And then, I died Read online

  To Melody,

  who is almost old enough to read this now!

  Chapter 1:

  The Bitch

  In light of recent events, Liam was seventy percent certain he was dreaming.

  A little under half a year ago, he would have been absolutely positive, but all things considered, the scene unfolding in front of him didn't seem that far-fetched.

  The girl, however, surpassed the creativity of his imagination. Whatever image might be attached next to “female assassin” on Wikipedia, she wasn't it.

  What he saw of her from the staircase where he was standing was nondescript; comfortable grey layers drowning the slightest hint of a shape, a ponytail tucked under an old cap. He would have passed her without looking back in the streets.

  There was nothing wrong with the occasional casual outfit, but he'd learnt that appearances generally reflected on characters. Women who hid themselves under the plainest clothes were either insecure or indifferent to how they were perceived.

  He respected neither.

  As things stood, though, she got his attention; crouched in front of the door leading to his apartment, she was testing an assortment of keys in his lock.

  Since Liam had hired Jack, they had gone over that sort of situation a dozen times, so he knew what he was supposed to do: text the bodyguard and stay hidden until his knight in shiny armour hurried to the rescue.

  He had emphatically nodded each time they'd discussed the plan. It was a good plan. Of course he'd wait; Jack, a well-trained ex-Marine, was indubitably more qualified to take down a professional threat.

  There was a catch, though. In each scenario he was supposed to face an angry meathead or, at the very least, a James Bondette armed with weapons strapped to her thighs, not a girl.

  Liam wasn't exactly what one would call a Damsel in Distress. Admittedly, he'd gone through the whole nerdy-six-foot-four-twig thing back in high school, but that particular phase had been over about a decade ago. He had swum his way to a scholarship, earning himself a set of rather well-defined muscles in the process. He wasn't Bruce Willis, but he could still easily take half the guys he knew; that wisp of a girl didn't stand a chance against him.

  Nonetheless, he would have probably been good and followed his instructions, if it wasn't for the data. Each second he twiddled his thumbs brought her closer to the laptop he'd left on the kitchen counter.

  It would take a very good hacker to go around his security, but could he risk it?

  Liam had worked for Charlotte for a year before she'd caved and asked him why he was wasting his time on her payroll.

  He hadn't hated the job; programming was in his blood, and the innovative softwares Knight Tech came up with weren't half bad, but it hadn't been exactly satisfying.

  “You're better than this. You're better than me, William.”

  Thanks to her meddling, he'd posted a dozen patents in robotics and now owned a thriving business selling his work. Each and every one of his prototypes, his projects, his ideas were saved in the laptop he should have locked away.

  Making his mind up, he sent a quick text to Jack before crossing the few steps separating him from the door as quietly as he could; but suddenly, just as he passed the threshold, the world went black.

  The first thing Liam registered was a horrendous headache, followed in close second by the throbbing pain on the left side of his skull and a wave of nausea.

  There were voices around him. Loud, annoying, but reassuringly familiar voices, so he risked opening his eyes.

  He recognized the setting and most of the present company. He was home, in his black and white lounge with its large sofas, its ugly, oppressive grand piano; Jack stood behind the instrument, solemn and rigid as he always was when they had company, and his two noisy neighbours, Charlotte and Victoria, had taken their place of choice around the sofa suite. That, he could process.

  What he didn't get was the presence of the figure in grey perched on the minibar. The figure which, if memory served, had broken into his flat and attacked him.

  Somehow, nobody seemed to find it rather peculiar.

  “You're awake! Here.” Charles was handing him some sort of medicine and a glass of water; he dropped the pills in his mouth without question, grateful at the prospect any form of relief.

  “I told you he wouldn't need to go to the ER,” the stranger said dismissively.

  “Someone want to tell me why my face feels like a train hit it?”

  “I kicked it. Sorry.”

  This heartfelt apology did convey a whole world of regret and shame. Or not.

  “You knocked me out with a kick?”

  His vision was still blurry, but he saw distinctly enough to judge those legs incapable of administrating much damage to a grown man.

  They were slim.

  And long.

  Very long.

  His gaze slowly crawled up and up the leggings, finally finding a loose tunic dress doing its best to hide most of the dips and curves. Despite the sack’s best efforts, her general form was quite promising. And above, there was flesh. Tanned, golden flesh.

  Damn. Those pills were really good, or somehow, the girl had been concealing a pleasing cocktail wrapped under her boring rags and the Giants hat. He couldn't place the actual heritage those lips, her darker complexion and the green eyes claimed; all he knew was that the invisible girl-next-door was definitely worth the second glance.

  Not a lot of women would have held their own while standing in the same room as Victoria Grazinski and Charlotte Knightley.

  “No. I knocked you out with the pressure point in your neck, before kicking you,” she clarified.

  And hell if that wasn't one of the sexiest things he'd ever heard. He blamed the low, sensual intonations of her voice.

  “Someone would like to clarify why it's suddenly alright for strangers to break inside people's homes and knock them out?” he asked when it was evident that no one felt an explanation was necessary.

  “Well, that's the thing. You're in my home.”

