by Angel Payne
“Hold up the tamale cart.” I hitch up my skirt and shoot to my feet, despite how they only just started speaking to me again in these strappy Louboutins. But right now, I need the extra few feet of leverage over my sister. “For months, the only place you wanted to be with Sawyer Foley was down, down, down—as in on your back with him, doing the nasty in every position with him, drowning in sweat and all the other bodily fluids…”
“All right, all right.” Lydia flings up a hand, flushing furiously. “Nobody needs the graphic optics!”
Gabriella rocks her head from side to side. “Speak for yourself, honey.”
I spread my arms. “But for the sake of argument—and because we really don’t have all night, apparently like Sawyer’s sex drive does—”
“Emma.”
I chuckle but swiftly sober. “So the sex is good?”
Lydia squirms. “Fine. For the sake of argument, yes, the sex is good.”
Gabriella leans forward as ’Dia buries her face in her hands. “But…you want more than the sex now?”
A new groan unfurls from my sister. “Oh, gawd. Yes. Yes. That is what I want.” She drags her hands back, threatening to destroy her fancy up-do with a crazy clutch at her hairline. “I’m a bad, bad person, aren’t I?”
As if we’ve choreographed it, Gabriella and I fall to our knees together in front of Lydia’s chair. “How the hell does that make you bad?” Gabriella beats me to the demand by two seconds. “For wanting a deeper emotional connection with the guy you’ve already got awesome sexual chemistry with?”
“’Dia.” My soft chide comes with a grab at one of her wrists. Seriously, she’s about to turn her hair into a wild mess. “That doesn’t make you bad. That makes you human.”
As she returns my gaze, the angles of her face soften—for two seconds. All too quickly, she’s back to being a full emo rock video queen, anguish carving her features. “Not in Sawyer Foley’s world,” she rasps.
“How the hell do you know that?” I return.
“I just do.” Her expression loses its petulance. Only the determination remains, stamped into the firm line of her lips and the crystal surety of her gaze. “It’s his unspoken line in the sand—and it’s drawn in really dark ink.”
Gabriella settles back on her ankles. Nods knowingly. “A darkness that attracted you to him in the first place.”
Lydia snaps her stare over. At first, she looks bewildered, as if wondering how the woman figured that out, before a shrug of acceptance takes over her lithe frame. “There are a lot of layers beneath all that golden-boy gorgeousness,” she asserts.
“And you think that a relationship beyond sex will make him hide those layers,” I say with big sister sagacity.
“I don’t think it,” Lydia whispers. “I know it.”
I push out a heavy huff. “But you’re doing the exact same thing to him, honey—right now, by hiding this truth.” The glower she shoots up at me only shores up my scowl. “No relationship, of any kind, is good when secrets are involved.” As soon as she drops her other hand, I wrap it into my insistent grip. “You know that as well as I do, ’Dia. Secrets are just a fancy way of lying. We learned that by watching it firsthand, didn’t we?”
Pain creases the edges of her eyes—and soon, the breadth of her forehead. She doesn’t try to battle her hands free from mine. Maybe she knows she’ll lose—just like she knows I’m right.
“Sawyer and I are nothing like Mother and Father.”
“No?” I hate piercing her whisper with my brutal tone, but isn’t painful honesty what sisters are built for? “You’re not racing off to the lido deck for a nooner with the club’s towel boy, but you’re hiding something just as vital from him. Your truth. And believe me, sister, that’s just as unfair.”
So much for being unconcerned she’ll break free. As ’Dia does just that, all but catapulting herself out of the chair, she lashes, “We’re not married!”
“So because he’s your lover and not your husband, you don’t owe him the truth?”
“Do you tell Reece everything?”
“Yes.” I use the chair to push up, ignoring the shrieks from my toes this time. “And believe me, it’s not easy. But nor was it a picnic to learn how a relationship can be poisoned by secrets—even ‘little white ones.’”
