Blamed (15 page)

But where did that leave her? A year away didn’t erase her past deeds any more than it had severed her family ties. She’d skipped holidays with her parents and siblings, kept a stilted distance breached by casual phone calls, text messages and emails, and still her siblings claimed her when the chips were down. She had pushed them away while wishing they would come running after her, begging her to return, she realized with no small amount of chagrin. And she’d wanted the selfish pleasure of turning them down and proceeding to show off the new Beth with pride.

How petty of her.

Clenching her jaw, she nodded tightly as Tobias climbed into the taxi with a reminder to check in every few hours. After watching the yellow car disappear around the corner, she turned to Vick. “I’m not ready to run yet.” The choice she’d so easily made in her ruined kitchen seemed far less easy, in retrospect. Her brother was willingly walking into enemy territory tomorrow evening, to save her life. She needed to make sure it was a life worth saving, since she’d have to live with it, and the consequences of these actions, forever.

Vick shrugged unconcernedly. “Then we won’t. Follow me.”

They made their way in silence to the ramp’s elevators, ascending with a loud clank to the fourth level. The exterior of the structure had been tagged several times over with spray-painted graffiti, but the interior showed no signs of abuse. Vick led her past neat rows of parked vehicles to a beige Chevy Impala, the model a few years out of date.

It was, literally, the most inconspicuous sedan in America. He couldn’t have chosen better. “Where will we go?”

The key fob was stashed under the bumper, and soon Vick was popping open the trunk to deposit their bags. He unlocked the car doors, moving to open the passenger-side door for her. When he’d settled into the driver’s seat, he answered her. “We’ll find a hotel and rest up for the remainder of the day. You can make your decision in the morning. We’ve got a grace period here, until Tobias meets with Management.”

“A hotel is good.” And maybe some lunch, because, God, she was starving. She thought to her bag in the trunk and the purse at her feet. “I’ve got about fifteen hundred in cash, but I’m fucked if I need to show ID or use a credit card until Adam makes me new ones.” And what she needed wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, even if her younger brother overnighted the package in the next twenty minutes.

Twisting in his seat, Vick reached an arm behind them, wincing slightly at the strain it must have put on his wound. The back panel of the between-the-seats console came loose with a sharp yank. After hesitating a split second, he tossed a large Ziploc bag into her lap, slammed the console cover into place, and started up the car without a word.

She stared blindly at the bag, afraid to touch it. Through the clear plastic, she could see two American passports, a rubber-banded pile of credit and bank cards, several stacks of twenties and hundred-dollar bills, two wallets—one a man’s, the other a woman’s...and two simple gold wedding rings. Again, clearly intended for one male and one female.

The wipers moved wet snowflakes across the windshield, capturing her attention long enough to note they had merged onto the highway and were making their way toward downtown Chicago.

“This is what I meant, when I said the timing wasn’t right for a new identity yet,” he said quietly. “Open it.”

Nope. She was cool with
not
opening the Plastic Baggy of Secrets, thank you very much.

“You’re going to have to open it eventually. Might as well be now.”

“Am I?”

“If you decide to run...” He trailed off meaningfully, but his attention never wavered from the slippery road and speeding traffic.

She understood. She’d already been burned, her current alias a dud until further notice, and unless she headed directly for a secure Faraday facility now under her own name, with no stops along the way, she required the means for safe travel. An untraceable name and ready cash were steps one and two, and both appeared to be in the bag.

The wedding rings drew her gaze again.
If you run
,
I
run with you.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she cautiously peeled apart the bag’s airtight closure and withdrew the first passport—one with her picture from what looked like a year or two ago, judging by the layers in her hair. She’d been rocking the side-swept bangs then.

“Grace Morgan.” Then she flipped open the second passport to find a postage-stamp image of Vick’s face staring up her. “Paul Morgan.” A knot formed in her throat. “Are we...?”

“Married? Yes. Didn’t think we’d pass as brother and sister.”

