Chapter 22
Kat
It wassunny and warm enough for me to sit on the expansive patio of Alex’s penthouse, wearing jeans and a sweater. It was a weekday afternoon, and the city was sprawled out beneath me, relentlessly busy, the cars glinting in the sunlight under a blue sky.
I was feeling pretty good. The bruises on my face had faded, the cut on my ear itched, my arm no longer ached, and I only felt the occasional twinge from my broken fingers. I’d seen a doctor again yesterday, and he’d said the fingers were healing so well that the splint could come off in a week or two.
Physically, I was ready to go back to my life in Nashville. That is, if my would-be murderer was off the streets. Which is why I was on the phone with a Nashville police detective, who was stonewalling me.
“We’re working very actively on your case,” the detective said, obviously a line he’d used a hundred times. “We’re following several leads.”
“Leads? What leads?”
“I can’t tell you that, Miss Sloane. The details of an open investigation are confidential.”
“But it’s my investigation. Into someone trying to murder me. Don’t I get to know what’s going on?”
“Unfortunately not.” He sounded sorry, and at the same time he sounded like he really, really wished I would hang up and go away. “We have a description of the man you saw at the hospital, and a few other things we’re looking at. We’ve also had some input from federal law enforcement.”
That surprised me. “Federal? Like the FBI?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Why is the FBI involved in the men who tried to kidnap me?”
“Again, Miss Sloane, I can’t give you any details.”
This was so frustrating I wanted to throw my phone. “Would you give details if it was Alex Blake calling you, instead of me?” I ground out. Damn Alex and his rich CEO status.
The detective finally sounded annoyed. “Miss Sloane, I don’t care how much money your husband?—”
“Ex-husband.”
“Okay, ex-husband. I don’t care how much money he has or how big his company is. This is a sensitive investigation, and we don’t give out any details while we’re trying to solve it. I’m sorry, but that’s the only answer I can give you. We’ll update you as soon as we can.”
“My life is on hold here,” I told him.
“If you want to come back to Nashville, we can make sure there are extra patrols going past your apartment and the bar you work at. Just let us know when you’re in town and we’ll set it up.”
I told him I’d think about it and we ended the call. After we hung up, I sat staring unseeing, thinking about what he’d said.
If you want to come back to Nashville.
Was that what I wanted? To go home?
I winced to myself. The truth was, Nashville didn’t feel like home. It never had, just like every other city I’d lived in hadn’t either. I’d drifted from place to place, job to job, never thinking past the next day, the next week. I’d told myself I was free from the constraints of my family and my upbringing, but when I looked back now, I realized that I’d been constantly running. Not from someone or something—from myself.
If I kept moving, I didn’t have to think or analyze. I didn’t have to make big plans for the future. I got to pour drinks, collect tips, and fall into bed, so exhausted I couldn’t stay awake another minute. I found men who were allergic to relationships, men who screwed things up, who gave me half-assed satisfaction before they disappeared from my life again. I told myself that was the way I liked it, but the truth was, when I lived my life like that, I didn’t have to try.
Because when you tried, you risked failure. Humiliation. Heartbreak.
I leaned back on the lounge chair and closed my eyes. I couldn’t deny it: I liked it here, in this penthouse, not pouring drinks anymore. This place felt more like home than any place had for as long as I cared to remember.
I told myself it was because of the creature comforts. Who wouldn’t feel at home in a luxurious apartment with everything a person could possibly want? Who would want to leave that and go back to a shabby apartment that some creep had already ransacked?
But that wasn’t the reason. Shabby apartments didn’t scare me, and penthouses didn’t impress me. Sure, I liked a huge walk-in shower and ridiculous-thread-count sheets. But what I really liked about this place was Alex.
Just the thought of him made my pulse beat hard in my throat. I could tell myself it was just the sex—oh, dear God, the sex—but that was a lie. I liked being around him, sparring with him, talking to him. I liked watching him work in those stupid-hot glasses. He had gone to the office for a couple of hours, taking care of things he couldn’t do from home, and I wondered if he wore those glasses when he was at work. If so, I wondered how every woman who worked at the Tower Dallas office hadn’t begged to jump him yet.
