Page 15 of Dangerous Obsession

COLE

Five Days Later…

Cole woke with an overwhelming sense of panic gripping him hard. For a moment, he couldn’t remember what day it was. He sat up in bed, his heart pounding as if he’d run ten miles.

Then it hit him. Four days had passed—no, five .

Five days. Damn it! He needed to contact his client today.

Dread seeped through him, colder than ice.

He’d fucked up. He’d lost himself in this incredible dream life here on the island with Jade and Max.

It was like living in a hedonistic fairy tale.

The three of them had done nothing but enjoy each others’ company.

They’d walked the beaches, eaten meals under the stars, hiked the island, taken the yacht out to cruise the mainland coastline.

Then, his favorite: they made love over and over again.

It was a wonderful dream. He’d known he had a job to do, of course. But he had pushed the thought away, knowing it meant trouble but unable to help himself. Just one more day, he’d told himself over and over again.

Now the shit had hit the fan.

Beside him in bed, Jade gave a little sigh as she slept on. The soft, feminine sound made him smile despite the fear grinding inside him. He adored her. Sharing her with Maxim was an honor that still staggered him. It was something too good to be true.

He carefully climbed out of bed, not wanting to wake Jade or Maxim as they slept naked in each other’s arms. He hated to leave them and the warmth of the bed. But this had to be taken care of right now.

As he quietly dressed, he wondered how it was possible to feel as if he knew these two people far better than anyone else in his life. He knew them intimately, and he loved what he’d learned.

And yet, neither of them knew his history or who he really was.

He’d wormed his way into their lives, but even as they’d opened up to love and accept him, he’d kept his damn secrets.

He’d hidden the truth because they’d come to mean so much to him.

It wasn’t only the lust and the sex. No, there was far more here, and he didn’t want to ruin it. That was what he feared.

Every passing moment seemed to intensify the guilt that had begun swelling inside his heart.

The lie about having cancer. The true reason he was on the island versus the reasons he’d given them.

It was all bullshit. He’d fed them so many lies, and they had trusted him.

He’d even won over Jade by saving Maxim’s life.

That one hurt the most. Abusing her faith when she had suspected him—rightly so—from the beginning.

He left the room without waking them. His phone sat on his luggage in the guestroom where he’d tossed it after grabbing his gear from his bungalow at the spa.

He had to force himself to reach out and pick the phone up.

The dread deepened inside him. He’d been shot at, shelled, raced around a hostile country in a helicopter, and faced death dozens of times, but right now, he was terrified of what would happen next.

Five days. The words kept repeating in his mind like a tolling bell. Five days had passed in a blur of warm sunny days and passionate nights spent enjoying exquisite sex with two fantastic lovers. Shit. Five days.

Cole used the fingerprint code to unlock his phone.

There were thirteen unread messages from his client.

He scrolled through them, his disquiet increasing as the messages grew more and more threatening.

The last one was a flat-out warning. The client was waiting on the mainland for their meeting at a little Greek café in Athens later today.

He expected what he’d paid for. He also demanded an immediate update on the status of the job or he’d send people to look for Cole.

And they wouldn’t be happy people either.

His hands shook as he stared at the little screen. Even if he wanted to call it all off, he had no choice now. He had no leverage. Some very bad people had already paid him half his fee. Now they expected him to deliver as he’d confidently promised.

Everything he’d gained here was threatened because of him. Not only because he was a mercenary and a liar, but because he’d allowed himself to put off dealing with this, ignoring it like a stupid kid who believed there would be no repercussions for his actions.

His gaze flitted to the window where he could see the ocean stretching away from the island of Patroklos. He had discovered life this week. A real life. How could he simply give that up now because of a stupid contract? A contract to steal something from two people he was falling in love with?

No. He wasn’t going to steal from them. He wasn’t going to betray them. He would lie to the client instead. He’d give back the fee that had already been paid. So sorry. He’d failed. The program didn’t really exist.

What other choice did he have? He couldn’t tell Maxim and Jade what he’d done. They would never forgive his betrayal. Hell, who could blame them? But seeing the hurt and disappointment in their eyes would crush him forever.

Cole went outside onto one of the terraces.

He used an encrypted app to fire off a response to the client.

He kept it terse. He said he’d failed in his attempt to locate and acquire the software AI.

After infiltrating the villa, he no longer believed it existed.

At least not at this location, maybe nowhere.

He would refund the client’s money in light of his failure to complete the contract due to circumstances beyond his control.

Failure. Funny how Cole didn’t give a damn what some unknown stranger thought about his skills now. He was more than willing to throw his reputation away if it meant keeping Maxim and Jade safe. And if it meant keeping his secret safe from them too.

He didn’t care because he had something worth far more than he’d ever imagined possible.

Cole held the phone in his hands and paced back and forth as he waited for a response. He pulled up his off-shore bank account and refunded the down payment to the client. There. That should make it look like he was being legit.

After a few minutes, his phone buzzed against his hand. He swiped on the text in the encrypted app, dreading to look but helpless not to.

All this fear. What had happened to him? He was a hardened mercenary. He’d been in tight situations with nobody but himself to count on since the end of his military days. And now he was suddenly turning soft?

As Cole read the message from his client, the overwhelming sense of dread only deepened.

The message went straight to the point. Either Cole fulfilled the contract or the client would disclose his information to the local police, to Interpol, and even worse, to Maxim Hawthorne.

They would expose him to Maxim, and when Cole was in jail, they’d use a merc team to storm the villa and take what they wanted by force.

