adrian-run-to-you-v1

by Lara Adrian

  “It’s okay,” I tell her, struggling to keep the violence out of my voice. “Sweetheart, I’ll take care of this. I’m going to make it go away.”

  She can’t hear me. She’s hyperventilating, a thready, endless moan leaking out of her as she scrubs at the words with a crumpled wad of photos.

  “My phone,” she murmurs. “Someone took these off my phone. Oh, my God. How did they get them?” Her voice climbs in confusion. In rising hysteria. “Who would do this to me? Why?”

  I don’t have those answers for her, but damn it, I’m not going to rest until I know.

  When I find out who’s responsible, I will be merciless.

  I will fucking end them.

  “Come on, baby.” I wrap my arm around her shaking shoulders and physically pull her away from the wall. “I need to get you out of here.”

  I have to take her to the only place where I know for certain she’ll be safe now.

  She doesn’t resist. The fight is seeping out of her by the second. She’s withdrawing, falling into a vacant-eyed silence that guts me even more than her screams and tears.

  As soon as we’re inside my apartment, I take the pictures out of her hands and dump them in the trash. Then I fetch the rest of my clothes and my service weapon, shrugging into it all as I grab my keys and hustle her out of the unit.

  She doesn’t ask where we’re going.

  She doesn’t utter a single word for the entire drive down to the Baine Building. Just sits in the passenger seat beside me staring out the windshield with shell-shocked eyes and tears drying in chalky streaks on her face and chin. In her lap, her hands are stained red from the lipstick, fingers trembling.

  Damn it. I glance at her, knowing I am to blame for this as much as anyone--including the sadistic asshole who put up those photos.

  When we reach the building, I don’t bother with the garage. It will take too long and right now the most important thing is getting Evelyn inside and somewhere comfortable. Leaving my Lexus parked at the curb, I hold Eve under my arm and walk her into the lobby.

  It’s early, but O’Connor has already reported to work. She’s at the desk with another member of the security team, but rushes toward me as soon as she sees me come in with Evelyn.

  “What happened?”

  “Long story, and I don’t have time to explain now. I need to see Beck right away. Will you find someplace quiet for Evelyn?”

  “There’s no one in fitness room lounge. I was just up there working out before my shift started a few minutes ago.”

  I nod. “Take her there and stay with her.”

  Evelyn blinks slowly. “I’m all right,” she murmurs, not actually sounding like it, but at least she’s starting to come back around. She glances down at herself and winces. “God, look at me. I’m a mess.”

  I stroke her cheek. “You’re going to be fine. Kelsey’s going to help you clean up.”

  “Of course, I will,” O’Connor says. She puts her arm around Evelyn, slanting a concerned look at me. “What about you, Gabe? Are you okay?”

  I don’t know how to answer that yet, so I don’t. “I need to let Beck know she’s here.”

  Her brow knits, but she nods. “He’s in his office, last I knew.”

  I take the elevator up to the executive floor and head straight past Beck’s assistant. His door is open. I must look like hell because when he glances up from his laptop, some of the color drains from his face. “Something’s happened.”

  I struggle to collect myself enough to explain the situation. “First, you need to know that Evelyn is all right. She’s here in the building with O’Connor.”

  Frowning, he vaults up, long strides carrying him around to the front his big desk. “What’s going on?”

  “Whoever’s been watching her just got too fucking close.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I take out the crumpled photos that are in my pants pocket and slam them down on the desk--all but the explicit one, which I’ve sequestered in my jacket when I arrived at the Baine Building. “Someone stole these pictures off her phone and plastered them where they knew she would find them this morning.”

  He stares at the images of his sister looking almost unrecognizably frail and unhealthy. His frown furrows deeper. There is confusion in his eyes. Along with horror . . . and anguish.

  When he speaks, his tone is smoldering with the same kind of thinly held outrage that’s also burning in me. “Who did this?”

  “I don’t know. But we need to tell her everything we do know so far.” I force myself to look away from the pictures. “We’ve kept her in the dark to avoid scaring her, Beck, but the sick fuck who got his hands on these photos just took that choice away from us. She’s terrified. I can only imagine how violated she must feel right now.”

  “Jesus.” Beck’s hands shake a little as he picks up one of the torn and wrinkled photographs.

  It’s an image of Evelyn in a flesh-baring couture outfit that shows the worst ravages of her eating disorder. Her long legs are little more than bones, her ribs and shoulders so pronounced she could pass for a prisoner of war.

  But it’s her face that’s even more tragic to see in that image. Beneath the stage makeup, her cheeks are sunken and sallow. Her gorgeous green eyes seem huge in her gaunt face, ringed with thick black lashes that don’t quite hide the dull resignation in her stare. Despite her sultry smile, she looks only moments from collapse in the photo. Yet she is beautiful. Stunning, even though someone would have to be blind not to recognize her disease.

  “I remember this photo,” Beck murmurs. “It was taken when she was doing a show in Paris. Her last show, as it turned out. She went into heart failure that night. The doctors only narrowly saved her.”

  I nod in acknowledgment of what Eve told me about that time in her life. “You flew there and brought her home.”

