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She grinned cheekily. “Did it work? Are you wooed by my feminine wiles?”
Of course he was. He escorted her inside, then backed her against the wall. Smiling down into her eyes, he ran his hands up her sides. “If I remember correctly, I took a vow that I would be there for you, no matter what, for better or for worse.”
She trailed her fingers through his hair, her gaze landing on his lips. “Fair warning, thingscouldget a lot worse.”
“Or a lot better.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth. “I don’t fucking care. As long as I’m with you, I’ll go through hell and back. Ten times. A hundred, if that’s what’s necessary to make you happy.”
She pushed up onto her toes and kissed him. “I love you, Ian.”
“I suppose you’re going to have to start calling me Teddy Greene.”
“Not if I do this right. If we have to go on the run, though? I hope you’re good with it.” They shared a laugh and another kiss. “You’re distracting me,” she said as the elevator opened on their floor.
“Is it working?” he mimicked, batting his lashes at her. “Are you wooed by my masculine wiles?”
She playfully smacked his arm. The storm hit with force, rain slashing against the window at the end of the hall. He followed her to her room, enjoying the extra strut she put into the swing of her hips.
“Don’t ever stop flirting with me,” she demanded. “No matter how old we get, or how comfortable in our married life, promise?”
“Promise.”
Once inside, he shut and locked the door and made good on cherishing her one last time before he snuck her out of SFI headquarters and into the dark, stormy night.
“My father was an accomplished physicist,but his superior brain had trouble with any type of normalcy. My mother did her best to cater to his mood swings and mind periods, but it was tough on their marriage.”
Ian glanced across the seats to where she sat as the SUV cut through night, the headlights reflecting off sheets of rain that poured over them. Visibility was terrible as they took a country road into Virginia. She’d never opened up about her family before. “Mind periods?”
She chuckled. “That’s what mom called them. It was like a version of PMS, where Dad’s mind would go into overdrive and he would lock himself in his study. The walls were covered with chalkboard paint so that he could scribble formulas and mathematical equations in streams around the room. The periods would last for about a week, and it was all she could do to get him to eat or sleep. It always caused adverse effects, and afterwards he would practically be comatose for days. It was like his brain would download something and he had to vomit it all out. Then he had to recover. It happened approximately every thirty days or so, and that was another reason Mom termed it a period.”
“Dr. Crowe helped him?”
“His real name is Dr. Ardy Lippenstein and he used hypnotherapy on Dad.” She scratched at her short hair. He knew she missed her long locks. He did, as well. They would come back, just like her memory. “Dad had gone to many doctors and experts, all of whom put him on drugs. Those only seemed to exacerbate the problem or turned him into a zombie. His health began to deteriorate faster and faster. Hypnosis unlocked a different part of his brain that helped him moderate the outbursts. It was truly amazing, and probably extended his life by several years.”
“I had no idea it could do such a thing.”
“It was quite experimental and revolutionary, and Dad became fascinated with psychology. Even considered trying neurotherapy. He taught me a lot of what he learned, and I became intrigued with the brain and its functions, too.”
“So Crowe is another codename?”
He heard the smile in her voice. “I loved Bruce Willis’ character inThe Sixth Sense, Dr. Crowe. Hence, I used it for Lippenstein.”
“And you started going to him as a patient when?”
“I was a teenager when Dad began seeing him, and sometimes I drove him to the sessions. Since I knew I wanted to go into psychotherapy, I was fascinated with Dr. Ardy’s techniques and asked him to let me sit in on some of them. Dad was cool with it, and at home, we would practice on each other. When I went to college, he and I kept in touch, and he helped me demonstrate my technique for my Ph.D. Eventually, I ended up at NSA and in need of my own therapist. I called him.”
The SUV’s navigation instructed him to turn right in a hundred feet. “How does this tie into what happened? You haven’t explained that yet.”
An oncoming car’s headlights spotlighted her for a brief moment. “As we discussed, manipulating me would take someone highly trained. Someone I trusted, and it wouldn’t be a person easily flagged by my employer.”
He was going to kill the guy. “Dr. Lippenstein.”
Her gaze swung to him and he caught her smile out of the corner of his eye. It was full of cunning. “Yes and no. He had a part in it, I believe. What I’m unsure of is if it was intentional or not.”
“I assume you’re going to let me in on what you’re thinking at some point before we actually confront the man.”
She leaned over and patted his thigh. “I hope you’re good at playing things by ear.”
“I prefer to have a working game plan.”
