I wondered if it always would.
“You know,” Jess began, her voice softer than before, “you’re probably the best person for this job simply because of the situation.”
Kieran murmured her name in a low warning.
She lifted her hands in the air and rolled her eyes. “Just saying. No one would keep her safer.”
With a threatening look in my direction, Kieran said, “No falling for clients.”
“I know.”
“Conor—”
“I said I fucking know, man.”
Kieran’s expression slowly fell as he stared at me.
I knew it wasn’t shock from what I’d said or my desperation and frustration. I was sure he’d heard worse from me over the years.
“What?”
After a few seconds, he swung his attention to his wife. But when he spoke, his gruff words were for me. “Look just like Beck.”
Jess nodded. “You sound a little like him right now too.”
“Jesus fuck,” I said in my best Beck voice.
A startled laugh burst from Jess. Her dark, wild eyes turned glassy as her head shook. “Not even close.”
I rubbed at the aching in my chest and shrugged. “I tried.”
Kieran wove his hand through Jess’s hair and pulled her close so he could whisper something in her ear. After a second, she pressed a kiss to his chest and then slipped out of my room.
I strained to hear, but there were no screams. No sounds of muffled voices.
“I need you to tell me,” Kieran said, snapping my attention back to the room. He was standing there with his arms folded across his chest, blade peeking out from under one arm, staring at the floor.
“What?”
“Is it the way she looks, or is it something else . . . what is it that’s distracting you?”
A ragged breath escaped me, fast and hard. I stepped back until I hit the bed and then roughly sat. “I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it because I know I can’t and shouldn’t for—fuck, so many reasons.”
“Tell me the first one that comes to mind.”
“She’s married.”
“Not.”
My eyelids slowly closed, and I lowered my head. Because I knew that.
“I know,” I said softly. “She doesn’t though.”
“First reason that comes to mind,” Kieran demanded again.
“I’m in charge of protecting them.”
“First reason that comes to mind.”
I lifted my arms out to the sides and huffed. “The fuck do you want me to say?”
Kieran didn’t respond. He just stared at me pointedly.
My lips formed a hard line as Kieran and the room faded away, and I was taken back to a day that haunted my thoughts.
“I blame her,” I finally said.
“For Einstein,” he assumed.
I swallowed thickly and jerked my head in something that might have resembled a nod. “If Sutton hadn’t looked into us, Zachary wouldn’t have found out. He wouldn’t have become obsessed with keeping her, and he wouldn’t have done what he did to Einstein.”
“It’s a risk we all take. Einstein knew that when she joined the company. And, shit, it’s less of a risk than we usually take.”
But she hadn’t been breathing.
She was in Death’s arms.
We almost lost her.
A defeated laugh climbed up my throat when Kieran breathed a curse, because I knew he’d figured it out.
“How long have you loved Einstein?”
I thought back to that first day and admitted, “Since about the minute she walked into ARCK and told us that, since we were no longer mortal enemies, we might as well become best friends.”
Kieran took slow steps until he was pressed to the wall and let his arms fall to his sides. After a second, he started rolling the blade along his knuckles as he stared blankly ahead.
That ever-present murderous expression more threatening than ever.
“You had a chance,” he said after a while.
I had stared at Einstein where she paced a few feet from me.
I hadn’t even known she was going to be in the office today, and then there she was, grabbing my hand and hauling me into the back room and closing the door behind us.
Something I had thought of doing more times than I probably should have, but with this, with the way she was pacing and whispering to herself, every fantasy I’d ever had with her was the last thing on my mind.
With a deep breath, she turned to me and said, “I want you to kiss me.”
Shock tore through me the instant I realized those words had actually left her lips.
“I want you to kiss me, and I want you to take me back to your place and-and-and I want you to sleep with me. I want you to have sex with me.”
I choked on my next breath as a dozen responses tried to climb up my throat.
This was everything I wanted, and everything she wasn’t.
I could see her. I could see her pain and how uncomfortable she was.
I could feel my heart racing and my blood heating at the thought of finally having a taste of the girl who I was sure would remain nothing more than a dream for the rest of my life. I could feel my body begging me to say yes.
But I knew her.
As much as I wanted the woman in front of me, she would never choose me. Not like this.
If I was sleeping, this was the worst fucking dream, and I was so goddamn confused.
I nodded and tried to remember what I was on the cusp of agreeing to when I was pretty fucking positive I was supposed to say no.
But I had already started walking toward her and imagining what it would be like to lose myself in her. What she would feel like. What she would taste like.
Turn around.
Turn around.
Turn around.
And then my hand was in her hair, and I wasn’t sure why I’d ever thought I could turn her down.
It was in that exact moment that she tensed and brought me crashing back to Earth.
I knew it was more than not going through with this for her sake. It was that I wouldn’t be able to survive the heartbreak of Einstein. She had always belonged to one man, and no matter what was happening with them then, she would always belong to him.
