Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I CRIED AS if I hadn’t allowed myself to in months—because I hadn’t, even on the anniversary of Dominick’s death.
Everything about my situation compounded.
The fake relationship, lying to Vivienne, the constant fear of inadvertently revealing our true identities.
The constant ticking down of the clock before Gauthier’s latest drug hit the streets.
All the lost progress in the truce with Colt. And then tonight, the real kicker.
My confrontation with Liam left an empty cavern where my heart should be, eating through my bones like acid.
I easily could’ve incapacitated him, so the danger wasn’t very high.
And yet, I’d felt it: the fear too many women have experienced throughout their lives.
And many of them don’t get the luxury of the outcome I did.
Is this all I was going to get? Didn’t I deserve better?
Someone who would respect me, at the very least. Someone who would complement me, make me a better person.
I may not deserve a real Prince Charming, but I sure as heck deserved better than a man who tried to get lucky with a married woman—while her husband was in the same house, no less.
If the experience hadn’t taken all the wind out of my sails, I’d debate whether to be more impressed by Liam’s guts or his stupidity.
It could’ve been ten minutes or two hours I sat against the wall, purging myself of all the emotions I’d bottled up before Colt came home.
The front door shut. He called my name, spurring me on to wipe desperately at my teary, snotty face as his soft footsteps padded down the hall.
There was a short pause before he knocked on the door, as if debating what to do about the fact that his wife had left the neighbor’s house without her shoes, locked the door behind her, and was now sequestered in his room.
Considering the sorry state of our non-existent truce, I was impressed he didn’t barge in to stop whatever chaos I’d been wreaking for the past twenty-four hours.
“Go away,” I called, though all the fight had left me with the knee I’d planted in Liam’s crotch.
Colt must have sensed the same thing, since he slowly opened the door. “What are you doing in?—”
He stopped short the second he saw me. His dark eyes widened in shock, and the color drained from his face. For a split second, it was the first and only time I’d seen this particular emotion on Colt Dixon’s face.
Fear .
In an instant, what I thought I saw was gone, replaced by concern. He took two hurried steps toward me, but stopped short again, as if remembering the nature of our relationship. Either that, or my disheveled state had blinded him.
My mascara was probably flaked or smeared all over my face. My eyes were likely red and puffy, my nose pink, and my hair a frizzy mane. Stupid humidity.
“What happened? Are you… okay?” His hand flexed into a fist at his side, but he didn’t come any closer.
I leaned my head against the wall, staring at the ceiling. My voice croaked worse than a chain-smoking bullfrog. “Just peachy. You?”
He sighed, finally closing the distance and folding his lengthy frame onto the floor next to me. “Obviously you’re using sarcasm to deflect again. What’s really going on?”
I inhaled a shuddering breath and willed my voice not to squeak with tears. “Let’s just say that while you were working your organization magic, Liam thought that was the perfect opening to proposition me.”
“He what ?”
The heat in Colt’s voice surprised me, but not nearly as much as the unbridled rage when I looked in his direction. His fair complexion flushed a mottled red. The tension in his jaw could’ve rivaled a drum head, and danger sparked in his eyes.
It was… hot . Really hot.
I shrugged. “Apparently, he’s got a thing for married women. Pregnant married women, no less.”
Colt clenched his fists, his knuckles white and his jaw flexing. When he spoke, the words were forced through gritted teeth. “What did he do?”
I blinked hard, still trying to process Colt’s reaction.
Any self-respecting man should’ve been angered by these developments, but he was downright livid .
Seething, spitting mad, if the tension radiating off his body was any indication.
I’d never seen him this enraged, even when spit on by a drug dealer known for targeting kids. Colt was always, always in control.
“I didn’t let him do much of anything before I kneed him in his Crown Jewels.”
That seemed to pacify Colt for now, since he leaned back against the wall with me. His jaw didn’t relax, though, and his fists barely did. It took two rounds of breathing in for four, holding for two, and breathing out for eight before he finally spoke. “And that’s why you left?”
I nodded, returning my attention to the ceiling. It had one of those plaster-like finishes. Spackle, I think? Whatever it was called, the raised bumps looked like a family of amoebae. Or maybe a field of dandelions with their white tufts sticking out in all directions.
