TEN DAYS

by Jenna Mills

  I could see the struggle in every line of his body, I just didn't understand it. "You. Everything. Everything that I thought I could never have."

  His answer stunned me. His answer floored me. I stood there trying to breathe. I stood there trying to believe. "Then let me in, Aidan," I whispered, sliding the robe from my shoulders. "That's all you have to do. Let me in."

  And finally he did. He reached for me, not roughly like before, not in anger or jealousy or possession, but tenderness. And surrender. Sanctuary. He reached for me in need, his hands gentle against my shoulders, sliding up my neck to frame my face. "I never thought this would happen."

  All those places inside me, places he'd touched, places he still touched with nothing more than the way he looked at me, shifted, burning.

  "Neither did I," I admitted. Never thought. Never planned.

  But...imagined.

  Dreamed.

  Wanted.

  "But you were there anyway," he said, feathering his fingers along my cheekbones. "You were everywhere....even when I closed my eyes."

  Dreamlike, I pushed up on my toes. "What was I doing?"

  His smile was slow, wicked, and it was the only warning I got. "You were mine," he murmured, "and you were everything."

  Naked. I stood there naked, in every way imaginable. "Aidan."

  But then his mouth was there, slanting against mine, and I could feel it, the need vibrating through his kiss, his body.

  My body.

  And then I was in his arms, and he was carrying me, through the shadows of the penthouse to another room, the big bed waiting amid a sea of windows. With a knee to the mattress, he lay me down, and I reached for him, dragging him back to me. With me. Against me. All of him. It was all I could think. Him. Him.

  With only the light of the moon and the stars and the skyline in the distance, I held him to me, my arms around the hard warmth of his body, my hands roaming, exploring. Thought blurred, faded. There was only sensation, the warm rush inside me, driving, needing. Mine—his.

  "So beautiful," he said, sliding lower, from my mouth to my neck, lower still, to the raw ache of my breasts. I cried out as his mouth closed around one nipple, tongue swirling, teasing. Mindlessly, I reached lower, into his jeans and found him again, hard and ready, and all those places inside me liquified. I held him, stroked him, thought I might die from the wanting. Pressing up against him, I urged him—

  "Not yet," he quietly instructed, and then he was sliding lower, from my breasts along my stomach, little kisses, tasting....

  "Aidan—" I whispered, arching, but then he was there, between my legs, his mouth closing around me, his tongue thrusting in, exploring, claiming, making love to me as thoroughly as he had before.

  Sensation washed through me. Sensation destroyed. Wave after wave with a beautiful violence that obliterated...everything. Obliterated me. I arched into him, needing, needing...

  Him.

  I needed him.

  "Please," I whispered or begged or maybe it was more of a cry. "Please."

  And then on a rough breath he shifted, rising up over me and I was reaching for him again, my hand closing around the hard warmth and guiding him.

  From one breath to the next he was inside me, sliding slow, filling me, stretching—giving.

  On some level I was aware of the low mewl ripping from me as I welcomed him, locked my legs around him, of the way we moved together, slow at first, rocking, but faster with each wave of pleasure, faster, demanding, wanting—

  His eyes, they found mine.

  His hands, they took mine.

  And with one last thrust, we came together, and nothing else mattered.

  More Than Words

  One week. That's all that had passed. Seven days. Seven nights. I'd come to find a man, to strip away the mystery and learn his secrets, what made him tick. What made him hurt.

  I'd never imagined that in doing so, everything I'd ever thought I wanted would shatter, leaving me with nothing. And everything.

  Three days, and I would leave.

  Three days, and I would go back to Boulder, my life.

  Three days, and there would be only words, however I strung them together, to tell the story of the man I'd found.

  The man I left.

  That I had to leave.

  Even if doing so meant leaving a part of me behind.

  "You're crying."

  I jerked, the velvety whisper of his voice pulling me back, back into the moment, the bed—his arms. "I thought you were asleep."

