by Megyn Ward
It’s the only reason I don’t break his goddamned jaw.
“Not exactly.” I drop my hand, glowering at him. Daring him to push for more. He doesn’t. He just nods his head like he understands what not exactly means.
“You realize she doesn’t remember it—” He shoves his hands into his pockets and shakes his head. “whatever happened between the two of you, she doesn’t remember, so unless it’s an ongoing thing—”
Yeah.
I figured as much.
I expect to feel relief when I hear him say it out loud. I expect to be glad because what happened was a mistake. I let my guard slip. I let her in again. Knock me off balance and if she forgets, that means I can forget to.
Instead of relieved, I feel cheated.
Angry.
“It isn’t.” I shake my head at him, my neck stiff and tight. “It was a one-time thing. Shouldn’t have happened at all so it’s probably for the best that she won’t remember.”
Conner stares at me for few seconds, probably trying to reconcile the difference between my words and the tone used to deliver them in. Finally he nods. “Okay.” Pulling a hand out of his pocket, he rubs a hand over the back of his neck. “Here’s how it’s gonna go—I’m gonna do what I do to nail this guy.”
“Why?” I don’t even know what that means but I get the feeling that there isn’t much this guy isn’t capable of. “You gave us a ride—that’s all I asked you for.”
He gives me a grin. “Because her brother is my friend and so is your brother—they’re family and I do for mine.”
His implication is clear—this isn’t for me.
“Okay,” I concede, my tone rough because I can feel it. I know the answer, even before I ask. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Simple—” He spreads his tattooed arms and shows me his palms. “You hand her over to her brother and walk away. We’ll take it from here.”
Just like that, the door I knew was there gets slammed in my face.
“No.”
“No?” Despite the fact that I’ve got a good three inches on him and at least fifty pounds, Conner laughs in my face. “Sweetie… you really shouldn’t.”
“What?” I feel old angers surge inside me. Slights and dismissals because of who I am and where I came from rise up and grip me by the throat. “I’m not good enough to help her? I’m just a dumb Mexican who can’t—”
“Seriously?” Conner drops his arms. “Do you need your fucking eyes checked? I mean, really—can you see me?”
I look at him.
Really look at him.
Heavy, worn boots.
Grease-stained jeans.
Faded T-shirt.
Tattoos on white skin.
“Yeah, puta—I see you just fine.” I say in in Spanish to drive my point home and he gives me a quick flash of teeth—too aggressive to be considered a smile while he swirls his hand in the space between us.
“No one here gives a shit about your skin color but you.” He says it in perfectly accented Spanish and I feel my shoulders sag. The fight go out of me.
“What about the redhead in there?” I say it in English this time. “Would you just hand her over? Walk away?”
This time the look he gives me is solemn. Serious. It makes him look like a completely different person. “No, but I’m an absolute goner for the redhead in there. I’d wade through oceans of blood that I spilled for her—but you just got finished telling me that you hooked-up with Delilah and you’re perfectly okay with the fact that she’s not going to remember any of it, so can you really say the same?”
Yes.
Yes I can.
I almost say it.
But I don’t because I don’t know.
Not for sure.
I don’t know who this is about. Who I’m willing to fight for.
If what I’m feeling is about Delilah or if it’s about her.
Camilla.
So, because I don’t know for sure, I don’t say anything at all.
“Great—so it’s settled. You’ll take her to the Hawthorne, hand her off to Went with a quick explanation of what’s going down while I do my thing and find this asshole before he can make another grab for her,” he says, outlining in quick order what’s expected of me over the next hour. “Any questions?”
“Yeah—I got a question.” I bite the words in half and spit them at him. “how is that no one’s killed your annoying ass by now?”
“It is a mystery, isn’t it?” Conner laugh at me again. “By the way, you totally remind me of my brother—he’s a giant dickhead too.”
TWENTY
Delilah
WE PART WAYS AT THE AIRFIELD.
Henley helps me down the rollaway stairs like I’m some kind of invalid while Gray shuffles around at the bottom of them like a nervous prom date, looking at anything but me.
“I’ll call you,” Henley says, pressing a quick kiss to my cheek. Not a fake, hovering kiss like our mothers hand out at charity auctions so they don’t smudge their lipstick. A real kiss. Like we’re friends.
I feel myself tear up again and blame it on the Ketamine.
After that, she hands me off to Gray, lets my manicurist help her into the front seat of a mean-looking muscle car and they drive away.
There’s a second car waiting.
A chauffeured limo, the Hawthorne’s crest stenciled on its door. I have no idea how it ended up here or who ordered it but it’s obviously here for us.
“Do you know him?” Gray asks me quietly, prompting me to take a long, assessing look at the man beside it. “Yes.” I nod before I step forward. “Hi, Enrique,” I do my best impression of myself, giving him a glib wave as I saunter toward the car, despite the fact that my legs are still a little noodley and I’m wearing a pair of borrowed leggings and a T-shirt with the name of some Irish pub on the front of it.
The manicurist took my clothes.
