A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2) (12 page)

Now I am more powerful than any Secret Service agent.

But for all the wrong reasons.

I’d been drinking. So had Lindsay, but we’d both agreed to a three-drink limit. She was still underage and always worried about how her actions would reflect on her father. I didn’t want to be hungover for my flight back to school the next day.

None of it mattered. We’d been so careful, and not one iota of it mattered.

“Would you like to do some guided imagery, Drew? What do you see when you close your eyes?”

“I see failure.”

“What does failure look like?”

My own face flashes before my eyes.

“Me.” I know from being in therapy that the first answer isn’t always true. Damned if it doesn’t feel like it, though.

“What color is it?”

“Blue, purple and red,” I blurt out, surprised.

“The color of Lindsay’s scarves,” Salma says quietly.

I jolt. My heart canters in my chest like a skittish horse.

“Have you tried to imagine her face as you tell her?”

“Try?” I open my eyes. “I don’t have to try. I see it every day, every second. Not a moment goes by that I don’t imagine how much she’d be disgusted if she knew what really happened that night.” My fists tighten again. Any equanimity or clarity I was working toward is now long gone.

“She’s smarter than that. She loves you. She wouldn’t -- ”

“
Loves
me? Lindsay can barely trust me. We’re sleeping together but it feels so weird. Like I’m part of some game. A ruse. I’m just...” My throat tightens. My pulse feels like it’s jumping rope.

“You’re together but you think she’s manipulating you?”

“I know she is.”

“Then why are you with her?”

“Why do iron shavings attach themselves to magnets?”

“You’re hardly an inanimate element, Drew. You are a sentient, grown man who can make choices.”

“Lindsay
is
a choice,” I say, my voice gruff.

“But you’re terrified to lose her if you tell her what Blaine, John and Stellan did to
you
that night.”

I look at her. “It’s not just about losing Lindsay. I’m ashamed, okay? I’m filled with residual shame and disgust. If that were all, I wouldn’t be here. If word ever got out about what they did to me, my business would die. People hire me to protect them. Image is everything. Having it known that the owner of a security company was once drugged and -- ” My throat goes dry again, but I have to say the words.

Have to.

Not because Salma wants me to, but because some part of me drives forward, knowing I can’t get over this until I own it.

“ -- and they...abused me like that.”

She nods once, slowly, a form of praise that I wish I could absorb.

“And doing it while I couldn’t fight back, after forcing me to watch them defile my girlfriend is a career ender in my field.” I have to change the subject. Deflect. Disengage. Talk about anything but
me
.

“Which worries you more? Losing Lindsay or losing your reputation and business?”

I snort. “I don’t need my business. Between my inheritance after Mom and Dad died and some side work I could always have, I’m fine financially.”

“So it’s losing Lindsay that terrifies you.”

“I wouldn’t say
terrifies
.”

She doesn’t respond.

Terrify. Fuck that. I’m not terrified at the thought that Lindsay would find out about what those fucking beasts did. I’m
not
.

“Drew. You were hospitalized for weeks as a result of the damage they inflicted on you.”

I start to shake. It comes from within, vibrating out of my ribs, feeding into my arms and legs.

I can’t control it.

I can’t control anything.

“You’ve been so focused on Lindsay and her trauma that I think we need to process your view of her reaction. When she finds out -- ”

“She’ll only find out if I tell her.”

And hell,
no
, I’m not telling her.

“When you’re ready, that will be a major step toward healing. For both of you.”

My eyes go unfocused. The shaking doesn’t stop. Rage stored in my bones tries to work its way out. When I first started coming to see Salma, I needed to run out of the room. I felt too raw, too exposed, to be around her. She tolerated it. Encouraged me to leave and compose myself.

Took months to feel safe.

Took nearly two years to be done.

Here I am, back in the same place.

But different.

Does Lindsay feel like this? Home for a week, already mired in scandal. Except this time, I’m the source of the scandal. Those assholes set me up, and now Harry’s listening to all the wrong advisers.

For all the “right” reasons.

“I don’t have time for the emotional fallout of having what happened to me revealed to Lindsay. It’s another complicating factor. Right now, there’s already too much going on. Her safety is paramount. Sifting through the past has to wait.”

“Sifting through the past may be the most important way you can keep her safe, Drew.”

I close my eyes again.

Damn it.

Now I remember why I kept coming back to Salma.

Because she’s
right
.

“They’re threatening her. Directly. Cut her brake lines and nearly caused a crash. Now Blaine’s sniffing around her at her father’s declaration rally. Hell, he weaseled his way into getting Harry to endorse him for Harry’s old House seat. They text threats to her and make it look like it’s coming from a phone she bought. It’s all manipulated, calculated, and it’s impervious. We can’t figure out how they’re doing it. Someone on the inside is helping them. They’re sharks circling to find the right time to bite. I cannot introduce yet another element of complexity to this situation.”

“You’re not introducing it. You’re identifying it. Acknowledging it. By doing so, you help to remove the power the past has over both you and Lindsay.”

