Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
When the elevator doors opened, every muscle in Victoria’s body went so tight she swore she could feel the pressure on her bones.
Before going into the hallway, she peeked both ways down the corridor. No one was there. Her heels clicked on the granite floor as she sped down the hall.
Wrong? Wrong? Just her entire life.
A short drive later, she pushed open the glass door with the Brad Evans Psychology sign on it. This was her temporary haven—a place where nobody knew who and what she really was.
Tracee, receptionist-admin extraordinaire and best friend, looked up from the monitor on the desk. “How’d it go with the FBI?”
“Fine.” She gripped her briefcase tighter and kept going, craving the privacy of her office. Mercifully, Brad’s door was closed. He’d want an update, something she wasn’t ready to give. At least, not all of it.
“Hey, are you okay?” Tracee asked. The brightly colored beads in Tracee’s hair clicked melodically like a wind chime, telling Victoria her friend was right behind her.
“Fine,” she repeated. “Really.” She dropped her briefcase on the floor and sat behind her desk.
As expected, Tracee stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the doorjamb. "I know you’re a private person, but I can tell something happened, and the only place you’ve been today is the FBI office. I’m here if you want to talk.”
She mustered what she hoped actually passed for a smile. “Thank you. I just need some time to decompress after the meeting.”
Tracee nodded, as if she knew full well Victoria had no intention of opening up. She turned to leave but not before sending her a sympathetic look.
The door closed, and she was finally alone.
Part of her was ready to call in sick for the rest of the day and crack into that ice cold bottle of Chardonnay in her refrigerator.
Then again, day drinking never helped anything, and she really did need to go over her notes.
No matter what, she wouldn’t abandon Aly.
Closing her eyes, she pressed three fingers to her forehead, doing her best to massage the tension. Breathe in, breathe out. Think. What did all this mean for her future?
She swiveled her chair to look out the window onto Fifth Avenue.
The sidewalks were jammed, people hustling to wherever they needed to be.
Taxicabs and buses serpentined from lane to lane, jockeying for position at the traffic lights.
Even from her office five floors up, she could hear the car horns as clearly as if they were right down the hall.
Her gaze drifted from the window, over the pale yellow walls of her office to her most prized possession––her master’s degree in social work.
She’d busted her ass to get that degree, nearly burning out from the stress of working during the day, followed by as many night classes as she could cram in.
One day, she’d hoped to hang her shingle as Dr. Victoria Kelly.
Now that was in serious jeopardy of never happening.
She was thirty-four years old and didn’t want to have to start over again in another city.
It had been difficult enough getting a full set of new ID the first time.
Why did Alex—Kyle—have to come back into her life?
More importantly, would he rat her out? Wasn’t he obligated to tell his agency who she was?
The FBI would have to tell Brad. He could lose his government contracts, all because she’d lied about who she was—to everyone.
Technically, she hadn’t lied. Her name and all her identification were legal, but the FBI wouldn’t see it that way.
When Brad lost all that contract income, he wouldn’t see it that way, either.
She’d be fired. Every dream she’d ever hoped for—her entire future—rested in the hands of one man: Kyle Gates. Correction, Special Agent Kyle Gates. A federal agent sworn to uphold the law, not break it. The way she had. When she’d become a new person, those secrets had died with her former life.
The shock of learning Alex Tarankov was an FBI agent had begun to ease some, but there were other impacts she hadn’t had the chance to consider. His and the FBI’s presence in her life again dredged up all her old insecurities. There was now someone in her present life who knew about her past.
“I’m such an idiot,” she whispered, staring up at the ceiling. She should have seen Kyle for who––and what––he really was. What it solidly confirmed was that she had absolutely no judgment whatsoever where men were concerned.
The room began to spin and she swallowed, taking in deep gulps of air. Throwing up twice in one day would be a humiliating reminder of truths she couldn’t avoid.
Over the years, she’d become a good actress. She’d thought she was stronger, that she was past most of the ugliness that had been her life. Some days, she actually believed it. Other days, it seemed like an act, and that inside she was still the same person who couldn’t stand up for herself.
