Page 92 of First Touch

He was right. That was my flaw, and I was seconds from readily admitting it. Then I thought better of it, because though I was willing to share that with him, this moment was about something else.

So I addressed that instead. “I do think you could have.” I was calmer now, but my hands still shook with emotion. “Whether you actually did it or not, I don’t know.”

He turned to face me. His shirt draped open and his hands worked his belt. “Yes. I could have.” He stepped toward me slowly. “I don’t just mean that I have the money and the resources to kill a person, but I could do it. I could end a life without a second thought – if it was the right life.” Another step. “A life that deserved it.” Another step. “A life that had crossed me.”

He had a tie in his pocket and his belt now in his hands. It wasn’t the time to provoke him.

And yet I did. “Did Missy cross you? Was she the right life?” Was Amber the right life? Was I?

It was a split second that passed without an answer, but it was a heavy second. One where I understood that these were the answers I’d been searching for since I met him and once he gave them, I’d have to make decisions that I didn’t want to make. I’d have to decide if I believed him when he said no. Or decide if I cared when he said yes. I’d have to decide if I’d stay.

And if I had to decide, I’d rather decide when I didn’t know. I’d rather decide to leave when it was only possible that he was a killer than stay when I knew he was one. Because I was afraid that would be how it would happen, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to live with myself when I did.

So I decided to run.

“Never mind,” I said already out the door. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” I whisked toward my bedroom, my mind set.

Reeve was on my heels. “Why? Because if you find out that I didn’t, you might no longer find me interesting?”

He was so close to understanding me and yet so far. It felt like being thirsty and being offered a glass of sand. He was trying to understand, in his alpha, tyrannical way, and that touched me. But he missed.

I flicked the light on in my room and went straight for the bed. “There’s no reason for me to answer, is there?” I pulled my suitcase from underneath and laid it open on top of the covers. “Since that’s what you’ve decided. Talk about people who make up their mind without caring.” My back was to the door, so I glanced back to see he’d stopped at the threshold.

“Don’t do that, Emily. Don’t try to egg me on.” The edge in his words said he was past warning. Said he was ready to act.

“I’m not egging you on. And that’s exactly my point.” I crossed to the dresser and gathered my T-shirts, not bothering with keeping them folded. “You’ve decided what my motives are. What I think. What I feel. You care as little to know what’s real about me as you do to share anything real about you.”

I was egging him on. Taunting him. Because as much as I didn’t want to know who he really was, I was compelled to ask. One last-ditch effort to find out the truth about Amber. About me.

“That was always the arrangement between us. Don’t act like —” He stopped short. “What are you doing?”

I threw my shirts in the suitcase. “I’m packing.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why?”

“I’ve suddenly realized that there isn’t any point to all of this.” I gathered all my underwear.

“Stop packing.”

“No point to our ‘arrangement.’” I headed back to the bed.

“Stop packing. You’re not leaving.” He’d stepped into the room, but hadn’t come in far enough to be an obstacle.

I paused, facing him. “Are you going to make me?”

When he didn’t make any indication that he was, I continued to the suitcase.

“I said, stop packing.” He grabbed me by my upper arm forcefully.

The underwear spilled onto the floor instead of in my bag as I turned toward him, clutching him at the forearms. “Make me stay, Reeve. You can do it. You have the resources. You have the capability of doing whatever you want.”

He could make me stay very easily. Really, all it would take was for him to ask.

“I’m not going to do this. You stay if you want. I’m not making you.” He let go of me – pushed me away, actually – and every secret hope I had for Reeve and I together fell away, as if I had hid them high on a shelf where I could pretend they didn’t exist. Until now when they came crashing down around me.

“That’s what I thought.” I turned my back and stooped to gather the panties off the floor, away from him so he couldn’t see that my eyes had filled.

“It has to be your decision to stay, Emily.” He hadn’t moved. He was still standing behind me. “I kept someone before. I’m not doing it again.”