Hard to Hold (13 page)

Her eyes finally lifted to his, and in that instant, he wished they hadn’t. He hadn’t
been there for her when she’d been in pain and needed him most. Guilt—Christ, just
how much heavier could it get?

“Too early, spontaneous labor. That’s what happened last time. I’m a few days short
of twenty-three weeks, Nick, and that’s when it happened last time.”

Her repetition of “last time” tore his gut in two. Christ, she’d been roughly five
months pregnant, over halfway, when she’d lost his child. How could he not have known?
His glanced down at her midriff and frowned. Shouldn’t she be showing more than the
small curve to her belly? “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

“Because…because I was scared that if I said it out loud, I’d tempt fate and make
another miscarriage come true. Silly but—”

“And if you’re in London, they can stop it. Stop you losing the baby?” he asked carefully.

“The hospital promised to try. No guarantees. But by God, I going to hold them to
their word if need be.”

He recalled the fluttering of her hand against her belly the night before. Christ,
why hadn’t he called her out then? He’d known something was scaring her, something
she’d been holding back, and he’d have driven her back to London there and then if
he’d known. He noticed his own hands were shaking. “Okay. If we take it slow, real
slow, are you all right to walk back to Will’s? I can carry you if you’re not.”

She cocked her head a little to the side, as if not quite trusting his about turn.
From fiercely adamant that they would be doing things his way, to damn near knee-shaking
agreement that she only had to ask, and he would comply. “I can make it on my own,
Nick.”

Yeah, and wasn’t that a bitch? Because he wasn’t sure how he was going to cope. Not
without her. But those three little words—witness protection program—wouldn’t leave
him alone.

“And I am not going back in that Land Rover. It made me sick.”

“There’s been a change of plans. London it is,” he told Will who greeted them at the
door, wary surprise written all over his face. “And we’re taking your car. Please
tell me it’s not a Land Rover.”

“It isn’t. I borrowed a Jag from the fleet. Will that do?”

He nodded, hoping it would. Anna looked hellishly pale. She also felt horribly fragile
beneath the curve of his arm. Something he wasn’t used to. Not from her. “Call ahead
for me, would you? We’re going to need a safe house. But hand pick the security detail
yourself.”

Releasing Anna, he pulled Will to one side, making sure to keep his voice low. “And,
the witness protection we talked about last night. Get me everything you can on it,
would you?”

“Is that wise? If you had concerns about the Service temporarily separating the pair
of you, how are you going to cope with WP? It’s permanent, mate. You’ll never see
her again. Can you live with that?”

He wouldn’t have to live with it. If the initial wrench away didn’t kill him, the
torturous loneliness he knew lay ahead without her would.

But keeping Anna and her daughter safe took priority. And not just from Antila and
the second unknown threat. From him. Him and the nasty little legacy Mad Mickey had
bequeathed him.

“It’s complicated.” That was all the explanation he was prepared to offer. Anna and
her daughter would need lifelong protection. He had to accept he couldn’t be the man
to provide it, not with his issues. But speaking the words out loud? Never going to
happen. Like Anna, he wasn’t about to risk having Fate listen in and put him to the
test. Letting her go, having her hate him, was going to be hard enough as it was without
Fate having a right old laugh at his expense.

“It always is, where Anna’s involved,” muttered his friend, pulling him into a rough
man-hug. “I’ll speak to the Commander. Ask him to keep you on the case until witness
protection kicks in. But don’t screw this up, Nick. Just don’t screw this up.”

The journey back to London was predictably tense. Nick remembered when Anna would
chatter away endlessly, getting on his nerves more often than not. Now, he missed
it. Her silence was like a barricade keeping him out, and he didn’t like it. He felt
like a stranger despite being in the company of the woman who’d shared his bed and
set the sheets alight from the hour she’d hit her eighteenth birthday. That’s when
he finally accepted it was pointless fighting Anna. No matter what resistance she
met, she forged on through until she got her own way.

