“Hey, earth to Malcolm,” Walker said. “What the hell happened?”
“Nothing, I just slipped and fell, and I hit my head on a tree,” he said, feeling a little bad for lying. “Those stupid tools kept sliding around and knocking me off balance; you should have carried some of them.”
“Hey, I didn’t pack the bags, blame Cooper,” Walker said, relaxing behind the wheel. “Do you think it worked?”
“I sure hope so, I don’t want to do that again,” he said, then shrugged. “It was Gabe’s plan. He knows what he’s doing. I’m sure nothing went wrong.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Walker said. “I don’t think we were spotted, but we need to make sure we have our stories straight.”
“We were at the library all night,” he said, with an annoyed sigh. “We’ve been over this a hundred times, Walker. I know for a fact that Jackson and Abby checked books out for us to create a paper trail. I already got an email notification, so quit worrying.”
“I can’t help it, I can’t afford to get in any more trouble,” his friend said. “The only reason I agreed to do this is because thatcrypt is important, and it needed to be saved. Are you sure no one saw you?”
He hesitated a second, hating to have to lie again. “Not that I noticed,” he said, feeling terrible but unwilling to share his experience with anyone, still too unnerved by the entire thing. “You’re worrying for nothing.”
Walker shot him a look but didn’t say anything. They pulled into the driveway a few minutes later, and he quickly made his escape, promising to come back downstairs once he’d changed. In his room, he stared at himself in the mirror, replaying his encounter with the woman in his mind, alarmed when just the memory woke the dragon inside him and sent waves of desire racing through him.
The last thing he wanted now or in the future was a woman. He’d seen enough of marriage and kids from his parents to know that it wasn’t for him. Shaking his head, he told himself it didn’t matter. He’d never see her again, and there was nothing to worry about. Fate wasn’t playing games with him like it had with his friends. The woman had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She’d forget about him in a few days, just like he’d forget about her.
***Rose***
After dropping her sopping coat on the floor inside the front door of her little apartment, Rose headed straight for the shower, telling herself that her wobbly legs were just from the cold that seemed to have saturated her body. She hadn’t meant to stay out so long, had only meant to take a quick tour of the campus, but her midnight wanderings led her farther than she’d anticipated, and she’d suddenly realized how dangerous it was to be out alone that late.
Her intuition had been right; it had been dangerous out there, but not for the reasons she’d thought. Getting in the shower, she replayed the whole encounter in her mind as the hot water poured over her head and shoulders, surprised to find the tingles of desire she’d felt earlier come to life again. Shaking her head, she wondered if she was crazy. The man had mowed her down, then held her pinned to the ground, and she was thinking about kissing him? It made zero sense.
Even when it had been happening, she’d never been scared, something deep inside her had told her that he was safe, that he wouldn’t hurt her, but the attraction was something else entirely. It had been instant and all-consuming until she realized that she couldn’t breathe, then she’d been lost again when their eyes met, unable to look away as desire began to build inside her. When he’d finally scrambled to his feet, she’d been too shocked to move, even when the slushy snow began to soak through her coat. Only his offer of help to stand had broken her paralysis.
Taking his hand had been a mistake. The contact had only intensified the feelings, and it was all she could do to get to her feet as warmth spread through her, followed by the insane urge to throw herself into his arms. Cheeks flaming with embarrassment at the thought of what she might have done if he hadn’t run away, she quickly finished her shower and got ready for bed, forcing herself not to think about the handsome stranger. It was a chance meeting in the middle of the night, he probably wouldn’t even remember her in the morning, but as she slept that night, her dreams were full of the man who’d woken something inside her.
The phone ringing woke Rose the next morning, and she groped blindly for it, knocking it off the nightstand and under the bed, forcing her to get out of bed to retrieve it. Cursing the obnoxious sound the phone was making, feeling like it must still be the middle of the night even though the sun was shiningbrightly, she crawled under the bed, grabbed the phone, and connected on the call to silence it.
“Good morning, sleepy head,” her mom said, her voice so chipper it made Rose’s head hurt. “Your sister and I just wanted to call and tell you good luck on your first day tomorrow. I bet you’re really excited, you’re so lucky your dad was able to get you a job and an apartment. I don’t know what we’d do without him.”
“He’s not my dad,” she said, still half asleep. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”
“Well, he’s your stepfather, that’s close enough. I don’t know why you keep fighting this. Chloe calls him Dad,” her mom said. “It’s been six years, nothing is going to change. Chet took us out of the gutter, young lady; he gave us a home, a family, stability, and it’s time you were grateful for everything he’s done for us.”
She took a deep breath, ready to tell her mother the truth about her sainted husband, but she heard Chloe in the background begging to talk to her and let out a long sigh instead. It wouldn’t do any good; her mother would only get upset, and Chet might find out she was bad-mouthing him again. She couldn’t afford for that to happen, not now. Instead, she counted silently to ten in her head, then put a smile on her face even though her mother couldn’t see it, and asked if she could speak to her sister.
She was pouring herself a cup of coffee when Chloe finally ran out of steam and they said their goodbyes, but before she could hang up, her stepfather got on the phone. “Are you completely sure you understand what you’re supposed to do?” he demanded. “I can’t afford to have you screw this up like everything else you’ve ever done.”
Ignoring the temptation to hang up the phone, she took a deep breath, summoning all her patience for another conversation with the man who had been her tormentor for six years. “Contrary to what you believe, I’m not an idiot,” she said,unable to hide the anger in her voice. “I know what I’m supposed to do: get in good with the Sigmas through Malcolm and find out what happened to Diego and Sebastian, report back to you and no one else.”
“Don’t get snotty with me, missy. Let me remind you what’s on the line here,” Chet snarled at her. “Do this and do it right, or you and your sister will find yourselves out on the street. I might even kick your mom out, too, after all, she gave me what I wanted, and Ben is old enough now that he doesn’t need her. Don’t you miss those days, living in a car, eating out of trashcans, such great memories…”
Her heart froze. He’d threatened her mom and Chloe before, but he’d never gone that far. “Leave them out of it, this is between you and me,” she said, relieved her voice wasn’t shaking. “I said I’d do this and I will.”
“You’d better, I need to know what happened, it’s the only way I’ll become…president of the company,” he said, then paused. “And by the way, those weren’t threats, they were promises.”
The line went dead before she could respond. She let out a long sigh as she turned it off, then slumped down at the little table in her tiny kitchen and put her head in her hands. Tomorrow, she started a job she didn’t want, so she could spy on people she didn’t even know, for reasons that weren’t completely clear, and if she screwed up, the people she loved would be hurt. It was an impossible situation, one she wasn’t prepared to navigate, but there wasn’t any choice; she’d have to figure it out as she went or face her stepfather’s wrath.
CHAPTER 2
***MALCOLM***
It had been one of the longest weeks of Malcolm’s life, not because of anything that happened, because nothing had happened. The cops hadn’t come pounding on his door, he hadn’t been expelled from school, life had just gone on, and he’d done his best to do the same. But walking on eggshells for days on end had been exhausting, and he was planning on spending the weekend making up for the sleepless nights he’d been plagued with since he’d helped set the bomb in the crypt. He didn’t regret helping, would do it again if asked, he was just terrified of getting caught and ruining his life.
When Friday finally rolled around, he was finally beginning to believe that they were going to get away with it. As he parked his truck in front of the fraternity house after work, he was actually beginning to relax. Cooper was the first one to greet him when he walked through the door, and his heart sank for a second until he saw the big smile on his friend’s face.