In the glasses, he looked like the Alex I’d known a long time ago, but he also looked more adult. Like a grown-ass successful man instead of a boy. It had taken me by surprise the first time I’d seen it, and it had definitely turned me on.
So I’d jumped him—or maybe he’d jumped me. It had been amazing. And then we’d remembered we were going separate ways.
What would happen if I went home to Nashville? Would it be over? Would we never see each other again? This was supposed to be temporary. Even the sex was supposed to be Alex and me working out whatever had happened a long time ago. We were doing a kind of exorcism, getting each other out of our systems so we could quit being so damaged and move on.
But the longer I stayed here, the less it felt that way. The more nights I spent in Alex’s bed, just like when we were married, the more it felt like I was getting to know the man he was now. And I was in danger of falling for him, just like I’d fallen for the teenaged version.
I didn’t know if he felt the same. Even if he did, history proved that whatever we tried wouldn’t work. Because trying, especially for Alex and me, meant failure, humiliation, and heartbreak.
Which meant that if I wasn’t going to stay, I had to leave. As soon as possible.
As if on cue, my phone sounded with a text. It was Alex. Be ready downstairs in fifteen minutes. We’re going for dinner.
I made a scoffing sound at my phone, even though he couldn’t hear me. Honestly, becoming a successful CEO had made him unbearable. I texted back: Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t. It isn’t up to you.
The dots moved.
Alex: Kat. Are you hungry?
Me: Yes.
Alex: Do you want to cook dinner?
Me: No.
Alex: Then I have a solution. Meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes and we’ll go eat.
I hated when he was logical. How do I dress? I asked him.
His reply: Whatever you’re wearing is fine.
I was about to text that I could be naked, but he’d probably say that my going to dinner naked really was fine with him. And I was hungry. I got off the lounge chair and went inside to find my shoes.
He tookme to a Mexican place, and as we started with ceviche and beer, I told him about my phone conversation with the detective.
Alex’s brow furrowed. “Why the hell is federal law enforcement involved?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
He traced a finger down the frosted side of his glass of beer, thinking. “Maybe the transaction you saw had something to do with organized crime.”
I put down the chip I was holding. “Oh, great. You’re saying the mafia is after me?”
“Honestly, Kat, I have no idea. Why is the FBI calling up Nashville about your case? It isn’t safe for you to go back yet.”
I took a deep sip of my beer. “The detective said they’d keep an eye on me if I came back.”
“And you believe them? That they actually have the manpower to sit in front of your apartment?”
I put my glass down and looked at him. The question was on my lips: Are you just thinking about the case, or are you trying to convince me?Do you want me to go, or do you want me to stay? But I couldn’t make myself ask it. I was too scared of the answer.
I was safe right now. I was having dinner with Alex, and in a while we’d go back to his penthouse and I’d strip him naked and do anything I wanted with him. Just think of the next two hours, the next twelve hours, the next twenty-four. It was how I’d lived my life for a long time.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I said.
He looked like he was going to say something, and then he dropped it. I wished I could read his mind. He shrugged, and my eyes dropped to his shoulders at the movement. God, I just loved looking at him. I never got tired of it, even for a minute.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Tell me about your art habit,” I said, so that I wouldn’t say I wanted to talk about how gorgeous he was and how I didn’t know what was going to happen to us.
“What do you mean, art habit?”
“You know what I mean. Everyone at that gallery the other night knew you. Himari told me you’re in the Arts District all the time, and you give money. And I’ve seen the art on the walls in your place. It’s all original.”
He leaned back in his chair, tracing his finger down his glass of beer again. “You noticed the art in my place, did you? What did you think? Do you like it?”
“Most of it,” I said, and when he smiled, I continued. “I thought the black-and-white thing in the second bedroom was a bit jarring at first. But the more I look at it, the more I get used to it.”
“That one’s interesting,” Alex said. “It’s like a yin and yang, but the shapes are all off. So it’s sort of representing the two sides of a person, yet in a way that says the two sides aren’t in harmony.”
