Run From Fear (36 page)

“Have you been spying on us?” She felt like her chest was being slowly squeezed by a vise.

“I wouldn’t call it spying—”

She shoved against his shoulders and launched herself away from the door. “What would you call it?”

“I was looking out for you, checking in to make sure you were safe.”

“You followed me—”

“It was usually Ben or Alex since I was out of town so much,” he broke in as though that would make it better.

“Fine, so you followed me, had me followed. Whatever. You kept tabs on me without me knowing it, and I’d call that spying.”

Jack knew the second Talia had looked at him sideways back in the restaurant that he was in deep shit. He’d done his best to shut Susie down on the topic of his past and future payoffs for the restaurant before Talia clued in, and he thought he’d dodged a bullet.

Then, in an incredibly boneheaded move born of an adrenaline high and the fierce need to get her naked and under him so he could prove in the most elemental way that she was safe and unharmed, he’d slipped up and revealed his knowledge of something he had no business knowing about.

She was glaring daggers at him, her arms wrapped protectively around her waist, her mouth tight with anger.

What the fuck was wrong with him? He was a former fucking Green Beret, not some bumbling idiot. Maybe, he thought in a sudden flash of self-awareness, he’d let it slip on purpose. As though his subconscious knew that if they were to really move forward past tonight, once the danger surrounding her was eliminated, they needed to get everything out on the table.

No past, no baggage, no lies between them.

Or maybe he was just a fucking idiot too focused on getting into the pants of the woman he loved to keep hold of his tongue.

Either way, she was about one hundred degrees past furious, and he knew it was only going to get worse before it had a chance to get better.

“I didn’t do it to hurt you,” he said, sounding lame to his own ears. “I just needed to see for myself that you were okay.”

A humorless laugh tore from her throat. “You couldn’t pick up a goddamn phone?” She held her hand to her ear and mimed making a call. “ ‘Hi, Talia, it’s Jack. I’m just calling to see how you’re doing.’ Like this cloak-and-dagger bullshit is so much easier?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me,” Jack bit out, hating how needy and weak he sounded, like some insecure fifteen-year-old afraid to ask a girl to prom. “After everything that happened to you, I figured you’d just want to forget.”

“You figured right,” she snapped. “All I wanted was to forget everything and get on with my life. And then Margaret had to send that creep after me, and you came busting in, making sure that I would never, ever escape it.” She let out a wrenching sob, and the sound was like a knife to Jack’s chest.

“I never, ever wanted you hurt. Everything I’ve done, it’s been to help you get on with your life, just like you said.”

“All I ever wanted was to get over that feeling of being hounded, of knowing that almost every detail of my life was scrutinized. And all those times I got the prickle on the back of my neck and kicked myself for being paranoid, it was probably you watching me,” she said, pointing an accusing finger. “It was you making me feel that way.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. It had no more effect now than the first time he’d said it, but there was nothing else to say. She scrubbed angrily at her face and narrowed her
gaze. “Before, back at the restaurant, Susie said the damage was going to cost more than a fifty-thousand-dollar investment, and you said, ‘I know.’ What was going on there?”

Jack chose his words carefully, not wanting to lie outright. He was already in the hole. He didn’t want to dig any deeper. “It was obvious the water damage is going to cost a lot more than that to repair.”

Talia shook her head. “And the expansion plans? How do you know about that?”

When he hesitated, she came up and slammed her palm against his chest. “Tell me the truth!”

Resignation formed a hard knot in his stomach, and along with it a sharp stab of grief. He was losing her. The last few days had been paradise, offering the first glimmers of hope for a real future together. Now she was slipping away like water through his fingers and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

That it was his own damn fault only made the pain that much keener.

“When you first moved here and were looking for a job, Alyssa connected me with Susie. I agreed to make an investment in Suzette’s if she would agree to hire you and keep you on for at least a year.”

Talia’s knees went weak at Jack’s admission. The closest place to sit was the bed, but she couldn’t bear to touch it. The bed where Jack had shown her more pleasure in the last four days than she’d known in her lifetime. Where she’d finally felt like the scars of the past had healed
enough to let her look forward to a future that was big and bright and full of Jack. The man she’d fallen in love with.

The man who’d been lying to her all along.

She stumbled over to the chair in the corner, slapping Jack’s hand away when he reached out to steady her. “I don’t need your help,” she snarled. She sank down and buried her face in her hands. “You had to pay her to hire me. God, you must think I’m so useless,” she half laughed, half sobbed.

“I wanted to help you and Rosie get on your feet. I knew you’d never take money from me, so I wanted to make sure you had an income. And Rosie’s school is expensive—” He broke off midsentence.

Another lightbulb flared to life in her brain. “Please don’t tell me the scholarship is fake.”

Jack shifted on his feet, and the sinking sensation in Talia’s stomach became so acute she was afraid she was going to fall through the floor. “It’s not fake,” Jack said. “But the Spectra Foundation that sponsors it was started by me five years ago. And the scholarship was established last fall. So far Rosie is the only recipient.”

Talia’s head swam. The scholarship was worth twenty thousand a year and covered over half of Rosie’s tuition as long as she kept her GPA above 3.0. She knew he was well paid working for Gemini Securities, but how could he possibly afford that, plus the fifty thousand on top? She shook her head to clear it. “You have a foundation?”

