“I couldn’t,” she told him, her voice rising, sounding more like desperation now. “I had to leave everything—everyone—behind. I don’t even possess a yearbook from back then because they were worried someone would leaf through it and notice I had a different name. No love notes. No pictures of friends or family. You don’t know what it’s been like since I had to leave.”
“No, I don’t, because you never trusted me enough to tell me what the hell was going on.”
“It had nothing to do with trust,” she said, her tone going even louder. “It had to do with survival. My family’s lives depended on what we did that night.”
“And what exactly did you have to do?”
She stared at him. “We had to run.”
CHAPTER TEN
HE SAID NOTHING, SIMPLY stood there, staring at her. He didn’t push, even though she could tell he wanted to do just that. He just waited, and the look in his eyes told her he fought to maintain that amount of patience. Well, he wasn’t the only one.
She stared at him, taking him in, his appearance, his stance. He was more toned than she remembered, muscles pulling against his shirt, even though he was still slender, almost like a dancer who lifted weights. His dark blond hair was tousled, as if he didn’t own a brush or couldn’t be bothered to comb it, and his blue-green eyes, which she remembered always sparkling with mischievous intent, now growled at her. She took in a slow breath, close enough to him to smell the faint traces of sandalwood she remembered from when they were teens, and she dropped her gaze, smiling that at least something of the man she remembered hadn’t changed.
Then she remembered all the images she saw on the laptop of him with all those women and remembered that they both had changed quite a lot. Unlike him, though, she did it alone.
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and she looked up into his stormy eyes. “I leftbecause I had to; there was no other choice. They didn’tgiveme a choice.”
That muscle in his jaw jumped again, but still, he didn’t speak.
She took another slow breath, turning back to the window, unshed tears pricking at her eyes. “I didn’t find out until they shuffled us off to Oregon that it was even happening, but my mother witnessed a federal crime. Saw something she was never supposed to see, and someone figured out she talked. She agreed to testify, which brought death threats against her, against my father, me, my sister. We were followed, watched. Someone even cloned my phone at some point, even though I have no idea how or when, which is probably why I even got into the field I’m in now. They even tried to grab me outside of school one day while you were at practice. Only another teacher being nearby kept it from happening. Then they put us in a safe house finally and cut me off from the world.
His breath hitched at that, but she didn’t give him time to speak.
“They told us if we didn’t disappear, we’d end up dead. So we disappeared. But they never asked me if that’s what I wanted, never even offered me an option.”
She dropped her arms to her sides, her fists clenching, more out of instinct than defensiveness. “I went to sleep Julia Maria Moretti and woke up Delaney Mae Rhodes. Everything I knew was gone. No friends. No home. I couldn’t call anyone to tell them I was leaving. Couldn’t even write a simple note. Trust me, I tried.” She glanced at his reflection in the window. “And there was no more you. They didn’t give me a choice about that either, didn’t even tell me what was going on while it was happening. I couldn’t take my laptop, my phone, nothing that would tie me to who I was. Nothing they could use to find us.”
His lips parted to say something, but she steamrolled ahead.
“You want to know what it’s like growing up like that? Knowing your entire identity is a lie, some creation a guy at a computer put together? That your birthday, your driver’s license, your name is just a code on a file? It’s not even my actual birthday anymore. Now I have to celebrate in August, rather then in March when I was really born. Do you want to know what it’s like that the people you love—your grandparents, your friends, your first love—are all memories you have to pretend you don’t remember?” She closed her eyes, fighting back the tears before they could slip down her cheeks. “It was hell. That’s what it was. We have no family we can go to. My parents can’t even reach out to theirs to tell them they’re all right or to see if they’re even alive anymore.”
“Jesus, Julia…”
She flinched at the sound of her real name on his lips. “There is no Julia anymore. Don’t you understand? Aren’t you listening?”
“I’m sorry,” he rushed to say, stepping forward. “Fine, Delaney. Your name isn’t who you are inside. I’m?—”
“I can’t be that person anymore,” she whispered. “It’s not safe.”
Robert’s gaze searched hers, and for a moment, the air between them softened. But then she took a deep breath and forced herself to look away. “You need to go. And you need to stop acting like you know me. I’m sorry, but there’s no going back. It could cost my family everything. Could cost them their lives.”
His brow furrowed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t understand?—”
“Then help me understand,” he snapped, cutting her off. “I can’t pretend you’re not standing right here in front of me.”
She shook her head. “You don’t get it. It might have been fifteen years ago, but that doesn’t mean it’s over, that we’resafe. My parents are still in hiding, still running from people who want to make my mother pay for testifying. We have to be careful with everything we do, always looking over our shoulders. It’s no way to live, but it’s the only one we have available to us.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, voice rough. “Why are you here now then? Working this job? If it’s so dangerous, why are you out in the open and not hidden in some small town somewhere? You have a name, a top position in a company, a company you built. Why aren’t you still hiding like they are?”
She sighed, slipping her hands to her hips. “Because I thought this job was small enough that I wouldn’t run into anyone I knew. I was tired of simply hiding behind a desk. I know what the hell I’m doing at this job and I’m damn good at it. I wanted to try the field, and I fought like hell to get the chance. You don’t know how hard I had to fight to get this.”
His expression changed to one of disbelief. “But it could get you killed. Why would you risk that?”
She smiled at him, her head falling to the side slightly. “Because I grew tired of small town life. Because I have dreams just like everyone else, and I was tired of someone keeping me from accomplishing those dreams. What’s the point of being safe if you suffocate in the process? And trust me, I was suffocating.”
