Overnight Male (13 page)

“G
OOD MORNING
.”

Iris shot up in bed with a gasp at the sound of the warm greeting, her heart pounding, her pulse racing, her brain screaming at her to flee, and had to quickly remind herself that she was perfectly safe. Which, except for the sound of the warm greeting, was the way she’d been waking up pretty much every morning for the past eight years. Well, except for yesterday, when she had awoken to the same warm greeting.

Shoving her hair out of her eyes, she saw Nick standing at the door of the suite behind a room-service trolley that had evidently just been delivered, the air between them redolent with the delicious aroma of a meal someone else had prepared. She returned his smile and inhaled a deeper, slower breath, releasing it with infinitely more satisfaction.

“Good morning,” she replied dreamily.

Because this had to be a dream, right? It wasn’t normal to feel this good, just by virtue of having woken up and drawn breath.

She told herself the only reason she felt so good was that she’d had two consecutive nights of solid sleep, something that almost never happened. She’d never been a sound sleeper to begin with, and since leaving home, the condition had only worsened. Over the past eight years, she’d moved a dozen times, to a dozen different states, and had stolen a new identity every time. She’d altered her looks, her voice, her lifestyle, her habits, everything, so that every last trace of Trisha Harrington would be gone. Three years ago she’d finally decided she’d put enough time and distance between herself and her family that she could risk staying in one place and being one person long enough to earn a degree that would enable her to support herself honestly and without having to look over her shoulder all the time.

She swiveled in bed to put her feet on the floor, shoving her hair back from her face as she rose. Nick looked yummy as usual in his dark blue robe and pajama bottoms, the garments flowing like silk over his body. Probably because they were silk. Duh. His dark auburn hair was rumpled from sleep, and the lower half of his face was shadowed by a night’s growth of dark beard. The hair on his chest was dark, too, spanning his torso up and down and from side to side, disappearing into the drawstring waistband that dipped just below a luscious-looking navel. Her fingers curled involuntarily into her palms as she wondered what it would be like to touch him.

She was surprised he hadn’t come on to her yet. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would share his hotel suite with a woman and not demand something from that woman in return. And even being the bundle of nerves she was about such a thing, Iris had decided she would agree if he did. But he’d only told her she was welcome to stay in the suite as long as she wanted, and he’d given her plenty of privacy. He’d left yesterday morning shortly after she woke, and he hadn’t been back yet when she’d returned from her afternoon classes. He’d finally arrived around dinnertime and ordered room service for them both, and although they’d shared some quiet conversation, it had only touched on superficial subjects. He’d not mentioned her family at all.

But then, neither had she. Maybe he was waiting for her to be the one to bring it up, she thought. Or maybe it wasn’t that important to him. Which was weird for a guy whose goal in life was to steal the world blind. A million five might not be a huge amount compared to what he’d get pillaging the global economy. But greed was greed, and a million five was no small change.

He was such a bundle of contradictions, she thought as she watched him push the trolley into the sitting area. Ruthless and relentless in his pursuit of money and power, but kind to, and even protective of, her whenever the guys gave her a hard time. Just who was Nick Darian? And what were the chances he might abandon the former behavior to focus on the latter?

Pretty slim, she immediately decided. He seemed as focused on his hunger for wealth and power as she was on her determination to elude her family. Not that she hadn’t realized from the start how intent he was on this taking-over-the-world thing. Today, though, for some reason, it bothered Iris more than it had before.

“Sleep well?” he asked as she came to a stop beside him.

She nodded. “Better than I have in a long time, actually.”

“Well, they say confession is good for the soul.” He began to remove the metal covers from bacon and eggs and a platter of fresh fruit, then looked up at her and smiled. “Not that I’d know anything about that myself.”

She smiled back, but the gesture felt hollow. “I didn’t confess anything,” she said as she reached for a slice of cantaloupe. “You found out about who I am all by yourself.”

He tilted his head to one side as she nibbled the melon, as if he were trying to look at her from a different perspective. “But don’t you feel better having shared the truth with someone else?”

She thought about that for a moment. “In some ways, I guess.”

“But in others?”

She met his gaze levelly. “In some ways, I’m more scared now than ever before.”

Nick hesitated for a moment, then said, “You
can
trust me.”

She wished she could believe him. For now, she only asked, “How did you find out who I am? I’ve spent eight years erasing everything about Trisha Harrington. There shouldn’t have been any way for anyone to find out who I am.”

He shrugged without concern. “I have my ways.”

“That mysterious contact in your mysterious organization,” she guessed.

He nodded.

She shook her head, laughing lightly. She’d thought he’d made all that up. She’d figured he was just one of those guys who had to embellish everything they said about themselves so they’d sound more important than they really were. The kind who said they were former Green Berets when they’d actually been drummed out of the Boy Scouts. Or the ones who claimed to be part of a groundbreaking medical research team based on the amount of mold growing in their refrigerators.

Iris—and Chuck and Donny and Hobie, too, she knew—had figured Nick made up the shadowy government agency he used to work for because he wanted the rest of them to be impressed. Wanted to compensate for not knowing as much about what they were doing as the rest of them did. Now it looked as if maybe he was just who he said he was. Or had been, once upon a time. Because no one should have been able to find out the truth about Iris without some kind of heavy-duty search capabilities behind them.

“And what’s the name of this group again?” she asked.

He smiled. “I never told you their name the first time,” he said. “And I won’t now. It’s not important, Iris. What’s important is that I still have someone there who can do things for me.”

“Like checking up on me, Chuck, Donny and Hobie,” she said.

“Like that, yes. Among other things.”

She said nothing for a moment, then, “You invaded our privacy.”

