Page 10 of The Ties That Bind

The fact that she could so blithely admit to having put a tail on me startled me. The Arabella who stood in front of me now wasn’t the same girl she’d been all those years before. When we’d been together, she’d been “my girl.” But now I could see that had been a disservice to her, a diminishment of who she was in her own right. This woman was my equal. Actually, scratch that. Because if I was a dangerous man, she was a very dangerous woman.

“I have to admit I was surprised to see you’re still shit at looking over your shoulder.” She tsked and shook her head in admonishment. “Still walking around like you’re untouchable.”

“Only a fool would dare step to me. You’d be wise to remember that.”

She laughed again, and the sound caused a clenching in my gut. Arabella might be a completely different person than when I’d last known her, but that laugh was still the same. It was the laugh she used when she thought someone was being ridiculous … when she knew she held all the cards.

“One man’s foolishness is another woman’s bravery … and I’m no coward. You’d be wise to remember that.” She canted her head and studied me with shrewd, flinty eyes. “Anyhow, you needed to speak with me?”

“You kept the phone,” I blurted. I don’t know why of everything I could have said, that’s what I’d grasped onto. Maybe because I was so fucking thankful to realize she hadn’t completely cut me out of her life before.

She shrugged, a gesture meant to bely the sentimentality of holding on to something she should have tossed out years ago. “Our families are at war. I thought I might need it one day.”

I nodded and rubbed my hand over my face. Right. The reason I was here.

“About that,” I began while at the same time she said, “You’ve been busy.”

We eyed each other speculatively for a few heartbeats before I motioned for her to proceed.

She pushed forward on her heel and crossed the remaining asphalt that separated us. She halted, far enough away that I couldn’t touch her, but close enough that I swore I could smell her unique, captivating scent, a mixture of cloves, amber, and vanilla. The second it reached my nose, my body began to tingle and I itched to reach out and pull her to me. That scent was so ingrained in me—so tied to my memories of making love to her—that like Pavlov’s fucking dog, I wanted my next goddamn treat. I fisted my hands at my sides and pushed my down.

As if she could read my reaction, she studied me with a smirk on her pink, luscious lips. After a moment, she said, “My cousin’s going to live, by the way.”

“Fuck Teagan,” I bit out.

There’d been a reason I’d taken such pleasure in personally beating him senseless and it had very little to do with his last name. The fact was, Teagan Wilson was a vile human being. Worse even than Jayce. I might have been a professional criminal, but I had a moral code that I lived by which included staying away from innocent girls. I might have been able to kill a man in cold blood and not feel a goddamn bit of remorse, but I’d never force a girl into sexual slavery like Teagan had been doing for years. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

She shrugged again. “I suppose,” she answered, stepping closer. “Although I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone does. After all, you’re not his only enemy.”

Did she know about the side business he’d been running? Worse, had she known and not done anything to stop him? My Arabella would have forced her father to shut that shit down. Then again, it’d been a long time since I’d spoken to that Arabella. Shit, even I was a different sort of man than the one I’d been back then. Maybe Arabella had changed as much as I had.

“What do you know about Teagan’s enemies?” I asked, studying her back.

She laughed in my face. “I know everything that goes on in the Wilson family.”

My stomach turned into a cold ball of lead. This woman most definitely wasn’t the Arabella I used to love to distraction. The woman I would have walked away from everything for.

I didn’t know if I was disgusted or turned on to learn that she was just as cold and calculating as the rest of us.

Skating her index finger down the soft cotton of my t-shirt, over my sternum and past my abs, Arabella trailed the motion with her eyes until she reached the buckle of my belt, where she halted and caressed the cold metal with the pad of her finger. I tried not to let her touch affect me, but my body had never been very good at listening to my mind where she was concerned. Demandingly, my dick jumped in my pants and begged her to touch me—to really touch me. When she didn’t, I bit back a groan of frustration.

“Why do you think I let you get to him?” she asked, raising her eyes to meet mine.

Wait, what?

“If you take him out, I can continue on as I like, but if I were the one to make him pay for his sins, my leadership would be challenged and I’m not ready for that to happen yet. I have plans, Xander, big plans.”

Suddenly I felt like I’d entered another dimension—one where up was down, dark was light, and good had turned bad. Very, very bad. Arabella Wilson was no longer the daughter of my biggest enemy. She was the enemy. I wondered how long that’d been the case.

“I can see I’ve shocked you,” she cooed, patting my cheek condescendingly. “It’s okay, Xander. Take your time catching up.”

“How long?” I croaked.

Sliding her hands into the pockets of her close fitting cropped jacket, she smiled sweetly at my question. “How long have I pulled the wool over your eyes do you mean?”

I liked to consider myself a smart man. I didn’t have a fancy college degree proclaiming my cleverness, but I had a different kind of intelligence that enabled me to quickly and efficiently assess a given situation, immediately formulate a plan of action, and then execute flawlessly on said plan. This keen ability—street smarts, if you will—had very rarely failed me, but in this instance I was struck dumb. And mute. It was like my brain had ceased to function, as if everything I’d ever known about the world had just been proven false and I was having a hell of a time recalibrating.

Arabella stuck out her bottom lip in a sexy little pout that drew my eyes to her lips. “Aww, the big, macho man doesn’t know what to make of the sweet little girl he used to fuck being a big, bad bitch, does he?”

---