by Angel Payne
“Emma.”
I’m not given an answer beyond the thrum of the freeway beneath the car—unless fury really can have a sound; in which case, she’s blowing my eardrums out with the shit.
“Emma.”
“What?” Her bite is like a nail splitting wood. Appropriate, since I’m damn sure she’s close to boarding up every square inch of herself to me now, and we’ve barely cleared Carpinteria.
“It’s not what you think.”
As soon as it’s out, I have to swallow back the bile that comes up with it. Christ. I’ve become the cliché I always used to laugh about. Needless to say, I don’t blame Emma for her sour chuckle.
“It must be that bad, or you must be that desperate.” She turns her gaze out the window, but the ocean is a blanket of black. I clench my jaw, glancing at the reflection of her face illuminated by the dashboard. The corners of her eyes are tight. Her mouth is taut, telling me her own teeth are locked—and betraying the real driving force behind her anger.
Not hurt. Not sadness.
Fear.
Of what?
And the fact that I’m even posing the question illuminates how badly I’ve driven the nails into my coffin on this one.
“Fuck.” I grip the wheel tight enough to squeak my fingers on the leather. “I should’ve been more upfront with you about this since the beginning.”
Her laughter gains a new pitch. “You think?”
I push out a huff. “But RRO was taking up so much of your time…”
“Which was why you pulled the strings to get it up and running so fast? Damn it, Reece.” Her outburst is justified as soon as I give her a culpable glance instead of an instant denial. “So…what, then? It was time to get me out of the way? Why?”
“Shit.” Another measured breath. “Not ‘out of the way,’ Emma.”
“Just too busy to notice you were up to something behind my back with someone named Sally.”
“Not what you think.”
“Stop saying that! You have no idea what I’m thinking!” She gathers up a knee, wrapping both arms around it before uttering, “Damn it. I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I think I have a few good ideas.”
Her laugh is pure bitterness now. “This ought to be good.”
I swallow hard. Fight the urge to reach for her. But even that won’t narrow the real canyon of distance between us now. The gorge I’ve carved with my own actions. Only one thing will accomplish that right now. The honesty I still can’t give her in full.
Maybe, if I give her what I can, it’ll be a good enough patch on the wound. At least for now.
I have to try. No matter how ugly it gets.
Without taking my eyes off the road, I head in before I can talk myself out of it.
“Dumbshit.”
Her head snaps up. “Excuse me?”
“Dumbshit,” I repeat. “That’s what you called yourself at first, when seeing my phone back at the hotel. I’m right, aren’t I? It was either that or some variation of it. Maybe pinhead. Or box of rocks. Or dipstick. Yeah, probably dipstick. You really like that one.”
A beat. Another. I look over, unsurprised to see her dazed blinks. “I…really…what?”
“I know them all, Emma. Every awful thing you’ve invented to call yourself, thinking it’ll help you atone for the sin of wanting a life beyond what you had in the OC.”
“Excuse me?” She drops the leg. Pivots hard in her seat to fully face me. “I do not regret any decision I’ve made.”
“Except when you have to explain any of them to your mother and father.”
“All choices that led me to meeting you, remember?”
“Haven’t forgotten for a second, sweetheart.” I dare to hope the tender delivery will let me take her hand. I’m wrong. She’s even more livid. The knee comes back up, this time joined by the other one.
“So that’s what I did, huh?” she bites out. “Flogged myself because of a message like that on your phone?”
“Didn’t say that.” I lower my hand to the console between us. I’m not giving up completely yet. “I just said that was the beginning of your reaction.”
“Ohhh, right,” she returns drily. “Sure. The beginning. That led to…what? Come on,” she prompts when I tighten my jaw. “Inquiring minds do want to know.”
“Okay.” I pull in a deep breath. Keep my eyes on the road, though I can sense the continued intensity of her stare. “Like I said, you went for the dipshit self-label first but backed off fast because you figured it might be a work colleague or one of my direct-reports from the hotel. Yet after pulling up the profile and seeing there’s no last name on it—”
She slices me short with a sharp huff. “I wouldn’t go digging in your phone like that, Reece.”
