“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
He was sorry.
He. Was. Sorry.
My head was reeling. My heart was simultaneously aching and overflowing with happiness. It was sheer force of will that kept my shaking legs under me.
And he was sorry.
I slammed the truck door and walked around to meet him at the bumper. “For what?” It was only two words, but they contained no less than a thousand accusations.
His long, dark lashes fluttered shut for a second. “Let’s just get everyone inside and I’ll explain.” He reached for my hand, but despite the fact that my body was weeping for me to accept comfort from him, deep down, I knew that the weapon never healed the wound.
I snatched my hand away and deadpanned, “I can’t wait.”
Catalina sidled up beside me as Penn led the way to a small elevator. He did some digging in his pocket for God only knew what and then the doors opened.
We all filed in, like a good little herd of sheep following a ghostly shepherd.
Catalina was behind me, and when the doors shut, she leaned forward and whispered, “Where are we?”
I huffed. “I honestly don’t know.”
Penn used his superhuman hearing. “I’ve got a place on the sixth floor. We’ll be safe. There’s a security firm a few levels down. They keep a close watch on all the entrances and exits to the building. Thomas gets any ideas about showing up here, I won’t be the only one pissed.”
“And who exactly are you again?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said sarcastically, waving my hand between them. “Allow me to introduce you. Catalina, this is my ex-boyfriend, Penn Walker. You know, the one I’ve spent the last few weeks grieving, after he”—I turned a wry smile on Penn—“died.”
Penn shot me an unimpressed glare. “And I told you I’d explain”—he pointedly tipped his chin up to a security camera—“when we get inside.”
I clamped my mouth shut and stared at the door as we rode up. I told myself that the humming in my veins was the remnants of adrenaline.
But I couldn’t even lie to myself.
It was the same way my body had always reacted to him—regardless of how much I wanted to hate him.
Biting my lips, I chanced a glance at him out of the corner of my eye. I regretted it immediately.
He was staring at me. His gaze was dark and solemn, but the faintest touch of a grin tilted one side of his mouth. It reminded me of the first time I’d seen him smile. It was that day when we were alone in Brittany’s apartment and he was fixing the ceiling fan. It felt like it had been a lifetime ago. But I could still feel the way my whole body had warmed as he’d pointed at his mouth and told me that it was a medical condition.
Nostalgia hit me full force, making my nose sting.
And my temper flare.
“Stop looking at me,” I snapped.
“I can’t,” he whispered. “It’s surreal that you’re actually here right now.”
My brows drew together as I slapped him with a scowl. “I’m not the one who died, Penn.”
His grin grew into a full-blown smile, quite possibly impregnating me on the spot. I desperately tried to ignore it—and gave it a seriously half-assed effort to keep my gaze from dropping to his mouth. This task was rendered impossible when his hand landed on my neck. Chills detonated across my skin as his fingers sifted up into the back of my hair.
And then he leaned down, aimed his lips at my ear, and murmured, “God, I missed you.”
I bit my cheek as my vision swam. I’d missed him too. So damn much.
But I was allowed to miss him.
He wasn’t allowed to miss me.
“Don’t touch me,” I seethed.
Pure Penn. His hand fell away in the next beat—along with his smile.
For a split second, I almost felt guilty. And then, out of the blue, a thought hit me.
“Drew knew you were alive the whole time, didn’t he?”
He had the good sense to look sheepish as he muttered, “Yeah.”
My stomach dipped, and not in a good way. It was like someone had snatched not just the rug out from under me, but the entire planet. For fuck’s sake, was there anyone left who wasn’t playing me?
“Outstanding,” I hissed.
The elevator dinged, announcing its arrival, and I shuffled forward. The instant the door cracked open, I turned sideways, darting out and dragging River behind me.
I assumed Catalina and Isabel were following. But thanks to that hum in my veins, I knew for certain that Penn was hot on my heels.
There was only one door on the sixth floor, so I stomped toward it, my blood pressure rising by the minute.
