“Yes. One person, split apart. That’s how I felt when I stopped being Lisa and became Emily. I thought, hey, the Anansi boys did it. I could banish one part of myself, take another and make Emily into a whole person from just that piece. Like a starfish growing from one arm.”
“And you did that.”
“No.” She turned to face him and leaned her hip on the rail. “I didn’t. I pretended to be a whole person, but I ended up as this chunk of animated flesh, pretending to be human.”
“And Dinah is your Cheshire Cat, accompanying you through the looking glass.”
Her lovely mouth twisted in a wry grimace. “A romantic notion. Alice went on an acid trip. I knew what I was doing to myself.”
“I love you,” he blurted, shocking both of them. Fuck it all. He straightened to face her. “I mean it. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone and, I’m sorry, but I fell in love with you, a whole person, not some walking starfish arm.”
If anything, she looked annoyed with him. “You bastard. You don’t know anything real about me and, besides, you have a damn terrible way of demonstrating your love, Raynard.”
* * *
His face flushed, that redhead’s skin that had paled during his time in the Pacific Northwest, showing his freckles. Brown eyes dark with frustration, he glared at her. “I’m trying to apologize for that. Aren’t you listening?”
That pissed her off. It had knocked the wind out of her, to see him leaning against the rail, as if they’d had an appointment to meet, looking handsome and wind-tousled. Just when she’d begun to think she might come through it all okay. She shouldn’t even have talked to him, except that she had this new resolution to see things through, to finish them out, no matter how uncomfortable. And then she’d told him that story, wanting him to understand something about why she’d lied about so much. Why she should never have tried to be in a relationship to begin with. Even just fucking. She’d been fucked all right.
He wanted to apologize and, what? Seduce her again? Surely he had everything he needed for his stories. If not, she’d tell him what he wanted to know. But she couldn’t take any more of the farce.
“Why are you even here, Fox? I don’t believe this is a coincidence. You obviously tracked me, yet again. Look—you got the goods on me fair and square. I lost. You won. I honestly don’t hold it against you because it needed to happen and it’s obviously what you really do. I won’t claim that it didn’t hurt like hell, you booting me out of hiding, but now I’m out in the world again and I’m glad. So save your lame apologies and your false protestations of love. I don’t need them. I don’t want them.”
“First of all—” He broke off and shoved his hands in his coat pockets, fists clenched, and gathered himself, vibrating with tense emotion. “First of all, Emily, I do fucking love you. You can grind my heart under your pretty white boot heel, but there it is where you threw it on the ground. Now, you have a right to be furious with me. I don’t expect you to forgive me. But I do want you know that I apologize. I regret doing the story—and I’ve never regretted exposing anyone in my whole damn career. I like to win and I thought that was more important than anything else. But I was dead wrong. Once I figured out who you were, I should have told you.” He stared off at the boats, eyes hard. “Or walked away. You should know I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“When did you know?” She made herself ask it, needing the answer. When he frowned in puzzlement, she clarified. “Did you know I was Phoenix from that first day or somewhere along the way?”
To her surprise, he blanched, aghast, as if she’d kicked him in the balls. “You think all that time, all the things we did—that I knew? What, that I was playing you? What kind of monster do you think I am?”
“I don’t know what kind of monster you are,” she pointed out, feeling cruel to say it, he looked so wounded. “That’s what I’m asking. When did you know?”
He clenched his jaw and turned away from her, leaning his elbows on the rail and holding his head in his hands. “After you threw me out. That last day. I’d run your background, of course—you should know that—and I knew you’d faked your identity. But I bought the whole stalker story.”
Guilt crawled through her at that. “It was true in essence, if not in detail.”
“Yeah. Brilliant job, really. I took you for an amateur who’d done a so-so cover-up job.”
“That’s what I wanted you to believe. Well, anyone who looked too deeply.”
He laughed, without humor, and scrubbed his fingers over his scalp. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and his hands were mottled with chill. Her California boy would never learn.
“I never told you about my dad,” he said, an odd change of subject.
“There are a lot of things we never talked about.”
“Yeah, well. He was a compulsive gambler. Taught me to play poker, bet on the ponies and the Sweet Sixteen before I learned to read. When I got to kindergarten, I called the letter A an ace. My teacher sent home a note.” Fox shook his head, face set in bitter lines. “It got worse from there. He got me a fake ID and snuck me into the casinos. By the time my mother discovered how deeply he’d put us in debt—multiple mortgages, years of tax evasion—the gambling addiction had become the least of his problems. Even with the evidence laid out on the table, he lied about it. Like he couldn’t tell the difference anymore.”
He looked so devastated by the memory that, absurdly, she nearly moved to comfort him. “Maybe he really couldn’t,” she offered. “It gets hard to keep it all straight after a while. It becomes the new reality.”
“I can see that. And I was wrong, what I said to you. Dead, flat wrong. Of course you had good reasons. I triggered and I have no excuse for it. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
“Just tell me the rest.”
