The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

That this was something.

Something big.

Something with a future.

Which had been a shocking revelation as I lay there in bed the next morning, arm around her lower back, her body draped over me, still passed out, since she always seemed to sleep in.

But I suddenly couldn’t picture next week, next month, next year without her exactly there. Without coming in from my workout to find her bleary-eyed, coffee in her hands, eyes roaming over my torso. Without finding her in the kitchen sneaking something sweet. Without her at the dining room table. Without her there in the evenings to watch a show, to play cards, to talk about our varied, interesting life stories. Without her in my bed again at night.

It was too soon to say she was the one, but she was something more than a one-night-stand. And that was shocking enough in itself.

“What?” I asked, feeling Alexander’s gaze on me in the kitchen.

As he moved beside me by the window, I realized he caught me staring at Melody as she leaned forward over a pot of oregano, gathering spices for dinner.

Pasta with homemade sauce, because you can’t expect miracles from me every night she’d told us over an egg and toast breakfast when Alexander asked what was on the menu for the day.

“So, am I supposed to call her my sister-in-law?” he asked, clucking his tongue. “My sister-in-law Miss Miller? Seems a bit formal.”

“Her name is Melody,” I told him, glancing over, finding his lips curved up, his eyes dancing. “And no one said anything about the two of us being anything more than professional.”

“Oh, right,” he said, pressing his lips together. “So those moaning sounds I heard in your shower this morning, that was a business meeting?”

He was going to be a real handful being home, I realized. Much like I had been at his age.

“Watch yourself,” I demanded, tone a little cutting, not liking him talking about her in that way.

First, because he was a kid.

Second, because it gave him a mental image of her.

Third, because, well, I didn’t want anyone thinking about her that way except for me. Regardless of how irrational that was.

“I don’t like the idea of you treating her like you’ve treated other women.”

“You know nothing about how I have treated other women,” I reminded him. Which was true. Because I never brought women home.

“I know you are gone for one night, and then you never see them again. I don’t like that for Melody.”

“I don’t either,” I told him honestly.

“So it’s more than that.”

“While I don’t think it is appropriate for you to ask, I respect your desire to protect her. And in the interest of full disclosure, I don’t know what this is, but it is more than a one-night-stand. Beyond that, I don’t know.”

“Because her life is half the world away.”

“Exactly.”

“People can move house, you know,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Oh, to be young and foolish again.

“It’s not that easy, Alexander,” I told him, looking away from the window. “She has a life there. She has friends that are like family. She has a connection to that country, that town. You can’t ask someone to give all of that away.”

“For love?” he asked, shaking his head. “I think you can,” he told me, going outside, jogging down the path, Laird following closely behind.

Maybe for love, you could.

Maybe.

It was still asking a whole hell of a lot. More than I was willing to give up. How could I expect that from another?

But this wasn’t love.

Not yet a little voice in my head said.

And likely never.

Eventually, and I hated to admit this, she would have to leave. I would need to let her go.

Chernev wouldn’t be on the run forever.

We would ferret him out.

I would make my men hold him so I could make my way to whatever rock he was living under, and exact my justice myself.

And then, I would have to tell her.

That it was safe.

To go home.

To leave me.

I didn’t want to, of course. I wanted to find some excuse to keep her here where I had her within reach at all times.

I couldn’t do that, though.

I remembered once when I was a boy. My father took me to a colleague’s house in Australia. And there were these brilliant-colored macaws that would come up on the back deck to beg for food because he had been feeding them since they were babies. I asked why he didn’t take them inside, turn them into pets.

He said something that had always stuck with me.

When you love and respect something, you never cage it, you never shrink it, you never force it to fit into your world just because you want it there.

I’d never had a pet after that.

And I couldn’t make one of Melody.

She had a life. By all accounts, a big life. Full of adventure and intrigue. She had people who loved her.