The Negotiator: A Games People Play Christmas Novella Read online

  “Carl said you were cold, but I never believed him. See, I saw you first. I talked about asking you out then he came in and . . .” Jake shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  Lauren backed up until her shoes hit the door. “Maybe we should—”

  “He promised he wasn’t coming back.” Jake stopped scanning the area and stared at her then. Fury filled his intense gaze. “That you were mine.”

  Her stomach heaved. She had to force her body to remain still as she swallowed. “I’m not yours, Jake. You know that. What are you saying?”

  “He ran through all the money and Maryanne got needy. He hated needy women.”

  He was talking about some of the people who’d made her life hell. Jake mentioned them as if he’d sat around the table and planned it all with them. Then it hit her . . . he had. She’d been blaming Bob, and that made sense. But Jake was a part of this, too. He was the person Carl ran to when he got back to town. He’s the one Carl would have bragged to about Maryanne back then.

  Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and her legs shook so hard she was surprised she could still stand. She fought it all back, the waves of panic and the numbing fear, and stayed focused.

  She thought about her phone and tried to remember where she’d put it. She could scream but between the wind and her distance from the marina and office, no one would ever hear her. That left fighting and running, and she was prepared to do both.

  First, she tried to calm him. “Jake. Let’s go to the diner and talk about this.”

  “So you can run to your new boyfriend? That’s not going to happen.”

  The comment made sense. No matter what was happening in his head, he wasn’t too far gone. Reason didn’t work but more drastic means might. “What do you think is going to happen between us?”

  “You need to fix this.”

  She nudged the door open behind her. If she could slip inside then she could grab a weapon. She calculated the chances of that choice versus just bolting. In his mood, she had no idea what Jake would do or if he had any weapons on him. She couldn’t see any, but his thick jacket could hide a lot of scary things.

  “I killed Carl for you.” He delivered the rage-filled words through clenched teeth.

  They punched into her brain and sat there. She felt dizzy and sick. The need to throw up almost overtook her this time. “Jake, please.”

  “He was going to step in and ruin your life again. I tried to talk him out of it but he just laughed.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Carl had to leave. The documents, the money . . . I know it hurt for a while. But you rebuilt everything. You made the business more successful than it ever was.” A smile broke across his face. “I was so proud of how hard you worked. I couldn’t let Carl come in and rip it apart.”

  She preferred his yelling. The smile scared the hell out of her. “You were at my house?”

  “I followed him there.” He sounded so logical now. The words came out clear, as if he were explaining a simple math problem and not a horrific crime. “He planned to be there when you got home, force the issue.”

  She wedged her heel in the opening of the door and kept it there. “So, you killed him.”

  “It was a fight, Lauren. You get that, right? An accident.” Jake shook his head. “He wouldn’t stop. You know how this sort of thing happens.”

  The familiar tone convinced her to move. She kicked the door open and ducked inside, only to panic when she couldn’t make her fingers work fast enough to find the lock and use it. Adrenaline surged through her as her hands fumbled on the metal lock and her gaze scanned the low-lit area in a frantic search for her phone. She didn’t see it, but she almost had the lock.

  Without warning the door slammed into her, pushing her back. She turned to see Jake standing there. He didn’t have a frying pan this time. He carried a knife and wore a blank expression, a sort of resignation to what he had to do next.

  She put up her hands, knowing she couldn’t fend off a blade. “It’s okay.”

  “You still don’t get it.” He pointed the tip of the knife at her then at his own chest. “We make sense together. We have more in common than you ever did with Carl. He took you for granted but I wouldn’t. I have been waiting for you. Been patient.”

  All of the blood drained from her head. She fought to stay coherent. “Absolutely.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Lauren. I’m not deranged or evil. This—us—we just make sense. My idiot brother didn’t get it. He schemed and planned and tricked and that got him things, but only for a short time. You deserved more.”

  The keys. His familiarity with her house from having been in it so many times. The way she welcomed him into her office and her life. And all along he’d been planning.

  When he took a step toward her, she moved. A scream tore from her throat as she lunged to the side, grabbing for the wall. Her hands slammed against tools and a paddle, sending the equipment falling and making it rattle. Her fingers blindly searched as she backed up and watched him. So many things happening at once.

  Her hand closed over the end of a paddle. She ripped it from the wall, knowing she would only have one shot at this. Refusing to hesitate, she acted. Her battle cry rang out as she yanked the makeshift weapon off the hooks. Put all her energy and strength behind it and swung.

  The paddle skimmed the air. A smooth motion sent it sailing. She held on, bellowing her enraged scream and not letting go as the paddle end slammed into his shoulder, right by his neck. It was like running headfirst into a wall. The force shook her entire body.

  She closed her eyes for a second, so brief. She opened them in time to see Jake drop to his knees. He listed to one side but he didn’t go down. The knife waved in his hand, through the air.

  Her muscles froze. She watched the blood soak through his jacket. Saw him struggle to stand up.

  “Jake, no,” she begged as she tried to tighten her hands on the paddle again, but her fingers refused to move.

