LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 2

      Laura sighed. Her perfectly orchestrated schedule for the day had been blown to heck by her obstetrician running nearly two hours late. Not that she begrudged some other patient an emergency C-section. But today, of all days, she’d really needed her doctor to be on time. Because of the delay, she hadn’t had time to swing by home and drop off the baby with the nanny before this important meeting with Nick’s lawyers.

      She winced at the sliding noise of her minivan’s side door. Baby Ellie, six weeks old today, was asleep inside, and Laura desperately needed her to stay that way for the next hour. She detached the baby carrier from the car seat base, threw the baby bag over her shoulder and hurried across the parking lot toward the glass and chrome high-rise housing Tatum and Associates, the law firm that would be representing Nick in the upcoming AbaCo trial.

      Nick was the star witness for the prosecution. As such, Carter Tatum expected him to come under withering cross-examination by the defense lawyers representing the company’s chief of security, Hans Kurtis Schroder. He’d been accused of masterminding a kidnapping and human-trafficking ring using AbaCo ships without the company’s knowledge. Personally, Laura doubted Schroder was the top dog in the scheme. He was the sacrificial lamb to protect his bosses.

      Today was a coaching session for Nick in how to act on the witness stand. It was guaranteed to be stressful. A part of her that she was trying darned hard to ignore worried that Nick wouldn’t be able to handle it. But he’d endured worse. He’d be fine, right?

      She stepped out of the elevator and a receptionist ushered her to a plush conference room. Nick smiled and came over to relieve her of baby and bag. Her heart still swelled when he looked at her like that, so tall and dark and handsome. He’d filled out in the past year, lost the gaunt pallor, rebuilt the athletic physique that had first caught her attention in Paris. A shorter haircut than he’d worn then gave him a polished air that felt more Wall Street than European Bohemian. He cut a smashingly gorgeous figure. Her hands itched to get inside his shirt.

      As observant as ever, his gaze went dark and smoky. “You are quite a temptation, yourself,” he murmured. “Shall we cancel this meeting and go somewhere private?”

      She smiled regretfully even as she leaned toward him, pulled in by his magnetic appeal and completely uninterested in resisting it. He stepped forward and his head lowered toward hers. Her breath hitched and she was abruptly hot from head to toe.

      A door burst open behind her and several people walked into the room. Nick’s gaze shifted briefly to the intruders and then, ignoring them, he completed the kiss. It was a relatively chaste thing, but her toes still curled into tight little knots of pleasure in her Jimmy Choos heels.

      “Ahh. You’re here, Ms. Delaney. Good. We can get started.”

      “Sorry I’m late,” she murmured. “The doctor was backed up, and I had no time to get home and back here.”

      Nick cupped her elbow, escorting her to the table and holding her chair for her. “And how’s our little angel?” he asked, gazing down at his daughter fondly.

      Laura’s heart swelled at the adoration in his voice. “Mother and daughter both received clean bills of health.” More precisely, daughter was over her mild jaundice, and mother was finally cleared to have sex again. The past six weeks of abstinence had been murder on her. Nick had just laughed, saying that five years locked up had taught him a great deal of patience.

      “Can I get you something to drink, darling?” Nick asked. She shook her head, and his fingers brushed lightly across the back of her neck as he made his way to his own seat. She shivered from head to toe in anticipation of tonight.

      Carter Tatum spoke from the end of the table. “This afternoon we’re going to try to approximate how AbaCo’s lawyers will question Nick. As unpleasant as it may be, I would remind you we’re on your side.”

      Laura, a former CIA operative, had been through training at their infamous Farm, and she highly doubted a bunch of lawyers could throw anything at Nick that she hadn’t seen before.

      Carter gestured and in short order a trio of lawyers was taking turns rapid-firing questions at Nick. They started with his kidnapping. The Paris police believed he’d been drugged at the Paris Opera and taken to the shipping container in which he spent the next five years. Nick denied remembering any of it. If only she’d gone to the opera with Nick that night, but her CIA partner—and ex-lover, truth be told—had been missing, and she’d been following up a lead.

      The lawyers pressed Nick about any enemies who might have paid people to ghost him, and she listened with interest. This was a subject he’d flatly refused to discuss with her. It worried her mightily that whoever’d had him kidnapped was waiting to pounce again. Again, he denied knowing anything.

      The next lawyer pushed harder and Nick’s shoulders climbed defensively. When the third lawyer pressed even more aggressively for information about Nick’s past, he crossed his arms stubbornly and quit speaking altogether. Darn it. That was the same thing he did to her whenever she brought up the subject.

      “Water break,” Carter announced abruptly.

      Laura released the breath she’d been holding. Nick slumped in his chair, his head down. She put a supportive hand on his arm. “Are you okay?”

      “Yes,” he answered roughly. But his arm trembled beneath her palm, and his jaw clenched so hard he looked about ready to crack a molar.

      She suggested gently, “Let’s call this for today. We’ll come back another time when you’re feeling better—”

      “We finish it now,” he snapped uncharacteristically.

      She drew back, startled. Nothing ever flustered Nick. He was always the soul of gentlemanly composure.

      “I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I have no past. It’s over and gone. My life started anew when you rescued me. This is who I am now. You are my life. You and the kids.”

      She appreciated the sentiment, but he was going to have to face his past eventually. The psychiatrists had told her repeatedly not to push him, to let him investigate his previous life at his own speed. But it had about killed her to contain her curious nature for so long.

      The lawyers’ badgering resumed, continuing until Nick finally declared, “Gentlemen, this line of questioning is over. My past is not relevant to the fact that I spent five years in an AbaCo box on an AbaCo ship at the hands of kidnappers in the employ of AbaCo.”

      Laura stared. It was the first time he’d shown even a flash of the decisive streak he’d had in abundance in Paris.

      Carter replied mildly, “AbaCo’s lawyers will, without question, go on a fishing expedition into your past in hopes of finding something they can make seem relevant.”

      Nick scowled. “As far as I know, I never had anything to do with AbaCo before I wound up on that damned ship.”

      The lawyer sighed. “President Nixon’s lawyers had the eighteen-minute gap to explain. We’ve got your five-year blackout to overcome. Have your doctors said anything more about the chances of you regaining some portion of your memory?”

      Nick shrugged.

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