If I Could Stay

by Annette K. Larsen

  I didn’t talk, not knowing if he wanted to hear more, or if he even believed me. The audacity of the story wasn’t lost on me. I pulled my coat off, laying it beside me, and waited.

  He finally pulled his fingers from his lips to ask, “Why change your hair?”

  I tucked the short pieces behind my ear. “My sister thought it would help me avoid being recognized by our father.”

  His eyes narrowed. “So she’s helping you?”

  I shrugged. “Kind of.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “She knew that my dad had located me back in Louisiana.”

  “Louisiana?”

  “That’s where I was before. I was living in Baton Rouge as Maggie Lawrence.”

  “Not your real name.”

  “No. My dad found out I was using that name and was able to locate me. He sent one of his top guys—a cop, by the way—to find me. That’s why I ran. Apparently my sister has been keeping tabs on me for years, and when she realized my father had found me, she wanted to pull me out as a way to protect me. She offered to…let me stay at her house.” That wasn’t really a lie.

  “And the whole kidnapping bit?” His skepticism was ratcheting up.

  “I wasn’t much a fan of that.” The lack of emotion in my voice was alarming me. “But she couldn’t come herself, and she knew I never would have gone willingly.”

  “And you’re okay with that?” His voice was angry, incredulous.

  For all his deductive skills, I was surprised he couldn’t see just how close I was to coming completely undone. “No” was the only answer I could give without railing against my sister or lashing out at him for thinking that I was fine and dandy just because my clothes were nice and my hair was done.

  For the first time since I’d come in, he seemed to really see me, instead of looking at me to try to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Maybe he saw the way I held my back perfectly straight. Maybe he noticed how my hands were pressed palms together and sandwiched between my knees to keep them from shaking. Maybe he saw how I was afraid to blink.

  Whatever he saw, his voice was infinitely softer when he asked, “Were you scared?”

  My chin trembled as I gave the tiniest nod of my head.

  He moved slowly out of his chair and onto the sofa beside me. His touch was light and tentative as he placed one hand on my back and the other on my knee.

  I remained stiff, staring ahead of me at the chair he had just vacated, trying to keep myself in one piece.

  His hand moved across my upper back and over my shoulder, soothing, wearing down my defenses. Then he rested his chin on top of my head and spoke. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it worse. I’ve just been so afraid for you, and also so . . .”

  “Angry,” I finished for him.

  “Yeah. When I wasn’t thinking the worst had happened to you, the only other option was to think you’d left thoughtlessly, not caring that I would go crazy with worry.”

  I knew the feeling. The dichotomy of having two completely different emotions wrapped up in one person. A tear slipped down my face. “When I first saw my sister, it was like . . . Christmas, or fireworks, or just the best feeling I could imagine.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “It was everything I had wanted. I had missed her so much. I wanted for so long to have my family back, to have someone who knew me.” I squeezed my eyes so tight it almost hurt. My voice strained to merely whisper through the pain that wanted to get out. “And then I realized what she was, who she had become. She was everything that I hated, everything that had hurt me for so many years. And I just don’t understand how she could want that.”

  Jack pried my trembling hands from between my knees and pulled them to his chest, turning my shoulders with his other arm. I gave in, letting my spine turn to Jell-o as I turned and sank into him.

  He just held me there as silent tears ran down my cheeks. Eventually he ran his hand up my arm and then pushed my hair back off of my face. “So she let you go?”

  I nodded. “I think she was honestly surprised when I didn’t want to stay with her, but then she offered to help get me anywhere I wanted to go.”

  “And you came back here?”

  “Just to say goodbye.”

  He stiffened. “You can’t go.” There was a pleading note that hurt my heart in a strange way.

  I raised my head so I could see his face. “I can’t stay. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

  “You think I won’t worry if you walk out that door right now?”

  I shrugged. This was as much as I could give him. “At least you’ll know I left on my own terms.”

  He bit his lips together and shook his head slowly back and forth. “You have to tell me what’s going on. Please just tell me,” he begged.

  I ran my hand over the scruff on his jaw. He hadn’t shaved while I was gone. “I have to leave.” I pushed myself up from the sofa and grabbed my coat.

  He stood as well. “Angel, please.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, burrowing my face into his shoulder, dragging in one last lungful of his scent. “Thank you for being so . . . you,” I muttered and then pulled away and walked toward the door.

  “Wait. Before you go—”

  I turned back to face him. “There’s nothing else to say,” I insisted, determined to stay strong and get out of here before someone found me.

  “I wasn’t going to talk.” He was suddenly so close that I had to tip my head back to look at him as one hand slid around my lower back and the other rested on the side of my neck. His mouth came down on mine, and my heart tried to escape my ribs. I hadn’t been kissed in . . . too long, but I knew I’d never been kissed like this. He kissed me slowly, softly, like he was afraid I would break or run away. It lit something inside me, an awareness that this, this was one of the many things that I’d been missing out on, and I didn’t want to waste it.

