Elite Ops: Black Jack Part 23

Frustrated anger filled her mother's voice, her expression.

Angelica had always loved her life, the life of an English lady. She was considered a premier hostess; she wasn't just related to the Queen Mother, she was also a friend. She had luncheons with the woman, for G.o.d's sake.

Of course her mother couldn't understand.

"It was bad enough your father had to get himself killed, he nearly had you killed as well, and for what, Lilly? For G.o.d and country? G.o.d might care, but let me let you in on a little fact. Your b.l.o.o.d.y country couldn't give a d.a.m.n one way or the other, and sometimes, G.o.d has to blink. The next time you die you may not be nearly so lucky as to have the option to return."

She hadn't had the option to return last time.

Lilly caught her breath at the thought, the knowledge. She wasn't supposed to return. She was never to have returned.

"I don't want to discuss this, Mother." She sat down on the bed, lifted one foot and unlaced a boot.

"As stubborn as always," her mother snapped, stepping closer. "You were always too hardheaded. Always too determined to have your own way, weren't you? Just call you Lilly."

She sneered. "Lilly, as though you're no more than a common little tart."

"Good G.o.d." Lilly rolled her eyes and let her foot fall to the floor. "Mother, have you lost your mind somewhere? One of the names you gave me is Lilli-an. And don't you think tart'

is a bit of an outdated word to use?"

"Have I lost my mind somewhere?" her mother burst out. "You're, you're sneaking into your room at nearly three in the morning, consorting with criminals, and doing G.o.d only knows what."

"G.o.d knows everything I do." Lilly sighed, wondering if she could possibly continue to hold back the tears. The censure in her mother's tone broke her heart.

"I want this to stop!" Angelica demanded. "Immediately. You will cease to consort with that terrorist you've taken up with. You will cease consorting with anyone that you've known in the past six years. You will be Lady Victoria Harrington, Lilly if you insist." Her mother's arms straightened, her shoulders stiffened. "You will not embarra.s.s this family further."

Lilly pulled the first boot off. As she lifted the other to her knee, Travis stepped from the balcony to the bedroom. Leaning against the door frame, he leveled a hard, silent look on her mother.

Angelica Harrington wasn't easily intimidated. She had stared down two husbands, a son, a mother, and, it was rumored, the Queen Mother at one time.

"I'm tired, Mother," Lilly said softly as she untied the boot and ignored the silent battle going on between her mother and her lover. "We'll discuss this tomorrow, if you don't mind."

She wasn't going to cry, she a.s.sured herself.

"I've tried to be understanding, Lilly." Tears glittered in her mother's eyes, and Lilly felt her own throat tightening. "I've tried desperately to be patient, to find some part of the daughter I lost six years ago." She shook her head as a tear slipped free. "Perhaps you did die that night with your father."

Lilly didn't speak. She stared at the floor as her mother turned and stalked from the bedroom, the door slamming behind her.

Lilly breathed in slowly and deeply before returning her attention to the boot. She unlaced it, pushed it from her foot, then removed the socks she had donned with them.

Standing, she pulled the T-s.h.i.+rt off, then the jeans, leaving herself dressed only in the light lacy white camisole and panties she wore beneath.

She suppressed the chill that tried to race up her spine, and the sense of cold, depressive despair. Her mother had never spoken to her in such a way. She was reputed to be brutal to others, even friends. She had heard her parents argue through her life and her mother had been like sharpened steel slicing through melted b.u.t.ter.

Lilly could feel the wounds herself now, and they sliced to the bone.

"It must be because it's your mother," Travis stated as he moved into the room. "Anyone else and your tongue would have sliced them to the bone."

She turned and stared back at him. "If you can't respect your mother, you can't respect yourself," she said sadly. "I should have kept my mouth shut."

Why hadn't she? She used to. Lilly remembered that. The lectures were always lovingly tolerated. She had never snapped at her mother.

Travis shook his head, his hands settling on her shoulders. "She was wrong. Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington didn't die six years ago." His head lowered, and the ice that had been forming inside her began to melt. "Six years ago, she was reborn, and knowing the before and after, I have to say I much prefer the version in my arms now."

