Barefoot by the Sea

Chapter Twenty-six

Shit. Shit. Bloody hell and fuck it all. Ian stared at the phone for one second, wanting to lash out at Henry for calling, at Tessa for answering, at himself for being a fucking idiot and bringing this phone with him.

But it was useless to blame anyone.

He leaned against the door and listened to her soft crying, the sound drowning out the message she’d delivered. Ironic, wasn’t it? All these months he’d waited for the news that they’d shut down the deadly gang that held a price on his head, and he couldn’t even take a minute to celebrate what that meant.

Because what that meant now is that he would likely lose the first woman he’d cared about in a long time. He had to tell her now, and not because of the call. The need for silence would never go away, no matter who was behind bars. She couldn’t talk to her friends about this. She couldn’t talk to anyone.

Except him. Would she ever believe the epiphany he’d had last night, and how he truly wanted her for real? How he’d planned to tell her everything tonight and ask her to leave this life and join him?

She’d never believe him now. She’d never believe another word he said. But he had to make her believe this was still a matter of life and death.

He tried the door, but it was locked, so he slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

“Go away,” she called from behind the door.

“Not going to happen.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.” She hiccupped on the last word, gutting him. Nice going, mate. Way to fuck up the woman’s life.

“Well, you’re going to talk to me. Through a door or face-to-face. I have to talk to you and I have to make you understand something.”

“I understand enough.”

“I’m afraid you don’t.”

“I understand that everything you’ve ever said to me has been a lie.” He could hear her grind out the words through clenched teeth. “I understand that whoever or whatever you are, you don’t trust me enough to tell me the truth.”

“It’s not that I don’t—”

“And I understand that you need to marry someone—anyone, I believe was the way he said it—so that you can get your kids in Canada.” She said the last three words like they were so utterly agonizing that she couldn’t even let them out of her mouth.

He didn’t answer.

“Do I understand enough?”

Actually, she did. “But you don’t know why.”

She let out a soft moan, as if she’d been hoping all that she’d heard was a misunderstanding.

“Okay, why?”

He watched the doorknob, hoping it would move. No such luck.

“I can’t tell you why until I elicit a promise from you.”

Silence.

“You can’t tell anyone.”

“Oh no, you don’t!” She was close to the door now, inches away. “Don’t you dare tell me I can or cannot do anything.”

He closed his eyes and bowed his head in resignation, exhaling before speaking. “Tess, unless you want me, two innocent children, and possibly yourself to end up dead, you have to make and keep that promise.”

After a long pause, the knob turned. Inch by inch, the door opened, revealing her swollen eyes and blotchy face and a ragged robe around her. She looked down at him, and very slowly dropped to the floor to meet him face-to-face.

“Dead?” She barely whispered the question, her lips quivering as she spoke.

“Dead.”

“Has everything been a lie?”

Pain twisted his throat. “Not everything,” he said. “I’ve said plenty that was honest.” He reached for her splotchy face. “Starting with…how pretty you are.”

She jerked away, spearing him with a look.

“And how much I like you.”

One eyebrow rose slightly, pure doubt and disgust in her expression.

“And nothing that happened in that bedroom a few hours ago was a lie.”

“Sex?”she spat. “You’re going to talk about sex now?” She narrowed her eyes and leaned one inch closer. “Don’t…Ian.”

He sniffed a quick breath of shock, the name sounding so strange coming from anyone but Henry. No one had called him Ian for years. It felt—so good.

“I’m going to tell you everything.”

She still looked hard at him, her bottle-brown eyes sparking with distrust. “Your version of everything.”

“The only version of everything,” he said simply. “The whole truth. But I do have to make the stipulation of complete secrecy.”

She merely stared at him.

“You can’t breathe a word of this to anyone,” he insisted. “I mean anyone, Tessa. It is truly a matter of life and death.”

Her expression softened. “Are you a spy?”