Leaning forward, I pressed my lips to her forehead and then forced myself away from her.
It was the single best second of my life.
“There’s your kiss,” I murmured gruffly. “I’m not taking you back to my place. And I’m not sleeping with you.”
The following second was agony.
Her body sagged with relief. She blinked quickly, as though she were trying to take in her surroundings, and then glared at me. “Why does everyone keep rejecting me?”
A stunned laugh burst from my chest.
And, just like that, I had my confirmation that I wouldn’t survive Einstein.
I could barely catch my breath.
I wanted to hit whoever everyone was.
I wanted to know why she’d put me through this at all when we both knew it was never what she wanted.
“Don’t know who the rest of everyone is,” I said uneasily, “but I’m guessing it might have something to do with the blow to our pride we would suffer.”
Her wide, curious eyes studied me. “Not following.”
I forced a smile and tried to hide the pain in my tone when I answered, “When you scream Maverick’s name instead of ours when we’re inside you.”
Her face flushed and paled all at once.
Her breathing deepened.
“You’re beautiful, Einstein.” They were words I’d been holding back for a year. “Anyone would be lucky to take you home, but we all know you don’t want anyone but him to.”
Her stare drifted to the floor as she took a step away.
She looked horrified.
She looked like she was in pain.
She looked like she was trying to figure out a
way to hide from the world.
“Tell me why you’re doing this,” I begged as she turned for the door.
“Because I don’t want him. I can’t,” she had said so softly I nearly missed it.
“Einstein—”
“I have work to do.”
She had been out of the room before I could get an answer out of her.
But I still hadn’t been able to get that look of panic and pain out of my head. So, like a fucking idiot, I told Maverick about the entire damn thing.
In part, to see if he would tell me what had happened between the two, which I never found out. In part, to make him hurt a little if he had hurt her, which I accomplished.
Mostly, because I knew Einstein was suffocating without him, and I’d had a front row seat to the entire thing.
Her bliss and her pain and their recent in-my-face reunion.
“No,” I finally said to Kieran. “I never had a chance with her.” A breathless laugh left me. “Must be a Kennedy thing. Loving girls who don’t belong to us.”
Kieran didn’t find that funny, considering he was married to the girl Beck had loved.
He blew out a slow breath. “Back to Sutton.”
“What about her?”
“We have rules in place for a reason.”
“I’m aware. I helped build those rules,” I reminded him.
“Sutton’s a special case.” He glanced at the door. “Has she told you why she was running from Zachary?”
“Everything she’s told me, I’ve already told you.”
“Jess and I are here to find out once and for all, and how she knew about Vero. There’s a possibility she might not need reloca—”
“She does,” I said adamantly. “You know she does. Even if we didn’t know what Zachary was capable of, she’s also running from a cartel.”
He stared at the floor with a grim look on his face. “Then you need to decide what she means, and what she will mean.”
“I’m not . . . I don’t think I’m following.”
“It isn’t a Kennedy thing, it’s our world, Conor. Lily felt stuck with me and couldn’t be with Dare. Beck loved Jessica, and she and I weren’t supposed to be together because of who she was working for. Libby, Jesus, that was a clusterfuck. And Einstein—” He gave me a guarded look but slowly continued. “Einstein was trapped in a relationship with a psychopath while wanting to be with Maverick.”
“You have a point?”
“You never missed a post on Holloway for a girl. The first I ever hear of you loving someone is Einstein, and when she gave you the green light, you turned her down because you knew it was what she needed. And now you want to be pulled from a case because of a woman.”
I wasn’t sure if he was scolding me or still making his point.
I was also pretty damn sure this was the longest I’d ever heard Kieran talk.
“If she’s interesting for a night, then push that shit back and do your fucking job. If she’s under your skin and in your head in a forever kinda way?” He lifted his shoulders in a ghost of a shrug. “We have enough trying to prevent us from living. I won’t be what stands in your way from this.”
I lifted my arms out to my sides. “I don’t want there to be a this.”
A cruel grin covered his face. “I wanted to kill Jessica when I met her. Look how that turned out.”
I pushed from the bed and took a few steps toward him so my voice wouldn’t carry when I said, “I don’t want anything from her. I can’t. I look at her and I see what happened to Einstein.”
“That isn’t all you see, or this wouldn’t be an issue.”
Fuck if he wasn’t right.
The problem was that I hardly saw that anymore.
The problem was that I’d hated her before I ever met her, and that hate had turned into something I wasn’t prepared for. Wants and needs that had grown faster and more intense in these few days than my feelings ever had over the course of a year with Einstein.
This conversation stood proof of that.
“Kieran—”
“Don’t let anything happen then,” he said simply. “But if you do, know that there is no going back from this. She’s it, or she isn’t.” He headed for the door, but just before he grabbed the handle, he looked at me. “Consider the consequences if she is, Conor.”
