes. I knew she’d worry, but at
least she would be more responsive to us guarding her.

He was quiet
for a minute, obviously thinking about it. “No, I really do think
it’s best if she’s kept unaware. She doesn’t need to be worrying
that he’s coming after her.”