Penn appeared, waved a little, white keycard in front of the handle, and then pushed the door wide.
My mouth gaped. I had known that the building was going to be nice based on nothing but the parking garage. But, apparently, Penn Walker—the man who had removed my toilet, cleaned mold from inside my walls, and slept beside me on an ancient, lumpy mattress on the floor—had so much money that he couldn’t even be bothered with the act of putting a metal key in a hole and twisting it.
Seriously, when was I going to stop being surprised?
“Ohhh, maybe when I figure out what the hell is going on?” I answered out loud.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I groaned. “Let’s just go inside so I can yell at you.”
A slow, gorgeous grin stretched his mouth. “Now, how’s a man supposed to resist an offer like that.” He shot me a wink.
A wink.
A fucking wink.
Dead men didn’t get to wink.
Especially when they weren’t really dead.
Penn got busy turning the alarm off while I stood in the foyer. His place was gorgeous. Even Catalina—who’d lived in quite a few mansions before going on the run—whispered, “Wow.”
Dark wood floors sprawled the massive expanse of the open living room, dining room, kitchen combination—the furniture being the only thing to delineate the areas. There were overstuffed chocolate sofas. A huge flat screen hanging on the wall. Stone countertops and oil-rubbed bronze fixtures.
But none of that was what made my heart lurch into my throat.
“Hey, you’re back,” she chirped, her red hair teetering on the top of her head in a top knot as she spun around. With a pint of ice cream in one hand and a spoon halfway to her mouth in the other, her whole beautiful, healthy body jerked the moment our eyes met.
And that was the exact moment I lost it.
Again.
“Oh my God!” I cried, racing forward, not stopping until I had Savannah wrapped in an impossibly tight hug. Confusion, elation, frustration, anger merged inside me to create an unnamed super-emotion that made my heart sing, my chest seize, and my legs weak. “Oh my God,” I repeated, my hands shaking as I patted down her back like I was searching for an injury. “You’re really here.” I released her long enough to give her a visual once-over and then yanked her back in. “God, it’s good to see your face. How are you doing? Are you feeling okay?”
She laughed, giving me a lingering squeeze. “Yeah. Cor. I’m good.”
She was good.
She was good.
She was…
Oh, shit.
After the day I’d had, I was barely on my feet.
However, less than a second later, as the overwhelming weight of reality settled on my shoulders, there was no barely about it.
My knees gave out completely.
Penn
“Crap,” Savannah said as she and Cora, still locked in an embrace, headed toward the floor.
I was already on it. Hooking an arm out, I caught the pair and helped them back upright. Cora was too unsteady to stand on her own, so I anchored an arm around her hips and curled her into my chest.
Like a true asshole, I’d been so entranced in the elevator that I’d forgotten to warn her about Savannah. But seeing Cora standing ther
e with me—no matter how pissed she’d been or how many mountains we’d yet to climb—had been intoxicating.
I’d only thought I’d missed her before that moment.
I’d physically ached to touch her.
To kiss her again.
To hold her.
But not like she was now: a shattered remnant of the woman I loved, dangling in my grasp.
“What is happening?” she cried.
“Shhh, I’ll explain everything.” Scooping Cora off her feet, I looked to Catalina. “Lock the door. Let me know when Drew gets here.”
She stared at me, concern dancing in her brown eyes, but she didn’t argue as I carried Cora down the hall to my bedroom.
In the distance, I heard River squeal, “Oh. My. God. Savannah! What are you doing here?”
I mentally groaned when Savannah’s response was as to be expected: “Penn’s my new daddy.”
After kicking the door shut, I carried Cora to the bed, gently set her down, and toed off my shoes before starting in after her. In my head, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. The two of us had built an entire relationship on nothing but lounging in bed together.
We hadn’t gone on dates to nice restaurants.
We hadn’t binged on TV.
We’d just lain together, talking, kissing, and spending time with each other.
