The Last Girl (Sand & Fog #7)

by Susan Ward

  I sat for a moment, calmly drinking and openly meeting his rapid assessment of me. He made a few of those light pleasantries people do in awkward meetings, and I thought I responded, but I was too focused on my reaction to him to be sure of that. The way he moved, the way he sipped his drink, how he sat, and even how he struggled to figure me out was a major turn-on.

  “You’ve been with Zane two years, have you?”

  I instantly perked up. After minutes of idle chatter, he’d drifted into the meat first. “Been with? What an antiquated term. We travel together. We’re lovers. That’s what we are.”

  “Does he know that?”

  I shrugged. “He should. I’m very direct.”

  This time when he laughed it was a pleasant sound. “Most American girls are. It’s what makes you so maddening and irresistible, I think.”

  American girl? That confirmed he didn’t know who I was or he wouldn’t have said that. A simper rose behind my glass. “I was unaware I was maddening or irresistible.”

  His strongly carved features flooded with amusement. “Pardon me, but I’m calling crap on that one, KK. As we’re on first-name basis, I thought it acceptable to do so.”

  “Knock yourself out. Say what you want around me. There’s no press...” I let my eyes grab him in a lingering hold. “...and I won’t tell.”

  An intense gleam filled his eyes, chasing away his frown. “Be warned. I may take you up on that.”

  “Maybe you should. It might be an improvement.”

  A whisper of a smile rose to his lips, making him impossibly desirable. “You do say what you want to, don’t you?”

  “Always. There doesn’t seem much reason not to.”

  “How about maintaining the calm of society?”

  “From where I sit, society needs to be shaken up a bit.”

  “You are a dangerous woman, KK. An anarchist in a size four Givenchy dress and Prada heels.” He looked stunned that he’d said that and lost a measure of his steely control. “I apologize. That was uncalled for.”

  My smile spread across my face, untempered and fully for the first time since discovering Damon. “Darn. That was the moment I liked you the most.”

  His astonished face was priceless. “Darn. And I wanted so much to be liked by you.”

  The way he said darn—as if the word was not a natural one for him and he was merely trying to match my tone—made me smile broader. He was devilishly fun, devilishly handsome, and too dangerous to do more than banter with.

  I stood up. “If you don’t mind, I need to pack. I have an early flight in the morning. You’re free to stay and wait for Zane, but as pleasant as this has been, I’ve got to get moving.”

  He’d risen in unison with me and from his expression I could tell he was surprised I was excusing myself from his company so quickly. “Would us continuing to converse slow you down in packing?”

  I was halfway to the bedroom and didn’t halt. I spoke over my shoulder. “Not at all. I didn’t say I needed to sleep. I don’t plan to go to sleep until I’m back in California.”

  “Is that where you go next?” I heard him say from the outer sitting room.

  “Yes. Home.”

  “Interesting.”

  I poked my head out of my bedroom and fixed him in my gaze. “Why interesting?”

  “I wouldn’t have placed you as being from California.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s exactly where you should have placed me.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Zane’s from there, of course.”

  “Ah, yes. I thought you two had met in New York.”

  “We did. At a party. You know, it’s impolite of you to drop bits here and there to let me know the two of you have talked about me. Especially when Zane and I haven’t talked even a word about you.”

  He looked genuinely surprised by my comment. “Not one word? Astonishing.”

  Without intending to, I pulled one of my quirky expressions I’d inherited from my mother’s gene set. “Well, we don’t talk a lot about our families. In both directions.”

  “Is that why he’s told me so little detail about you? He doesn’t know anything about you even though you’ve traveled together for two years.”

  There was a bit of bite on travel that I admired and a sudden sharpening of his gaze that I no doubt should’ve been concerned by. “You’d have to ask Zane. He knows everything about me.”

  “Now I feel at a disadvantage,” Damon said smoothly, holding me in an unmistakably heated look. “Is your relationship with Zane exclusive, KK?”

  His question was so quietly spoken, I was delayed in processing it. “Exclusive to what? American men?”

  The corners of his lips twisted downward in an odd way that wasn’t a smile but was received as one. “Him. Does he expect you to be exclusive to him?”

  The sudden jolt to my body from how he stared had me clutching the doorframe for support. My breath hitched and my pulse jumped. “Isn’t that a question you should ask me? Do I keep myself exclusive to him? Do I want our relationship that way?”

  That round I shocked him. “Fine. How you phrased it. Do you?”

  He moved toward my room, but I held him back with the lift of my hand. I sank my teeth into my lower lip. “I don’t know if I should answer that. I don’t think my answer is going to be the one you want.”

  “I don’t think it matters.”

  “Matters to what?”

  “My interest in you or banking the repulsive thought of leaving you tangled up with Zane.”

  “Repulsive thought? Leaving me tangled up?” I laughed in his face to mask that he’d knocked me off my feet by letting it fall so bluntly between us that he was considering pursuing me. Politely worded though it was, that was what he’d just said to me.

  He glared and looked discomposed. “I meant that in the kindest way. You should be flattered.”

