It was her stubbornness that was driving me crazy. Her lips could stay closed all they wanted to, but her eyes revealed the truth.
When she finally looked at me, the truth—hidden in shadows—peeked out at me from their blue depths.
I tried to keep my anger contained. But I just couldn’t help myself.
“Would you like to tell me what the hell you think you’re doing, now… or would you like to talk about it later?”
She blinked, and I couldn’t tell if the surprised look in her eyes was real or something she’d managed to manufacture in the few years since I’d known her. Really known her. There once was a time when I could read this woman like she was an open book. But that hadn’t been for a while.
Four years ago, she’d done something I never expected she’d do. She’d lied to me…
And it was a deception that cost an innocent man his life.
I wasn’t giving her the benefit of the doubt anymore.
“Jackson, what…” She sat up straighter, eyeing me. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about why you’re really here, Pea. I’m talking about why the hell you left Paris and came back here to New York.”
Her blue eyes shifted. “It’s really none of your business…”
“The hell it isn’t,” I cut in. “You showing up on one of my assignments is my business. You breaking and entering in that assignment’s house is my business.” I leaned in. “And when that assignment sends his men to tail you and we both almost end up dead, then that is definitely my fucking business. Tell me what you’re doing here.”
She gaped at me, not saying a word. She threw my jacket that I’d draped over her shoulders back at me, and when her eyes finally met mine again, I knew I’d guessed right.
Her stare screamed of righteous indignation, but beneath its depths was a layer of fear. My question put that fear there, but what worried me most was all the things happening in the past week that hadn’t. Penelope had allowed her agenda to become more important than her life.
My inquiry should have been the least of her worries, but instead she was throwing my worrying about her back at me.
She hurled words at me instead of speaking them.
“You don’t get a say in what’s your business anymore when it comes to me, Jax. My burdens aren’t yours to bear anymore.” She opened the passenger door. “You made damn sure of that years ago when you made me promise to stay away from you.”
Penelope hopped out. She was quicker than a woman should have been in heels, like she was born to wear them. Angry and visibly shaken, she strode across the sidewalk as if the pavement were on fire.
Tempted to lose myself staring at that walk, I forced my feet to move. I caught up with her just as she reached her building.
She tried to slam the door behind her.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, Pea.”
She kept walking. “I’d slam the Great Wall in front of you, if I thought it’d stop you, but I’m fresh out of those.”
“Stop walking.”
“Stop following.”
She walked further into the lobby of her apartment building’s elaborate first floor, nodding at a doorman that stood leaning against the marble front counter.
“Hello, Miss Castalano.”
“Hi Ralph.”
I nodded at the neatly suited doorman, daring him to say something about me stalking angrily behind “Miss Castalano.” I shot him a “Fuck off, Ralph” with my eyes and continued following Penelope into her building’s dimly lit elevator. I hit the emergency stop button before we even hit the second floor.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” She faced me.
“What you won’t.”
“Which is?”
“Telling the truth.”
“I told you the truth,” she snapped. “And if you’d bothered to read any of the thousands of e-mails I’d sent you when I got back, you wouldn’t need to be asking.”
“Horse-shit,” I barked back. “This is more than just nailing the senator for Jordan Chambers, and it’s more than just serving Governor Price. You’re not here to handle her affairs. You’d been doing that just fine from Paris. What are you really here for?”
The corner I’d backed her into was reflected in her eyes. She looked up at me, her stare defiant, her cheeks blazing in a color deeper than her hair. Penelope tried to stand her ground for as long as she could… but she failed. She failed, and it was the first time I wanted to triumph in her resonating defeat.
I practically licked my lips.
“You’re… not here… for the governor.” I walked towards her, emphasizing my words with every step. She retreated, backpedaling her way into the confines of the small lift in which we stood, and suddenly that corner that I’d backed her into earlier was real.
Penelope was caught between two walls and my hands. I placed my palms on either side of her face against those walls, and then I lowered my face to hers. I lowered it almost close enough to take a taste of her cherry-colored lips.
I nearly brushed them with my own.
“Tell me what you’re here for.”
She avoided making eye contact. “I have.”
“No, you haven’t,” I replied, my voice low. “You’re nervous.” I looked down. “Your hands are shaking. Your cheeks are red, and if I were to touch right here…”
My hand drifted to the nape of her neck.
“I’d feel a small bead of sweat that appears every time you get anxious.” I withdrew the hand, rubbing the moisture between my fingers.
I met Penelope’s eyes slowly and when I let my gaze settle there, I saw a fire inside them—blue and blazing.
And as smoldering as those dark blue irises were, I knew they weren’t the only place on her that felt like pure fucking heat.
I swallowed a lump in my throat that felt like sandpaper, and I asked her the question again.
I didn’t blink.
“So… you want to give me a real answer this time?”
Her bottom lip, red and slightly damp, parted from the top, and the second it did, a foreign voice entered the elevator from right behind me.
