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“If you’ll excuse me, it’s late, and John is waiting on me.”
“Are you going to marry him?” Myron didn’t beat around the bush. “I think you should know he’s gained approval of the families here during Raymond’s little house party. We’d hate to see that relationship come to an end.”
“As would I,” she agreed. “Trust me, Myron, I would hate to see that happen myself.”
Without giving them any more information, she turned the doorknob and left the room, praying she made it back to her own suite before she was waylaid again.
She forced herself to remain calm, to walk slowly and steadily, to keep her expression controlled. She forced herself to remember the prize, the punishment she could mete out if she just held on to her control a little while longer. Just until she was back in John’s arms.
Opening the door to the suite, she stepped inside, her gaze meeting John’s as tears filled her eyes. She closed the door behind her slowly, locked it, and stared back at him miserably.
“Bailey?” He moved toward her slowly. “Are you okay?”
She was crumbling inside. She could feel her emotions imploding inside her soul as she fought to hold on to her control, to keep from wailing in agony.
Pushing shaking fingers through her hair, she moved across the room to the sitting area before curling into the corner of the couch and pulling one of the small pillows over the ache in her stomach, fighting to hold back her sobs. They couldn’t be entirely certain the room was secure, and she didn’t have the control to be quiet. To rein in the agony if she actually let the sobs free.
She watched as he moved to the dresser and flipped on the white-noise generator he had there.
Tears filled her eyes. As though the machine had given her a measure of freedom, her emotions began to overwhelm her.
John moved to the sitting area and crouched in front of Bailey. She had curled her legs beneath her, fitting herself into the corner as if attempting to draw in on herself.
He stared into her swimming eyes, her pale face, and realized that he had never seen Bailey like this. Shell-shocked, so filled with pain and grief that it seemed to radiate around her.
“Baby?” He reached out to her, touched her cheek, and felt the first tear fall.
Some primal, primitive part of his being tightened in anger at the look on her face.
“So many years,” she whispered as she bent over the pillow, as though the pain inside her couldn’t be borne anymore.
God, what had happened? He should have never let her go alone. He should have stayed with her. It was his job to protect her, to shelter her.
“So many years for what, baby?” He cupped her face and wiped the tears away, only to have more replace them. “What happened, Bailey?”
She swallowed tightly as her breath hitched and her expression convulsed in agony. But she held it together. Even when he was sure she was going to break, she held it together.
“So many years I searched for proof,” she said, her voice jerky. “Proof that Ford Grace had killed Anna and her mother, and then my parents. And then there it was.” She held her hands out and stared down at them as though in disbelief. “It was right there in my hands. All the proof I could have ever asked for.” She shook her head, her gaze coming back to his as the tears fell faster. “And I destroyed it.” A sob tore from her chest as she bent over. “Oh God, John. I destroyed it.”
He caught her in his arms, jerking her against his chest as she seemed to fall apart from the inside out. She was shaking, shudders racking through her body as he fought to hold on to his own grief. A grief spurred by hers, because he knew, to the depths of his soul he knew, what it would have done to her to walk away from the proof she so desperately needed.
“I broke the disk,” she cried hoarsely, her arms tightening around his neck. He lifted her against him, pulling her into his arms and across his lap as he sat down in the chair behind him.
There was nothing he could do but hold her. There was no way to comfort her, no way to promise her that the decision, whatever it had been, was the right one.
“What happened, Bailey?” He smoothed her hair back, whispered the words in her ear, and prayed to God that she was finding at least a small amount of comfort from him.
He couldn’t bear to see her hurt like this. His Bailey was so strong, so proud. The wound it would have taken to produce this kind of pain would have to be devastating.
She shook her head again, another sob ripping from her chest and tearing through his heart.
“It was right there,” she cried, her voice low. “Ford admitting to killing Anna and her mother, ordering my father’s death. It was taped by his assistant and sent to Wagner after the assistant was killed last month. ‘Insurance’ was what the man had called it in a letter that accompanied it. His insurance. And it was in Ford’s office, with Orion. My father showed up, furious, questioning him about military design secrets that had been stolen and sold to the highest bidder. Father was enraged. They fought. He stalked out.” Her voice was broken, rasping with agony. “And Orion walked into the room. He walked in and Ford ordered him to kill my father.” Her nails dug into his shoulders as a low, broken wail tore from her throat and through his soul.
He could imagine what it had taken for her to maintain her control. To hide her pain.
“Oh God, I told Wagner to remember where his loyalty was.” Self-disgust colored her voice and mixed with the tears and the sobs. “I told him to remember it before he ended up as dead as his mother and sister. I broke the disk. And I warned him to remember where his loyalty should lie.”
Her fist clenched against his shoulder as a low scream vibrated against his chest. Her body tightened in her fight to hold back the rage tearing through her, nearly destroying her.
