Hard to Hold (4 page)

“Only two. The other four expulsions were your fault. You caused a riot every time
they tried to split us up. Remember?”

It started with the tiniest of twitches, then, as if he’d concede defeat just this
once, he smiled the smile he’d always reserved for her alone. His lips parted naturally
rather than just tipping at the corners in a sarcastic grimace, to reveal the strong,
even teeth behind them. And it was like watching sunlight advance and shadow retreat.
“It’s not something I’d forget, Anna…”

A warmth she hadn’t felt in an age whispered across her skin. This was the Nick she’d
fallen for. With his emotional barricades down, he promised love. Trust that would
never waver. An eternity of patience and blame-free forgiveness.

Believing him, she moved closer.

“But the truth is, I liked rioting. You just assumed it was because of you.”

She immediately edged back. “So why’d you calm down when they brought me back?”

“Exhaustion.”

Because it sure beat the humiliation of crying, she laughed. His answering half smile,
empty of promise this time, tightened her throat. As did the long, searching look
he settled on her as if reaching for her soul.

“What the hell happened to us, Anna?”

His almost-a-whisper squeezed the air from her lungs. Nick Marshall did not do regret.
She let the silence hang before sharing what had taken her years to accept. “Guess
we finally worked out we didn’t need one another anymore,” she said with a shrug.
“Your coffee’s getting cold.”

Her efforts to resist and get rid of the one man with the power to decimate her completely
weren’t going as planned. She was too close to the brink of allowing him to mesmerize
her again. To fall for that “something” about him that had captured her imagination
as a child and then excited a young woman with nothing on her mind but the need to
be up close and intimate with something dangerous.

“Come on, Anna, for old time’s sake if nothing else, trust me. Tell me the truth about
what the hell’s going on and what you think started it.”

For old time’s sake? Her frown deepened to a scowl. He was playing her. And damn him,
he’d always known which string to pluck. But not this time. She was older now and
so much wiser when it came to self-preservation.

The bottom had fallen out of her world when they’d split. Being married to a man all
ice on the outside but volatile as all hell underneath had threatened her sanity.
But having him love her, and loving him back, had been worth a tango with madness.

Right up until he’d turned his back and abandoned her.

She’d reeled from the shock for months, only pulling herself together with a promise
that no man, especially Nick-bloody-Marshall, would ever wield that degree of power
over her again. No, he could take his sneaky ways of lulling her toward self-destruction
and strangle on them.

And if there was one surefire way to get him to take to his heels, though she might
live to regret it when he came back—as she knew he would eventually, even if just
to punish her—then what the hell, she’d use it.

“It started right after I received confirmation that I’m pregnant.”

Chapter Three

Anna, pregnant?

It wasn’t surprise that had driven Nick out of her home without a word. It was appalled
disbelief. And he’d bloody near fallen down that ladder of hers in his bid to escape.

Making the acquaintance of a full bottle of whiskey hadn’t helped a damn. Not when
it had meant having to reassure Mrs. Briggs, his weekly cleaner, that no, his normally
pristine house hadn’t been ransacked, at least not by home invaders.

Turning in for work, despite not being rostered to do so, with a hangover from hell
the following morning hadn’t been a smart move either. He’d wanted an update on the
police investigation and, without finesse, had stomped all over protocol to get a
copy of Anna’s case file. A territorial war had broken out, furious complaints had
been lodged, and he’d received a dressing-down from the Commander, the likes of which
he wouldn’t forget in a hurry. Not exactly the first warning he’d ever received, but
certainly his last if he wanted to keep his job.

Jeeeesus H. Christ. Anna, a mother? His palms sweated every time he thought about
it. Of her with another man’s kid. A kid that had things—no, had
he
—been different, should have been his.

His knuckles ached from where he’d put his fist through the wall after he’d found
out.

For the life of him, he couldn’t fathom why the hell he should care. He certainly
hadn’t found any answers at the bottom of the bottles he’d drained before pitching
that escape route out as a dead loss. And God help him if Anna ever found out he’d
called in a private security firm to watch over her. Teutonic plates would shift at
the fit she would pitch.

But the ex-intelligence men employed by Fortress
,
the civilian security operation owned and run by his former commanding officer, Jack
Ballentyne, knew how to be discreet.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond his office. A curt knock and his door sprung
open, no polite wait to be invited in. Will entered, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“I’ve heard a little whisper that you’ve put Anna under surveillance—bloody hell!”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” Nick said drily, watching as Will scanned the
seven-foot-square, interactive screen displaying the highlights of his investigation
to date.

“The Commander’s gonna have your ass if he catches you running renegade, mate.” He
grinned devilishly before sobering and removing his sunglasses. “Need any help?”

“I’ll let you know if I do. In the meantime…” Nick jerked his head toward the door
in an unspoken order for his friend to leave.

