Say the Word

by Julie Johnson

  Seriously, what the hell was wrong with me?

  Where was my self-control? My common sense? My ability to ignore the fact that the most beautiful man in the world was sitting in my living room?

  Ah yes, that’s right. They’d fled somewhere around the time I’d poured that third glass of wine.

  Crap.

  I had to go back out there and regain control of the situation. I could totally do this — be his friend, without letting him see how much I still loved him. Pretend I felt nothing more than mutual respect. Restrain myself from staring at him like I’d given up ice cream for Lent and he was a large, delicious cone of mint chocolate chip, begging to be consumed.

  Damn, Des had been right. I really was hungry. Even my mental metaphors had devolved to become food-oriented.

  I scrambled to my feet and stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink, trying to collect my thoughts. I reached up and pressed my fingertips against the still-swollen bags beneath each of my eyes. Staring into their cloudy grayish depths, I prayed for composure, straightened my shoulders, and shook my fingers through my hair from root to tip, as though I could somehow shake out my nerves.

  When I stepped back into the studio, I saw immediately that Sebastian was no longer sitting on the couch. He was standing by the far wall with his back to me, examining my mosaic of research. I was silent as I approached him, coming to a stop by his side with a few feet left between us.

  “What is this?” he asked, all laughter gone from his voice.

  “It’s for a story,” I explained, my serious tone matching his. “It’s nothing.”

  “This isn’t for Luster.”

  “No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”

  His eyes caught on the photo of Vera and me — our matching smiles stretching our cheeks so wide they’d ached with happiness, our arms looped around each other’s waists in an embrace, my silver bangle gleaming in the summer sunshine. Sebastian’s slow gaze migrated from the pinned photograph on the wall, down to where my wrist hung at my side. Its only adornment was the same beautiful thin bracelet I wore in the picture and, when his eyes came up to meet mine, I knew he’d figured out that my involvement in this story was more than that of a simple reporter.

  “Why haven’t you gone to the police with this?” he asked.

  My eyes moved up to examine the photo of Santos. “It’s complicated.”

  “So un-complicate it.”

  “I don’t want you to get involved,” I deflected, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Jesus, I forgot how goddamn stubborn you are.” His tone was exasperated, and I’m sure if I’d looked, I’d find his expression matched it. “If this is dangerous, you shouldn’t be doing it alone.”

  “Who says I’m doing it alone?” I countered maturely, using avoidance tactics a seven-year-old wouldn’t deign to. I stopped short of sticking out my tongue at him or taunting nah-nah-nah-nah-poo-poo. How totally adult of me.

  I suppose it was better than the alternative — better than admitting how terrified I’d become of this whole thing. The doubts were there, circling like wolves, ready to take me down. I was in over my head, and I knew it. I was scared for Vera’s safety and my own. I didn’t know what to do, or where to turn next. But if I let those fears in — if I let them take hold — I’d never be able to finish this investigation or do anything to change those missing girls’ fates.

  “Lux, this isn’t a game. If this is what I think it is…” He looked over at me, concern furrowing his brow. “It’s dangerous. These aren’t good people.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I fired back, my eyes flashing as I thought of Vera. “Believe me, I know. But it’s none of your business. We aren’t dating. We aren’t even friends. Until twenty minutes ago, I’m pretty sure we hated one another. So please just leave it alone, Bash.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, then held his hands up in surrender. “Fine, if you don’t want my help, I’ll drop it. And you’re right — we aren’t dating and we aren’t friends. But you couldn’t be more wrong about that last part, Lux.”

  I felt my eyes widen slightly and my breath caught as I waited for him to explain. He leaned in closer and when he whispered in my ear, his warm breath sent a small tremor through my entire body.

