Instead of answering, he reaches behind my ear, making me twitch, and pulls something out of my hair, holding it up in front of my face.
“When I realized you were missing and found my idiot cousin to ask what happened, I called Camille, who was kind enough to tell me that you’d gone to your father’s house.And then I turned on the tracking device.”
I shove him back, even angrier than I was thirty seconds ago.“You put a tracking device on me?”
He grins.“Of course I did.”
I didn’t think I could get angrier, but I was wrong.I want to slap the grin right off his face.“Why?”
He bites his lip and gets as close to me as he can without actually touching me.“Because I’ve known you a long time, Brooks.And I know you’re almost never where you’re supposed to be.I figured I’d need a way to find you before you got into any trouble.Now what the fuck are we doing here?”
I open my mouth to answer but anger and shock have stolen my voice, and it takes me several minutes to remember how to speak.By the time I get there, I’ve gone through a change of heart.I don’t like that he’s here and I fucking hate that he had the nerve to put a tracking device on me.I want to slice his throat right here and now for daring.
But a very large part of me is disturbingly glad to see him, and more than a little bit heated at how close he is right now.His woodsy scent is flooding my head and bringing back all sorts of memories, and somewhere inside me a little girl is screaming for someone to take care of her, and chanting Lucien’s name again and again and again.
She wants to believe we can still trust him, and that he might be the knight in shining armor we’ve always wanted.
I know he’s not.He’s a shadowy, smooth-talking pirate who will always choose what’s best for himself.
But as long as he’s offering to help, I’m going to let him.
Just to give that little girl a moment of hope.
“I broke into my father’s computer in his office and found the files he’s keeping on this trafficking ring,” I say quickly.“Yes, he’s involved.No, I don’t know who he’s working for.Yes, there were a lot of names and I took pictures.He had a meeting set up on his calendar for this spot, starting in five minutes.And the code indicated that a girl would be either picked up or dropped off.I came to get to one of the men and find out what’s going on.And to get the girl the hell out of here.”
He blinks once, like he’s having trouble taking all of that in, and then scowls.“And you were going to do all of that without me?”
I just shrug.“I figured you were busy.”
He gives me a dark, humorless chuckle.“Never too busy for you, love.Let’s get set up.”
Lucien
Ican’t believe she was going to run this mission without me.
I mean, I can.Of course she was.This girl never does anything with a partner, if she can help it.Or at least that’s how she was once.She may have changed.The way she’s glaring at me for having caught her tends to contradict that, though.
Well, if she thought I was going to leave her alone to fight off who knows how many bad guys on her own, while trying to save a girl, she has another thing coming.I didn’t bring her back to New Orleans just to let her get killed by some two-bit drug-runner-turned-human-trafficker.I have important plans that require her being alive.
And I’d never forgive myself if she got hurt doing something she should have left to me.I spent years not forgiving myself for having let her go in the first place.I still remember the night she ran, and the hollow, stormy place she left inside me.I couldn’t see or think straight, and I sure as hell couldn’t come up with a plan.I knew she wouldn’t have left unless she wanted to, which meant she’d chosen to do it the way she had.
Without me.
I hadn’t been willing to face the humiliation of charging after her.I didn’t chase women, and I sure as hell didn’t go after girls who chose to leave me.So I never asked Camille where she’d gone.I didn’t ask her father or Beau, and I cut off all forms of contact with her.Deleted her number.Erased her email addresses.Tried to erase her face from my mind.
And then I dove into New Orleans like a man possessed, trying to erase the memory of ever having loved her.
I couldn’t do it.No matter how many glasses of gin I drank, no matter how much whiskey I burned through, I couldn’t get her out of my head.And every other girl felt like lukewarm jello compared to Brooks, who was fire molded into a girl so beautiful it hurt your eyes to look at her.
I should have gone after her.And my subconscious never let me forget about it.
It was why I’d agreed to help her with her war in New York.That wasn’t chivalry, because I was no fucking white night.
I’d wanted to assuage the guilt I’d carried since I let her go.
Though if I’m being honest with myself, I know I also wanted to be the man who finally saved her and made her stay.
Perhaps I’m more of a white knight than I realized.