True to form, Will pretended too-stupid-to-live. “Might help if you listed under her
personal profile the fact that she’s pregnant as the possible trigger for kick-starting
events,” he said, giving a single nod at the screen.

Nick shot him a filthy look. “You knew?”

“About her going the AID route, yes. That it had worked, no. At least, not until yesterday
when she called.”

“AID?”

“Artificial Insemination by Donor. Anonymous in Anna’s case.”

Nick clenched the muscles in his cheeks to stop his jaw from hitting the floor. Anna
was effortlessly gorgeous. She exuded sex appeal the way a permanently erupting volcano
spilled lava. He’d automatically assumed…hell, he didn’t know what he’d assumed, but
it sure hadn’t involved a scientific procedure. And he refused to even consider the
possibility that it was relief body slamming the breath from his body. “You might
have told me earlier. I was up half the night digging through her love life trying
to ID the father,” he grunted, his voice tight.

“Then small wonder you’ve stalled. Anna doesn’t do romantic interludes. You put her
off for life, and I should know. She shot me down in flames, and you don’t want to
know how many other poor buggers littered the ground when I crash-landed.”

Nick reached for the black palm-held stress ball on his desk.

“But for what it’s worth,” Will continued, pretending not to notice. “I think she’ll
make a great mother.”

Before he could stop himself, Nick threw the ball against the far wall of his office.
It splatted, then dropped to the floor with a soft
thud
. “You have got to be bloody kidding. The whole idea is ludicrous. Insane. Anna’s
the most disorganized, scatterbrained…Christ, she’ll forget she’s got a child and
leave it in a supermarket somewhere, and the poor kid will starve. She can’t cook
for sh—”

Will walked over to the stress ball, shot him a reproving look over his shoulder,
and bent to retrieve the squidgy globe. “Don’t presume to know her. Not anymore. She’s
cooked me some pretty fancy meals, and she runs a multimillion-pound business. You
may want to give her a bit of credit, Marshall. It can’t have been easy for her to
turn things around.”

Then as abruptly as he entered, he turned on his heel and left.

Nick glared at the slammed door. Of course he knew Anna. Maybe better than he knew
himself. But since when had she become Homemaker of the Year? And what the bloody
hell did she think she was doing, cooking meals for a too-randy-for-his-own-good agent
like Will? She’d never cooked for
him
.

Because I’d never let her.
He pushed away from his desk and swiveled to stare out the window as that admission
settled uncomfortably.

Well, he had. But once had been enough. Parboiled potatoes and a steak you could have
driven a thousand miles on without any sign of wear and tear.

Happy wedding night feast—not!

Telling her she was “good for one thing alone” and then proving it to her for the
next fortnight, only dragging himself out of bed to do the cooking himself, hadn’t
been his proudest moment, but it had definitely been the most unforgettable. And when
the honeymoon was over, she’d been the one to climb from their bed and walk tall,
a grin the size of the Grand Canyon across her face. He, on the other hand, had barely
managed to crawl in her wake, not from exhaustion, but in awe.

Anna was unforgettable all right. Hell, the memory of her sleek little body pressed
tight against his—hungry, wanting, generous—haunted him damn near every night.

Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice” shattered the silence, the ringtone Will’s infantile little
joke. He snatched up his cell phone to silence the annoying tune. “Marshall,” he barked,
uncaring of who was on the other end.

“I’m with Fortress. You know anything about a second surveillance team? Because we’re
not the only one watching your ex.”

…

Her eyes ached. Needles drilled her temples. Anna pushed away from her work console,
arched her back the wrong way, and stretched her arms high until her narrow shoulders
clicked and begged for mercy.

Lowering her arms, she again leaned forward. Clicking the mouse, she skipped rapidly
through the thumbnails of the online universe she’d just spent nine hours outlining.
Its creation had absorbed her into a world of make-believe far displaced from the
recent spate of real-life threats she still couldn’t fathom.

Lots of ice; cruel, bitter storms; dark hidden caves; and the empty, barren landscapes
of the Arctic. Complex puzzles, fiendish traps, and deadly hazards, each intended
to draw a false step that would see the player kicked unceremoniously back to the
start. It would be the hardest level of
Hinterland Heroes
to crack yet. Damn near impossible.

There was no denying who had inspired the frigid virtual world laid out before her.
The very man she’d hoped to obliterate from her mind. Nick-bloody-Marshall.

With a sigh, she closed down the screen and informed the nightshift moderators she
was calling it a night. She sauntered across the courtyard toward the second warehouse
she called home, well lit with halogen beams. Hands on hips, she eyed the ladder,
followed its full height, and smiled. In less than a week, she’d have a nice new shiny
staircase, wrought iron this time. Fire problem solved. She was done with wood.

One hand splaying across her still-flat abdomen, she hesitated before approaching
the base of the ladder. Though gifted with the balance and sure-footedness of a climbing
goat, she hadn’t liked putting her baby at even marginal risk. Her new staircase couldn’t
come a moment too soon.