  “See, I’m pretty sure you never hated me. In fact, I’m nearly positive of it.” His lips brushed my earlobe and I tried to keep my body completely still, my face clear of the emotions that were raging behind my mask of impassivity. My heart raced faster as he spoke on. “I wasn’t sure at first — I thought I might be imagining it, seeing things that weren’t there because I wished they were true. But now, after watching you for the last week, after sitting here with you, after laughing with you, after seeing the way you react when I do this…”

  He pressed his lips against the sensitive hollow beneath my ear, his tongue flicking out to brush the skin in the briefest of caresses, and I couldn’t stop my reaction. It was involuntary — the instinctual arching of my spine, the slight tilting of my head to give his lips better access, the breathy gasp that escaped my mouth.

  “Or this…” he breathed, his lips trailing down my neck to the ridge of my collarbone, where he pressed another openmouthed kiss. I whimpered slightly, cursing my wanton reaction internally but powerless to stop it.

  “See, Lux, if you hated me, you wouldn’t tremble at the thought of touching my hand to take back your cellphone. You wouldn’t cast your eyes away, as though looking at me caused you acute pain. You wouldn’t smile at my jokes, or breathe in my laughter like you need it to keep on living.”

  Damn. Apparently, he’d been paying pretty close attention — which meant I was royally screwed. I took a step away from him and ran my fingers through my hair, before opening my mouth to formulate a protest. I needed to be a minimum of three feet from him if I wanted to be at all convincing or coherent — any closer and it seemed my mouth was more likely to produce a torrent of uncontrollable babble. Unfortunately, as I stepped back, he advanced on me, matching each of my strides and maintaining our close distance.

  “You’re crazy,” I muttered.

  “Yeah?” He arched an eyebrow at me skeptically.

  “Delusional,” I confirmed, retreating another step.

  “Mhm.”

  “Seriously, this is pathetic,” I lashed out, falling back on hostility to dissuade him. It had worked before. “Look, I get it. You’re rewriting the past to make it less painful for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you’re right.”

  “Oh, burn,” Bash mocked, grinning as he advanced on me. “You got me.”

  Shit.

  Abruptly, I felt my back hit the wall. He’d boxed me into a corner. Before I could squirm away, his arms came up on either side to form a cage around me, and he leaned down so we were face to face.

  “I didn’t see it seven years ago. I was too hurt, too mad. But I see it now.”

  “What?” I bit out, glaring up at him.

  “You lied then. Just like you’re lying now.” He leaned closer so our lips aligned perfectly, separated by the smallest sliver of space. “I still don’t know why. But you know what, Freckles?”

  My breathing stopped entirely as the endearment left his lips and he moved fractionally closer, closing the gap between us until our mouths brushed in the hint of a kiss. When he spoke again, I felt his words before I heard them.

  “I intend to find out.”

  His eyes were solemn, his voice more serious than I’d ever heard it. They weren’t just words — it wasn’t just a statement of curiosity or an expressed desire to solve a seven-year-old mystery.

  It was a vow. It was a promise.

  He breathed his declaration into my mouth and deep down into my soul, where it fanned the flames of panic and passion raging simultaneously within me. And before I could move, speak, breathe, think — he was gone. Striding to my apartment door and out into the hallway without another word.

&nb
sp; I lifted a hand to trace my still-tingling lips with my fingertips, staring at my closed door with disbelief. I simply couldn’t believe it — my mind refused to process that whatever had just happened was real. Because if it was…

  Bash knew. Maybe not everything, but certainly enough to send him digging into our past.

  Shit.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Then

  “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked in a soft voice, praying Greta spoke English.

  The quiet Swedish maid kept mostly to herself, speaking infrequently and making eye contact only when she received a direct order from Mrs. Covington — or “Judith” as she’d told me to call her when I’d arrived, donning her arctic smile and studiously ignoring my presence from that moment on.

