Page 75 of When Hearts Ignite

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I glare at him and head toward the locker, my mouth spewing curses as I miss the combination and have to try again. Even the fucking locker is conspiring against me today.

“Shit. You’re in the deep end. I don’t even hear a denial anymore,” Ryland murmurs as he sheds his soiled uniform and drops it off in the hamper for housekeeping to clean. He wraps a towel around his waist and crosses his arms, his bare torso glistening with sweat, not giving me any personal space.

I wrap a towel around my waist and toss my hands into the air. “What the fuck do you want from me? To admit I’m a mess and I can’t eat, sleep, think, or even focus on work? To tell you I’m feeling like a fucking failure because TransAmerica is getting stolen right under my nose and there’s nothing I do can stop it? To tell you this maddening woman has driven me insane with need for most of this year and I fucking miss her so much my mind is filled with nothing but images of her, and now that I’ve found her, she won’t tell me why she left me and why she’s working for you instead of being with me?”

Ryland’s mouth drops open, his slate eyes widening at my outburst. My pulse hammers like a drill in my ears and a sharp pain pierces my head. Headache. Just what I need at this moment.

He steps back and holds his hands up in surrender. “Technically, she works for Elias Kent since he provides us with the security and personnel for the Rose floors, but that’s beside the point.”

He swallows, his eyes dimming as he looks away. “Women are complicated. That’s why you and I don’t do relationships. But they have a way of sneaking past the gaps in our armor, attacking us when we least expect it.”

He rakes his hand over his soot-colored hair and stares at a spot behind me, like he’s in his own world, swimming in his own set of problems. “And you’re helpless to stop them. But I know this. Sometimes they don’t want us to be strong and to be assholes. They want us to be vulnerable and tell them our feelings. Just because I can’t be that man doesn’t mean you can’t be.”

His eyes sharpen as his gaze falls on mine again. “From what I can see, you’re all in already. Why don’t you try telling her how you feel? Maybe if you open up, she will as well.”

With that parting thought, he disappears toward the showers, his head dipped low, his bearing rigid.

My lungs heave in a deep breath as I step into one of the private shower rooms and lock the door. I turn the faucet knob clockwise precisely five times, my body flinching at the icy rain washing over my sore muscles.

Father’s warning from years past echoes inside me once again. A useless warning because he never told me how quickly it could happen to you. How, despite my so-called self-perceived brokenness, the moat and high walls of my castle, an unsuspecting storm from nowhere could come barreling in, toppling everything in seconds.

Emotions are liabilities, but it’s too late for me. They escaped before I even noticed. She ensnared me without a single weapon.

Vulnerability.

It’s something I’ve never done before because a Kingsley doesn’t show weakness. A Kingsley doesn’t flop belly up and hopes the other person pets you instead of stabbing you with a knife. Ryland’s parting words filter in, digging their way into the quagmire of my mind, refusing to leave.

Would spilling my heart out make a difference?

Would telling her how I couldn’t sleep the last nine months, not knowing where she was or how she was doing, how everything was tasteless on my tongue, how my world became dull and heavy again, make her come back to me?

Would telling her how the best time of my life was when we were sharing a bagel in the dark or when she curled against me as we watched a movie soften her stance?

As the frigid water cools my body temperature from the outside, a strange heat tingles at the base of my spine and travels to my newly beating organ.

My Grace is still in there…in that sexy vixen. The hurt in her eyes and the fierceness in her frame when we argued prove she still cares for me.

I’ve tried it my way—barging in and commanding, tackling the problem like any I’ve encountered at work, and it hasn’t worked.

Of course it wouldn’t work. She’s not a project or a corporate target.

She’s a fierce warrior with a soft heart, and there are no words in the world to describe everything that is Grace Peyton.

Could Ryland be right? What’s the harm in trying?

Resolve permeates me as I scrub the sweat off my body, eager to find her and heal myself from this sickness once and for all.

I’m Steven Kingsley and I never lose.

Not now, not ever.

The rain is coming down in sheets, blurring the windows in a wall of water. I sit on the settee under the bay windows in the dressing room, having arrived earlier than necessary for my shift today due to the inclement weather. My hands trail the navy and white Chinoiserie fabric, no doubt imported from somewhere, like everything in The Orchid.

The skies are a swath of dreary gray, and the trees bordering Central Park sway against the fierce winds, the harried sounds muted through the double-paned glass. Storm clouds are low on the horizon, blanketing the city in an oppressive weight.

A relentless burning forms behind my nose. I know it’s not because of the email I received earlier from Emerson Clarke, the investigator I hired in the search for my birth father. He mentioned while my birth certificate had no father listed on it; he was able to track down some leads through other records but would need more time to vet through them.

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