No More Masquerade

by Angel Payne

  My heart raced up my throat then back down again. I knew that tone. Flustered. Embarrassed. A little aroused. It was what Killian did to any woman with a pulse.

  I shook my head hard—and beat back my imagination. He was somewhere up near Los Angeles. Wasn’t that what Ian Charles had told me, just five hours ago?

  No. He’d said Kil was there three weeks ago.

  “Wh-what’s his name?” I had to focus to force the words out.

  “That’s just it. We don’t know. He won’t tell us. All he says is your name, over and over again. One of our case workers finally calmed him a bit, enough to get your phone number from him. Are you by chance missing a relative or a loved one? A tall man with dark hair and a beard—”

  “A what?”

  “Well, he’s rather dirty. The beard might be recent. But he has really striking dark eyes. And a cute smile, when he uses it.”

  The voice again. That pull every woman had to him, even when he was filthy and incoherent and—

  Alive.

  He was alive.

  And just fifteen minutes away.

  Tears welled and spilled. My heart leapt back to my throat then did several laps of joy around my chest. Possibilities pinged through my head like a ricocheting bullet while I threw on clothes like a madwoman. None of them matched; Hal and the gang would have a blast ribbing me with cracks about resembling Bozo the Clown but I didn’t care. The crazy on the outside matched the crazy on the inside right now, and they could all write about it until next year’s Oscars for all the shits I gave.

  “Thank God.” The sob in my voice was evident. Karin laughed a little and I joined her. It was the best damn laugh I’d had in a long, long time. “And thank you,” I blubbered to her. “Thank you so much for calling. I live very close. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes or less.”

  “That’s great, honey.”

  “Karin!”

  “Yes?”

  “Do not let him out of your sight. Please…please. If he’s the man I think he is, he’s been missing for three weeks.”

  Her gasp was audible. “Oh, my goodness.”

  “He’s also my fiancé—and I can’t live without him, Karin. Okay?”

  “Yes. Okay. But hon, you need to do something for me in return.” She breathed deep, a wordless decree for me to do the same. “Calm down. Got that? I’ll make sure they don’t let him leave but you have to make sure to get here in one piece. I’ll let him know you’re coming—”

  “No!” I forced in the deep breath despite my panic. “Please. If it’s possible—”

  “I understand,” the nurse assured. “We won’t spook him any more than he already is.”

  “Thank you so much. My god, thank you.”

  “Be careful, Claire,” she stressed one more time. “We’re already very busy tonight. We don’t want to be admitting you to the bed beside him.”

  I hung up, mentally promising to ensure the woman was given a medal of honor and a raise by the next morning.

  A rustle from the doorway snapped my head back up. Margaux stood in the portal, obviously having overheard everything that just happened. “You want me to go with you?”

  Who was this woman and what had she done with my wicked stepsister? No time for contemplating the answer. “Thank you, Margaux, but no. I’m terrified he’s going to bolt again, so I’ve got to go solitary and stealth on this one.” I dragged my hair into a ponytail and ran a cold cloth across my face, stripping off the makeup I hadn’t bawled away already. “Let’s just hope I return with Killian by my side.”

  Margaux dragged me into a fast hug. The woman seemed determined to unleash every shocker in the book on me tonight. “Call if I can help. You have the digits.”

  I gave her a watery smile. “I do. And thanks.”

  “Do you mind if I still crash here?”

  “Well, you’re sure as hell not driving in that condition.” I had no idea where my teasing tone came from. Sobering, I added, “Of course. Make yourself at home. I’ll—we’ll—try not to wake you when we get back.”

  I grabbed my purse and was out the front door in a flurry. Behind me, Margaux slid the deadbolt in. The sound cracked through the night, hard and brittle, an aural embodiment of every nerve ending in my body. Could the night get any more bizarre?

  I regretted the question as soon as it entered my senses. Every time I’d asked it, fate hadn’t been good to me with the answer. As I ran to the car, I prayed things would be different this time.

  Chapter Twelve

  Killian

  I woke up in a blinding crash of pain. And consciousness. Neither had been remotely familiar for—

  How long?

