Page 129 of Quiet Longing

“You’d just love if I was fired.”

“I don’t want anybody to lose their job. I just don’t understand why you’d make up lies,” Charli said, her words low but firm.

Steph barked an irritated laugh. “Oh, quit acting innocent. You knew exactly what you were doing as soon as you turned up here. Pretending to be a damsel in distress to get Rhys’ attention. He’s a protector, and you know he can’t resist that type.”

“That’s enough, Steph,” I snapped, stepping forward and cutting off her view of Charli.

“God,” she scoffed, flicking her eyes to me. “You’re so good hearted you can’t even see when you’re being manipulated. It’s almost pathetic.”

“Don’t speak to him like that,” Charli retorted, moving by me to face Steph head on though her voice was still quiet and even. “What’s between Rhys and me began long after your engagement ended. There was no affair, and you know it. You need to move on.”

Several things happened at once. Fury flashed across Steph’s face, and she stepped forward, raising her hand like she might strike Charli. Seeing this, Charli reared back in shock, tripping over her own feet as she fell to the floor and started to tremble. I knew instantly that her PTSD had been triggered. Mam would often jump at loud noises or shake when she heard a male voice being raised.

“What the hell? I didn’t even—”

“Back the fuck up, Steph,” I quietly seethed.

“But she’s acting like I attacked her. I didn’t … This is ridiculous.”

“I said,back up,” I repeated with barely concealed rage, casting a furious glance her way before I knelt and cradled Charli in my arms. She was shaking, her eyes elsewhere, and I knew she was disassociating. I had to bring her back to herself, but the last thing she needed was other hotel staffers seeing her like that. Several had already gathered around to witness the drama.

Ignoring Steph’s pleas not to go to Padraig and tell him of the incident, I turned in the direction of my office. Once there, I shut the door behind me then lowered Charli onto a chair. When I went to grab her a glass of water, I swore under my breath. The boxes containing the special shipment I’d had sent from theStates was sitting half opened on my office floor. It had been delivered that morning.

Charli was still lost in her own head, completely unaware that her Lladró collection currently populated my office. Ever since she’d told me about how Jesse was withholding it, I’d been determined to get the collection back one way or another. Yes, I’d promised I wouldn’t get involved, but that was before Piotr sent me a dossier of Jesse’s financial crimes. The idiot had been skimming from his own law firm for years, not to mention helping his criminal clients launder money. The FBI’s white collar crime unit had been investigating him for over a year, compiling evidence. As soon as I’d heard that, my gut twisted, fearing Charli might be unknowingly implicated in his crimes. It was common for spouses to sign documents without full awareness of what they were signing, and Charli’s profession as an accountant made her a likely accomplice.

Piotr dug deeper, utilising his contacts to find out if Charli was in any way connected. It turned out she and Jesse were still married when the investigation began, and the FBI had already looked into her but subsequently ruled her out as a person of interest. In the end, it was a good thing she’d left their marriage with nothing because a lot of Jesse’s assets had been acquired illegally.

Just last week, they’d raided his office and gathered his computers, hard drives, and files as evidence. It was looking like his skimming and money laundering amounted to millions of dollars, and being that it was his own firm he’d stolen from, I imagined they intended to have him punished to the full extent of the law. The maximum prison sentence was twenty years.

I still hadn’t found the right moment to tell Charli, worrying she might get upset with me for looking into Jesse in the first place. I knew she’d be mad when she found out I’d called in a favour from another ex-legion friend of mine, Leon.

I wasn’t entirely sure where he resided nowadays, but I did know he worked for a shady organisation who did black ops work for various governments around the world. That was the thing about my time in the legion, I had friends in all manner of professions, normally security or military adjacent.

Leon, who was already in the US on other business, was more than happy to round up one or two of his colleagues and break into Jesse’s apartment to reclaim Charli’s collection. Yes, it was an extreme measure, but the way I felt for her was all-encompassing. I had this gnawing need to right the wrongs I hadn’t been there to prevent from happening in the first place.

Leon wore an earpiece and linked me up to a live feed from his bodycam so I could witness it happening in real time. You should’ve seen my face when Jesse walked into the apartment while they were rifling through the place to find the collection—and promptly pissed his pants. That gave me a good, satisfied chuckle.

The coward proceeded to fall to his knees and begged for them to take whatever they wanted and leave. I imagined Charli would be amused by his snivelling cowardice, too, once she stopped being angry at me for orchestrating the whole thing in the first place.

And yeah, I should’ve told Leon to let him be, that the pathetic prick was going to suffer enough once the FBI were done with him.

But I hadn’t.

I’d let the darker angel of my nature take over as I told Leon to rough him up a little. Jesse was left with a dislocated shoulder, a broken nose, and two black eyes. He deserved a far worse beating than that. Christ, he deserved permanent disfigurement for every scar he’d left on Charli’s body.

As far as I was concerned, he’d gotten off easy. Leon left with not only the collection but other valuables, too, which I washappy for him to keep. I couldn’t let him only take the Lladrós because then Jesse might suspect Charli was to blame, and I wanted none of this coming back on her.

In the bathroom, I grabbed a glass and filled it with water before returning to the office and kneeling before her.

Charli lifted her head, but her gaze went over my shoulder, and the way her eyes flared told me she’d spotted the boxes.

“Rhys, what are those?” she whispered.

I placed my hand on her knee, softly stroking as I held her gaze. “First, just let me explain.”

35.

Charli

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