Chapter 5 #2
He was baiting her. As to why she’d gotten almost naked with him, yes, that had probably not been her best moment.
Moments of weakness happened, though, when you were on a knife’s edge of adrenaline, when grief shook your core and threatened to rip you apart, and guilt wanted to gut you like a fish.
Benedict is dead because of me. He came to help me. If only he’d gotten out of the cabin…
Atlas reached out. His fingers curled under her chin as he forced her to tilt her head up. She hadn’t realized she’d looked down.
“Enemies, Lily? Or lovers?”
A weak laugh came from her. “Yes, I do get naked with lovers. That’s sort of a necessity,” she responded, going back to his earlier question. Do you always get naked with your enemies?
But Atlas shook his head. “What are we going to be? Enemies or lovers?”
“We don’t have to be either.” They did not. She really, really needed to put some space between them. She normally could be completely contained. Totally controlled. She didn’t cross lines but…
I was kidnapped tonight. Shoved down a staircase. A cop died in a blaze right in front of me. And now…now…
She wet her lips. “We could be colleagues. I think I could learn a great deal from you. You could help my research considerably.” As she’d explained in her emails and during her—very brief—phone calls with him.
His jaw hardened. “Research into the children of serial killers.”
“Yes.” Soft.
“Do I look like someone who likes to have his dark secrets dragged into the light?”
No, he did not, in fact, look like that type of person. “You’re the one who offered me a pass into your life.”
His thumb rose to brush over her lower lip. “Why me, Lily? There are others out there. Plenty of them. When I told you I wasn’t interested, you could have just walked away.”
Yes, she could have. Only…“You came from blood and death and pain.”
“Thanks for the reminder.” Mocking. “Actually, I came from nothing. From a father who was too damn good-looking. He used his looks to his advantage. Ted Bundy had nothing on my old man. He could charm any coed, any so-called happily married wife. He flashed his dimples, and his prey jumped into his car and didn’t look back. ”
“Your mother was his high school sweetheart.”
He raised his brows. “Is that what she was?”
“She became pregnant with you. Her parents wanted her to give you up for adoption. She didn’t. She kept you.”
“She kept me for seven years, until she learned what a monster I was.”
“He was,” she corrected, softly.
“That’s fun. You think she didn’t always know?”
This was news to Lily. His mother had always proclaimed ignorance for the crimes.
“Don’t we all have to be as evil as they are? Isn’t that what you and your research are going to show?” Hard, angry words, but his thumb brushed so gently over her lower lip. A sensual caress. “That we are just as fucked up as they are?”
“I don’t see you out murdering college coeds.” Her tongue touched the tip of his finger.
Atlas stilled.
“And I don’t believe that I’ve murdered any of my previous lovers.
They’re all alive and well. No worries there.
The point of my work isn’t to show that we’re as deviant as they are.
The point is to see why we didn’t turn out like them.
” Why on earth had she licked his finger? She hadn’t meant to do that. Had she?
A low growl came from Atlas. “I was given up for adoption at seven. I bounced around more foster homes than you could count because, shockingly, no one was interested in the kid of a serial killer.”
Her chest seemed to ache.
“Everyone had always stared at me like they thought I was the devil. No, the devil’s son.
” There was no emotion in his voice. No pain.
No grief. He might as well have been talking about the weather as he said, “I ignored them all. Not like I wanted their affection—not like any would be given. My own mother had kicked me out. Why would they want me?”
I want you. Words that whispered through her mind.
“She tossed me away like I was trash. I bounced around foster homes. Never fit. Never stayed anywhere. I was taunted and hit and bullied by the other kids…”
The ache in her chest grew worse. “Atlas…”
“Until I fought back. Until I showed them how vicious I could be. Some people only understand strength. Some only understand pain.”
“What did you do?”
His thumb moved from her lip, but his hand still curled around her jaw. “Never attacks that were too blatant. I picked my moments. Chose my punishments in the most effective ways possible.”
His words should have chilled her. They didn’t. Instead, she found herself angry that anyone had sought to hurt him. He’d just been a kid. Lost. Lonely. But she couldn’t focus on the child he’d been. The dangerous man that he was—that man was before her. “Your IQ is off the charts,” Lily noted.
“IQ is bullshit. People are smart in a million ways that tests don’t measure.”
He was still touching her, cradling her jaw. She was still far too sensitive to his touch. “Based on the measured results you have, you’re a certified genius. That genius helped you to build the largest research and development firm in the United States.”
His hand lingered, as if he didn’t want to stop touching her. “I made good investments.”
“You got a full ride to college. You dropped out during your second year, though.”
“I’d learned enough.”
“You started your company one week after quitting.”
“I don’t like the term ‘quitting’—I prefer to think of it as realigning. Quitting has such a negative connotation, don’t you think?”
“You realigned very well. You went from not having a home of your own to owning twelve different homes in five countries. By any standard, you’re a success story, but if you add in your father…
well, you see why I am interested in the way you turned out.
” Interested. Fascinated. Far too consumed with knowing everything about him.
“Yeah, my old man made for quite the interesting college essay piece, I’ve got to say.” Rough laughter. “What about you? Don’t you see yourself as a success? The psychiatrist who writes best-selling books on the criminal mind. Heard you were even offered a few movie deals.”
Goosebumps rose on her skin. “My mother is into the movie deals, not me.”
“Is it true that you still visit her once a month? Even after she tried to kill you?”
She felt the dig in her heart. “My mother never tried to kill me.”
“Okay, so, here’s a ground rule. We’ll call it our first one. I don’t lie to you. You don’t lie to me. You stripped naked—”
“You keep harping on that. Surely, I’m not the first woman who has stripped in front of you. And I wasn’t completely naked. Neither were you.”
Laughter slipped from him. A deep, dark, oddly sexy laughter. “Oh, sweetness, I never harp. Cute, though.”
Finally, finally, his hand moved away. He moved away.
“We’ll be at Preston Hollow soon enough,” he murmured.
Ah, yes, his home in the ever-so-prestigious Preston Hollow. Billionaire row with lush, private properties. And top-of-the-line security.
“So let’s get our agreement down, shall we? First, my terms. Then yours. Sound fair?”
“Yes.” She pressed her hands against the top of her thighs. Her wrist ached. The bruising was getting worse.
“You don’t lie to me. I won’t lie to you.”
She’d never bared her soul completely with anyone. Not even her mother. Especially not her mother. “Before we start, I must insist on personally going to my rental property. I have the keys, after all. My property, then your place.”
“Desmond doesn’t need keys for your rental.”
She licked her lower lip. “That’s called breaking and entering.”
“That’s called getting inside.”
“Are you always this…” Difficult. “Challenging?”
“Yeah, I am. Think you can handle that?”
“In my sleep.” A challenging billionaire was nothing compared to the murderers she’d faced. “This is a nonnegotiable point for me. I have to stop by my rental house. I have confidential material there that I must obtain.”
Silence.
“Lily.” A sigh of her name. “Is this the part where you confess that you came to Dallas because you thought I was already a murdering psycho, just like my father?”
She squared her shoulders. “Atlas.” Deliberately, she sighed his name, too. “Is this the part where you confess to being a murderer?”