Page 33 of Fury

Breath whooshed from her lungs as tears pricked her eyes. He’d only been thinking about how it was going to affecther? She knew full well how much being on the team had meant to him. It made this revelation even worse.

Suddenly, it registered that she was leaning in. Davis had gone silent and was staring . . . at her mouth. He was so close. Or was she? Maybe this was a bad idea. But like being locked in an invisible tractor beam, she felt herself drawn in.

Heart pounding, she swallowed. Davis was hardly more than a breath away.

Is this really happening?

Chest rising and falling swiftly, Davis cleared his throat and drew back, expression hardening. He shifted to the edge of the couch.

Spell broken.

Hollyn blinked. Recoiled into herself, feeling like a fool.

Ofcoursehe wasn’t going to kiss you! What were you thinking?

Shoulders hunched, forearms on his knees, Davis sighed as he ran a hand over his face before shoving to his feet.

Emptiness flooded the space between them that anticipation had filled seconds earlier.

“Sorry. I . . . ” But more words wouldn’t form. What could she say? Sorry, Davis, my childhood crush on you has come roaring back, and I’m so weak I couldn’t fight it?

“It’s fine,” he murmured.

She looked up at him, feeling like it was anything but. He wasn’t even looking at her. Just continued staring out the large living-room windows. Rejection coursed through her. Embarrassment burned her cheeks. There were about a hundred reasons leaning in had been a bad idea. She could have chosen any one of them to ground herself in reality. But she hadn’t. Thankfully, Davis had decided to act rationally and save her from humiliating herself more than she already had.

If only she could sink into the floor and disappear.

Likely sensing the change in tension, Fury popped up. Looked between them with a severity that made her nervous.

Davis turned. “I’ll . . . be in the gym.”

With that, he and Fury stalked toward the second story workout area, leaving Hollyn to wonder what had just happened. How could she have messed things up tothatextent?

“Good job, Hollyn,” she admonished herself.

How much was she going to put herself through before she got it into her skull that Davis wasnotinterested in her?

Stick to science. Romance is way out of your wheelhouse.

She stood and snatched her book off the chair.

Dad’s letter slipped from the pages she’d tucked it between. Fluttered to the ground. For a minute, she just stood there, staring at it like it was going to grow teeth and bite her. Then anger—at herself, at her parents’ senseless and still unsolved deaths, at the ridiculous crush she still had on a man who returned her feelings in absolutely no way—bubbled up.

Hollyn grabbed the letter and stalked to her dad’s office. Better to just get this over with. It was starting to haunt her nightmares, and now that she was in a terrible mood, things couldn’t possibly get worse.

Opening the parchment for the first time was eerie. She broke the wax seal and tucked her feet up under herself in the corner chair. The letter was handwritten but oddly spaced. Hollyn read through the words, which repeated much of what he’d told her that night at the gala. The overwhelming urge to stop crashed against her. Tears pricked her eyes, and she could feel the floodgates about to break.

Stay strong. For once in your life!

Pressing on, she held her breath to stay the tears. When she finished the letter filled with sentiments of love for her and how much she meant to her parents, she just sat there. Reread it, willing the words to change. To tell her that this had all just been some kind of sick joke. That it wasn’t real. On her third pass, the spacing between the lines was really starting to distract her. It was awkward, especially for Dad.

Wiping at her eyes, Hollyn frowned. Dad had a compulsion for uniformity, and not once had she ever seen him write something with more than a single space between lines except?—

She gasped. Quickly scanned the letter again. Chewed on her lip thinking. Was it . . .

Hollyn dashed for Dad’s desk and pulled out a drawer. Shuffled the contents around before finding what she’d been after. A lighter. With shaking hands, she lit the flame and held it to the backside of the paper.

Hidden words appeared.

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