And she’d wanted him, and for a long while he’d felt like a giant among men. Until
his temper had gotten the better of him and proved the taint in his blood.

He moistened his suddenly too-dry lips, hoping to dislodge the sour taste of shame
and regret. He shot her another cautious glance, his hands tightening on the steering
wheel. “Shouldn’t you be bigger?” He hadn’t meant to blurt out the question that had
been nagging at him quite so abruptly, but diplomacy had never been one of his smoother
skills.

“Isn’t that kind of an intimate question, Nick?”

A truck cut in front, and he swore—both at the truck and her innuendo—and hit the
brakes.

He knew she’d turned to study his profile and shot her another quick glance before
returning his concentration back to the traffic. “I bought you your first box of tampons
because you were too embarrassed to buy them yourself. Gave you back rubs when the
cramps got too much. I was also there when at sixteen you insisted on being prescribed
the Pill as a just-in-case. That bloody doctor couldn’t stop looking at me as if I
were scum intent on one thing only, getting into the pants of a sweet, innocent girl.
He wasn’t to know how many times I refused your hot little advances and that I’d keep
doing so until you were old enough. That was intimate, Anna, not to mention humiliating.
What I’m expressing now is simple curiosity.”

Anna snorted. “Liar. You’re concerned. I can tell because your knuckles are white
from gripping the steering wheel too tight. And those little crease marks you get
in your brow when you go into overprotective mode are also a dead giveaway…and did
you really find my attempts at seduction hot? You never said. I thought I was doing
something wrong. Or that you might be gay.”

He regretted her lack of self-confidence more than the fact she’d thought him gay.
He should have realized that behind that flippant, rebellious exterior of hers, she
was as fragile as spun glass. “Anna, I wanted you so badly, I wore those baggy trousers
low down on my hips, not because they were fashionable or because I liked them—in
fact I hated them—but because I had a permanent hard-on around you and needed a little
breathing space. And, yes, to get back on topic, I’m a little concerned about you
and the baby. Do I get an answer?”

His knuckles nearly burst through his skin when she huffed before responding. “Some
women show early, but I’m not one of them. If there was a problem, it likely would
have shown up on the scan.”

“You sure?”

“Nick, do me a favor. Don’t start getting all stressy. It’s not fair. It’s taken me
a long time to find and stand on my own feet without any expectation of support. I
never want to go back to being that weak again.”

Is that what she thought? That belonging to him was a weakness? He hit the blinker;
the fast lane wasn’t the best place to be having this conversation. He needed steady,
not speed. “Sharing your fears and leaning on someone now and again isn’t weak.”

“You should try listening to your own lectures, Nick. You might learn something. Know
what being with you taught me? That sharing makes you vulnerable, and I’m never doing
that again. It hurt too much.”

Being in love should not have caused her pain. He’d tried to make her happy. Where
had he gone wrong? “I liked you when you were vulnerable. It made me feel I made a
difference. Don’t shut me out again, Anna. There’s too much history between us.”

“And it’s because of that history that I do shut you out. You hurt me, Nick. I’d be
stupid to let you do so again.”

“What makes you so certain I’d do so again?” God he wanted to obliterate that word
“again” from every known language, it was like a condemning finger pointing the blame
straight at him.

“Intuition.”

“Never thought I see the day when Anna Key Marshall turned her back on a risk.” Because
that’s what he was, what he would always be—a risk. To her. And a fatal risk to anyone
who threatened her. Something he’d accepted and taken steps to minimize. But that
didn’t mean he didn’t revisit the night he’d chucked her out every goddamn day with
guilt slamming into his gut.

He hated that he’d hurt her. Wished he could tell her the truth. But that sure as
hell wasn’t a
risk
he was prepared to take.

Not meaning to, he thumped the steering wheel in frustration before shooting Anna
a sorry-I-was-having-a-moment look.

He sensed the sudden tension that gripped her. “Can you not do this, Nick? My life
is complex enough as it is.”

“What exactly am I doing?” No way was he withdrawing from this conversation; her barriers
were fracturing and he wanted in.