His hand smoothed down her hair, his arms held her close. And Lilly realized that in the months since she had awakened with six lost years, no one had held her. No one had hugged her. And no one had said, "Welcome home."

Chapter 13.

she was going to break his heart. Travis had never before seen such tormented emotion on Lilly's face as when her mother had raged at her.

He'd seen concern in Angelica Harrington's eyes at other times. He'd seen love on her face.

She cared for her daughter, but not to the exclusion of her pride evidently. Or the exclusion of the paparazzi.

Holding Lilly close against him, he couldn't help but wonder what the h.e.l.l had truly happened that night in England at the fateful party when Lilly had lost everything important to her.

It had been by sheer luck that Noah had been outside that night and had seen the masked figures loading Lord Harrington and his daughter into the Harrington car.

They hadn't been able to stop the a.s.sailants, and by the time Travis and Noah were able to catch up with them, the car had been flying off the cliff, the explosion ripping through the darkness.

The suspects had raced away, and attempting to save Lilly and her father had been more important than chasing after their murderers.

Hypnosis had gotten them nowhere with Lilly in her attempt to remember who killed her father. As her mother said, she was hardheaded, stubborn. She was willful, but she was a d.a.m.ned good woman and a h.e.l.l of an agent. She was a woman that cared enough about injustice to fight against it.

"When I was younger, we dressed the same," Lilly whispered against his chest. "My mother would have my dresses made to match hers for our shopping trips, luncheons. The Queen Mother once told me that I was the perfect lady, and that she was proud to know me."

Travis bent his head over hers and held her tighter. There was such pain in her voice.

"Jared was always very jealous," she said. "But he loved me. He and Father would take me hunting and riding with them. They allowed me to go on walks with them in the evenings. We were such a close family. Before Father died. Before I died."

She pulled away from him and moved toward the bathroom. "I need a shower."

"I have to connect with Nik tonight," he told her. "Come with me."

Surprisingly enough, she shook her head. "I need to shower."

She needed to think, perhaps.

Travis didn't want to leave her alone. He could see the emotions tearing through her, feel the tension inside her.

"Santos and Rhiannon met with you and Senator Stanton, Nik, and Noah Blake tonight as well as Jordan Malone," she stated as she moved to the bathroom. "I was rather surprised that a senator would a.s.sociate with two high-priced pimps." She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

h.e.l.l, how had she known about that meeting, and who else knew about it? Travis's jaw tightened. Seconds later he pushed into the room while she adjusted the water in the shower.

Lilly turned to him, suspicion still roiling through her as she watched the set expression on his face.

"Why don't you simply tell me what I need to know?" she asked, hearing the chill in her own voice.

She watched as he leaned against the counter, his eyes narrowed on her while the water ran full blast in the shower.

It would drown out any listening device, she knew. A murmur of voices might be heard, but not the actual words they were saying.

"What do you need to know?" He crossed his arms over his chest as he watched her, his gaze flickering over her body.

Mimicking his stance, she leaned back against the shower, crossed one ankle over the other, then crossed her arms beneath her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, deliberately plumping them out for him.

"Are you enemy or ally?" she asked.

His lips thinned. "Don't ask me that question, Lilly," he warned her softly.

Lilly shook her head as the tears finally flooded her eyes. "Who can I trust, Travis? Tell me who I can trust and I'll go ask them my questions."

She needed someone, oh G.o.d, someone she could trust to give her the answers she needed.

She felt as though she were breaking apart inside. As though she had lost something so essential that a part of her was missing now and she didn't know what to do without it.

He wiped his hand over his face as he breathed out roughly. "Lilly, you have to be patient."

"Patience is going to get me killed," she hissed furiously, shuddering at the knowledge that she had no idea how to watch her own back, or who to watch out for. "For G.o.d's sake, Travis, someone has tried to kill me twice now, and that's not counting six years ago when I disappeared. Someone tried to kill me then, and we both know it."

His jaw tightened in fury. The knowledge was there in his eyes. She could see it.

