Jesus, Amy, really?!
I swear I felt him jolt, but when I snuck a peek up at him, his face was blank.
He pulled his arm from mine as we reached a garage door. “My car is in here.” With the click of a button, the door shuddered, murmuring as it wound its way up. I hovered at the entry. A black Mercedes-Benz gleamed against the darkness of the room. It struck me then I was about to climb into a car with a man who might be a killer, and no one had any idea I was with him. Karson opened the car door and looked at me expectantly as light spilled across the garage.
It was stupid, really stupid to trust someone I barely knew.
I gulped down air and forced my legs to move, trying not to stare at the darkest corners, sliding onto a black leather seat. Karson clicked the door shut behind me. It had that new-car smell. The scent of leather and something sweeter, a hint of honey and musk and something fresh like a forest after a spring rain. The scent of Karson. I took a deep breath in. The car was the most luxurious vehicle I’d ever been in. I think it was safe to assume he most definitely wasn’t poor. He glided into the driver’s seat. The engine purred as we drove out of the garage,into the alley, and left onto the street behind. Towards the direction of home.
“How do you know where I live?” I asked, perplexed.
“Shelley, and you did not answer my question. Who do you need a change from?” he persisted.
“It’s no one important.” I hoped my blunt answer would give him the hint that I didn’t want to talk about it. It didn’t.
“To bring you all the way up here, it’s important,” he pushed. “Who are you running from?”
He was looking intently at me, with his perfect face and compelling eyes, and it was clear he expected an answer. He seemed as if he was the type of man who was used to getting exactly what he wanted, when he wanted it. I swallowed, unsure how to explain why, like a crazy person, I’d driven for six days and ended up in the middle of nowhere. I thought briefly about lying, but I was a bad liar and knew he’d see straight through me.
I turned my head to look at the road. “What makes you think I’m running from anything?”
“When I first saw you in the bar, you looked like a wounded butterfly. Delicate, beautiful, and broken.”
He thinks I’m beautiful.For a fleeting moment the word warmed something inside, slipping around the jagged frozen edges of my heart. It was quickly smothered by the last word—broken.
I stifled a groan. Was my pain really that obvious? No wonder Shelley didn’t want to hire me.
“My boyfriend,” I answered.
“Did he hurt you?” he growled out, his voice like gravel and fire. The air thickened with threat.
“No, not like that. Not physically anyway,” I rushed to explain, not wanting him to get the wrong idea about Tom. Despite everything, a part of me still wanted to defend him.“He was the perfect boyfriend—kind, considerate, funny. Until I found him in bed with my best friend.”
The memories struck in fragments. Kissing on the deck. Walking along the beach hand in hand, talking about the life we planned together. His soft moan and hooded eyes as he slipped inside me. My mind flipped scripts.
His lips on hers.
Her nails digging into his back.
The thrust of his hips as he fucked my best friend.
The ice cracked, and my eyes burned. I wondered if there was ever going to be a time I could think of him without feeling emotional. Perhaps when you were broken, things fell out easier—tears, light, sanity. I looked back out the side window, blinking the blur away.
“He broke your heart?”
Tom was the first person, aside from my adoptive parents, who made me feel like I was worth loving. He’d taken me to the top of the mountain and then kicked me off the edge. I stared at my lap. “Broke it, stomped all over it, and left me in pieces.”
“The man’s obviously an idiot.” The sudden tenderness in his voice caught me off guard. He seemed so self-assured, full of authority, definitely the bad boy. Seeing a softer side surprised me.
“And your family, where are they?” he asked, when I didn’t respond.
“My mother died. I have a father and a sister, but our relationship is...” I hesitated, debating how to explain it. “Strained. He told me to get out, and then I found Tom in bed with Kelly, so I jumped in the car and drove and drove and kept on driving, until somehow I ended up here.” I tried to keep the emotion from my voice, but even to my own ears I sounded raw.
“No wonder.” He said it so softly, I wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself.
We drove in silence for a long moment before I asked as casually as I could, “And what brings you here? Is there family, or a Mrs. Karson waiting somewhere for you?”
He looked across with a curious expression, and his lips twitched up. “I don’t have any family, and there’s no lady in my life.” He turned back to concentrate on the road. “I come here for summer holidays. I like it here—it’s peaceful.”