“Being reasonable. Listening. Trying to be nice. I don’t recognize you like this,
and it scares me.”

“You’re scared, because you’re in over your head, and you’re pissed off, because you’re
having to rely on me to get you out of trouble, just like in the old days.”

“Now, that’s more like the Old Nick I remember. I didn’t think Mr. Sensitive would
hang around for too long.”

He snorted. At least she was speaking to him. Pity, but he had a feeling he was about
to piss her off
again
. “Anna, you do know I can’t take you back to your warehouse, don’t you? Bombs going
off in central London tend to attract attention, so I’ve got orders to take you to
a designated safe house.”

“I don’t like this, Nick.”

Tension cut deep into his shoulders, and then he shrugged. “I know, sweetheart, but
neither of us has a choice.” No way was he raising the subject of witness protection
with her. Not until she’d been seen and given the all clear by a doctor. And even
then, he’d probably insist on having medics on standby. Not so much for her. For him.
For what she’d do to him.

“Does the Commander know about Antila?”

He shot her a sharp glance. He recognized that tone, casually innocent, but deceptively
so. The last thing he wanted was Anna haranguing his boss over the phone, or worse,
barging into the man’s office and letting him have it with both barrels. “No. He trusts
my judgment enough not to question me. To the best of my knowledge only Will and I
know, and for the time being, I want to keep it that way.”

“You’ll be discharged if they find out you withheld information.”

Yeah, and he’d probably be shot if she decided to take on the Commander. “Maybe. But
this isn’t about the Service. It isn’t about me. It’s not even all about you. It’s
about your daughter. She’s innocent in all this, so why should she pay the penalty?
The fewer people who know the truth about her biological father, the more secure her
future.”

“There you go getting all sensitive on me again.”

His lips twitched. Sensitive wasn’t a description that sat neatly on his shoulders.

“Um, Nick…thanks. It helps to know you think she has a chance.”

He had to strain his ears to catch what she’d said and as her words sunk. “Don’t you
dare cry on me again, I don’t need the guilt. We create our own chances. You know
that better than anyone. But until that baby is able to do that for herself, I guess
it’s down to you and me to do our best for her.”

“That sounds dangerously as if you’re getting involved, that you may even be planning
to be around a little while.”

“Never could resist a pretty smile, and I’m damned sure that’s what she gave me during
the scan.”

God, he’d missed her laugh. So full of mischief and trouble it was impossible to resist.
A little more of the tension straining his muscles ebbed away. How hard could it be
to get her to trust him again? Just until he knew for a fact that she was safe. Then,
somehow he’d find the strength to walk away.

“Keep this up, Nick, and you may even thaw out completely.”

He released her hand, not entirely sure when it was he’d curled his fingers round
hers. “No, Anna, that’s not going to happen. I meant it when I said this is not about
you and me. Some relationships are just not meant to be.”

His heart tore as she withdrew, pulling her knees high, her heels coming to rest on
the car seat. She turned her head and stared out the side window.

Christ, he had to say something. With her shoulders slumped like that, it looked like
she was dying on the inside. “Neither of us escaped our marriage unscathed. We both
lost too much. But we survived, and the truth is, we were probably better off apart.”

She swung round to face him. Little trails where silent tears had fallen lined her
cheeks. “
I
didn’t feel better off.”

“But you were, sweetheart. Look at how you soared. Look at what you achieved. Damn
near world domination of the gaming market. And I haven’t done too badly either. Despite
the occasional infraction, I’ve been able to concentrate one hundred percent on my
duties and I’ve got a real shot at taking over from the Commander one day.” He didn’t
share with her that he’d felt more dead than alive in the years they’d been apart.

“Admit it, Anna. We’ve both been happier and more successful apart.”

“So why do I feel like a failure, Nick? Answer me that.”

He couldn’t.

Chapter Twelve

Anna shot Nick the evil eye when he strode into the kitchen, all relaxed and perfectly
at home in the Service’s safe house. “I checked in on your staff this morning. They’re
fine. Those three rottweilers you employ have promised to hold the fort,” he informed
her casually.

