Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) (27 page)

She jammed her finger into the button for the elevator and turned to him. This time, Harper was looking at her, his tongue pressed hard to his top lip.

A silence passed, and when she opened her mouth to send a flurry of expletives at him, he raised his hand.  She clapped her mouth shut.

“Stop talking,” he said.  “Take a breath.  Leave this office.  Stay gone for a week, and maybe I’ll
consider
pretending you never said those words to me.”

The elevators dinged open.  She stepped in backwards, holding his eyes for a moment longer before pressing the button for the ground floor.

He called out to her just as the doors slid shut.

***

The sun splashed into the open curtains hours after Jessica arrived back at Leo’s, and the beams made the joy in his eyes all the more apparent as he brushed the tip of his nose along hers.

“Say it again,” he begged.

“Leo…”

“Say it, say it.”

“I love you.”

“
God.
Say it again.”  He laughed with her, eyes falling to her smiling lips.  “Again.”

Her eyes fluttered when he nudged her nose with his, repeating the words she’d whispered to him the moment she’d crawled back into that bed and seen him open his sleepy eyes.  The words she’d whispered while peeling her clothes off and tugging him between her open legs.  The words she’d whispered when an ecstasy-fueled frown darkened his eyes and pulled his brows as he came.  The words she’d whispered as they lay on the same pillow, facing each other, playing their fingers together between their smiling faces. “I love you, Leo Romanovsky.”

“More…”

“I love you.  I love your smile.  I love your heart.  I love the way your smile makes
my
heart smile.  I didn’t even know my heart was capable of smiling so wide.  My heart’s jaw is starting to ache.”

His eyes grew serious, and he kissed the inside of her palm when she set it on his cheek.  “My heart’s jaw has been in some serious pain since the moment I laid eyes on you.  Pretty sure my heart’s jaw is one smile away from coming completely unhinged, Ashley Williams.”

Ashley Williams.

Ashley fucking Williams.

She’d gone toe to toe with her superior just the night before, going so far as to threaten to quit, all for Leo.  For hours she’d been filling his ear with whispers of the deep love she felt for him, because that was the only thing left in her life that was true.  Over and over she’d told him, hoping the genuine love lighting her up would override the guilt trying to flush it out.

It hadn’t.

In fact, every time she whispered her heart’s deepest truths, it only made her feel worse.

She was stuck in a way she never had been before.  In love with a man she was lying to, with no way to tell him the truth.

The truth would send him ricocheting out of her life.

The truth would snatch away the joy, the love and the peace that came along with the only man she’d ever loved.

She exhaled when he leaned across the pillow they shared and covered her lips with his.

Her eyes searched his after he pulled back.

She wondered if she could protect him from the truth.  Maybe, if she could just tell him who she really was, and then set to work putting a bullet in Victor King’s head, they could be square.  Like a cat who’d clawed a mouse to death and left it at the front door of its owner’s apartment, just maybe, if she had King’s dead body to offer Leo along with the terrible truth, he could find it in his heart to forgive her.  Maybe he could understand that, yes, she’d betrayed him, but she’d also removed something toxic from his life in the process.

She opened her mouth to tell him the truth.

She had to tell him.

Even if she didn’t have a dead body to offer.

“Marry me,” he said.

His words were so soft, so shaken with fear, but at the same time, so strong and sure with love, they stole the breath from her lungs.

She managed to gasp.  “What?”

“Marry me, Ashley.”

Ashley.

Leo clutched her hand, entwining their fingers as his eyes searched hers.

“I know it’s quick, Ash.”

Ash.

“It’s quick, but you know how people say when you know, you know?  Well…” He smiled.  “I know.”

“Good morning!”

Leo and Jessica both shot up in the bed, holding the white sheets around their naked bodies as Consuela came bursting into his bedroom without knocking, cradling a tray with juice and pancakes, a blinding smile on her face.

Still taking shallow breaths, Jessica met Leo’s eyes.  She didn’t think she’d ever be more thankful for an interruption than she was for Consuela’s right then.

Still smiling ear to ear, Consuela set the tray at the foot of the bed.

“Good morning, Consuela,” Jessica nodded.  “Breakfast in bed?  You really didn’t have to.”

Consuela burst into a string of Spanish, her smile growing ever brighter as she backed out of the room, blowing kisses to them as she went.

Jessica and Leo’s amused eyes met after Consuela closed the door behind her.

Leo motioned to the food on the bed and then to the door.

“This is how I know, Ashley…”

Ashley.

