Not Mine to Keep: Chapter 34

One Week Later

“The story will never see the light of day,” Javier said over the line. “You have my word.”

“Thanks for following up.” I sat back in the desk chair at my security firm, uneasy with the next question I needed to ask. “And did you confirm the other thing?”

“Yeah, Britt set up Braden for the money. He didn’t know about the camera or her plan.”

Didn’t mean I’d now like the guy, but I supposed I didn’t need to unleash Armani’s helldogs on him anytime soon. “Maybe we need to vet her friends from now on.” How’d she ever trusted a woman like Britt in the first place? My stomach launched deep into some bottomless pit at the memory that Calliope wouldn’t be my wife for much longer. Who’d protect her then? Fend off the Britts, Bradens, and other assholes of the world? “Scratch that thought,” I said before Javier responded, already on my feet in need of a stiff drink.

“I’m heading back to the house now. Will you be in late again?”

“Same time as always, yeah.” Sometime after midnight.

“Anything else, sir?”

“Just for you to stop calling me that.” Balancing the phone to my ear with my shoulder, I filled my glass with a twenty-five-year-old Macallan.

“Roger that.”

Ending the call, I returned to my desk, set aside my phone, and smoothed my palm over the Italian wood, remembering when I’d had my wife sprawled out before me eight days ago.

My plan after Nashville had been to bury myself in work and barely see or talk to her until the birthday party.

I’d successfully bailed every morning before Calliope woke up, but it didn’t take long after my Houdini routine to find myself at her mercy every day. Always at lunchtime. She’d park that cute ass of hers at the kitchen island in something sexy, right in front of the security camera where she knew I could see her. So I had lunch delivered wherever I was at, security app opened, and we’d eat “together.”

And every night when I went home, I’d wind up crawling into bed with her. Wrapping her up in my arms. And with our limbs entangled, I’d pass out and sleep like a baby.

If that wasn’t enough to blow my plan to hell to keep my distance, it was the texts that started up on Monday that did me in.

The messages began as check-in texts. Simple how are yous? that somehow morphed into more. I’d found myself sending her paragraphs in response to her essays.

I now knew about the farm her aunt had raised her on, as well as the story that had made my old man laugh, along with a dozen others. I had pretty much committed to memory the names she’d given to every farm animal, whether I wanted to or not.

I also knew about the only ex she’d ever lived with, the one who’d slept with Britt, and I’d had to go to the range and unload my anger after that because I wanted to kill the man for breaking her heart. Not to mention the fact he’d shared a bed with her.

Pretty sure I had more insight into this woman than anyone else in the last two decades, and it’d mostly been because of texts. Not that I’d revealed too much to her about my past—like why I’d become so fucked in the head when I lost my heart in the first place—but I still managed to share with her more than I had with anyone outside my family (or therapist).

About to open the security app to check in on her—according to her last text, she was going to try writing music again—I looked up to see Hudson tapping with the back of his hand at the open door.

“You have news?” I asked him, assuming that was why I wasn’t alone at the office at night.

“You feel like hunting later?” Hudson walked in. “The mood I’m in . . .”

I took a guess and asked, “Izzy bothering you?”

“Always, but no.” He shook his head, as if freeing a thought he didn’t want to have. I knew the feeling. Had around fifty an hour about my wife. “I spoke with Sebastian earlier. He thinks the Barones are still hanging tight at the compound in Romania because of a job, based on the people they’ve clocked coming and going.”

“Define job. And what kind of people?” Did I really want to know this? Probably not, which was why Hudson had held back on telling me until now.

“The conflict-starting kind.” He grimaced. “The League’s guess is the Barones are planning to stir up trouble in Afghanistan to draw the US and other nations back into the region.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I applied pressure to my temples, pain cutting through at the possibility of what he was suggesting.

“Does that mean you believe Rocco won’t crash the birthday party next weekend?” Our plan would work whether he made an appearance or not, but it would’ve been helpful to have him on-site when he “murdered” Armani and Marcello. It’d be easier to pin their deaths on him if he was actually stateside.

“I don’t know. We haven’t picked up any chatter about the Barones even so much as whispering your name. It’s been radio-fucking-silent from them about you and Calliope.”

“Which is why you’re on edge and want to go hunting as well.”

“That, too, yes. And it bothers me we’ve yet to figure out why Gabriel was really in Rome, if not to meet with Esposito.”

“Maybe that’s because there’s nothing there to find?” I didn’t want to find anything on him. Calliope must’ve been turning me into an optimist, because she had me wanting to believe Gabriel could become a good guy again. If he could be saved, that meant there was hope for me.

“We’re missing something. We have to be. And time’s running out.”