  “I thought I was going to lose her. It was nothing short of hell seeing my sister go through all of that.” He swallows hard and seems to regroup a bit before he drops the photo and looks at me. “Where did you say you found these? At the boutique?”

  “No.” I feel a tendon jump in my jaw. “Someone stuck them to a wall outside my apartment.”

  I don’t miss the flicker of confusion that passes over his face. He tilts his head, and his dark brows lower over suspicious eyes. “You said Eve’s seen them.”

  “Yes, she has. She was with me this morning.”

  “With you.” There is a dangerous undercurrent to his response. It takes him a moment before he puts my remark into context. “You don’t mean guarding her.”

  “No, Beck. She spent the weekend with me at my place.” His gaze hardens as I speak. I don’t know if the truth will make things better or worse between us, but either way he has to know. “We’ve become . . . involved. I’m in love with her.”

  He scoffs, incredulous. “What the hell do you mean, you’re in love with her?”

  “I want her to be part of my life. I think she wants that too.”

  “You’re telling me you fucked my sister?”

  He leans hard on the accusation. I can’t argue that he’s got a right to be disgusted with me. Hell, I’m disgusted with myself for breaking my friend’s trust. But I can’t apologize for how I feel about Evelyn.

  “I realize this isn’t what you want to hear, especially right now. But I’m not asking for your permission, Beck. I love her--”

  I’m not expecting his punch. It comes up on my left and cracks me hard under the jaw. I stagger back on my prosthesis, tasting blood in my mouth.

  “You son of a bitch,” Beck hisses. “She’s not one of Jared Rush’s shiny, brainless playthings from one of his clubs. She’s my sister.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  He glowers at me, fury rolling off him. “Your job was to protect her, not fuck her and put her in danger. You were supposed to watch over her. Keep her safe, whatever that took. That was your promise to me, Gabe. Goddamn it, that’
s what you’re being paid to do.”

  I feel a shift in the charged air that surrounds us. Then I hear the sudden, hitched inhalation from somewhere behind me.

  I swivel my head and see Evelyn standing in the open doorway.

  My heart sinks when I see her stricken expression.

  “Gabe . . . is that true?”

  30

  ~ Evelyn ~

  I don’t know what hurts my heart more--seeing Gabe’s cut lip and guilty expression, or hearing Andrew state that Gabe’s being paid to care about what happens to me.

  “Is it true?”

  “Evelyn.” Gabe takes a step toward me and I take one back.

  As much as I want to feel his arms around me, as much as I need his comfort after everything that happened this morning, first, I have to know.

  “Am I part of your job description?”

  His hazel eyes flick down, and it’s as if the floor beneath me has gone soft. “I wanted to tell you. I should have.”

  I draw air into my lungs, but it doesn’t feel like enough to keep me standing. I am already wrung out and shaken after seeing the hideous photos and ugly words wielded against me like weapons in the hands of an invisible enemy.

  Now, I feel as if I am looking a different enemy in the face.

  Both of them.

  Andrew’s voice is solemn with concern. “Evie, the important thing here is you’re okay.”

  Mutely, I shake my head. I’m not looking at my brother. I’m staring at Gabriel Noble. The man whose silence is breaking my heart.

  Andrew exhales a sigh and starts walking toward me. “Come on. You look as if you’re wilting. No wonder, considering what you’ve been through this morning. I’m sorry for how upsetting this must be, Evie.”

  “I’m not wilting.” I glance at him. “Yes, I’m upset. I’m confused and angry, but I’m not wilting.”

  Even I can hear the steel in my voice. Andrew stares at me for a moment, as if weighing my resolve. “Evelyn, I think--”

  “Go, Andrew. Please. I want to talk to Gabe.”

  “All right.” His hand falls slowly to his side, then he crosses the large office, pausing by me at the door. “I’ll be in the conference room just down the hall if you need me.”

  I don’t reply. I can’t turn off my affection for my brother, no more than I can be surprised to learn that he would go so far as to hire a personal security guard to look after me without my knowledge.

  I’m angry with him for that, but Gabe’s participation is the deeper pain.

  We’re alone in the big room, but neither one of us makes any move to lessen the space between us. It only seems to grow as I study him in his stoic silence.

  “How long, Gabe?”

  His jaw looks tight, his gaze sober as he holds mine. “That day at the zoo. After I discovered your tire had been slashed.”

  “Slashed?” My head tilts back, the word cutting through me. “I thought it was just a flat.”

  “I know,” he says. “Because we made the decision not to tell you.”

  “We,” I repeat. “You and my brother, working together. Making decisions about my life without bothering to include me.”

  “Andrew didn’t think you could handle what I suspected was going on.”

  “Which was?”

  “That you were singled out deliberately. That someone had their eye on you, not only while you were at the event that day, but for a while. I couldn’t prove it. All I had to go on were my instincts.” Now, he takes a step toward me. Just one. His tongue sweeps his split lower lip, erasing the blood that’s gathering near the rising bruise of what I assume came at the end of my brother’s fist. “I didn’t know Beck and Nick were going to tap me to watch over you. I should have refused, but--”

  I scoff, starting to understand. “But by then, I’d already thrown myself at you--that first night you came to the shop after the power went out, and again, after you drove me home from the zoo. Especially then.”

