G.o.d, please keep me from strangling her.
"But that"s not why I"m here tonight" she continued, oblivious to the fact that Bill had curled his hands into fists lest she find them wrapped around her pale, slim throat. "I"m here tonight to pose a few questions to Eve Edens about her most recent mishap. And if you don"t help me make that happen, I"ll ask Kristin and her news crew to set up camp out here. She"s a good friend of mine. I"m sure she"ll agree."
The light in the woman"s eyes was sharp and hungry, and Bill remembered one of the Knights comparing Samantha Tate to a barracuda. Only instead of smelling blood in the water, she smelled brewing news stories.
"You"ve got serious moxie, lady," he growled, grabbing her elbow and hustling her toward the gate despite her protests. "I"ll give you that."
"Let go of me, you big brute!" Ms. Tate thundered, slapping ineffectually at his restraining hand.
Lifting his chin at Toran, the two halves of the gate slid open again. Only this time, they stopped when there was just enough room for him to shove the nosy reporter through the opening. "Loiter around out here all you want. It"s no skin off my a.s.s," he told her, as the gate snapped shut with a loud clang. "All you"ll see is us protecting a good friend from having her life flayed open once again by the press..." He hoped he wasn"t struck down by a bolt of lightning for that lie, because Eve Edens? A good friend? Ha! "...and building motorcycles. Have a good night," he finished before stomping back toward the Hummer.
Sliding into the driver"s seat, he glanced over to find Mac chuckling.
"What?" he demanded, reaching into his hip pocket and pulling out the bottle of pink salvation. He took a healthy swig.
"What was that last thing Ms. Tate hollered at you?" Mac asked, eyes glinting with humor.
Bill wiped a hand over his mouth, willing the Pepto to work its magic. "I didn"t catch it all, but there was something in there about an acid enema."
Mac hooted with laughter, but when Bill looked into the rearview mirror and saw the humiliation and fear on Eve"s face, he couldn"t join in the hilarity.
I"m sorry, she mouthed, her perfectly shaped, china doll lips quivering.
Those silent words went all through him, touching a soft spot inside he"d thought callused over long ago by the horrors of battle and the pain of a broken heart.
"Forgive me." This time, the soft words were spoken aloud. And for a moment he wasn"t sure if she was asking him to forgive her for bringing the press down on their heads or if she was asking him to forgive her for the way she"d treated him all those years ago.
And in that moment, as he looked at her, sitting back there, so beautiful and vulnerable, he found himself wanting to do just that. To forgive her for...for all of it. But then an image of her and that a.s.s-hat, Blake Parish, smiling at each other as they recited their wedding vows, flashed through his head. And whatever internal softening he"d felt once more hardened to stone.
"It"s fine," he said, his voice gruff, his expression very clearly stating exactly the opposite.
Her big, blue eyes dropped to her lap and, if he wasn"t mistaken, that was the glint of a teardrop trickling down her pale cheek.
Jesus, Bill, you"re a d.i.c.khead.
He waited for something inside himself, his pride, his conscience, one small inner voice to disagree with him. Unfortunately, all he heard was radio-silence.
d.a.m.n it all to h.e.l.l...
Chapter Seven.
Black Knights Inc. Headquarters, 2nd Floor 10:45 p.m.
Eve glanced around at the three men seated at the conference table, trying and failing to forget the look on Billy"s face when she asked him to forgive her.
She hadn"t known at the time that she"d posed a broader question than the one urging him to except her apology for the appearance of the press, but the expression in his eyes told her she had. And then she"d waited with bated breath for his response, hope and longing exploding inside her like a punctured scuba tank. Because for a moment there she"d thought...
But no. How could she possibly expect Billy"s forgiveness for the way things had happened when she couldn"t even forgive herself?
"So what now?" Ace asked, dragging her from her bleak thoughts. She watched him take a sip of coffee and wrinkled her nose. She"d learned long ago it was best to avoid the stuff they brewed at BKI, since it had the consistency of motor oil and tasted about the same...not to mention the smell. The smell was like a combination of burned rubber and hot dirt, and it seemed to hover over the whole place in a caustic cloud.
"Now, we explore other avenues," Mac said, using a stir-stick on his own mug of caffeinated sludge.
"Which would be?" Billy asked, his handsome face determined.