My sister slumps her shoulders. Refuses to turn my way. But when she dares a glance at Gabriella, the woman turns up both palms, her brows slanting ruefully. “Sorry, girlfriend. I’m in the Team Emma jersey for this one.” When the latest hip-hop hit blares from her purse, she rolls gracefully to her own feet but doesn’t answer it. “Annnnd I take that back. Team Chan calls again.” She checks her phone, confirming with a nod. “Back to the grip-and-grin, kids. But rest assured”—she steps over, hauling Lydia in for a bone-crushing hug—“you’re going to figure this out. I have complete faith!”
As soon as Gabriella’s out the door, my sister’s Debbie Downer face sets in again. “Well, she might have faith…”
“She’s not the only one.” I tug on ’Dia’s shoulder and rock her in a tight sibling hug. “You’re not just a badass on the tennis court, Dee Dee. You’re a strong, amazing woman—in your heart and in your character—and you really do deserve more from a man than his cock.”
Her long sigh primes me for the sappy mush with which she’s about to retaliate. And sure enough, with tear-swollen eyes, she steps back and—
“But gawd, what a cock.”
“Gaaahhh.” I laugh-choke it, giving her a grimace usually reserved for her worst farts, before stumbling back to retrieve the phone going off in my own purse. As the grinding rhythm of Imagine Dragons’ “Warriors” shakes the table, I smile. “And with perfect timing, Team Reece calls me back to the fray as well.”
“Not before Team Lydia gives you one last hug.” Her embrace is fierce and tight, matching the smack she gives my cheek. “And all the thanks in her heart and soul for being the best sister she could ever ask for.”
I laugh again, shaking my head. “Save it for after you’ve talked to Sawyer.”
“Deal.” She flashes her bright winner’s grin, but it quickly dissipates into a wince. “And…errr…sorry about my lipstick making out with your cheek.”
“No worries. I have to fix my face and take care of the bladder before facing the world again anyway. Now shoo. Go find your man and pull him off to a dark corner for that ‘chat.’ Those shouldn’t be too hard to find once the eclipse starts.”
By the time I reach the stall to take care of the white wine and water practically making my eyeballs float, her footsteps have died off—or so I think. Right before I flush, the restroom door creaks open again.
“Okay, dork-a-’Dia,” I call while leaving the stall, double-checking to ensure I haven’t accidentally tucked my gown into my underwear. “What’d you forget this…”
My voice gives out.
My knees nearly do the same.
Just as every thought in my head turns into a cold, cosmic-level void—
Except one.
It was more than paranoia.
“Tyce.” I blurt it out but wonder how I did. My brain is still struggling to comprehend its other truth.
It was more than paranoia.
“Emmalina. Hi there. Glad I could…catch you.”
It was more than paranoia.
Every passing second of his quiet, eerie regard is a new confirmation of it. A fresh window into the disgusting truth of it.
“In the ladies’ restroom?” By some miracle, I’m able to issue it all without hitches, though I can’t say the same for masking the agitation in my gaze or the tremble of my stance. I battle to tell myself that this is stupid and that I’m overreacting to nothing but a friendly gesture from a guy who’s going to be my brother-in-law someday. Okay, so he’s intense. And a little too fond of emo-punk video style stares. And not afraid to march into a women’s restroom to…
Do what?
What the hell is he here for?
“Well, it’s a nice restroom,” he murmurs. “As restrooms go.” Then drops his stare, calmer than the scrutiny he unleashed during the show but still daunting in its proximity, back to my face. “And it’s a chance to be alone.” His subtle smile sneaks up as his perusal slides lower. “Which is always a good perk.”
Before the snakes of apprehension turn into wraiths of panic, I pivot and turn on the water, scrubbing my hands for the full Alphabet Song count. “Well, speaking as a girl who’s worked hotels for a few years, perks are overrated.”