“Because you trust me?” I arch my right brow. “Or because you’re afraid of what you’d find?” When she’s eerily quiet, I dare a glance over—to read the confirmation of my second question all but tattooed across her gorgeous face. Damn. For all her taunts about my off-track claims, I’ve struck the very meat of her heart. Though I feel like crap about it, I take advantage of her distraction to finally land the handhold. “Velvet. You have full digging rights, okay?”
“Even when it comes to Sally?”
Despite the jab of the words, she doesn’t try to get her hand back. Relief drives part of my ready reply. “Especially when it comes to Sally.” I don’t hide the severity of my next inhalation. “Whom I should’ve told you about the second I set up that profile in the phone.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Again, I reply with my truth. All of it. “I wasn’t sure you’d understand me. Or even believe me.”
She stiffens. “Why the hell wouldn’t I?”
I firm my jaw in lieu of stealing another peek at her. I can’t risk exposing any more of my fucking remorse about my past—and my fears about how it keeps haunting our present. “You moved to LA for the opportunity of a bigger world, not to fall for the planet’s most prominent player. But he fell for you too, which made everything okay—at first.” I pause, letting the truth of the words resonate—and hating that they likely do. “Deep down, you’ve been wondering when the paint will wear off the tiger and you’ll learn he hasn’t changed his stripes at all.”
As I dread—and expect—there’s nothing but a long silence from her side of the car. After the better part of another mile, she finally lifts her head and murmurs, “That’s what you think I think, huh?”
I send an anvil of fuck-my-life down the length of my throat. “And I pounded the high score on it, didn’t I?”
She draws in an audible breath. As she lets it out, I expect her at last to yank back her hand. Instead, she twines her fingers tighter against mine—before muttering, “Reece Richards, you are so full of shit.”
So much for resisting the need to stare. Because now I do, with a jab of bewilderment, as she leans over until she’s leaning on the console, nearly in my face with accusation.
“And now that we’ve gotten the easy excuse out of the way, why don’t you tell me who ‘Sally’ really is and why he has you dropping everything like a criminal on the run?”
EMMA
“Damn it.”
Reece’s growl is an unnecessary embellishment. He’s already given away just how much of his mark I’ve struck just with the strain of his shoulders against his shirt and the clench of his hands on the steering wheel. Those two elements alone turn him into a commercial for raw virility, but with the gleaming silver of his gaze, I’m beyond tempted to point out the next rest stop and suggest we screw away our frustrations.
But not everything can be handled the easy way.
Not all my anger can be simply screwed out of my head.
Not every hurt can be erased so easily from my heart.
As I work my hands against opposite elbows, nearly clawing myself to contain the wet stings behind my eyes, he grits, “How’d you figure that out?”
“That you really are as skittish as a criminal?” I chuff, implying just how transparent he’s made that part. “Or that ‘Sally’ isn’t the casual lover you’d want anyone to assume if they happened to be spying at your cell screen?”
He lets out a peeved bull snort. “You’ve really put all that together in the last half hour?”
“You’re not in bed with a bimbo anymore, mister.” I tilt my head. “But you’re willing to risk having the world think that, aren’t you? If even one intrepid photographer catches your phone screen from the right angle…”
“They won’t discover a thing.” His entire body tenses now. “Goddamnit, you know they wouldn’t, Emma.”
He leans over, again snagging my hand with his, but I yank free again in seconds.
Then scrutinize him hard—as the underlying truth of all this really hits.
This isn’t about believing what he’s already said. It’s about questioning what he hasn’t.
“But Sally is somebody.” I gesture at the speedometer, reading twenty digits past the speed limit, and then out at the open highway in front of us. “You. This. Criminal behavior. I’m not imagining this, mister.”
After a silence filled with nothing but his long inhalation, he says quietly, “No. You’re not.” A glance exposes the curious glint in his eyes. “But how did you know she’s really a he?”