The smile vanished from Jessica’s face once more.  The joy from her heart.  Her stomach stopped aching for Consuela’s blueberry pancakes, and ebbed into a sickness that made her wonder if she’d even be able to hold them down.

Still searching her eyes, Leo’s hand disappeared under the pillow on his side of the bed, and reappeared with a small red box.

“Leo—”

“I know—” He popped the box open, presenting a diamond ring that blazed in partnership with the rising sun.  “—that you’re the woman for me, not because my heart loves you, not because my dick loves you, not even because my crazy-ass family loves you…”  Leo motioned to the door.  “Baby, I know that you’re the one for me because Consuela loves you.”

Jessica couldn’t help blubbering out a laugh, covering her face with her hands when tears hit her eyes.  She was sure Leo would misconstrue them for tears of happiness.

“Consuela,” Leo cried, “does not love anyone.  But she loves you, baby.  And so do I.”

Jessica lifted her eyes from her hands, but kept her mouth covered as it turned down at the corners.

“Marry me, Ashley.”

When she saw tears come to his eyes too, she couldn’t.

Ashley.

She couldn’t take it.

Marry me, Ashley.

Not for another second.

Ashley.

The first man in the world whose proposal she’d ever wanted to accept, could not stop calling her
Ashley.

And why would he?

He thought that was her name.

Ashley
.

If she could take the name Ashley, set it on fire, gather the ashes and use them to soak up the waste in a public toilet, she would.  That was how much she hated the name
Ashley
.

She was sure if she ever heard the name
Ashley
again, she would explode.

So when he said it again, “Marry me, Ashley,” she did.

She exploded.

“My name isn’t Ashley!”

Leo sputtered.  The smile faltered on his lips.

He waited.

And waited.

Was he waiting for her to finish?

She was done.

Was he waiting for the punch line?

There wasn’t one.

The silence that thundered in and stretched on should have been enough for Jessica’s mind to catch up with her heart.  The silence should have been a heart-churning reminder of what a mess she was about to make if she allowed this moment to continue on for even a second longer.  It should have alerted her to the chance she still had to fix what she’d just said.

But she didn’t want to fix it.

She was maxed out.

Done.

And her fucking name wasn’t
Ashley.

“My name is Jessica Borgia,” she said.  “And I’m an undercover agent for the FBI.”

“She’s a fed.”

She’s a fed.

Victor let Mitch’s words sink in.  He could almost feel his son’s hot breath as it picked up on the other end of the office.  Behind his desk, Victor took in the photo before him with his hands clasped at his lips and tried to take a deep breath.

The photo of Angie Colt speaking to a young black woman in a secluded park in Jersey City months ago was sending his heartbeat to dangerous levels.

“So, not only are you telling me that Angie Colt is still
alive
, but you’re also telling me that you’ve been trailing her for months,” Victor whispered, lifting his heated eyes to Mitch, “and you’re just now realizing she’s been working with a
fed
?”

“Borgia’s dropped at least a hundred pounds.  Damn near unrecognizable.”  Mitch shrugged both his shoulders, his eyes growing defensive.  “She works undercover.  Racked up a dozen different aliases during her time with the FBI.  She has no friends, and if she has family, they are off the record. I never would have known it was her if she hadn’t started as a cadet with me at the NYPD damn near ten years ago.  I knew she looked familiar,” Mitch spat.  “I looked into it, called in some favors, and she’s definitely a fed.  Investigating the Romanovskys under the alias Ashley Williams.”

From the corner of the office, Reggie perked up, and he moved to the desk, fingering the photo that sat in front of Victor and turning it.

The air left Reggie’s lungs.  “I know her.”

Victor stood.

“I
saw
her.  She was at Novsky about a month back, when I had a meeting with the Romanovskys.  I ran into her in the hallway.  She said her name was Ashley Williams.”

“You ran into her?” Victor clenched his fists on the desk.  “Or she ran into you?”

Reggie frowned.  “We ran into each other.”

“Did she touch you?”

Reggie faltered.  “What?”

Victor’s voice rose.  “When you ran into her in the hallway, did she
touch
you?”

Reggie went to say no, but before he could, his eyes widened, nearly bulging out of his head.

Victor bit his top lip, and it took everything he had not to leap over the desk.  “You goddamned worthless
imbecile.
”

“What were you wearing?” Mitch asked from over Reggie’s shoulder.

Reggie turned to Mitch, searched his eyes, and then looked down at his jacket.  He lifted the lapels with trembling fingers before his eyes rose back to Mitch.

Mitch was across the room in seconds, clawing Reggie’s jacket.

Reggie swirled in a violent circle, allowing Mitch to rip it off his body.