Jack nodded. “I use it to fund projects and shelters that help women and children who are being abused.”

“Your broken birds,” Talia breathed. “I’m just another one of your broken birds.”

That was how he really saw her. A poor, pathetic creature
too weak to pick up the pieces of her life. Deserving of his charity. His pity. He said he’d admired her strength but all along he hadn’t believed she could change, that she could be strong.

She could barely breathe through the sharp ache stabbing her chest.

She could see the muscles of his jaw working, and there was an uncharacteristic pleading look in his eyes. “You are so much more than that to me. You have to know that. I—”

“How much?” Talia interrupted. At his puzzled look, she clarified, “Exactly how much are you worth?”

“I don’t think—”

“Oh, come on,” Talia said, rising from the chair as she felt a little devil come to life inside of her. “If I’m going to be kept by another rich man, I should know exactly how much I’m working with.”

His nostrils flared in anger and his mouth flattened in a tight line. “Roughly a hundred million, give or take a few million in either direction depending on what the market is doing.”

Talia pasted on a seductive smile and sauntered over to him. He was still as a statue as she ran a finger down his granite-hard chest. “Wow, that much,” she said, and there was nothing fake about the amazement in her voice. “That’s more than David ever had.” She flashed him a saucy look from under her lashes even as her stomach churned at the thought. “Looks like I’ve managed to trade up.”

God, she was ridiculous. Susie’s face flashed in her mind, and she cringed, thinking about how she’d actually thought Susie was her friend. All the confidences
and conversations they’d shared, and all the while her “friend” had essentially been paid to endure Talia’s presence in her life.

All this time priding herself on pulling herself up by her bootstraps and making a new life for herself, only to find out she was at the mercy of yet another wealthy man pulling the strings on her life.

A little voice tried to remind her that Jack was nothing like David, that he would never use his money to hurt her. But the betrayal was too fresh, too raw, for her to pay the voice any heed.

“Don’t,” Jack said, catching her hand in a tight grip. “It’s not like that and you know it. I never thought of you that way. You need money, I have it, and I want to spend it to help you.”

She batted her eyelids and licked her lips, the mock siren. “But of course you have to want something in return.” She reached out with her free hand and cupped the bulge between his legs. Angry or not, he rose up immediately against her hand, thick and hard and ready for whatever kind of repayment plan she offered. “Ah, there you go.” She rubbed up and down the length of his shaft.

Hot color flushed his cheeks. From arousal or embarrassment at his immediate, involuntary response, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She couldn’t see past her own anger, the seething hurt and all the old ugly things she thought she’d gotten past rising back up in a rotten tangle. Making her want to lash out, to hurt him, to show him that no matter what he said or did, he was no better than any other man. No better than the dirtbags who had made her feel cheap and used and broken.

“That’s an awful lot of money you’ve spent on us already. It’s going to take me a while to work it off.”

“Stop it,” he said tightly, grabbing at her hand as it gave his dick another firm squeeze. “I know you’re angry—”

Talia ignored him and pulled her hands from his. Before he could stop her, she sank to her knees and reached for the button on his pants. “Maybe a little blow job to start. I’m out of practice but that has to be worth at least a hundred bucks, right? Maybe later I’ll let you do something really special—”

“Stop it!” Jack roared, grabbing her by the shoulders and lifting her to her feet. He gave her a little shake. “Don’t do this. Don’t do this to us.”

The devastation on his face sent the devil running, leaving nothing but a bleak emptiness inside her.

“Please don’t do this to us,” Jack said, the pleading in his eyes almost enough to make her crumble. She’d never seen him like this, never known it was possible to make him look like this. Never imagined she would be the one to bring him here.

“Please, Talia, everything I’ve done, it’s because I wanted you to be happy. I just wanted to take care of you—”

Anger flared back to life and she shoved his hands off her shoulders. “I don’t want to be taken care of! Why can’t you understand that? I had that before and look where it got me!”

“I’m not like David!” Jack shouted in a voice so loud it made her ears ring. A vein pulsed in his neck. “I would never hurt a goddamn hair on your head.” His finger stabbed the air as he loomed over her. “I would lay down my fucking life for you, so don’t you dare equate me with him.”

Rather than intimidate her, his flare of temper only fueled her own. She liked this, she realized, in a sick, twisted way. Before she’d always been too dependent, too powerless to do anything other than meekly take what was doled out to her. “You messed with my life behind my back. You made decisions for me and Rosie you had no right to.”

“I never made decisions for you,” he protested. “I just set things up to move in a direction I thought you wanted.”

It was like talking to a brick wall. “Don’t you see that it was important for me to do that on my own? That after everything that happened it would be important to me to stand on my own feet, for me and Rosie?”

The anger seemed to drain out of him. His arms dropped to his sides, his palms facing out as though to say,
I give up
. “You didn’t have anyone. I just wanted to be there for you.”

The regret in his voice was unmistakable, but it wasn’t enough. “Then you should have tried to be my friend. Not my secret benefactor.”

“I can still be your friend, Talia—and more. Give us another chance.”