Page 98 of Nefarious
“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes “Youtoldme you’d be here. You weren’t very subtle about your plans. I’ve actually been here for a week asking around. Nobody’s heard of Dane Russ, but someone pointed you out, thinking I had your name wrong.”
“Well, here, I’m Dan.”
She snorted. “It’s not that different.”
“It’s enough.”
“So?” She gave him a once-over, probably taking in his disheveled appearance and judging. “You look well. Is Key West everything you’d hoped it would be?”
“It’s quiet. But I forgot that old saying:Everywhere you go, there you are.Being alone with myself is its own kind of hell.”
“Are you okay?” Her brows drew together. “I’ve been worried sick. You literally dropped off the grid. I figured if you weren’t here, you were dead. I was determined you’d be here.”
“I’ve been here. Trying to figure out how to undo myself.” He narrowed his eyes, searching for a better way to explain it. “I haven’t been a good person. I don’t know if that’s permanent or malleable. I keep looking for ways to just buy salvation.”
She sat back and studied him as though she could be the one to decide the fate of his afterlife. “Why didn’t you even say goodbye? You could have at least sent word where you’d gone. Were you planning to make me spend my life without some kind of explanation?”
“I was doing you a mercy, Noelle. I worried you’d follow me.”
Her mouth twisted into a frown, and he noticed how tired she looked, the sallow under her eyes, the overall disappointment he’d spinelessly tried to avoid facing.
She heaved out a ragged sigh. “I’m sorry. I know you probably don’t want to see me, but I wanted to talk to you. At least once more. I couldn’t just let you disappear from my life without another word.”
“I needed to disappear, to take a break from everything. I came here hoping to find myself.”
“You didn’t need to do that alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
“Oh.” She blinked like understanding suddenly dawned. “Of course. I should have thought . . .” She started to stand, to leave, hands shaking as she reached for the strap of her purse.
Belatedly, he heard how she’d misconstrued his words. He could say nothing, and she’d go. That would be the best thing for her. She’d move on and never look back at the good-for-nothing who’d wrecked her life. But if by his omission, she believed he’d taken solace in the arms of any other woman, he’d end up hurting her in a new and different way.
“Wait!” He threw his arm out. "I just meant I’d made friends here. I’ve never had friends before. It’s nice.”
She sat back down, but her tanned skin had drained of all color but the splotch of red near her jaw. Her chest rose and fell like she’d had the fright of her life, and he hated himself for how he continued to lure her into his woe-begotten life. His heart clenched for reanimating an emotion he should have left well enough alone.
“I’m sorry for reeling you back in, Noelle.” Her mouth curled down, lips trembling, and he squeezed his fists to resist the urge to reach across and take her hands. “You were safely free of me, but I couldn’t stand to be rebuffed, so I made it my mission to seduce you.”
“Was that all it was to you? Did you lie to me?”
Ah. Dagger straight to the heart. Maybe he’d get to do penance one victim at a time.
He could lie to her now, but he’d made himself a promise to leave the machinations to his former life. It would be a slippery slope to his old self if he started playing deceitful games in some vain ploy to gain Noelle’s forgiveness.
He laid his hands on the table and leaned forward to gaze in her pretty eyes as he confessed. “I lied to a great many people.”
She scowled. “Did you lie tomespecifically when you told me you loved me?”
Perhaps some truths were too toxic to be spoken aloud. “Does it matter? Why would you want that from someone like me?”
“It matters. You matter.”
However she’d come up with that false notion, he needed to disabuse her of it before she convinced herself he was worth saving.
He looked out at the endless sky as if the words he sought dwelled in the clouds. There was a sense of boundless freedom in the knowledge that this sky stretched out over infinite ocean. He could board a ship and lose himself to adventure like the pirates of old. But he’d lived a kind of pirate life already. What he wanted was to set down roots, become part of a community, add value. He was tired of sucking the life out of everything and everyone around him.
“Noelle, thanks for coming here, but I’m the anti-hero in your story. What you saw in me was a mirage.”