“After I saw those paintings—” he glanced over at her, “—those fucking awful paintings that I knew you couldn’t possibly have cared about and tried to shove down my throat as something you did, I went through and figured out the name switches. Idiot me.”
“Not so dumb.” It impressed her, really, that he’d pieced it together that way. No one else had. She thought she’d covered every crack. “You tracked Phoenix to Lyra, though. That’s why you were there.”
“True enough.” He tapped fingertips together, forearms still braced on the rail. “But—talk about blind spots—I was so convinced Phoenix was a guy that it never once occurred to me it could be you. Not until that moment.”
“It’s a common pitfall of the industry.” A bias she’d leaned on heavily. But another kind of relief washed through her, taking more of the anger and pain away downstream. It had been real. Everything between them, except for a few choice lies of his own, until she’d ended it and forced his hand.
“And you?” Fox inquired, not looking at her. “Did you know all along who I was? I know your cronies tipped you off that I was near.”
It was her turn to feel the shock of the sucker punch, that he could think it of her. But, of course, it would have occurred to him, just as it had to her. What a pair they were.
“Frankly, I got those kind of tips all the time. Paranoid as I was, I’d also gotten arrogant and complacent. I didn’t think anyone would really be able to track me to Lyra. And you told me you didn’t game—I totally believed you.”
“I’m sorry for that lie too.”
“Yeah, well. Tit for tat. I should have seen it, but I just didn’t.” She laughed at herself. “I thought, if anyone, it would be one of the trolls, someone with hacker skills and too much time on his hands. Some neckbeard who lives in his mother’s basement with nothing better to do. Not...” She trailed off because Fox looked at her then, coppery brown eyes intense and full of heat. The way he’d look at her before he seized her and pushed her up against a wall. A flush of arousal hit her. And longing. Could he mean i
t, that he loved her?
It seemed impossible.
“Not what?” he asked quietly, baiting her.
“Not this genius investigative reporter with a body to die for,” she admitted.
He straightened, a smile ghosting over his mouth. “You think I’m a genius?”
“You tracked me to Lyra, didn’t you?” It nettled her that he had. “I’d really love to know how you did it.”
“Enough to forgive me?”
“Maybe.” The possibility rushed through her like spring warmth, fast and full of hope. “I’d need a lot of groveling, however.”
Fox closed on her, putting hands on her hips and backing her against the rail. “You could punish me.”
“You’d enjoy it too much,” she retorted, nevertheless charmed as always, by his resilience, his sheer pleasure in everything.
“True. You could refuse to punish me. Send me away and starve me for the sight of you. It’s what I deserve.” The words purred through her and she lowered her eyes from the intensity of his gaze.
“I already did that.”
“And I starved.”
“Did you?” He did look hungry. She could almost believe he meant everything he’d said. She wanted to believe. Even still. “Tell me how you did it.”
Fox held her gaze. “Inside info on the ISP pull in the region. Even though you bounced it, some readouts were unusually high.”
“That should have blended into the usage for the whole area—Microsoft, Google, all of them.”
He looked ever so slightly smug. “Let’s just say that certain entities narrow it more than that.”
“Like NSA narrow.”
“I have friends.” He shrugged it off. Oh yeah, everybody had a contact or two at NSA. “But they only pointed me to the San Juans. After that, I relied on intuition.”
“You picked Lyra by chance.” Unbelievable.
“Not entirely. I figured anyone who picked Phoenix as an avatar would be drawn to a place named for another Greek myth.”
“Greek myth?” she echoed, feeling a momentary bit of displacement.
“Yeah—the eagle carrying the lyre, retrieving it after Orpheus is murdered. A very similar resurrection myth.” He studied her face. “And you had no idea, did you?”
“No. I picked Lyra because it was as far as I got that day. Playing up the randomness. I chose Phoenix months later. Total coincidence.”
“Not coincidence.” Fox’s hands tightened on her hips. “Connection. Something real and meant that we both recognized. Serendipity.”
“I don’t know what to say to that. No wonder it never occurred to me that someone would find me that way. That you had.”
“When did you know?” he asked, echoing her question.
She made herself look at him. Close enough to kiss. “When Jared told me about the anonymous tip. I knew it had to be you. But...before that. After you left. I had a feeling.”
“And do you have feelings now?”
“I do, but they’re muddled.”
“Do you think we have a chance? Start over, despite it all.”
“I don’t know.” She really didn’t. “I’m still figuring out who I am. How to be a whole person.”
“I know who you are.” He said the words with confidence, with warm urgency. “And you’re perfect. Please say you’ll give me another chance.”
“Does it...” She made herself face it. “Will it bother you that I’m Phoenix—the work I do? Because I won’t stop.”
He laughed, then stopped it when he saw she was serious. “You don’t get it, do you? I fell half in love with Phoenix before I ever laid eyes on you. His—your—brilliance fascinated me. And all along, it was you who obsessed me. In every way. We’re meant. We can do it right this time.”
“I’d like that.” Her heart swelled, with hope, with something more.