Okay, and why did he have to be so darned good-looking? Why couldn"t he have gone bald, or grown fat, or rotted all his teeth from his head?
Would any of those things have changed the way you feel about him?
Grrr. She told the pesky little voice that posed the question to go suck a bowl of t.u.r.ds, because...what the heck? She was trying to distance herself from Billy and the feelings she still had for him, and that kind of questioning wasn"t helping matters in the least.
For Pete"s sake! It was a sad day when a girl couldn"t depend on her own conscience to have her back.
"We get copies of the employment files at the Shedd Aquarium to see if any of Eve"s coworkers have black marks on their records," Mac said. "We do the same with the people at her yacht club and the charity for the preservation of the wetlands she co-chairs."
Her heart plummeted to her toes. "You think it"s someone I know?" she asked, willing him to give her a different answer than the one she fully expected him to offer.
"It would make sense," Mac said, and so much for the force of her will. "Someone knew where you lived. Someone knew where you worked. Someone knew what you drove. So, can you think of anyone who might want to hurt you or get revenge on you? Have you had any problems at work? Any run-ins at the club or the charity? Have you had a recent fallin" out with any friends or..." Mac slid a sidelong glance at Billy. "Or any jilted lovers?"
"Don"t look at me," Billy held up his hands. "I"m not one of her jilted lovers. Not for lack of trying, mind you. But back when I knew her, she was saving it for the one." He made quote marks with his fingers. "Which, as everybody sitting here knows, wasn"t me."
"What"s that I"m tasting?" Ace said, making smacking noises. "Is that sour grapes?"
"Shut the h.e.l.l up," Billy growled.
Eve was no longer listening. Because Billy"s not-so-subtle reminder of those hot and heavy petting sessions in the back of his Camaro blazed through her mind. The wet kisses and fervent touches-he"d had magic hands even back then-the ache that"d built and built but never found any release. Because she"d stopped it...
Oh, why had she stopped it? And did he know how much she regretted that her first time-and all the times after that-hadn"t been with him?
No. No, he didn"t. And it was probably just as well...
"No, Mac," she shook her head, unaccountably tired all of a sudden. On top of the strain she"d been under by being around Billy, she"d been wracking her brain for two days over who could possibly hate her enough to want her dead. And so far? Well, so far she"d come up with a big handful of nothing, nada, zilch. And as much as she hated to admit it, to admit to another weakness, the truth was, all the stresses were beginning to wear her down. It felt like someone had dropped an anvil on each of her shoulders, not to mention the ten-pound weights some s.a.d.i.s.tic sonof.a.gun had decided to attach to her eyelids. "I can"t think of a single person who"d fall into any of the categories you just mentioned."
"How about that douchebag ex-husband of yours?" Billy sneered.
Eve felt her face turn beet red at the mention of Blake. Blake...the man she"d betrayed Billy with. Blake...the man who"d been trying for over a decade to win her back. "He wouldn"t do this," she said quietly, staring at the table.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because..." she swallowed before admitting, "he still loves me. He"s always loved me. And he wants me back, not dead."
Billy snorted and rolled his eyes. Mac frowned at him before reaching across the table to pat her hand. "It"s okay," he rea.s.sured her. "We"ll figure this out."
"I know we will," was what she said. But what she felt? Well, it was the polar opposite. Unfortunately, all the wide-eyed hope she"d had earlier in the day had up and decided to abandon her. Now, she was left feeling nothing but drained and disheartened. She tried to offer Mac a smile but figured the gesture fell short when his brow furrowed. But she was saved from attempting to give the smile another go when the opening bars to "Come Sail Away" sounded from her purse. It was hooked over the back of her chair, so she had to swivel in order to dig inside and locate her cell phone. She glanced at the name on the screen and closed her eyes, sucking in a deep breath before pressing a b.u.t.ton and sending the call directly to voice mail. She couldn"t deal with him right now.
"Your dad again?" Mac asked, because her phone had been going off every half hour since she"d left her father standing behind BKI"s big front gates.
"Yes," she nodded, not quite meeting the man"s gaze. She was humiliated that Mac"d had to stand there and listen to her father cast aspersions on his character and the characters of all the Knights. It wasn"t that her father was a bad man. It"s just that he was opinionated and elitist and very, very set in his ways. Which hadn"t really been a problem for her until she started exercising her independence, and then their relationship had quickly gone downhill. But she hoped, oh, how she hoped, he"d come around. And soon. Because his constant nagging was only adding to her exhaustion.