  His fingers played with my hair, smoothing the tangles back from my face. "And that made you cry?"

  My heart squeezed. I tried to smile, tried to deny. Both failed. "I'm not crying."

  He pushed up on an arm, angling over me. "No lies, Kendall. Not now."

  I swallowed hard.

  "Did I hurt you?"

  The question kicked through me, firing the memory—"I don't know what Nicky—Aidan—will do..." Sloan had warned. "But I do think you'll get hurt, yes."

  "No," I whispered.

  "Do you regret—"

  "No." This time, the word shot out of me. "No," I said again, and with the denial, I reached up, feathering the tips of my fingers along the stubble at his jaw. "Not for a second."

  His eyes met mine. "Then tell me," he said. "Tell me what's wrong."

  "Nothing," I lied. "Nothing's wrong."

  He frowned. "You're scared?"

  Another time, another situation, I might have laughed. Asking if I was afraid was totally his default. "No—"

  "No lies," he said, easing closer to brush a kiss across my lips. "No hiding."

  Everything inside me was so raw and jumbled, but when he looked at me like that, when he touched me, it was like an anchor. "No, I repeated. "No lies."

  He kissed me longer, slower. "Whatever you're scared of, whatever made you cry," he murmured against my mouth, "it'll be okay."

  I reached for him, pulled him closer.

  "I'll make it be."

  Throat tight, I nudged him, urging him onto his back so that I could slide on top. "Aidan?" I asked, straddling him.

  His eyes burned into mine. "What?"

  "Quit talking."

  And he did.

  #

  The sound of a phone woke me. On some foggy level I was aware of Aidan disentangling himself from me, the cold when he climbed from bed, the hoarse sound of his voice—but when I opened my eyes, he was gone.

  I found him in the main room, dressed only in his jeans and standing at the sliding glass door.

  "You're sure it's her?" he said. Then, "Give me an hour. I'll be there."

  My heart started to pound. Wordlessly, I went up behind him—

  He turned. "I have to go."

  But he was wrong. He was already gone, somewhere else. Somewhere without me. "I know."

  He sucked in a sharp breath. "It's Ashley."

  That got me. "What? Is she—"

  "She was spotted last night. In a small town south of here."

  The chill was immediate. So were the questions. "Are you sure? Was she alone? Is she still there—"

  "That's what I intend to find out."

  "I'll go with you—"

  "No."

  I stiffened.

  "It's better if you don't." He reached for my hands, took them, squeezed. "I have no idea what I'm walking into. I'll feel better if you stay here."

  I tried not to let my imagination run, tried not to let unwanted thoughts take over.

  "Please," he said, and then he was pulling me to him and holding me, holding me so, so tight. "I need you to do this for me. I need you to go back to my house. I need to know that you're here, and you're safe."

  I sank into him. "Just be careful."

  He pulled back, his eyes finding mine. "Always."

  Public Obsession...Private Man

  He wakes up every morning into a world that views him as a monster. He walks outside the safe shadows of his home, into the relentl
ess glare of the spotlight, hoards gathered on his sidewalk, sometimes stragglers making it into his yard, with their cameras lifted and ready, hoping for a shot of him. To shout a question. To capture...something. Anything. A souvenir they can take home with them, a piece of him, this man who lives like an animal in a zoo, freedom a carefully constructed illusion.

  Everywhere he goes, everyone he sees, the accusations are there. The rumors linger. Innocent by law, guilty by public opinion.

  Before coming to New Orleans, I let myself imagine. I let myself wonder what it would be like to spend time with Aidan Cross. To stay in his house. I wondered if doing so was a good idea. If being alone with him, sleeping under the same roof, was smart. But I realized it was the best way to find as many facets to him as possible, especially the private ones, those he kept hidden.

  But despite all that, nothing prepared me for what I found, for the reality living among his shadows.

