Chapter 17
E ven if I hadn’t known it was only Adam and me in this part of the plane, I was sure my body would’ve reacted the same way. The faltering of my heart before the unruly pounding. The heated shiver that raced up my spine and sent chills dancing across my skin. The soft breath that fell past my lips as I stared straight ahead for long seconds before finally looking over my shoulder to meet pleading eyes and a tense jaw.
“This trip is gonna require a lot of trust on both our parts,” he began, voice soft but firm. “I need you to trust that I’m keeping an eye out for anyone who shouldn’t be there—that I’m keeping you safe—and I need to be able to trust you with what I’m bringing you into.”
I drew back a little as I turned, but all it did was slide my arm through his tan, tattooed hand until he was holding my wrist, his fingers curling against my palm and leaving tingles every place they touched.
“What are you bringing me into?” I asked, hating how breathless I sounded.
His head shook as he took a step closer, forcing me to inhale quickly at the lack of space between us. “That’s just it, Bubbles... I don’t trust you.”
A wave of hurt and embarrassment slammed into me, but when I started pulling my arm from his grasp, he tightened his hold and drew me even closer.
“You lie as easily as you breathe,” he said, his amber eyes bouncing between mine as they searched for some hidden answer. “Why would I trust you?”
My tongue darted out to wet my lips as my head shook. “I really don’t know what you expect or want from me.”
“You.” At my blatant shock, Adam gave a harsh shake of his head and quickly amended, “I wanna see the real you, not the mask you force so everyone thinks you’re all sunshine and rainbows. I wanna know I’m not stepping into a trap by trying to protect you.”
My chest pitched with a strained laugh, but I wasn’t sure if it was out of self-preservation or dejection because I’d just been reminded Adam didn’t see me as anything other than a frustration—and now, a job.
“Why is it so hard for you to accept this is who I am?”
“Because it’s a lie,” he snapped. “I told you, you’re a good liar, Chloe. But I’ve seen glimpses behind the mask, and I swear I just saw the real you for a second before you slipped back into that lie.”
He dipped his head, making me wonder, for a brief moment, what it would be like to push up on my toes and kiss him, but then he continued, and that fantasy abruptly faded. “People like that usually turn out to be threats, Bubbles. Now, tell me why I’d let a threat set foot anywhere near my family. Tell me why I’d let a threat live.”
Horror washed through me, making me feel at once feverish and cold because I knew from the cruel look in his eyes that he meant it.
And for the life of me, I wondered why Asher would send me with Adam, given what’d already happened between us last week, but especially with what Adam was telling me then. Or maybe Asher wasn’t aware of his thoughts...
I tried in vain to swallow, but my throat was suddenly so dry. “I’m not a threat,” I said, the words sounding pathetic, even to me. “I’m not...I’m just...Adam, I dunno how to be anything else but this .”
“I saw a different you not ten minutes ago, so I don’t think that’s true.”
“But I—” I sucked in a startled breath when his free hand curled around the side of my neck, the touch pleading and gentle and so at odds with this conversation.
My head was spinning, and it had nothing to do with the flight.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me that joy is genuine,” he softly begged. “Tell me you’re not hiding behind it. Tell me you aren’t using that infuriating smile to blind people from seeing something you don’t want them to.”
I studied the tension in his jaw and the pleading in his eyes. “I can’t.”
Where I’d expected to see victory, I only saw concerned acknowledgment. Even Adam’s hands seemed to tighten on me for a moment as if begging me to take it back.
Silence engulfed us for long moments before he gave a resigned dip of his head and pled, “Then tell me what you’re hiding.”
My chest started pitching in sharp, too fast breaths as I considered doing exactly that.
But I’d never told anyone this .
“I’m not—Adam, I’m not a threat. I’m not what you—whatever it is you’re thinking I am, I’m not. I just...I have to be this.”
“Why?” he all but begged, drawing me even closer so I was pressed to his chest.
And even though a part of me thrilled at being pressed against Adam Thatcher, the man who had been plaguing my every thought for weeks, I untangled myself from him and maneuvered around him and toward the back of the jet as I struggled to take a deep enough breath.
“Chloe—”
“Why can’t you just let it go?” I cried as tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. “No one has ever—” A strained sob caught in my throat, and my head shook as I struggled to force back all the unwanted emotions.
When his hand slipped around my wrist again, I quickly snatched my arm away and whirled on him. “You’re the only one who’s ever been bothered by who I am. Why does my personality bother you so much?”
“Need you to breathe,” he said instead.
“I need you to leave me alone,” I shot back. “If I frustrate you that much, why not just ignore me the way you have been?”
He blew out a harsh breath through his nose as he studied me. “It isn’t that your personality frustrates me, it’s that I can’t trust it because?—”
“It’s ‘a lie,’” I mocked as I quickly wiped at the tears now sliding down my cheeks. “Then let me live my lie. Whatever I’m doing is not a threat to you or anyone. It’s just what I need to live, so let me do that.”