“Speaking as someone who’s done a lot of fucking around in them, I’d agree.” The guy says it at normal level over the roar of the air dryer, meaning he’s leaned in close enough for me to hear. But when the air shuts off, Tyce doesn’t back away—and even moves in by another step, forcing me to back up against the partition between two of the stalls. “But sometimes, an opportunity is just an opportunity, and those of us without a lot of options have to jump at the perks.”
Somehow, there’s still a few extra inches of space for me to rear back more, allowing my drill of a glare back at him. “What the hell are you talking—”
Whether it’s his gouge of a grab at my waist or the aggressive hiss from his lips, my harsh gulp sends my voice into tight silence—with which the bastard seems fine. “Regrettably, talking can’t be on the agenda for this little meeting, sister.”
“I’m not your sister.” I claw my fingernails into his hand. He doesn’t move an inch.
“Well, that’s not far off, is it? But there are some things that need to be settled first, right?”
His voice, slipping into a husk, sprays an array of strange sensations through every pore of my body. It’s damn clear what this is all about—what this asshole wants from me. Or is it? I’ve been pinned like this before by a man. By a group of them. I knew exactly what every one of them wanted from me.
But this doesn’t feel the same. At all.
What. The. Hell?
I spit all three words at him, in exactly the same cadence, only to be cut off by a hiss five times fiercer than his first. “Be quiet, Emmalina. We don’t have much more—”
“Quiet? Are you freaking kidding me? And you, asshole, do not have the right to call me Emmal—”
“I said be quiet!”
“Go to hell!”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Oh, so it’ll feel good? Best I’ve ever had? Is that your angle?”
“Oh, for fuck’s—”
He’s cut himself off this time, groaning as if I really did deliver the gut punch and the ball jab that have been tempting my instincts. But that’s not the end of the sound. His outburst is infused with something else. An undertone I know all too well because I’ve heard it vibrate through Reece so much.
Pain.
Deep, unstoppable, physical pain.
He slackens his hold. Drops his shoulders as if the whole planetarium has fallen on top of them, and lets his head plummet the same direction.
But not before I get several seconds’ worth of the new grimace on his face.
His face?
No.
A gargoyle. A burn victim. Maybe even a heroin addict gone so far off the rails, he’s turned into another person. But in the space of three seconds? With flesh that suddenly looks like a preschooler’s tried to fashion a face out of Playdoh?
The transformation is so sudden and the sight so unexpected, I can’t help my visceral reaction.
I scream.
Loudly.
Apparently, for a while—because the reverberations from it are still making the whole room ring as Tyce seizes me again and jerks me next to him with feral force.
Then whispers words into my ear that render me silent again. And slack-jawed. And bug-eyed. And helpless to do anything for a long second except watch as an insane electrical pulse blows the locked restroom door right off its hinges.
Followed by a beastly bellow that makes my screams sound like kitten mewls.
Followed by the sight of my towering, wrath-filled man, his beautiful suit frying away from his leathers, the force of his rage whomping the air like an EMP explosion.
“R-Reece!”
At least I think I’ve stuttered it. The force of his entrance is still ringing in my ears, and raw shock still paralyzes a majority of my body—though I’m not one drop of stunned when Tyce wheels and falters as if he’s just chugged a whole bottle of Patrón. As soon as the dickhead grins with equally trashed whimsy, I wonder if his common sense is just as thoroughly sauced. And does it even matter? The rage on Reece’s face, contorting his features as if the eclipse is really turning him into a werewolf, conveys everything I need to know about how this is going to go down.
Correction.
How Tyce is going to go down.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I’m galvanized—and in spite of how my limbs are still the consistency of pudding, I force them to move with the same speed at which Reece does. By the time I peel off my Louboutins, toss them into Lydia’s moping chair, and get to Reece’s side, he’s already hoisting Tyce up by the back of the collar and flinging him into the rotunda like a rat into the rain. The fierce worry in his eyes is my only clue about why he spins back, clutching me by both shoulders. In return, I curl my hands into the thick collar of his leathers and yank. Hard.
“Reece—”
“Are you all right?”