“Hello,” the voice rang out. “Is there anyone in there?” The intercom blared. “We received a report that the elevator stopped. Is everybody alright?”
The voice was concerned, but it knew it couldn’t do anything about the fact that everyone wasn’t “alright” because the type of help we needed, this fireman… or building code manager or whoever the fuck he was just couldn’t provide.
Penelope’s nerves were shot to hell, I had a cock that was getting harder by the second, and if we were left alone in that elevator for two more seconds, a stalled elevator was going to be the least of the manager’s concerns.
I turned away from Penelope with a reluctance I couldn’t remember ever feeling. I talked into the intercom from two feet away.
“Yeah, we’re good in here. Just went through a little…” I looked at Pea. “Rough patch, is all.”
“Ok, great,” the man responded. “Let us know if you need some assistance. There’s a small red button in there you can press if you need 911. Other than that, I think someone might have hit the emergency stop button by mistake.”
Pea glared at me.
“If you could just press the button again, you should be well on your way to your destination and floor.”
I glanced over at Pea and realized I was no closer to my destination than when I started. I gave the elevator voice as much of an “okay” as I could muster and then pressed the emergency stop button again. The elevator started, ascending to Penelope’s floor with no more than a slight and rumbling jolt.
We didn’t so much as look at each other the entire way up.
She didn’t trust me. She didn’t trust me with the entire truth, and I should have understood, but I didn’t want to.
At floor fifteen, the small metal shaft finally stopped. The doors opene
d, I took a step back, and without looking backwards, Pea passed me on her way out, refusing to look at me as she stalked her way from the elevator and right into the brightly wall-papered hallway.
If I’d waited one more second, she’d have been gone. I hesitated half a second before stopping her.
“Pea,” I called out. She stopped but didn’t turn. “I saw the note in Margot Dietz’s house, Penelope, and I saw that it was addressed to you.”
I continued without waiting for her answer.
“The senator’s mistress was having an affair with Jordan Chambers, wasn’t she? She was seeing him, and she arranged to have Fletcher murdered because he killed the man she really loved. Didn’t she?” I stepped out of the elevator shaft. “Didn’t she?”
My voice echoed. Penelope turned around. I looked into her face and saw sorrow sitting there. She took a deep breath that looked as shaky as I felt.
“I think… yes, maybe… or no. I don’t know…” she trailed off. “All I know is that I wanted to protect Jordan, to protect Margot… To protect us. I don’t want anybody to get hurt anymore.”
“Pea…”
The words were barely off my lips when a rush of footsteps came barreling in my direction from the stairs.
Heavily armed men in heavily padded clothes grabbed at me, yelling from every direction, their blackened gear and guns surrounding me like a deadly shadow.
The barrel of a thousand pistols aimed at my head, and amidst the unintelligible shouts from the seemingly masked maniacs, I soon realized what was happening.
I dropped to my knees, throwing my hands in the air before they threw me further down, planting my face flush against the hallway’s carpeted floor.
I could barely hear Penelope’s screams above the white noise of chaos.
Pinned to the ground, my arms pulled and pinned to my back, cold-steeled cuffs were slapped across my wrists, and the men in black lifted me to my feet.
The crowd escorting me out was more lynching mob than law, and though they manhandled me into the back seat of some squad car, I remained calm.
There was no point in resisting, no point in trying to explain.
Nobody would listen to a dead man walking, anyway.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
PENELOPE
I’ve never been mistaken for being America’s sweetheart or anything, but that morning, the fires of Hell were more gentle than I was.
The morning air was crisp, and so was the sound of my footsteps as I stomped recklessly to the front door of the governor’s house.
Calling ahead to her office, I was invited to her household after I pressed the urgency of the issue.
I was forewarned.
She might be on a personal call, yada, yada, yada. I didn’t care. She could fire me for all I gave a fuck.
I needed to speak to her. And I needed to speak to her right the fuck now.
Bundled in heavy clothes on her front porch, I dug my fingers into the fabric of my leather coat while I waited, admiring the multi-colored leaves of the dying trees as a November wind whipped across my face.
Her housekeeper barely managed to open the door before I brushed past her, my heavy boots thudding as I stormed into the governor’s decorated foyer.
The governor, quiet and regal, was sitting calmly on her sofa, draped in cashmere. It was odd. She seemed to have been waiting just for me. She sat down a nearly empty wine glass and looked up.
“Penelope.” Governor Shelley Price stood as I entered. “I heard you were coming. My assistant said that you were in a panic.” Her powerful voice was soothing. “What’s wrong?”
I expelled a harsh breath, one that practically burned through my nostrils.
“Everything,” I said to her. “Everything.” She took my hands and I looked into her eyes. “They arrested him. They arrested Jackson. My, uh…” I hesitated, letting my tongue feel the word. “Boyfriend.”
Shelley Price’s eyes slanted. She shook her head—confused, her normally straightened shoulders hunched.
“Your boyfr…?” She stopped. “For what?”
“I don’t know. I need your help. It’s just that…”
I bit my tongue.
