fact that she apparently did. “Maybe we missed something? What if Lania really isn’t all that safe? What if there are still more rebels there, and Prince Nick doesn’t want the world to know that?”
“Paranoid much?” she asked in an innocent voice that I instantly knew was completely fake.
“I’m careful,” I growled. “I’ve always had to be.”
“I give up,” she said in a completely genuine tone this time. “It wasn’t my intention to piss you off. I’d never be a bitch to you after everything you’ve done for me. I guess I just…wanted to help. I wanted you to understand that it’s not always possible to control everything in your world.”
And then, just like that, I felt like a total asshole.
I saw something that resembled hurt in her beautiful green eyes, and it made my fucking chest ache with regret.
She’d been trying to help…me?
Taylor had been through hell, and honestly, it showed.
Her pretty face was marred by fading bruises and lacerations, and her voice was still hoarse and raspy from disuse and deprivation. Taylor was small-boned, so the weight she’d lost was obvious, and she was way too thin. I didn’t even want to think about the fact that she was so weak she couldn’t stand on her own two feet. I hated the fact that she was vulnerable in any way, and it completely pissed me off that she’d ended up like this while she was doing something for me. After all, my brothers and I were Montgomery Mining. I didn’t hide behind company bullshit when it came to personal responsibility. None of us did.
However, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt this intrepid female, and for some reason, it really bothered me that I had.
“Stop calling me Mr. Montgomery,” I rumbled. “I’ve seen you naked for fuck’s sake. Maybe I’m just not used to anybody messing with me or trying to help me,” I confessed honestly, and then quickly changed the subject. “Taylor, do you want to tell me how in the hell you got so banged up? Harlow said she was never beaten. What happened after she left?”
I wanted to know.
I needed to help Taylor any way I could, and surprisingly, that instinct wasn’t coming from a place of obligation or responsibility this time.
The raw need to protect this woman was actually burning in my gut for some odd reason that I didn’t really understand.
Hell, I knew I wasn’t the psychologist she actually needed, and I sure as hell didn’t have Jax’s charm, but for now, I was all she had.
Taylor
It was perfectly obvious to me that Hudson Montgomery wasn’t comfortable talking about himself, and that he much preferred to be the one asking the questions.
I took a small sip of my water, still stunned by Hudson’s confession that he wasn’t accustomed to anyone joking around with him or trying to help him.
He seemed like the kind of guy who deserved a hell of a lot more than he’d been getting.
God, didn’t he know that most billionaires didn’t even actively work at their own companies every single day?
Didn’t he get that most guys with his kind of money and power didn’t risk their own life for anyone, much less a peon intern like me?
Most ultra-rich guys didn’t go into the military to make a difference, and I could guarantee that very few people, wealthy or not, were going to participate in a group like Last Hope.
Hudson Montgomery was probably the most intriguing man I’d ever met, but he didn’t see himself that way.
Okay, so he had gotten a little crabby when I’d tried to tease him out of his own head about being hyper-responsible for something that wasn’t his fault. My guess was he’d been defending himself because he really didn’t understand that sometimes shit just happened, and there was no explanation as to why it happened, or who caused it.
I had a feeling that Hudson liked to think he could control anything that happened, that he could solve any problem, make anything that he thought was wrong be right again.
For God’s sake, he’d saved me when I had no hope of living another day. And that wasn’t good enough for him?
He had a fortune at his disposal, and could have been living it up on a yacht somewhere instead of being so determined to help other people in trouble.
Strangely enough, I was pretty sure that the whole secrecy thing worked out well for him when it came to Last Hope. The guy didn’t seem