Chapter 19
Erel was going to kill me. I kind of stranded him twenty miles from Maeve’s place at four in the morning after packing bodies into his rental and handing the keys off to O’Leary cleaners to dispose of.
While he probably scrambled for a ride at this hour, shoes soggy from dew and chilled in his light jacket, I rode cozy in Cillian’s car while he cruised down side streets instead of the interstate. The heated front passenger seat cocooned my body and warmed me inside out.
Alizé
Sorry.
Erel
You owe me a car.
Fucking thieving delinquents. The little bastards.
Want to explain how Endgame’s finest got jumped?
His responding vulgar GIF made me chortle.
The fact that the sound drew a flicker of Cillian’s attention off the road made a burst of satisfaction burn in my chest. Jealousy meant I was getting somewhere.
That was something I could play on. So far, this had gone much more smoothly than expected.
It made his years of avoidance and neglect burn all the worse.
You going to be fine getting back?
I’m already home. I called a cab the instant he helped you load the first one into the car.
You left me?
No more than you did.
You’re really back at Maeve’s?
Yes.
I shook my head with a scoff. “Abruti.” Jerk.
“What?” Cillian asked.
“Not you.” I lifted my phone. “My accomplice, as you called him.”
Was it me, or did Cillian’s grip tighten around the steering wheel? I bit my lips together and suppressed back a grin. My phone buzzed.
By the way, next time, warn me.
I never needed to hear you moan.
And dry-humping? What are you? Fifteen?
And next time, I won’t stop the Irishman from beating your head in. How about that?
“You two seem close.”
Cillian’s face was stormy as he glared at the road.
“Bof. Not really. Not until this trip, at least.”
“Why this one?”
Was that a hint of curiosity I heard?
“This is the first time it’s only the two of us.
He’s always been my brother’s shadow. They are like two fingers of the same hand and almost never apart.
But he is dating my best friend, who lives in Boston, and since I’m staying here on business for the next few months, he tagged along as my bodyguard. So in a way, he is stuck with me.”
“Stuck with you,” he repeated, then grunted, his face stony. “Was this prank his idea or yours?”
The erotic figurine knob on his gearbox handle really did look ridiculous between his thick fingers and knuckles. The figurine’s aroused face stuck out from the top of his grip. His fist pressed against the plastic legs where its hand dipped between them. It was perfectly filthy.
I caressed my fingers along his hand wrapped around the lewd handle.
“He’s too serious for that. This gift was all mine.”
“You thought it a good idea to mess with me?”
“Have I not been doing exactly that since we met?” My nails scratched up his arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps behind. “I think you like it. I even bet you want more. Besides, you only have yourself to blame. I won’t be ignored or pushed aside, and you were trying to do just that.”
“And if I’m not interested?”
“We both know you are. No need to play coy.”
“Your confidence is galling.”
“It has to be. If I don’t force my mark on those around me, I’ll disappear into the crowd. It’s too easy to be forgotten.”
“Ah. That’s it, innit?”
“What?” Couldn’t say I was a big fan of the sudden malignant gleam to his eyes, like he’d just won some grand prize.
“You weren’t cared for as a child. So now you try to force it from others.”
“Absolutely not. I come from a loving family.”
“Sure you did.”
“My parents did the best they could.”
“Aye, a tip-top job to them if this is how they left you.”
My teeth ground together at his sarcasm. “You’re suddenly chatty.”
His nonchalant shrug made me squirm uncomfortably in my seat. Damn him.
“Just saying. You force something too much, you break it.”
“How hypocritical of you,” I snarled. “You spend your time breaking the law just to stand out. Whether it’s for money, power, or whatever else drives you, you want your life to have meaning.
” I gazed out the window. The shadowed houses, darkened lawns, and gloomy trees blurred by through the window, everything bleached of color under patchy moonlight. “Everyone does in their own way.”
“Is that what this is? Are you using me to give your life meaning?”
The menace in his tone barely registered.
I was using him, just not in the way he thought.
I was using him to free myself and find the emotional connection I’d been hoping for my whole life.
To find the person who thought about me the moment they woke up in the morning.
The person who admired, cherished, and loved me above all others.
I was tired of begging for scraps of affection.
It wasn’t my fault he didn’t recognize me or know who I was. I chose a fake identity with a name so close to my own he was a damn fool not to realize it. In fact, at this point, I wondered how much information I could give him about myself before he caught on.
