Thanks for the facts, Aisla. Why didn’t I muddy them around a bit more?
“Ah, interesting. And some of that was true, was it?”
I’m starting to get nervous. He’s driving faster. Those gorgeous, deadly hands of his grip the steering wheel tightly, and he’s lostthe laid-back approach from earlier. I swallow hard, looking out the window at the way the trees whip by.
“Some of it was true?” he asks. “You ought to know, Fran.”
Still scowling he smacks the locks on the door. My heart does a little skip.
“Why me?”
“All of it’s fucking true.”
We sit in silence, because I don’t know what to say and I’m not sure what he’ll say next. I twist the strap of my bag in between my fingers, suddenly nervous.
I was playing with fire, I fucking know I was. And something tells me I'm about to get burned.
“Do me a favor?” he asks.
“Aye?” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s distant and hollow, betraying the fear that’s begun to grip me.
“What?”
“Turn on my phone.”
He jerks his chin at the mobile on the dash. With shaking fingers, I reach for it.
He slides his finger over the home button, opening it with the fingerprint I.D. He places it on my lap, and my stomach drops to my toes.
Instagram.
He’s followed the Clan Chronicles account.
And there’s my picture, my hands, holding the signed paperback. Just a plain pair of nondescript feminine hands, but in the background, the light blue hue of the temporary sling I’m wearing shows.
Did I think he wouldn’t see it?
Did I really think it was anonymous enough?
“Poor writer of the Clan Chronicles,” he says with a forced sigh. “She’ll have to take a sabbatical, won’t she?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tate
I’m soangry I can barely see straight.
She’s going to try to deny it, I know she is, but there’s no getting away from it. I’m so fucking furious she played me for a fool like that. Did she think I wouldn’t have a clue? All this time, she was right under my fucking nose.
And the fucking gall of her to take me into the store, like I’m such a fool I wouldn’t see right through her lies?
Did she think it was funny I didn’t know it was her?
Has she played this little fucking stunt just to get closer to the Clan?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tate, or why you’ve gone all sober and angry,” she mutters. “You don’t think I’m the writer of the Chronicles, do you?”
“I don’t think fucking anything,” I mutter. “I know. And you’ll be coming back with me. Only there’ll be no staying in the frontroom this time. This time, you’ll come back as my prisoner. This time, you’re under my command.”
