Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Athena
“ Y ou’re perfect.”
The words were too sweet to seem real—so sweet that with every passing minute of the morning, it got easier and easier to believe they were a dream.
But while his deep voice and the pleasure erupting from my body were things I could—and had—dreamed about, there was one piece of last night that promised reality. Okay, two. The pain in my hip where I’d fallen on it.
And the sound and feel of him pleasuring himself. His low grunts tucked between my moans. The undeniable sound of a fist tugging on hard flesh. The fevered bounce of his shoulder under my hand.
To have seen it would be one thing…but to have the memory built from every other sense, that was what made it indestructible.
And the memory was just as perfect as it was painful at the end. The way he’d left. My throat tightened when I tried to swallow.
I should apologize again. Dare wasn’t in his right mind to refuse it last night, and I’d been in the wrong. To beg him when he was trying to keep things professional and not take advantage of the situation.
I was sorry for begging him, but I wasn’t sorry for wanting him.
I adjusted the eye mask on my face, finding one more reason to wish I was healing faster. Because when this was all over, there wouldn’t be any reason to regret the way he wanted me, too.
I turned, hearing the handle of the door.
“Dare?” My heart leaped into my throat.
“Athena?” Rob’s calm voice oozed through the room.
Not Dare. Even though he said we’d talk in the morning.
“Hey.” I smiled like I wasn’t wishing she was someone else.
“I brought you a strawberry smoothie for breakfast. How does that sound?” Her footsteps got louder, her voice closer.
“Great.”I moved the sketch paper back to the nightstand, following the same path I always did, to make sure I could find it easily next time.
“Here you go.” She put her hand on my shoulder first, revealing her position, before that same hand took my wrist so she could hand me the smoothie.
“Thank you.” I felt up the cup to the thick straw, holding it steady to my lips.
“How are you doing?” she asked after I’d taken a good couple of sips,and I swore I heard the slight rustle of paper next to me as though she were looking at my sketch.
“Fine.” I swallowed and licked my lips, adjusting the mask on my face. “I mean, no change.”
No sight. No memory. If I asked to see Dr. Nilsen again, they’d bring him here, but it wasn’t fair to him or me. He’d already given me an answer about my condition—that these things would return in time when my brain healed. To ask again was a pointless sprinkle of salt in the wound.
“I meant after last night,” she said as I took another sip.
Last— I choked on the smoothie, coughing and sputtering as Rob took the cup from my hand. “Sorry,” I croaked, catching my breath.
“It’s okay. I just wanted to see how you were doing after Dare last night.”
No…she couldn’t be talking about that. I swallowed over the ball in my throat and wished she’d given me back the smoothie so I could hold the cup to my cheeks and try to cool down my face.
“After Dare…”
“After he told you about Brandon. And Richard.” She paused. “What did you think I was talking about?”
What else would she be talking about, Athena? My jaw snapped shut. Of course, he hadn’t told her about… the bath. What was I thinking?
“I’m okay,” I said slowly, unsure truthfully of how I felt. “I think I’m still in shock. I don’t know.” I started to shake my head when she set the smoothie back in my hands. I clutched the cup like it was a nice, cold lifeline. “I stopped loving Brandon a long time ago, but to think he’d agree to try and…for money…”
“Sometimes, I think it’s harder to lose the idea you have about someone to reality than it would be to just simply lose them.”
“Yeah.” She was exactly right. I had this idea in my head of who Brandon was—even in spite of our issues. And losing him—divorcing him—wasn’t as hard as learning he was never the man I thought he was. I took another sip and then added, “And to learn Rich…Ray…whatever his name is…” I shivered. “I’m surprised, but I didn’t really know him that well.” A sad laugh bubbled up. “I’d say lucky me, except Dare said you think it’s his enemies that paid Brandon.”
“It’s a possibility. We showed him several photos of those men, but he didn’t recognize any of them. We didn’t expect him to, though; they’re the kind of men who don’t get directly involved.”
I made a soft sound and continued to drink the last of my breakfast.
“I’m sorry, Athena.” Her concern was genuine.
A sad smile tugged at one corner of my lips. “Like I told Dare, I really have a knack for picking winners.”
“You told him that?”
“Not exactly. I asked what it was about me that only attracted men who wanted to hurt me.”
“I’m sure that…did a number on him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling the edge of the bed dip under her weight.
“Never—”
“Please.” There were many of Rob’s characteristics that I’d probably never know, but how smart she was wasn’t one of them. She had to see there was something between me and Dare, even if she had no idea what happened last night.
“Dare carries a lot of…weight…that doesn’t belong to him,” she finally said quietly, as though she were revealing something she shouldn’t. She took the empty cup from my hands. “Especially for those he feels…protective of.”
I could feel that. It vibrated through his entire being when he was around me—when he was trying to keep himself away from me.
I don’t deserve you.
“Do you think he’ll be by today?” My voice trembled. I didn’t want him to feel that way around me, especially after last night.
The way he’d spoken to me…kissed me…touched me…I’d felt more worshipped in that short span of time than in the culmination of minutes of my entire marriage.
“I’m not sure. He went out to the gallery earlier?—”
“The gallery?” I interrupted her. “Why?”
“He wanted to speak to the woman who was working the morning of the explosion. She wasn’t in yesterday when Ty went to talk to her—oh.” The bed shifted, a buzzing sound growing louder. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered, and a second later said, “Hey, Dare. Were your ears ringing?”
He’d called her. I held my breath.
