No More Masquerade

by Angel Payne

  We took our seats in the breakfast nook of my kitchen, where I’d already dished up a couple of spinach omelets. Mine had mushrooms, his did not. How did a person not like mushrooms? I would never understand it. On the other hand, he didn’t rib me for grimacing at his side of bacon, either.

  He’d just mowed down one of those slices in three bites—no appetite, my ass—when he looked up at me to murmur, “surf looks great today, Fairy. You want to head down to the beach for a few hours?”

  My face split into such a wide grin, it hurt. And yeah, the sensation that I’d stepped into an alternate reality snuck back in, fast and unexpected. It was just taking some time to get used to all the changes. Although I loved every single one of them, they were a cosmic one-eighty from anything I’d ever known with the man. After his first few bites, Kil sat back and ate at a more leisurely pace, flipping through the pages of this week’s Reader with his coffee on one side and wheat grass juice on the other. Gone were the Gucci loafers, Wall Street Journal and espresso shots.

  Finally, he seemed at peace.

  Finally, we’d found where we belonged.

  “I would love that,” I answered softly. “Let me check my email and voicemail to avoid any fires, then I’ll be good to go.”

  In less than an hour, we climbed into his beater pickup and headed north to La Jolla Shores. The truck was great for the beach because Kil could just throw his boards in the back. With my Audi, we had the hassle of a rack on the roof and sand in every interior crevice. We arrived in less than thirty minutes, and I grabbed the little cooler into which we’d packed some sandwiches, fruit, and water. Across my other arm was our sturdy beach blanket, purchased from a vendor in Old Towne during one of our recent date nights. My surfer god took care of hauling his boards down to the sand, though the second he got there, he had one under his arm while he jogged into the water. I laughed indulgently as he saw a few beach buddies and high-fived them while they all paddled out. The surfers didn’t know who he’d been in his other life, nor did they care. It was a comforting balm to my thoughts as I dozed in the lazy summer breeze.

  Life couldn’t be more perfect.

  We had lunch late, agreeing to stop for dinner somewhere on the way home. After we repacked the truck, Kil scooped up my hand and beckoned back toward the sand with a swing of his head. We took our time about strolling along the shoreline, daydreaming about buying a home on the waterfront, watching all the families with little ones running about. Killian even stopped to show a pair of little girls how to scoop up the sand and let it run out between their fingers, letting the tiny crabs beneath scurry over their palms. They squee’ed in delight as I threw him grossed-out grimaces. Along the berm, I found a few new seashells for my collection. After waving goodbye to the two newest members of his fan club, Kil stashed the shells in his pocket for safekeeping.

  The tide was coming in, making froth that chased our footprints away almost as quickly as we left them in the sand. As the sun starting dipping beyond the waves, we paused to watch a couple exchange wedding vows beneath a tulle-swathed arch out on one of the cliffs jutting over the water. Even from where we stood on the sand, I could see the tears glistening in the bride’s eyes as she stared into the face of the man who took vows to share his life with her forever. When the minister announced they were husband and wife, doves were released as their family and friends applauded and cheered.

  I wasn’t surprised to feel tears trickle down my own face…happy ones now. It was a magical moment, the love of the couple surrounded by the majesty of the ocean…and it took my breath away. I wasn’t that surprised when a glance at Kil showed his own wonderment at it all. But he didn’t say a word as he meshed our fingers together again, pulling me back toward the truck.

  Our silence wasn’t uncomfortable. But it was a little apprehensive. Watching that couple on the cliff…had altered the air between us. But how? What was this new alchemy all about?

  The questions weren’t sad ones. I knew that without any doubt. I was happier now than I’d ever been in my life. Kil and I had made it through the darkest days and found our way back to each other, stronger and more secure because of the trial. We knew now that we could weather any storm. No more running. No more hiding. I’d never be totally grateful for all those months of hell, but the heaven we’d made it to on the other side was a place I gave thanks for every day. I was pretty certain he felt the same way.

  I sat on the tailgate of the beater while he loaded his surfboards and the rest of our gear. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the Pacific yet.