She lowered the bottle of water from which she’d been about to sip. It hit the table
with a dull
thud
. “You have to stop doing that, Nick. Interfering in things that don’t concern you.”

He had his back to her while he surveyed the contents of the fridge. “You were bothered.
They were anxious. I sorted it. What’s the problem?”

The problem was that while Nick got to come and go as he pleased, she’d been a prisoner
for a week. Barred from making any calls, forbidden from stepping beyond the confines
of the safe house, all computer access denied—it was a slow death by tedium and she
hated it.

After three days, she’d stopped trying to be civil. Now, with a week under her belt,
she was ready to claw at her own skin. Scratching at others helped. “If you’d allowed
me to make contact, they wouldn’t have been fretting in the first place.”

“You know the rules. No outside communication of any kind.”

“Well, the way you flit in and out, you may as well hoist a flag proclaiming, ‘Anna
Key Marshall is here, so help yourself.’ They could be watching you too, remember.”

She heard him heave a deep sigh before he turned to face her. He propped his hips
against the counter and crossed his arms. “I’m experienced at all this, Anna. I’m
also careful, something you’ve never been.”

She’d lost her freedom, her right to choose and do as she pleased, when she pleased.
The safe house was spacious and comfortably furnished, but it was still a prison,
the walls seemingly growing thicker by the day. There were rules and dire warnings.
She was watched, monitored, and repeatedly asked if she was okay. And the suffocating
restriction was driving her insane. She had woken, ready to flare at the slightest
provocation. “If that’s a dig at me getting pregnant when you’d made it clear you
didn’t want children—”

He went rigid at her mention of children. Nothing surprising there. But it was rare
for him to refuse to meet her gaze. They’d covered this territory time and time again,
she realized. She needed to break the circle.

“Why did you push me away, Nick?” she pressed quietly. “Why did you give up on me?
On
us
? On what we had? I’ve never understood, and you’ve never explained. A couple of years
ago, I wrote a private software program and called it
Armageddon
. I entered every detail of our relationship I could remember and ran endless models
to try and make sense of what went wrong.”

He still wouldn’t look at her, but tension coiled him so tight, the kinetic energy
was so strong, she half expected the pots and plates to lift and spin.

“Find any answers?”

“No. I’m good, but I’m not God.”

His sudden movement toward her, like a spring with all its trapped energy suddenly
released, flattened her lungs. Leaning across the table, his fists bearing down on
the wood, he burned her with his glare. “Fine. You sure you really want to know? Because,
believe me, after you hear this, I won’t have to push you away—you’ll take to your
heels of your own accord. Ready?”

Swallowing thickly, she nodded slowly, not at all certain. Her spine felt as brittle
as uncooked spaghetti, likely to snap if he breathed too heavily in her direction.

“When I first started with the Service, I was an assassin. More an exterminator really.
I shot men, bad men, who thought themselves beyond the law. Killed them in cold blood,
fast and clean, always in control of my emotions…except for one time. The last time.
Then, I killed for the sheer pleasure of watching a man die.”

His expression was savage. She forced herself not to recoil.

She wasn’t completely naive. She’d suspected killing fell within his job description,
but she had tucked that little horror away in the dark recesses of her mind where
it could lie ignored. As long as he’d always returned to her safe and undamaged, as
long as he’d still wanted her, she hadn’t given a damn.

Only he hadn’t escaped undamaged, and she hadn’t noticed. He’d kept his wounds hidden,
buried deep on the inside, and she’d been too pissed at him for shutting her out to
stop and wonder why. Ignoring the knots in her stomach, she tried to keep her voice
level “Why?” Oh, God, she sounded like a mouse—being squelched beneath a paw.

Nick didn’t answer. She watched in quiet fascination as myriad emotions—anger, resistance,
disgust—sweep his face vying for supremacy, her blood chilling when resigned loathing
won.