If Cole somehow managed to escape before he was arrested, the client would hire bounty hunters and mercenaries to hunt him down and make him pay.

The threats were brutally blunt. Cole either finished the job or they killed Maxim and Jade, took what they wanted, and came for him next.

A stillness came over him. This was karma.

Cole was a thief. He could call himself a merc, but right now, he was being paid to steal things from one person to give to another.

He was a con man. He’d tricked two good people into trusting him.

He’d manipulated them and lied to them. As he’d done it, he’d enjoyed everything they had to offer.

The hospitality, the intimacy, the connection. He’d exploited all of that.

Now, when he’d finally found something he desperately wanted in his life, something that mattered , his past sins would destroy it. His past would prevent him from being with the people he’d come to care for on such a deep level.

There was nothing for it. He wouldn’t let them hurt Maxim. He wouldn’t let them hurt Jade. She might take a few of them down protecting Max, but she would be outgunned, and he knew she would never surrender.

He had no other choices left. Despair gripped him hard.

He leaned against the railing, staring at the ocean, knowing what he had to do.

To keep them safe, he would have to lose them.

He would have to give up his happiness. They would hate him.

They would hate him, but they would be alive.

They would be alive to continue to love each other long after he was gone.

He needed to find some comfort in that. He didn’t have anything else. Karma was a bitch.

As he stood there, his mind put together the pieces of a plan. It was sloppy. It was rushed. But he had no other choice. He was going to have to betray Jade in the worst way possible so he could get what he needed. Because he knew where the electronic safe was now. It was in Jade’s bedroom.

He couldn’t break it open on his own, so he needed her to help him. And to do that, he was going to have to lose her forever.

* * *

JADE

Jade had the safe open and was going through the weekly routine of resetting the shredder program on the hard drive when Cole burst into her room.

“Jade!” he yelled, panic in his voice.

Her heart slammed in her chest as she stood, grabbed her pistol, and rushed to the door leading to the sitting room of her suite. She’d never heard that note of panic in Cole’s voice before. It terrified her.

“Here! What is it?”

Cole stopped halfway into the room. His eyes were wide, and there was raw fear in them. “Something’s wrong with Max! He collapsed!”

It was hard to speak through the tidal wave of fear that crashed down on her, but she managed. Barely. “What happened?”

“Dimi says he was meditating and she went to talk to him. But he collapsed. She thinks it’s a heart attack.”

For a second, she couldn’t move. She stood there rooted to the spot as she drowned in the panic. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe. There was only the dread of losing Maxim.

Then she shoved through all that paralyzing fear and pulled herself together. She needed to help him. They were isolated, but she knew CPR. She could get help from the medics at the spa. A helicopter could rush Max to the mainland.

She set the pistol aside and hurried toward Cole. She didn’t need a gun because they weren’t under attack. “Where is he?”

“On the lower terrace. We have to hurry!”

She didn’t need any more encouragement than that.

She sprinted from the room, took the stairs two at a time, and ran for the doors.

Upstairs, Cole had been right on her heels, but she must’ve been faster than him because she lost track of him as she burst out of the doors and ran for the rocky cliffs facing the sea.

She raced up and down terrace stairs, vaulted a railing, and made it to the lower terrace in record time.

Max was sitting in the center of the terrace in the lotus position. His eyes were closed, but he definitely wasn’t collapsed or having a heart attack.

She ran for him anyway. Relief surged through her even as the absurd fear that somehow he’d died in the lotus position rose up to engulf her.

“Max!” she yelled. “ Max !”

He opened his eyes, startled out of his meditative state. He blinked at her. She didn’t stop running. She threw herself into him, tackling him because she had to touch him. She was shaking. She had to make sure he was okay.

They fell to the stone in a tumble of limbs. She pressed her head to his chest, clutching at him. A cry escaped her lips as she heard his heartbeat. His wonderful heartbeat.

“Jade?” he said, sounding stunned. “What the hell is going on?”

“You’re alive!”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Last time I checked, yes.”

“Cole was panicking. He said you were having a heart attack.”

“What? I haven’t seen Cole since breakfast. I wanted to meditate. And you needed to reset the drive—”

Oh, God, the hard drive. She’d left it on her desk next to the computer tablet. Cole had rushed in yelling, and she’d believed the worst…

“No,” she whispered as it hit her. She felt so cold she was numb inside. Her thoughts felt frozen in her mind. She couldn’t contemplate this. It terrified her…

Max pulled her close. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I left the safe open and the drive out. Cole came in, yelling that you needed help. I thought… I feared that…”

“I know.” Max seemed to guess what she was thinking. “He wouldn’t do that to us. He’s not like that.”

“He was right behind me…but he didn’t follow me outside.”

“He went to call for help. An ambulance.”

Tears burned in her eyes. She wanted to believe Max, but part of her had already accepted the worst. Too many things were wrong. She wanted to believe what Max was saying, but she couldn’t. “I need to go see.”

“I’m coming with you.”

Neither of them said a word. They walked side by side, back to the house. He had his arm around her shoulder. She leaned against him for comfort. They didn’t run. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. Her strength had fled.

Cole wasn’t downstairs. The house was silent.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. Dimi wasn’t even here. Today was the day Dimi went to the market to buy food. She should’ve remembered that.

A lie. Why would he lie?

But she knew. She’d known from the beginning, hadn’t she?

Cole wasn’t upstairs either. They walked into her room, the tension heavy in the air.

The hard drive was gone. The safe was open as she’d left it, but the hard drive had vanished.

“He took it,” she said, her voice shaking. “I failed you.”

Maxim pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. For the first time in forever, she began to cry.