The worst part was I didn’t hate him. I enjoyed our back-and-forth. If he’d made even the tiniest effort in our marriage, then maybe we would have worked. Maybe we wouldn’t be here, where I deceived him so he’d fall in love with a fake me, only to willingly divorce the real me. Twisted as that was.
“Aren’t you doing the same with me?” I challenged. “No one forced you to come after me. Is your life lacking meaning?”
In the darkness between streetlamps, the glow of the console contorted the grimace on his handsome face into something ghoulish and deadly, but his silent threat didn’t even faze me. Not after growing up with a psychopath as my twin.
A large shadowed shape rushed at us in my periphery. I snapped my head at it. A deer.
“Watch out!”
The tires squealed. The brakes ground. I vaulted forward against the seat belt, ramming into his extended arm and hand before the seat belt snapped taut.
The car thumped onto its back tires, slamming me into my seat, his arm locking me in place.
By then, the deer was gone, and we were stopped, but that wasn’t what I was seeing.
I was back there…back to the day I killed my childhood best friend.
We were on the road, and I was gripping the steering wheel, watching the oncoming car, hearing the honking, but frozen in place and unable to move.
Completely useless. My mind was trapped in a panic amid her screaming, the brakes squeaking, and metal crunching as my body rolled, and the reek of blood and diesel filled the car.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t even scream.
Lights flashed. My ears rang. And Lea’s eyes were open, staring vacantly back at me, as blood rushed down the side of her head.
She was dead. Again, and it was all my fault, all over again.
“Alice. Alice!”
Something shook me, and the memory faded. The bright glow of blue sirens from an ambulance melted into darkness. The sharp shrieks of metal crunching sank into an abyss of silence under the pounding of my heart.
“Oi, síbhean. Snap out of it. Come on.”
There was a click, then my body turned into a weightless, shaking mess, carried over that ridiculous gear handle and seat divider. What if my prank reduced Cillian’s reaction time? What if we’d crashed and he’d died because of it? It’d be my fault. Always my fault.
A low, deep humming cut through all the noise in my head. It was beautiful and melodious. Sweet, yet almost sad. The tune rumbled against my ear and head as heavy fingers stroked up and down my back, with arms tightly wrapped around me.
Slowly, the heaviness of my limbs dissipated. The dizziness cleared, and I could breathe again.
“Oi, look at me.”
Cillian’s warm fingers pressed up beneath my shaky chin.
I straddled his thighs, my face wet and buried in his chest, the steering wheel digging into my back.
That just made this all the more embarrassing.
There was nothing strong and impressive about me right now.
Everything around us was dark and blurred, and he’d probably see little of my face, but I couldn’t bear his condescension.
Not when I was at my most vulnerable, a grown woman falling to pieces, sitting on him of all places.
“Eh, I’ve got you. Nothing happened. You’re safe. We’re safe.”
My eyes locked on a fleck of gray against his black shirt.
“Did we hit it?” I forced out.
“No.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Feel better?”
Again, I bobbed my head and sucked in a shaky breath.
“Good. Now you’re going to tell me what just happened.”
“Nothing happened.”
He scoffed. This time, he didn’t let me stay hidden. With my chin in his hold, he forced my face up.
“Run that by me again. This time, no lying.”
“I’m fine.” Tears threatened to surface.
“What did I just say?”
“What do you care?”
“That’s a good question.” He wiped a trail of wetness off my cheek. “I shouldn’t.”
“But you do?”
“Aye, I do.”
For once, the emotions in his eyes weren’t closed off and untouchable.
They brimmed with pain and angst and enough longing to rival my own.
It made me want to dive in for a closer look and discover what else we had in common.
He’d always been the kind of attractive that made you dizzy to look at for too long, but never more appealing than in this moment.
I should loathe him, but when he looked at me like I mattered, those venomous feelings poisoning my skin melted and dissipated into the ether.
“I’m no gentleman, sweetheart. Keep looking at me like that, and we’ll have a problem.”
If anything, his warning was the sweetest dare.
“Do your worst.”
A corner of his mouth lifted, and I almost cried victory.
His hand crept around me to the curve of my breast. Slowly, it slid lower, down my waist, grazing over my skin to unbutton my pants.
“Say the word and this stops.”
“Don’t you dare,” I whispered.