  Not fucking long enough.

  I groaned. It hurt. A lot. “Fuck. Gaaahhh.” After managing to connect the heels of my palms to the sockets of my eyes, I tried to sit up. The world spun. I fell back.

  Oh, this was going to hurt, too. But I was used to that. It was a fast lesson when the floorboards of train cars and the cement of alleys were a guy’s bed pillows. Not that I hadn’t been tempted to indulge in a motel from time to time—or hell, a suite at the fucking Ritz, given the billions that were sitting in my bank account courtesy of the Stone Global board of directors and their “emergency session decision”—but that all required becoming a somebody again. And figuring out what that name meant. What I meant.

  “No.” The denial sputtered out of me just as my head hit a pillow.

  Goddammit.

  Pillows meant I had to be somebody. And face all the disgusting ramifications of that.

  “No.” I repeated it with more force. “Uh-uh. Not now. No way.”

  Fast footsteps approached. As they got nearer, the shadows around me were killed by blinding light. “Well, hello there. You’re awake again.”

  Again?

  “Uhhh. Yeah.” I forced my eyes open. A field of bright pink parrots made me yearn to lose whatever shit lingered in my stomach. The Jimmy Buffett tribute was joined by the smell of roses and mint. Feminine scents. Nice, but not Claire—so it didn’t agonize me to smell them.

  “Welcome back.” The woman had a pleasant, comforting voice, as well. “Did you sleep well?”

  I sucked in a hard breath. The roses and mint disappeared. “Shit,” I spat. “Something smells.”

  “That would be you.”

  She touched my chest. I jumped a little. Cold fingers. No. A stethoscope.

  A stethoscope?

  Battling the Tilt-a-Whirl of the room—don’t fucking go there; do not think about Tilt-a-Whirls—I peered around, forcing myself to focus on my surroundings. I was in a bed, with rails caging me in from both sides. The room was so clean I wondered why it didn’t squeak. There were monitors and other medical shit on carts in the corners. Glass jars lined the counters, filled with white things in various shapes.

  “Where the hell am I?” I only muttered it but sounded like the biggest dick on the planet, anyway. At this point, it was probably a good thing.

  “Mercy Hospital. Emergency Room.” The woman, with a name badge identifying her as Karin, punched fingers at a screen displaying what looked like my chart. I lurched forward, heart beat at my ribs, until I observed the writing under “Patient Name.”

  John Doe.

  Thank fuck.

  “Got it,” I returned, ignoring how good it felt to play CEO again for a second. “But where?”

  Nurse Karin cocked a curious look back at me. “San Diego,” she filled in. “But you knew that, right?”

  I dropped my gaze. She was peering too hard now. Trying to match the filthy homeless guy in front of her to the educated clip of my voice. I’d said too much. Less than ten words, and it had all been too much. I needed to get the fuck out of here before she connected the dots.

  “Why the hell would I know that?” I mumbled. That much was the truth. The last city I’d been coherent enough to look at city signs in was Malibu. I’d liked it there. The TV and film crews always left food behind when they w
ere done shooting for the day.

  Somehow, I’d made it back to San Diego. Wasn’t a damn bit surprising. Though my mind hadn’t been along for the trip, my body and my soul were, guiding me back to where I’d be nearest to Claire. The cognizance of it was comforting. And terrifying.

  I didn’t want to be comforted. Or terrified. Or anything. It was time for another drink. A lot of another drinks. And another nameless alley. Another big city where I’d be just another face in the crowd.

  “Are you from around here?”

  Her question had that lilt to it. The I’m-trying-not-to-act-too-interested pitch. I glanced at her from the curtain of my eyelashes. She didn’t break stride in her tasks while issuing it. Yeah, she was after something. But what? Dammit, how long had I been here? And what had I said without knowing? My chest tightened. My nerves spiked.