“Who wants to live a lie?”
“I do,” I practically yelled.
“Chloe . . .”
“Stop saying my name,” I begged as I once again turned away from him. I couldn’t handle the way my body lit up and responded whenever he said my name. I couldn’t handle the way he was looking at me, like he was trying so hard to figure me out. I couldn’t handle this .
I pressed a hand to my rapidly moving chest and tried to focus only on breathing and forcing back the tears that were quick to flow now that they’d begun.
And then I felt him step up directly behind me—tall and commanding and torn.
“No one wants to live a lie, Bubbles,” he murmured in a gentle tone that had my eyelids slipping shut as a quiet sob escaped me. “Tell me why you feel you have to.”
My head moved in slow shakes for so long it almost felt unnatural when I eventually stopped. “Is this why you hate me?” I asked instead of answering his plea. “Because you think I’m harboring some deep, dark secret that’s going to destroy everyone you love?”
“I don’t hate you.”
A disbelieving scoff left me as I once again twisted to face Adam, but before I could call him out on it, he continued.
“I don’t trust you, that doesn’t mean I hate you,” he assured me.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
A subtle, bouncing sort of nod was his only response for a moment before he muttered, “I’m sorry. I know I’ve been...”
“A jerk?”
Amusement left him on a breath. “Intense,” he countered. “But my job for over a dozen years has been to find the people who have something to hide and to eliminate them. You sent out red flags before I ever got up off the floor the first day we met, and I’ve been trying to figure out what we were up against with you ever since.”
“Nothing,” I said on a shocked laugh. “Literally nothing.”
“But I don’t know that,” he argued, gesturing to his chest like it was destroying him to not know without a doubt what was real and what wasn’t.
And if I hadn’t been trying so hard to fight back the emotions breaking free, if I hadn’t been warring over what all to tell him when I’d never shared this with anyone , I might’ve caught onto that. Lingered on it.
Because Adam didn’t look like a man charged with clearing a threat. He looked like a man desperately searching for any confirmation that he could trust the woman in front of him because he wanted to trust her.
But again, I was too wrapped up in my own spiral to notice.
“All right, yeah,” he continued, “I’ll admit my suspicion initially conjured feelings close to hatred, but I don’t—” A frustrated sound left him, almost like a laugh. “I don’t hate you.”
“Comforting.”
“Chloe—”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I said over him, ignoring the way my heart stuttered and butterflies took flight all because he said my name, then straightened my spine. Not that it did anything for my height, considering I still had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye, even with my four-inch stilettos. “Because I just realized that if Asher felt the same way, Lainey wouldn’t be living with me, and he wouldn’t let me work for him. That means it’s only you who has a problem with me—well, and I think Beau. But that’s beside the point because I’m pretty sure Beau hates everyone.”
I waved a hand through the air, dismissing the side ramble. “As much as you having an issue with me bothers me”—and it bothered me more than I wanted to admit—“I’m not gonna bare my soul and tell you every part of my past until you’re satisfied that I’m trustworthy.”
He took a step closer until I could feel the heat from his body and felt myself sway toward him. I could’ve blamed it on the plane, but I knew every part of me was aching to be close to him again. “This is my job,” he said in a gruff tone that still heavily hinted at what he was asking for.
“This is my life that you don’t deserve to know.”
“But I’m supposed to let you see mine?” Gold eyes bored into mine, silently pleading with me and begging me to understand for long moments before Adam rocked back and scrubbed a hand over his face. “This is my family , Chloe.”
“I never asked to go to Colorado and meet your family,” I reminded him. “I thought I was going on a completely different trip, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Trust me, I didn’t want this arrangement either,” he ground out as he gestured between us, making me flinch at the implication. “I fought Briggs on this for hours.”
An oddly dejected-sounding laugh tumbled past my lips. “Well, if you’re worried about your family liking me, don’t be. Other than ridiculously frustrating, tattooed men, people tend to love me. If you’re worried about me getting an inside look at your family, I never asked to meet them.” I tossed my hands into the air, then let them fall until they slapped against my thighs. “Better yet, leave me at a hotel. Then you won’t have to worry about me at all.”
“I’m supposed to be watching you.”
“Because I’m a ‘threat?’” I tossed back mockingly.
“Because you’re in danger,” he reminded me.
Right.
I’d somehow forgotten about the mafia family that was actually threatening me, for whatever reason. Still, I did my best not to let it show that I was bothered by the idea of it and shrugged. “I’ve gone twenty-eight years without you watching me, Superman. I think I can manage another week.”
Before he could respond, I pushed past him and hurried across the small space.
Scooping up my purse, I didn’t stop until I’d made it to the lavatory and had locked myself in. When I twisted to face the mirror, I just barely managed to stifle a groan when I saw the streaks of mascara on my blotchy cheeks.
Fantastic.
What a way to start my trip to not-Aruba.