I hadn’t realized how much I’d begun to believe that Reeve really didn’t have anything to do with Amber’s death until that moment. “What does he mean, ‘ending the way it did’?”
“Forget it. He shouldn’t have said anything,” Brent said.
“But he did say it, and now I want to know.” I needed to know. “What did you mean, Parker?”
Parker looked from Brent to Charlie and then at me. “I don’t really know. I’m drunk.”
Charlie stepped in. “He just meant it was a bad breakup. For lots of reasons that are too personal for an employee to get into about his boss. If you want to know more, you’re going to have to ask Reeve.”
At that moment, I thought I just might. I was frustrated from all the dead ends. Sick of feeling like a yo-yo, up and down with theories that changed with every new bit of information I gathered. It had been a while since the last time I’d asked Reeve about his past, anyway. Maybe it was time to try again.
And since he wasn’t coming home until the next night, I had a day to think of what I’d say.
Or chicken out. Either was possible at this point.
The men left sometime around nine and the house suddenly grew quiet and still. It put me on edge, especially after Parker’s remark. I was already wary of Reeve, knowing he might have participated in getting Amber killed. But if his staff was aware of it as well, then I was in much more danger than I’d thought. Anyone could be after me at any time. What the hell had I been thinking going on a trip with him?
Oh, shit. That reminded me I hadn’t gotten a new burner phone from Joe before I’d left. I’d long ago deleted his real number from my cell. So not only did I have no way to contact him if I needed him, but also, no one knew where I was.
I tried to go to sleep, but all I could do was toss and turn and waffle between feeling panicked and feeling lonely. Either Reeve hadn’t done anything horrible, I was reading things wrong and I missed him, or he had and I was reading things right and I still missed him. After an hour of it, I pulled my robe on over my night slip and headed down to the den to watch some TV and get my mind on something – anything – else.
I flipped through the channels for twenty minutes, finding nothing. Just as I was ready to give up and pick up my Kindle, a familiar face filled the screen – Chris Blakely’s.
“It’s not a theory. It’s not a guess. It’s a fact,” Chris was saying. It was one of those late-night interview shows where the host sat behind a desk and the guest lounged in a modern deco chair. Not a popular show – he wouldn’t be asked to one of those with his current career status – but one on some cable channel. I didn’t even recognize the interviewer, a redheaded woman with big lips.
It was something to watch, at least. I tossed the remote aside and settled back into the couch.
“But you still haven’t said why,” Big Lips said next.
“I’m not going to get into all the reasons I have that I know he did it – let me say, though, that by reasons, I mean proof. Missy was completely robbed of her life. She knew things she shouldn’t and Reeve Sallis took care of that.”
My stomach dropped. No. No, no, no. He did not just —
“If this proof is as irrefutable as you say it is, how did Reeve Sallis get away with it?” Big Lips looked skeptical, which was admirable considering how quickly Hollywood liked to buy into scandals.
Chris sat back with a smug expression. “He’s a rich, powerful man. Rich, powerful men get away with things all the time. It’s the law of capitalism. It’s especially an issue when those rich, powerful men have ties to men who are richer and more powerful.”
And now he’d referenced the mob. I sat forward, tense, wishing I could stop listening, but needing to hear just exactly what the idiot was saying.
“What sort of connections are you implying?”
“I can’t comment on that.” Good Chris. Stop there. He didn’t. “But people who live outside the law.”
“Like government people?”
“No. Wrong type of outside the law. I’m talking about the type of organized people that deal specifically with crime-oriented situations.”
I cringed. She was going to keep asking until she got something. That’s the way those interviewers worked. Did he not know anything?
Sure enough, her next question was, “Like the mafia?”
I gasped. Fuck. Just… fuck.
Finally Chris’s expression grew wary. “I’ve said too much already. Let’s just say Reeve Sallis is not innocent. End of story.”
Frustrated did not begin to describe how I felt at the moment. Angry was closer. Pissed off. Also, frightened. If Chris kept blabbing his big mouth, he was going to get himself in trouble. Hadn’t he learned anything from Missy’s death? And there was no telling how long it would be before his reasons led back to Joe. Back to me. Back to Reeve. I wasn’t just standing on the sidelines – I was in the thick of it. His time in the spotlight could very well come at a price, and who’d have to pay it?
I doubted it would only be him.
It was too upsetting to watch further. I searched for the remote, but couldn’t find where I’d flung it, so I crossed to the TV and switched it off manually before I heard more.
When I turned back, I was startled to see Reeve at the mouth of the room. He was wearing a dark blue suit, his tie loose, his jacket unbuttoned.
Without thinking, I smiled. I might have been anxious about Parker’s words, but in this moment I realized it wasn’t the emotion that weighed heaviest on my heart. I’d missed Reeve. Truly missed him. More than I wanted to admit to him or myself. I was two seconds from rushing into his arms, whether he expected it or not.
Except, then I noticed his narrowed eyes and hard expression. They told me he’d heard at least part of the interview. He wouldn’t automatically assume I’d known about the whole thing, would he? I mean, I did, but there wasn’t any reason for him to know that. And I certainly hadn’t known Chris was going to take the information we’d figured out together and blast it all over national television.