The ball of her foot had just hit the bottom rung when the bright floodlights illuminating
the courtyard died without the stutter of a warning.

What the—?

A heavy weight collided with her slight frame, knocking her clear and carrying her
down onto the unforgiving cobblestones that separated the two warehouses like a sea.
A shadow loomed above her. Her first rational thought was for the tiny life she carried
within her, her second that she couldn’t breathe. Something heavy pinned her throat.
Rough hands. Squeezing. She bucked and clawed. Gagged as some errant slither of her
mind registered the foulness of stale garlic breath.

Dear God, she was going to die.

As the world started to dim, faint traces of muffled shouts registered. Next thing,
she was hauled upright. A savage blow ignited a galaxy of pinprick flashes behind
her eyes and sent her rag-dolling through the air. Her spine connected with the brick
of her warehouse wall, expelling what little breath remained in her lungs. Panic made
her thrash. Oblivion calmed her.

“Anna…Anna…come on, sweetheart, open your eyes.”

It was a strain to lift one eyelid.

Air! She heaved in an almighty gulp, flexed, and began to struggle.

“Easy…easy. You’re going to be fine. You’re safe now.”

Too slowly, she became aware of three men staring at her, one crouched beside her,
the other two standing, alert and scanning the darkness. Who the hell were they? She
lifted an arm, held out her hand. “Get me on my feet, will you? I feel at a distinct
disadvantage.”

“Maybe you should give yourself a minute,” one of them suggested.

“Okay, I’ll get up on my own.”

The man, a blond, wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled her gently to her feet,
his arm circling her waist as her knees buckled.

“I’m fine,” she snapped, slapping at the arm fixed around her. “I’m just going to
take that minute you recommended.” At least sitting down beat lying prone in front
of complete strangers.

A jacket fell across her shoulders; she clutched the lapels, nodded her thanks, and
winced as firecrackers exploded in her head. “Who the hell are you?

“We’re Fortress men. And given the attack you just suffered, I can see why Marshall
hired us as security.”

She doubted there was much color left in her face but suspected what remained drained
completely. Jack Ballentyne, once the Senior Officer of some shady division within
British Intelligence and a close friend of Nick’s, had quit the Service a few years
ago to set up Fortress. He was also one of the hardest, most frightening men Anna
had ever encountered. “I’m going to kill Nick. He had no right—”

“No right to do what exactly?” came an all too familiar growl from the shadows. “And
will someone get those sodding lights back on?”

Anna looked upward and glared. “You sicced Fortress onto me, Marshall.”

“Nick,” he corrected with a snarl. “And a fat lot of good it did.”

“Hardly their fault the lights went out,” she muttered, lowering her head to her up-bended
knees. She could hear the furious accusation in his voice, not directed at the three
now-scowling men, but at her.

“I’m not blaming them; I’m blaming you. It’s two in the morning. What the hell are
you doing outside?”

“Going home.”

“You work too damned hard.”

Coming from Nick Marshall, that had to be the most ridiculous statement she’d ever
heard. She started to laugh and didn’t seem able to stop.

Nick heave a deep sigh, one so familiarly filled with resigned exasperation, she wanted
to weep.

“Come on, we’d better get you inside. You’re in shock. Think you can manage the ladder
with me behind you?”

“I’ve certainly had enough practice,” she muttered stiffly but let him lift her to
her feet. This time her legs did her proud—not a wobble in sight. Which was more than
could be said for her insides.

She squirmed free of
his
hands. His touch, strong and confident, surprisingly gentle, held too many memories
of the past. A past, judging by the hot tingles skimming her skin, her own body seemed
desperate to reignite.

After stepping around him, she crossed to the ladder, which was fast becoming her
bête noire. She couldn’t deny her hands gripped the rungs just that little bit tighter
with each passing day. In direct proportion to the increased trembling in her knees.
She’d put the loss of nerve down to the pregnancy, the raging hormones coursing through
her body, telling herself she could live through it for a few more days until the
permanent staircase was put in. No way had she wanted to admit it was fear. Fear,
that someone hated her enough to want to harm her, and harm her baby, because that
sure as hell seemed to be the direction in which they were heading.

Suppressing a shudder, Anna stepped up onto the first rung of the ladder. She’d make
this climb, backbone straight and intact, if it killed her. Which, with Nick so damn
close and shadowing her every move as if she were as fragile as spun glass, wasn’t
totally beyond the realms of probability.

She didn’t like the way he practically wrapped his body around hers as she climbed
higher. The feel of his breath teasing the back of her neck. The way he anticipated
her every move with insufferable confidence. After five years of no contact, she should
be a mystery to him. “You’re awfully close, Nick,” she protested, mentally cursing
the ten rungs she still had to clamber.

“You’re pregnant. You’re kind of klutzy, and you might fall.”

No, she wouldn’t. Not for him. Not again.