Taken by Two(26)

We slept that night as usual, intertwined limbs in a giant bed, tossing and turning in a perfect loving unison as the sun forced its way back to the sky.





Chapter Eleven





I sat across from Nate in the large living room the next afternoon. I’d been working on Rex’s financials all morning long. Nate was right—Rex had plenty of money, but it wasn’t managed well and there was too much cash slipping through his fingers each month. When he asked me that morning to take a look at his numbers, I was honored. He trusted me, and more importantly, had confidence that I had the brainpower to help him out.

After lunch, however, I needed a break from staring at spreadsheets and bank statements, so I challenged Nate to a game of chess. His phone rang as my bishop moved in to check his queen, but he glanced at the screen and ignored it. “Ladies?” I joked. He laughed, his eyes glued to the chessboard. “None that could beat me at chess—you are smart as hell, Penny. Your father was an idiot to not put your brainpower to work. Nah, the call was from my dad. I don’t know why he bothers.”

“What if it’s an emergency?”

“Then he’ll leave a message or call Rex. In fact, he’ll probably call Rex anyway.”

“What does he…I mean, what does your dad think your relationship with Rex is exactly?”

He shrugged, his long fingers caressing his rook. “I don’t really care. Besides, I’m not sure I know myself.”

He placed the rook down and removed his fingers, leaning back in his leather wingchair in defeat.

“Checkmate. One more game?” He nodded and began to set up the board as Rex walked in, his expression grim. “Yeah, Al, I will—uh, no, I’ll work it out somehow. Take care of yourself.” Rex clicked the button to end the call on his phone and looked to Nate.

“How the fuck is daddy?” Nate asked through gritted teeth. “What does he want? Money?”

“No, man, uh…It’s your mother. Her cancer is back. They don’t—”

“What?” Nate stood up, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “She’s in remission, she’s going to be fine…” I stood up from my own chair and wrapped my arms around Nate’s waist—he was shaking. “Nathaniel, this time it’s serious. We need to get there ASAP.”

Nate shook his head, raking his hands through his wavy coppery brown hair. “This is just a ploy dad is using to get me to…” He sat back down into the chair, pulling me into his lap.

“I’m sorry, Nate, this time—he said she’s as sick as he’s ever seen her, and she’s calling for you and your sister.”

“Holy shit.” Nate wrapped his arms around me, squeezing so tightly I struggled to breathe.

“We’ll leave in a few hours. She’s at a hospital in Wilson. I think we can manage to fly in without attracting too much attention.”

“Wilson? They left her in the tiny fucking town’s hospital? Why didn’t they move her to Duke?”

“I don’t know. Let me have them get the plane ready to fly us into North Carolina.”

“I won’t leave Penny alone, it’s too dangerous,” Nate squeezed me even tighter.

I couldn’t speak. I lost my own mother, whom I adored, not more than a couple of years ago to heart disease.

“No, we’re not letting our girl out of our sight. I’ll whip up some fake paperwork. It wouldn’t pass the TSA, but it’ll look good enough for a local agent without the means or incentive to really check.”

I sat on Nate’s lap stunned. I was going back to the States. “Penny, go pack. Grab a suitcase out of my closet.” I nodded to Rex before leaning in to kiss Nate before he gave me a quick pat on the back to go. In my room, tossing clothes into one of Rex’s suitcases, the tears flowed down my cheeks. Rex wasn’t one to get excited over too much, but I knew him well enough to know that he was shaken, afraid for Nate.

“Hey Princess,” Rex said, walking in to my room and sitting in the chair in the corner. “It’s a big deal, isn’t it?” He glanced at the door before answering, “Yeah, sweetheart, she doesn’t have long left. We have to be there for him—he’s going to be battling all sorts of emotions. We can’t let him self-blame, or worse, relapse into addiction. Pick out a couple of conservative black dresses—I’ll hang them in the plane with our suits.”

My heart ached for Nate. This was the first time I’d been in love, and I never imagined the pain of watching someone you love hurt. “His dad isn’t a bad guy, is he?”