He didn’t say why but I don’t really care. I planned on burning the dress as soon as I got home anyway.
Probably the shoes too.
As soon as Enrique realizes it’s me, he scrambles into action, lunging over to open my door and holding out a hand so he can help me into the car. “Miss Delilah,” he says to me in his heavily accented English. “Were we expecting you?” He shoots a quick, wary look at Gray because he’s a huge, bearded stranger and looks nothing like the kind of people I usually run around with.
“My sister had her baby,” I tell him, making up an excuse for my being here as I go along—one that has the added benefit of being true. “I’m just here to see her.” I let him hand me into the car and slide across the seat, giving Gray room to climb in behind me.
“To the hotel, Miss Delilah?” Enrique asks as soon as we’re settled and he’s behind the wheel.
“Yes, please,” I say before I roll up the partition. As soon as it’s up, and we’re ensconced, in the plush back seat I reach into the mini fridge and take out a bottle of sparkling water. Cracking the cap, I drain half of it before I lower it from my mouth. When I do, I find Gray sitting stiffly in the seat across from me, watching me with that alien planet look he always gets when I do or say something that doesn’t sit well with him.
“He prefers the partition up,” I explain because I think that’s it. I think he sees me separating myself from the driver as rude. “He likes to listen to NPR when he drives. He’s really into podcasts.”
Gray frowns slightly and looks away from me.
“Do you want something?” I ask, reaching for the mini fridge. “There’s soda. Beer. I think there’s some champagne.” I look up at him to see if he cracks a smile at my joke.
He doesn’t.
“Don’t do that,” he says, brow crumpling slightly. “Don’t try to minimize what’s happening here. Don’t try to make it into a joke like you do everything else.”
“So you’d rather I cry and cower in the corner?” I ask, slamming the fridge door closed, angry because despite what I just said, t
hat’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the past month. I’ve been hiding in my hotel suite and praying that he’ll just give up. Forget about me. What happened last night proved that’s not going to happen. That I’ve been fooling myself.
“No.” He shakes his head at his own reflection in the window. “I want you to be careful. I want you to stop treating everything like a fucking game.”
“You blame me.” Something about this conversation feels familiar. Like Déjà vu. “You think what happened was my fault?” I hate the desperate, panicky feeling when I say it. I could blame it on the Ketamine like I have been everything else but I know that’s not what this is. This is me feeling shitty because I keep disappointing him. Can’t seem to turn the corner and stop fucking everything up.
“How do you know what a Ketamine high feels like?” He doesn’t look at me when I say it and I’m glad because I suddenly feel like I’m going to throw up.
“What?”
“You told Conner that whoever tried to grab you shot you up with Ketamine,” he explains, even though he knows I understood the question perfectly. “How did you know it was Ketamine?”
“Because I’ve done it before.” I tell him the truth because he deserves it, even if it’s ugly. “Just once.”
“At my club?”
“No.” I shake my head and he looks at me. “No—I was in Spain with…”
“With Vanderhoff?” He practically bites Nik’s name in half and spits it at the window. “He was there last night—after I had him tossed, he managed to bribe his way back in.” The news doesn’t surprise me. Nik always gets what he wants. “I saw him and I saw you. On the main-floor, right before the fire.” His brow crumples a bit. “You were heading right for him—like you were looking for him.”
“I wasn’t.” I shake my head, fast and tight. “I swear I wasn’t. I don’t know what I was doing last night. What I was doing on the main-floor of the club. I don’t even remember being at the club but I know I wasn’t looking for Nik. I wouldn’t…”
I’ve missed you, Delilah.
“I’m sorry, Gray.” I say it even though I know the last thing he wants to hear from me is an apology. “I’m so—”
“I don’t blame you. Nothing that happened last night was your fault,” he says, the heavy tone of his voice makes me think he’s talking about more than just the fact that someone tried to kidnap me last night. That something else happened.
Something I should remember.
“Gray—”
“It doesn’t matter.” His brow furrows again, signaling another lie. “I’m taking you to the Hawthorne and handing you over to your brother and—”
“Handing me over?” I shake my head. “No—you’re not handing me over to anyone like this is some sort of messed up relay race.”
“He’s your brother,” Gray says like maybe I don’t understand the situation. “It’s his job to protect you.”
It’s your job to protect me.
I almost say it.
I almost go full tilt Delilah Fiorella. Use my influence and privilege to get what I want because what I want is him and I’m willing to do and become just about anything I have to in order to get him. Keep him with me.
The only thing that stops me is knowing that it’s exactly what he expects and absolutely not what he wants.
So instead, I look out the window too. “I don’t want him to know what happened last night.”
“Why?” My refusal to involve my brother confuses him. “He’s your brother. He’s—”
“Yeah—my brother. My older brother who looks at me and sees a whole ass, walking, talking mess. I don’t want that. I don’t want him or my sister to know that stupid, dumb Delilah fucked up again.”
The scowl deepens into a snarl and despite the fact that its aimed right at me, I’m unphased. “You just heard me say that none of this is your fault, right?”