He tipped back his head and stared at the ceiling. “Because he threatened
you
, Anna. Said he knew who you were and where you lived. He described how you’d die,
how he’d play with your body before you did. I saw red and beat him to death with
my own hands. Happy now?”

More swallowing, more nodding, nausea rising, her voiced dropped to a whisper. “Who
was he?”

Nick scrubbed at his face with open palms. “A fellow agent who’d been on the take
for years. You met him a few times. Sam Belington. Tall, red hair.”

She couldn’t help it, her eyes drifted to Nick’s hands. Hands that had never been
anything but protective with her. She vaguely remembered Sam as an outrageous flirt,
his ever-present smile just slightly off. She’d still liked him though. He’d been
fun. “Dear God, Nick.”

“He can’t help me. He never could. I’m no different from my father, just as he was
no different from his father before him. Killing’s always run in Marshall veins. A
family trait. Still need me to spell out why I didn’t want kids or to be anywhere
near them? Temper. A temper I’d managed to control until that day. How could I have
come anywhere near you after that? You brought out the best in me, Anna, but you also
brought out the worst. The bit of me I despise. The violence, the complete lack of
control. A gift from my father, Mad Mickey Marshall. I take it you’ve heard of him.”

She had. And shuddered. To get her to behave, one social worker had delighted in whispered
threats of Mad Mickey coming for her the dark of the night. That he’d steal her away
and drown her like a kitten in a sack tossed out to sea. Too scared to tell, she begged
Nick for his penknife and had slept with it open, clenched in her fist beneath the
covers, through her innocent years.

Aged twelve, a silent victim of too many nightmared nights, her first ever Google
search had been for Mad Mickey Marshall.

And she’d gotten a bigger knife.

Only relinquishing it years later, the first time she’d slept with Nick. The first
time in her life, she’d felt safe.

Nick quit the kitchen, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the mugs on the shelf
and
clang
the copper pots and pans hanging above the stove.

Her lips the texture of wood shavings, she scraped her hand across her brow, the thin
film of sweat, icy beneath her palm.

Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. Her body couldn’t make up its mind. Nick’s father had been notorious.
He’d been a gun-for-hire, or a knife, bomb, monkey wrench, his own hands if need be.
That’s how he’d been caught. He’d strangled his wife, Nick’s mother, before going
on the run with his young son. Nick had endured six years of vicious physical abuse
at the hands of his father.

She’d been there through the early years to watch the external scars heal. It broke
her heart that those he bore on the inside never had, and she hadn’t realized.

Mad Mickey Marshall had only been stopped after an anonymous call, shot dead by the
armed police who had surrounded him at the scene of his latest crime—a postman beaten
to death for daring to deliver an unwanted bill.

Society had repaid Nick for his “tip off” by throwing him into an impersonal foster
system, and that’s where she’d found him. Angry, tormented, and every bit as determined
not to care as she. The alliance they’d formed had been instantaneous, if a little
one-sided on her part. It had taken her years to win his trust, but she’d never given
up. Not until the night during their marriage when he’d gone nuclear, wrecked their
flat, and then chucked her out.

Lightning struck. So
that
was Nick’s darkest torment—he believed he’d inherited his father’s uncontrollable
predilection for violence.

She lurched to her feet. Christ, she had to find him.

He was behind the fourth door she flung open. And for once in her life, she couldn’t
think of a damn thing to say.

She stood silent, chest heaving.

He stood silent, glowering.

Platitudes rushed her mind. She knew he wouldn’t accept a one of them. She’d forced
a confession from him, invaded the most private part of him, and he would never forgive
her the intrusion. But she had to give him something.

“The Service would not have accepted you if they’d believed you were anything like
your father.”

“Oh, they recognized what was inside me all right, and turned it to their advantage.
I was the most efficient assassin they’d ever had, until the need for blood, the need
to punish, consumed me. Violence is a sickness, and suddenly I had it bad. I was better
off behind a desk…and I was better off without you. Pushing, testing, undermining
what little restraint I had left.”