A logical statement, given her heritage. While her paternal side placed her firmly in Daughters-of-the-American-Revolution territory, her mother was a Canadian-born Moroccan Jew. Beth and her siblings carried that maternal lineage not only in their veins, but on their skin. Vick, however, was as stereotypically English as they came with his fair skin.

He was right; no Customs official would ever buy them as siblings. But he could have had passports created with different surnames, and instead chose to tie himself to her with this stupid, silly, wonderful, idiotic, lovely bond. Even if it was fake. “Married. Okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated cautiously, glancing over at her as they sped under an I-Pass toll.

She flipped the passports closed, pressed them flat between her palms. “How long have you had these?” The quality of the forgeries was on par with what her brother Adam created, and that quality meant an investment of time and money. Paul and Grace Morgan’s passports, driver’s licenses and credit cards hadn’t been whipped together this afternoon.

He squirmed a bit in his seat before taking the next exit into downtown. “A while.”

Her lips curled upward, almost unwillingly. “A while, huh? Your attention to detail here is so sexy.”

“If you’re talking about the documentation, yes, the quality of work is pretty damn sexy.” His mouth twitched with subdued humor. “If you’re referring to my vague answer, your sarcasm is noted.”

“Noted, but not appreciated.” She tapped the passports against her leg, aiming for a casual tone. “You should answer, anyway.”

“No.”

“Come on, man. I was shot today.”

“I was shot yesterday. Worse than you.”

“It’s not a contest,” she huffed.

“It is when you’re trying to use it as leverage.” Traffic ebbed and flowed around the car as he navigated toward their destination. “You really want to know?”

“Vick.” Going with instinct, she laid a hand on his thigh, just above his knee. Muscle flexed beneath fabric, a delicious ripple of strength under her fingertips. “You must realize by know that when it comes to you, I
always
want to know.”

He kept quiet as they passed block after block, not speaking again until he pulled up to the Trump International Hotel’s gilded entrance. Shifting into park, he lifted a hand to hold off the valet attendant before settling it atop hers. The rough skin of his palm warmed the backs of her knuckles. “I started working on an exit strategy after Cyprus. For both of us.” He stared down at their hands, but she didn’t dare look away from his arresting face. “My plan was to approach you one year after our night together. I estimated it would take me that long to put all the fail-safes into place, and I wanted to allow enough time for you to process how you felt.” His fingers tightened around hers. “How you felt about me, that is. I was your first for a lot of important milestones, Beth, but being your first didn’t grant me the right to demand you choose me.” He glanced over at her again. “We know each other, but we don’t. Not yet. Paul and Grace Morgan can give us the opportunity to...learn one another.”

He said
learn
, but she heard
love.
“Are you asking me to choose you?” Because she already had, many years ago. She’d chosen to fall crazy-hard for the unnamed spy with the busted nose and gap teeth and the scar on his cheek that marked the anniversary of their first kiss.

But perhaps this man, whose name and features were still so new to her, required more consideration on her part. Perhaps she ought to measure him not by the markers of their shared past, but by word and deed from last night onward. Raleigh Vick was an unfamiliar man with a familiar heart, and with these passports, he offered her the chance to fall in love with more than just his heart.

What would it be like to learn Vick? How he took his morning coffee—or did he actually prefer tea? His favorite color. Sports team. What side of the bed he liked to sleep on. If he could cook as mean a steak as he did an omelette.

Shaking his head, he let go of her hand with a final squeeze. “I can’t ask you to choose me, but I can ask you to choose
you.
”

When he undid the clasp of his seatbelt, she followed suit, frowning. “I’m not sure I understand.”

He sighed, pulling the key from the ignition. The automatic dome light came on inside the car, highlighting the shadows in his handsome face, yet also accenting the faint signs of wear and tear and making him appear older. Or maybe simply his age. “I decided to wait a year to ask you to be with me, Beth, and we never made it. Afghanistan happened, and when I went searching for you—because you damn well better believe I searched for you—you’d already disappeared. I sat behind a desk, day in and day out, slowly healing, and I looked for you. When we discovered your alias, my first reaction was relief.”

Breathing had become difficult. “Because you found me?”