I hadn’t thought of it like that. “I think that’s why it’s growing on me,” I said. “The one above the sofa in the living room—that’s more of a straightforward Impressionist-type painting. Is it supposed to be Greece?”
“Italy,” Alex said. “Specifically, Amalfi. I agree that one doesn’t push boundaries the way some of the other pieces do, but modern art isn’t the only kind I like. I like the old-fashioned kind as well, and when I saw that one, I couldn’t resist it. I think I chose it because it reminds me daily that I need to take a real vacation someday before I drop dead of overwork.”
So it had personal meaning to him, then. Every piece hanging in his penthouse did. He was leaning forward again, completely engaged in this topic, and I realized suddenly that this was one of his favorite things to talk about. “The other piece in that room is Paris,” I said. “So you like pieces that evoke ideas of travel.”
“The Paris one has a bleaker feel, though, don’t you think?” Alex said, gesticulating. He was completely unaware of how animated he was, of how his face had changed from severely handsome to alight with excitement. “It’s the harsher colors, I think. When I look at that one, I feel transported into another time and place. It’s tempting to make up stories in my head. Does it depict Paris of a century ago, or Paris after an apocalypse? It’s interesting that with one look, you can’t tell the difference. It’s completely timeless. It’s outside of time.” He looked at me. “What?”
I was staring at him. I shook my head. “It’s just that you were never like this before,” I admitted. “You never had a love for art when we were married.”
Alex smiled. “You know how I grew up, Kat. I hardly got an arts education. I was lucky I graduated high school at all.”
“So where did it come from?” I asked, curious, as I took another sip of beer. “You aren’t into art for the prestige. You’re actually passionate about it, which is why Himari is so smitten with you she tried to get you into bed.” When he opened his mouth to protest, I narrowed my eyes at him. “She told me, so don’t try to deny it. My point is that you didn’t have this passion when I knew you. When did it start?”
Alex scratched his jaw, thinking. “Well, Kat. If you have to know, some of it started with you.”
I looked at him in surprise. “Me?”
“Yes. You were always so passionate about your photography, which is your art. You made no apologies for it. You brought me with you so many times when you went shooting pictures, and you brought me to a few gallery showings. I felt so out of place.” He shook his head. “There you were, born into that kind of world. And there I was, a kid with tattoos and no real education to speak of. When I looked at the art, it made me think things, feel things. But I figured I was too stupid to actually understand anything. That someone like me didn’t have the right to have an opinion about anything that was real, actual art. Even the other night, it was obvious what the difference is between us. You walked into that gallery like you had every right to be there, like you owned it. Like being around those people was second nature to you. Because it is.”
I bit my lip. “I’m a bartender.”
His voice was harsh with conviction. “You’re not a fucking bartender, Kat. You’re just pretending to be one.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Anyway, I suppose what happened was that eventually I had enough money, and I could buy nice suits and not look out of place at an art gallery. So I started going.”
“Art isn’t just for rich people, Alex.”
“Tell that to fifteen-year-old me. Anyway, I eventually took a few online courses in art history, just so I would know what I was looking at. But I’m still just a street kid who sometimes buys pieces because he likes looking at them.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if that explains anything, but it’s the truth.”
“Your partners don’t know any of this, do they?” I asked. “About your love of art, or about the art history courses. You’ve never told them.”
“No, I suppose not. Because it doesn’t really matter.”
Who was this man, this version of Alex? He wasn’t the man I’d hated—I was starting to realize that that particular man, the villain of my life, had never existed. He was the man I’d once been married to, but at the same time he wasn’t. This version of Alex was supposed to be a cutthroat billionaire businessman, a venture capitalist, a tough guy with tattoos and a prison record. And underneath he was just a man who like to look at art but didn’t think he deserved to.
I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything.
I wanted to know if I—or some version of me—had been the villain in Alex’s life, just as he’d been the villain in mine.
I was pulled out of my musings by Alex reaching down beside his chair. “Speaking of all this, I have a present for you.”
I shook my head. “Alex, you don’t owe me a present.”
