Backstreet Hero Read online

  “Obviously she didn’t listen,” Tony said, for something to say.

  “But I nearly did. All I had to give her was my heart, and I knew she deserved so much better, so much more.”

  Knowing how it had ended, that his beloved Elizabeth had died after ten short years together, Tony didn’t know what to say and his discomfort was growing.

  “But she loved me. She swore my heart, my love, was enough. And the day the Hawk I flew for the first time, she was the one who cheered the loudest. She sent her father a photo of the takeoff, the first time she’d communicated with him since she told him she wasn’t going to let his ridiculous idea of proper social hierarchy ruin her life.”

  Tony was utterly speechless now. Josh was looking at him with a quiet understanding that Tony was at a loss to explain.

  “Have a good flight,” Josh said, and was gone before Tony managed to find his voice.

  I could have done without that, he thought as he stared after his boss. It had been unsettling, to say the least. Because, Tony realized, in the entire sixteen years he’d known Josh Redstone, he had never once talked about his late wife like that.

  Tony started toward the jet. Obviously, Josh had had a reason. And the only one Tony could think of was the one he most didn’t want to think about.

  He went up the gangway steps, wondering if Lilith had told Josh about them, if that’s why he’d opened up about Elizabeth. He’d obviously been making a point. But the analogy didn’t really apply; while Josh might not have had much to recommend him to Elizabeth’s patrician parents, he hadn’t been starting from negative ground. He might not have been a blue blood, but he hadn’t been a gangbanger, either. He hadn’t—

  Tony stopped dead two steps into the cabin of the jet. Stared. And for the first time in sixteen years, he swore at the man who’d saved him.

  “Damn it, Josh!”

  Lilith looked up at him, clearly as surprised as he was. “I should have known,” she said. But she didn’t say it angrily. “When Josh said he needed me to leave in the middle of my work and go to Australia, of all places…”

  The gangway slammed shut behind him. A man in the Redstone polo shirt stuck his head out from the cockpit. “Need you to belt in now, folks. We’ll be starting to taxi in a moment.”

  Tony didn’t even look at the man. His gaze was fastened on the woman in the luxurious leather reclining seat, with the open, inviting second seat beside her. He knew he had only seconds to decide; if he wanted out, it had to be now, before they started rolling.

  She just kept looking at him, and something he saw there in the sea-blue depths of her eyes had him moving to the empty seat and sitting down. Belting in, as instructed. Less than a minute later, the jet began to roll.

  “What did he tell you?” she asked softly.

  “About Elizabeth. How she went against her upbringing and her parents to marry him. You?”

  “He said, ‘You’ve got a fourteen-hour flight. Work it out.’ I had no idea what he meant. Until now.”

  “Work it out,” Tony muttered.

  “He told me something else,” Lilith said slowly. “I didn’t realize until just now how he’d meant it. He said sometimes it’s better to quit looking at the obstacles and look at the possibilities.”

  “How do I stop looking at where I came from and where you came from?” he asked, fighting down the hope that was flickering deep down, trying to catch.

  She was silent for a moment. Just when he thought she had no answer, either, she said quietly, “Maybe by looking at who you are, and who I am. Now, today. We’ve both been through some ugly times. We survived.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “That doesn’t change where you came from.”

  “But it changed where I want to be,” she said. “I’m not some perfect, untouchable ice queen.”

  The memory of her in his arms, crying out as her body convulsed around his, the sweet grip sending him into a fiery explosion unlike anything he’d ever known before, swamped him with fresh heat.

  “No,” he said, sounding hoarse even to himself. “No, you’re not.”

  As if she’d read his mind, color tinged her cheeks. Her lips parted. Her gaze lowered, but only for a second, as if she had wanted to look away but wouldn’t let herself.

  And suddenly all the lessons he’d learned, all Josh had taught him about fighting for what he wanted, for never letting others shape—or stop—him, came flooding back.

  “And despite that calendar you’re so worried about,” he said, holding her gaze steadily, “in some ways I’m much, much older than you are.”

  She didn’t flinch. “Yes. In some ways you are. You’re also an incurable flirt.”

  “Was,” he said. “I found the cure.”

  She smiled at that. “I almost believe you.”

  “Flirting only in the line of duty for me, from now on,” he said, meaning it. Then, hesitantly, he went on. “About the other…I know I was out of line. What happened with Lisa, it…”

  “Haunts you?”