  “Flattered? It’s insulting the first thought in your head is that I would drop your cousin to rush to you without a blink of my eyes because you made it known you’re interested in me.”

  Taken aback, his expression changed and his face reddened, a touch flustered. “That’s not what happened here.”

  I met him stare for stare. “That’s exactly what happened here. So, to correct whatever wrong assumptions you have about me and your cousin, Zane and I have an understanding. Exclusivity isn’t part of it. And even though it isn’t, it doesn’t mean that I would want you. In fact, I’m quite certain I don’t.”

  Then I slammed the door in his face, eager to text Zane so he could get Damon from our suite, but not because he’d offended me. I’d never been so agonizingly attracted to a man before. Not Zane. Not Cade, or those dozens before them.

  Feeling that supercharged white-hot electric reaction to him should have teased my fantasies and stirred my lust. Only it didn’t. It made me determined never to cross paths with Damon Saxe again.

  Chapter Six

  THERE’D BEEN SILENCE for several hours from beyond my locked bedroom door, but I didn’t halt my unrelenting whirlwind of motion. I continued to do the things people did before checking out of a hotel to catch a plane: packing my bags, searching the closet and drawers to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, taking a fast shower, and changing into something comfy for the long transatlantic flight.

  By the time morning arrived, I was out of things to do and my skull throbbed across my forehead, a not so pleasant reminder that I’d had too much to drink the prior night. Zane hadn’t responded to my emergency text about his cousin. I hadn’t heard from Cade either, though I didn’t spare energy to get angry or to wonder about that. I had bigger problems to contend with. I didn’t know for sure if Damon was still in my sitting room or not.

  I was just making coffee from the plug-in kettle in our bedroom when my phone finally dinged. I darted toward it as though it were a lifeline because I was damned if I’d deal with Damon for another second on my own. Our brief verbal fencing in the sitting
room was enough for him to claim more of my mental real estate than I wanted him to have. It was equally galling that I’d left our confrontation attracted as hell to the man.

  Because both Zane and Cade had left me hanging so long, I decided not to immediately grab for my cell. I finished preparing my coffee, did another fast survey that we were packed up, and then calmly walked to check my messages.

  I swiped open my phone. The text was from Zane.

  Zane: I’m at the café across the street. Come down. I want to talk before you leave Paris.

  I went to the window and drew back the curtains. It was too early in Paris for anywhere to be open. The street was deserted, the café closed, but Zane was there sitting at a patio table and his posture conveyed he’d been there a very long time. Had he sat there all night, staring up at our room? I couldn’t begin to understand why he would do that, especially knowing his cousin was here.

  I stood looking down at the street for too long. Zane noticed me, and shortly after there was another ding.

  Zane: Please, Khloe.

  It was the please that moved me to comply. We had a long history, and please wasn’t a word he spoke or texted easily for a variety of reasons I knew well.

  It hadn’t been bravado when I’d told Damon that Zane knew everything about me and me him. He was one of the few people in my life I’d ever opened up to completely. Perhaps because he’d done deep-dive sharing first and much of what he’d told me I felt great empathy for. Our backgrounds and histories had made us first and foremost extremely good friends, though I doubted anyone else would understand why. We seemed very different people, but we weren’t.

  If Zane wanted to talk about last night before we went our separate ways I owed him that. I nodded once briefly before I dropped the curtain and proceeded to the door.

  The sight of Damon spread out casually on my sofa—jacket gone, tie loose, shoes off—drew my attention when all I wanted to do was leave my suite. As I moved through the room I saw that he was sleeping.

  For a moment, I stared down at him, trying to read him, but even beyond his own control his face gave nothing away. It was also no less captivating, and his closed lids only emphasized his strongly carved features. The sensation I’d felt earlier, being pulled toward him, rippled through me. He was as dangerous asleep as he was awake.

  I approached the door cautiously so as not to rouse him, then hurried down the hall, stairs, and to the street. There was a black Range Rover with darkly tinted windows parked in front of the hotel, and the two men waiting beside it—a driver and a bodyguard—confirmed it was Damon’s car. I wondered if it had been there last night and how I’d missed it.

  The sight of Zane waiting for me adjusted everything I was feeling, and I trotted across the street, even allowing a smile for him to surface on my face. It felt surprisingly good to see him after the night I’d had, even if he’d been a part of what I was trying to sort through.

  “KK.” He said the silly nickname he’d given me two years ago because of my proclivity to always say okay-okay. His gaze softened as if relieved I’d come to talk.

  I decided not to join him at the table and instead leaned against the short decorative wall that bordered the sidewalk seating area. Standing gave me a full view of him and it also maintained some distance between us.

  I looked right then left before I held him in my gaze. “How long have you been sitting here? It looks like all night.”

  “Half the night. Remember? I spent the other half with you.”

  His tone brought heat to my cheeks. “I know. But I assumed you’d go off with everyone else after we parted.”

  “I wasn’t much in the mood for a club after our fight. Being alone was better. Even if they had to close up the café around me.”

  I allowed my gaze to stray to the tables near us, the turned-up chairs against them, and the locks running through the seating arrangement. “Well, you’re lucky they didn’t insist on bolting you to the furniture. Where would you be now if they had?”