He laughed outright at that. A full-bodied, completely uninhibited laugh that rippled through Iris like a finger running down her spine. Then again, she supposed her comment was pretty funny, considering what they’d been doing to other people for the past few months—and what Iris had been doing to other people for years, she reluctantly reminded herself. Stealing their names, their personal information, their savings. Their lives, their financial plans for their offspring, their very trust in their own judgment.

It was the only way she’d known how to support herself, the only way she’d known how to survive. She’d been a whiz with computers since receiving her first one for her tenth birthday. Hacking came as naturally to her as breathing, and she’d had no other skills to earn her way. Stealing from people who already had plenty hadn’t seemed like a big deal when the alternative was too terrible to consider. And she figured anyone she stole from eventually got their lives back in order. Her life would never be in order as long as there was a chance her family would find out where she was.

But they hadn’t, she told herself now. It had been eight years, and she hadn’t even had any close calls. It had been a while since she’d really
needed
to steal anything from anyone. Lately she’d only been doing it because…Well, because she’d been doing it for so long, she’d stopped thinking much about it. And because it had won her cachet into a small circle of friends—even if they were a bunch of assholes sometimes. Okay, a lot of times. Okay, all the time. And, too, because of Nick. Then again, if Donny, Hobie and Chuck were her only friends in the world—and God help her, they were—maybe it was time to rethink her social situation.

She frowned. “Nick?”

“Yes?”

“How much longer are we going to keep this up?”

He was clearly puzzled by the question. “Keep what up?”

“The stealing, the virus building…” She chuckled. “The taking over the world.”

Now his expression grew wary. “Until we’ve succeeded in doing it,” he said.

She expelled a soft sound she hoped was light and airy. “Oh, come on. You don’t honestly think you’re going to take over the world.”

“No. But I intend to hold it hostage until I get what I want.”

“But don’t you have enough? I mean, we must have scammed tens of millions of dollars by now.”

“Yes, we have.”

His admission both sobered and panicked her. She truly hadn’t thought about any fixed number, had thrown out that “tens of millions” on what she’d thought would be a way wide guess of the actual figure. Chuck and Hobie and Donny must have been putting in a lot more hours on this than she had. And if they truly were responsible for the theft of that much money, then there had to be a lot of people in law-enforcement looking for them and trying to stop them. And if they found them—
when
they found them, she made herself admit—their faces would be splashed all over the news.

All those years of running and trying to hide from her family would be for nothing. Because the minute the Harringtons realized where their missing daughter was, they’d go right to work on getting her released from custody—and returned to them. Her family had more corrupt lawyers and judges and politicians in their pockets than Iris could count. Local, state, federal, it didn’t matter. The Harringtons
would
get her off. They
would
force her return to the family fold. And her father would make damned sure she married Michael Covey this time.

Swallowing the terror she felt rising, Iris said, “You know, Nick, even divvied up between the five of us, that’s a lot of money.”

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. “But it’s not
enough
money.”

She’d been afraid he would say that. “Well, how much is enough?”

He grinned. “I’ll let you know when we have it.”

She started to say something more, but Nick prevented her by asking, “Why did you run away from your family?”

She knew Nick wouldn’t be satisfied until he learned the truth about her. The whole truth. Strangely, she didn’t mind giving it to him. Maybe he was right. Maybe confession was good for the soul. If nothing else, if he knew the truth about her situation—and if he cared about her, even a little, which she was beginning to think he did—then he might be even less inclined to contact her family and turn her in.

“Coffee?” she asked. “This is kind of a long story.”

He poured a cup for each of them, and as he closed his fingers around his mug, he asked, “How does a family of cutthroats like the Harringtons produce a daughter as lovely as you?”

Something warm and fluid splashed through her midsection at the question. No one had ever called her lovely before. Not even back when she was lovely. The whole Goth thing was just another attempt to hide who she was, but Nick’s words, spoken so sweetly, actually made her
feel
lovely. Even in the black tank and pajama bottoms, even with the black, chewed-off fingernails.

“The whole time I was growing up,” she began, “I thought I was living a totally ordinary life. I mean, I knew my family had a lot of money, but there was nothing about our life that even hinted at what the Harringtons actually did for a living. My father went off to work every day, and came home every night. My mother seemed like this typical society wife. Even when I was old enough to look at the stuff going on around me and start thinking some of it was a little suspicious, I guess I just decided not to see the facts.”

“What kind of stuff?” Nick asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. There was just this…vibe.”

He arched his eyebrows at that. “A vibe?”

She nodded. “Yeah, just…this weird sort of tension or something that I never picked up on as a kid. I started noticing that whenever I walked into a room, conversations got quiet. And once I started high school, a lot of the kids stopped wanting to come to my house, and none of the guys would ask me out. I just figured nobody liked me. Now, of course, I realize everyone was just being smart enough not to get too close.”

Nick studied her in silence for a moment. Then he said, “I didn’t have many friends in school, either. Well, except one,” he amended after some thought. “But we eventually drifted apart.”

“I didn’t even have one,” Iris said.

“Must have been lonely.”

She glanced away. “Yeah, well, I guess it was sometimes. But I sort of just created my own little bubble to live in, where I could tell myself that my life was totally normal and I had lots of friends and there were plenty of boys who had crushes on me. Besides, compared to what a lot of kids have to grow up with, my life really wasn’t so bad.” She looked at him again. “Until…”

“Until what?”

Iris sighed heavily. “My sixteenth birthday. That was when my father sat me down to have a talk with me. I thought he was going to outline some dating rules—like that was even necessary, since no one was asking me out—or tell me how smoking was bad for me and not to drink and drive. Instead, he told me all about the history of the Harringtons and their business, and what would be expected of me in the future.”

“The facts of life, as it were.”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. He and my grandfather had my life all mapped out.”