The silence that stretched after I stopped mid-sentence kept the tension between the governor and me as taut as a string, and I let the soft sound of the TV playing in the living room serve as background noise while I scrambled for something to say.
I didn’t know what to tell her.
The first thing on my mind was to tell her the truth. It took a minute to realize that I wasn’t really sure if I could trust her with it.
But why couldn’t I?
Governor Shelley Price had always been there for me.
But there was something about her look.
Her eyes told me that she knew more than what she was saying, and the guise of surprise on her face when I told her that Jackson was arrested wasn’t concern.
It was contrived.
His was a name that she had known, and though she tried to pretend that my revelations were new, I could tell that she knew.
She knew what was going on.
And suddenly the voice drew me in.
Not hers. At least, not the “her” that was standing in front of me. No, it was someone else’s…
It was the voice on the TV. Haunting and haughty, it was the personification of every bad dream I’d been having.
The transmission of images beside the woman’s head on the screen were spotty at best, and when I inched closer to look at them, the news report shining back at me captured every piece of my attention.
The reporter rattled off details on a split screen beside an image that was staticky and garbled. Her somber tone added gravity to the weight inside my chest, and as she continued prattling without pause, my eyes searched the Governor’s coffee table for the TV’s remote.
Wrapping my fingers around the blackened object, I pressed the volume button, turning it up as high as it could go.
I drowned out the pleas of the actual woman beside me and I listened closer.
I listened so, so much closer.
“Investigators say that the performance was scheduled to start at 7:30pm last night. Doors opened an hour and a half prior to the show, and shortly after 7:00 pm, witnesses say shots rang out in the opera house, striking Senator Robert Fletcher of New York several times in the torso. Senator Fletcher has now been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at New York Presbyterian Hospital and is currently in a medically-induced coma. He is listed as being in critical condition.
Senator Fletcher’s wife, Danity Fletcher, is reported to have suffered minor injuries as a result of the targeted incident.
Authorities are looking for this man…” She paused. “Investigators allege that the man in the video has been stalking Senator Robert Fletcher in recent weeks…”
Panicked, I leaned in. I stared at the TV without blinking…
And there—on the screen—was Jackson’s face.
At that moment, the white noise inside my head grew deafeningly loud. Louder than the TV. Louder than the governor’s pleas.
I could no longer hear the news reporter’s voice, and even the rain outside—the soft pitter-patters that had quickly turn heavy, tapping along the unwashed windows of the mini-mansion—weren’t enough to break through my subconscious.
The report on the opera house shooting shifted to a screenshot of a security camera, and, on that camera, was the man I’d just called my “boyfriend,” tux and all, entering the venue they’d just spoken about. His golden-brown hair was carefully mussed. His light blue eyes were keenly focused.
He was a picture of perfection. The perfect gentleman.
But it wasn’t him that caught my eye this time.
It was the man alongside him.
There was a shiftiness in his demeanor. Seemingly harmless, the man’s right hand brushed against Jackson’s suit jacket as he walked quickly beside him.
But his hand stayed there a sec
ond too long.
It was almost as if he had dropped something in the darkened slit pocket of Jackson’s dinner jacket. His large fingers lingered longer than was considered usual and, just as quickly, were removed.
He stuffed his digits back into his own pocket and casually continued walking, his gait proud, a self-assured grin spreading on his smug, handsome face.
He looked victorious.
And as I looked at the stilted shots, the shoddy security cameras that had caught the two acquaintances, I realized the truth.
He had assassinated a United States senator.
The sudden realization, raw and ruthless, made me sick.
I ran into the tiny powder room outside of the governor’s kitchen, emptying the contents of my stomach into the porcelain toilet. I hung my head, collecting my thoughts, feeling numb and nauseous. Seconds later, I rinsed my mouth with lukewarm water and staggered back into the room, shooting my gaze in the governor’s shocked direction.
But as I reached the edge of the rug laid out in front of the television, the front door came flying my way… and in walked a man, a brown bag tucked under his arm, his dark hair and coat soaked from the quickening rain showers.
It was Jeff.
Except it wasn’t the Jeff that I had known.
His hair was different. Copper-colored locks had turned dark brown, almost black, overnight.
His gaze shifted quickly from the governor to me and I watched his profile, disbelieving, but he barely acknowledged me.
His messy brown hair, undoubtedly mussed with his fingers, stood out amidst the stormy afternoon’s semi-dark shade.
And when he did finally glance at me, when his blue-ish green eyes captured my stare, they were full of barely-contained passion. They were roaring waves of sea-blue, shining behind dark brown lashes.
His appearance had changed. Completely.
And he was devastatingly beautiful.
I could feel the power in his glare.
He looked into my face and stopped. He spoke. I hardly recognized his voice. It was as smooth as a metric ton of pulverized gravel. Gritty with emotion.
He approached me.
“Penelope…” he started.
Up in Smoke (Kisses and Crimes Book 2) Page 18