  He didn’t like admitting it. “Yes. No matter what anyone says, I will always feel her death was in large part my fault.”

  “How old were you then?”

  He blinked, not sure what that had to do with anything. “It was my first year with security, so…twenty-three.”

  “Are you the same man you were then?”

  He grimaced. “I was a kid.”

  “If you were in the same situation now, what would you do?”

  “Apparently,” he said grimly, “I’d tick her off all over again.”

  “Why did you then?”

  “I was too stupid to realize what she’d do.”

  “So how is it your fault?”

  “The law of unintended consequences.”

  “A harsh law to live by. Didn’t one of Merton’s causes state that a person’s basic values may require certain actions, even if the result is unfavorable?”

  His mouth quirked. “We’re going to discuss sociology now?”

  “It’s not what you did, Tony. How you did it, perhaps.”

  “If this is your way of asking why I didn’t learn my lesson, I don’t have an answer.”

  “Maybe it’s my way of asking if you’re going to keep doing it that way. You can’t force someone to do what you want just because you say so,” she said. “At least, not anyone with a spine. That’s Daniel’s way.”

  “I’m not—” He cut off the fierce protest that he wasn’t anything like her ex; they’d been through that before.

  “You can, however,” Lilith went on, “generally get a reasonable person to do what you want, when it’s your area of expertise, and you ask…reasonably.”

  “How about pleading?” he said, a bit sourly.

  He saw one corner of her mouth twitch. “Pleading has its uses.”

  He steeled himself, knowing it was time, that it was now or never. “It’s gut-level, Lilith, to protect someone I love.”

  He said it purposefully, watching her. She didn’t even blink. But she smiled.

  “And that’s the key, isn’t it? I told Liana, just recently, that I try not to get angry with people who care enough to worry about me. I lost sight of that, with you. I think…love got in the way.”

  He stopped breathing.

  “But I do know, really, the difference between wanting to control someone and wanting to keep them safe is love. Just like the difference between resisting it and accepting it is love.”

  She said it so easily it made his head spin.

  “I can’t promise I won’t make you angry again.”

  “Oh, I can pretty well guarantee you will. No one said mixing our worlds would be easy. But if Ian and Sam could do it…”

  He stared at her, searching for words, wishing that he’d spent less time in his life on the charm and more on the kind of direct honesty this woman required.

  “Possibilities, not obstacles, Josh said.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He’s built an em
pire on that principle.”

  “I love you.” He felt a little reckless, blurting it out like that, but reckless seemed in order just now. “I love your nerve, your loyalty, your brains, your grace.”

  “And I love you,” she said, so without hesitation that his heart slammed in his chest. “I love your strength, your determination, your courage and your achievements. And when you take all that and weigh it against the obstacles…”

  “They don’t matter,” he whispered.

  “No. What we’ve found is precious, Tony. Worth fighting for.”

  “And I’m not one to give up without a fight.”

  “I know.”

  “So it can be done. Mixing our worlds.”

  Lilith gave him a smile that made him shiver in reaction. “We’re Redstone. We can do anything.”

  “Why do I get the feeling Josh expected this?”

  Tony laughed, cradling her in his arms. Lilith hovered on the edge of satiated exhaustion; this more than made up for the morning after they hadn’t had before.

  “Perhaps because the stateroom was fully equipped and prepared?” he suggested.

  “It’s a Redstone plane. Of course it was.”

  “Then how about because the usually solicitous and attentive Redstone flight crew vanished after takeoff and we haven’t seen or heard them since?”

  She laughed. “Now, that I’ll believe.”

  He kissed her, gently, thoroughly, completing her visit to more levels of passion than she’d ever known existed; he had been by turns fierce, ardent, near wild and incredibly gentle, and she loved every one.

  “And we,” he said with the grin that never failed to make her pulse skip, “still have eight hours to kill.”

  Lilith knew the obstacles that faced them hadn’t vanished. But she also knew that they could be conquered. Especially by two people who had been through fire and come out the stronger for it.

  “You were right,” Tony said quietly as he nuzzled her ear.

  “Of course I was,” she teased. “But about what?”

  “We’re Redstone. We can do anything.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2552-1

  BACKSTREET HERO

  Copyright © 2008 by Janice Davis Smith

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  †Trinity Street West

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  †Trinity Street West

  †Trinity Street West

  †Trinity Street West

  †Trinity Street West

  †Trinity Street West

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  *Redstone, Incorporated

  *Redstone, Incorporated