It only took two seconds of swiping his fat fingers along the folds of the jacket before Mitch froze.  A moment later, his hand reappeared with his pointer finger extended.  A circular adhesive, nearly invisible to the naked eye, was stuck to the tip.

Recognizing the adhesive he saw on Mitch’s finger in an instant, Victor took several heaving breaths, eyes growing wider with each second.

Finally, he managed to speak.  “Can they hear us?”

Mitch’s eyes went to Reggie.  “Have you dry cleaned this jacket, at all, since the day you ran into her?”

Realizing what he’d done, Reggie had to take a heavy swallow.  “Yes.  Once.”

“Then the water killed the transmission,” Mitch said.  “But whatever happened before you washed it is in the hands of the FBI.”

Victor turned away from them both, covering his mouth with his hand as he moved to the window.

“The day you ran into her, Reg…” Mitch shook the jacket.  His eyes were filled with pity for Reggie.  “Where did you go?”

Reggie’s eyes fell closed, and he shook his head.  “I came here.  To Dad’s office.”

“What was said?  Do you remember?”

Reggie’s eyes fluttered open.  He did remember, but he wished to God he didn’t.  His eyes went to Victor.  “I’m sorry, Dad.  I’m so sorry.  How could I have known?”

Victor turned back to them, leaning on his desk and clawing his fingers into the wood, he clenched his teeth.  “What was
said
?”

Reggie lowered his eyes.  “The day I ran into Ashley… it was the same day you put the hit out on Angie Colt.”

With a howl, Victor bent over, took the bottom of his desk, and sent it flying off its feet.

***

“Oh, you’re Jessica Borgia, huh?”  Leo’s eyes widened, and he broke into a laugh.

Jessica could see he was waiting for her to join him, and when she didn’t, his smile began to dissipate, once more.  His laughter wavered, and so did his eyes. They stared into hers, searching them, and then moved along the bridge of her nose, her lips, down her body.  With each new piece of her his golden eyes took in, the smile on his face diminished a little more.  By the time his gaze made it back up into her eyes, realization washed over him so completely Jessica could almost read his thoughts.

His smile fell.

It fell in an instant. He reared back and tumbled off the bed, clawing at the sheets as he landed on the wood floor with a thud, pushing himself to his feet before throwing his body back against the wall, eyes shrinking.

“Borgia?”
he rasped, as the truth finally sank in.  A visible chill ran through his body.  The truth filled his eyes like he’d seen a ghost.  “Jesus.”  He jolted and tried to push himself farther into the wall, but he was already crunched in the tightest corner.  “
Fuck
.”

Coming to her knees in the middle of the bed, Jessica held out her other hand, clutching the sheets to her naked breasts as tears tumbled out of her eyes.  “Leo, please.  Listen to me.  I’m an undercover agent.  I’ve been assigned to investigate your family, and you are all in serious danger.”

“What the fuck,” Leo cried.  “What the
fuck
?”

Jessica’s eyes followed him as he moved away from her, keeping his back against the wall, clawing the plaster.  “Leo,
please,
just listen to me.”

When her heart shuddered to a sudden stop, she didn’t even care, too shredded by the horror in his eyes, the tremble to his body, and his poignant desperation to escape her.  She didn’t care.  Not even when ten, eleven, twelve seconds rolled by with no heartbeat.

“Leo, I need you to listen—” A debilitating pain flashed through her, and Jessica gasped, reaching up and covering her failing heart, which hadn’t resumed beating for almost half a minute.  Panic seized her.  The last thing she saw was Leo’s eyes moving from stricken to confused before she turned away from him, lunging for her purse on the bedside table, gasping as she emptied the contents out onto his bed sheets.

She released the sheets from her naked breasts, heaving violently for air that wouldn’t come as she slapped her hands on the mattress, pushing aside her keys, her wallet and her makeup in desperate search for her pills.

“Ashley, what the hell is happening?”

Even as Leo’s words were reduced to faraway echoes, she still heard it.

Ashley.

“I can’t breathe…” She wheezed, getting the prescription bottle under her shaking fingers and twisting it open.

The last thing she felt was Leo taking her arms in his hands before everything went black.

***

“Well, the good news is it wasn’t a heart attack.”  Dr. Wong turned to Jessica and took in the sight of her kicking her legs and gripping the edge of the operating table.  “The bad news is that you’re well on your way to one if you keep neglecting to take your pills, Jessica.”

Jessica broke their gaze and looked out the window.  The IV pumping fluids into her arm shifted and stung as she slapped tears off her face.