That had never been her intention. She’d known the moment he’d severed the link between
them. She’d felt it. The coldness. The distance. And she’d fought back the only way
she’d know how. Loudly, colorfully, outrageously. The harder he’d pushed her away,
the tighter she’d clung, terrified of losing him. She’d have laughed at the irony
if she hadn’t feared it would kill her. In trying to save him, save the connection
they shared, all she’d done was make things worse. Until he’d resorted to accusing
her of adultery to get her to leave.

By the time she had her breathing under control and was able to open her eyes, Nick
had brushed passed her and had gone again.

…

Long days and even lonelier nights went by, and still Nick stayed away. Not that he
wasn’t constantly on Anna’s mind. It was like a bloody haunting. She hadn’t asked
for his damned confession. Why’d he have to take it out on her?

Suddenly bored witless by thoughts of Nick, and even more with herself, she killed
the drone of the TV with the remote and kicked free of the sofa. What she needed was
a distraction to stop from sinking further into the mire of self-pity. Her security
detail would do. She’d challenge them to another game of poker. She owed them the
chance to recoup their hefty losses from where she scalped them in the last game.
Especially Rob Bates. Her favorite agent. Who fiercely policed her health and well-being
by plying her with vitamins and gifting her exorbitantly priced anti-stretch-mark
skin creams and shampoos rich in precious minerals. He’d even drafted out a surprisingly
thorough fitness routine for her use in the safe house’s small multi-gym. And insisted
she follow it—twice a day.

The thought of someone actually caring about her, rather than just protecting her,
filled her with a warm glow. Yes, she’d let Rob recoup his losses and do her best
to ensure he won big. Very big, with the bets she planned to throw down.

She rounded the corner of the long, wide corridor leading to the kitchen. Four pairs
of eyes immediately swiveled in her direction. Nick was obviously as surprised to
see her as she was him. The fact that he’d frozen mid-gesture didn’t faze her, but
his eyes, so chilled and accusing, had her spinning on her heel and fleeing, no longer
in need of entertainment.

He was gone again by the time she next dared venture out of the study, which was probably
just as well considering she’d pick-locked her way into the small operations room
and “borrowed” a laptop while the men were distracted. Someone had to break the stalemate.
She couldn’t stay secreted away for the rest of her life. All she needed was a lead.
Something to bring down Antila and whoever it was who was trying to kill her.

Hours and hours later, she tossed the laptop aside and slumped back against the headboard
of her bed. Her lower spine ached, her corneas felt like dried leaves, and her retinas
had collapsed from staring at the screen for too long. She hadn’t let the suspicion
that she was probably covering territory already well marched by the every known law
enforcement agency on the planet discourage her. She been determined to find something
they’d overlooked.

And maybe, just maybe, her persistence had paid off. Antila had given her the number
to his private cell phone. Big mistake. She’d hacked his records—so deeply buried
beneath twists of code and behind false decoys, she’d had to call in some favors from
a couple of faceless friends who sat at the very pinnacle of the hacking community—and
found there was one particular number he called twice a day. Every day. Always at
the same time. Regular as clockwork. She’d traced the call to
Devil’s Whim
. Whatever that was. Because even her skilled foray into the murkier depths of the
Internet hadn’t thrown up a clue.

And now she was out of time. She had to return the laptop before it was missed. Her
security detail might not think to count the number of devices before locking up for
the night, but Nick, when he returned in the morning, undoubtedly would.

She waited until she was certain her nightshift guards were safely ensconced in the
kitchen.

Creeping around in the dark wasn’t her forte. In cyberspace, yes, she rocked. But
in real life—not so much. Three times she had to scoot back to her room, terrified
she’d alerted her security detail to the fact she wasn’t tucked up in bed and asleep
as they believed.

Her fourth attempt was more successful. Dropping to her knees, she placed the laptop
on the floor beside her and quickly went to work on the lock—just the way Nick had
shown her when she’d begged him to share his skill with her as a present for her fourteenth
birthday.