He’s wrong.
This is my fault.
All of it.
He just doesn’t know it yet.
“I don’t need Went and I don’t need you either.” I look away and stare out the window, watching the city materialize from behind the early morning mist. “I can take care of myself.”
“You don’t seem to understand...” He gives me a grim smile. One that tells me he’s not any happier with the situation than I am. “You manicurist—you know, the tattooed asshole that just gave us a lift in his private plane—he knows your brother. They’re friends and I can promise you that if I don’t tell your brother what’s going on, he sure as hell will.”
TWENTY-ONE
Grayson
CONNER GILROY IS A COMPLETE ASSHOLE. HE
also happens to be right.
This isn’t my fight.
Delilah isn’t my responsibility.
She isn’t mine to protect.
And even though every instinct I have is screaming at me, telling me I’m wrong, to keep her as close as I can, to kill and die for her if it comes to it, I’ve already made up my mind and so has she.
I don’t need Went and I don’t need you either.
She’s wrong, of course.
She needs help.
Protection.
Because what happened last night wasn’t an impulsive grab by some deranged fan. It was a planned abduction that went sideways for some reason.
That means whoever he is, he’ll try again.
And when he does, someone needs to be there to stop him.
Protect her.
Yeah, that someone is her brother.
Not you, pendejo.
Instead of arguing my point, I shut my mouth and stare out the window. Neither of us say a word for the rest of the car ride into the city. It isn’t until we pull into the portico in front of the hotel that she finally speaks. “How are you getting back to New York?” she asks because she thinks that’s what I’ll do. That she’s my only order of business here because she doesn’t know who I really am.
Not exactly.
“I’ll figure it out,” I say evasively while I stare at the glass and brick building that encompasses an entire city block. No sooner do I say it than the car door pops open and a white-gloved hand appears in the opening. Moments later, we’re standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, staring at each other. “No paparazzi,” I say because I don’t know what else to say. “That’s a first.”
She laughs, the sound of it forced and hallow. “Give it time,” she says flippantly. “They don’t know I’m here—yet.”
Right.
Because I stopped her from being kidnapped and then turned around and pretty much kidnapped her myself. As soon as word gets out, this place will be crawling with photographers and fans, all of them looking for her.
And as soon as they know where she is, the guy who tried to take her last night will know too.
“Are you sure I can’t get you back to New York?” She looks around nervously. Like she’s thinking the same thing I am and standing on a public sidewalk makes her feel exposed. “I can call my pilot and—”
“No.” I laugh because she says it so casually. Like she has no idea how ridiculously privileged she sounds. “I’ve hit my daily limit on private planes.” I smile at her. A real smile in an attempt to soften my refusal because she’s trying to be nice and the least I can do is let her. “And I have no intentions of leaving you alone until I talk to your brother.”
The corners of her mouth tighten slightly but she doesn’t argue like she did in the car. Doesn’t tell me that she doesn’t need my help or protection. “How about a shower then,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Maybe some clean clothes.”
I look down at my soot-streaked shirt. My dirty hands. The black grime under my fingernails. I catch my reflection in the hotel’s gigantic glass door. Black streaks on my face. My hair plastered to my head by the club’s fire suppression system and dried stiff against my scalp.
If my father could see me now, he’d have a stroke.
Look at your
self, Mijo. You can’t go see your sister and her new baby like that.
“Where are you going to get clothes that’ll fit me?” I chuckle at the thought because every guy I’ve ever seen her with is half my size.
“You’ve never met my brother.” Like she takes my question as a yes, she turns toward the hotel and makes her way through the main entrance.
I tell myself no.
Just escort her to her room.
Make sure she’s safe and find her brother.
Tell him what’s up, hand him the reins, and leave. I’ll catch an Uber to Logan and shower there. Make myself presentable before I go see Silver and the baby.
Plan formed, I follow her.
It takes the doorman a moment to recognize her but when he does, he trips over himself to accommodate her, stumbling out a welcome home, Miss Delilah while he scrambled to open the door and tip his hat at the same time.
She smiles at him and says Thank you, Frank, it’s good to be back as she moves through the door. Stops at the front desk to let them know she’s checking in, setting off a flurry of activity behind it because no one knew she was coming. “Nat—do you know if my brother is here?” she asks, calling the front desk clerk by her first name like they’re old friends.
“He’s not, Miss Fiorella,” the woman at the front desk tells her, flicking a quick, assessing glance in my direction. “He left early this morning—” She looks at me again. “He was carrying an enormous stuffed giraffe and a bouquet of daisies—said something about being an uncle again.”
“Okay—can you let me know if he comes back?” she says, giving the desk clerk a friendly smile while the woman she called Nat nods, openly stares at me because I’m not anything close to what she’s used to seeing with Delilah—not without an armload of packages or pushing a broom behind her.
I try not to let it bother me but it does.
“Thanks, Nat.” She smiles again and walks away, toward a huge indoor waterfall that tumbles and splashes into a koi pond. On our way there she smiles and says hello to every employee she sees. Calls them by name.