“Not James Bond, I hate to break it to you.”

“Then what…who are you?”

He reached for her hand, but she pulled it back, pressing her fists to her chest protectively. “Answer me,” she insisted softly.

He turned away for a second, looking down at the phone that had betrayed him. No, he was grateful Henry had called. He’d wanted to tell her, and he considered starting his story with that truth, but she’d never believe him.

“John, or…” She sighed. “Whatever. Please. What is your real name?”

Once more, he gave her a pleading look. “You can’t tell Lacey or Zoe or Jocelyn.”

“I can’t make that promise and you”—she pointed in his face—“are in no position to ask me to do anything except listen. And I may or may not do that.”

He ignored the threat, too focused on what he had to hear her say. “You have to promise me, Tessa. I won’t tell you until you do.”

“I can’t keep a secret from my friends.”

“You can’t? Two words: your mother.”

Her eyes widened at the shot. “You’re going to throw things that I shared back in my face, John? Now?”

“I’m going to make you understand, which you will when I tell you, that you must give me your word of honor that you will not, under any circumstances, share this with another person. When you know everything, you’ll—”

“Everything like your name, country of origin, job, or…or…” Her eyes misted. “Or why in God’s name you’d want me to marry you?”

“Because—”

“I’m the first person you found and you needed someone to marry you, quick.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “At first, that was my thinking. But everything changed.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

She coughed a sharp laugh. “Convenient.”

He reached for her. “Tessa, make the promise.”

She didn’t say a word or stop staring at him, hurt and distrust darkening her eyes.

“If you don’t,” he whispered, “the lives of my two children are at stake. They’re only three-and-a-half years old.”

“Two,” she murmured. “That’s what you meant when you said you wanted two. And you didn’t say ‘kids’ were important, you said your kids were important.”

He swallowed and nodded. “They are. They’re everything to me. And if I ever want to see them again and raise them myself, it seems I need a wife.”

Nothing had prepared her for this. Not the bizarre statement of fact, which was both incomprehensible and far too clear, but the look on his face. That was the look she’d been seeing, thinking she’d imagined it. An anguish so profound and real it physically hurt to look at it.

Defeat crushed Tessa like a landslide, burying all her fury and regret and heartache, suffocating her desire to run and tell everyone exactly what she’d learned today.

“All right,” she managed to say. “I promise.”

“You won’t tell your friends.”

“I will not tell my friends.”

He studied her hard, gauging her promise, still wary enough that she knew he hadn’t quite accepted it. So she reached out a hand and closed it over his. “I give you my word.”

He nodded, satisfied. Then took a shallow inhale and said, “My name is Ian Browning.” Then he held up a hand as if to correct that. “My name is Ian Browning,” he repeated, this time with a thick, soft English accent.

“From…”

“London. But I haven’t lived there, or spoken with my native accent, for years, so I’ll stick to what you’re familiar with.” He hesitated again.

“What are you doing here?” Besides stealing hearts and sanity, she almost added, but there was no room for humor in this quiet hallway. Only honesty.

“I’m in the United Kingdom’s version of your witness protection program.”

She felt her jaw loosen. “Why?”

“I witnessed a murder. Well, I witnessed the murderer leaving the scene of the crime and identified him, leading to his imprisonment. Ever since then, one of the deadliest, most feared gangs in London, known as the N1L—which stands for No One Lives, if you’re curious—has had a hefty price on my head.”

Her own head swam, still trying to process this. “And your kids?”

“They’re twins, Shiloh and Samuel. Only…they’re called Emma and Edward now.”

She heard a small intake of breath, only a little surprised that it was her own. He had twins. Her heart did a slow tumble around her chest.

“They’re in their own government protection program.”

“They saw the murderer, too?”

He shook his head, that cloud cover of agony crossing over his eyes again, leaving him too choked up to answer. “They were in the next room. In their cribs.”

Oh, Lord. “And the victim was…your wife?”