Reeve had assumed things about Chris and I before, though. Would it be far-fetched to think he wouldn’t now?
God, I wasn’t sure. But tension flared from him like a heat storm, rolling through the room like flashes of lightning.
I crossed my arms, suddenly chilled. Hoping I was being paranoid, I decided to play cool, pushing my lips into a smile. “You’re back early. I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”
His eyes pierced and pinched me. “Do you think I did it?”
“Did wh—?” It was halfway out before I realized what he was asking. I closed my mouth, unsure how to answer, not prepared to lie. Not prepared to tell the truth.
He repeated his question, his voice even and eerily controlled. “Do you think I did it?”
I didn’t flinch. “Did you?”
He closed his eyes a second longer than a blink and his shoulders sank ever so slightly. When he opened them, he asked with disdain, “Does it matter?”
“What does that mean?” Of course it mattered. His answer mattered very much.
“It means that people seem to make up their mind without caring if it’s the truth or not. I didn’t take you for one of those people. I guess I was wrong.” He turned and headed out of the room.
I flew after him, throwing words at his back. “Why the hell would you make that assumption? Because you walked in on me watching an interview? That wasn’t me saying those things. It was Chris.”
“Chris, who is your friend.”
“That doesn’t automatically mean I subscribe to his beliefs. I have my own thoughts and opinions too.” It wasn’t exactly an honest argument on my part. I did subscribe to the belief that in some way Reeve had contributed to Missy’s death.
But only in my head. My heart held out.
“And when I asked you your opinion you answered with a question.” Reeve climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms, taking them two at a time. “Hardly seems like you
have your own opinion on this particular matter, does it? Or if you do, you’re not willing to share it.”
I followed him, trotting up the steps to keep up with him. “I don’t know the answer. Which means I don’t share Chris’s opinion. And it’s why I asked you. So that I don’t just assume.”
In his suite, he threw his jacket on an armchair and began undoing his cufflinks.
I stopped just inside the door. “Is this because it was Chris I was watching? Because you’re jealous?”
“Chris has nothing to do with this.” He tossed his cufflinks on the nightstand and then spun toward me, his eyes blazing with rage and hurt. “It was the wrong answer, Emily. You should have said no.”
“What?” I was as surprised by his sudden burst of rage as I was by his words.
“You heard me.” He pulled at his tie to remove it and from his stance, from his tone, it wasn’t crazy that it crossed my mind that he might use it on me.
But he balled it up and stuck it in his pocket. To put away later, maybe. Or to wrap around my throat when tired of the conversation. Wrap it tight and pull, watching my eyes as my life flickered away.
Except I didn’t really believe he’d do that. Not to me. It was gut instinct with no basis in fact.
As for Missy, I didn’t know what I believed. “I think I was pretty open-minded to say I didn’t know, but you wanted me to automatically defend you?”
“Yes. I did. It doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request to think the woman I’m sleeping with would be on my side. Excuse me for not thinking to include it on the list of expectations I gave you before we got here.”
The comment stung so unexpectedly that I almost regretted the answer I’d given earlier.
Then I looked at the bigger picture, and no way. That wasn’t happening. No regret. I would submit and demure to a lot, almost anything, but I would not give in on this.
And with that clarity, I was inflamed. “You can’t be serious.” He had his back to me, unbuttoning his shirt. “You can’t possibly expect me to know whether you’re innocent or not. When you’ve alluded to being dangerous. When you’ve perpetuated that image. You’ve wanted me to be afraid of you. Now you expect me to just assume you’d never really do something terrible? That’s not what you led me to believe.”
“I didn’t lead you anywhere you didn’t want to go.”
“You think I want to believe that you killed someone?” I was as mad that he kept his back to me as I was with the things he was saying.
“At the very least you want to think that I could have.”
He was right. That was my flaw, and I was seconds from readily admitting it. Then I thought better of it, because though I was willing to share that with him, this moment was about something else.
So I addressed that instead. “I do think you could have.” I was calmer now, but my hands still shook with emotion. “Whether you actually did it or not, I don’t know.”
He turned to face me. His shirt draped open and his hands worked his belt. “Yes. I could have.” He stepped toward me slowly. “I don’t just mean that I have the money and the resources to kill a person, but I could do it. I could end a life without a second thought – if it was the right life.” Another step. “A life that deserved it.” Another step. “A life that had crossed me.”
He had a tie in his pocket and his belt now in his hands. It wasn’t the time to provoke him.
And yet I did. “Did Missy cross you? Was she the right life?” Was Amber the right life? Was I?
It was a split second that passed without an answer, but it was a heavy second. One where I understood that these were the answers I’d been searching for since I met him and once he gave them, I’d have to make decisions that I didn’t want to make. I’d have to decide if I believed him when he said no. Or decide if I cared when he said yes. I’d have to decide if I’d stay.
