“No,” she said. “But there are plenty of kids I can help who have parents like mine, or kids like the ones tomorrow night is about, who need me and people like me.”
Damn. Tomorrow night. This was not the best time to talk about this, but he wasn’t sure there was a better one either. “Let’s talk about tomorrow,” he said, sitting up and pulling her up with him.
“What about tomorrow?”
His gaze slid over her br**sts and he felt the stir of his body. Luke grabbed the shirt she’d tossed aside. “I can’t complete many coherent sentences when you’re this na**d and this gorgeous.”
She didn’t respond and he could see the concern in her face. She tugged the shirt over her head before repeating, “What about tomorrow?”
Luke grabbed his pants, bypassing the boxers he couldn’t locate to pull them on before he sat down on the couch. “We have to assume that tonight was a hit on one or both of us, and that they will come for us again.”
“So you want me to do what? Go into hiding?”
“Yes,” he said, in no uncertain terms. “I want to keep you here or take you underground somewhere.”
“You need me to get to Judge Moore and the cartel. And I need my job.”
“Surely, you have enough success to be allowed to work off-site for a while.”
“I could and I’m willing to do that as long as I have a means to an end. I’m not foolish enough not to see the danger I’m in. But I can’t do it indefinitely, Luke. When I say I need a real means to an end, I mean it. I have only me to count on.”
That punched him in the gut and then right in the heart. “You have me and I thought we just moved somewhere towards you knowing that.”
“I...We did. We did. But Luke, I have bills to think about.”
“I’ll help you if I need to.”
“No. I’m not taking your money. To get to that point would mean the career I have worked night and day was lost. If you think that’s where I’m letting this go, I’m not. I can’t. And the children’s charity is counting on me. I’ll lay low. I’ll skip work, but I won’t skip that.”
“Julie–”
“This is bigger than me or you,” she said, going to her knees. “Stop playing my protector and think about this rationally. I’m scared. I’m scared to death, but people, children, are dying from tainted drugs this bastard is selling them.”
“I’ll find another way to stop him.”
“We both know that the task force you talked about would have found a way in if they could. I can get you inside the operation, or I hope you’re right and I can.”
“No,” he said, pushing to his feet.
“No?” she demanded.
“That’s right. No.”
She stood up. “I’m going to get dressed and leave.”
He shot to his feet. “So now you’re going to be irrational and go home and get killed?”
“No,” she said. “I’m going to go to Royce and Lauren’s apartment where I’ll be safe and you can think.”
“I don’t need to think.”
“Yes,” she insisted, “you do. You need to think about waking up and reading about another dead child and knowing you could have saved that child’s life by taking down this cartel.” She stormed off and Luke stood there, tension curled in stomach, prickling every nerve ending he owned.
Damn it, he loved Julie. He loved her in this moment more than he’d ever loved her. She was gorgeous, and sexy, and successful because she was smart and she worked hard. But even more than that, she was scared and yet she was still brave, still willing to sacrifice for others.
He ran a hand over his face and tracked after her to the bedroom, where he found her setting her bag on the bed, to begin packing. “You aren’t going to back off of this, are you?” he asked, leaning on the door frame.
She abandoned the bag again and turned to him. “I can’t abandon this.”
“Then you do exactly what I say, how I say it, and when I say it.”
She walked to him and wrapped her arms around him, tilting her chin up to look at him. “I have no problem with that. Like I said, I’m not foolish, or without fear. A whole lot of fear actually.”
“If you don’t, I swear I will kidnap you and hold you hostage somewhere until I know you’re safe.”
Her expression softened. “I don’t want to lose you either.”
It was the closest thing to really admitting her feelings to him that she’d come, and he slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her mouth to his. “I’m not going to lose you.”
“Good,” she whispered before he kissed her and took her to bed, where he was going to do his best to convince her to stay until after Tuesday night, and the charity event with Judge Moore, was over.
***
At exactly noon on Tuesday, Gina walked into the lobby – if you could call it that – of the dingy El Toronto Hotel, unable to suppress the apprehension in her stomach. A long lunch spent reliving the past wasn’t appealing. Not that she was ashamed of being a sexual person, but doing it for pleasure, and doing it with a bunch of disgusting men to pay her bills was a totally different picture. She’d been good at it too. She knew just how to make those bastards come back for more, even when part of her prayed they wouldn’t.
Glancing around her surroundings she felt the sickening feeling of deja vu. One thing about New York, it did extreme well. The high end was glitzy, the low end absolute scum city. This was about as low as you could get.