Page 15 of The Art of You

Bella and I had never been that close when she was younger. It probably had to do with our decade age difference and the fact I’d been away in the Navy a good chunk of her life. She’d wound up spending a few years in London for work also.

When we were finally living in the same city again, she’d become busy dating assholes that had me wanting to throat-punch them on the regular, which meant I had to do my best to avoid her and her boyfriends as much as possible.

But lately? Lately was a different story. With her now thirty-two, that ten-year age gap felt like it’d been whittled down to only a handful of years. The math didn’t need to math, it was just true; I no longer felt that much older than her.

The biggest transformation in our relationship started when we began working together. Side by side. All. The. Fucking. Time. I couldn’t avoid her. She was always there, invading my space. Personal and private.

I was now as close to her as I’d once been to Bianca, maybe more. And that terrified me. Bianca’s death gutted me. If I were to lose Bella for any reason, I’d never recover.

“Oldies again it is,” Bella said after adjusting the radio, settling on a new station playing “Hungry Eyes.”

“Kill me now if music from the eighties is considered oldies.”Because I amnotthat old.

“Okay, we’ll rebrand the beats and call them classics,” shesaid decisively, and I could work with that. “So, um . . . does Adelina work kidnapping cases or counterterrorism like you once did?”

“Kidnapping. Her sister was taken when she was three. They were twins. Not identical.”

“Oh God. That’s horrible.” The pain of her own past had to be crushing her now. “She never found her sister, did she?”

“No.”Her sister is most likely dead.My stomach wrenched, and I couldn’t help but say the first thing that came to mind. “Your nerves earlier, they have something to do with Bianca?”

She immediately looked off to the right and away from me.

“Dammit, Bella.”

“If I tell you, I’m worried you’ll slam on the brakes and turn around and go back to the party.”

That definitely had me slowing down, and I checked the rearview mirror, ensuring no one was on my ass, ready to plow into us at my abrupt change in speed.

I’d only been going forty since we’d yet to get back onto the main road, but as Bella had called it, it was now raining hard, making visibility borderline shit.

I flipped on the windshield wipers to full blast. “And why will I turn around?”

“Because you’ll want to go and yell at Kit for what she did to me. Then you’ll make a scene, and your father will lay into you, and she’ll get the story she clearly wants.” She balled her hands into fists, resting them on her thighs. “Eyes. Road.”

“What story? What’d she do?” I was on the edge of insanity, and I was slipping fast into the depths of totally losing it if she didn’t talk soon.

“Ugh, fine, but first you have to promise you won’t head back to the party.” She twisted on her seat to face me.

“Do you want me looking at you or the road?” I shot back, growing tenser by the second. “Make up your mind.” I’d meantmy words lightheartedly, but they came out more demanding than I’d intended.

“At a total stop would be preferable.”

“Fine.” We were in the middle of nowhere, and according to the dash synced to my phone, we had a weak cell signal. Against my better judgment, I pulled over to the side of the road. “Okay. Now talk.” I parked, took my foot off the pedal, and turned toward her so she’d have my undivided attention.

I waited for her to talk, listening to the swishing sounds of the windshield wipers as Eric Carmen’s voice faded out.

My patience collapsed when she closed her eyes instead of parting her lips to talk.

“Bella—” I cut myself off when a call came through from Constantine. Frustrated, I turned toward the display and answered it with a harsh, “What?”

“I’ve been trying . . . reach . . .”Andsignal lost, dammit.

I tried getting through to him two more times but the call wouldn’t even connect. “We should get out of here. This conversation will have to wait.” I caught sight of the panic in her eyes before she faced forward, holding on to the side handle.

“I got you, don’t worry,” I promised as I shifted into drive.

I barely had time to get us on the empty road before catching sight of the soft glow of headlights coming around a sharp curve up ahead.