  Thankfully, Greta smiled and pointed down the hall off the kitchen. “On the left,” she whispered, turning back to the island countertop where she was artfully arranging a spread of hors d’oeuvres on several large silver platters. It was enough food to feed four times the number of guests milling about the mansion — most of it would likely be thrown out with tomorrow’s trash. For a moment I hesitated, looking down at the mini vegetable quiches and bacon-wrapped scallops until I felt my stomach rumble beneath the pale white lace of my dress. But when images of my own empty refrigerator and Jamie’s painfully thin face flashed in my mind, a bitter taste filled my mouth and I forced myself to look away.

  “Thanks, Greta.” I nodded at her, then wandered down the hallway to find the bathroom. I’d purposely sought this one out, knowing most guests would use the main bathroom off the front hall and that I’d be less likely to bump into anyone in this part of the house. I needed a moment alone to collect myself before heading back into the lion’s den of well-moneyed socialites, acquaintances, and associates that “Judith” and the senator had deemed appropriate company at Sebastian’s eighteenth birthday party. Personally, I didn’t care how wealthy or well-bred they were — all I knew was, they were no fun at all.

  One of the senator’s friends had just engaged me in a condescending conversation about the difference between our Congress and the British Parliament. When he’d expounded for nearly five minutes without coming up for air, I decided to excuse myself rather than risk falling into an irreversible coma in the middle of the Covington’s foyer. Beelining for the bathroom, I spotted Bash across the room by the door. He was flanked on either side by his parents, greeting guests as they arrived with a glazed look in his typically animated eyes.

  Considering the invitees, I couldn’t blame him.

  These people were cold. Dead inside.

  For all their fashionable clothing and sophisticated mannerisms, they were lacking that vital spark of life possessed by the truly vivacious. They seemed to walk around half alive, bored to death by the utterly predictable prosperity that defined their ostentatious existence. I watched them gliding through the mansion like elegant zombies, their empty eyes dulled by a lackluster life of overindulgence — perhaps weary of their own wealth, but too afraid to ever let it go.

  There’s a kind of freedom in poverty, I suppose — in the total lack of posturing or pretension. It’s easy to think of the rich as the only ones who are truly free in this life, but it seemed to me that most of the genuinely affluent were held down by more shackles and obligations than I’d ever been, for all my lack of fortune. Money may’ve lent the illusion of freedom, but ultimately it seemed to bind its possessor in enough chains of expectation and apprehension to render spontaneity and self-fulfillment impossible.

  It was hard to bear witness to such extreme indulgence, when my family didn’t even have enough to pay for Jamie’s treatments or keep up with the mortgage. We’d gotten a medical hardship extension from the bank, which would keep us out of foreclosure for another few months, but it was just a temporary fix. I knew it was only a matter of time until they took the house — yet that remained the least of my worries.

  Weakened by his most recent round of treatments, Jamie was back in the hospital with a severe bout of pneumonia. And, with Christmas a few short weeks away, he’d be there for the remainder of the holidays. Over the past few months, he’d been through more chemotherapy and radiation, with minimal results, and the doctors had ruled against another bone-graft. They were scheduled to amputate his leg as soon as he’d recovered enough strength to endure the operation.

  Merry Freaking Christmas.

  When I reached the bathroom, I headed for the sink and splashed cool water on my face, careful not to do irreversible damage to my makeup. I contemplated hiding in here for the rest of the night, but knew my disappearance would eventually be noted — if not by the pompous party guests, then certainly by my boyfriend. Bash knew how nervous I’d been to come tonight. He was fully aware that I’d feel out of my element — the impoverished, ugly duckling in the company of swans.

  Plus, I was faced with the uncomfortable reality of meeting his father for the first time. I’d managed to avoid him for this long because he spent most of his time in the nation’s capital, flying home only a few days a month to visit his family. But, around the holidays, he made a point to return to Georgia for several weeks, in celebration of his only son’s birth as well as Christmas and New Year’s. If the senator was anything like his wife, I feared I’d have a hard time keeping my polite smile in place when I finally did merit an introduction.

  A soft knock sounded at the door.