  I kissed him back as desperation and urgency and a healthy dose of fear propelled me to show this guy just how much he meant to me—as much as I was capable of with my broken life and twisted past. I went up on my tiptoes, pulling him in while pushing myself closer. When he tugged me toward him, I lost my balance. I stumbled back and he stumbled with me, putting out his hand to stop us from crashing into the wall.

  He pulled back, but not completely. He stayed close enough that our lips kept brushing, just enough to make me crazy, but not enough to be satisfying.

  I was on the verge of closing that sliver of distance myself when he spoke, the heat of his words washing over my mouth. “I want to know who you are. Please just tell me your name.”

  “Leila,” I admitted.

  He pulled my torso flush with his again and pressed his mouth to mine. I let myself devour him, wanting to take advantage of every second he was willing to give before I had to leave.

  Then he pulled back again, still staying achingly close. “Tell me your last name.”

  Was he kidding me right now? He was plying me with kisses to get my full name out? I wanted to be mad about it, but I was already missing him, already dreading the hours and days and weeks ahead when I would be by myself. Again. No one to trust, no one to turn to.

  I was leaving him. Today. Now. And I realized I wanted him to know. I wanted him to have some piece of me that was true. I took a shuddering breath, my mouth quivering close to his as I prepared to speak the name I hadn’t dared to utter in four years. “Marchant.”

  He moved in to kiss me again, but then jerked back, his eyes darting from one of my eyes to the other. “Marchant?”

  My heart sank. He recognized the name.

  “You’re Julien Marchant’s daughter?”

  I fisted his shirt in my hands. “It doesn’t matter,” I insisted and pulled his mouth back to mine. He returned my kisses, but there was a hesitation, a tension that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t fear of me leaving, or the delicious tension of wanting each other that had been there before. It was different, becau
se despite my words, I knew that my identity mattered a great deal.

  I gave up trying to reclaim that moment when there had been nothing but the energy that burned between us, and released my grip on the back of his neck, dropping my heels to the floor.

  He bent to keep the contact for a moment, but then he drew back as well.

  I dropped my forehead on his chest, unwilling to subject myself to whatever expression was no doubt marring his face in that moment. He would be afraid of me, or pity me, or be desperately curious about my father.

  The sound of our breathing rushed between us, broken and afraid. Until finally he spoke.

  “People wondered why you disappeared. There were rumors of you going to a European boarding school or having an illness that kept you at home or in some foreign hospital. There were even rumors that your father had you killed.”

  He slid his hands to either side of my neck and tipped my chin up with his thumbs. “What’s the truth?”

  I looked into his dark eyes, surprised to see concern, and want. Want for me. Concern for me. I shrugged. “I got away.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “You don’t just get away from Julien Marchant.”

  “No, you don’t.” I fought to keep the memories of that night at bay. The freezing water. The inky black night all around me. “You con an awkward young forger into giving you multiple fake identities, and then you jump off of your father’s yacht in the middle of the night and swim to shore.”

  He rested his forehead on the wall right beside me, his cheek pressed to mine. “Please stay here and let me protect you.”

  This time it was me that framed his face with my hands, making him look at me. “I know you’d do everything in your power. But this is bigger than you, and I can’t watch you get hurt.”

  His hands moved to my hips, his fingers flexing as he shook his head with frustration. “So you expect me to just let you walk away?”

  “Yes. And you have to promise not to look for me.”

  He was shaking his head before I even finished. “Leila, I can’t—”

  “You’ll put me in more danger, Jack.” I paused to make sure he heard me. “I know you wouldn’t mean to, but you would. You could tip off my dad, and he would find me, or Russo would find me.”

  “Russo?”

  Right…apparently it was time to just tell him everything. “Yeah, Russo. He and my dad are rivals, and he doesn’t play nice.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”

  He killed my mother.

  I couldn’t say it out loud though. That horror and pain wasn’t something I could just blurt out. “He killed without provocation. He even tried to take me when I was a kid.” I let that sink in for a moment, let him grasp the full weight of what I was up against. “The reason I had bodyguards growing up was to protect me from Russo. I’d be great leverage against my dad. And going back to my dad isn’t an option.”

  “All the more reason that you need someone to watch your back.”

  “My sister found me here,” I argued, desperate to make him understand. “The criminal hell that I was raised in has located me. Here, in this town. My location is known. Renee may trust the people who work for her, but she poached half of them from my father, and I can’t trust their loyalty to her. I cannot risk my father finding me.” He had to understand. I had to make him understand. “If I go, at least I’ll have a chance to contact you in a few months.” I heard the lie in my own voice. I could never contact him again. I wouldn’t put him in danger that way.

  “I could lock you in a room.”

  I smiled, but my eyes stung with the threat of tears. “You could, but you won’t.” I reached down and picked up my coat, which had dropped to the floor at some point.

  His brow furrowed and his mouth pinched closed. I could see the ideas flipping through his mind, each one discarded almost as quickly as it came. Soon enough, he would come to the conclusion that he couldn’t help.

  “Just—” he began, “just let me get some other guys to look into this.”

  I started shaking my head. “No, Jack.”

  “I could ask for help from other—”

  “No!” I pulled away from him, trying to clear my head. This was exactly why I shouldn’t have come back. “If you think that will help, then you haven’t been listening!”