  He hopped down from the truck bed and leaned up beside me. “You’ve been quiet,” he murmured. “What’s going through that beautiful mind of yours?”

  “Everything. Nothing.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  I lightly smacked his shoulder. “Now you stop. I was mostly thinking about how much I love you.”

  “Just that, huh?” He flashed his Lucifer’s grin. The panty-melter version. Damn.

  “We’re lucky we found our way back, Killian. I don’t ever want to lose sight of that.”

  “I don’t think we ever will.” He pulled both my hands up to his lips, smashing fervent kisses to my knuckles before grating, “It was too dark without you, baby. Way too dark.”

  I extended my fingers, stroking both sides of his jaw. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  He swallowed hard. “You know, seeing that couple on the cliff today, looking so happy…”

  “Yeah?” I whispered.

  He leaned closer, his face set a deep, strange intent that made my stomach flip and my heart thud at the base of my throat. “I want that, Claire. For us. I want to make you the happiest woman on the planet. I want to be the person who makes you smile the biggest. The reason you look at your phone when it rings, hoping it’s me. The hope you have when you go to the window to see if it’s me pulling up in the driveway. I want to be the one you think of when you see something at the store, knowing it’s my favorite. Because baby, you are all of those things for me…and so much more. I don’t know where I stop and you start, and I don’t even want to.”

  “Killian…” I think there was some volume in my spurt. Maybe a little. Tears strangled me in all the best, happiest ways.

  “Claire Allyn Montgomery, I don’t want to spend a minute of my life without you.”

  He finished that part by lowering to one knee before my tear-flooded eyes. And there, in the public parking lot at La Jolla Shores Park, he asked me to be his wife.

  And this time, you can bet your sweet ass…I said yes.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Killian

  “That’s the last of it. I think.”

  As Claire proclaimed it, she stood back with hands on hips, gazing with bewilderment across my nearly empty condo. Sunlight flashed on a boat out on the lake, catching on her left hand and turning her marquis-cut diamond into a temporary prism projector. Until the day I died, I wouldn’t tire of seeing that ring on her finger. Of knowing she was all mine.

  I taped up the last box and stacked it atop the others. “Moving crew will be here at nine sharp tomorrow.” Then tossed the tape gun and approached her on steady steps. “Until then, I want to concentrate only on ordering a pizza from the hotel room and licking parts of it off your body.”

  After we savored each other in a long, lingering kiss, she turned a little, though kept my arms locked around her waist. “I know this sounds weird, but I may miss this place a little. We’ve had some wonderful times here.”

  I buried my nose against her neck. She smelled different in Chicago than she did in San Diego. Spicier. Darker. More milk chocolate than creamy vanilla. It had been months since I’d smelled it, and the effect on my body was more than apparent. “You can come back and visit it as much as you want. I’m pretty sure Talia won’t slam the door on you.”

  “You’re so sweet for subletting to her, Kil. She’s had nowhere to go since the blow-out with Aragon. I think getting out of California and closer
to home may be the ticket to get her head straight.”

  I snorted hard. “That asshole’s parents should first be shot for actually naming their kid that—and second for letting him think it’s all right to slap a woman. She was right to leave him. And she can stay here as long as she wants.”

  “I’m not going to repeat that,” she asserted. “In fifty years, you may find a dotty old lady and her six cats still living here.”

  I smiled and kissed her temple. “Good. There’ll be a kitty for each of our kids to play with when she babysits during our visits.”

  She groaned and smacked my forearm. I grinned and nuzzled her deeper. It was time to mention the pizza again. And the part about eating it naked in bed together…

  With piss-poor timing, my cell rang.

  I growled. Claire giggled. She glanced around the condo as a backup to her jibe. “Just like the old days, hmmm?”

  “Bite your tongue.” I picked up the intruder from the kitchen counter and studied the window. Pssshh. Only Fletch. He could wait another second. “On second thought,”—I threw back a look full of intentional seduction at Claire—“come over here and let me bite it for you.”