  “One second!” I called, grabbing one of the white disposable towels from the basket on the marble vanity and dabbing at my face. When I’d wiped away most of the moisture, I smoothed a hand over my errant waves and took a final glance in the mirror.

  Three more hours. I could do this.

  I steeled my shoulders, took a deep breath, and turned to pull open the door.

  “Hi.” He was leaning against the wall directly across from the bathroom, grinning at me with a warm look in his eyes.

  “Hi,” I returned, grinning back at him as I moved a step forward into his space.

  “You hiding out in here?” he asked. Both of his arms came up to circle my waist and tug me against him.

  Pressed close, I propped my chin against his chest and tilted my head up to look at his face. “Only for a minute,” I admitted, my lips twisting in a sheepish expression. He leaned down and kissed the tip of my freckled nose.

  “I know this isn’t your ideal night. It’s not mine, either,” he said, hugging me tighter. “Thanks for helping me endure it. You have no idea how much better it is, having you here with me.”

  The warmth in his eyes melted away all of the discomfort I’d felt since stepping through the massive oak front doors in a hand-me-down dress Minnie had scrounged from one of her daughters’ closets.

  “It’s your birthday,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Plus, have you tried those mini quiche things? They’re pretty fantas—”

  “Lux.” Bash leaned down and brushed his smiling lips against mine. “Shut up.”

  “Shutting up,” I promised, grinning as I lifted onto my tiptoes and kissed him back.

  The downside of being the guest of honor at an event?

  You can’t just disappear to make out with your girlfriend for an hour, or make an early escape if things get boring. So, after a few, too-brief stolen moments, we were eventually forced to tear ourselves apart and head back to the party.

  “Come on.” Bash sighed resignedly, linking our hands together as he led me down the hallway to the main room. “My dad wants to meet you.”

  His words made my stomach churn with nerves, but I said nothing as we entered the main room and approached his parents. Judith’s clear blue eyes narrowed as soon as she spotted my hand entwined with her son’s, but her Botoxed smile didn’t waver. My eyes skittered away from her to take in the man on her left.

  I’d seen him in pictures, of course, but they hadn’t done Senator Covington justice. He was classically handsome in the way that benefitted the mos
t memorable politicians. He could’ve passed for a Kennedy with his broad white smile, boyish charm, and sandy blond hair. His eyes were a startling shade of green, but they were wide and full of welcome — a total contradiction to his wife’s icy stare.

  “Lux!” He stepped forward and grabbed my free hand, cupping it within both of his. With a gentle tug, I was pulled away from Bash and into his father’s space. “So nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you and your interesting little family from Sebastian.”

  “Dad.” The warning in Sebastian’s tone unmistakable.

  “Oh relax, son. I’m not going to embarrass you.” The senator pulled me against his side and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, squeezing lightly. His enthusiastic greeting made me feel infinitely more welcome than Judith ever had, but a creeping sense of unease was stirring to life in the recesses of my mind. That unsettled feeling only magnified when I looked at Bash and saw how tense he was — his pulse throbbed in the protruding vein on his neck, his jaw was tightly clenched, and his eyes were locked on his father.

  “So tell me, Lux,” the senator said, loosening his hold on my shoulders so he could peer down at my face. “What are your plans for next year?”

  I swallowed roughly. “Well, Senator, I—”

  “Andrew,” he corrected, beaming at me.

  “Okay, Andrew,” I repeated, feeling an uncomfortable blush spread across my cheeks. “Hopefully, I’ll be at UGA.”

  “She received a full academic scholarship,” Sebastian offered, still staring at his father. His expression was entirely closed off — nothing I’d ever seen from him before — and though his words were supportive, his voice was defensive.

  “How wonderful,” Andrew said in a happy tone, staring back at his son with smiling eyes. When he turned his gaze on me, I barely stopped myself from taking an involuntary a step away from him. It was like looking into two empty glass orbs — up close, I could see that no genuine emotion or affection filled his stare, no warmth or welcome suffused their depths. He was hollow.