“It’s over, lass. Don’t make it worse than it has to be.”
I want to scream in frustration. I want to punch him in the face. I want to smash something, anything, but instead I say, “Don’t patronize me, Declan. I have the right to talk to him—”
“The right?” His voice is a razor blade. He paces forward several steps, his posture menacing. “No, you don’t have any rights. You’re not his wife. You’re not his family. You’re not even his friend. Get it straight, lass: you’re a skirt he’s been shagging for a few weeks, nothing more.”
I’m breathless with hurt. It feels like he punched me in the stomach.
He paces closer as I stare at him, wounded and horrified, unable to move. He stops a foot away and looks into my eyes. He says, “Aren’t you?”
Oddly, it sounds like a challenge.
My voice shaking, I say, “No.”
Examining my expression, he takes a drag on his cigarette. He blows the smoke into my face.
I hate it when he does that.
He says, “What are you, then?”
It must be anger. It must be hurt. It could even be defiance, but before I make the conscious decision to, I’m shouting an answer into Declan’s face.
“I’m the woman who loves him!”
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t blink. Only his eyes change. A glimmer of emotion warms their icy depths for a moment before subsiding, leaving them even colder than before.
His tone drips with condescension. “You’re a child who’s confusing sex with love. Grow up.”
My hand flies on its own will.
With every ounce of my strength, I slap Declan across the face. An animal’s scream of rage rips from my throat as I do it.
His head snaps to the side. For one long, breathless moment, he’s frozen, totally unresponsive, but then he turns his head slowly and looks at me.
My handprint glows bright pink against his cheek.
Staring him down, breathing hard, I say, “Call me a child again and I’ll break your nose, you arrogant son of a bitch.”
He grins.
Grabbing my upper arm, he says roughly, “Knew I liked you, lass.”
He drags me away toward the elevator doors, ignoring my angry shouts and struggles.
He keeps ignoring me on the elevator ride down to the parking garage. He ignores me as he shoves me into the back seat of an SUV and buckles me in. He ignores me on the drive back to my apartment, though I pester him the entire time to get Liam on the phone and rant about what bullshit it is that he won’t obey me.
He pulls to a screeching stop in front of my apartment building, drags me out of the car, and marches me silently up to my front door with his jaw set. He deposits me on the welcome mat and dusts off his hands, like he’s delivered something dirty.
I’m barefoot.
I don’t have on any underwear.
The only thing between me and the evening air is one of Liam’s white dress shirts, because I am a romantic moron who got lost in a mobster’s sad, beautiful eyes and started wearing his clothes like a crazy person.
Before Declan turns around to leave, I shout, “I don’t believe he’d leave me like this, Declan! Something must have happened! Tell me what’s really going on!”
Exasperated, he throws his arms in the air. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, woman, do you ever stop running your bloody mouth?”
“Where is Liam? Why didn’t he come back today? Do you know who he talked to on the phone this morning?”
Declan stomps off, muttering, without giving me a satisfactory reply.
Then it’s just me standing there alone in the empty corridor, shivering, reality starting to sink in like a creeping case of poison ivy.
It’s over.
It’s really over.
Liam and I are through.
I hear pounding footsteps from inside my apartment, then seconds later an angry Ellie throws open the front door. She shouts, “What the hell is all the screaming out—”
She stops short when she spots me. Her brow furrows. She looks me up and down. “Tru? What are you doing here?”
I say, “I live here, remember?”
Then I promptly burst into tears.
28
Liam
When my cell rings and I see it’s Declan calling, I almost have a heart attack.
I answer instantly. My greeting is a barked, “What did she say?”
“What didn’t she say?” is Declan’s aggravated response. “She wouldn’t shut up. It was like dealing with a mental patient. Or a banshee. She screamed bloody murder all over the place!”
Imagining her upset and angry, hurt because of me, I groan.
“And she smacked me!” He laughs, half outraged and half admiring. “A good one, too! The stones on her, in-fucking-credible!”
When I groan again, Declan says sourly, “Oh, quit your pissin’ and moanin’. She’s mad as hell, but she still loves you.”
I almost drop the phone. Then I almost have that heart attack again. The phone gripped in my shaking hand, I say hoarsely, “Did she tell you that?”
“Aye. Though she didn’t have to. A woman only ever gets that level of thermonuclear over a man she loves.”
My knees give out. I drop into a nearby chair, tilt my head back, and close my eyes.
She loves me.
She told Declan she loves me.
If I died at this moment, it would be as a happy man.
“You still there, Romeo?”
My voice is thick when I answer. “Still here.”
“What’s our next move?”
I open my eyes, lift my head, and look at the FBI agents sitting across the table staring back at me.
I say, “I’ll let you know soon,” and disconnect.
29
Tru
I don’t sleep that night. I pace back and forth in my bedroom, my mind whirling. I’m sick, furious, hurt, confused, enraged, ashamed, disbelieving, and furious.
Did I mention furious?
I’m so angry it feels like I could birth a rage monster through my vaginal canal.
I want to smash every single piece of furniture in sight.
He wanted the arrangement. He was the one who concocted the idea of me moving in with him. He was the one who kidnapped me to make it happen!
And he was the one who sent his second-in-command to whisk me away like a dirty plate three days before it was supposed to be over.
He could’ve been a gentleman and handled it himself. I mean, I probably would’ve gotten teary-eyed and emotional when the time came, but I certainly would not have begged…
Okay, I would’ve begged. I’m addicted to his magical dick.
Plus—horribly, tragically, stupidly—I’m in love with him. So there would have been begging.
But that’s no excuse for shifting the responsibility of getting rid of your willing captive to a man who doesn’t have the manners to refrain from blowing cigarette smoke into a lady’s face.
I hope that slap I gave Declan left him with a nasty bruise.
And if I ever see Liam Black on the street, he’ll wish I hadn’t.
“Who are you kidding?” I whisper to my tear-stained reflection. “Not me.”