Rex shook his head, “No, he’s made some missteps, but who hasn’t? Nate wants someone to blame—he wants a villain to point the finger at. I’d give anything to have had a father like Al Slater instead of the sack of shit dickwad I spent my first ten years with.”

“Is he alive? Your father?”

“No, baby, he’s long since dead. Both of them—self-absorbed trash. Social Services took me when I was twelve—mother dearest died in a bar brawl a few months later.”

“Oh my God, that’s horrible.” I’d lived a privileged life, and despite not feeling loved by my father, I couldn’t imagine the trauma Rex suffered as a young child. “Were you adopted?”

“No, Penny, no one adopts twelve year old boys, and the State of New York makes a terrible parent. I bounced from foster home to foster home, some not bad, most horrific, until Evelyn noticed me in high school one afternoon.” He smiled at the memory. “We were in biology class—I was a good student. I knew it was my only chance to climb out of the shithole of my life. Evelyn, though…” He chuckled as he said, “She was a cute cheerleader, popular, but more interested in having a good time than studying. She was stuck during a lab and leaned over to me. ‘Roger, it’s Roger, right?’ she said. ‘Can you help me? I’ll take you out for a burger after school if you do…’ And from then on, much to the shock of the entire town, we were a couple. I ended up staying with her family the last two years of high school. No one ever loved me before Evelyn.”

The tears rushed up again—my heart broke for the two men I loved dearly. I wrapped my arms around him as he buried his face into my hair. “I love you, more than anything.” His large hand wrapped around the back of my neck, pulling me closer. “I love you too, Princess. You have no idea how much I need you.”

“Nate loves you, too.”

He nodded into my hair, nuzzled there to hide the emotion I knew he felt. “After she left me, she said she never loved me. That sent me into a self-destructive spiral.”

“People just say that stuff, she didn’t mean it.”

“I don’t know whether she did or not, but the idea of never being loved by anyone just broke me apart. I had good friends—you forge a strong bond with men you fight for your life with, but the kind of love…No, I never had it. Until Nate.”

I was anxious to hear how the relationship between the men had evolved into more than friendship, but Rex pulled back from my hair and leaned back. “That’s too long of a story for now, Princess. We really need to get going.”

“You’ll tell me though…?”

“Yeah, baby, I will. I’ll tell you all of it, and I’ll pray that you’ll still love me when my demons are dragged from the closet.”



The flight to North Carolina took forever. Normally, I’d have whined, but instead I sat by Nate’s side, holding his hand as we watched a comedy on the iPad—neither of us laughed. Rex, however, leaned back in one of the oversized leather chairs and slept. He could sleep anywhere, no matter what the circumstances around him. We made two fuel stops, and both times Rex nervously rushed out to greet the airport staff. At both stops, a customs agent boarded the plane. My heart lurched as the second agent spent more time, closely looking from me to the fake passport Rex made, but he nodded and smiled to us. “Welcome home,” he said as he stamped my fake passport, complete with several fake stamps detailing my entries and exits from South America. “I need to look in the cargo hold—just a formality, you know—coming from Colombia and all.” Rex nodded to the man, “Don’t I know it. Worked DEA shit for fifteen years.”

We were quickly cleared on our way, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. “We’re going to have to get your paperwork, babe. Is it in your penthouse?” I looked to Nate with a smile—I was happy anytime they reminded me that my life with them was permanent. “My passport and birth certificate are, yeah. What else do I need?”

Rex sat down across from us and fastened his seatbelt. “That’ll do for now—but once you’re out of danger, we’ll need to get you a visa.”

“And I’m sure daddy is worried…” Nate shot Rex an uncomfortable glance.



Early the next morning, we checked into two rooms at a semi-decent hotel close to the hospital in Nate’s hometown. Nate joked he got two rooms instead of three to keep them guessing who the couple was. We collapsed into a king sized bed in one of the rooms, fully clothed, and slept until the alarm went off.