"He"s certainly...uh..." Mac c.o.c.ked his head, "persistent."
"That"s one word for it," she said, snorting and rubbing a thumb against her pounding temple.
Ace hooked an arm around her shoulders, giving her a quick squeeze. "You look completely beat, love," he murmured in her ear. "How about you head upstairs and snuggle into bed. I"ll bring you a nice hot chocolate, we can gossip about boys, and you can forget about this whole mess for a while. How does that sound?"
How did it sound? "Like heaven," she sighed, glancing up into his angelic face and kind eyes. Ace was going to make some man very happy one day.
"Good." He planted a kiss on her cheek. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Billy clench his hands into fists. "It"s all settled then." Ace stood and pulled her up by her elbows. "You go get into your PJs and I"ll be right up." For good measure, after she"d turned toward the stairs leading to the loft-style bedrooms on the third floor, he gave her a.s.s a resounding smack.
She squealed, swinging around to glare at him, but a slow smile ruined the expression.
"That"s more like it," Ace grinned. "You"ve got a beautiful smile, love. And it breaks my heart when you don"t use it. Now, up you go," he said, shooing her toward the stairs. She turned to do as instructed, but when her foot landed on the first tread, any momentary lightheartedness she felt disappeared like a catamaran in the Bermuda Triangle. It just...vanished. Because, oh, the look in Billy"s eyes out in that Hummer. The memory flashed through her mind, ripped at her heart.
It"s over, Eve. You ruined it.
And great. Now, not only was she exhausted, but she was on the verge of a crying jag guaranteed to last half the night. Without a backward glance, she sprinted up the stairs, wrenched open the door to the guest room, and threw herself down on the bed face-first, burying her head in the pillows lest the men downstairs hear the uncontrollable sobbing that shook her from head to toe.
"What is that look for?" Bill growled at Ace after Eve disappeared upstairs. BKI"s flyboy was standing there, arms crossed, head c.o.c.ked, a narrowed-eyed glare plastering his face.
"Remember what I told you I"d do to you if you weren"t nice to Eve?" Ace smiled, all teeth and no emotion, though he did bat his girlishly long lashes.
"What the h.e.l.l?" Bill threw his hands in the air, feeling his frustration mount to precarious levels. If he didn"t simmer down soon, his ulcer would wake up and go in for a second...third?...helping. "I have been nice to her. I friggin" went and interrogated her stalker. I made sure he leaves her the h.e.l.l alone from now on. I kept those d.a.m.ned meddling reporters from getting to her. And I-"
"And you were a big, snide, a.s.s-clown with that little speech about her saving herself for the one." Ace uncrossed his arms so he could sarcastically make the quote marks with his fingers.
Bill winced. Yeah, okay, so that hadn"t exactly been one of his bright, shining moments, but...
Still, after everything, he thought he"d done a pretty bang-up job of keeping his more cynical feelings to himself. So he"d appreciate it if his fellow Knights, specifically Ace, would cut him a little G.o.dd.a.m.ned slack. He told the guy as much.
"Slack?" Ace asked, his expression telegraphing his annoyance louder than a WWII sticky bomb taking out a German Panzer. "You don"t need any slack. What you need is an old-fashioned a.s.s-whooping." Okay, and now Bill was good and p.i.s.sed. He pushed up from the table, but Ace ignored the killing gleam in his eye and just kept on. "Because your ticket on the Poor-Me-I-Got-Dumped train has long expired. You need to hop off at the next stop, my friend. It"s at the intersection of Suck-It-Up and Get-The-h.e.l.l-Over-It."
Whoa. Bill felt like he"d just been kicked in the sprouts, and red edged into his vision for about the zillionth time that night.
"What. The. f.u.c.k. Would you know about it?" he hissed, skirting the table.
Mac"s, "Come on now, guys, let"s just take a T.O. here before things get out of hand," went ignored.