"You know what happened the night Father died," she whispered.

"I told you I knew you. You have that in the report your uncle paid for. We fought together plenty of times, Lilly. You've covered my back-"

"I've saved your a.s.s." The tears were clogging her voice now, fighting to be free. "I know I have."

"And I've saved yours," he agreed. "You already know this."

"Why?" She just wanted the truth. That was all she wanted, and she knew she hadn't gotten it yet. All she was hearing were half-truths and lies and she was tired of it. "Why did we save each other's lives?" Her breathing hitched with the tears. "Tell me, Travis. Please, G.o.d, just tell me who I was."

"You were Lilly. You still are Lilly." But she was more, and she knew it.

"Are you my enemy or my ally?" she asked him again, feeling the pain, feeling a sense of betrayal tearing through her. "Tell me, Travis, which are you?"

"How much do you remember?"

"Pieces," she whispered. "The safe house, the storage shed where I had my cycle parked, my weapons stored. I remember what I think are pieces of what had to be missions that don't make sense yet. The memories are closer, Travis, I can feel them."

"Why can't you wait for them to return, Lilly?" he sighed heavily. "It would be so much easier for both of us."

Her hand lifted, covered her lips. She had no idea how much longer she could hold back the tears, as the pain resounded through her.

"My brother turned his back on me," she whispered, feeling her lips tremble. "He said I was nothing to him. I was no sister of his." She shook her head, fighting against that memory.

"My mother hasn't hugged me. My aunts haven't visited me. The people I knew as friends stare at me as though I'm some apparition that disgusts them." She rubbed at her arms, breathed in roughly. "I changed my face, Travis. I changed even my eye color. Tell me why."

She wasn't going to cry, she told herself. She wasn't going to allow the tears to fall, because if they did, then she might never stop.

"You're my lover." She shook her head slowly, desperation clawing inside her. "Can I even trust you?"

"You can trust me, Lilly." There was a promise in his voice, there was sincerity and emotions she couldn't define. But a part of her recognized an underlying warning as well.

"You can trust me with your life."

"Then tell me what I was. Tell me who I was," she demanded roughly. "Stop stringing me along."

"How did you know where your safe house was located?" he asked softly.

She licked her lips nervously as she shook her head. "I knew the memory was just there, as though it had never been lost." Her shoulders lifted as she felt the confusion herself. "I don't know how I knew, Travis. I just knew where it was."

"You knew your weapons were missing earlier," he pointed out. "How did you know?"

"I just knew," she snapped. "I just remembered that they should be there."

Lilly ran her fingers through her hair and clenched at the strands as though she could force the information out of her brain.

She wanted the information out. She wanted her memories back. She wanted her life back.

She wanted to know who she was. Lilly or Lady Victoria Lillian Harrington. Which was she, and which life should she be living?

"What else do you just know?"

"Answer my question first," she cried out. "Enemy or ally?"

"What the f.u.c.k are you doing, asking me that question?" The words tore from him furiously as he stepped quickly to her, grabbed her arms and jerked her against him. "Tell me that, Lilly. Why the h.e.l.l are you f.u.c.king me if you don't know whether I'm your friend or your enemy, your lover or your a.s.sa.s.sin?"

"Are you my a.s.sa.s.sin?" Her head shot back to stare into his furious gaze. "If you were my lover, my ally, you would give me the information I need to survive," she argued, just as furious as he was now. "You wouldn't lie to me, Travis, and I know you're lying to me."

"How? If you don't remember anything, then you have no idea what is truth or lie, Lilly,"

he snarled back at her. "Keep it that way, d.a.m.n you. In this case, trust me, ignorance is truly bliss."

"No . . ." Ignorance was going to get her killed, she could feel it.

She would have argued, but before she could get the words past her lips, he was kissing her again. He was always kissing her when there was something he didn't want to deal with. He was always stealing her senses, her resolve, by throwing her into a maelstrom of pleasure that she couldn't deny.

The pleasure was as fierce as ever, but the tears fell anyway. Silently, slowly, Travis felt the salty warmth against his lips, tasted it against his tongue.