I studied the sadness etched deep in his eyes for a moment before asking, “What am I missing?”
“If she’s it, there’s no keeping Sutton and Lexi with you. You get relocated with them.”
I staggered back a step before steadying myself.
Before I was able to catch my breath from the blow he’d dealt, Kieran had slipped from my room and shut the door behind him.
Sutton
I slipped my arm out from underneath Lexi’s sleeping form and tiptoed to the door.
The entire way there, I considered not answering it.
Part of me was still angry with Conor for allowing people to get inside the suite. For not being there when it happened. Though, the longer I’d laid in the room, the more I’d been able to see the situation for what it was.
I knew it wasn’t his fault for not being there—he couldn’t be next to us every second of the day, and it wasn’t fair of me to expect that.
Really, I was frustrated at him for being so cold lately and itching to beg him to tell me what I had done.
To know what had changed between us.
To see him smile again.
That damn Prince Charming smile hidden within that intimidating, tattooed, avenging angel.
I think that was the worst of it all. Because it was dangerous to want to see him. To want to know what had changed between us when there wasn’t anything between us to begin with. When nothing could ever be there.
“Jesus, you’re a mess,” I whispered as I reached for the handle on the door.
Conor was waiting on the other side, mouth set in a scowl, eyes distant.
Perfect.
A soft sigh pushed past my lips as I slipped out of the room and closed the door behind me. At the moment it clicked, I looked past Conor and saw the two people standing behind him.
My muscles tensed.
My blood ran cold.
Lexi had told me they had confusing smiles. Part-bad, part-good.
The girl talked in precious, six-year-old nonsense, but she had yet to be wrong.
“Conor, I don’t trust them.” The words were so soft that I wasn’t sure if Conor could hear them, and he was directly in front of me.
But the man across the room was the one who smiled in response.
Slow.
Chilling.
I grabbed the handle and was rocking back a step when Conor twisted his head and finally looked at me. “If you don’t trust them, then you don’t trust me.”
I snuck a quick glance at the two waiting. “But they—” I hurried to clamp my mouth shut, knowing I was about to go on another rant that was sure to make my mother proud and horrify me.
“I would lay my life down for those two, and they would do the same for me, or any stranger, in a heartbeat.” With that, Conor walked away.
Shame filled me just as it did when I had let Conor know all the things I thought about him. Then again, he probably knew exactly what I was thinking about the people.
The girl was dressed in tight-fitting clothes that—no. No. Not going down that path.
Because then I would still be thinking it.
She was pretty. Beautiful even. There, I could focus on the positives.
Actually, she was so pretty that it was incredibly intimidating. I suddenly felt self-conscious in my pajamas and no makeup.
I forced a smile and tried not to fidget as I walked to where they were waiting in the living room.
“I’m Jess,” the girl said with a wicked smile as she extended her hand.
I shook it awkwardly. “Sutton.”
Her smile grew. “I know. How’s Lexi doing with the tablet?”
“O
h, um, good. Thank you for that.”
“We brought coloring books and crayons.” Her smile softened as she inclined her head. “They’re in the kitchen.”
“She’ll love them. Thank you, that’s very kind.”
“We need answers,” the man next to her said.
I knew Conor had said his name before, more than once probably, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of it.
Jess smacked his chest. “Don’t mind him. He’s grumpy and scary and all those fun things, but he’s really here because your safety is our priority.” She stepped closer and gave me a saucy wink. “However, he isn’t so good at the whole talking thing. You’ve been warned.”
She moved past me, practically dancing, and fell to the couch with a giggle.
I watched the man follow and sit beside her before I headed to one of the chairs. As soon as I was seated, Conor went to stand against the wall.
“We’re sorry for scaring you before,” the man said. “We expected Conor to be there. It’s also habit to let ourselves in.”
“You aren’t the only one to get scared,” Jess said with a grin.
“Still not okay in this situation,” Conor added.
“Anyway,” Jess continued. “Kieran and I are here because we need answers that you haven’t exactly been forthcoming with.”
Oh no.
“You never did say why you and Lexi were running or why you needed to be relocated.” Jess’s eyes flashed to Kieran. “You also didn’t know about Zachary’s secret life, so that makes us wonder what exactly happened. What crime you saw.”
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Oh God.
My heart stuttered.
My palms began to sweat.
The story swam around and around in my mind, but when I opened my mouth, the words wouldn’t come.
I looked to Conor, but he was staring straight ahead, features hard and unreadable.
“I know Daddy scares you too.”
“Can you be scared of someone and love them at the same time?”
“We were scared.”
Silence stretched for so long I thought I might go insane.
Finally, Jess cleared her throat. “We know, Sutton. But of what? What did you see?”
The only thing I could think to tell them—the only truth—I didn’t know how.
It was something I had stupidly been about to confess to Conor yesterday before breakfast had shown up. Thinking back, I was glad I hadn’t when the rest of the morning seemed to change everything between us.
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