“What’s wrong with me?”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words out loud until Colt turned to me, one of his dark brows raised. “What do you mean?”
“Why is it the only man to show any interest in me in the last six months was a total jerkwad?” That wasn’t the word I preferred to use, but the situation sucked enough without adding anything to Dominick’s swear jar.
“Is there something wrong with me that I only attract the crazies? Is it my personality, my luck?” I pulled my hands through my frizzy curls, my voice cracking. “Is it my hair?”
“Definitely not your hair.” He pulled one of my curls, his dark eyes tracing it as it sprung back into its coil.
Just like he’d done during the flirting demonstration.
And, just like then, it made my stomach flip and my breath catch in my throat.
Maybe I was defunct. “As for your personality, I’m not sure I’m the best person to ask. ”
“Gee, thanks for the confidence boost, Colt.”
He chuckled, though he had the decency to blush. “What I mean is, you show me a different side of you than you show to everyone else. They get your polite smiles and no-nonsense mask you put on at work, and I get… sass, snark, pranks, and a full repertoire of glares.”
I groaned. So, it was my personality that did me in.
He continued, the faintest ghost of a smile on his lips.
“But I also get ridiculous coasters with the worst puns I’ve ever heard on them.
I get to see you laugh at cheesy movies, nearly set the toaster on fire, and tear apart the house just to find a coffee maker.
” He chuckled softly. “Quite honestly, Lex, I’m not sure what to make of you. ”
“You’re just oozing compliments today, aren’t you?
” I said flatly. “If I had my way, we’d only be friendly acquaintances, and you’d never, ever find out what a disaster I am outside of work.
I’d be able to treat you like everyone else.
” I sighed and counted the spackle dots around the biggest blob to my left. “But I… can’t .”
“Good.”
I jerked my head in his direction. Surely, I heard that wrong.
The corner of his mouth lifted in his trademark smirk. Rather than elaborate, though, he circled the conversation back to my original question. “So, if it makes you feel any better, I’m inclined to think you simply have rotten luck in the dating department.”
“Now you’re just being nice to make me feel better. It’s weird.” And made my insides twist and tingle like they were under attack by a swarm of bees.
He spared me a glance, his smirk firmly in place. “So, I can’t tease you and I can’t be nice, either? What exactly am I supposed to do, then?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, my shoulders slumping in exasperation. “It’s like, no matter what you do, I never know how to react. Do I verbally spar with you? Do I laugh? Do I punch you? I never know.”
“Do I get any say in which one you choose? Because I have some recommendations.”
I laughed, shaking my head so it rolled against the wall. “No, you don’t, but thanks for asking.”
“It was worth a shot,” he muttered.
We sat in companionable silence, my thoughts swinging like a pendulum between reliving Liam’s advances and puzzling through Colt’s current behavior.
This was the longest he’d voluntarily sat this close to me, and I wasn’t sure I liked what his proximity did to my nerves.
It was like every single synapse was tuned to his frequency.
Every. Single. One. He couldn’t so much as breathe without my body locking onto the movement.
I was the heat-seeking missile, and he was the inferno.
Then again, it had been that way with him since day one.
It was super annoying.
He broke the silence first, his voice soft. “You know, this is the only time I’ve ever seen you sad . Sometimes I think I see glimpses of it whenever you stare at the daffodils outside, but never like this. At work you’re either unfazed by anything or annoyed with me.”
Ah. So, he noticed my lingering glances at the daffodils. Great.
I hid my embarrassment with a snort. “I thought you liked seeing me fazed?”
He stared at his knees, resting his arms across them. “Not like this.”
Well, huh. He didn’t like seeing me sad. I’d think that out of character for him, but over the past week, he’d managed to do the last thing I ever expected of Colt Dixon.
He surprised me.
I’d given him ample ammunition against me, and he hadn’t used any of it. Sure, he teased me about my cooking skills or called me out on my chaotic existence, but nothing truly meaningful. Nothing that would really hurt me.
Whether it was because of the nature of our assignment or not, I didn’t know. But the reasons didn’t matter right now.
“For the record” —I swallowed hard, unsure why I was still talking— “that was the most emotion I’ve ever seen from you, too. I annoy or sometimes amuse you, but you’re always so in control.”