HAYDEN (Dragon Security Book 5) (8 page)

Sam

My arms were covered in bruises and my side showcased a large puncture mark where the doctors had used a large bore needle to drain the fluid from my lungs. Not pretty. I stared at myself in the mirror, wondering what excuse I could use to explain all these marks to Hayden. I thought about makeup, but didn’t think it would stick for long. I thought about all the lies I could tell, but none of them made much sense to me. How would they make sense to him?

I glanced at the time and realized it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t get dressed soon. We’d gotten home late, or really, very early this morning. I’d only slept two hours before my alarm went off, calling me to get ready for work. It might be Christmas Eve, but there was still work to do.

I looked through my collection of new clothes and picked out a tan skirt with a fitted suit jacket and a soft pink blouse to go underneath. I liked the way it made my skin seem darker than it really was, and it made my hair seem less mousy. It showed much more leg than my mother would have liked, but my mother wasn’t living my life, was she?

I was humming when I walked into the office, bags stuffed with gifts for my coworkers in each hand. Angela, one of the security monitors, looked up and whistled when she saw me.

“Wow, Sam! New York did you some good.”

“You think?”

“You look gorgeous!”

I smiled. Or, actually, the smile just kind of took over. I couldn’t stop if I’d wanted to. But I didn’t really want to.

I set my things down on my desk and began to unpack the bags, taking them around the room to set on the desks belonging to the intended recipients. Angela got up to help, squealing when she saw the bottle of perfume in her gift bag.

“You’re the best, Sam!”

“Of course she is,” a deep voice said from behind us. “There wouldn’t be a Dragon Security without Sam to hold us all together.”

I turned and there was Hayden, leaning against the wall with his ankles crossed, like he’d been watching us for a long time.

“What did you get for me, Sam?”

My eyebrows rose slightly, but I managed to hold off the blush even when thoughts of our parting words to each other on our last phone call last night crossed my mind.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

He crossed to me, his hand slipping over my jaw as he drew me into him. Then he kissed me with a heat that couldn’t be ignored. One of the other girls whistled this time as a chorus of giggles went up around the room. Hayden didn’t seem to notice. He just turned me around and nudged me toward Megan’s office, slamming the door with his foot as he spun me around, making me dizzy with more than just his kiss.

“I missed you,” he whispered against my lips as his hands slid over my face, pushing my hair back so that he could see me clearly.

“I missed you, too.”

He kissed me again, roughly, pressing me back until my butt hit Megan’s desk. He lifted me just enough so that I was perched on the edge, his hand sliding slowly up, under my skirt.

“I like this,” he said, moving back just enough to take in my new outfit.

“There’s more.”

“I certainly hope so.”

And then he was kissing me again and all I could do was wrap my arms around his neck, going along for the ride.

And what a ride it was!

Business ended early. Megan arranged for a caterer to bring in champagne and hors d’oeuvres for the adults and treats for the kids. Everyone was invited along with their significant others and children. Megan’s parents came every year along with Cole, Amber, and PJ. Next year there would be more babies. Amber was already suffering morning sickness. I could see the green around her gills. And Marcus’ girl, Cadence, looked like she was in the same condition. I hoped it was a welcome addition for Marcus. He was so quiet sometimes it was hard to read him.

Dante sauntered in halfway through the party. He made himself a plate of food and sat at the back of the room, watching everyone through those dark, smoldering eyes. I watched the way his eyes followed Megan around the room. He clearly had feelings for her. But there was something more about it. It wasn’t just about the way he watched her, but also the way he watched her family. Even in the way he looked at Hayden and me. It was as if he had a deeper connection to all of us than he should have.

Maybe it was just my imagination. Those cops had been clear in their memories of him. They talked as if they knew him. But there was something wrong with their stories, with their behavior…I can’t say what it was, but it bothered me.

“What do you think about Dante?” I asked Hayden later that night as we sat curled up on the couch in my condo, sharing a bottle of champagne we’d stolen from the party.

“I think he’s dangerous. I think he’s putting his pecker in places where it doesn’t belong.”

“You don’t think he and Megan should be together?”

“I think he’s dangerous for her. I think she’s still nursing a broken heart and he’s just going to make that harder on her.”

“He’s not Luke.”

Hayden looked at me, his hand moving slowly over the back of my head. “He’s not Luke.”

I lay my head on his chest, sliding my hand slowly under the hem of his shirt. “Did you like him before he and Megan hooked up?”

“Not really. He was too distant and uninvolved. He wouldn’t talk to me even when we were on a job together.”

“Have you ever really talked to him?”

“No.”

That single word was the most dismissive word I’d ever heard. It was clear Hayden didn’t like Dante and he didn’t want to talk about him. And that bothered me for reasons I couldn’t begin to analyze.

Hayden’s cellphone rang, catching us both by surprise, I think. He sat forward and tugged it out of his pocket, glancing at the screen, but holding it in such a way that I couldn’t see it. He silenced it and tossed it onto the coffee table, clearly annoyed with whoever it was who saw fit to disturb the quiet on Christmas Eve.

“Do you have family?”

He glanced at me. “You run the background checks at Dragon. You tell me.”

I tilted my head slightly. “You have a grandma in Baton Rouge.”

“I do.”

“Are you going to see her tomorrow?”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Why not?”

Hayden got up and crossed the room, disappearing into my kitchen. I followed, walking so quickly that I was slightly out of breath by the time I caught up with him. He was standing at the counter, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from my secret stash that was always hidden behind the cold cereal.

