Chapter 9 #2
“I don’t know” was how she answered his lingering question. “Her body’s in the med spa. Locked in one of the cryo chambers. Could’ve been an accident.”
Waylon pinched the bridge of his nose. A string of expletives left his mouth. He started to pace. That was when Fletcher noticed the way his shoulders hiked, the way a vein in his neck strained.
Muttering, he said, “Why would my dad do this to us?”
“You really didn’t know about any of this?”
He stopped pacing. “Of course I didn’t.”
“Well, some people think it’s suspicious how you stayed away for so long and came back into Dyer’s life in the nick of time.”
“Some people,” he said, “or you?”
“Both.”
Probably.
Her, definitely.
Waylon scratched his fingers over his stubbled jaw. Thinking, processing. “And you didn’t know because otherwise you never would have been so offended you didn’t get an invitation.”
“Very aware of the miscalculation I made, thanks.” The sigh was excessive, but after the day she’d had, Fletcher earned the right to be a little overdramatic. “But I am sorry. About Joplin. Really. I know you two were close.”
“The only reason she came on this trip was to get a title change, and now she’s dead. God, what a disaster.”
“You could say that again.”
Agreeing with Waylon Cartwright had to be the first horseman of the apocalypse.
He knew it, too, because he asked, “Okay, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like hell you don’t, Spence. We both know you’d rather run yourself through a paper shredder than show me an ounce of human decency.” He stepped closer, and Fletcher gripped her fingers into the mattress to keep from scooting back on instinct. “What are you up to?”
She could still feel the sharp bite of Jackie’s pistol against her skin. Her only hope at surviving was to help a killer inherit an international publishing conglomerate. And she needed Waylon’s help to do it.
He didn’t need to know that part.
“What if I proposed a truce?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Between us.”
Waylon gnawed on his next words. “What kind?”
“The kind where we don’t stab each other in the back. Metaphorically or literally.” She rose to her feet, coming to stand before him. “Think about it. If we work together, we could find a way off Lydell. You get one last ‘fuck you’ to your dad, and we both get out of here alive.”
Tension built in the column of his neck.
“I don’t believe for a second Joplin’s death was an accident.
There’s nothing anyone here wouldn’t do to get my dad’s money.
I’m not going to be responsible for letting what happened to Joplin happen to you, too.
” Waylon’s eyes roamed over her, following the line of her arms down to her toes, and all the way back up.
Something ignited deep in her core. An embarrassed flush rushed to her cheeks.
“If you want me to consider a truce, you need to get changed.”
Fletcher dragged her hands to her hips, the silk smooth beneath them. Without her usual heels on, he towered over her. Still, she lifted her chin. “No one would ever accuse you of being responsible. Pretending to care about me isn’t part of the truce.”
The gleam in Waylon’s eyes sharpened to a point. “That’s fine, honey. Doesn’t change the fact that I can’t think straight knowing you’re standing there with nothing on underneath that robe.”
Blushing was no longer accurate enough to describe the redness blooming on Fletcher’s face right now.
Waylon Cartwright could not have this effect on her anymore if her plan was going to work.
Like losing her virginity to Kent in the back seat of his dad’s pickup truck instead of somewhere sweet or thoughtful, if she pretended it didn’t happen, it would be like it never did.
She tugged her robe tighter as she stalked back toward her room. “Don’t make me regret this.”
Finding a new outfit in the wreckage the Brians left behind was a feat itself. They’d torn apart her closet, flipped her mattress, and flung open the minibar like she might have resorted to contorting herself like an acrobat next to the Diet Cokes and tiny bottles of rum to avoid them.
Aha! A hot-pink dress caught her eye. It was high necked but sleeveless, belted at the middle, and cropped right above her knees. Easier to move in than some of her skirts. Plain, but also hot pink. When she’d packed it, she was going for capable and charismatic, not Shoot me, I’m right here!
She slipped it over her head anyway. If she was going to die, she could at least do it in a dress that made her ass look good. It would have been the perfect Summer Friday attire if it weren’t for this—annoying—zipper.
Fletcher groaned. With her arms corkscrewed behind her, she fought to shimmy the zipper up its track. Plato’s Closet, please don’t fail me now. She wrangled it over the bells of her hips, but it snagged again.
Another grunt. She was starting to sound like Kent.
“Are you being attacked?” Waylon called.
“Everything’s fine!”
He appeared in her doorway and took a second to survey the landscape. She couldn’t decide if he was appalled by the mess the Marketing bros left or the lack of capybaras in their namesake room. “It doesn’t sound fine.”
“My dress, the dress. It’s—” Deflating, Fletcher turned, showing her bare back. “Could you zip it the rest of the way? And never speak of this again?”
A smug laugh responded. Fletcher’s heart beating harder with every inch of space that disappeared between them.
Leftover adrenaline from the day running rampant through her veins.
His hands found the small of her back, the delicate zipper left hanging there.
A shiver coursed over Fletcher’s skin as Waylon’s knuckles grazed up her spine.
It was hard to think with him this close. She’d been with Kent so long she forgot the spark of someone else’s touch. The way her skin could feel electric, and his a conduit.
“What do you think?”
“Pink suits you.”
“About working together,” Fletcher clarified, turning a new shade of pink herself. If she wasn’t feeling murderous now, a few hours in his presence ought to do the trick.
Was it her imagination, or were his fingers trailing against her skin on purpose? His voice turned low, gravelly. “I’m not going back to Cartwright Media, Spence. Ever.”
As soon as the zipper reached the nape of her neck, she spun to face him. Too close. She inched backward, making enough room to stick her hand out for a ceremonial shake.
“Working together now. Dyer left the island to you for a reason. You know Lydell better than anyone else here, and I know the other guests. Admit it. We’d make a good team. Just don’t do that thing with your eyebrows.”
“What thing?” His eyebrows thinged harder. Scrunched with confusion but curled with amusement. Verged on wagging. Altogether too much.
“That—thing. They have a mind of their own.” She gestured widely in the vicinity of his face. “It’s my one condition.”
“Okay, Spence. I’ll make sure my eyebrows don’t offend your sensibilities.”
Nothing about him didn’t offend her sensibilities, but at least he shook her hand in agreement.
The feel of his calloused skin against hers left her momentarily speechless. Steady, strong. Rough but gentle. Some part of her wondered how it would feel for him to unzip her dress instead.
Appalled at the thought, Fletcher wrenched her hand away as fast as humanly possible. Whatever biology lesson her body was trying to teach her, she had neither the time nor patience for it. She was a woman with an agenda: gather supplies, find a map, steal a key.
“First things first,” Fletcher said, composing herself. “You said you smoke cigars, right?”