“I didn’t.” I lower my hands. Shrug quickly. “Until just now.”
“Fuck.” He shakes his head as I free up a light laugh. “You’re a minx.”
“Wellll…” I seesaw my head. “Maybe just a minx with damn good instincts.”
“And girl-balls as big as that ocean.”
“And a body that drives you crazy.”
“But a mind that drives me crazier.”
His voice’s descent into gritty seduction dips my body deep into molten arousal. I shift in my seat, gnawing the inside of my cheek to recheck my composure. Damn it. Pulling over for a quickie really isn’t an option when one’s boyfriend is attempting to break the land speed record for the Santa Barbara-to-LA run—especially when I’m still in the damn dark as to exactly why.
“You’re not playing fair, mister.”
The corner of his elegant mouth curves up. “Because I play to win.”
His hands don’t move off the wheel, though he might as well have slipped one under my dress and into my crotch. Dear hell, the man and his grin make me as wet as a schoolgirl pining for her hot science teacher. “And ‘Sally’ is going to help you win against…who?”
And just like that, he’s back to driving the luxury car as if he’s barreling a tank into battle. His face hardens into the same solid steel. “I’m not sure you want the answer to that, sweetheart.”
Just as swiftly, my own mode shifts into a new gear. Goodbye, dewy schoolgirl. Hello, freshly pissed girlfriend. “Are you really falling right back into that game, player? Because the last round didn’t teach you that I’m not falling for that bullshit?”
For a long second, I get no reply but a pronounced tick in his jaw. But just when I’ve resigned myself to spending the rest of the drive back to LA in thick silence, he gives the wheel a hard right and swerves the car to a stop along the shoulder in the darkness between Dulah and Ventura.
“What the—”
But then there’s no time for breathing, let alone forming words. Reece surges into my personal space, star fire reflected in his gaze. No, I mean star fire, like exploding hydrogen and helium. “This isn’t a fucking game, Emma,” he seethes. “Your safety and our future are not fucking games, and that’s exactly what I intend to let those bastards know, okay?”
“Those bastards who?” The words stammer from me right before their meaning finally wallops me. “Holy…shit.” Now I’m the one forcing him to stay close, gripping the front of his shirt. “Are you…telling…”
He flattens a hand atop mine. Meets my gaze with more unblinking star fire. “We’re going to do it quietly, baby. And carefully. You know what they say, right? Keep your friends close, but your enemies—”
“That idiot never had enemies like the Consortium!”
Assaulted by too many violent emotions at once, I let him go and lurch out of the car. The wind off the sea whips at my hair and pelts salt on my face, only making a minor dent in the heat of my fury.
Reece slams the door on his side of the car. “Damn it.” His growl slices the air. “They’re dangerous, Emmalina. To a lot of people besides just me.”
“So you’re deliberately declaring war on them?”
“Not war.”
“Oh?” I stomp away as he approaches. The sight of the vast blackness beyond the guardrail is a perfect companion for my despairing senses. “What, then? Where, exactly, am I getting these semantics wrong?”
“It isn’t war.” His steps are determined crunches in the gravel. “We’re doing it in unconventional ways. With opaque ops, small hits, and untraceable sabotage.”
“Doh.” I sweep up a hand, smacking it back down to my forehead. “Sorry. My bad. I must have missed the memo when terms like that weren’t a bunch of fancy words for warfare.”
He juts his jaw. Plants his hands on his hips. “War takes participation by two or more parties.”
“Riiight.” I drop my head, nodding hard. “So you’re just terrorists, then. Is that it?”
He throws up his arms. “Christ, Emma.”
“He’s not going to help you, Reece. Not after those assholes own you again.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Why?” I whirl back around, stabbing the accusation of my stare into him. “Because you’re hiding it better this time? Because you still ‘got a guy’? Is that who ‘Sally’ really is? And if the Consortium gets wise to him, you think they won’t be able to trace all the subterfuge back to you anyway? You really think the cheerleader call signs and the coded texts are going to throw off a bunch of geniuses who’ve mastered electronics so well they’re using it to alter human beings?” When he doesn’t say a damn thing to any of that, the backs of my eyes become furnaces—though fury is no longer the accelerant. His silence has now sparked my bone-deep fear. “Damn it, Reece. Do you seriously think the entire world is going to take Richards Research at simple face value now? Hey, look everyone. There’s a receptionist in the lobby and real lab stuff in the building. Sure. Okay. Nobody’s going to doubt that shit isn’t exactly what you say it is now.”