“How’d you know that was there?”

He smiled that charming smile. “Because I know you.”

“I don’t keep that for myself. It’s there for Megan.”

“I doubt that.”

“It’s true.”

“You want the world to think you’re this pious little thing, but you’re just as full of sin as the rest of us.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Is that how you see me?”

“I see you as this beautiful, strong woman who allows her mother to keep her under her thumb for reasons that continue to baffle me.”

“Because she’s my mother. She’s the only family I have.”

“No, you’re wrong there.”

“Am I?”

“You have us. You have everyone at Dragon. And all those people absolutely adore you.”

My eyes moved slowly over his face. “All of them?”

“Everyone single one.” He put down his glass and came over, pressing his fingers into my hair as he pushed my head back, forcing me to look up at him. “I’ve never met anyone who spoke just two words to you and didn’t fall helplessly in love with you.”

I tried to pull away, tried to shake my head. “You’re teasing me again.”

“No, I’m not. I’m being completely honest, something I rarely am.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But I can’t help but be that way with you. You do something to me, Sam. You bring out the good in me and that’s incredibly hard to do.”

I laughed, stepping into him to press my face against his chest.

“Speaking of family,” I said, after a minute, “my mom’s expecting me for dinner tomorrow night. You wouldn’t want to come along, would you?”

“Do you want me there?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll be there.”

We kissed for a long moment, then I slipped my hand into his and pulled him toward the stairs. It was dark in my room and we didn’t bother to turn on the lights. It was fun seeking each other out without sight, exploring with hands and mouths, and touching in ways we might not do if the lights were on. I didn’t think I was capable of such ecstasy, but each time with Hayden brought me to new heights. And when it was done and the pleasure slipped back down to a simmer, there was still ecstasy in the feel of his arms around me as he fell into a deep sleep.

I only wished I could sleep that soundly.

I waited an hour, listening to him breathe and reveling in the feel of his arms. But my head was refusing to shut off, and this sense of time running short made me restless. I carefully climbed out of bed and slipped into a new bathrobe, a long, soft, silky thing that felt like I was wrapped in satin sheets.

A computer virus had attacked my work computer a few weeks ago while I was reviewing notes a former CIA agent had made on a terrorist cell she was once tasked with exposing. There were arrests made in the case, but this agent, Emily Greene, felt as though they had barely touched the tip of the iceberg, and she’d made it her private mission to uncover the rest. Dominic Gil, our asset, was her partner on this case when he was in the military, in part because he’d had a personal relationship with her because Emily was his wife, Amy’s, twin sister. He brought us her notes after she was killed, notes containing information that he believed led to her death. But the virus corrupted everything on my computer, including her notes.

The worse of it was that Megan believed her brother, Peter, was killed in what was made to look like a simple car accident because he’d stumbled across evidence of this same terrorist cell. She believed there was information in Emily’s notes that could prove Peter’s murder.

I agreed with her. And I desperately wanted to fix the files so that she’d have the information she needed.

I’d brought it all home because I was suddenly paranoid that the virus that attacked our computers at work could happen again. I was pretty sure that the virus was uploaded onto a hard drive Megan took from Peter’s work computer long ago, maybe before he died, and that someone activated it at the moment I was about to learn something important about Emily’s investigation. I think someone at Dragon activated it. I couldn’t prove it. And all the people in the room at the time were trusted employees.

Everyone but Dante. I was beginning to have my doubts about him.

I’d never seen this sort of thing before. But I knew it was possible for a virus to sit dormant until someone sent it a command. Dante was on his phone that day. What if he was the one to send the command? It made sense, except for the why. Why would Dante want to block Megan from finding out why her brother was killed and by whom?

I curled up in my office chair and began running the same diagnostics on the files that I’d been using, trying to find a way to fix the corruption. The virus was incredibly thorough. Chances that I’d be able to clean it up completely were slim. But I was making some progress. I’d managed to get more names from the lists Emily had made, names of people she believed were connected to the terrorist cell in some way. But that was all I had to offer.

I wanted to give her more. I wanted to make sure she knew the truth because I knew how important that was to her.

And then there was Luke.

Luke Murphy was an American hero. He was a Navy SEAL before he joined the CIA. He worked covert operations—everyone sort of assumed against terror—for several years before giving it up and coming home to marry Megan. They were high school sweethearts, head over heels for each other since she was fifteen. Before that, they grew up together because his mother was the housekeeper at the Bradford home, but she was so much more than that. Megan’s parents both worked, he at Bradford Telecommunications, the family business, and she at her many, many charities. Mrs. Murphy made sure the three Bradford children got to school every day, oversaw their homework. She even tucked them in at night. And Luke was right there beside them. As was I, most of the time. We were closer than any family could ever be.

But then Luke disappeared the morning of his wedding to Megan. And then his name started appearing in Emily’s notes.

What did Luke have to do with Peter’s death?

Luke would never hurt Peter. They were best friends. When Peter started investigating the sale of some of Bradford Telecommunications’ software without proper licensing, he went to Luke for help. Then Luke disappeared. Three months later, Peter was dead.

It was eight months before Megan began to think Peter’s death was more than an accident. And since then we’ve been learning things in trickles. But what we were learning made it seem like Luke was involved somehow. I couldn’t imagine his involvement was less than honorable. But it was hard to see that within the context of what little we knew.