  The room whirled around and her vision started to blur. She hadn’t been hurt but her body was giving in. The adrenaline high burned out.

  He had one foot on the ground and started to rise as a voice shouted in her head to move. She tried to get past him to the door but he fell against her. A hand latched on to her leg with a surprisingly strong grip. She kicked and yelled and tried to fling her body to the side.

  Just as she lifted the paddle again, hoping to gather the strength from somewhere deep inside her, the door slammed open. Garrett and Matthias rushed to fill the space.

  Garrett took the first step. He rammed his foot into Jake’s arm, sending the knife flying. The second shot nailed Jake in the back. He dropped in an unmoving sprawl.

  Men poured into the room then. Ones she remembered from her house, Matthias’s men. Then the detective. She couldn’t figure out where they came from or what was happening. Her mind refused to focus and her brain kept misfiring.

  Her body started to drop and Garrett was right there. He slid across the floor on his knees and caught her. Wrapped his strong arms around her. “I’ve got you.”

  He did. He was there and protecting her. Not running away. “Garrett?”

  The room exploded into activity around them. Jake’s eyes were closed and Matthias had him pinned down. She watched as the detective put handcuffs on him.

  “Lauren, are you okay?” Concern sounded in Garrett’s voice.

  She could only think about one thing. “I knew you’d come.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Garrett had stayed in Annapolis longer than planned. Christmas was coming up fast, only four days away now. His worst time of the year. The time he generally could not hang out with people. But this year he wanted to. The idea of leaving Lauren . . . yeah, he couldn’t even think about that. Not when waking up with her each morning had become his favorite thing.

  She’d sat across from him last night at the dinner table and talked over burgers about going out to buy a fresh t
ree. Something about lights and how one bulb always burned out. One she couldn’t find and it ruined the whole strand. His mind had stopped working as her eyes lit up and she debated the right size tree to fit her room.

  The tree talk led to Christmas dinner talk. The discussion sounded familiar. Lotti and his aunt used all sorts of arguments to lure him home each year. The promise of the perfect gravy was a favorite.

  But this was Lauren. Practical Lauren. She’d never been a big talker, but the stress had lifted. Jake and Bob were the police’s problem now. Both were looking at jail time; for Jake, it would be a lot.

  Lauren being Lauren, she talked the detective and the prosecutor and anyone who would listen out of pursuing charges against Maryanne. She’d helped at the end, Lauren insisted. Garrett guessed Lauren’s choice was more about knowing what it was like to live with Carl than wanting to give the younger woman a break. Either way, the move made him smile.

  Everything she did made him smile. He loved her tenacity and calm. She plowed through problems and refused to view herself as a victim. Her loyalty to Kayla and the way she joked with Matthias—it all worked for Garrett. It also scared him shitless.

  He glanced at his cell and finished the text conversation with Lotti. The one he’d started right after a brief check-in with his aunt. It sounded to him like Lotti had found an interesting way to spend the holiday and was trying to hide it. The idea made him laugh. It also made it easier for him not to jump on a plane and go keep her company.

  You didn’t get to Cabo.

  Lotti wrote back in less than five seconds. Mom’s such a tattletale. Weather’s bad.

  She didn’t say anything about the weather. She had hopes you were with a guy. So did Garrett. He loved Lotti and wanted her to be happy . . . then he could tease her until she begged for mercy.

  Is there a point to this conversation?

  That sounded like defense mode to Garrett. Just remember, if his name starts with a letter between A and Z, he’s likely to ruin your life. You were warned.

  He decided to sign off before she shot something back at him. With that done, he could concentrate on Lauren and watch as she unpacked a box of ornaments. The homemade lopsided ones and shiny red balls. The box housed a treasure trove of collected items from years past.

  She turned around with an odd look on her face. A smile, but it seemed fake. Like she was forcing it. “Did you want to help me decorate the tree before you go? If so, we need to go find one.”

  Before you go . . . “Am I leaving?”

  “You said you weren’t a holiday guy. And I thought . . .” Her already dim smile vanished. “We got caught up in everything that was happening here. The danger and Carl. The not knowing.”

  “What are you saying?” Because he didn’t have a clue.

  “I texted you about Carl and didn’t really give you a choice not to be involved. Now you can get back to your plans.”

  The world flipped on him. The walls between them had come down over the last week. He’d chipped away at her impressive defenses and negotiated his way around them until they really were dating. And now this.

  The reality that she was turning them off, sending him away—again—and acting as if they were friends but little more than that hit him like a body blow. He felt the shot straight to his chest and it nearly doubled him over.

  He stood up and walked around to the back of the couch. Put the furniture between them and tried not to notice when she flinched. “You’re kicking me out.”

  “I’m telling you not to feel obligated.” She swallowed hard enough for him to see it across the room. “The tree means something to me, but the rest of the holiday doesn’t. You don’t need to stick around when I know you’d rather be by yourself.”

  This was bullshit. Complete bullshit. The only question was if she really said all this for him or if this was about her hiding in plain sight again.