  He scowls at me, shaking his head. “That’s exactly why I should’ve told your brother no. But the fact is, I couldn’t imagine putting your safety in anyone else’s hands.”

  “It wasn’t only my safety you wanted in your hands, was it, Boy Scout?”

  I don’t want to be this bitter. I can’t believe I have it in me when roughly an hour ago all I felt was numb and in shock as I sat in that hallway outside Gabe’s apartment.

  “I can’t say you didn’t warn me, though, right? You told me you were always on duty. I just didn’t realize how literally you meant it.”

  He curses under his breath. “The concern for your well-being all this time was justified. Those photos this morning are damn clear evidence of that.”

  “Do you know who put them there?”

  “No. But I’m going to find out.” He clears his throat. “Evelyn, there’s something else you should know. Someone has been watching you at the shop. There was a monitoring device installed in the utility room. A device intended for digital spying. I’m talking about access to the shop’s computers and data, your phone, possibly even the original security system. We believe it was an energy overload in the device that caused the power to go out in the boutique that one night. The good news is, that surge killed the device at the same time.”

  “A spying device.” I swallow, trying to dislodge the knot of alarm that’s suddenly settled in my throat. “You mean, that’s how someone got access to the photos on my phone?”

  “It’s possible, yes. Or someone took them before, possibly while your purse was out of your hands the day you came here for your meeting with Avery Ross.”

  A detail leaps into my consciousness, something I saw in the hallway outside Gabe’s apartment. “My red Dior lipstick. It was in my purse that day. I thought I lost it, but now I remember it was in my purse that morning. It wasn’t there after the purse was found. Whoever took those pictures off my phone also had my lipstick. That’s what they used to write those words on the wall.” I feel sick over the next thought that invades my mind, but considering the way Katrina had been acting lately . . . “Do you think someone from L’Opale is behind all of this?”

  “I’m looking into the possibility,” he admits grimly. “I’ve got background checks in process for all of the boutique employees, past and present. If anything turns up, my brother Jake will let me know. There is . . . something more, Eve.”

  He pulls a crumpled photo out of his jacket pocket and holds it out to me where he stands across the room. I don’t have to move any closer to see what it shows. Gabe and me, locked in a graphic pose on top of my desk.

  “This was on the wall with the others,” I murmur, just now realizing I’ve glimpsed the image earlier today. In my shock, it blurred into the overall horror of the entire display.

  I’m repulsed to see it now. Not by anything Gabe and I did together, but at the idea that our privacy had been compromised. Violated.

  The image had to have been taken on Friday. Just a few days ago.

  I glance at him, confused. “You said the device stopped working the night of the power outage.”

  “This is something different. A hidden camera, obviously concealed in something in your office.”

  “Oh, my God.” My stomach lurches. Nausea washes over me, cold and dizzying.

  Slashed tires.

  Background checks.

  Spying devices and hidden cameras.

  The shock of hearing all of this presses down on me. But even worse is the fact that neither my brother nor Gabe felt it necessary to discuss it with me.

  Especially Gabe.

  “How long would you have kept all of this from me? If this morning hadn’t happened, how long would you and my brother have been willing to lie to me, to betray me? You let me make a fool of myself with you.”

  “No. Damn it.” His mouth compresses. “It wasn’t like that, Eve.”

  I scoff. “I told you things I never told anyone else in my life, not even Andrew. Not my friends. No one. And the w
hole time, you weren’t being honest with me.”

  “I was,” he insists. “About everything but this, I was. I wanted to tell you. I told your brother it wasn’t right to keep you in the dark--”

  “But you did. You had a choice, and you made it.”

  “Beck’s my friend, Evelyn. He and Nick both.”

  “And let’s not forget that Baine International is also your employer,” I reply brittly. “That wonderful promotion and big raise you just received. More money in a year than your father’s made in twenty, right? You couldn’t jeopardize that.”

  Something hardens in his eyes. “Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Will it make a difference if I tell you that I love you? Because I do, Evelyn. I love you.”

  God, how I want to believe him. I want to run into his arms and never let go.

  But my feet stay rooted to the floor. My heart continues to pound heavily, coldly, in my breast. Because today my trust in him was shattered.

  I’m not sure how I’ll get it back, no matter how desperately I wish I could.

  And while he may have feelings for me, they weren’t enough for him to trust me, either.

  If he had, he wouldn’t be standing here breaking my heart.

  Emotion jams in my throat, a conflicting storm of regret and pain. It tastes like acid on my tongue, filling my mouth as he stares at me, his expression stoic in my lengthening silence.

  When he speaks, his low voice is quiet, toneless. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  “Yes, Gabe. I think I need to say goodbye.”

  A stillness washes over him.

  I want him to fight for me. As unfair and selfish as it is, dammit, I am waiting for him to fight. But he only stares at me for a long moment, a look of resignation in his eyes.

  He walks forward, his steps controlled and measured, his carriage military precise. He pauses for a moment, just out of my reach.

  “I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’m sorry for everything.”