And if I had to decide, I’d rather decide when I didn’t know. I’d rather decide to leave when it was only possible that he was a killer than stay when I knew he was one. Because I was afraid that would be how it would happen, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to live with myself when I did.
So I decided to run.
“Never mind,” I said already out the door. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” I whisked toward my bedroom, my mind set.
Reeve was on my heels. “Why? Because if you find out that I didn’t, you might no longer find me interesting?”
He was so close to understanding me and yet so far. It felt like being thirsty and being offered a glass of sand. He was trying to understand, in his alpha, tyrannical way, and that touched me. But he missed.
I flicked the light on in my room and went straight for the bed. “There’s no reason for me to answer, is there?” I pulled my suitcase from underneath and laid it open on top of the covers. “Since that’s what you’ve decided. Talk about people who make up their mind without caring.” My back was to the door, so I glanced back to see he’d stopped at the threshold.
“Don’t do that, Emily. Don’t try to egg me on.” The edge in his words said he was past warning. Said he was ready to act.
“I’m not egging you on. And that’s exactly my point.” I crossed to the dresser and gathered my T-shirts, not bothering with keeping them folded. “You’ve decided what my motives are. What I think. What I feel. You care as little to know what’s real about me as you do to share anything real about you.”
I was egging him on. Taunting him. Because as much as I didn’t want to know who he really was, I was compelled to ask. One last-ditch effort to find out the truth about Amber. About me.
“That was always the arrangement between us. Don’t act like —” He stopped short. “What are you doing?”
I threw my shirts in the suitcase. “I’m packing.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why?”
“I’ve suddenly realized that there isn’t any point to all of this.” I gathered all my underwear.
“Stop packing.”
“No point to our ‘arrangement.’” I headed back to the bed.
“Stop packing. You’re not leaving.” He’d stepped into the room, but hadn’t come in far enough to be an obstacle.
I paused, facing him. “Are you going to make me?”
When he didn’t make any indication that he was, I continued to the suitcase.
“I said, stop packing.” He grabbed me by my upper arm forcefully.
The underwear spilled onto the floor instead of in my bag as I turned toward him, clutching him at the forearms. “Make me stay, Reeve. You can do it. You have the resources. You have the capability of doing whatever you want.”
He could make me stay very easily. Really, all it would take was for him to ask.
“I’m not going to do this. You stay if you want. I’m not making you.” He let go of me – pushed me away, actually – and every secret hope I had for Reeve and I together fell away, as if I had hid them high on a shelf where I could pretend they didn’t exist. Until now when they came crashing down around me.
“That’s what I thought.” I turned my back and stooped to gather the panties off the floor, away from him so he couldn’t see that my eyes had filled.
“It has to be your decision to stay, Emily.” He hadn’t moved. He was still standing behind me. “I kept someone before. I’m not doing it again.”
I twisted to look up at him. “What do you mean you kept someone?”
He opened his mouth, but then he shook his head. “I’m not doing this. I said what I’m going to say. You do what you want.” He spun and left the room.
Oh, hell no. He’d slipped and there was a chance that he was talking about Amber. But that wasn’t why I was eager to hear more. It was because it had been the first real thing he’d ever shared with me, and it was like heroin, and I, a junkie, craving more. That, I would fight for.
I flew into the hall. “You’re a goddamn chicken.”
He stopped in front of his door, turned back to me slowl
y. “What was that?”
“You heard me.” I took one step toward him. Just one. I was brave but not that brave. “You leave it as my decision because you don’t want to take any responsibility for what happens between us. That’s not the sign of someone with power. That’s the sign of a coward.”
I realized that this was what this whole argument was actually about. Not his guilt or his innocence but this – about us. About what we were. About what was happening between us. And as difficult as it was to bring this to a head, it was somewhat inspiring that he was battling just as hard as I was. As if it was just as important to him as it was to me.
He narrowed his eyes and took half a step in my direction. “Are you taunting me?”
Or, maybe he just didn’t like to be goaded.
No. I didn’t believe that was the whole truth. I balled my fists at my sides, hoping any courage I had would flow through my fingertips and fill back inside me, a closed circuit. “I’m calling it as it is. But you are responsible, Reeve. Whether you want to be or not. You’re the reason I’m confused about who you really are. You’re responsible for the things you’ve made me believe about you. About us.”
His eyes widened with incense. “About us? I’ve never —”
My finger flew out to point at him, shaking with rage. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. Because you have. You say one thing but then you show me something else. You make sure I know that I’m not special and then you do everything to make me feel like I am. Well, I’m not settling for that anymore. I can take either reality as long as I know what it is. So you want me to choose if I stay or go? How about this instead – decide what I am to you or I leave.”
We stood there at a stalemate, staring hard at each other, as my words settled and the ultimatum sank in for both of us. It hadn’t been anything I’d ever intended to say, but now that the words were out, I would stand behind them. I was his – we both knew that. But either I was his plaything or I was his prize. All I was asking for was a definition.
He didn’t give one.
He held his stance and I held mine, neither of us willing to back down. And the longer I let him go without an answer, the weaker I became. I had to follow through.
First Touch Page 29