The Negotiator (Professionals 7)

His face, usually so calm, so carefree, so incredibly pleased with himself, looked uncharacteristically serious, worried.

“I didn’t know.”

“I mean, no one could have predicted that someone would break in and try to murder me in my bed. I can’t be mad at you too much about that.”

“I meant that you had PTSD, pretty girl. I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, well, only one person really does. So you couldn’t have had any idea. I didn’t want anyone to.”

“Is that one person Adamos?” he asked, too smart for his own good sometimes.

“We played poker. Winner chose the personal question.”

I wasn’t going to mention that even if Christopher didn’t ask, I wanted to tell him, I wanted him to know.

“Can’t you just play strip poker like a normal person?”

“So you can cheat to get me down to my panties like last time?” I shot back, small-eyeing him.

“If you wanted a fair game, you shouldn’t have decided to play with a known cheat,” he suggested, nudging me with his shoulder.

“I think I fell for him, Bells,” I admitted, voice low because it was surprisingly difficult to admit. As though it was some sort of weakness. Something others might judge me for.

“I was starting to suspect that,” he agreed, nodding. “Spent a lot of time icing those eyelids to get the swelling down. You almost accomplished it. Almost,” he told me, chin ducking, giving me sad eyes. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I just thought you two would hit it off. He conveniently had that situation with his brother going on. You were between cases. It was serendipitous.”

“Except it wasn’t. I believe his words were ‘It was always going to end’.”

“Sounds like maybe he was hurting too.”

I had come to that conclusion myself.

I’d been going through cycles.

One part of that cycle was complete misery and selfishness, just being completely consumed by my unhappiness. The next was annoyance at myself for getting involved. Then there was all-consuming insecurity; the surety that I had sort of blown things out of proportion, and had created this big fantasy in my head. And then, lastly, there was the small, niggling idea that maybe—possibly—what we had wasn’t silly or one-sided, that he cared for me. Even if his parting words had been a bit cool.

Cool was a defense mechanism.

I knew this well.

Maybe he was using it to cover up his pain, possibly even to spare me more of it. Since I had lost my shit on that deck with him.

Not one of my finest moments, that was for sure. It would haunt me, to be perfectly honest.

I didn’t like being that weak, that vulnerable.

Thank God it had only been Christopher and Quin who had witnessed it.

I didn’t see Christopher day in and day out. And Quin was too good of a man to tease me with my breakdown.

“What were you thinking, Bells?” I asked, shaking my head. “I mean, really. If you wanted to get me laid, you could have taken me to any random dive bar in any corner of this country, found me someone with trouble written all over him. You know, tall, dark, handsome, covered in tattoos, some of them maybe even gang symbols. Then plied me with tequila. And things would have taken care of themselves. Why would you drag me halfway around the world to introduce me to this particular guy? When you knew it was doomed to fail?”

“I knew you could get yourself laid, Mills. I wasn’t trying to get you orgasms. If that was the goal, I would have gotten you a vibrator. Or one of those things that blows puffs of air on your clit. I read the most glowing reviews of one of those on a site once, that said—”

“Bells,” I cut him off. “Focus. We were talking about why you set me up with Christopher, not recommending sex toys.”

“Well, let me just say, that stimulator came highly recommended. Anyway, look,” he said, sighing. “I get that not everyone came from the background that I did. Not everyone had it easy in the money department, in the career department. I get that you had to claw your way up. And I even get that it was harder on you. The only girl—at the time—in this all-boys club. As such, you busted your ass. You forsook everything else that life had to offer. You defined yourself by your career successes. You built this persona of this badass workaholic chick who avoided men like the plague, except for the couple hours of fun they could provide her in bed.”

“Gee, way to make me sound like a workaholic with a sad personal life who has more than a few miles on her.”

“It’s fine, Mills. It’s a perfectly fine life. But you are not a fine person. You are better than that. You deserve better than that. You are magnificent, Melody Miller,” he told me. Now, everyone seemed comfortable calling me by my first name all of a sudden. I couldn’t decide how I felt about it, either. “And you deserve a magnificent life. My goal was to shake up your status quo, to make you see that the world has other things to offer than people’s problems that they want you to solve. More than a house you never spend any time in, than shallow roots while you fly off to random places at a moment’s notice. Not for fun, not for adventure or experience. But to work. You needed to slow down, and dig deep in life.”