“Yes. And her brother.”

Tessa put her hand to her mouth, a whimper escaping. “I’m sorry.”

“She was stabbed ten times”—he fought not to cry—“and left on the kitchen floor, where I found her, next to her brother, who was the target of the hit.”

Both hands to her mouth now, Tessa bit back her own sob. “Oh, no.”

It took a moment, but he got his composure, still not looking at her but down at the floor, blowing out slow breaths to keep from losing it.

“The twins,” he finally said, “were left alone, thank God. I found them…” He tried so hard to talk, but tears and a closed throat prevented it. “They were not yet six months old.”

She let out a soft cry, losing the fight not to let a tear fall. “Why don’t you have them?”

“Too easy to find a man living alone with twin children. The government insisted on sending them to…” He shuddered again.

“Canada,” she whispered, hearing the word in her head from the phone call.

“They’re in Ottawa,” he confirmed.

“How long since you’ve seen them?”

“They were taken two months after my wife was killed.”

Everything inside her melted and collapsed with grief for him. “Oh…Ian.”

“No.” He shook his head sharply. “Don’t call me that. Don’t let it slip.”

“But I thought that man on the phone said…” She tried to piece together exactly what she’d heard. “You can go get them now, right?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t called him back.” He glanced at the phone he’d set on the floor next to him. “Did he know he wasn’t talking to me?”

“No, I didn’t say anything when the phone rang. It had your name on the ID and I figured you were trying to track the phone down, so I touched the keypad and he started talking. Who is he?”

“Henry Brooker is my government liaison, one of the few people on earth who know who I am and where I am.”

This new fact warred for space with all the others, leaving a mess of more questions in her mind. “Where does everyone else think you are? Your family and friends?”

“Dead. I disappeared to Singapore when the kids went to Canada. I lived there under the name Sean Bern. But I got into some trouble and got thrown in jail. The word got out where and who I was.” He gave her a harsh look. “I tell you, it’s virtually impossible to stay invisible in this world. So, the powers that be at UK Protected Persons pulled some pretty tight strings and Sean Bern was ‘killed’ in a car accident, hopefully convincing the London gang that their target was now dead.”

The words sent another shudder through her and almost—almost—explained everything. Every lie. Every evasive answer. Every…

Oh, God, how could she forgive all those lies? How could she have been so trusting and naive and—

“Don’t.” He put his hand on her arm. “I can see what’s going through your mind. Don’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t, but…” She seized a hopeful thought. “He said they’re shut down. So it’s all over now, right?”

“Not exactly. The thing is this, Tessa: Even if every single member of that gang is caught and put behind bars, I can never, ever take the chance of coming out as Ian Browning or John Brown as long as the leaders are alive. They’ll let me have my children, though—maybe. I’ll have to go through some pretty tough hoops after three years; the kids have lives now. But, if I get them, I have to…” He tilted his head in apology. “I have to go somewhere and start all over again. Here, people know me and John Brown exists as a single man. But Henry thinks in a place like New Zealand—”

“New Zealand?”

He nodded. “I’d go to the moon to be with them,” he said softly.

She drew back, the power of his honesty like a physical force. This had all been for the love of children. She didn’t like it, didn’t want to accept it, but surely she understood that love. If not, then she was nothing but a hypocrite.

After a second, he gestured to the phone with a soft, ironic snort. “I’ve been waiting for that call for years, and, what do you know? I miss it.”

“But it came, nonetheless.”

He nodded. “I’m glad it did. Now I can fully explain to you that one of the hoops of fire I have to go through is to prove I’m in a completely stable situation, and that means I have a wife.”

At first that sounded preposterous, then she remembered the adoption hoops she and Billy had researched. So that was why he wanted the pretend marriage. “And that’s why you were going to try and convince me to marry you for real.”

