Page 20 of Entwined With You

I shift in the passenger seat to face him. His car is a baby blue Mustang convertible, and seeing it in the street when he’d picked me up earlier had almost done me in. Now, I rub my palm on the well-tended leather seat, and try not to remember all the times I’d been inside her.

“Samantha?”

I blink, realizing I’d been looking right at him, but not seeing him. Or, rather, seeing him from the past. Not as Braxton, but as Brent. Not owning this car, but sitting behind the wheel on the lot of a vintage dealer trying to talk himself into buying it.

“This is Old Blue, isn’t it?”

For a moment he simply looks confused. Then his expression shuts down entirely and he turns away from me, his hands at ten and two, his face forward. We’re parked on a dimly lit street a block from the bar we’d just left. His face is cast in shadows, so I can’t tell if it’s genuine grief I see play across his features or merely a trick of the light.

Perversely, I want it to be grief. But I’m not sure if that’s because I want him to suffer because he tried to kill me. Or if I want some evidence that he truly cared for me so deeply that even now the wounds are raw.

I close my eyes, hating myself for refusing to fully accept what I know he did.

And yet, I can’t. Some tiny part of me still wants to trust him.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I’ve seen the evidence. I’ve known since that night that he knew the van was rigged. All that talk about getting a text from me was bullshit.

Unless it wasn’t.

I want to reach up and slap my own face. There’s a reason Brent—Brax—was such a good con man. He has a way with people. He makes them like him. Makes them fall under his spell.

I thought I’d be immune, what with the whole believing he killed me thing. And yet here I am making excuses for the bastard.

Seriously. What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Hey.” The word is as soft as the hand he puts on my knee. I turn to him, and I draw in a sharp breath, undone by the concern on his face. I try to tell myself it’s not real—the man’s a born con artist, after all—but somehow it doesn’t matter. I’m so tired and it’s all just piling up on me. And the way that kiss in the bar had felt really isn’t helping matters.

The pathetic truth is that I want to slide into his arms. I want him to hold me the way he used to. I want him to tell me it will all be okay.

But he won’t. He can’t. And I hate whatever weakness in me makes me want it.

We’re not allies anymore, even if it’s my job to make-believe that we are. And that’s something I need to keep telling myself. Over and over, for as long as it takes. It’s just make-believe.

“I’m sorry,” I say, opening the glove box and pulling out a tissue from the small box I knew would be in there. “I’m just—all this talk of Sabrina, all these memories. I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

“You two were close.” He says it as a statement, not a question.

“I’ve already told you that.”

“I know. But there’s a difference between being close and, well, being.”

I start to ask what he’s talking about, but he continues before I can get a word in.

“No more Samantha,” he says. “You’re Sabrina now. Twenty-four/seven until this is over. We can’t risk Darrin or Jorge catching a whiff of the truth.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“How can I know one way or the other? I barely know you.” His voice is tight. As if he’s reminding himself of that fake truth, just like I’ve been reminding me.

“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me when I say, I haven’t been sitting in a rocking chair crocheting afghans for the last fifteen years.”

“Crocheting afghans?” We’re at a red light, and he turns to face me, amusement dancing over that sculpted face.

“Twiddling my thumbs. Dancing naked through the daisies.”

His eyes widen at the latter, and I want to kick myself. That used to by my—well, Sabrina’s—favorite expression.