That was who we were as a couple.
But we weren’t a couple anymore—no matter how much it slaughtered me.
Suddenly sitting up, she scrambled to the opposite edge. “No. I need some space.”
It burned like acid, but what did I expect? That she’d be so thrilled to see me again that she’d forget the fire, the money—hell, everything about the last few weeks—and welcome me home with her mouth and then maybe her body?
Fuck. After that kiss in the truck, that was exactly what I’d been hoping for.
Dumbass.
Nodding, I shifted directions and moved to the leather armchair in the corner, perching on the edge like the seat was filled with piranhas. “Are you okay?”
She lifted a finger in the air. “Let’s pause on the fact that you’re supposed to be dead for a minute and jump right to: Why do you have Savannah?”
“I made a promise.”
She laughed in a short burst. “I guess I’m glad that one wasn’t a lie.”
Shit. She’d been waffling back and forth between being sweet, diving into my arms, and being pissed. But I was really hoping her yo-yo of emotions would swing in my favor.
Again: Dumbass.
“Did Thomas—”
“You,” she interrupted, grabbing her necklace and dragging it back and forth across the chain. “I don’t want to talk about Thomas until I know what the hell is happening with you, Penn.” Tears dripped off her chin and she used her shoulder to dry them.
The muscles in my jaw tensed. She had every right to be pissed. Hell, she had the right to never speak to me again. But I wasn’t about to go down without a fight.
I sucked in a deep breath and put my elbows to my knees. It was now or never. And as I’d learned over the last few weeks, never wasn’t an option when it came to my feelings about Cora.
“We can’t talk about me without talking about Thomas. He killed my wife.”
Her head snapped to the side. “What?”
I cracked my neck. Those twenty-nine minutes had changed my life. I’d obsessed over them for the last few years, and it wasn’t until I’d met Cora that I’d been able to spend a single night without being trapped in that bloody hotel room.
I didn’t want her to know the man I’d become after I’d lost Lisa.
I’d felt like the old me when I had been with Cora—more than I had in years, if not ever. To me, those moments with her were like a last-minute pardon from death row. She was the first person to give me a reason to want to live again.
But if I was being honest with myself, the shallow and heartless man driven by hate and pain, the liar who had manipulated his way into her bed, was all she’d ever known of me.
And it ruined me that I had to tell her that.
But I owed it to her.
And so much more.
So, while staring into her deep-blue eyes, I finally gave her the truth.
“My name is Shane Pennington. Drew isn’t my brother. He’s actually my brother-in-law—Lisa’s twin—and we didn’t get the job at your building by chance.”
Her mouth fell open in pure astonishment. “Are you, like, an undercover cop?”
I leaned back in the chair, but only to keep myself from reaching out to her. “Far from it. Drew and I came here to find and kill the man responsible for Lisa’s death.”
She shook her head. “I…I don’t understand. You said the police shot the men who murdered her.”
“They did. But those men didn’t just break into her room and kill her in a robbery gone wrong the way the police tried to shove down my throat. They killed her for sport. I blew through private investigators, but we never could link the men who killed her to Manuel, Dante, or Marcos. So Drew and I put our heads together and decided to go straight to the source. Drew stole two cars to get locked away with Manuel.”
“Manuel? Why would he do that?”
“Because Lisa was nosing around in Guerrero business when she was killed.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, God.”
Scrubbing my palms back and forth over my denim-covered thighs, I ached to hold her. But if I wanted to get through this, I had to tell her all of it.
“We lucked out when he and Manuel became fast friends and then cellmates, but even if Manuel had hated him, being on the inside gave us more intel than we could ever get on the outside.”
She shook her head, paused, and then shook it again. She looked like she was in a maze, mentally running into dead ends before backtracking and moving in a different direction. “Wait… So Manuel told you Thomas killed your wife?”
I groaned, dreading this part the most. “No. You told me that.”
