Under the Wire (18 page)

So she went looking for him. To confront him. To set him straight or give up trying.

Instead of just Manny, however, she found all three men together. It was hard not to be moved by the picture they made. Their dark good looks contrasted with the white shirts they all wore; their expressions were intense, their eyes hard, as they huddled over a small fortune in cash like thieves over stolen loot.

Jesus.

It was a huge sum of money—money that Lily suspected she wasn't supposed to have seen. But there it was. Three big piles on the ground between Ethan, Dallas, and Manny that they appeared to be divvying up.

Finances hadn't been at the top of her concerns when she'd asked Manny for his help. Yeah, she'd known she'd owe someone money when this was over. She just hadn't realized how much.

"I... I'll repay you. I... I don't know when," she stammered, still stunned by the amount of cash that lay on the ground at their feet. "But I'll pay you back."

Three pairs of eyes snapped her way. Even in the fading light, she could see their surprise transition to resolve.

Ethan and Dallas glanced at Manny. "You explain it," Ethan said, and he and Dallas picked up their share of the bills and walked away.

Which left Lily with Manny—only suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea to be alone with him.

Not because he frightened her. Not even because he hated her.

It was a bad idea for an entirely different reason. One that shouldn't have come as a surprise but blindsided her just the same—just as it had earlier.

It wasn't just the visual of all that cash that had her heart rate soaring off the charts. It wasn't even the visual he made—all Rambo commando male perfection.

No matter how she tried to tell herself it was all about the physical pull, it came to her now that there was so much more.

It was him. The whole man. It had
been
him since she'd seen him in the ER what now seemed like years ago.

He'd become a craving to her—body and mind. Satisfying it had been amazing. No one—before or since, although there'd been damn few of either—had touched her, pleased her, moved her, like Manolo Ortega.

Perfect. Just
…
perfect.

She didn't get it. She wasn't a masochist. And she didn't make a habit of clinging to something that wasn't hers. Maybe it was because she was so worried. So mired in concern over Adam. It made her vulnerable.

Well, hell. She'd rather choke than apply that word to herself, but if she was being honest, it was true. She
was
vulnerable right now. And raw. With emotions and fear and a growing regret for all the lost years, all the misunderstandings and unfulfilled dreams.

"The money," Manny said, snapping Lily out of her funk as he folded the huge wad of cash into his wallet, "is not an issue for you to worry about."

"Excuse me?" Why she laughed, she didn't know. Nothing about this was funny. "Not an issue? There had to have been a hundred thousand or more on the ground a minute ago."

"Closer to two hundred K," Manny admitted, "but as I said, it's not an issue."

"Why? Because if you tell me where it came from you'll have to kill me?" Now that
really
wasn't funny. But she so didn't care.

She was frustrated and confused over the way she reacted to Manny—which was the way she had
always
reacted to Manny. She couldn't look at his mouth without wanting to own it. Couldn't see the pulse beat at his throat without wanting to heighten it. Couldn't look into those black Latin eyes and not wonder if he still wanted her, too.

And it was all pointless, Lily realized, beyond frustration and exhaustion and worry.

It was the wrong place.

Wrong time.

Wrong...

Just wrong.

CHAPTER 12

"We have a benefactor, okay?" Manny said. "It's that simple."

Lily shot him an incredulous look, worry for Adam rolling over the guilt she felt for her knee-jerk physical reaction to this man. "A benefactor?"

He shoved his wallet into his hip pocket. "One who can afford to bankroll us."

"Because he thinks you're . . . special?"

On any other man, in any other light, the slight tightening of his lips could have been mistaken for a smile. But Lily had seen Manny Ortega's smiles. This wasn't even close.

It was a grimace. Of impatience, she suspected. A save-me-from-this-insufferable-female smirk.

"Nolan—Ethan and Dallas's brother—once saved the life of a very rich man's daughter."

"A rich man's daughter? Does the daughter have a name?"

He hesitated, then told her. "Jillian Kincaid. Jillian Garrett now."

"Kincaid? As in Kincaid Publishing?" There were perhaps seven or eight major players in the publishing industry. Kincaid was at the top of the list.

"The same."

Lily might be a little sleep deprived—a condition she'd like to blame for this glut of physical reaction to Manny—but she managed to put it together. "So Nolan now has a rich father-in-law."

"Who is eager and willing to back certain . . . operations."

"Operations." She repeated the word as if mulling it over when in fact her temper flared like a flash fire. She was closer to the edge than she'd thought, because the distant, cold mechanics of the word had her seeing red. "My son is
not
an operation."

"Yes," Manny said after a long moment in which he seemed to be taking her measure. "He is. That's how we get him out of this. By keeping it impersonal. By keeping it real."