With disarming grace, he covers the two steps remaining between us. With unnerving calm, he pulls me into his arms. “But shit is exactly what we say it is.” He meets my glower with steady conviction. “The lab is fully functioning, Emma. We are doing legitimate research there. I can say that to you with certainty because I’m monitoring every damn stage of it.”
“What?” I don’t sugarcoat my surprise. “And you’re the resident science geek now?”
He rocks his head back and forth. “Well, yeah. It’s been somewhat of a hobby my whole life.” His lips quirk, hesitant and awkward as my frown deepens. “In college, I actually minored in bioscience management, thinking I’d expand the Richards portfolio into hospitals and research centers for modern disorders.”
I shift back, feeling thoughts line up like dominos and then tumble perfectly into one another. “And now, you’re doing just that—only you’re researching the cure for your own disorder.”
“Ahhhh.” His mouth softens back into a smile before he presses a kiss on my nose. “See? I do love you for more than your sexy-as-fuck body.”
I ignore his obvious bait, instead chasing the bigger conclusion. “And if you discover a way to reverse what the Consortium did to your blood…”
“Their ‘disease’ will be rendered as obsolete as polio.”
A thrill bursts through me. “They’ll be destroyed.”
“Yeah.” His nostrils flare, working with the elements to turn him into an even more alluring sight of primal beauty. “They sure as hell will be.”
I fight of
f the urge to kiss him. Barely. A rush of perplexity helps, hitting me as fast as the excitement did. “Okay, so why not focus everything on that?” I challenge. “Why all this extra bullshit?” I push my forehead into the dip between his pecs, blasting a harsh huff against the muscled contours. “You’re poking the bear in all the wrong ways—and he has big fucking teeth.”
“Yeah?” His comeback is too flippant for my comfort, but I let him drawl on, “Well, a bear that’s busy digging thorns out of his ass is less dangerous than one pillaging the forest.”
My shoulders sag. “Good point,” I mumble.
“Damn good point.” He tugs me closer, resting his chin atop my head. “Especially because we likely won’t reach any kind of research breakthrough for a year, if we’re lucky and if we keep the rockets at full burn.” He dips his face down, pushing a heavy breath into my hair. “And that’s three hundred and sixty-five days too many if you’re strapped to a steel table at the mercy of a whack job with a one-eighty IQ.”
His utterance ensures I gain a few pricks of my own to contend with now—luckily not in my backside. But every one of them jabs at my psyche, bringing new understanding to his crazy actions. “The ones you had to leave behind,” I finally murmur. “At the lab in Spain.”
In the chest beneath my ear, his heartbeat intensifies. I swear I can hear the ache in every thump resonate.
“I wasn’t the one who deserved to get away, Emma.” When I attempt to negate him, even with a soft shove, his grip turns to iron and his stance stiffens to stone. “It’s the truth, goddamnit, and I refuse to add pretty filters just to make it easier to look at.” He swallows hard. “For whatever reason, I got the means to get out of that hellhole—though every day since then, I’ve truly wondered why.”
Only then does he pull back, but he keeps me close by grasping the sides of my face. His touch pulses at my hairline, hot and urgent. And the starlight in his eyes… Dear God. It’s the beautiful stuff this time. The glimmering, mesmerizing, take-my-breath-away light, making my chest hurt because of its resplendence.
At last, with the same mix of sorrow and tenacity, he speaks again. “So yeah, baby, I’m going to poke the damn bear. I’m going to stab that fucker if I have to. As hard as I can, as much as I can, in any way I possibly can—until everyone is free from those fuckers.”
