But that was all right. She didn’t want to forget Clay and she never wanted to take her son—or the way he’d changed her—for granted. Jasper had saved her life, pure and simple. He was her everything and she would do whatever it took to keep him safe.

Even if it meant one last dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Marlowe was a bad man, but Harley was no angel, and sometimes one thing must die for another to be born from the ashes.

With one last look at Jasper—doing her best to memorize the blissed-out expression on his face as he dumped his bath toys out of their bucket into the water—she closed the bathroom door and went to set the first stage of her plan into motion.

Chapter Two

Harley

“No way, we’re not skipping legs and abs.” Dominic shook his head, pointing to the mat he’d spread out on the patio. “Give me a plank hold. Let’s see if you can break yesterday’s record.”

Harley crossed her arms and stood her ground. “No. Exercise interferes with my focus and we need to talk. There’s not much time left.”

Dom’s full lips curved at the edges. “We could have talked for hours last night after Jasper went to bed. You’re shameless, H. Any excuse to get out of a workout.”

“There’s a reason I was happily scrawny and lacking in muscle tone before you came into my life.” She let him draw her into his arms and linked her wrists behind his neck, running her fingers through his silky black hair. “I need the contact information for your friends in Bangkok. I think I’ve figured out a way to get free from Marlowe, but I’m going to need help.”

Dom’s grin faded. “The people I know in Bangkok aren’t nice people, Harley.”

“I don’t need nice people. I need people who won’t have a problem breaking into the house while I’m asleep, roughing me up, and leaving enough of a mess behind that anyone who bothers to look will assume I didn’t make it out alive.”

“A mess?” His brows drew together. “What kind of mess?”

“Blood, probably some tissue too,” she said frankly. There was no time for either one of them to be squeamish. That’s why she’d waited to bring this up. She didn’t want him to be able to put her off. She wanted him under the gun with no choice but to give her the names she needed. “And it has to be mine. Marlowe will have it tested. He doesn’t leave boxes unchecked.”

Dom tried to pull away, but she held tight to his neck. “It’ll be okay. I’ve lost a lot of blood before and been just fine.”

“Yeah, I was there,” he snapped, wrapping his fingers around her wrists, breaking her grip, and holding her hands captive between them. “You weren’t fine. You almost died. If your dad hadn’t had a doctor on call, you might have.”

“The only way Marlowe is going to let me go is if he thinks I’m dead,” she insisted. “You know I’m right.”

“I do. That’s why you need me here to help you.” He gentled his touch. “Let’s cancel the flight today. We can call your friend Louisa, put Jasper on a plane to Paris as an unaccompanied minor, and—”

“No.” She pulled her hands free with a shake of her head. “Jasper can’t go back to Paris. Ian’s men found me there. That means Marlowe’s could follow the trail, too. They would figure out who my friends are and they would eventually find Jasper. I can’t risk that. Marlowe can never know about Jasper.”

“You think he doesn’t know already?” Dom said, pacing toward the rack of free weights at the edge of the patio. “He’s fucking paranoid as hell, Harley. I’m sure he knows everything about you, right down to what color you shit in the morning.”

Her nose wrinkled, but she refused to dignify that comment with a response.

“You need me here with you,” Dom continued, prowling back toward her. “If someone is going to help you fake your death it should be me. At least you know I won’t sell you as a sex slave while you’re unconscious.”

“I’m too old for the slave trade,” she said, a part of her wishing Dom was still on her father’s payroll so she could get away with giving him orders and expecting them to be obeyed. “They like innocent little girls, not twenty-nine-year-old mothers.”

His lips parted, but she cut him off before he could speak.

“And I’m not going to change my mind about this. I need you with Jasper. If you really want to do what’s best for me, then take care of him.” She closed the distance between them, taking his hand in both of hers. “Please, Dom. You’re the only one I trust to be prepared for whatever happens. Louisa is wonderful, but she doesn’t know how to handle a gun or how to find Hannah if things don’t go as planned.”

His eyes narrowed “You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t have anyone else,” she said. “I won’t let Jasper be raised by my parents, and Aunt Sybil isn’t in good enough health to raise a child. Hannah is the only one I trust to love him the way he deserves to be loved.”

“She’s married to a psychopath,” Dom said. “That’s the only reason I agreed to keep your location a secret in the first place, Harley. To keep you and Jasper safe from him. Jackson loves Hannah now, but I saw the way he treated her in the beginning. He’s a monster. I would never trust him with a child.”

“So I guess I’ll just have to do my best not to die,” she said with a soft laugh.

His scowl deepened. “That isn’t funny. None of this is funny. You should never have gotten involved with a man like Marlowe.”

“I know that now, Dom,” she said, checking her impatience. “But when I met him I was a single mom who couldn’t risk coming out of hiding, wondering how I was going to make ends meet when Daddy’s money ran out.”

“Stewart would have given you more.”

“I didn’t want more,” she snapped. “All I want from Stewart is for him to be out of my and Jasper’s lives. Permanently. This is the only way to do that. I finish the job, collect my last paycheck, and disappear in a way that ensures Marlowe doesn’t come looking for me.”

Dom sighed. It was a put-upon sound, but she could tell she was winning. She just needed to drive her argument home.

“And then Jasper and I can find a house in a little village in a corner of the world where Marlowe and my father and all the other bad guys will leave us alone and we’ll be out of your hair for good.” She leaned into him with a smile. “And then all you’ll need to worry about is how you’re going to spend the twenty grand I’m going to pay you for services rendered.”

“I don’t want your money.” His arm went around her waist, holding her close. “And maybe I don’t want you out of my hair, either.”

Harley looked up at him, chest tightening at the soft look in his eyes. “You don’t mean that. I’m not the one you want, Dom. We both know that.”

“Don’t tell me what I want.” He bent low, silencing her with a kiss. His tongue slipped between her lips and his hand plunged into her hair, drawing her closer. He kissed her with a hunger she hadn’t felt from him before, but she knew this was as much about being forced to say goodbye as anything he might feel for her.

It was easy to mistake the thing that was hard to get for the thing you really wanted. She’d been swept away by her share of unattainable men when she was younger, before she’d met the man who had taught her that love was sweetest when you didn’t have to fight for it. Loving Clay had come easily. Being with him was the most natural thing in the world, like breathing, like she’d been born to laugh at his jokes, fit perfectly in his arms, and get lost making love in a way she never had before.

She hadn’t made love to anyone else—before or since. The part of her that had been capable of that kind of closeness had died in the car crash with Clay.