"Real?
Jesus.
You want real?" It was too much suddenly. Emotions that had been balancing on a thin, frayed line teetered, toppled, and plunged. "This is what's real. My son—
your
son—is in danger. We don't know where he is. We don't know who took him. What they're... what they're doing to him."

She stopped, tried to collect herself, and fell short. She covered her face with her hands, then on a deep breath raked the hair back from her forehead. "We don't know if he—if he's hurt. Or sick. Or, God, if he's even—"

"Lily." Manny's voice was hard, cautionary, as she spun around, paced away, paced back again.

He wanted her to settle down. She wasn't in a settling mood. "He's a boy! He ... he is not an
operation,
got it? He's
my
child—"

Strong arms banded around her, dragged her flush against a chest as unyielding as her anger.

The sound that came out of her mouth was primal, raw, unrecognizable as her own, as she keened out her heartache and frustration.

"God. Oh God, Manny. He can't be dead. He can't be d—"

He cupped her head in his big hand and pressed her face against his shoulder. Holding her steady. Holding her still.

Holding her together with his arms and his body and his heartbeat that pulsed against her cheek.

She'd lost it. God, she knew she'd lost it. Just like she knew he was holding her to quiet her, not to comfort her.

That should have angered her, too. Should have shamed her. Should have had her pushing out of his arms and dealing with her outburst on her own.

But she was weaker than she'd thought. And that was as demoralizing as it was defeating. Defeating to know that she needed this from him—no matter what the reason. Needed his arms around her. Needed the reminder that once there'd been something magical and good between them, when now everything was horrible and scary and she felt so damn helpless.

But for the strong, rough cadence of his heart beating beneath her ear and the sound of her own ragged breaths, all was suddenly silent around them. Even the unceasing song of the birds quieted.

For too long she let him hold her. For too long she leaned on him. Counted on him. On this man who knew her more intimately than any other.

On this man who hated her.

And suddenly that hurt cut her like the slice of a knife. She'd been dealing with it, trying to tell herself it didn't matter. But it did.
It hurt. Too much.

She tipped her face up to his, hadn't even been aware that she'd gripped his St. Christopher medal in her fingers and was hanging on tight. He searched her face and her heartbeat quickened. With wonder and surprise— even with hope—when, in the fading light, she saw much more in his dark eyes than she'd expected. The anger was gone. There was compassion there now. But most shocking of all, there was need. Riveting. Intense. Real.

So real she moved closer, sensed, with a razor-sharp awareness that only lovers feel, that he wanted to lower his mouth to hers. Taste. Rediscover. Reclaim.

And he was about to. With everything in her she knew he was about to... but then his body stiffened. He closed his eyes, tightened his jaw, and swore under his breath. When he met her eyes again, a dark cloud of restraint had dropped like a curtain.

And she was persona non grata once again.

She'd never felt so raw. So exposed.

Pride, however, was an amazing thing. It swept over her like a trauma team, swift and efficient, finding each insult to her psyche and applying salve on the wounds he'd just opened.

"I'm ... I'm sorry," she said, pretending she'd never seen his desire, never felt her own, as the medal fell from her suddenly lax fingers. "That was ... well. That was pretty pathetic is what it was."

She made to push away, but his arms tightened, then loosened abruptly. It happened so fast, she wondered if she'd just imagined that swift, protective pull before he let her go.

Wishful thinking? Desperate thinking?

God. She
was
pathetic.

"You're entitled to a meltdown," he said, his face as hard as the arms that had held her.

Entitled?

Well, damn.

Just when she'd felt a small concession on his part, he hit her with another reminder of what he thought of her.

With mercurial speed, her ragged emotions shifted again. Her hackles rose ... like those of a dog whose chain had been yanked too many times.

"I can't tell you what it means to me to receive your blessings." Sarcasm dripped like acid from each word. "But next time save your absolution for someone who might actually appreciate it, okay? I don't need it. Not from you."

His brows knit together. "That's not—"

She cut him off. "You're not my judge, Ortega. You're not my conscience. And you sure as hell aren't someone whose approval or permission I need."

Sick to death of him and of her pointless feelings for him, she spun around to leave.

A firm grip on her arm stopped her. "I just meant—"

"I know exactly what you
just
meant." She glared at him over her shoulder. "You meant that even a bitch like me deserves to be cut a little slack. Well, I'm up to here with your judgmental bullshit, all right? You think I turned you in? Fine. Think what you want. But think about this, too. What reason would I possibly have had to turn you over to Poveda? What
possible
reason?

"God, Manny." Frustration buzzed through her like a saw blade. "Think about it. I abhorred the man. Abhorred all he stood for. When did I
ever
give you any indication that I hated
you!
When did I ever do anything but
give
to you? When was I ever anything but
there
for you?"