Chapter 9
NINE
brOOKS
Fuck.
I feel like a dick, so in my own head, my own past that I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.
And now I’ve knocked the tiny, curvy brunette to the floor.
“Here,” I coax, shaking my hand slightly when she doesn’t move, just keeps looking at the terracotta tiles.
Nothing.
“Hey,” I say, crouching down.
It’s like me dropping to her level startles her into motion.
She bursts to her feet, shoulder bumping mine on the way up.
I wobble and she rushes by me, heading for the winding corridors.
My palm slams onto the floor, steadying myself, but my focus is on the woman who’s all but sprinting away from me…
And the boots on her feet.
I lurch up and don’t think, instinct telling me that if I don’t go now I won’t ever see her again.
I follow her as she whips around the corner, darts through a service hallway.
She’s fast.
But I’m faster.
And I’m not going to be taken by surprise again.
I dodge the elbow she throws toward my gut when I get close, gripping the tops of her shoulders and pushing her against the wall. “Stop,” I order when she struggles, when she kicks back at my shins.
Not a surprise, she doesn’t.
But I’m stronger, and this time I don’t hold back on my strength.
I won’t hurt her, but I’m not letting up.
Not until I have some fucking answers.
I shuffle her toward the exit, glad we’re in the quiet corridor so no one can see me all but abducting her.
Her.
Briar.
I can smell her, feel her, see a glimpse of that moonlight hair through the wig that’s been knocked slightly askew.
Not a ghost.
Not a shadow of the past hidden in the darkness of night.
It’s her.
I plant a hand on the door and shove it open, stepping out into the cool spring air.
Then grunt as she kicks back again.
I just tighten my grip and drag her to my car, shoving her into the passenger seat and slamming the door.
Which she tries to immediately open.
I beep the locks, round the hood, and wait until she stops struggling before I unlock the driver’s door to get in, reengaging them behind me.
I turn on the ignition.
Wait.
“Buckle up,” I order.
Arms crossed, she doesn’t move, just glares out the windshield.
“Briar.”
Those arms cross tighter, but she continues playing a statue.
Temper fraying—and temple aching in reminder of the other night—I twist, reaching over the console.
Her flinch fucking kills me.
But I can’t afford to let my guard down. Not now. Not here.
I keep moving, though I do it slower, reaching for the seat belt, dragging it across her chest and buckling it in place.
I straighten, trying to catch her eyes, to look into a face I once knew better than my own, but she’s looking out the window now, and her body is so damned tense…
Like it had been when I first met her, when I had to carefully make my way through all of those walls.
It fucking burns, the truth of that.
I created it. I’m the reason for it.
And…it still fucking burns.
I reach for the wig, wanting it off, wanting nothing but her.
“Don’t,” she rasps.
I freeze, my fingers on the synthetic strands that do nothing but remind me they’re fake, they’re not her.
Fucking sandpaper compared to the silk of her hair.
“It’s pinned in place.” The words are quiet. Husky.
A thousand questions barrel through my mind, spinning like a fucking tornado, but before I can quiet the storm, can pluck a question out of the maelstrom to ask, her eyes come to mine.
They spear into me, the burning in my belly growing, expanding out and consuming my insides.
“You need to let me go and pretend you never saw me.”
The words are cold…but her eyes—
Fuck, her eyes are dead.
I did that.
The guilt, it’s so fucking heavy, sitting so deeply on my lungs that it feels impossible to draw in a breath.
She reaches for the handle.
I stay her arm.
“I can’t,” I rasp.
Her eyes close and then she turns her head away, but she doesn’t try to get out again as I put the transmission into reverse, as I navigate the winding road down from the winery, as I take the freeway to the city, as I turn into the underground garage for my apartment building.
I park in my spot and rotate to face her.
She’s still looking away from me.
“Briar.”
She doesn’t move.
“Raindrop—”
It slips out, and it has her eyes flashing to mine. “I hate you.”
I shrug even though the words flay me open, regret and guilt spilling out like a defeated knight’s entrails on a long-forgotten battlefield.
But I’m not a white knight.
That was the problem.
Swallowing, I pop the driver’s side door, move around to hers and tug open the metal panel.
Briar doesn’t move so I unbuckle her belt, wrap my fingers around her wrist and draw her out of the car. But she doesn’t fight me either.
Not as I guide her to the elevator, not as I bring her up to the penthouse.
Not as I unlock my door and she walks inside.
“Bathroom?” she asks in that cold, dead voice before I can say anything…or figure out what to say, anyway.
I nod down the hall then follow her, flicking on lights and pushing open the door when we reach the hall bath.
But when she goes to shut it, I grip the wooden panel. “No.”
I expect a tart reply, something snarky about picking up a kink.
Instead, she just shakes her head and moves to the mirror, fingers sinking into the wig.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
Pins slide out of her hair, drop onto the counter.
I lean back against the doorframe, watching her, on edge for her to attack me again, for cold, dead words that slide deep. But also bleeding out.
Because I watched her like this so many times before.
Wiping off her makeup, putting shit on her face that was supposed to make her more beautiful (fucking impossible), and my favorite—taking down her hair.
Combing it with long, slow strokes, putting something in the ends that smelled incredible.
Sometimes she would let me comb it for her…
And I’d always find a way to do it with both of us naked.
The plinks of the pins on the counter stop and I find myself holding my breath as she reaches up again, as the wig slides free.
She sets it on the counter.
My lungs seize.
Moonlight hair.
A slender neck.
Earlobes I used to nibble at, a jaw I would press my nose to and inhale, a nose I’d kiss, staring into eyes filled with laughter.
In short, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
Then she undoes the tight bun, releasing those locks, and the edges of my vision go black.