I take the envelope from him, pressing it over the center of my chest, right above my throbbing heart. Very faintly, I say, “Ruby Diamond was Dolly Parton’s character’s name in Unlikely Angel, a 1996 made-for-TV Christmas movie.”
“Ah. An inside joke. How sweet.”
I get the sense he wants to roll his eyes, but he only says, “Now, up you go. The flight leaves in half an hour from the private terminal at the airport. I’ve already called you a cab.”
As if on cue, a car honks its horn downstairs.
“How did you know I was coming here? I only just left work.”
“I know everything.” When I stare at him blankly, he smiles. “I’m a spy. It’s part of the job description.”
He’s a spy.
A SPY?
WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS HAPPENING?
He takes me gently by the elbow and helps me up. He brushes a lock of hair off my forehead, tucks it behind my ear, and says, “You don’t need to pack a bag. Liam’s taken care of everything. Just get your pretty arse on the plane and go.”
I’m so confused, my eyes are crossing. I blurt the only thing that comes to mind. “I’m going to be an attorney. Here. In Boston. I’ll be sitting for the bar in a few weeks.”
It’s ridiculous, but I think I get a pass. It’s not every day your imprisoned mobster lover’s spy twin brother you’ve never met shows up with your new identity.
“Or maybe you’ll be an attorney in Argentina, lass.”
All the breath leaves my body. Wide-eyed, I look down at the envelope in my hands. “Argentina?”
“Who knows? These things have a way of working out. Anyway, I’m off. It’s been a real pleasure meeting you.” His voice turns stern. “Of course, I don’t have to tell you not to mention to anyone where you’re going or that you’ve seen me.”
“Of course.” There. I almost sounded sane that time.
He ambles over to the bedroom door. He turns the knob and opens it. Before he walks out, I say, “Wait!”
He pauses, glancing at me over his shoulder.
I have a million questions to ask, but my brain is a pretzel. All I come up with is, “What’s your name?”
He smiles. It’s a dangerous smile, a secretive one, a wild and hungry one that would look right at home on a wolf.
“I’m Killian. I’ll be seeing you again soon. Safe travels, Tru.”
With a deep sense of shock, I realize that this time, his voice had no trace of an Irish accent.
With a wink, he’s gone.
Outside my bedroom window, the car horn blares again. My taxi’s waiting.
Like a flip has been thrown, I go from being frozen to moving at a million miles per hour. I don’t bother to change out of my work uniform. I just run into the closet, rip a sweater off a hanger, and pull it on as I dash into the living room, clutching the envelope like my life depends on it.
I think it actually might.
Ellie’s still on the sofa with her magazine. Without looking up, she says, “That’s right, girlfriend. You go get that fine man and drag his ass back here. Nobody walks out on Truvy Sullivan, badass bitch extraordinaire.”
I grab her and give her a quick, tight hug. “Love you, Elliebellie.”
Startled, she stares at me, her brown eyes wide. “Love you, too.”
I turn around and run to the front door. She calls out after me, “And if you guys are up for a threesome, count me in!”
31
Tru
In the Southern Hemisphere, winter begins in June. So although I left balmy weather in Boston, when I step off the private plane onto the tarmac in Buenos Aires, it’s cold and rainy.
It might as well be August in Miami for how much I’m sweating.
The flight was more than twelve hours long nonstop. I didn’t sleep, eat, or drink, except for all the vodka sodas the nice flight attendant kept bringing me. Somehow, I never got drunk.
The alcohol probably burned away the minute it hit my bloodstream.
I’m on fire.
My heart, my soul, my brain, my sweat glands: all of me burns.
A uniformed chauffer holding an umbrella waits for me beside a limo parked only a few yards from where the plane came to a stop. He meets me at the bottom of the air stairs—or whatever those folding airplane steps are called—and ushers me into the car without a word.
We speed off into the gray, drizzly morning. If he’s wondering why I’m wearing what looks like a hotel maid’s uniform along with an expression like I’ve suffered several recent electrocutions, he doesn’t ask.
The city center is sprawling and cosmopolitan, more crowded even than Boston with its skyscrapers and busy streets. But as we drive farther, congestion and concrete give way to green fields and rolling hills. After about forty-five minutes, we turn into a long gravel driveway flanked by huge weeping willow trees. Horses graze in the pastures beyond. The driveway meanders through the countryside until it ends at a formidable-looking iron gate.
A carved wooden sign beside the gate reads Estancia Los Dos Hermanos.
The driver clicks a remote. The gate creaks slowly open. We proceed about a mile up a low hill. When we crest the top, I see down into the valley below.
Off in the distance sits a sprawling ranch house with a red tiled roof and a wraparound porch in the front. A large wooden barn is nearby, along with horse stables and several other small outbuildings. A flock of geese float tranquilly in the nearby pond.
In the open front door of the house stands a man. He’s tall and dark-haired, broad through the shoulders, wearing jeans, boots, and a white dress shirt unbuttoned at the throat with the cuffs rolled up thick, tattooed forearms.
Even at this distance, I know who it is.
I can’t see his face, but my heart tells me.
The relief I feel is so overwhelming I break down sobbing.
I cry all the way down the hill toward the house. I don’t stop, even when the limo pulls in front and the man in the doorway comes out to meet the car, his long legs eating up the distance in a run.
I cry when I throw open the door before the car has even fully stopped moving, cry as I burst out, cry as I stumble over my own feet and start to fall to my knees.
He’s there to catch me before I hit the ground, of course.
Liam would never let me fall.
Probably because he so enjoys carrying me.
He sweeps me up and stands there holding me in his strong arms as I sob into his neck, the gentle rain misting our hair, my arms clenched so hard around him he’s probably suffocating.
“Hullo, queen bee,” he whispers gruffly into my ear.
Through my sobs, I manage to reply. “Hello, wolfie.”
“I hear you love me.”
That Declan is such a blabbermouth. “You’re okay, I guess.”
Liam squeezes me tight. Then he gives me a deep, passionate kiss, which only serves to make me cry harder.
Chuckling, he turns around and walks slowly back to the house, cradling me in his arms.
I’m too exhausted at the moment to insist he tell me how he escaped from custody and got to Buenos Aires, and my brain is too mushy to take it in, anyway. So I simply allow him to carry me into the bedroom of this cozy, lovely ranch house and set me on the bed.