“Let’s go get Anansi and Dinah and go. If we can’t catch the last ferry, we’ll grab a hotel in Anacortes and wait for morning.”
“Dinah is still at the house. I left her extra food and her eternal fountain water dish.”
“Damn cat wouldn’t show herself when I looked in the windows,” Fox grumped, scowling in memory.
“You were there?”
“Yes. Glory told me you’d left. And that you’d told her your history.”
“She hates me now.”
“No.” Fox picked up a lock of her hair and ran it through his fingers. “She’s getting over it. She’ll let you make it up to her. Both of us will have to, because I ended up telling her that nobody likes her creamed-chicken casserole.”
She giggled, which snorted out through her nose because she hadn’t expected it. She clapped her gloved hand over her mouth, appalled, but giggled even harder, letting out a full laugh finally. Fox laughed, too, a look of satisfaction on his face.
“I like making you laugh nearly as much as I like making you come,” he confided. “Say we can go back.”
“You hate Lyra.”
“I love anywhere you are. Everywhere else is miserable. Oh—and my mother wants you to come to Iowa for Christmas, but that might be testing your newfound love for me too soon.”
Her heart caught and she steadied herself with her hands on his shoulders. “I don’t know if I love you, Fox. I’m not sure of very much.”
“Yes, you do,” he assured her, smile widening into his trademark charming grin. “Glory even said so. Let’s go tonight.”
“I can’t.” When his expression dimmed, she hurried to add, “Not because I don’t want to. I do. But I have to stay here another day or two. All the PR and legal stuff.”
“To be here when the story breaks.” He didn’t look happy about it.
“Yes.” She gripped his jacket, wanting him to understand. Taking the step to trust him with the information. “We’re meeting it head-on. Full press release, local talk shows. I’m going on TV, Fox.”
“As Lisa White?”
“Yes. All my...selves. Jared’s going with me. The PR whiz kids and the lawyers have it all figured out. If we play it right, all the furor will only boost sales.”
“And you’re okay with this?”
“More than okay.” She found herself nodding. “It feels good. Liberating. We might undercut your splash, however.”
Far from looking displeased, he seemed proud. “If so, points to you, then.”
“A very fair attitude.”
“Well, and they already paid me.” He laughed when she swatted him, then captured her hands and leaned into her. “Let me help. I’ll write reaction pieces, extolling your beauty and bravery.”
She felt herself blushing. “Oh, stop.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” she whispered, as his lips hovered near hers.
“You love me too.”
His face, the look in his eyes, mirrored her own. Truth in that. A bit more of the fear broke away and floated off in the tide.
“I do. I do love you, Fox. God knows what we’ll do about it.”
“I have some ideas,” he murmured, kissing the corner of her mouth. “What are you wearing under this coat?”
Her body heated, matching the burn of love in her blood. “A dress.”
“What kind?”
“Silk, dark blue.” She quivered as he kissed the other corner of her mouth.
“Do you know the photo of you from when you were a debutante, the white gown?”
It had been in the papers, too hard to eradicate all instances, so she’d left it. “I remember.” She turned her head, seeking his mouth, but he held off, teasing her.
“I bought you one like it. I always wanted to fuck a debutante.”
She nearly moaned at the thought. “What else would you do
to her?”
“Let’s find out, shall we? Say yes.”
“Yes.”
“And then you can punish me.” With a wickedly pleased smile, he finally kissed her, brushing her lips with his and then sinking in.
Though his skin felt cool, his mouth burned hot and full of life as everything about him. Bright, vivid and vitally real. She slid her hands around the back of his neck and held on tight, kissing him with equal fervor.
Total win.
* * * * *
Coming Soon
Watch for books two and three in the
FALLING UNDER series by Jeffe Kennedy
UNDER HIS TOUCH and UNDER CONTRACT
Coming in 2015
About the Author
Jeffe Kennedy is an award-winning author with a writing career that spans decades. Her works include non-fiction, poetry, short fiction and novels. She has been a Ucross Foundation Fellow, received the Wyoming Arts Council Fellowship for Poetry, and was awarded a Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Award. Her essays have appeared in many publications, including Redbook.
Her most recent works include a number of fiction series: the fantasy romance novels of A Covenant of Thorns; the contemporary BDSM novellas of the Facets of Passion, including the newest, Five Golden Rings, which came out as part of the erotic holiday anthology, Season of Seduction, in late November; and a contemporary serial novel, Master of the Opera, which released beginning January 2, 2014. A fourth series, the fantasy trilogy The Twelve Kingdoms, will hit the shelves starting in May 2014. A spin-off story from this series, Negotiation, appears in the recently-released Thunder on the Battlefield anthology.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with two Maine coon cats, a border collie, plentiful free-range lizards and a very handsome Doctor of Oriental Medicine.
Jeffe can be found online at her website: JeffeKennedy.com, every Sunday at the popular Word Whores blog, on Facebook, and pretty much constantly on Twitter @jeffekennedy. She is represented by Pam van Hylckama Vlieg of Foreword Literary.
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