  “There are good people on the force that can help you.”

  “But it only takes one bad one,” I said as I held up one trembling finger, “and I have had too many run-ins with the bad ones.”

  I struggled to maintain my composure as his body tensed and shifted, his agitation rippling through his muscles as his mind searched for another solution.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go.” I stepped forward and gave him the very briefest of hugs before pulling away, evading his hands as they reached after me.

  Then I ran to the door, and all the way to my car, locking the doors as soon as I got in to be sure he didn’t try to stop me. I shoved the key in the ignition and cranked it to life.

  I jumped when Jack knocked on the window. “Leila.”

  My heart soared and then crashed down at the sound of my name coming from his mouth. “I have to leave.” I shoved the car into drive.

  “Promise you’ll contact me, Leila,” he shouted through the window. “Promise you’ll let me know where you end up.” His gaze, his entire being was begging.

  I couldn’t lie to him. “I’m sorry, Jack.” I kissed my fingers and held them briefly to the window, watching as his countenance fell. Then I pushed on the gas and pulled away from him.

  My eyes burned but I didn’t cry as I made my way through town and pulled onto the freeway without paying attention to which direction I was going—because it didn’t matter. My destination hadn’t been decided yet because I had been too afraid that I would accidentally tell him.

  I drove for more than an hour before even bothering to think about where I should settle next.

  13

  APRIL

  I could have gone to Greece. I could have gone to Italy or anywhere else in Europe. That had been my plan, the reason I had asked Renee for one last ID. I could escape to Europe with an ID that had no ties to the U.S. I thought I could walk away from everything, get to a new country, and become a new me.

  Instead I ended up in Northern Arizona. I’d had it in my head that all of Arizona was a barren desert, but Flagstaff was at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Elevation seven thousand feet, in the middle of one of the largest ponderosa pine forests in the U.S., it had beautiful blue skies, clean air, and a relaxed culture that made it easy to blend in.

  I had stayed in Colorado for a couple weeks, but it felt too close to Jack. I wasn’t sure if it was more the fear of discovery or the temptation that I was running from. Either way, I knew I had to leave. I returned the car I had rented in Kansas City and used my new ID to purchase another. I was Sage Rushworth now. When I sat down and went through everything, I discovered two things. My sister had added several stacks of cash to my stockpile, and the ID packet that Milo had prepared for me included a high school diploma and transcript. I had stared at them, stunned, for several minutes before I fully realized what that meant.

  I could go to school.

  When I arrived in Flagstaff at the beginning of April, it didn’t take long for me to want to stay. Nothern Arizona University seemed like as good a school as any for me to try my hand at being a normal college student, so I made that city my new home.

  My apartment was a one-bedroom, off campus. Moving in was a bit depressing, considering my lack of possessions. I would need to buy dishes, and cleaning supplies, and a shower curtain, and…everything else. I sighed and dropped my small duffel on the floor then stared around at the off-white walls, faded carpet and cheap kitchen cabinetry. Depressing, yes, but I reminded myself that I was in a much better position than I had been after leaving Louisiana, so I sucked it up and headed to the store to buy food and anything else that found its way into my car
t.

  When I got back, it took several trips from my car to the apartment to get everything inside. I was on my fourth trip up the stairs, with bags hanging from one arm and a folding chair in the other when my foot slipped. My legs ached. I was exhausted. I was sweating despite the nice temperatures and I got lazy. I missed the step and smacked my shin before catching myself with my hands. The folding chair slid with an impressive string of clatters all the way down the stairs. I crouched, panting, my shin throbbing, my dignity bruised, as the sound of metal battling against concrete stairs reverberated off the brick walls of the stairwell.

  “That was impressive,” a voice said from somewhere below me.

  I gave a breathy chuckle and turned to sit on the step so I could see who had commented. A girl with a high ponytail and a fifties waitress outfit stood at the bottom of the steps, looking down at my rogue folding chair.

  “Sorry about that,” I said with a wince as I disentangled my wrist from the twisted clutches of the grocery bag handles.

  She picked up the chair and climbed toward me. “You moving into 203?”

  “Yeah. Just got the keys today.” I stood up and brushed off the back of my pants before reaching out to take the chair from her.

  “I’ve got it. You grab your bags.” She nodded toward the bags at my feet, which were threatening to spill bathroom cleaner and kitchen towels down the stairs if I didn’t pick them up soon.

  “Thanks.” I grabbed the bags and led the way to my door, which I had left unlocked during all my trips back and forth from the car. I forced a smile and opened it up, even though I was uncomfortable letting someone into my place. “You can just lean that against the wall,” I told her, pointing toward the one wall that was free of recent purchases. I set my bags down and straightened, determined to be polite. “I’m Sage, by the way.” I thought about offering a handshake, but she was studying the contents of my apartment and wouldn’t have seen it if I had.

  “Nina,” she responded before finally looking back at me with a smile. “No furniture?”

  I shook my head, already knowing the story I would use. “I flew here from back east to go to school. Bringing furniture wasn’t an option.”