“I know I don’t, but I’m giving it to you anyway.” Seeing the look on my face, he added, “Don’t be stubborn, Kat. Just take it.”
Ah, yes. The bossy side of my art-loving ex-husband. Too bad I found that side particularly sexy.
He handed a cube-shaped box across the table, an item that was unwrapped though the box was plain white. I took it reluctantly, and from the size and heft of it I immediately guessed what it was.
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” Alex replied.
“Alex, no. I can’t take this.” I tried to hand it back.
He was having none of it. “Just open it. And keep it. I’m pretty sure I got the right one.”
I sighed, moving my plate to the side and putting the box on the table. I opened it and realized my guess was right. It was a camera.
“It’s like the one you sold, but it’s the newer version, so it’s better,” Alex said.
I stared at the camera, not willing to touch it yet. “How do you know which one I sold?” I asked without looking up.
“I have my ways. And I know from everything you told me while we were married that the lens matters almost more than the camera does. So there’s a lens in there, too.”
He was right. There was a lens alongside the camera—a good one. A really good one. Before I could stop myself I lifted the camera out of the box, running my fingers over the controls on the top, the sides. “I can’t accept this,” I said, still staring at it.
“You can, and you will.”
Damn it. Damn him. I felt so many things with this camera in my hands—trepidation, excitement, anger that he’d sprung this on me. But with my fingers tracing the familiar shape of the camera, I also felt a particular kind of happiness I hadn’t felt in a long time. And on the heels of that was the urge to put the lens on it, get up from this table, walk away, and go shoot something. Anything. Right now.
To look through that lens and start to see, to create.
I’d sold my last camera. I hadn’t let myself think about it too much at the time—I’d only let myself think of the rent and the groceries that the money would pay for. So what if I had a hard time getting out of bed for a few weeks afterward? So what if my mind had never stopped thinking of images to shoot, angles, frames, even though I couldn’t do it anymore? So what if it had felt like I had sold a limb? Life was hard, and you just got on with it. If I didn’t have the camera anymore, it meant I wasn’t trying. Which meant it was impossible to fail.
I’d gotten used to it. Like someone missing a limb, I’d adjusted my life to get past it, to move on. How dare he just give me my limb back like it was nothing? How dare he put this camera in front of me and make me want it so badly I already couldn’t stop touching it?
With reluctance, I put the camera back in the box. “I’m not a photographer anymore,” I said.
Alex made a half-amused sound. “Are you kidding me, Kat? If you looked at me like you just looked at that camera, I’d fuck you on this table right now. In front of everyone.”
I pressed my hands to my eyes. “Fuck you, Alex. I can’t take this. I won’t take it. You can’t make me do it.”
I thought he would argue, but he was silent instead. I kept my hands into my eyes and took another breath, and then I dropped my hands and looked at him.
Our gazes locked. What were we doing? It was like a nuclear meltdown, the energy between Alex and me. Powerful, but deadly. The kind of energy that can ruin you forever if you weren’t strong enough.
I took a breath. “I’m going back to Nashville,” I made myself say. “As soon as I can.”
He flinched. It was brief, but I saw it in those beautiful eyes. His body stayed still, as if bracing against the blow. His hands, resting on the edge of the table, flexed and went still again.
“Fine,” he said. “But you’re taking the camera. I won’t give you any other gifts, I promise. Just let me give you this one thing. It’s all I ask.”
I already didn’t want to give the camera up. I hated to admit it, but it was true. “All right,” I said. “I agree.”
That night, he took his time pulling my clothes off me. Where we usually undressed as fast as we could, Alex stripped me piece by piece. I returned the favor, and then I rolled him on his back and took him in my mouth, as far as he would go. His hips bucked and he cursed my name.
We had sex for hours. It was what we both wanted, as if we couldn’t get enough. As if nothing could ever satisfy us.
And sometime in the middle of the night, as Alex rolled my orgasm-drunk body onto my stomach in the darkness, as he wound his hand into my hair and entered me deep and slick, he said the words in my ear.
“I know you’re leaving,” he told me. “But not yet. Not yet. Tonight, you’re still all mine.”