“I’m with her right now. I’ll put you on speaker?—”
“No, don’t?—”
“You’re on speaker. Athena is right here,” she interrupted him, but not before I caught the start of his protest. He didn’t want to talk to me.
Was I now one more weight he carried? Was last night one more guilt piled on his shoulders? Or was it because I’d begged him to kiss me—to touch me? Had I made him feel so guilty for saying no that I’d guilted him into saying yes?
“Hello, Athena.”
Instantly, I was back in the water. Those lips of his on my chest. His hand buried between my thighs.Heat bloomed in my cheeks, but I refused to let it bleed into my voice. “Hi.”
Rob spoke when the silence became pronounced. “I figured this was easier than you asking me to ask her…I already told her you went back to the Tableau this morning to talk to Carol.”
He tried to scrub the rasp from his voice by clearing his throat, but it didn’t help. “Carol was working the morning of the explosion. We’re trying to retrace your steps and see if it gives us any clues. ”
“I understand.” I swallowed. “What did she say? Are my paintings there?” In the mix of gambling-husband-turned-would-be-assassin and rebound-date-turned-hardened-criminal, I’d forgotten about the paintings I’d remembered putting in my car that morning. Or maybe I’d just assumed I’d lost them along with everything else about my former life in those minutes.
“They are.”
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until my chest deflated with a loud whoosh. “Oh, good.” My voice wobbled, and I lifted my hand to my cheek, feeling the foolish spill of a tear. To cry over a painting…“I’m sorry.”
“Athena…” His rumble reached me even through the phone. Warm and thick, it wrapped comfort right back around me. And for a second, I believed that even though I didn’t have my sight or my safety, I had him.
“I’m okay,” I assured them both as Rob silently placed a tissue in my hand as though it had magically appeared there.
“The paintings you told me about are here, but Carol said you didn’t just drop them off, you picked up three others from the gallery that morning,” he continued on.
“Picked them up?” The mask shifted as my brow creased. “That doesn’t make sense. I was bringing pieces over for the show. Why would I take three back?”
“She said you told her someone had already bought them. You didn’t say who, but she’s confident by the way you spoke that it was Ivans—Richard.”
“Oh—ow.” I hissed and pressed my hand to the side of my head, where the pain came from.
“Athena—” Rob touched my elbow, letting me know she was there.
“I think that’s right.” I interrupted her before Dare realized something could be wrong. “I don’t…remember…exactly, but that feels right.” I didn’t know how else to explain it. “We met at t he fundraiser because he admired my work, and he kept telling me he was excited for the show because he wanted to purchase some for his house. He insisted on coming to the gallery for a preview of what would be shown.”
I remembered walking him through the back room, revealing my hard work piece by piece, and feeling a sense of pride that I was finally doing this— finally pursuing my dream— and someone appreciated that. And me.
Too bad he’d turned out to be a criminal.
“There were three he really liked.” Seascapes from the California coastline. “He kept asking me to set them aside for him.” My head pounded as I dug through the muck for more of my memories. “He asked me at dinner the night before if he could buy them ahead of time. Begged, really.”
“What did you say?”
“I told him I’d think about it.” I could remember that was how I’d left it at dinner. “I guess I decided to do it the next morning.”
“Athena…” Dare’s voice lowered like he was about to ask something important. “Do you think you picked them up and took them to him that morning? To his house?”
My lips parted. I wished I could say yes—I wished I could be certain about it, but it was all still a void. “I could have. If they weren’t in my car…unless I brought them back to my house to set them aside for him.” I bit my bottom lip, the sudden pain in my head now a splitting ache.
“Dare—” Rob tried to break in, and I could tell she saw I was in pain even though I did my best not to let it show.
“Would you have a record if he bought them?”
My spine straightened. “Yes. I should have a copy of the receipt.” The pain was getting worse, but it finally felt like I was helping. Finally felt like I was useful.
“At your house? ”
“If it wasn’t at the gallery, and it wouldn’t have been if—since I sold him the paintings before the show—then it should be in my files. On an invoice?—”
“Where?” he demanded, and I could hear a motorcycle rumble to life.
“Enough, Dare.” Rob’s weight lifted off the bed as she snapped, the thread of warning in her voice was thin and as sharp as a garrote to his throat.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I’ll go back and look?—”
“Take me with you.” It was my turn to insist on something. “Everything’s kind of a mess since I moved back…I’ll know where to look, and maybe going back will trigger…”
“Athena.” Rob touched my shoulder.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I assured her through the headache that chugged around my skull like a freight train. “Please, let me help.”
No one said anything for a long minute, and then Dare’s voice cracked through the silence. “Two days.”
“What?”
“I’ll go look today, but regardless of what I find, I’ll bring you back to the house in two days.”
“Why two days?” I asked softly, and my heartbeat slowed with each second that passed. There was only one thing of significance in two days—the end of my divorce.
“Dare…” Rob prompted when he took too long to answer. “What is it?”
“Ty got a call this morning. Apparently, Brandon never made it back to Sacramento PD to be booked and processed.”
Never made it… “Oh my god, is he?—”
“He escaped custody. Still no details, whether he’s in hiding or fled or…anything else. So, until I know more or until the timeline on his insurance policy runs out, I’m not taking you from the safe house. ”
There was no room for discussion in his voice.
“Okay.” I tried to swallow. “Will you let me know if you find anything?”
It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to ask; the real questions knotted into a tangle in my throat. When will you be back? Will you come see me? Will we talk like you said we would?
Will you let me stop wondering about last night and if you’re avoiding me again?
I didn’t ask any of the questions I really wanted to, and yet the answer he gave me answered them all.
“Someone will.”
Message received.