Chapter 11
ELEVEN
brOOKS
I hold my breath until I hear her footsteps start coming my way.
Then I exhale to steady my nerves…and maybe to give myself time to wonder what in the fuck all I’m doing.
She stole from me.
Hit me.
And all the reasons I walked away still exist.
But—
Scars on the back of her legs.
Flinching when I moved too fast.
The disguise tonight…
The fucking fact that she broke into my house—our house—and stole from me.
I grab the eggs, bring them to the counter, along with the cheese and bacon, green onions and mushrooms. It’s instinct to gather the ingredients, to snag the right pan from the drawer beneath the stove.
I don’t spend much time here—when I moved back to the States, I preferred to be at the estate. After pretending for so long that the hole inside me I created by leaving her didn’t exist, all I wanted was to spend time in the place I had her. To fill that void with memories.
Good.
Until they turned bad.
The footsteps stop.
I open the carton, start cracking eggs into a bowl.
“Knife and cutting board are there and there”—I nod at the block and then a drawer—“and you’re more than welcome to keep the spray you have in your pocket, but I think that a knife will be a better weapon.” I shrug. “Though, those boots are pretty damned good as they are.”
She doesn’t move, not for a long moment.
Then she sighs quietly and moves to the drawer, pulling it open, snagging a cutting board. A moment later, she has a knife in hand.
And is turning toward me.
I can’t lie. I definitely feel a blip of discomfort with that shining blade in her hand.
But she doesn’t plunge the knife in my back.
She folds a towel and places it beneath the cutting board, starts slicing the mushrooms and green onions.
I scramble the eggs.
She dices the bacon, tosses it in the pan.
And then we’re working like we always used to, side-by-side with crisp efficiency.
Frying the bacon, sautéing the mushrooms and onions.
Setting them aside.
Eggs in the pan. Fillings joining the party along with the cheese and salt and pepper.
Five minutes later, I’m sliding her omelet onto a plate and starting on mine.
“I don’t understand,” I say as I pretend to focus on the eggs in the pan, but really I’m watching her out of the corner of my eye, watching as she slowly takes a bite, chews, and swallows.
Then it’s like something has unlocked inside her.
She devours the omelet, eating it as though she hasn’t had a full meal in far too long—and maybe she hasn’t.
Fuck, with everything that’s happened, I haven’t really processed that she’s far too thin.
Her cheekbones stand out in sharp relief, her jawline sharp—too sharp.
And there’s a fragility about her she never had before, not even when she first left the farm and crossed paths with the shitstorm that’s my life.
I know it’s not physical, the bruise on my temple tells me that much, but I still fucking hate it.
I hate you.
Right. Probably as much as she hates me.
For leaving her that day, for hurting her so deeply.
I slide my omelet onto her plate and she stills, those eyes that see too much and reveal nothing aside from disdain, glancing across mine.
Then she uses the edge of her fork to cut off a piece and pops it into her mouth.
I’m hungry but my stomach is in knots.
No way could I eat anything right now.
So I clean up, the silence only broken by the clink of her fork and the splash of water and the rattle of the pans.
Eventually there are no more dishes, nothing else to put away.
Nothing except the pressing silence, closing in on all sides, leaving me at a complete loss as what to say and do and…
“I need to go,” she says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out the can of air freshener, setting it on the counter.
“Don’t.”
She freezes, fingers spasming on the can, but then her voice changes—for the first time losing the edge of biting frost. “I’m not going to hurt you again.” Her throat works. “I didn’t like…” A shake of her head. “I need to go.”
“Don’t,” I rasp again.
A breath. “You have no right to ask me to stay.”
That’s true. I was the one who walked away, who shattered what we had and threw the pieces to the side.
“I know,” I say quietly. “But stay anyway.”
She shakes her head, steps back from the counter, turns for the hall.
My heart drops.
“The scars?”
A hitch in her step. “They don’t matter.”
“They do to me.”
“Are you sure?”
Fuck. The ice is back.
The gulf between us is so fucking wide that I don’t even know where to begin. I just…
“Don’t go.”
Another shake of her head and she starts walking again, this time moving more quickly, and I follow her.
“You broke into our house.”
A pause. “Not our,” she snaps icily. “You made that clear when you left me on that mountain five years ago.”
“So you stole from me?”
Her mouth closes so quickly, the click of her teeth slamming together is audible. “I’ll make sure you don’t see me again.”
But there’s something in the lines of her body as she reaches for the doorknob, in the set of her jaw…
“But you can’t guarantee that, can you?”
She stills. Only for a heartbeat, but it’s long enough that I know.
“Why were you at our house?”
“It’s not our house.”
Because I made it that way.
She doesn’t say it.
But I hear it.
“Did you know what you were stealing?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” I shift closer. “Why that flash drive, Briar? What are you going to do with the information?”
Her fingers close around the metal of the knob.
“Are you going to sell it?”
I reach around her, place my palm flat on the door, holding it closed.
“Blackmail me with it?”
She’s stiff, her words frosty. “I just told you that you wouldn’t see me again.”
“What if that’s not what I want?”
A dumb fucking question.
I left her, made it pretty fucking clear we were finished five years ago.
She looks over her shoulder at me, and for a second, her eyes aren’t filled with ice…it’s like we’re there again.
In the past.
Without…
All of this shit between us.
Shit I created.
“Just let me go,” she whispers. “Forget I was here and we’ll go back to our lives.”
A life that’s left her rail-thin and scarred and flinching at abrupt movements.
A life that has her stealing things and wearing disguises and carrying air freshener like it can be used as a weapon.
I open my mouth to tell her there’s no fucking way I can let her walk out the door, but before I get a word out…
There’s a knock on the other side of the door.