Page 46 of Grave Games

I blinked.

Wait, what?

“The only good thing about this coming out is now I don’t have any other secrets I need to keep hidden from you, so go ahead.” He made a beckoning gesture, his stance that of a man braced for a hurricane. “Let it all hang out, Shy. Let me have it so we can move the hell on from here.”

“Move on? Move on where?” I said faintly, while fear and rage and a terrible sense of bitter hurt nearly smothered me where I sat. “Seriously, where do you imagine we can possibly go from here? You act like this is some kind of joke, or a game you’ve been playing, Romeo, but it’s not a game. This is mylifeyou’ve been toying with. You clearly don’t care how much damage you do when you use people and manipulate them, so long as you achieve whatever goal you have in mind. But you are single-handedly ruining every part of my life, from my job to my…”My heart“…my personal life, and everything in between.” I ran out of words, because an earthquake of horrified realization was moving through me so hard I was sure he could hear it. Myheart? Why had I almost said that? Heaven knew I was hot for this man, hotter than I’d ever been for anyone. Thinking about Romeo had become my favorite pastime, and when I slept I even dreamed of him. But what did that have to do with my heart?

Everything, a small voice whispered.

Because…

I’d fallen in love with him.

I jerked out of the chair, an instinctive move to escape the truth. “Everything in my life has fallen to pieces from the moment you barreled your way into it, but I’m sure you don’t care about that. As long as you have my brother cooking poison for you, the last thing on your mind is how miserable you’ve made me.”

“Hades was already having you trailed when I was sent across your path,” he shot back, surprising me. “You think you were targeted at random? Word on the street was that your brother was looking to make a break for it, so we suspected Hades was going to nab you in order to keep Chef in line. Believe me, your life would’ve been a helluva lot worse if he’d gotten to you before we did.”

“So why not tell me that from the very beginning? Why have one of your so-calledbrotherspretend to attack me just so you could play the hero and make me fall in love with you?”

The silence that hit the tiny office was explosive. “You love me?”

“I’m in love with a man who doesn’t exist,” I raged, digging into the knot of pain in my chest so I could show him the depths of its raw ugliness. Not that he’d care, but I needed him to know just how much he’d damaged me. “I thought you were different. I thought you were a good man who understood what honor was. For God’s sake, I thought you were a man I couldtrust. But you’re not. You’re just another manipulative, selfish, crotch-rocket jockey who doesn’t give a shit about anyone except his brothers and his club. Everyone else around you are just… just casualties. But not me,” I added fiercely, not missing how his eyelids flinched ever so slightly at my words. “I am not going to be one of your casualties. Iwon’t.”

“You would have been more than a casualty if I hadn’t gotten you out of Hades’s crosshairs,” he reiterated, going toe-to-toe with me, but if he thought his act of big, tough biker was going to make me cower, he didn’t know me at all. “To me, this was always about keeping you out of Hades’s hands. That’s all that fucking mattered.”

“Then why did you come on to me so damn hard? Why have that man-bear, Ashtray—Jesus, what a stupid name—attack me so you could play the hero?”

“Because you wouldn’t let me close enough to take care of you,” he shot back so fast it seemed like the words had been waiting for a chance to get out. “Yeah, I had my mission from Tyr—keep an eye on you and make it look natural. At that time we didn’t know if you had any affiliation with the Chicago Gravediggers other than your brother, so we didn’t want to scare you into running into their camp for protection. If we had, we would’ve lost the chance at getting Chef over to our side so he could help us root out our spy.”

“Spy?” I repeated, upset and baffled. “What are you talking about? What spy?”

“Forget it,” he said, waving the word aside as unimportant. “The point I’m making is that I was chosen for this op because I’ve always had luck with the ladies, but by damn, you wouldn’t give me the time of day. If there’s one thing I’ve never been able to resist, it’s a challenge, and that’s you all over. By the end of the first week of working on you, I was ready to do anything to get past your defenses.”

“Oh, so it’smyfault you decided to troll my life.” I rolled my eyes and hoped he couldn’t see the tears trying to well in them. “Why am I not surprised? Sure, you had me mauled and terrorized, but that’smyfault because I wouldn’t fall onto my back with my legs spread the moment you turned on your Romeo charm. Uh-huh, got it.”

“No, I was ready to do anything to get past your defenses because you weren’t the only one falling, goddamn it,” he said, stunning me into stillness. “You’re right, okay? I didn’t have to play it the way I did with Ashtray. We could’ve kept you safe just by being a constant presence in your life. I didn’t even tell Tyr I was bringing Ash in to push you in my direction, because he would’ve vetoed it. Bringing Ash in had nothing to do with the mission of keeping you out of Hades’s hands, and everything to do with getting you into mine.”

I stared at him with equal fury and exhilaration, because I wanted to believe him so much it hurt. “You? Falling for me? Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

“You’d better. I’ve never said that to any woman in my life, and I sure as hell don’t expect to ever say it to anyone else. Just you.”

Oh my God. “You’re saying you had the daylights scared out of me by siccing your fellow Gravedigger on me… because you’dfallenfor me? Do I have to explain how utterly insane that sounds?”

“It wasn’t one of my better decisions, I’ll admit, but I’m not going to waste time regretting it. It got me through the worst of your defenses.”

“Trust me, pal, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“You and I make sense,” he went on, then shook his head sharply. “No, it’s bigger than that. The whole world makes sense when we’re together, and I know I’m not the only one feeling that. You feel it, too. I know you do.”

I locked my jaw so I wouldn’t admit how right he was. It was the only defense I had against the truth.

“And it doesn’t matter how we met, or how we got together,” he went on when the silence began to scream. “What matters is that every time we see each other, we choose each other. Over and over, we choose each other, Shiloh. You chose me when you let me inside you, and that had nothing to do with how we met.”

“I know,” I said, the admission dragging out of me. “But the games you play make me doubt everything between us—like it was all just a long con you played on me. Nothing feels real with you now. Nothing.” And the loss of what I thought we’d had gutted me.

“I don’t have any reason to con you now.” Slowly he reached out to curl his hands around my shoulders, his touch caressing down my arms to my elbows before he gently tugged me toward him. “You’re here. Your brother’s tucked away and out of Hades’s reach. My mission’s complete. If none of what we’ve shared is real, why am I still here?”

Good question. “I’m sure you have your ulterior motives. You always do.”

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