When we’d been so young, I hadn’t ever considered why she spent so much time at our place, just happy my girlfriend was able to be there as often as I wanted. Now, though, I couldn’t help but wonder what kept her there. “Why didn’t you ever want to go home back then?”
If the tension in her shoulders was subtle before, now it was like Mt. Everest rested on them. Still, she played it off, shrugging those stiff shoulders. “Rather hang out with you guys than my parents. I was a teenager. Isn’t that pretty standard?”
That wasn’t the truth—not the whole truth, anyway—but if there was one thing I knew about Evie, it was that people didn’t get her to do what she didn’t want to do, so I didn’t push. Instead, I finally voiced the question that’d been eating away at me. “How could you just disappear?”
She cringed, the pink in her cheeks deepening. “I’m sorry, Riley. I know Gage gave you his reasons for keeping it from you. As for me, I thought it would be better if we had a clean break.”
“Better for who?”
Her eyes darted between mine, trying to read something in them. What, I didn’t know. With a sigh, she said, “For both of us.”
Shaking my head, I took another bite of pasta and said around it, “Just more bullshit. When are you going to learn that I know you better than anyone? Five years might have gone by, but I can still read you like a book.”
EVIE
He could, too, and that was what I’d always been worried about, one of the many things that had kept me up at night. Because if he could read me, then surely he’d know, surely he’d find out the truth. And then how would he look at me? Would he see me differently? See me as tainted or dirty? See me as a liar or a tease? See me as someone other than Evie, his Evie?
I couldn’t handle that. Not from him.
With everything he’d been through in the years I’d been gone, everything I’d put him through, he deserved this portion of my truth. I could give him this much. Nodding, I said, “You’re right. That is bullshit.” I swallowed down the unease creeping up my throat and pushed through. “I thought it’d be easier for me. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t move on with a new life, if I knew you were still waiting for me. And I know you would’ve waited. I didn’t want that for either of us.”
He stared at me for a long moment, calculating, always scrutinizing, and then he tipped his head in my direction. “Fair enough,” he said before he took another deep pull from his beer.
And then he let the line of conversation drop, though just like he knew me, I knew him equally, and as such, I was absolutely certain this wasn’t the end of that. He might not bring it up today, or tomorrow, but he’d be thinking about it. And when the time was right, he’d ask me again. It was inevitable.
“You mentioned Eric doesn’t know anything about your past. How’d you manage that?”
I shrugged, relaxing back into the couch, thankful for the reprieve, for as long as it’d last. “It was easy. I studied the profile Aaron had created for me inside and out. I used it for so long, it became mine. It was me, despite how false it was. Instead of breaking and entering or getting in fights, I was going to gallery openings and sipping champagne because Genevieve was an art buff. Hell, I minored in Art History just to keep up the façade. I changed the way I dressed, the way I looked, the way I carried myself. Gone was the girl who scrounged for information for a living and knew how to fight; in her place was someone who got weekly manicures and tried the latest shade of lipstick. It was my new reality, and it was easier to feed that to him than to saddle him with the truth.”
Riley studied me, watching me with appraising eyes. “And what’s he going to say now? You don’t plan to keep this from him, do you?”
“I guess it depends on how it all plays out. If I’m dead at the end of it, there won’t be much point in worrying about what I’ll tell him.”
His shoulders went taut, his jaw clenched as tightly as his fists as he pinned me with hard eyes. “Jesus Christ, Evie. Don’t say shit like that.”
“Riley, I’ve been living like this long enough to know that tomorrow isn’t a guarantee. Anything can happen from one day to the next.”
“Anything can happen, except when you’re with me. No one is getting to you when I’m here. No one is getting through me. I’d have to be dead first.”
His eyes were hard, his voice strong and confident. He believed the words he said. If it came down to it, if there was a situation where my life was in danger and Riley was there to stop it, he would. At the cost of his life.
And that was exactly what I was terrified of.
RILEY
The thought of someone coming for her filled me with an all-consuming rage I hadn’t felt in years, not since I’d learned of Evie’s death. Not since I’d set out to keep as many corrupt businessman off the streets as I could … in whatever way I could. I knew it was an unconventional way of going about it—aligning myself with criminals to do some good, any bit of good I could—but it’d been all I’d known. And now that my truth had been shaken, now that I knew what actually had gone down on that boat … that it hadn’t been a corrupt businessman to take Evie’s life but the very man who I’d aligned myself with, who I worked for, it filled me with a regret so intense I nearly couldn’t see past it. How doing the one thing I’d been good at—the only thing I’d ever known—was like spitting on Evie’s grave.
The feelings swirling around inside were more than just the rage I felt at the idea of someone getting past me and getting to her. That very thought filled me with a terror I’d only ever known where she was concerned.
She’d always been able to bring out the purest, most undiluted reactions from me.
Evie let the conversation drop, standing up and putting her dish in the sink, tossing her empty beer bottle in the trash. Then she came and collected mine, all the while I sat, a hundred different scenarios flipping through my mind on everything that could possibly happen. Someone from the Minneapolis crew finding us, Aaron being tortured until he gave up our location, having Frankie slip in undetected and getting to Evie while I was sleeping. All of it, every instance, had my heart pounding heavily in my chest, my muscles tight with fear and anxiety. Not for me, but for her.
Always for her.
When she came back to the couch, I didn’t let her sit down, instead reaching out and grabbing her wrist, tugging her to stand in front of me. She stumbled, a squeak of protest leaving her lips. She steadied herself with a hand on my shoulder, her head tipped down toward me, her brow furrowed. I could spend hours right here, just looking at her.
But right now, I needed more than to just look. I needed to feel. Needed to remind myself that she was okay.
I let go of her arm and reached up, gripping her hips. She’d slipped back into her tight cotton pants and a fitted long-sleeve T-shirt after taking a shower earlier, and I wanted them gone. I wanted those pants that hugged her ass so spectacularly around her ankles while they rested on my shoulders. I wanted that shirt across the loft, out of the way so I could feel her smooth skin under my hands.
I pulled her closer to me, situating her between my spread knees, and leaned forward, resting my forehead against her stomach. All that stood between me and her skin was a shirt, a thin piece of cotton, and it didn’t take much at all to lift it with my thumbs, and then my lips were on her. Her skin was smooth like silk, and she smelled like heaven. I brushed my lips back and forth against her, just the barest of whispers, but she felt it. I knew she felt it, because her stomach fluttered under my touch, goose bumps covering her skin, and her hands tightened on my shoulders.
“Riley,” she breathed. “What are we doing?”