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I turn away before I lose my mind. Grabbing a pair of shorts and a vest top, I shove them at her.
“For the love of god, get dressed, Jess.” And just to make her as uncomfortable as I now am, I lean forward and whisper, “I’m going to make you beg me to stop later.” I pick up the file from the bed and leave, calling out for her to meet me in my office.
The files are just downloading as Jess comes in, and I sigh in relief that she’s not still naked. I don’t think my dick can handle seeing her beautiful body again without having a taste.
“What is this?” she asks, parking her arse on the corner of my desk.
“This is the file from Jake’s house. Scott just sent it over.”
While we wait, Jess explains how she knows about Rendezvous and Adam and Alicia Webster, but I don’t recognise the name. As the screen loads, I flag it as something to chase up later.
We scroll through the documents and notes that Jake put together and discover that his sister went missing just over a year ago. When a picture of Jake’s sister loads on the screen, it’s not only that I know who she is or even that I know she’s dead, it’s that the photo is her profile picture from Rendezvous’ website.
“What is it, do you know her?”
“Yeah, I do. We all do.”
“I don’t understand.”
I give her a brief explanation of what happened to Cam, and how when we rescued her, we found Tammy dead on the floor. It was clear that she had been abused for months and went missing around the time Cam left.
“Are you saying there’s a connection between Donovan and Rendezvous? Because that’s serious, Rick. Donovan was involved in trafficking. Roxy told me how they discovered he was using shipping containers to smuggle girls into the country. She said they couldn’t find out how he was… Fuck!”
“What?”
“My father has a ‘friend’ whose son owns a shipping yard down near—”
“Barking Power Station,” I finish for her, and watch as shock splays across her face.
“How did you know that?”
I explain about the tip off we received on it last year, but I leave out the part where Ryder slaughtered the two men who were sent to kill him.
“Do you think my father is involved?”
“I don’t know, Jess, but at this point, I wouldn’t rule it out.” I know how much that’s got to have hurt for her to hear. I send a quick message to Ryder asking him to look into it, and one to Jay asking him to dig a little deeper into Rendezvous following this new information.
I slide her along the desk until she’s in front of me and rest the top of my head against her abdomen. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? This isn’t your fault, Rick. You need to stop thinking like that. I know who my father is, or at least I thought I did. It seems I don’t know anything of who the real Archie Collins is. But that’s alright because I know who I am, and I’m nothing like him.”
“I think we should head back to London tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she agrees easily, and we sit like this for several minutes while Jess runs her hands through my hair, and I cling to her, breathing her in.
Everything is beginning to snowball, and I’m not sure what’s going to happen. What I do know is that I seem to have been given a second chance at love, a chance at redemption I never thought possible, and I’m going to cling to that. I’m going to fight tooth and nail for Jess, for me and Max, for Kuffs and Sam and for everyone else hurt or who died because of Archie Collins and those connected to him.
Snapping out of my own head, I look up at Jess and decide that I need to live. To make up for lost time and make the most of whatever time I’ve been gifted.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. I want to show you around before we have to leave.” I don’t give her a chance to answer, and instead get to my feet and cover her mouth with my own. I put everything I’m not ready to say yet into the kiss and hope she feels it.
Thirty-Six
Jess
Rick practically drags me from the house to the car and refuses to tell me where we’re going.
As we drive, he slips his hand into mine, and I look across to him and see fear and worry etched there, but I also see a lightness I’ve not seen from him before. I feel relief that he’s finally realising he’s not to blame for what happened to Christian and Samantha.