"I know that you dated for three months back when you were both too young and too dumb to know your a.s.sess from holes in the ground. I know you went off to big, bad BUD/S training, leaving your eighteen-year-old girlfriend at college with all the accompanying temptations inherent therein. I know you went weeks, sometimes months, without calling her because of your training. I know she did what many young girls her age do and allowed her head to be turned by a good-looking, fancy-talking rich boy. I know-"
"How do you know all this?" Bill demanded, feeling the vein next to his temple pulse in warning as his ulcer sat up to lick its chops. He didn"t want to sock Ace in the kisser. Well...he kind of did. He"d been wanting to hit someone or something all evening.
"Becky told me," Ace said, re-crossing his arms and jutting out his chin. Bill had never hated a perfectly groomed five-o"clock shadow so much in his life. "And before you go thinking your kid sister is telling tales out of school, I want you to know that I asked her what the deal was between you and Eve. I mean, come on, the wall of tension between you two is so high and tight you could bounce a grenade off it."
"You gossip like a girl, Ace-hole," he grumbled, staring down at his worn black combat boots. Any time he wore them, he was reminded of Iraq and Afghanistan. Of the garbage bags that"d pa.s.sed as roadside trash but were, in fact, IEDs gnarly enough to take out entire sections of military convoys.
He"d spent years combing those desert roads, safely exploding this device and not-so-safely disarming that one. And all that time, even through all the danger, through all the sweat and tears, he"d never stopped thinking of Eve, never stopped wondering and agonizing over why she"d done what she"d done. Never stopped despising and blaming her for how she"d done it.
But maybe Ace was right. Maybe it was time to let it go. Just...let it all go. She"d been so young...so young and so very naive...
"I gossip like a girl?" Ace queried, dragging Bill from his ruminations. A s.h.i.t-eating grin was spread across the man"s pretty-boy face. "Why thank you, Bill. I take that as a compliment."
"Yeah, well, the next time you think of opening your mouth to discuss my private life," he grunted, and it occurred to him then that he was emotionally exhausted, bone-tired of holding on to scorn and hostility that was more than a decade old. It was time to move on, "why don"t you try counting your teeth instead, huh?"
"I"ll take that under advis.e.m.e.nt," Ace winked, but Bill knew they were only words. Ace would continue to b.u.t.t into everybody"s business with impunity. Just like he always had. "And now," Ace continued, reading the surrender on Bill"s face, "why don"t you go up and talk to Eve. If I"m right, and I always am, she could use a little comforting right now."
Now that made Bill"s chin jerk back on his neck like he"d been the recipient of a five-finger sandwich. "I thought that"s what you were going to do."
Ace rolled his eyes, heaving a long-suffering, overly dramatic sigh. "She"d much rather that comfort come from you, you nitwit."
No, she wouldn"t. No way. No how. "She would?"
"Without a doubt," Ace stated with conviction. "So get to it."
"But..." He glanced back at Mac who was still seated at the conference table.
All right, it was confession time. Because in all honesty, the thought of going upstairs to comfort Eve scared the living s.h.i.t out of him. He may never be able to forget what had happened, he may never be able to trust her again, but that didn"t mean he didn"t still want her more than he wanted his next sunrise. If he lived to be a hundred years old, he figured he"d never stop wanting Eve. And that meant, in order to save himself more grief and misery, he had to stay away from her whenever he possibly could.
Now being the perfect example.
"Don"t we still have things to discuss?" he asked Mac, and it was only partly a stalling tactic. Because Bill hadn"t missed the flicker in Mac"s eyes when Eve asked if he really thought whoever was doing this was someone she knew. Mac smelled a rat. Bill was certain of it. "Like, who you suspect is really behind these attempts on her life?"
"I don"t know who"s behind them," Mac said, his expression contemplative.
"There," Bill pointed a finger at the guy"s face. "That look right there tells me you know more than you"re saying."
Mac shrugged. "Here"s what I know. There are usually two reasons people commit premeditated murder."
"And those are?"
"Love and money."
"Jesus," Bill swiped a hand over the back of his neck where a patch of goose b.u.mps had suddenly erupted. Love and money, huh? Well, s.h.i.t. That could mean only one thing. "So you suspect it"s someone very close to her," he murmured, unconsciously shooting a worried glance toward the stairs leading to the third floor.
"Let"s rule out everything else first," Mac stated. Then he added, "But let"s do it in the morning. Because right now, I"m tired as a cactus."
Ace snorted. "You"ve been hanging around with the ragin" Cajun too long, Mac my man."
"Hey," Mac frowned, "I"m from Texas. We have our own expressions and-"