“Power?” I lean forward, shoving a hand through my hair again. “They have no power over me. I’ve systematically stripped their influence out of my life.”

“You wouldn’t be sitting here if that were true, Drew.” She taps the newspaper. “And they wouldn’t have been able to do this.”

All I can do is blink. I freeze, as if I’m trapped in my body, paralyzed. Blood rushes to my head, away from my heart, flowing into my fingers and toes.

My chest stops moving.

The world stops.

“Look,” I say, the word coming out of my mouth with so much effort. Instead of thinking in sentences, I’m working with syllables here, one at a time, chained together to form words that link with other words to make my thoughts come out. I inhale, then exhale, and say, “If that is true, then four years were wasted.”

“Why do you think that?” she asks kindly.

“Because I spent all this time getting ready for Lindsay. Making sure she’d always be safe.”

“Are you sure it was Lindsay you were protecting?”

“What?” Anger pours through me like my skin is just a mold, and fury fills it.

“I don’t think you were only trying to make the world safe for Lindsay. You were working to make it safe for you, too.”

“Of course I was,” I scoff. “I
am
,” I stress. The air conditioning clicks on, making me jerk. The sound surprises me, the deep whine of the system hurting my ears. I’m holding my breath and I let it out, my respiration inconsistent, the feeling that I can’t catch my breath becoming overpowering.

“Not as a byproduct, Drew.”

I frown. “Lindsay’s safety is always more important than my own. I’d die for her.”

Salma nods. “And that is admirable, but who would die for you?”

She might as well throw a brick at my face.

Because suddenly, my mother and father’s faces fill my mind. How they looked at the viewing at their funeral.

How their brakes failed.

Oh, God. They victims, too. How far does all of this go?

Did my parents die because of
me
? Because of some strange fixation Blaine, Stellan and John have on destroying my and Lindsay’s lives?

Bzzz.

The room makes no sense suddenly, as my emergency phone goes off. Salma glares at my jacket, sitting on the couch.

“You know I have a ‘no cell phone’ policy, Drew.”

“I know. It’s turned off. That’s my Code Red phone. It only goes off when there’s a life-or-death emergency.”

Fuck.

I leap up, rifling through the cloth, the pocket edge ripping as I grab the phone and answer.

“Foster,” I bark.

“Drew. This is bad.” It’s Paulson.

“Lindsay?”

“She’s fine,” he says, but his voice sends a cold ribbon of panic down my spine. “It’s you I’m calling about.”

“Me? What about me?”

“That guy who works for Bosworth – Marshall. He’s claiming he has intelligence that proves
you’re
the one sending the threatening texts to Lindsay.”

“What? What the hell?”

“I know it’s bullshit. But the tracing report got into the hands of Blaine Maisri’s camp. They’re threatening to leak this to the press. It’s one hell of a set-up. We need to do damage control for you.”

Damage control.

My entire life is turning into nothing but damage control.

Bzzz.

My phone vibrates in my hand. Incoming text. Salma gives me a look of studied frustration. I know this is sacred space. I know I’m supposed to work on my issues.

Trust me.

I know.

But this situation just went FUBAR and the ante just got upped to the Nth degree.

I ignore Mark as he tries to get my attention, and I look at the text.

Don’t play if you can’t win
, it says.

I go numb.

Another text. It’s a video. The picture has the Play symbol in the middle, a frozen image of me, naked, on my side with a mask over my head.

A video.

There’s a video of
me
from that night?

“Paulson,” I snap. “Full press.”

Dead air fills the line.

He hasn’t just hung up on me.

Mark’s gone to start a series of procedures that threaten to destroy everything I know.

But all in the service of saving Lindsay.

I stare at the texts. Deep breaths come out of me, involuntary, as tumblers in my mind sync, creating an orderly chain reaction.

I know what to do next.

I don’t like it, but I know what I have to do.

Then it hits me.

They’re sending that video everywhere.

Lindsay. They’ll text it to Lindsay next.

Probably already did.

“Drew!” Salma’s voice fills with a pleading horror as I stand, striding to the door with purpose. I can’t look at her. I am a shell now. Shells hold vulnerable creatures, protecting them from the dangers of the outside world.

I can’t be naked and soft. That’s for a different part of me, one that can’t come out and play right now.

A game, right? We’re playing a most dangerous game.

Which means the man who walked into this room cannot be the one who walks out of it.

“I’m fine. Bill me, Salma.”

Her face turns red with anger. I watch, wholly detached. Like the good soldier that I am, trained in psychological as well as physical warfare, I can separate feelings from flesh. I’ve done it before, so many times that being connected is the exception and not the rule.

It occurs to me that Lindsay does the same.

I can’t think about that right now.

“This has nothing to do with money. I’m concerned about dis-regulation in you. You need to stay.”

I pause, my hand on the doorknob. There’s no turning back now. None. What Paulson is unleashing is the equivalent of starting a nuclear launch sequence. Lindsay isn’t the only person with a revenge plan. Mine has been in the making for four years.