Suddenly coming unstuck from the bed, she jumped to her feet. “I never said that!”
“Relax. Come here.” I extended an arm out to her, starving to pull her into my lap, but she sidestepped my attempt.
“Don’t touch me. Just talk.”
I grumbled, shifting in my seat. “We came here looking for Catalina. Manuel had told Drew that his granddaughter had sat in on a meeting where a man had asked him to order a hit on a nosy reporter. We just couldn’t figure out who that man was. Manuel only had one granddaughter, and he’d always believed you knew where her mother was. The night right before the fire, when you were telling me about Manuel and Thomas falling apart, all the pieces clicked into place.”
She rounded forward like I’d punched her in the stomach. “Oh, God. It was River, wasn’t it? She was the one who was there.”
I didn’t have to answer.
She started pacing. “Oh, God. This is bad. So so so bad. He’s going to find out River was the one who told you.”
“I won’t let anything happen to her. I promise. I’m going to kill him, Cora.”
“Oh, great,” she smarted. “That makes it all better. That worked out so well when you killed Marcos and Dante.” She waved a hand in my direction. “Shit, maybe that did work out after all.”
My lips twitched. Fuck, she was cute.
I forced my mouth flat when she stopped and looked at me, her eyes narrowed in bewilderment, not attitude.
“Wait. If you’re alive, whose body did Drew identify in the fire?”
“One of Marcos’s entourage. I called them. Taunted them about taking over the business. Told them that you and all the women were mine. They sent two men first, thinking I’d be dead before they had to put on their shoes. It didn’t work out that way. I lured them up the back stairs. Deleted the thirty seconds of footage of them following me into your apartment and then peeled the stars off your ceiling as I waited for Dante and Marcos to arrive.”
<
br /> “There were only three bodies in the fire. What happened to the other guy?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters!”
I ground my teeth. “You pissed that I took out the trash with those two assholes? Trust me, Cora. We did our research. Those pricks were Marcos’s thugs for a reason. They got what was coming to them.”
“I don’t care that you killed them. If I had a pair of tap shoes right now, I’d do a fucking jig. I am, however, sick of being lied to and kept in the dark whenever you and Drew see fit. So either tell me the goddamn truth, Penn, or you can go back to playing the role of the dead man in this story.”
“Fine. I rolled the body out the fucking window before spending the night burying him in Marcos’s backyard.”
Her mouth opened and closed, but short of a few audible puffs of air, nothing came out. She stared at me for several seconds, her eyes alternated between flaring in surprise and narrowing in disbelief until finally she asked, “Who are you?”
It was the easiest question I’d get all night. “Whoever I need to be to keep you safe.” Unable to stop myself, I stood up and, in a few short strides, closed the distance between us.
She immediately backed away, colliding with the wall, and while I wanted to be man enough to give her the option of space, I couldn’t. Right then, I was drowning in a different way.
Careful not to touch her, I put my palms on the wall at either side of her head and dipped down until our mouths were mere inches apart. “I love you, Cora. And I don’t feel bad about any of it. I was your man. Taking care of you and your girls—that was my only fucking job.”
Her breathing shuddered, but her back straightened as she stared me right in the eye and spat, “You were never my man.”
Blood thundered in my ears as I loomed closer, my chest finding hers, her breasts pillowing between us. My voice was low and jagged as I rumbled, “That’s fucking bullshit and you know it.”
“I didn’t even know your name,” she seethed. “My man wouldn’t have lied to me every minute of every day. Nor would he have faked his own death, leaving me to sink in the pits of grief all over again. Especially not after I’d opened my heart, telling him everything I’d been through with Nic. You lost your fucking mind when I disappeared for a few hours because it reminded you of Lisa. And then you walk out of my life, flipping every last one of my buttons on your way out? No. No way.” She gave my chest a hard shove, catching me off guard and sending me back a step. “I’m not an expert in love, Penn, Shane, whatever the fuck your name is, but I can assure you that is not it.”
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