  Matthias and Kayla had invited her to spend the day with all of them. They’d get her through the rough day while the brother-in-law she thought she knew spent the holiday in a cell. But that didn’t mean she wanted to spend it with him, and now that he realized that he could barely think. “Is this some sort of fear of commitment thing?”

  Her hands shook as she put the ornament down on the coffee table. “It’s for you. I saw your bag when I got out of the shower an hour ago. It’s packed. You’ve been on the phone with your cousin in California. I can read the signs.”

  Her response set his head on fire. Instead of talking to him, she was back to assessing and analyzing and guessing and not talking. “If you have a question for me, Lauren, ask it.”

  “I’ve got to tell you I didn’t see that part coming. Not from the guy who begged for a date for months.” Her head fell to the side. “Or are you that guy? The one who likes the chase but nothing else.”

  “You’ve got this all wrong.”

  Her hands dropped to her lap. “Then explain it to me.”

  “My parents died on Christmas Eve.” He shared the unshareable because saying anything else would not be enough. “I don’t celebrate. And, yeah, you’re right. I usually run but that wasn’t the plan today.” Even as her expression softened and her mouth dropped open, he continued to reel. The idea that it would always be this way with her, with her hiding her feelings and pushing him away, had his temper spiking.

  She came over to him then. “I’m so sorry, but . . .”

  “What?” He barked out the question.

  She retreated then. Pulled back and kept that safe distance between them. “You have a life. I have a life.”

  “You have got to be shitting me.” Not his most eloquent line, but the words tumbled out of him and he didn’t bother to pretty them up because he didn’t feel pretty right now.

  His attraction to her nearly snapped him in half. He kept looking for things he didn’t like and nothing came to him except what was happening this minute. She wasn’t perfect but he loved that, too.

  Loved. That was the problem. He made sure he loved only few people. He kept that circle tight and she blew it wide open.

  “I lost a husband and my family. I had to rebuild everything.” Her voice started out soft then got louder. “Is it that weird that I need some time to figure out who and what I want?”

  From anyone else, maybe not. From her it felt like one more excuse.

  Matthias had warned him. Garrett ignored the alarm because he’d thought they had gotten past the part where she pushed him away and made him prove himself by running back. They’d slept together, woken up together, survived Jake together. She’d trusted him and leaned on him and now she was stepping back. Shoving him away and making him work for it.

  He was so fucking tired of this. She shredded him with this lack of trust.

  Here he’d thought he would be the one running today. True, he did pack the bag. Out of habit. Out of years of pain over the holiday. He’d planned to explain all of that to her, but that was before she gave him the it’s-time-to-go speech. If this went on much longer she might hit him with the it’s-not-you-it’s-me line and then he would really lose it.

  “I fell for you, Lauren.” His words floated there in the room, amid the half-unwrapped ornaments and the cleared space where the tree might go. He’d meant to hold them back, but what the hell did he have to lose now? “Do you get that?”

  “It’s only been a short time and—”

  “Fucking stop with that.” He shook his head until he thought he’d get sick from it. “We’ve been doing this dance for months. Stop pretending what’s happening between us is new.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.” She walked over to the chair by the door and picked up his coat. “No man is going to yell at me again and not get it thrown back at him.”

  He saw it then. The fear and pain in her eyes. The way she held her body frozen, still. She was mistaking him for Carl, and he hated that, but he needed to give her a breath to fix that thought. “Look, Lauren . . .”

&n
bsp; “I’m done with men treating me like I don’t get to make choices.”

  The words dunked him right back into a pool of fury. She refused to separate him from Carl and it pissed him off. “I am not your idiot former husband.”

  But her expression suggested she’d made up her mind and had no room for him to try to maneuver her. She shoved the coat into his chest. “Get. Out.”

  Two days later Lauren stood in the Christmas tree lot and looked at the slim choices left over. Most were too big. She’d have to cut a hole in her roof to fit them in. Others looked a little sickly. Truth was, she didn’t care about any of them. Losing Garrett had sucked the life right out of Christmas for her.

  Watching him leave ripped her apart. She hadn’t been able to eat or sleep since. Her breath still came in harsh gasps if she let her mind wander back to their limited days together.

  But that was the point. They were officially dating for a short time, but they had been around each other, connected to each other, for so much longer. Months of getting to know each other. Him breaking down her defenses. And now she was alone.

  The crappy part was that it had been her decision. She’d shoved him out the door. All that talk about his parents and hating the holiday . . . it had shaken her. She’d tried to push him away before he could leave and she’d done a hell of a job.

  Her first call this morning was to Matthias to get information on where Garrett might be, but Matthias was out. How convenient.

  Her next move was to swallow her pride and text Garrett. She’d typed the words then deleted then typed again. Hitting Send took all of her strength. She had to block out her memories of the past and her doubts about the future and do the one thing she’d long stopped doing—hope.

  Call me. That’s all she wrote because the rest of the words needed to be delivered in person. She owed him an apology. She needed to see his face as she explained how her walls inched up without any signal from her brain. How she shut down when he raised her voice, even though she knew he had every right.

  She’d sent the text sixty-eight minutes ago and nothing.