Not-So-Secret

Chapter thirty-four

James held her as she wept, the child's cry still echoing in the hallway. He shouldn't hold her like this, it was exactly the kind of situation where he should be a bastard, but he couldn't do that to Kelly. God only knew what Jones had put her through lat night. He didn't see any marks on her. At least there was that.

All he wanted to do was to comfort her. To take her as far away from the hotel as he could. What the hell kind of a man was he that he couldn't harden his heart when he knew what was at stake? When Jones pulled off his plan, when he had a weapon that could destroy half the country, would James comfort himself with the thought that he'd been a pal? A regular sweetheart?

He took hold of her arms and pulled her to her feet and held back his urge to shake her.

"We have to go," he said harshly, making sure she knew he meant business.

It worked. She stopped crying. With red-rimmed eyes, she stared at him, the hurt, the confusion, as painful as a blow. "What the hell happened to you?" She whispered.

"I don't know what you mean."

"You know who he is. Is that what you want? To be like him? To be so hateful that I can't stand for you to look at me?"

"That would be a start," he said.

Her eyes closed and she stepped back, wrenching herself free. "Fine. So be it. You can go to hell at his side."

" I've already got my ticket," he said. "In the meantime, I've got the credit card and the limo. You need to get dressed so we can go."

She turned her back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Her makeup smeared and somehow the dark smudges brought back in brutal detail the morning after the first night they'd spent together. She'd been so delicate in his arms, he'd been terrified of bruising her. She'd had dark smudges under her eyes then, but they hadn't been makeup. Stress had put the darkness there. Fear. The marks she tried so hard to cover up with all that damned makeup.

"I'll be ten minutes," she said. " I don't suppose you want to meet me at the car."

"I have my orders."

"Yeah. Orders." She walked away, the spirit that he'd seen in her carriage last night gone, locked behind the door of the nanny's room along with her son.

He followed her, aware of the cameras hidden in the walls, the ears that were always listening, the eyes that never blinked. He couldn't be so much of an ass that Jones would fire him. It was a fine line. One he had to find and toe.