I just stare at her, trying not to be too obvious.
What can I say?
It’s comfortable.
More familiar and easy than it has any business being, really.
But as she clacks her candy again, I ask, “Do you never take that shit out of your mouth?”
In response, she glances past me, grey eyes cutting toward the mess of our clothes on the floor.
When I see what she’s looking at, I lose it, breaking the silence with a loud chuckle.
Tumbling out from the pockets of her tactical pants, several more of those pink spheres in clear plastic wrappers spill across the floor.
“That you trying to tell me you’ve got an oral fixation?” I can’t help laughing again.
“Not quite like that.” She smiles in a sort of vague, self-mocking way, pulling her smoke from her lips and blowing out an ashen puff.
It’s almost graceful. Serene. My dick stirs to life again for the fourth time tonight.
She makes an O of her mouth around the remnants of pink in her lips before sucking it back in. “It keeps me calm. That’s all. It’s like...as long as I’ve got that to focus on, nothing will ever startle me or make me afraid.”
“Thought it might be a comfort object.” And I can’t help holding her closer, just for a moment, as if I could protect her. “Did you start that with the Nightjars training?”
“No.” Bitter, but amused, she stares through the wall. “Dr. Ross hates it. But he can’t get me to stop.”
“It’d be a sorry day if you took orders from that quack,” I say.
She snorts. Her eyes unfocus for a moment, her brows knitting. “I can’t remember anyone. It’s like they were all wiped away, and when I look for where they should be, there aren’t even holes that tell me something used to be there. No mother, no father, no sisters or brothers.” Her voice softens. “But I think...maybe I had a grandmother, once. And she gave me candies like these.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
I don’t think she wants me to, as if I’d be looking directly at her weakness to acknowledge something so personal.
So I don’t say anything at all.
I just hold her close, and hope that one day, we’ll settle a few scores.
Secretly, I hope I won’t be a blank space in her mind, too, erased from her memory with only the vaguest idea that something should be there.
Present
Goddamn, she’s still just as beautiful as yesterday.
It doesn’t matter if she’s a ragged stray cat or the sleek luxury show creature she’s grown into, adopting a taste for the finer things over the years—my fault, wooing her with designer brands and watching her discover the power in feeling beautiful, the pleasure in having lovely things to call hers instead of what the company just provided for her.
She’s still this vibrant whirlpool of energy who attracts everything around her like a magnet.
Men.
Money.
Trouble.
And she’s about to get herself in deep trouble now, if she’s not careful.
Well, shit.
If I’m going to rise from the dead, I guess there’s no better reason to do it than to pull the woman now known only as Fuchsia Delaney back from the brink.
Again.
Because that promise she made years ago was dead right—nobody forgets Fuchsia.
After all these years, I damn well haven’t.
I just wasn’t expecting to pull into Bellingham to see her right there, stepping into full view in the middle of a day full of pouring rain as silver as her incisive eyes.
She’s come to town as fashionable as ever in a high-necked black velour coat, a high-belted black dress with a tight pencil skirt, and sleek black stockings paired with gleaming black pumps.
I’m not surprised she didn’t notice me tailing her across town, even if she glanced back over her shoulder a few times.
That sixth sense we have for each other lives on despite no contact for well over a decade.
It’s hard to hold on to when she thinks I’m dead, and I’ve let her think that.
Hell, I’ve let everyone think that, because it was what Galentron wanted. Me out of the way.
So I went to ground after they failed to ice me out, striking back when I could, foiling their schemes and blunting their crawl into darker directions. Always waiting for my knockout blow and a chance to make amends.
I just hadn’t expected her to get there faster, much less catalyze the company’s downfall with the shitshow that happened in small-town Heart’s Edge.
But it’s turning into a pattern.
I don’t know how she found out the truth about Leland Durham.
My intel came from a few off-record contacts in underground intelligence communities. Fuchsia’s got a few too many arrest warrants out for her sweet ass right now for anyone smart to risk talking to her. Not willingly.
She’s been making bold moves these last few years.
Maybe too bold.
I don’t think she’s even trying to hide herself as she slews her rental car to a halt outside the Bellingham airfield and steps out, hefting a bulky hardshell luggage bag from her trunk, then stalking through the chain-link gate and right past two security guards in rain slickers, ignoring their annoyed shouts.
She’s going in hot with big enough lady-balls to knock down a house.
Shame she doesn’t know what I do.
That the rain just delayed Durham’s flight to Fiji, and while he’s grounded, he decided to expand his crew manifest rather than wait for them to join him on a later illicit flight.
He’s called in the cavalry.
A full personal guard, not just the skeleton crew scheduled to fly with him today.
He’s not taking any chances.
And dear, bright, bold, fearless Fuchsia Delaney is about to plant her pretty designer heels in the muck.
About to make the biggest fucking mistake of her life.
About to die if I don’t do something to save her.
6
The Sweetest Thing (Fuchsia)
I think what I’m afraid of most?
That my daughter could turn out just like me.
That when I find her, I’ll actually recognize the girl who was stolen away from me...and not like any mother ever should.
She’ll be a cold, empty husk, drained of all humanity, transformed into this thoughtless, obedient creature who can never have any hope of being an ordinary, happy girl.
Taken from a normal life and put into one of those abominable training programs Galentron fosters, or worse. If I’m lucky, they didn’t use her as a fucking test case for the more exotic, horrifying biological schemes they were planning to the bitter end.
The foster homes and secret dorms are bad enough.
They paint it as philanthropy.
Funneling unadoptable male orphans like Lion-boy Leo into programs that will give them an education, a home, a future with one of the most elite military programs in the world. States and private orphanages practically jump at the chance to sign the NDA and hand over the kids.
Guiding vulnerable young women with no home, no living guardians, into career paths that will teach them valuable corporate skills and the diplomacy necessary to function in the world of high-powered politics. I’ll let you guess who they pushed along that path.