Dr. Wong cradled Jessica’s chart to her chest, shaking her head.  “How in the world did you allow yourself to go an entire week without taking them?”

Jessica met her eyes, swallowed, and then shrugged.

“This is not the kind of traffic you want to play in, hon. Not only have you been skipping your medication, you’ve also lost weight and have allowed yourself to become severely dehydrated.  When you were a teenager you could get away with this kind of carelessness, but you’re getting older every day, and your heart is only going to get weaker.  You have
got
to take better care of yourself.”

Jessica sniffled.  “So my heart’s not getting worse, then?  This just happened because I forgot my pills?”

Dr. Wong hesitated.  “If I told you it
was
getting worse, would that inspire you to start taking your heart more seriously?”  She didn’t wait for an answer.  “No, Jess, it’s not getting worse.  It was a minor arrhythmia brought on by stress and dehydration.  Thankfully the young man who carried you in here found the medical bracelet you
refuse
to wear and brought you to me before it had the chance to get worse.  The fact that his apartment is right across the street reaffirms the angel on your shoulder, but your luck won’t last forever.  It never does.”  She sighed.  “Have you been taking on any extra hours at work?  Starting a new venture that has you stressed out?  Anything new happening in your life that could cause your heart agitation?”

Jessica laughed, looking out of the window again.  “Same job.  Same responsibilities.  Same miserable life.”  She cut her eyes to Wong.  “Stupid enough to fall for a man who can never fall for me back…”

Dr. Wong smiled knowingly.  “Well…” Her head fell.  “If you’re talking about the young man who brought you in here, I’d say he not only loves you back…” She raised her eyes to Jessica.  “He saved your life.”

***

After a thorough chiding from Dr. Wong that stretched on for over an hour, Jessica moved into the hospital waiting room, grinding her hands together.

The grinding stopped when she caught sight of Leo sitting in the waiting room in jeans, a white t-shirt, and red slip-on sneakers.  He was bent over the edge of a chair, hands clasped, head hanging low.  He’d chosen the chair closest to the door, and Jessica knew why.

As she moved close, approaching him in the same timid way she would approach a lion baring its teeth, he looked up.

His gold eyes went through a roller coaster of emotion when they met hers. And like she was in the front row of that coaster, about to fall from its steepest height, Jessica’s stomach turned inside out.

After relief, hatred, sorrow, and confusion all made an appearance in his gaze, he stood, eyes shooting to the floor.

“Just wanted to make sure you were good…” He moved to the door.

“Leo…” Jessica followed him out of the sliding doors and into the parking lot.  She continued calling after him, her braless breasts shaking as she picked up her pace in the tan dress he’d put her in after she’d passed out.    Imagining how terrified he must have been, guilt ate at her and claimed her voice, taking it to a shriek.  “Leo!”

In the middle of the parking lot, Leo slowed to a stop, kept his back turned, and just when she was sure he was going to resume walking away from her, he turned, his teeth gnashing together.

She breathed deep when his eyes met hers again.  “Please?”

Her whispered words sent his eyes shooting skyward, and he laughed.

“Please just let me explain,” Jessica said.

“I don’t need an explanation.  I don’t want an explanation.”  His eyes went aglow with fury.  “You’ve been lying to me for a month, Ashley.”

Ashley.

“
Jessica,” she croaked.

He laughed again.  “Are you…” His hand zoomed down his face, revealing a cringe so alive with fury she actually found herself jolting.  “What kind of goddamn psychopath are you?”

“Leo, I’m sorry.  I only lied to you because I was trying to do my job.  I had no idea that your family were just victims—just pawns in his fucked-up game.”

“What the hell are you
talking
about?”

She flinched when his voice rose to earsplitting levels.

“What the
hell
are you talking about, Ashley?”

“Jessica!” she cried, her voice lowering in an instant.  “Leo, please… My name is Jessica.”

“You are not Jessica to me.”  He jammed a finger to his chest. “What aren’t you getting?  Why can’t you see how completely fucked-up this is—”

“I do see it.  I get it.  But if you would just hear me.”

“Hear more lies?  More bullshit?  More ranting from some schizophrenic woman?  You’re crazy!”

Jessica’s head fell.

“And I have no interest,” Leo’s voice went hoarse, “in a goddamned thing you have to say to me right now.”

“Even if I said that your family is in trouble?”

Leo’s eyes searched hers.  He reared back, turned away, but he didn’t retreat.

She saw him run his hand down his face and stepped closer.  “Leo, I quit my job because I realized your family feels trapped… and the deeper I got into this investigation, the more obvious that was to me.  I just want to… to protect them.  To protect you.”