  Liam wasn't the open, sharing type, but as a main shareholder of Slate Inc, Charles had been one of the suspects after the third attempt on his life; the police had interrogated her, which lead to the disclosure of his circumstances.

  The damn woman hadn't been ashamed to use the threat of tears to make him hire Jack, her own head of security.

  After the fourth attack, undertaken by the pizza delivery guy at his house, Charles had stepped in again, offering him the apartment.

  “Victoria and I rent next door; technically Beth, who owns the building, lives in the 4A, only it's been at least two years since her last visit. Let me contact her, we'll see if she says no.”

  The elusive Beth hasn't said anything at all, so they'd gone ahead and signed the paperwork at the end of December.

  One of the many security measures now part of his routine consisted in going to the home he owned down in Brooklyn every night before leaving by the back door and driving back to Manhattan. Liam found the whole process overzealous, but Jack had given his hearty approval and, so far, nothing led him to think anyone – save for Jack, Vick, and Charles – knew where he spent his nights.

  “And as a matter of fact,” the girl said, her soft alto friendly as a pit of deadly snake “I'd very much like to know why you'd think it's yours.”

  His glare would have been more effective had she deigned raising her eyes from the nails she was staring at. Did she really suggest he might be squatting her place?

  Liam didn't take offense at the first insult. The City's abundant collection of trashy papers constantly threw unflattering descriptions his way and he was fine with it. They didn't know much about him, past his inerrant inability to entertain a pointless, polite conversa
tion with their journalist. Of course they'd call him a high-handed autocrat. To an extent, he was.

  He could handle criticism. What he couldn't stand was disdain. He'd come too far to put up with it now.

  The girl didn't even bother meeting his gaze as she addressed him. Some would have seen it as a sign of timidity, but that couldn't be it. Women who looked like her weren't shy, they were stuck-up.

  A twenty-year old entitled brat didn't know what she was stepping into if she felt free to undermine him.

  It was exactly what the beautiful bitch was: girls of that sort didn't own buildings like theirs in the most exclusive neighbourhood of NYC without coming from money.

  He wondered at her connection to Victoria and Charles. They'd referred to her as an old friend, but there had to be more to it; she was obviously younger, as well as considerably less accomplished than the two businesswomen.

  Vick had spent half a dozen years paving her way up at her father's investment firm, under a different surname. The CEO wooden plate had been hers since the instant of her birth, but when it came, it would be deserved.

  Charlotte wasn't front page news as of yet, but it was mainly because she hid too effectively for anyone to dig out dirt on her. For starters, she went by Charles and, to her endless amusement, the public still refer to her as a “he.” Nevertheless, she had emptied her fair share of inkwells; it was common knowledge that KS, the interactive, fast, secure, and entirely free operating system most schools and businesses had embraced, had been launched from her dorm room.

  What have you done, little girl, to give you the right to breathe our air?

  Thankfully, Victoria took pity on them both, interjecting before he could open his mouth:

  “I texted you a couple of months ago about renting your place to a friend for a little while.”

  The hellcat immediately retracted her fangs and claws. Her voice lost all its edge as she responded almost apologetically:

  “You know I don't have access to my phone most of the time. I just got it back and there were about two hundred unread messages from you. I thought we could catch up at home. And by the sound of it, we'll definitely have the time; I'm crashing on your couch, if you don't mind.”

  The bitch wasn't playing fair. Had she proved herself difficult, demanded he'd left the premises, he could have bitten back, shaken a copy of his tenancy agreement in front of her nose and talked about lawyers and court. However, she didn't even sound annoyed about the unappealing prospect of bunking on Charles and Vick's sofa.

  So, he offered reluctantly, “I can go. I'll need less than an hour to pack.”

  It was a shame; the apartment was perfection. Had he not felt foolishly attached to his home and ever reluctant to needlessly spend what he earned, it was exactly the sort of place he would have purchased.

  Large open space, floor to ceiling windows in each room save for the very atmospheric, dark master bedroom painted in the deepest shade of wine. The minimalist décor married to the antique furnishing just worked for him. He was even going to miss the obnoxious piano gathering dust Sunday through Saturday, up until Linda painstakingly polished it.

  He had been surprised that a woman had lived in this setting, but now that he saw her, from the Converses to the old baseball hat, he got it; she was missing the froufrou and taffeta gene. Was she even wearing any makeup? He was no expert in cosmetics, but he would have sworn she wasn't.

  Liam didn't mistake this as a form of humility; she was simply conscious of the fact that her honey skin and those long, dark lashes of hers didn't require enhancement.

  “No,” she refused, to his surprise. “You're paying rent and I'm only here for a few months, regardless.”

  “Months?”

  Vick and Charles' eyes popped out from their pretty faces as they took that in. From what he'd gathered, the girl wasn't known to stay in town more than an occasional weekend here and there.

  “They made me take about five years’ worth of holidays.”

  Boys born in his neighbourhood didn't make it to where he now stood without a fairly good bullshit meter, and the detector was buzzing something fierce. She was lying, her countenance screamed it: the change of tone, the way she crossed and uncrossed those legs...