  Again, so much feeling. Too much. There were a few too many steps between this and the other feelings now. The betrayal. The humiliation. The dark gold eyes of the gorgeous redhead, glaring like I’d turned into a beast as she watched. One of the dragons we’d always fought together…

  “No.” I gave it as much as an order to the thoughts as an answer to the nurse. Restlessness clawed my veins. I jerked at the bed rail on the right. “Listen, I feel fine now. I’m going to get out of—”

  “Now, sweetie. What’s your rush?”

  The lilt again. She’d changed it up a little this time, infusing the nonchalance with enough “concern” to sound genuine to an untrained ear. The poor woman had no idea she was talking to someone who’d once made a damn good living out of reading deception in people.

  I channeled that inner CEO while bracing both hands to the bed rails. Though I kept my head down against my bare chest, I knew the exact angles of my arms and set of my shoulders that would convey enough command for my purpose. “So many questions, Nurse Karin. Maybe it’s my turn to ask you one.”

  That got her to stop tapping at the smart pad. Though she’d settled on a swiveling stool, she hadn’t felt the need to rotate the thing—until now. “If you think it’ll help,” she offered. “You seem confused, Mr.…?”

  “Nice try.” I jabbed my head toward the door. “Why don’t you just tell me how many people are out in your waiting room.”

  She stopped swiveling. “Pardon me?”

  “How many?” I persisted. “It’s noisy out there. I can hear it from in here. You’re busy tonight, right? It’s probably Friday or Saturday…”

  “Friday,” she confirmed. “Technically, Saturday morning. The bars just closed and they graduated a fresh crop of Marines today, so—” She audibly clamped her jaw shut. “You shouldn’t be concerned with any of this. You need to simply rest.”

  “And you need my bed.” I made the logic easy for her. I may not have been a CEO anymore but I sure as hell hadn’t forgotten how to win a client. “And I don’t. So I’m—”

  “Karin.” Another nurse appeared in the doorway. She wore parrots, too. They must have all gotten drunk one night and dared each other to hit the wild-n-crazy bin on the Smocks-R-Us website. “Phone call came in while you were doing intake on bed three.”

  “Oh?” Karin’s cheeks flushed as pink as her shirt. “Was it Billy? Was he able to get the Comic-Con tickets?”

  “Sorry, no. It was a woman. Claire something? Says she’s parking right now and—”

  “Shit.”

  Karin hissed it as I jolted my head up. And yanked the monitor leads off my chest. And flung every stitch of the sheet off my legs with one sweep. She repeated it as I grabbed the left bed rail and catapulted myself over it.

  “‘Shit’ is a damn good way to put it, Nurse Karin.” I crashed against the wall but by the grace of fucking God, kept my footing. Okay, I was a little dizzy. A lot dizzy. And probably dehydrated. And hungry. Make that starving.

  But all of that was manageable. I liked it that way, dammit. Thirst, hunger, equilibrium—the basics, right? The easy stuff to handle.

  Claire in the parking lot was not the easy stuff.

  The pain she’d infuse in the air. The questions she’d sear from her eyes. The accusation. The anger.

  And the love.

  Ah, fuck…the love.

  The stuff Killian Stone had known how to handle.

  The stuff Killian Klarke had no idea what to do with.

  My body reacted to the recognition exactly as I’d expected. Fear and loss, consuming and icy, balled in my chest and raged out to my extremities. I forced my body to crash past the icicles, my steps jerky and desperate as I raced into the hall. Directional signs were everywhere, pointing toward the main exit, all but announcing where she’d be coming from. Made my decision all the easier. I lurched and lumbered the opposite way, scrabbling down the hallway toward my escape.

  “No!” Karin’s cry was urgent as the chase she gave, though she skidded to a stop as I did when reaching the back exit door. “Please,” she cried. “Please—don’t!”

  With one hand on the knob, I swung to glare at her over my shoulder. There’d been no time to grab my shirt, not that I cared. I was drenched in sweat, breathing hard, and beyond happy I’d be out in the night air instead of standing here, dealing with the searching pity in her eyes—and the silent questions beyond that. The ones I watched forming now, as the light of recognition began to finally hit her. As she looked at the man beneath the beard and the dirt—and snapped it into a name. Then let all the questions in. The same queries, silent and bewildered, I’d seen all over SGC’s lobby after Trey’s fireworks show. The same wordless wonderings pelted at me from the crowd at the bar after the skirmish with Scooby Doo.