A love plan for Lindsay.

A revenge plan for those pieces of shit.

I didn’t think both would be initiated at the same time.

But there’s only so much I can control in the world, right?

“Salma, what I need to do is find out how to stop the people who are hellbent on destroying my life. I came here to try to sort through everything with Lindsay, but the texts and call I just received show that she’s in even more danger than I ever thought. So am I.”

“What was that about?”

“I’m being set up. Blaine, Stellan and John are trying to make it look like I’m the one threatening Lindsay.”

And a video of what they did to me just appeared.

Her hand moves to her mouth, a gesture of shock, but she’s too smooth. Too professional. Salma catches herself, then slowly lowers her hand, bracelets jangling at the wrist. “I see. The newspaper article?”

“And some texts Lindsay received. They’ve been traced to one of my phones. It’s all being done to make me look like I’m unhinged. Like I’m the one who’s trying to hurt her. Turn me into a stalker, make Harry look bad for hiring his own daughter’s crazy ex...you can put the pieces together. And if they get their way, Lindsay will be left in an unprotected state and her current team will hand her off to the -- ” I crack my sentence in half. “No. That can’t happen. I have to go and stop them.”

That’s as emotional and revealing as I can afford to be.

A tingling starts in my knees. It is not unpleasant. Full-body flushes are like a horn on the battlefield in ancient times.

A call to arms.

In a way, I am relieved. Excited, even. While I’m a tactician and a strategist, four years has been too long. Too much planning, not enough action. Too much rumination, not enough motion.

Too much pain.

Not enough pleasure.

An image of Lindsay crashes through me, as if she’s entered my bloodstream and strokes me from the inside out. What will she think of me when she finds out? When she views that --

All I want to do is find her. Steal her away. Take her someplace where none of this can touch her.

All I want is peace.

Too bad I have to go through hell to get it.

I leave.

Salma doesn’t try to stop me.

“
S
ilas
!” My voice sounds like shrapnel ripping through flesh. I’m on my emergency phone and he’s answering before I realize I’ve shifted to his first name, the soles of my feet digging into the floorboards of my SUV, the unrelenting sun turning the cab of my car into a sauna of retribution and recrimination. The air tastes like regret. “I need your help. Now.”

“What do you need, Drew?”

So much for “sir.”

“Block texts going to Lindsay’s phone. Effective five minutes ago.”

“I can block all future texts, but -- ”

“Scrub them. Now.”

“She has her phone on her, sir – Drew. Too late.”

Fuck.

“Where is she?”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

“SILAS!”

“She’s...er, well, she’s asking for you.”

Careful what you wish for.

You just might get it.

“Me?” I gasp.

“Yes. We’re under strict orders not to have her see you, be seen with you, come within a thousand yards of you, even -- ”

“I get the point,” I grind out.

“But you know Ms. Bosworth.”

My grimace turns to a tight grin.

“Sure do.”

“She’s insistent.”

A lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow.

“What’s her mood like, Silas?”

“Her...mood?” He asks the question like he’s not sure he heard me right.

“Yes.”

“It’s, um...she’s pretty stoic. Broken record. She just walked over to the senator’s office and it looks like she’s arguing with her mom and dad.”

Lindsay can take on Harry.

Monica? Not so much.

I’m a man of action. I plan and strategize, examine tactics and enact scenarios.

Waiting isn’t my style.

“I’m
persona non grata
at The Grove, I assume.”

“If it were legal to shoot you on sight, I’m pretty sure Marshall would have ordered the team to do so,” Silas replies with a rueful huff.

“I guess I have to see her.”

“You guess?”

“I do. I need to see her.”

“What’s going on? Is there intelligence I haven’t seen yet? A viewing of new evidence I missed?”

Oh, is there
ever
.

“This is personal. Between Lindsay and me.”

“Understood.”

“But it has to do with the texts on her phone. How many people have access to that information?”

He names Paulson, himself, and one techie on the team.

“Scrub those texts and remove the techie.”

“I have to clear this with Paulson,” Silas insists.

“Then do it.” Every word out of my mouth feels like I’m one step closer to death.

“Sir, why are the texts so important?”

As I look out the windshield, the world widens. My hands itch to have Lindsay here, in my arms, her skin under my heated touch, to have her concrete and palpable, able to be grabbed and secured.

Then again, maybe I need her as an anchor.

To keep me from floating away.

“Sir? Drew?” His voice changes, choked with compassion, and it hits me.

He knows.

He saw.

Bzzzzz.

A text from a number I don’t know.

Jane gave me a burner phone. Ignore whatever they’re telling you. Find me at the shore tonight at 8 p.m. Silas will help.

“Drew?” Silas’s voice is back to normal. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“I think I’ll do a little night running on the beach later on,” I say, testing.

“Good idea. I hear the weather’ll be great for it.”

Click.

I spend the rest of the day taking care of paperwork, tying up loose ends in my business, chatting with my sister and Facetiming with my toddler nephew.

Because no one can predict what’s about to happen next.

Least of all me.