“It’s not going to change anything.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Let’s get you into the shower. Our ride will be here in less than an hour now.”
“Our ride?” he asked as she helped him get out of bed.
“Yes. My drug dealer has arranged transportation to the airport and private jet.”
“Priv—”
“And please don’t ask me anything else about it because I can assure you in the scope of things right now, it really doesn’t matter.”
*
Jillian helped AJ to the hotel lobby fifteen minutes before their ride was supposed to be there.
“Sit here. I’m going to have the concierge send someone back up for our bags. I’ll be right back.”
AJ eased into the leather chair next to the lobby fountain.
She removed the hairband from her wrist and twisted her tangled blond locks into a messy bun then slipped on her sunglass. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen from too many tears and no sleep.
“Good morning. How may I help you?”
Jillian handed the concierge her room keys. “Room 349. Jillian Knight. Could you have someone bring our bags down to the lobby, please?”
“Absolutely, Miss Knight.”
“Thank you.”
She turned and nearly ran into the gentleman in line behind her.
“Pardon me.” He smiled with a nod and stepped around her as she looked down to retrieve her phone from her handbag.
“Jessica?”
For the first time in nearly a year … she felt her heart. It beat just feet from her. “Luke,” she breathed his name with the first true breath she’d taken in nearly a year. And when she looked up … she saw her heart.
He looked just like she remembered—perfect. Except, all the blood had drained from his face. He eased his hand toward her head. She needed to stop him, she needed to flee, she needed to do something, but she couldn’t. For a mere second in time she felt every cell in her body come to life.
Luke ever so slowly slid off her sunglasses. His mouth dropped open. He looked at a ghost. She stared at a mirage because out of the corner of her eye she saw several men in suits coming to take him away. The clock ticked no matter how much she wished to be frozen in time at that very moment. She’d dreamed of seeing him again since the day she last saw him at the cemetery. What do you say to the person who gave you everything?
Tick tock.
Two men grabbed his arms, but he still didn’t take his eyes off her.
Say something, her mind screamed.
“Luke … thank you.” A flicker of a smile touched her lips as they pulled him toward the large revolving door.
Once he was outside she could see him yell her name as if something inside him awoke and he began to fight back, but it was too late. Two seconds later they had him stuffed into the back of a black SUV speeding away from the curb.
McGraw’s men hadn’t been following her because of her requests. They knew Dr. Luke Jones and Jessica Day were going to be in the same city at the same time … and as if not even death could keep them apart … they ended up at the same hotel, the same concierge desk, and then for one last time they shared the same breath of air—the same heartbeat.
In that moment she died. There were no more breaths to take.
“Miss Knight, we have to go.” Two more suits pulled her toward the exit and another black SUV waiting at the curb.
“AJ—”
“Mr. Monaghan is already in the vehicle.”
Luke. He loved her—adored her—and then he mourned her. But no longer. He would hate her forever.
Before they opened the door to the SUV, Jillian fisted the jacket of one of the suits. “You tell McGraw I’ll bring him and everyone else involved to the gates of Hell if anything happens to Luke.”
The young man swallowed hard and nodded. “I-I’ll tell him.”
He opened the back door and Jillian climbed in.
“Jillian?” AJ slid his hand across the seat in search of her.
She just stared at it … stared at him.
AJ squeezed his eyes shut. “Where is she?” he yelled.
She grabbed his hand as the vehicle pulled away from the curb. “I’m here. I’m right here.” Her other hand splayed against her heart, slowly clawing into a fist as she looked out the window, falling apart in silence.
“Where did you go?” AJ squeezed her hand.
“The restroom.” Words struggled to move past the asphyxiating lump of emotions growing in her throat.
“Did you get our bags?”
She didn’t know.
“We did,” the suit in the front passenger seat assured.
They arrived at the airport, stopping a short distance from the steps to the private jet.
“I’ve got him. Just get the bags,” Jillian instructed as she stepped out of the vehicle.
“Have you ever been on a private jet?” AJ asked as she led him up the steps.
“No.” Every response came out on autopilot. Jillian Knight had never been on a private jet. AJ’s distrust didn’t go unnoticed by her. Why would he ask if she’d been on a private jet when she confessed her first time on a plane with him months earlier? Because he didn’t trust her, that’s why.
They settled into the leather seats of the exorbitantly expensive jet and within minutes they were in the air. It may have been an awful thought, but as they ascended into the clouds Jillian was thankful that AJ couldn’t see her making the occasional wipe of her weepy, red eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as if he could read her mind.
“Nothing.”
“You’re crying.”
“How—”
“I can feel your pain.” AJ held out his hand.
She couldn’t imagine having another man’s arms around her. After seeing Luke it felt like cheating. Cheating on a man who thought she died. Cheating on a man who by all rights hated her. Cheating on a man who she would never see again.
AJ’s hand hung in the air between them, so she took it and crawled up on his lap because she needed someone and in spite of everything that had just happened, she loved AJ and he loved her.
“Please tell me these tears aren’t for me.”
Jillian couldn’t answer. She just sobbed into his chest because she needed to let go of the pain that was absolutely, unbearably, relentlessly cutting her to the depths of her soul.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The demons from Jackson’s past continued to haunt him at every turn. If something didn’t change, he would lose Ryn. She didn’t have to say it. The marks on her body said it for her. Jillian had intimacy issues, not him. Yet since his sparring partner had been gone, there weren’t enough miles of pavement to pound, enough pull-up reps, or enough jabs to the punching bag to give him the pain he needed. That realization haunted him as much as his past: Jackson Knight needed to feel pain.
“They don’t hurt.” Ryn pulled her jeans on over her thong that showed his fingers, bruises like tattoos on her ass from him two mornings earlier.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, he reached out and traced the bruises with a feather’s touch. Then he gently took her wrists, inspecting the red marks he left minutes earlier from pinning them above her head.