Page 17 of Entwined With You

“I wasn’t sure what to think when you called and told me who you are. But I don’t think I really believed it was true until you walked through that door. Hell, I think I’m still in shock.” He forces a pathetic grin. “You should probably slap me so I know I’m awake.”

To his surprise—and mine—I do, rising up and leaning over the booth as my palm lashes out to intersect his cheek.

“Careful,” Brax whispers, but I ignore him. It felt good. Really good.

And why not? Haven’t I been waiting months—no, years—for this opportunity, never truly believing I’d have the chance to settle the score. Darrin’s the one who’d pulled me in, after all. And if Brax is telling the truth about his own innocence—a very big if—then Darrin may well be the one who wired that van.

I don’t know. Not yet.

But I’m going to find out.

Around us, the other patrons have frozen. A burly man carrying a tray starts to come over. I hold up a finger and shake my head. “We’re fine.”

He stops in front of us, saying nothing. He’s a mountain of a man with a jovial face. A fatherly sort who would undoubtedly go out of his way to protect a woman. “Really,” I add. “Thanks, but I’m okay.”

His eyes narrow, as he looks from Darrin to Brax and then back to Darrin again. Eventually, he nods. “You need anything,” he says, talking only to me, “you just say the word.”

I nod and flash my most charming smile, and when the waiter—maybe manager?— turns away, Brax leans forward.

“You should know better than to test her,” he tells Darrin, his voice low and calm.

Darrin’s eyes skip from me to Brax, the baffled pleasure on his face shifting to something much darker. “I find it interesting that you’re here at all, Brent. We all assumed you planted that bomb.”

“You assumed wrong,” Brax says, with a casual shrug, like we’re just hanging in a bar having a conversation with an old friend.

In a way we are. If that old friend might be inclined to kill you.

“Whatever you say.” Darrin punctuates the words with the scary smile I remember from back in the day. “Just odd, you know. You don’t get back to the van like we rehearsed dozens of times. And then the van goes boom and you run away. Which really wasn’t part of the plan.” He traces his finger around the top of his beer. “You can see why we might have been confused. Especially when you didn’t end up accompanying us to prison. Just a little bit of follow-the-dots logic that doesn’t quite work out for me.”

“That’s because you followed those dots to the exact wrong conclusion.” Brax says the words with a bored matter-of-fact tone, but offers no more explanations or protests.

Smart. He’s avoiding the whole he doth protest too much problem. And as any long-time con knows, less is always more.

“You trust this guy?” Darrin asks, turning his attention back to me.

“I do,” I say, even though I don’t. Or, rather, I don’t completely.

“Really?” The word has a dry, disbelieving tone. Under the circumstances, I can’t say I blame him. “He’s alive, and you’re a walking corpse. And you trust him. You actually trust him.”

“I already told you I do,” I say, meeting his eyes and holding them. “Do I strike you as a stupid woman?”

His eyes narrow. “No.”

“Then you’ll have to assume that I’m not being foolish in trusting him.”

I turn to Brax. And though the truth is that I absolutely do not trust him, I cup the back of his head, lean forward, and surprise him with a kiss. The kind that’s long and slow and intimate.

The kind that I immediately realize was a huge mistake. Because I like it too damn much.

I start to pull away, but he holds me close, deepening the kiss even as his hand finds its way to my thigh. I stifle a moan, wanting nothing more in that moment than to be in the past. Fifteen years ago when I didn’t know what I know now.

Or, rather, when I didn’t believe what I now believe.

But this is the present, and his lips take me back to a time when he was my entire world. When I trusted him as much as I trust myself. When I knew with absolute certainty that he would never harm me.

A time when I’d been a damn little fool.

And, unfortunately, a time my body still remembers, because right then, I want nothing more than to surrender. Right here in this bar, on this bench, even in front of Darrin. I just want him. Brent. The man I’d loved. Not Brax, this man I no longer know.