“Don’t remind me. I know time is . . .” I dropped my hands to my desk, prepared to stand, but for some reason I remained glued to my seat, feeling like I was on the verge of losing my mind at the idea I’d soon be completing my assignment as Calliope’s husband.

“You don’t have to walk away from her after this; you do realize that, right?”

Mind reader, huh? “She doesn’t need someone like me with my issues in her life forever.”

Hudson’s dark eyes narrowed. “And did she tell you that?”

“It’s a fact. You know my track record.”

“It is what it is because you were burned. You don’t need to touch fire more than once to know not to do it again.” He stood and finished the job of ridding himself of the tie and began wrapping it around his hand. “Well, until you’re certain it’s safe to.”

“It’s never safe to play with fire.” Love only gets you hurt.

“I’m guessing that’s a no to hunting tonight, then?”

“Not in the mood, even after the Barone news.” That was also worrisome, because I’d been addicted to the hunt for so long it was the only thing that truly got my adrenaline going. And I hadn’t done it all week.

“Maybe that’s because you don’t need it anymore?” His eyes fell to my wedding band, and I hadn’t realized I’d been fidgeting with it. “Go home to her. I’ll stay here. Maybe save Izzy from the date she’s on with some Wall Street guy and have her help me do another deep dive to look over everything again.”

“Weird for her to date while we’re in the middle of an op.”

“Well, she said he’s a friend, but no guy hangs out with a woman like Izzy on a Friday night and doesn’t want—” He cut himself off, probably realizing how jealous he sounded.

And damn, he was jealous, wasn’t he?

“So that’s really why you want to hunt. Maybe accidentally hit Izzy’s not-a-date date as your target?”

He laughed. “Not a bad idea, but no.” His dismissive shrug was hardly believable. “Why would I care if she’s not-dating dating? I just hate her choice in men.”

“Mmm-hmm.” I smirked.

“Back to you. Like I said, go home early tonight. Be with Calliope.”

“I can’t be around her.” I want to be is why I shouldn’t be. Hell, I’d been sleeping with her every night without even needing sex. It was . . . “Confusing.” I stood. “I’m confused, I mean.”

“What you are is a man falling for someone you think you can’t or shouldn’t have. And like I said, maybe it’s time you take a chance again.”

“I’m screwed up in the head, you know that. If I get what I want, who’s to say I’ll still want . . .” I let my words hang in the air, because I couldn’t refer to Calliope as an “it” when she was the most incredible woman I’d met in my life. And God help me when she sang. Or smiled. Or laughed. Or peered at me with those big eyes of hers. Or ran her sassy southern mouth. Rolled her eyes. Gave me hell for rolling mine. Or just . . . well, existed. Collapsing back onto my seat, I admitted, “Fuck, I have it bad.”

“Finally saying what we all know,” he said in a light voice, and I tugged at my tie and looked up to see him smiling.

“Yeah, well, you going to do the same and confess you feel something for Izzy?” Shit, where’d that come from?

His smile vanished. “I don’t feel that way for her. Just told you that.”

“Yeah, okay. Denial is your best friend, like it’s mine.” I still wasn’t sure how I felt about him with my sister, but I had my own problems to deal with at the moment.

“On that note, I’m going.” He mock-saluted me. “I’ll be in touch if I learn anything new.”

“Or if you accidentally shoot the Wall Street guy and need help burying a body?”

He stopped in the doorway and looked back at me. “If I need a shovel and help digging, I’ll call Constantine. Just go be with your wife.” And with that, he left.

My wife. Could I really go be with her, knowing our marriage already had an expiration date?

I grabbed my phone, needing to at least put eyes on Little Miss Tennessee Whiskey. But when I opened the security app, I about fell out of my chair at who was with her. Had Javier been already at my house, he would’ve given me the heads-up about the guests.

Without wasting time, I called my mom, and she had the nerve to look up at my kitchen security camera while sending me to voicemail. Oh, hell no. Since Izzy was in the room with my wife, too, I tried her next. Straight to voicemail.

At least Calliope answered. But it was a nervous “Heyyy.”

“I can see them there. But why are they there?” I cut straight to it.

“Your sister wants to talk to you. One second,” she said in a distant tone, and that had me even more worried.

Izzy popped on a moment later, disappearing from the view of the camera. “Shit, you need to get here now. Mom basically kidnapped me with a crate of wine, took my phone, and brought me here,” she said in a muffled voice, sounding as though she had her hand cupped over her mouth while talking. “She wants Callie’s input about the birthday party plans.”

“Fuck. I’m on my way.” Already on my feet, I snatched the keys to my Lamborghini and started for the door.

“It gets worse,” Izzy shared on my way out the door. “Mom had too much wine, and she slipped and mentioned why you’re hell-bent on being single forever.” That pause killed me almost as much as her next words. “She told her about Nicole.”