My brow furrowed. I tilted my head.
“What do you mean by that?”
I expected her to retreat; for Peyton’s expression to show that she’d revealed too much. Instead, she pressed forward, closing the distance between us.
“Donovan told me about you,” she said simply.
“He did? Why?”
“I asked.”
At this distance, her scent washed over me like a warm breeze. I could make out finer details, too. The sheen of her hair, freshly brushed before bed. How naturally beautiful shelooked, even without a lick of makeup.
“You don’t know me,” I refuted. “Donovan doesn’t know me either.”
“I know you’re from Henderson,” she went on. “You joined the Marines the day of your seventeenth birthday. It’s all you ever wanted to do.”
I felt abruptly angry. Not at her, but at Donovan Prescott. I couldn’t begrudge the man for doing his due diligence, especially in his position. But these details were disquietly intimate. They belonged to me, and me alone.
“I know you were dishonorably discharged,” she added softly. “You knocked out some high-ranking officer with even higher connections. Shattered his jaw. I’m not sure why, though….”
She paused, reluctant to continue. But I needed to know the full extent of Donovan’s betrayal.
“What else?”
Peyton’s angelic face took on a softer, almost apologetic tone. “The military was all you knew,” she breathed. “So you were lost for a while. Wandered aimlessly. And that’s where Donovan came in. He was willing to take you on, based on your experience alone. Regardless of being blacklisted everywhere else in the private sector.”
Unreal. She knew it all — everything but the reason why I’d trashed my career, for the sake of a single punch that was still picking up speed when it hit.
But my God, that punch.
That punch was so fucking worth it.
“I still want to know why?” she asked.
“Why I wiredthat guy’s jaw shut for sixteen weeks?”
“No,” she smiled slyly. “I mean, why now?”
I sighed and flexed my forearms against the railing. What could I tell her? That watching her walk down the aisle, wearing that thin-lipped smile like armor, broke something inside me? That I couldn’t bear to see something so breathtakingly beautiful — inside and out — marry something so ugly?
Or should I tell her that I sensed her reluctance? That I’d felt an immediate kinship to her; watching her glide forward on feet that moved not because they wanted to, but because theyhadto?
The wind picked up a little, playing games with her hair. It blew a few strands across her perfect, porcelain face. Without thinking, I reached up and swept them aside.
Peyton’s eyes followed my gentle movement. She was so close, I could smell her skin. Coconut oil. Salt. Four long days of soaking up the sun.
“Never mind,” she spoke softly. “It doesn’t matter why. It only matters that we got away. The both of us. All of us…”
Her hand slid forward and placed a finger against my chest.
“Whatever you did for Donovan makes no difference,” she murmured. “You worked for him because you had to, not because you wanted to.”
I frowned. “That doesn’t absolve me of—”
“He collects people,” she whispered, her eyes pleading. “Discarded people. Broken people. He picks up the pieces and fills in what’s missing.”
Her words landed gently, barely stirring the air. I hardly heard them. I was too fixated on those plump, beautiful lips.