Shit. His growl really does border on werewolf octaves. I roll through a semblance of a nod.
“Yeah. I’m fine. I’m fine, honestly. But he wasn’t—”
“Good.” His face hardens as he starts to pull away, but I refuse to let go of his collar.
“Reece. You’re getting this—”
“Damn right I am.”
“Reece!”
I won’t be fine if you murder your brother and spend the rest of your life in jail, damn it.
He pries my fingers loose. Quickly lifts them to his lips. “Stay here.”
I jerk my brows to my hairline. “Excuse me?”
“Fine. Then stay out of the way.”
Oh, God.
“Reece!”
He stops but only jerks his head back around, though that’s enough for me to glimpse the electrons now firing in his glare. “What?”
“Felons don’t get to be superheroes.”
As he whips his head forward again, there’s no missing the new ropes of tension beneath his shoulders, spiraling down his arms…into the brilliant blue glow of the fingers he curls into matching fists.
“And sometimes, heroes need to forget about being super—and only worry about what’s right.”
Chapter Five
Reece
The Observatory is either going to love me or hate me for this.
In the “love” column? Nothing’s broken except—likely—my brother’s arrogant nose. And now, the articles about the event won’t be just front page of the society section. If I take another swing at Tyce—and holy fuck is that a better idea by the second—the Observatory’s rotunda will be more recognizable than the Capital Hill dome by tomorrow.
But now for the “hate” column. Tyce is bleeding all over their vintage floor. And a superhero with boiling blood and glowing fists is stealing all the thunder from their silent-auction tables.
Maybe more than thunder.
The crowd presses in around me, their confused and scandalized whispers careening off the high dome of the rotunda. There’s more volume from the equally weirded-out murmurs of the media reporters, stammering to improvise commentary for a Los Angeles society event that’s taken a sharp turn into what-the-fuck territory.
I’m beyond caring.
The only thing I foc
us on is the strange expression of the man at my feet now sitting in a puddle of his own blood. Eerily, Tyce is…grinning. Not a lot but enough, his perfect white teeth outlined in blood as he wipes the back of a hand across his fractured nose. The knowing, cocky air continues up to his gaze, glittering back at me with a mixture of pain and—
What?
Is he mocking me? Admiring me? What the living fuck?
Unbelievable. My brother has bested himself at the art of being a true bastard.
With a snarl I don’t bother to hide, documented by flashing cameras and live video feeds, I turn to the woman who’s just watched me drag Tyce across the rotunda with electric ropes, only to deactivate the bonds and lay into him with my bare fists. Because sometimes, flesh-to-flesh is the perfect emissary for the message—especially when it comes to beating the crap out of the brother who locked himself into a restroom with my screaming fiancée.
And not wanting to stop until the fucker is dead.
But I force myself to do so when the woman of my dreams begs me not to make her the girlfriend of a felon.
Because in true Tyce Aaron Richards style, the bastard beneath me has managed to pull off a victory of true asshole artistry: doing the crime but damn near ensuring I’ll do the time, if the faces of the throng’s newest arrivals can be interpreted correctly. Mom and Dad, having clearly sprinted their way over here, have just as obviously hit the brakes on their Reece bandwagon. So much for the road Emma worked to smooth over for their ride.
So much for thinking anything has changed about the Richards family dynamics of the last twenty years.
Yeah, I got in the first punch. And the last. And the six between them.
But I’m still the loser.
That cold reality brings strange comfort. At least the ice in my heart helps freeze-dry the goddamned tears.
“Reece. Reece?” As Emma approaches me on wobbly steps, turquoise-colored drops track down her cheeks. “Come away,” she urges. “Now. He’s… It’s… This just isn’t what it seems, okay?”
“It’s only okay if you’re okay.” I tug her close but look her over. Instinct says I got to the bathroom before Tyce let the dick between his legs speak for the one inside his head, but I need to hear it straight from Emma. Nothing will calm me down before getting it directly from her.