“It’s more complicated than that. At first, the plan was to have you sign a document that would be legitimate, at least that’s what Henry wanted to do. But then I decided, I wanted…”

“…the wedding to be real. I heard you say that.” She tamped down the disappointment that came with the fact that what she’d heard and what he’d meant were two different things. “How were you going to do that?”

He reached for her. “I really do want it to be real.”

What did that mean? That he wanted to marry her or that he wanted to tell her the truth or…What did it matter? Tessa had fallen for it. She glanced behind her toward the bed, still tussled from their bodies, from a woman so willing to believe that anything could happen.

Humiliation burned in her chest, rising up, making her dizzy.

“Hey.” He took her chin and forced her to look at him. “I’d have told you if there was any possible way. I swear that’s true. I wouldn’t ever want to risk anyone else’s life, let alone mine or the kids’.”

She tried to turn but it was too late. He saw the tears. “I’m sorry, Tess.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she said, her voice gruff.

But he gave her a look that said he wasn’t quite that dumb. “You saw right through me.”

“Not exactly, but I knew you were hiding something.”

“How did you know that?”

Reaching to his face, she touched his skin, shameless in how much she still loved the feel of it. “I hate to tell you, but your eyes are a dead giveaway. They have so much pain sometimes.”

He closed them, as if he could hide that pain. “I was very happy with Kate before the…before.”

Another sting hit her chest. Kate.

“I was content,” he continued, unaware that she felt anything, as he should be when he was the one confessing his personal hell.

“I can’t imagine how horrible that must have been,” she said.

He barely nodded. “As horrible as it is to find the woman you love murdered, the fact that they took Shi and Sam away from me is worse.” He hissed in a breath, more angry than hurt. “I’ve completely missed their first three years. Just…gone. I’ll never get them back. First steps, first words, first…everything.”

“But now you can get them,” she said, her head throbbing a little as she imagined how much worse it would be to have the child and lose it—two of them!—than never to have had one at all. “You have to get them, John.”

He looked at her, expectation and a question in his eyes.

“You guys!”

They both whipped around to find Zoe standing in the hall entrance, hands on hips, scowl on her face. “The ceremony rehearsal started fifteen minutes ago. Everyone is on the beach waiting for you two.”

They both stared at her, equally stunned by the intrusion.

Zoe’s gaze slid over Tessa in her robe and John’s shirtless chest, then behind both of them to the bedroom. She fought a smile and rolled her eyes. “I suppose it would be sheer hypocrisy for a pregnant and engaged woman to remind you that you’re supposed to have the honeymoon after the wedding.”

John started to slowly push up. “We were talking.”

Zoe snorted softly. “Well, you better shut up and get down to the beach.”

“I know the rehearsal started,” Tessa said, holding up a hand. “But we—”

“No buts, baby, because we even got the mayor here for the walk-through and he won’t stay long.” Zoe marched closer, as if she planned to yank them both into action. Instead she snapped her fingers like a drill sergeant. “Dress, you two. Stat.” She looked from one to the other, maybe taking in Tessa’s tear stains. John looked pretty ravaged, too.

“Um, if you can’t come to the rehearsal,” she said slowly, “I can stand in for you.”

“Give us a few minutes,” John said.

Zoe nodded and left.

When they were alone, John stood and reached his hand down to Tessa. “You don’t have to do this, Tess,” he said.

“I have to go through with a wedding for the consultants who are visiting,” she said, letting him pull her up. “I promised Lacey.”

“But it doesn’t have to be a real wedding.”

She wished she knew the answer, but she didn’t.

“I’ll meet you down there,” she said softly, going into her room and closing the door.

Alone, she leaned back against the cool wood and searched her heart for the answer. Should she marry a man under false pretenses to help him have the very thing she couldn’t have? A family? A man who’d planned to annul the wedding and disappear to New Zealand under a different name?

What kind of woman would that make her?

Stupid? Crazy? Desperate?

No, it would make her sleep better at night. Alone, but better.