I could cope with rejection. I couldn’t cope with the idea that Baxter Flynn might sleep miserably and fitfully on the too-small couch in a safe house that was beginning to feel like a prison.
“Take the bed,” I told him softly. “I’ll go out and get some food, and when I come back,I’llsleep on the damn couch. No,” I added, as his face turned stubborn. “No arguments. My house, my rules.”
He swallowed audibly, then gave a furtive sniff. “Yeah, okay,” he said at last. “Okay.”
“Look at you, doing what you’re told for once.”
It raised only the briefest flicker of a smile from him.
* * *
True to my word,I napped on the couch for part of the morning after I’d had breakfast, although it wasn’t a true sleep. Baxter, on the other hand, slept so deeply that he did not move positions once that I could see, not even when I went out again to pick up dinner.
When evening had really started to settle in, I decided I should wake him, make him eat, make him wash, take care of the kid since he seemed so determined not to take care of himself. I stood staring down at him before I woke him, studying the way his lashes brushed his cheekbones, the spiky mess of his hair, the flushed skin across his nose and cheeks.
One lock of hair had fallen forward onto his forehead, curling there, damp with his own sweat. I reached out slowly, wondering if I really dared brush it aside. With the lightest touch, I smoothed it back into his hair.
He didn’t even flinch.
Here was a federal agent, asleep in my bed, whose ears had been filled again just this morning with reminders of who I was, what I’d done…and he slept on in perfect peace. Perfect trust.
My heart began to shudder and I laid a hand over it, surprised. It was a foreign feeling to me and for a moment I recalled my first night in Tino Morelli’s house. He’d put me to sleep in my brand-new bedroom, in a bed that seemed oceans too big. I’d wept so much that day that I had no tears left by then, and he stood over me as I stood over Bax now, smiling down at me.
You like your new home, little angel?
The bed is too soft,I’d replied.It had made him laugh.
It’s good to have some softness around you,he’d told me.But not inside. You must be hard inside, hard like a diamond so that nothing can touch you. I’ll teach you. I’ll teach you, little angel.
Tino had taught me to be brave and fearless, to take risks, to live a life where anything was possible if only I had the courage to take it. I’d tried so hard to be everything he’d wanted me to be. I’d only disappointed him twice in my life. Once at the end of his, when I had failed to protect the woman he loved.
And once when I was eighteen years old and word got back to him about me kissing Giorgio Benetti in a gay nightclub.
For a moment as I looked down at Bax, I could have sworn he lay among red sheets, and I reeled back from the bed, my heart cartwheeling. I fought to slow my breath and made myself look again.
He was asleep. Asleep in the white silk sheets of a comfortable bed.
I pressed my hands against my eyes. I needed more sleep. Giving up the bed to Bax had been chivalrous, but also came with personal consequences. But it was time to get back to work. I leaned over him again, laid a hand on his shoulder. “Flynn. Wake up.” He woke with a start, jerking away from me. “It’s late,” I added. “Past seven.”
He gave a confused look around the room. “I slept all day?”
“You did.”
He sat up, and the anger on his face was made ridiculous by the long crease up his face from the pillowcase. “Why the hell did you let me sleep so long? We havewaytoo much work to do.”
“Because you needed sleep. And now you need to shower, and then you can eat.Thenwe’ll get back to work.”
“The files, the downloads—” He pushed himself off the bed, his bare chest glistening with perspiration despite the coolness of the room.
“I got what I could, but they slammed the gate pretty quick.”
He took that in, then shook his head grimly. “Guess it doesn’t matter much anyway. We know who it is.” He stretched his arms again, rolled his head on his neck, and yawned.
I’d been waiting to see if his mood would improve once he’d slept it off, but apparently it was not to be. Either way, I didn’t want to wait any longer to show him what I’d been up to whilehe’dbeen with Villiers. “Kid,” I said. “I have something for you.”
He paused mid-stretch and gave me a wary look. “What now?”
I motioned him over with my head. “While you were with Villiers upstairs, I went into your apartment.”