  While congratulating myself for the dark pink flush I could still bring to her face, I opened the line. “What’s up, wingman?” Though it had been forever since we’d been in the pool together, it was wickedly fun to use the nickname we’d loved flinging at each other before polo games, borrowed from the movie Top Gun.

  You can be my wingman anytime.

  No. You can be mine.

  “Fucker,” Fletch flung back. I’d barely gotten done chuckling when he continued, “So, is Casa de Killian almost ready for its big move to California?”

  “Just about. Boxes are done. We were just headed back to the hotel for a little pre-moving day celebration.” Translation: I’m not meeting you and Drake for happy hour so don’t even ask.

  “Cool. That’s cool.”

  Okay, it had been months since I’d talked any longer than a minute with the man but I knew weirdness in a voice when I heard it. There wasn’t a remote hint of “happy hour” in Fletch’s tone. “‘Cool’ isn’t what you’re tossing out there, my friend.” As I spoke it, I caught Claire’s eyes once more. As always, her expression lent the compassion I needed to offer my next words. “You need to meet up and talk or something?”

  Fletch’s reply came after a strange pause. “Uh, yeah. Okay. Talking. Yeah, I think that’s what I need right now. Thanks, Kil.”

  I pushed aside thoughts of nibbling cheese and tomato sauce off of Claire’s thigh and stated, “You bet, man. So call your turf. Is this about work, women, family, or all of the above? I’ve already shipped the Aston Martin to the west coast so I’ll have to catch a cab, but I can be anywhere in—”

  “Not necessary.”

  “Huh?”

  “The car’s pulling in front of your building now. Oh, and bring Claire, too. I think she can lend some insight.”

  “Wait. Car? What car? And insight about what?”

  “I owe you, Kil.” It was like my questions had been muted. I actually checked the window to see if one of my fingers had accidentally strayed over the button. “Thanks. See you in a bit.”

  “Fletch?” I spoke it into the distinct silence of a line gone dead. And still, like an idiot, repeated myself. As I held the phone out and peered in perplexity at my home screen, Claire approached.

  “I’d offer a buck for your thoughts but they’re written all over your face,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “I’m not sure. But there’s a car waiting for us downstairs.”

  Not just a car. It was the car. Even after a couple of stunned blinks, the sight remained the same. Parked in the Lincoln Park 2550’s porte cochere was the Stone Global Corporation’s town car. Same sleek black finish. Same black-and-silver incarnation of the company’s logo on the doors. And goddamn, even Walter jumping out from the driver’s seat and beaming an eager grin as he sprinted around to open the door.

  “Mr. Stone! How good it is to see you again!”

  “Uhhh, yeah, Walter. And the same.”

  The words were lip service and I was pretty damn certain the guy knew it. Nevertheless, Walter bravely stood at attention next to the open door, giving me a peek at the black leather upholstery that had been like my second home for so many years.

  My gut clenched. My veins vacillated between the texture of icebergs or a lava flow. Neither was acceptable. This wasn’t acceptable.

  “Miss Montgomery, you look stunning, as always.”

  “Thank you, Walter.” Her reply was cordial but the glance she threw to me was filled with the same case of what-the-fuck I endured. We stood there in box-packing attire—jeans, T-shirts, work boots—a fact that Fletch could not have been so blind as to overlook. But even if we’d emerged from the building in designer trends, the thought of getting in that car made my body feel wrapped in spike strips of everything from rage to resentment to disdain.

  I finally turned and faced the driver again. “Hey, Walter. It’s been great to see you again but Miss Montgomery and I will find our own way to meet up with Mr. Ford.” I held up my phone. “Can I just sync up to your device with the name and address of the bar where he wants to—”

  As I looked at my phone, it rang again.

  Though I really wished it was Fletch again, it wasn’t.

  Willa Stone’s face, smiling from a shot I’d taken during her big birthday party last year at Keystone, flashed over the screen.

  “Mother.” There were many habits I’d broken myself of over the last few months. Calling her that would never be one of them. “Hello. Are you all right?”