Suck it up and stop being what you hate most. A coward.
If only Kyle’s presence didn’t leave her feeling exposed, helpless, and unsure again.
If she lost control of her own life, she’d never be able to help others, and that was her job.
Helping people like Aly. It had been all she could to bottle up her fears during the meeting.
There was no one she could talk to about it. No one knew who she’d been, except…
Don’t think it!
Despite the fact Kyle was the only person who had ever made her comfortable enough to speak her mind, good, bad or ugly, she could never talk to him. Once, she’d stupidly believed there was something between them.
She touched her fingers to her lips, remembering.
Nope. Don’t go there, either!
The bottom line was, her entire world was unraveling at light speed.
The fragile shell of self-assurance and self-respect she’d fought so hard to build was on the verge of shattering, and all because of Special Agent Kyle Gates.
She clenched her hands into tight fists. There had to be a way to fix this.
A knock sounded on the other side of her door. Slowly, the door opened a few inches, and Tracee poked her head inside. “Someone’s here to see you. An FBI agent. He’s waiting in reception. Do you want me to bring him in?”
“No need,” a deep voice said from behind her.
The door opened fully. Victoria’s heart galloped as the subject of her thoughts stared back at her.
“Victoria, we need to talk.”
Her next breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t tear her gaze away from his mesmerizing eyes.
She could actually feel it again—that raw power and magnetism.
As it had been then, it was a force she had to resist. The only difference now, was that for her, it was a force to be feared.
“Victoria,” he repeated in a low, rumbly voice. “I did recognize you.”
She’d thought so, but was she the same person now or a different person entirely? Right at this moment, all she knew for certain was all-consuming confusion.
There’d been a time when Kyle’s was the only face she’d wanted to see, dreamed of seeing. For years, she wondered and worried about his fate and why he’d never come to see her at the hospital. Now, after finally reappearing in her life, all she wanted was for him to go away and never see him again.
No, that was a lie. She did want to see him, but she shouldn’t.
Looking back, his deception had been absolute, final, severing all ties to her heart. Today, it sliced through her as sharply as a surgeon’s blade, as did the bitter truth.
He’d only been using her to get to her husband. Her ex-husband, now.
That facade of genuine caring he’d once shown her was nothing more than a deceptive cloak he threw over himself as easily as putting on a jacket. The humiliating facts were staring her in the face. Everything he’d said, everything he’d done, had been part of his undercover role.
He’d never really felt anything for her. She’d been nothing more than a job to him, and probably only an object of his pity.
“May I come in?” he asked in that deep, sensual, bedroom voice she remembered.
Not in the bedroom, though. Theirs had never been a sexual relationship.
In many ways, she’d thought it had been deeper, more meaningful, which was precisely why finding out about him hurt so much more than she could ever have imagined.
“Uh, Vic?” Tracee glanced over her shoulder at him, frowning. “Do you want me to throw him out?”
The thought of Tracee, who was at least a foot shorter than Kyle, forcing him to go anywhere nearly made her laugh. Those powerful shoulders could probably break through a concrete wall.
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s fine. He can stay.” This conversation was inevitable, and she might as well get it over with.
“You sure?” Tracee shot Kyle a look intended to be menacing. He glanced down at her, a corner of his mouth twitching.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She nodded. “But thank you for the concern.”
“If you need me, hit the panic button on the phone. Or just scream at the top of your lungs, and I’ll come running. Brad will come running. We’ll all come running.” Reluctantly, she turned and began closing the door, shooting one last venomous look at Kyle’s back.
With a heavy sigh, Victoria indicated a small armchair opposite her desk, and he sat.
“It’s been a long time,” he said, his expression unreadable. “But I had no choice.”
Kyle. Part of her still couldn’t believe that was his name. It was, quite possibly, the only real thing she knew about him.
“I was told you’d left town,” he continued. “Chicago, that is. And gotten a divorce. A wise move.”
“The wisest I ever made,” she whispered. The tension between them crackled like a loose power cable. Sure enough, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled like a barbed wire necklace. “Why are you here?”
“To see how you are.” The creases on his forehead deepened.