“Because you had finally chosen yourself.” His words were a near echo of Tobias’s from earlier that morning. “You gave yourself over to a life you truly wanted, as opposed to a life you’d fallen into through circumstance. You got out, my darling girl,” he rasped, lifting a hand to stroke gently over her cheek, the caress a remembered one from their distant past.
A
kiss.
An explosion.
“It was what I always wanted for you, though I’ll admit, I was selfish enough to also want to offer you that out.” His touch fell away. “Now I can. Choose you, Beth. I did.”

The knot in her chest refused to ease, the knuckles of her right hand turned white from her bloodless grip on the door handle. “You’re mine,” she whispered, shocked by her clarity of knowledge, her faith in him.

“Yes.”

“You’ve always been mine.”

“Always.” With a nod to the patient valet, Vick exited the car, while the attendant opened her door. She slid the Ziploc bag quickly into her purse, following Vick silently through the revolving front doors of the hotel after he shouldered both of their bags and handed over the keys and a tip to the valet.

The front-desk clerk greeted them with a pearly white smile. “Welcome to the Trump International Hotel. How can I help you this afternoon?”

“Paul Morgan.” Vick shifted into a flawless American accent carrying the echo of a Texas drawl. “I’m afraid we don’t have a reservation, but we need a room for the next couple nights.” He smiled apologetically at the clerk, who gave a fluttering little sigh that Beth understood only too well.

I
hear ya
,
pal.
Those man-dimples indenting his taut cheeks were killer.

The clerk rushed to assure them it was no trouble at all, searching for room availability on his computer. At the same time, Vick turned his potent smile on her, and her blood began a low simmer in her veins. “Honey, I hate to trouble you, but can you find my driver’s license and Visa from wherever you hid them in that bag of yours?”

Beth’s brow rose, but she bit the inside of her lip and rummaged around before producing what Vick needed. “Sure thing...honey.” She set the ID and credit card on the counter.

The clerk glanced between them. “One bed or two?”

“One,” Beth answered decisively, blushing to feel Vick’s gaze burning a hole in the side of her head. As the clerk typed and clicked, Beth leaned over, putting her lips to Vick’s ear. “You said you were mine,” she reminded him in a whisper. If he was, then she damn well intended to make the most of her ownership and live in the moment.

His hand fisted the excess material of her coat at the small of her back, out of sight of the clerk. “Three minutes,” he whispered in return, and the simmer reached a boil. “That’s all the time you have left before I take you, no matter where we are.”

Then he released her to sign the receipt the young man behind the desk had slid in front of him. The card and license were returned to her purse as the clerk handed over a pair of room keys in a sleek envelope, reminding them of the services to which they might avail themselves during their stay, and directed them to the elevator bank.

Her breathing was audible within the confines of the elevator, her face hot as she stared straight ahead at the reflective doors. “So, P.S., not sure how I feel being married to a Texan,” she said suddenly, filling the fraught silence with her shaky, high-pitched voice. “Is this an opposites-attract, red-state-blue-state union? Because we should probably talk about how we’re planning to vote in the next election. I’m more of a social issues gal, myself.”

“Forty-five seconds, baby.”

Beth cursed.

They’d barely made it inside the room when Vick shoved her back against the door and took her mouth with a ravishing hunger. Lips slanted, tongue delving, he bracketed her wrists in unyielding fingers and lifted her arms above her head. She hissed in a breath at the stretch and burn of the wound on her upper arm, but pain faded under the onslaught of his kiss. Passion and need coalesced as he brought the full weight of his body against hers and she felt the steely evidence of his arousal pressing into her abdomen.

Writhing against him, she tugged at his hold. Escape was impossible. “Undress me,” she gasped, catching his upper lip between her teeth when he made no move to heed her.

He growled and ground his hips against hers. “Don’t rush me.” His mouth left hers to trail open-mouthed kisses down her throat, but the collar of her coat impeded his progress. Strong hands fisted the warm wool and, with a series of jerks, freed the buttons to draw the coat down her arms. The coat pooled at their feet, his joining soon after, before he delved both hands into her hair and devoured her.