  While the enticing movement of the limbs was unnerving, the duplicity didn't bother him; according to statistics, women lied about three times a day – men, twice as much.

  I'm fine. Nothing is the matter. Don't worry about it. Your butt doesn't look fat in that dress. I'm on holidays.

  That couldn't be much of a fib: she'd resigned, been suspended, or sacked. Not a lot of people would have felt comfortable admitting failure in a room full of young, prosperous executives.

  To be entirely honest, the reason why she didn't want them to know the ins and outs of her presence didn't score very high on the list of things he'd like to clear up at the minute. All he wanted was to get the conversation back on track and resolve the situation as soon as humanly possible.

  High-handed autocrats had a tendency to deal with hiccups promptly.

  “You can't spend months on the couch next door,” he heard himself say, angling to the logical suggestion he hoped Vick or Charles might come to.

  He didn't relish in the idea of being the one pointing it out, but the girl had to stay with him.

  God knew there was enough space in her flat and he preferred that to the only other option: he'd have to move out.

  “Hell, you can't spend a night there; that thing is a torture instrument.”

  He tuned out Vick's protests in defence of her bright yellow monstrosity made of the slimiest leather known to man. That couch was so vile their surround-sound system, the alcohol, and the company barely made up for it.

  “Anyway, you should stay. There are three bedrooms here, only two next door.”

  He wished he could have sounded more enthusiastic but cohabiting with the brat was going to be a challenging experience. It had a shade of domesticity.

  Liam didn't do domesticity, relationships, or anything involving another living human being capable of reaching him emotionally. His upbringing had taught him better.

  He was hopeful, though. The girl didn't appear to be a threat.

  While the enthusiastic lovers he'd taken to bed frightened him in broad daylight, the trio scattered around the room didn't.

  Analytic by trade and temperament, he'd already come up with a theory explaining his friendship with Victoria and Charlotte: They were as wary of emotional involvement as he. He could go next door every night with a bottle of wine, takeout, a Blu-ray, and neither would be likely to write Mrs W. B. Slate on their diary the next morning.

  But he'd been cautious at first. Their familiarity was built on years of acquaintance.

  The new girl? Zero awkwardness. He just knew she had no intention to step anywhere near his boundaries; her demeanour was too cold to suggest otherwise.

  Whatever her requirements for potential mates might be, he hadn't made the cut.

  It was reassuring and perhaps a little bit irritating at the same time. Daunting as being seen as a potential future wallet could be, he was accustomed to it – as successful men of twenty-nine generally were.

  “No need, I have other flats nearby. They might just need some cleaning and... Why are you shaking your head?”

  “You've left me in charge of them, Beth,” Vick reminded her. “They're rented out.”

  “You've rented all of my properties?”

  «Entitled brat» appeared more accurate each time she opened that mouth of hers.

  “My company has grown over the last couple of years.” Charles cut in.

  Understatement: Knight Tech, run by three members of staff in 2012, now occupied two floors in the glass building they shared with Slate Inc.

  “The recruits from out of town were grateful to find flats in Manhattan straight away.”

  “No worries, I'll take a room next door for now.” she said, no doubt referring to the overpriced,
understaffed establishment on their left. “If you've rented three dozen flats out, I can afford it.”

  Liam was familiar with the hotel; he had indefinitely booked their best suite for Jack's use in an effort to keep the bodyguard close yet out of his face. It wasn't the worst place to stay, but he felt uneasy at the prospect of letting her spend money on a room. Vick had only asked a grand a month from him; a thousand dollars, for a very newly renovated three bedroom with library, office, and a gym, carved into the fourth and last floor of a handsome Upper East Side townhouse. The girl would spend at least as much per night next door.

  “It's unnecessary; I haven't taken up the master bedroom and I practically live at work in any case. I'm sure we can put up with each other for a little while. You're staying.”

  It came out as an order, because it was exactly that.

  For the first time, she looked directly at him, her green eyes blazing as she conveyed as much distrust, dislike, and ire as one could through a single glance.

  Bitch.

  People were generally against insulting women.

  Nobody ever thought twice when referring to a man as a complete dickhead; however, in this day and age, years of PR wouldn't cover the damage he'd cause by calling a woman names. It just wasn't the done thing, even when the woman's behaviour made the words entirely accurate.

  Fuck that. They'd justly fought for their independence, their respect, their rights, and here it was: Respectfully, equally, PCly, Elizabeth Carver is a bitch.

  He did his best to hide the smile forming at the corner of his mouth, but failed miserably; and strangely, right when he felt his upper lip curling up on the left side, she nodded and crossed the room, hand outstretched, offering to shake his.

  It was only then, holding the small palm, meeting those angry eyes, that he felt it.

  While its potency wasn't by any means ordinary, he had no issue identifying the cause of that spark. He had experienced it before, to some degree. Chemistry. Pure, undiluted chemistry between his body and hers.

  However, when Liam could barely hold a coherent thought as the shock passed through his limbs, she seemed entirely unaffected by the explosion of senses he'd just survived.