  I asked the question because I’d had lunch with her yesterday. The experience had been more pleasant than I thought it would have be and she’d seemed spry as a nymph in both spirits and health.

  “Killian,” she greeted warmly. “But of course I’m fine.” She let a long, deliberate pause stretch by. “I’m phoning because I understand that Fletcher’s invited you out for a bit.”

  I felt my brows bunch down. And my gaze narrow. Just like Fletch, her tone had an underline of cryptic to it. Was there a secret decoder ring I needed to understand everyone in this city all of a sudden? “Yes.” I’d never know the answer to that unless I played along. “He has. How do you know about that?”

  “And he sent the SGC car for you?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “And I’m wagering you’re not fond of that whole concept.”

  I pivoted toward one of the porch’s pillars and rammed the heel of my free palm into its concrete. “Do you even want my contribution to this conversation, Mother?” Which was turning even more bizarre than the exchange with Fletch…

  “Get in the car, Killian.”

  I pivoted again. And for a moment, expected the air to vibrate with portentous Hitchcock film music. Or the theme to The Twilight Zone. “Excuse me?”

  “Killian, I need you. We need you.”

  “What the hell? ‘We’ who?”

  Her long-suffering sigh rustled across the line. “Please. Just get in the car.”

  She disconnected the line before I did. That left the silence of the device in my ear—and the chaos of my conflicted thoughts. Secretive phone calls. A “meeting” that now felt like a showdown. The damn company car at my doorstep. My gut in a ball of tension and my mind racing in a thousand directions.

  And the world wondered why I’d turned my back on all this?

  The light in my shadows appeared once more at my side. Claire’s gaze was as clear as morning sun, her smile as edifying as the dawn behind that sun. “What’s the plan, hot stuff?” she asked.

  Wordlessly, I shrugged.

  Then turned and pulled her into the damn car with me.

  *

  “Damn.” I muttered it as Walter swung the car up to the rear entrance of the Stone Global building. The doors were just as imposing as the building’s front port
al, only without the wind tunnel of an entrance plaza to accompany them. I often preferred this entrance when I ruled the building. Tonight, it felt like a not-so-subtle slap in the face. “I hate it when I’m right.”

  Claire picked up the hand I’d been using for a drum solo against my right knee and sandwiched it between both her own. “Okay, this is weird,” she said. “But I’m right here. We’ll do this together.”

  “Guess there’s the certainty that Trey doesn’t plan to publically humiliate me again.” I spoke the words in a controlled murmur as we crossed the lobby. The lights were dimmed; half the flowers in the arrangements were withered; the leather furniture worn. Even the security guard—from an outsourced company now, not wearing the SGC logo—didn’t glance up from his newspaper as we walked in. If this had been my first time in the building, I’d have labeled the look “corporate creepy.”

  “The whole place feels really different.” Claire spoke it in just as hushed a tone, hooking her arm through mine just like an ingénue from a horror movie walking through the graveyard with her boyfriend. Which boded so well for the fate awaiting us.

  Shit. I was really nailing the tone on the metaphors tonight, wasn’t I?

  I got in a nod of agreement with her assertion before we rounded the corner toward the elevators and found Fletcher already waiting for us. He stood in front of a lift that was open and waiting.

  “Kil.” He paced over and grabbed my hand to shake it. A second later, he shook his head and just went in for the full embrace. “Thank fuck you came.” He pulled away and smiled at Claire. “If you had anything to do with the choice, then I thank you.”

  Claire pushed out a little laugh. “It was actually all Willa. Instinct tells me she’s around here somewhere, so just thank her.”

  “No,” I interjected, clutching her hand. “If you weren’t by my side, I’d have told these fuckers to go drown themselves in the river.” I nodded Fletch in Claire’s direction. “So yeah, you can thank her, too.”

  The elevator started its smooth ascent. I assumed we were bound all the way for the penthouse. Fletcher followed my declaration by giving Claire a lopsided smile. “You know, you’ve been damn good for this big sack of serious.” He jerked a thumb at me. “I think I like Killian two-point-oh.”