I lean into her, forcing her to take a few steps backward into the wall. Bracing one arm above her head, I glide my other hand over her throat, my thumb sweeping over her battering pulse point as I drink her in. She’s so damn breathtaking.
“He tore you down, made you forget who you were. And you’re still lost.”
Again, one of those laden pauses.
Her chest rises and falls. Her eyes frolic all over me, from my face to my shoulders to my waist. She drags her lower lip between her teeth in the sexiest little pout. Until those brown gems—rich with subtle flecks of gold and greens within mahogany outer rims—rise to mine, and she nods with a whispered, “Yeah.”
Such a small gesture, yet it feels like a treasure. While I want her to fight, I also want her to be real with me. She’s strong but stuck. Fractured.
As I brush her dishwater-blonde hair back from her face, I notice how the lighter hue suits her and brings out her freckles. I wish I could freeze this moment, simply gawk at her and convince myself she’s not a mirage, that she’s finally with me again.
Since I can’t, I tuck a butterscotch strand behind her ear and offer her the truth. “All I want is to be the man who builds you back up.”
She’s momentarily speechless, a slight wobble to her chin that she’s trying like hell to mask. Every cell in my body is urging me to coil myself around her, kiss her until she forgets that bastard ever existed, and bulldoze any semblance of friendshipwe ever had, but it isn’t time for that. So, I step away, grab my suitcase, and walk toward the bathroom, content that I ended the night the way I’d wanted to.
But the lawyer in Mercy can’t have that. She has to be the one with the final jaw-dropping revelation.
“Ryker,” she calls out in that sultry rasp that is my undoing.
“Yeah?”
“Um … Jett … his name …” She glances at me sheepishly, which has me confounded because Mercy was never shy with me. “It’s Remy, short for Remington.”
“Remy?” I parrot, the weight of her saying she chose my middle name as Jett’s new one slamming into me.
She swallows and nods, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. I don’t want to turn it into a bigger deal than it is because she’s consistently given me reason to believe that she doesn’t see me as anything more than a friend. And ever since she ran, I’ve questioned if she even valued our friendship. But, Jesus, that makes my chest tight. She might have chosen it innocently. It’s possible she wanted something that felt familiar and it popped into her head. Doesn’t fucking matter. All it does is light a fire under my already-blazing obsession.
Champagne and delusions.
“You’re right, Merce. He should definitely keep that name.”
RYKER
It’s nearly six in the morning, and I’m on Mercy’s couch, sitting in the dark. It’s quiet. I should be working, but like I do most mornings, I find myself rubbing my thumb over my dice and staring at the last text Mercy ever sent me.
Mercy: 86
My whole world shattered at that moment. It was the text I’d told her to send and prayed she never would.
White oak and screams.
Sometimes, I stare at that simple SOS and wish I could go back to the night I’d told her to use it and do everything different.
Mercy throws the last of her moving boxes into her hatchback. “My mind is made up. I appreciate the offer, but—”
“Do you love him?” I’m not sure why I asked that. It doesn’t fucking matter.
“No.” She stares at me for a beat, breath held like she wants to add something, which only perplexes me further.
Hope simmers in my veins.
I shut the trunk and block her route to the driver’s side. “Then what the fuck is this, Mercy? Did you hear everything I told you?”
“Yes,” she huffs. “And there is no evidence to support that claim, which is why no charges were ever pressed. I’m sure you heard this from one of your stand-up guests at La Lune Noire, who no doubt has self-indulgent motives for spreading those rumors about some girl, whose own family admitted she was prone to disappearing. Hailey is probably on a beach somewhere, sipping a margarita.”
I scrub my hands over my face, feeling the ashes piling up around me. “She filed a domestic violence complaint a month earlier. You’re smarter than this. Goddammit.”
“Which she immediately reported was an argument that got out of hand on both sides, and the prosecutor dropped it because there wasn’t any evidence. I get that it looks bad, but you’re reaching.”
