Crossfire

But Hawk had to wonder. He knew she’d dreamed of marrying Ferreday since she’d been a young girl, long before Hawk entered her life. And he knew to Elizabeth, plans were sacrosanct. But part of him wanted to think their night together had forced her to reconsider her plans, to realize what a pompous idiot Ferreday really was.

The thought of Elizabeth going from Hawk’s bed, to Ferreday’s, still had the power to grind him up inside.

Keeping his voice level was hard. “Then why?”

Her back stiffened. “I’m not discussing this with you.”

“Sure you are,” he drawled, fascinated by the way she fiddled with the room-service menu. Elizabeth Carrington was one of those rare women who never seemed at a loss, who always maintained her poise and composure, even beneath the suffocating glare of the hot Virginia sun. “Otherwise you’ll let my imagination take over, and we both know you don’t want to do that.”

She pivoted toward him, flashed a tight smile. “Nothing happened, Wesley. The timing was just wrong.”

“And now?”

Damp hair scraggled against her cheekbones, emphasizing the flicker of hesitation. “Things are…better.”

That’s not what Miranda had told him. Only a few months before, when he’d escorted Elizabeth’s sister to Portugal, Miranda had looked him in the eye and told him Elizabeth and Nicholas weren’t together anymore, that Elizabeth had never been the same since Hawk left. That the two of them should talk.

He’d politely explained that the two of them had never…talked.

Intrigued, he swung his legs to the side of the bed and lowered his feet to the floor.

Things weren’t better. And they weren’t going to be better, not until Jorak Zhukov was behind bars.

“I hate to break it to you,” he said, needing her to understand the significance of the situation, “but until Zhukov is caught, public appearances are like handing an arsonist a can of gasoline and a match.”

Her eyes flared wide. “I realize that,” she said softly, then glanced toward the vacant bed. Just as quickly, she looked away. “I don’t make a habit of tempting fate.”

But she had.

Once.

The memory cruised through him, hot and damning, and though he knew the polite thing to do—the gentlemanly thing to do—would be to ignore the eight-hundred-pound pink elephant she’d just summoned from the past, he couldn’t quit looking at her standing fewer than ten feet away, with her hair starting to dry and falling loose around her face, her gaze startled, her lips parted. Even wearing nothing but his ratty, threadbare flannel shirt, she still managed to steal his breath.

He met her gaze. “You sure about that?”

Elizabeth glanced at the bedside clock and squeezed her eyes shut, and Hawk had his answer.

“Life doesn’t always unfold neat and tidy the way we want it to,” he pointed out, leaning forward to balance his elbows on his knees. He didn’t understand his fierce need to force her to look in the mirror. “I’d have thought you’d realized that by now.”

Her gaze met his, quiet, seeking. “I’ve realized a lot, Wesley. Have you?”

The question splintered through him. A hot comeback begged for release, but he refused to let her lure him on to a path he had no desire to travel. It was late, and tomorrow would be a long day. She’d probably been awake close to twenty-four hours. She’d been tracked, almost abducted, could have been killed. Any adrenaline had long since drained away.

He wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay standing.

“Come to bed, Elizabeth. You’re exhausted.”

She didn’t move. “Have you?”

The control he’d been exerting crumbled. She wanted an answer? Fine, he’d give her one. “You want to know what I’ve realized?” The question broke from his throat rougher than he’d intended. “I’ve realized you’ve got your whole life mapped out, and nothing else matters. You know what you’re going to do, what’s acceptable and what’s not, who you’ll be with. Everything is black, or it’s white. Gray confuses you.”

Elizabeth crossed to the little bed a few feet from him, then meticulously folded back the bedspread. Only when she finished did she turn to him, and when she did, she quickly stepped back, as though she’d just realized how close the two beds really were.

If she moved two steps, she’d be standing between his thighs.

For a moment she just looked at him, at his bare chest where the ugly scar was a brutal reminder of how little she gave a damn about him. Then slowly she lifted her eyes to his.

“I suppose you think you’re the gray?”

“I don’t fit into preconceived notions.” If he had, if he was a gentleman like Nicholas, he’d be wearing a pair of pale blue pajamas, with the top buttoned all the way up to his throat, not lounging there more naked than not. “I don’t play by the rules.”

“No,” she agreed with brutal speed, then turned and practically yanked back the crisp white sheet. “You fly by the seat of your pants.”

And finally they’d reached the heart of the matter.

“It’s not a crime.”

Elizabeth stiffened, kept staring at the bed. He could tell she was on the verge of collapse, that she wanted nothing more than to crawl between the sheets and shut her eyes, wake up in a time and place where Hawk Monroe had never rocked her world.

Finally she looked at him through a curtain of damp scraggly hair. “I never said it was.”

“Tell me how you’d rather me act. Tell me what would make you more comfortable.”

Across the room the baseball announcer signaled a grand slam, but neither of them looked. Elizabeth just stared at him, no doubt considering a comeback. She’d be more comfortable if Zhukov was still behind bars and this nightmare had never started. She’d be more comfortable if Aaron or Jagger had been sent to bring her home.

She’d be more comfortable if the bullet that had ripped into his shoulder four months before had landed a few inches lower.

“Look, Hawk,” she said. “We’re adults. Can’t we just—”

“Pretend that night didn’t happen?” That’s what would make her more comfortable, he realized. If he’d never touched her. Never made her sigh.

Never made her come unglued.

“No,” he answered before she could. “I can’t do that. I don’t pretend.” That was the coward’s way out.

She frowned. “I made a mistake, Wesley. Nothing less, nothing more.”

Nothing.

Less.

Nothing.

More.

The seven most incredible hours of his life.

Nothing less, nothing more.