  “Here.” His nicely muscled shoulders shrugged. “Bolted to a table.” His chin jutted at the black Range Rover across the street. “Is Damon still here?”

  The hand I was running down my loosely braided hair froze. There was no misinterpreting how he said that: unhappy.

  Zane’s gaze shot back to me and I nodded. “He’s stretched out on our sofa, waiting for you.”

  “That’s arrogant of him.”

  “Why? He’s waiting for you.”

  “He shouldn’t have stayed. He should have guessed I wouldn’t show.”

  That was said with a heaviness that conveyed there was some kind of problem between Damon and Zane. I looked at him. “What’s going on? Why is Damon here and why are you angry about it?”

  He locked his tiger stare on the Range Rover. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Then tell me if you’re okay, okay?”

  He laughed at my double okay, then the sadness-tinged amusement drained from his face. “I’m surprised you still care, after last night.”

  I suddenly stood on shaky legs. I had the sensation again that something was going on with Zane that I knew nothing about, and it somehow involved me and I wouldn’t like it. But I didn’t want to end our summer in a fight or fly home with bad feelings between us.

  “We all had too much to drink last night. It was a stupid argument. Not our first. I’m sure it won’t be our last. I’ll always care. You know that, Zane.”

  Zane looked up at me, startled, his eyes dissecting my expression. Then, as if he hadn’t found what he’d worriedly searched for, his eyes softened with an elusive and undefinable emotion. “We’ve had ourselves an adventure this year, now haven’t we?”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, so I smiled. “It’s had its moments. Well, other than last night. Spending the night packing isn’t how our final nights in Europe usually go.”

  His posture began to unbend, and it wasn’t until the tension receded that I realized how tense he’d been before. Bracing-for-impact level of tense. More than I’d ever seen him. Like he’d anticipated our talk would go much differently than it was.

  “Do you want to know what part of it I enjoyed the most?” he asked.

  “Sure. If you want to tell me.”

  “That you didn’t travel with us the entire six months. When you left in June to go home for your family emergency and didn’t come back until the beginning of September. Best months of the trip for me. Being without you. Me not having to think about you being with Cade. And then right now, this morning, another good moment: you telling me you spent the night packing.”

  I looked at him, prickles running my body and heat rushing my flesh. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not.”

  I could feel the pressure of another argument closing in and changed the subject. “I’ve packed us up. I’m heading for the airport soon. Yesterday you hadn’t made up your mind yet if you were traveling today with me or the guys. Have you decided who you’re flying to the US with?”

  “Neither. I’m flying out of Paris with Damon.”

  That surprised me given how our discussion had started and that Zane had never indicated he had any association with his cousin. “You’re welcome to fly with me.”

  “No.” He stood up, crossed the pavement, and stopped when there was only a slight space between us. “Is it so wrong that I love you, KK?”

  My heart clenched from how he stared at me. I eased forward until I could press my cheek against his. “No. Never.”

  “But it doesn’t change anything, does it?”

  “No. And it won’t ever.”

  “I know, but I wish it would.”

  “Me, too.” My lids closed against the rising tears that threatened. We both knew why I wouldn’t let myself love him, but at times it wasn’t easy.

  He stepped back and lightly brushed a wayward hair from my face. “It’s neither of our faults, is it? You were dealt a lousy hand from the
start. You’re just trying to play the cards God gave you.”

  It was more than that and we both knew it. But I didn’t want to hurt him more than I could see I already had. “That’s all any of us do. Play the cards we have.”

  His expression twisted into something that nearly made me break, then he pulled me up against him, resting his chin on my head so I couldn’t see his face. “I can’t do this anymore, Khloe.”

  “I know.” It hurt—it always hurt when men reached their limit with me and ended it—but it didn’t hurt more than I could manage because I’d never allowed us to be more than I could manage.

  His arms trembled as he tightened his hold, then he released me. “Don’t go back to our room. Don’t see Damon again. Call the concierge and have him grab your bags, then head for the airport.”

  His ragged tone turned me cold. But before I could ask him to explain he was across the street and heading away from the hotel.

  Chapter Seven

  I WAS STILL TROUBLED by Zane’s warning about Damon and a little sad when I got back to the hotel.

  I knew breaking up with me wasn’t a ploy by Zane to push me into a relationship more like he wanted. The way he looked left no doubt it was a clean ending, final. My heart hurt to think of him in pain because of me and from the thought that the pain might mean we wouldn’t see each other again for a long time, if ever.

  As I maneuvered through the lobby I sent a group text to Gretchen and Cia.

  Khloe: Hope you bitches didn’t party too much last night. I arranged for an earlier departure time. We have to leave for the airport in half an hour.

  Instead of going to my room, I went into the breakfast parlor. There was a full buffet there with a wide variety of food. I studied the mouthwatering assortment of morning pastries, told myself no, having a sugar binge wouldn’t make me feel better and in fact more likely would make me feel much worse. I grabbed a cup of coffee and a serving of quiche to eat in my room as I waited for the car to take me to the airport.