Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)(67)

She tilted her head, peeking up at him from beneath her false eyelashes. “Now you know how I felt all those times.”

“I suppose,” Austin said quickly, before he could profess his undying love. It was an amazing—amazing—thing to believe someone when they spoke, without question. He had that with Polly, which meant she truly didn’t like him being in disguise. She liked the man beneath, despite his past. Hell, despite his present. He was an unforgivable * and they both knew it, but she wanted him in spite of it. The list of what he wouldn’t do to protect that was blank.

She deserved better. Total honesty. He couldn’t give her that just yet, but he could give her the closest thing, even though it might discolor him in her eyes. No, it would. There was no might about it. But he couldn’t let her go into tonight without a clear picture of the man on her team. Him. Before Polly, he hadn’t been a good man, and she needed to know the worst of it.

Austin pulled Polly to a stop, just outside the glow cast by a streetlight. She rubbed her painted red lips together, looking up at him expectantly, but the damning words wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

His atypical hesitation must have tipped her off that something bad was coming, because her shoulders sagged an inch. “What is it?”

“Polly, I…you should know that Reitman is retaliating against me for a good reason. After I found out about Gemma in S?o Paulo and he took off with the money—”

Alarm flared in her gaze. She lifted two fingers and placed them over his mouth, shaking her head. “Not now, Austin. Don’t do this right now.”

She didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand. What if he didn’t get another chance? He circled her wrist and tugged her hand away from his mouth. “It has to be now. You should know whose team you’re playing on.”

“I do know.” Confidence laced her tone. “I know who you are. I’ve done some terrible things in the past, too. Taken what I can do at a keyboard and ruined lives with it, telling myself those people deserved their comeuppance for what they’d done. But one of those people could have been you. Or Bowen. Or Erin, Connor, Henrik. If I’d known who I was affecting, I would have thought twice.” She stepped closer, getting right in Austin’s face, making his heart boom like back-to-back explosions in his chest. “We are not the sum of our past deeds. There are gray areas and straight-up mistakes, but we can’t let them define us. Okay? Whatever you did won’t change what I know. And I know you.”

“Oh God.” Austin dropped his forehead down to mesh with hers, rolling it side to side, absorbing warmth, strength. “Oh God. What are you doing with me? Why are you saving me like this?”

“You know why,” Polly whispered, her voice carried away on the wind.

He wanted to snatch the words back and immortalize them somehow, because they were as close as he ever expected to come to a declaration from Polly. The chocolate coin on his tongue grew heavier, but instead of unwrapping it the way he longed to do, he clutched her arms tight, so tight. “Listen to me. You go in there and do exactly as we planned. I will be there, even though you can’t see me.” He shook her a little. “Remember this.” Austin paused to make sure he had her attention. “I never go into a job unless I know for sure that I can win. Repeat that for me.”

She nodded. “You never go into a job unless you know for sure you can win.”

A man stepped out from between two parked cars, just behind Polly.

“Neither do I.”

Austin’s muscles tensed, preparing to throw Polly behind him. When the newcomer stepped into the light, showing Austin his identity, the tension didn’t ease, but his fear for Polly’s safety took a nosedive. His relief was so intense, it took him a moment to breathe again.

Captain Derek Tyler. I’ve been expecting you.

The captain joined them in the shadows, giving the sight of Austin embracing a redheaded Polly a speculative once-over. “Going somewhere?”

I knew I was right never to underestimate him. “You must already have some idea, since one of your officers has been following us for five blocks,” Austin drawled. “Where do you think we’re going?”

“I’m not here to answer your questions.”

“In that case, we’re just out for a stroll.” Austin turned and tucked a bemused Polly into his side, massaging her hip in a silent signal to relax and trust him. “Just about to bring Polly home, in fact. Fingers crossed she’ll give me a good-night kiss at the door.”

Derek’s expression remained stoic. “We both know I was aware of your connection to Reitman when I hired you, Shaw. It’s not a coincidence that he’s a block away at the Four Seasons right now.” The captain waited while that sank in—although it didn’t—because Austin had already been waiting on Derek’s intervention since the initial meeting regarding Reitman, well aware he was playing the clock. “One phone call and I can have an extradition warrant to arrest him. I already have uniforms outside the hotel. That would throw a wrench in your plans, wouldn’t it?” Plans he should have been made aware of—clearly that was the captain’s subtext.

“You don’t want to give Reitman to another state for questioning, or you would have brought him in by now,” Polly said, hitting the ground running, even though she hadn’t been expecting Derek. “Nothing will stick to him. And then you’ll have lost your chance to punish him for breaching Chicago city limits.”