Page 40 of Professional Liar
Fifteen
Katherine
I pulledout of Pierce’s fierce grip the following morning with guilt imbedded in every one of my pores. He’d told me he loved me. And he didn’t demand I say it back.
Nothing.
He didn’t ask for anything, just said it, and made me feel like the most cherished woman in the world, and also the slimiest, because I couldn’t tell him back. I'd vowed to myself on our wedding day, I would not turn into my mother.
I wouldn’t fold myself into whatever he wanted me to be.
I wouldn’t fall in love and bow down to his every whim.
I wouldn’t lose myself in a man who’d never be able to see the real me.
Pierce lay curled toward my empty spot on the bed, and I went to get coffee and reason my way through this mess. I tied my robe as I approached the dining room.
Fox sat at the table, mug in hand, with his phone in the other. “You guys have fun last night?”
I didn’t answer him right away, walking straight to the coffee pot and pouring my own. I didn’t join him but hopped up to sit on the edge of the countertop with my cup. “If you mean the party, it was awful. But I’m sure there will be plenty of smiling pictures of us on page six.”
He held up his phone to one of the paparazzi shots of Pierce and I entering the party. I glanced away. Between the way the families treated him last night, and the way I treated him, I couldn’t look at his smiling face. Warm and bright and hopeful for the future. But did I talk to him about it, or just let him remain hopelessly in love with me, feeling things I’d never be able to reciprocate?
“Oh, a package came for you.” Fox pointed to the table by the door.
No one had ordered anything that I could recall. I jumped down, cup still in hand, and went to the door. The Kleenex-sized box read Nordstrom, but it had no return address. Sitting my cup down, I grabbed a set of keys and sliced the tape on the of the box. Inside, a layer of bubble wrap. I pulled it out, and on the bottom, found three bullets. My heart took up an uneven rhythm, and my hand shook as I reached in and plucked them out, all at once.
The brass had been engraved. My full name, Katherine, etched into the metal of the first one. The next said Bianca, and finally, Pierson. Something about his name being listed there broke a wall inside me. I dropped the bullets, and they clattered to the table and rolled to the floor as I crouched over in attempt to catch my now short breath.
Fox knelt next to me in seconds. “What is it, Kat, what happened?” He put his hand on the floor, right over one of the bullets, and picked it up. The one he grabbed dedicated to Pierce. His face went cold, and he stood, grabbed the box, and the other two shells near my knees. “Who sent this?”
I shook my head, holding my arms around my belly like they could contain the anger and fear and rage roiling inside me.
He went back to the table, snapped up his phone, and made a call. There was no courtesy, only commands to the other end of the line.
I had to get up, put myself together. No doubt every one of Pierce’s men would be here in a matter of minutes. I didn’t mind Fox or Gerry seeing me like this, but not the rest of them, not the entire crew.
Pierce came out a few seconds later, and I’d barely started to get to my feet when he clasped me under the elbows to pull me upright. “Are you okay? What is it?”
Words cascaded through my brain, bumping into each other. An explanation, an apology, and all the things I wanted to say to him, but knew I couldn’t. So I didn’t. I shook my head, pulled out of his arms, and went back to our bedroom. Closing the door behind me, I prayed he wouldn’t follow. I wouldn’t have the strength to keep it all in if he pushed me, and the man would do it.
He was born to push me, just like I’d been born to do the same for him. How many times had we peeled each other apart for amusement, to cause pain, to hurt? And now, I couldn’t fathom seeing that anguish in his eyes.
I remembered it well. A mix of cold indifference and burning rage. Every time he looked at me like that, I knew I couldn’t see him again for a while. I’d hurt him, and he retreated behind the wall and would stay there until I could find a way to bring it down again.
My phone buzzed on the bedside table. “Bianca,” I whispered. Running to pick it up. Her face smiled up on the screen and I hit send. “Are you okay?”
“Annoyed but fine, Kat. Why are there two more guards at my door?”
How the hell did I tell her I couldn’t ensure her safety? That our entire world might be ripped away at any moment. “There’s been a new threat.”
“To me?”
“To you, me, and Pierce.”
“Pierce?”
How much did she need to know? “Yes, the families think he’s the key to controlling me.”