  I will never forget the sight of him standing alone on a balcony, hands gripping the rail, the glittering lights in the distance. I'll never forget the suffocating twist of isolation, or the piercing ache of loneliness.

  That was the moment. That was the moment I realized that Aidan Cross is more than merely a pseudonym. Aidan Cross is a mask. Hidden somewhere deep within...is the boy I remember from so long ago. He remains. He lives. Unseen. Undetected. As alone as the day of his childhood, when his mother chose a needle in her vein over a child in her arms.

  Loneliness like that, rejection, never goes away.

  Neither does pain, grief. It takes on many shapes, the piercing blade of sorrow and the rough edge of anger, the dull hollow of isolation...the raw bleed of fear. The dread that life could twist you inside out again. That if you lower your guard, if you quit paying attention to every moment, every breath, if you let yourself become blinded, complacent, everything you treasure could crash down around you all over again, shattering into so many jagged pieces, you'll never find them all, much less put them back together.

  Grief.

  Fear.

  Self-contempt.

  That's what I saw, for one fraction of one second, in the shadows of night, when I found him standing on a balcony overlooking the river, alone. It's what I felt from the untouchable, impenetrable Aidan Cross, when he took me in his arms and stopped me from walking away.

  From him.

  What lives inside him, the memories, the hurt, aren't the kind of rivers that go away. They are the kind that carve deeper and flow sharper, more violently. They're the kind that transform.

  They're the kind that destroy.

  Day 8

  The Illusion of Home

  The words poured out of me. I no longer had to search for them. I didn't have to massage them. They were just there, ready to be put on paper. I wrote as fast as I could, hoping that when I finished, the tour group crowding the sidewalk outside Aidan's house would be gone.

  They weren't.

  I closed my journal and looked out the window, watching them, the way they pressed as close as they could, climbing the small fence and posing for selfies. Finally I made myself open the door of my rental and step into the ugly spotlight under which Aidan lived, the eager mob poised and ready on the sidewalk in front of his house.

  "I'm sorry, miss, this is a private tour, for paid guests. You'll have to move along."

  "And this is a private home," I shot back. "Of a private man. Is the money you collect going to him?"

  The tour guide shot me an impatient look. "That's not the way it works."

  "Then who's the one who should be moving along?"

  "You're that girl..." someone shrieked from behind me. "The one from the book signing—"

  I spun around.

  "Omigosh!" a woman with a ponytail blurted. And then she was there, hurrying toward me with her phone shoved toward my face. "Can I get a picture with you—"

  I stepped away before she could slip in for an ambush selfie.

  "If you'll excuse me," I said, working my way through the crowd toward the gate.

  "What's he like?" someone blurted, but there were others, other questions, all people, all blurring together. "Are you really living with him?"

  I realized my mistake the second I turned and saw the phones shoved toward me.

  "Aren't you scared?" another woman, this one older, called. "Do you really believe he didn't kill—"

  I didn't wait for her to finish. I didn't answer, either. I turned and let myself through the iron gate, where the old oaks swayed in the morning breeze. Barely a week before I'd approached the old Italianate for the first time. But I'd known. Without even exchanging so much as a word, I'd known the man inside had the power to change my life.

  He would be home in a few hours, and we would—

  I had no idea. I had no idea what would happen when he returned, only that my body quickened at the thought of him coming through the door—and picking up where we left off at the penthouse.

  Lost there, in a tangle of memory and possibility, I made my way to the wide porch with the grey cat sleeping in a puddle of sunshine—

  The box sat there, square and cardboard, the kind any delivery service would use. There was nothing extraordinary about it. It sat there, on the straw doormat, waiting.

  And everything inside me turned to ice.

  Because I knew.

  I knew before I went down on my knees and reached for it.

  I knew before I pulled at the edges.

  I knew before I looked inside, and forgot to breathe.

  I saw the head first, hair long and blond and tangled, eyes wide and unseeing, smears of red along the smooth ivory complexion.

  Severed.

