Page 39 of Diamond in the Rough (The Diamond Trilogy 1)
“Do you think they’re behind us?”
“We’ve walked a good six miles, and I’ve been covering our tracks. So, no. I don’t think they’re about to burst through the trees, if that’s what you mean. On the other hand, I wouldn’t linger. We have a long way to go before we can stop.”
“Adam might not have made it.” I can’t believe I’m hoping someone died. I should be hoping he survived, but I’m so tired. The kind of tired that feels like physical pain.
“Maybe. Maybe not. He wasn’t the only man there, though.”
I can’t help the whimper that escapes. “I’m not sure I have much more left.”
“You’ll walk. You’ll walk because you have to.”
My eyes close in exhaustion. It’s embarrassing to feel weak in front of this man. Even with more days of captivity he’s clearly stronger than me. Stronger than most men, probably. A warrior, like the kind who fought with a sword and shield in ancient Greece.
“We have a few minutes,” he says gruffly. “Tell me about your next book.”
“What next book?” I ask automatically, though I’m stalling for time. Of course I have a next book. The question is only whether I’ll tell him about it. Sex is intimate, but telling him about my unwritten book is letting him even deeper into my mind.
“More tooth fairies? Or are they teeth fairies in plural?”
My lips curve in a reluctant smile. He’s trying to distract me. My feet scream in pain, my side aches. Every muscle shakes even as I’m lying on the ground. I’m a wreck of a human, but when he cracks a stupid joke, it doesn’t seem so horrible.
“It’s not about a tooth fairy.”
“What, then? Mermaids? Dragons?”
“Not a fantasy creature. This book is about a human woman.”
“Human women are my fantasy.”
I ignore this. “She’s been dropped into a strange world where everything is upside down and colorful. It’s terrifying, but it also makes her feel alive. Like an Alice in Wonderland except more violent.”
“More violent? I thought she chops off heads in the original.”
“That’s the Queen of Hearts. But in my version, it’s Alice who’s violent. She’s like a kickass heroine in a blue pinafore and a leg strap for her dagger.”
“That’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever heard.”
“Anyway, it’s not actually Wonderland, where she ends up. There’s no white rabbit or Cheshire cat. They’re only figments of her imagination, because she’s actually walking through the dark parts of her own mind. She’s locked in an asylum, you see. She’s insane.”
He sits up, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “Is that what’s happening to you?”
“I don’t know.” My eyes squeeze shut. “What if I’m still in that prison cell? What if the plane crashed on some tropical island and this is all some fever-induced dream? What if I’m actually locked in a padded cell, and I only imagined you?”
“You really are a goddamn delight,” he says softly, echoing the same compliment he gave me eight years ago in a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. I’d had a priceless diamond in my backpack at the time, only I hadn’t known it then. He’d known it, though. And he’d let me walk away with it. It was a huge freaking risk, even if he was pretty sure he’d see me again for our date.
“So how do you go from being a soldier to this… this…”
“I’m still a soldier. Only I fight a different way.” He sighs. “As to how I got started, I can thank the wonders of psychological testing for that. Most men are put into basic combat. Sometimes they’re pulled out for specific programs, like computers or medicine. Me? I suppose they saw something in my results that said I’d be great at lying. And the hell of it is, they’re right.”
“It’s tearing you apart, isn’t it?”
“Why would you think that? I’m great at my job. The best.”
“Maybe it’s not me who’s wearing a blue pinafore and a leg strap for my dagger. Maybe it’s you. You go around being violent, slashing at everything you can see, but in reality you’re lost.”
His expression turns cold. His eyes could freeze me. “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me. Trust me, that’s above our pay grade.”
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to know you’re messed up about your parents.”
“Don’t.”
Why am I being so hard on him? I don’t go around psychoanalyzing people I meet, but this is different. We were locked up together. We escaped together. And now we’ve had sex. There’s a primal connection between us. Certainty roots inside me. Certainty that this man needs me to dig around in his emotional wounds. He’s got them clenched so tight in his fists that they’ll never really heal this way. “Or maybe you’re the one in a padded room. Maybe they locked you up after you killed your father, and everything else, meeting me, being a soldier, stealing the diamond, that was all a medically aided dream.”
