Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63082 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63082 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
She shivered. “Why come undercover as a buyer? Why not…burst in the front door and take people down?”
He hoped like hell that, after tonight, she wasn’t afraid of him. “Too risky. We’re outnumbered. This place is a fortress. We need backup or inside intel.” His lips found her ear. “Kane’s here. Ethan came, too, but he’s taking Kaylee Wright home later today.”
“Thank god. But Amy,” she whispered. “The girl who was in my cell… We have to help her, too.”
“The plan is to save as many as we can.” He pressed Haisley against the tile, his hands wandering down her body. “But we have to be smart. Careful.”
She nodded. “D-did they tell you… They won’t let me leave with you until I’m pregnant.”
“We’ll be gone long before then.”
“But if we’re not.” She bit her lip, looking rattled. “Would you… Would we have to…”
The question gutted Nash. She seemed so rattled by that possibility. Part of him wanted to ask if having his baby would be the worst thing in the world, but she’d been through too much tonight. Too much in the last week. She was understandably emotional. And of course she didn’t want to conceive a child in this hellhole of rape and trauma.
“I’ll do everything I can to ensure it won’t come to that,” he vowed.
Some of the tension left her body. “And Jasper? Why did you choose that name?”
Nash winced. He’d known she would get to this question, but he’d hoped to have more time to win back her trust before he had to undermine it again. “I thought that name might set you at ease if you already ‘knew’ me from Crime Solvers International.”
Hurt filled her eyes. “So…when I was talking to you, telling you my feelings and secrets…that was you? You catfished me and pretended to be a stranger? You lied to me?”
“You wouldn’t talk to me. I wanted to know where your head was. If there was still hope. If you still cared.”
“Let me get this straight: you hoped to rekindle things between us by deceiving me?” She tried to push him away.
Nash wasn’t having it. He couldn’t with all the cameras.
He pressed her wrists against the shower tiles and plastered her body with his. “I’m sorry.”
When he lowered his mouth to hers, she turned her head. “Don’t.”
Why was everything with Haisley one step forward and two steps back?
Normally, he’d let her cool down, but with cameras all over the place, he didn’t have that luxury. “We need to table this discussion until we’re safe. Or did you forget where we are?”
“Of course not,” she hissed. “But—”
“Your ‘owner’ would never allow such defiance,” he reminded her sharply, swiping his tongue up her neck.
She pursed her lips angrily but nodded. They stood under the spray in tense silence, steam rising around them.
Nash’s mind drifted to the auction, to Gray’s words about her history. He probably shouldn’t ask when she was already hurt and angry, when the night had been so long and harrowing. But if her past presented any danger to their present, he needed to know. And the question was eating him alive.
“What they said during the auction…” he began carefully. “Your previous pregnancy. Was that true?”
The color drained from her face. Despite the hot water cascading over them, her skin turned cold.
Without a word, she wrenched away, nearly slipping in her haste to escape. He watched, gut twisting, as she wrapped herself in a silk robe with trembling hands and fled to the bedroom. He cut off the shower and followed, towel around his waist, to find her staring out the window at the moonlit ocean, arms wrapped protectively around her middle.
“Listen…” He stepped behind her, taking her hips in his hands.
She stiffened and refused to look at him.
The silence stretched, heavy with unspoken words. As frustrating as it was, they had zero privacy out of the shower. In the thick of the night wasn’t the time to push her, especially since they were both running on zero sleep.
Tamping down his frustration, he pulled her to the bed and wrapped himself around her, his gaze promising that he’d extract answers later. “Close your eyes. Rest.”
She raised her chin in defiance and fought him. But he was bigger, stronger. She soon realized the futility of pushing him away and rolled to her side with a huff, curling into a ball.
With a growl, he dragged her against his naked body. His mind raced. She hadn’t denied being pregnant at some point in the past. But when? And…by whom? If it had been his child, she would have told him. Wouldn’t she?
Soon, he’d need that answer—and they’d have to deal with everything that had happened on that goddamn stage. Once this nightmare fucking ended, they’d tackle whatever had caused her to run from him two years ago. He loved her. He wanted to spend his life with her. She couldn’t keep running from the truth. He couldn’t allow it.