  Then I saw the pile of porcelain arms and legs, all heaped on top of each other.

  Then I saw the body, nude and smudged with what looked like ash.

  And the note.

  You were warned.

  You should have listened.

  Nothing is Forever

  Dauphine kneeled on the floor, her head bowed, for a long time. She didn't touch, didn't say anything, only looked.

  I stood there, a blanket wrapped around me—a blanket that smelled of sandalwood and leather—but the cold wouldn't stop seeping.

  "He thinks it's Sloan," I said into the vacuum of silence. "The game they're playing. That Sloan's trying to scare me away."

  Dauphine looked up then, piercing me with her bottomless, coal black eyes. "This is no game."

  I made myself show no reaction. "How can you be sure?"

  She let out a slow breath, returning her gaze to the dismembered doll spilled on the marble of Aidan's foyer. "There is too much anger here. Too much violence."

  I'd called her the second I lunged inside. "Is this...why you asked Adelaide to give me the necklace?" I asked, fingering the black, rosary-like beads against my chest. "Is this what you've been feeling?"

  Dauphine, with her greying hair braided and wrapped around her head like a turban, her lips a shocking ruby red, ran a single finger along the letters of the note. "It's growing," she said. "The darkness—the shadows that follow him."

  "Shadows?"

  She pushed to her feet. "Does he know about this?"

  "No." With the word, something inside me squeezed. "Not yet."

  Much like the first time I met Dauphine, there was a presence to her, soothing but unsettling at the same time. She seemed in tune with everything around her, including me. Maybe especially me. It was like she was an antenna, and she picked up everything.

  "I told Laurel to stay," she said. "I told Laurel not to give up. That he would fight for her. But you...I cannot tell you that, Kendall. I cannot tell you everything will be okay."

  Numbly I looked back down at the doll. "I have to tell him—"

  "Why?" Dauphine asked. "What good would it do? To torment him like that? Make him blame himself for yet another nightmare?"

  "What are you saying?"

  Her eyes met mine. "You cannot stay here any longer."


  "You want me to leave?" It was what Aidan accused Sloan of wanting.

  "If you care about him, yes. Until this darkness is vanquished, it will destroy everyone it touches—including Nicholas."

  Nicholas.

  Nicky.

  I tried to breathe, couldn't.

  "You do not want that, do you? To destroy the man you're falling in love with?"

  My head jerked up. Our eyes met.

  "Do not look surprised," she said calmly. "The truth is written all about you."

  Everything inside me was so tangled and twisted. Thoughts—feelings. There was logic to what she said, that I should leave before anything else happened, and yet I could still feel his arms around me, hear his voice. You were mine, and you were everything.

  "We can call the police," I suggested. "I can tell Edwards what's happening..."

  Dauphine laughed. "The same foolhardy detective who still believes Aidan killed his wife and then his lover?"

  I cringed.

  "And tell him what? That now you are being threatened? Tell me. You really believe Detective Marc Edwards and his kind will believe a word you have to say?"

  The ugly truth of what she was saying sliced through me. Because she was right. Aidan Cross was a fiercely private man. He'd already been publicly hung out to dry, not once but twice. Calling Marc Edwards would do nothing but place Aidan right back into the spotlight—and Detective Edwards' crosshairs.

  "You walk away now, today, Nicky's life will go on. But if you stay, and the darkness claims you, too...he will never forgive himself."

  She made it sound as if there were only two choices. "But what if I stay, and we figure out who's doing this?"

  "Stay like Danielle did?" she tossed back. "Like Taylor? She came to me, too. Scared, like you. And I could feel it, the shadows smothering her, so completely I could barely breathe. She was convinced someone wanted to hurt her."

  "You mean Aidan," I said. "She thought Aidan wanted to hurt her."

  The light in Dauphine's eyes darkened. "That is what she thought, yes. But I knew she was wrong."

  "Then why did she stay? Why did she stay if she thought Aidan would hurt her?"