  Isn’t that the dude who used to be the hotshot billionaire? What’s his name now?

  How’d he deal with that lie for so long? And why?

  Didn’t he love his real parents? Didn’t they love him?

  Did his girlfriend know? Did he even tell her?

  I clenched my teeth against the craving to scream at them all. Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

  I really needed to get out of here.

  I really needed a goddamn drink. Then three dozen after that.

  I needed to be alone with my ugliness. Quasimodo in the solace of my bell tower.

  “Killian.” Karin visibly shook when I flinched at her invocation. I hadn’t heard the word in weeks, and it hit me like acid now.

  “Don’t,” I spat back. My voice was harsh as sand on glass and felt the same way but the command was there, fueled by my desperation. “Don’t say it again.”

  “Fine. I won’t. But that doesn’t change what she needs—and that’s you. I only spoke to her for a few moments but even then, I could hear such desperation in her voice, such pain—”

  “Enough.”

  It caused the woman to back off by a step. I almost smiled. It should have been vindicating, knowing I could still physically affect people with the power of one word. But one compassionate nurse in a hospital hall was a huge difference from boardrooms filled with captains of empires. And the beast I’d become was a much different creature than the mask I’d worn.

  Karin didn’t move from her new location. But she did tuck her hands together in front, and gently offer, “She loves you, you know. Deeply.”

  I raised my head again. Drove all the burning pain of my glower into the woman. “No, Nurse. She loves a lie. A man who doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “I know what I heard over that phone line, Mr. Klarke.”

  “Good night, Karin.”

  *

  For a few hours, I let the city simply swallow me. After buying a T-shirt and a bottle of vodka from a tourist trap liquor store, I wandered through the quiet streets, letting my thoughts settle on a new plan. Returning to LA was the logical choice. The city swallowed people every day. I was faceless and free—and it was comforting, in a strange way, to know I could see Claire’s beloved ocean every day. Mexico also wasn’t off the board. I knew about colonies of ex-pats who lived there. They’d let me blend in with
out the damn questions first.

  Before long, I ended up in Balboa Park, my soul guiding me toward a path near the zoo. I sat on a bench shrouded by shadows from banana palms, listening to the restless growls of the nocturnal animals…my kindred spirits tonight.

  I opened the booze but didn’t drink it. As my senses cleared even more, I was able to hear the giant paws of those animals in the dirt, pacing back and forth in their “habitats.” I grunted in commiseration. Life in the zoo. Not always free food and lounging in the sun. I understand, guys.

  My chest tightened again. A comprehension struck.

  The cage had been my world for so long—but in many ways, wasn’t I still living in it? The view was different, the bars painted a new color, but I was still trapped. Still trying to break free, to disappear.

  But it sure as hell didn’t mean I could pick up where I left off, either.

  I was still lost. But maybe it was time to root the bell tower in one place for a while.

  A couple of hours later, I watched the sun turn the sky pink over the waters of Mission Bay before tromping down the dock at Marina Village. At the end of the walkway, I turned right, hopping onto the forty-foot vessel moored in the slip there. I opened the cabin and climbed down inside, flipping on switches and nodding when observing all was in place…just the way I’d specified when having the yacht built, six months ago. I had originally intended the boat to be a wedding present for Claire, so just stepping on board was like tearing off another scab.

  After tossing the unconsumed vodka into the trash chute, I climbed back out onto the deck. Then climbed higher. As the sun started glowing across the water, I yanked out the burner phone that I’d stopped for after leaving the park. Punching in the digits felt odd yet comforting, like turning up the volume on a song I hadn’t heard in a while.

  “Hello?” I smiled when the familiar voice filled the line, already bolstering my spirit and strengthening my resolve.

  “Alfred.” I sucked in a deep breath. “It’s me.”

  The man exhaled hard. “Thank God.”