Page 37 of Deny Me
“I guess the real question is, is this just residual shit or something new?”
Fucking Saint, bringing up what needed to stay buried.
Charlotte angled herself toward him. “You don’t happen to have any Tylenol, do you?”
He eyed her purse. “None in there?” he asked, not unkindly, but the bag looked like it could be hiding the kitchen sink without a strain.
A tired smirk curved one side of her mouth. “Probably the only thing I don’t have in there.” A wave of pain passed over her face, and she swayed.
He was holding her upright the next second.
“Here.” His hands looked big surrounding her white face, his fingers slowly massaging across her brow, tucking into her hair to knead her scalp. It had been ten years, but it took his breath away, how familiar she still felt. How much the yearning to make her feel better rose in his chest. He didn’t think that would ever go away. After being so close to someone, melding your life with theirs, it became part of your DNA, a need his body and heart knew even when his mind tried to forget.
Charlotte’s sigh of relief made his chest swell, and he knew right then—he was in far deeper than he’d realized, even after that kiss yesterday. The quicksand was rising fast, and he wasn’t even sure he wanted a handhold.
“You two gonna get in or what?” Saint called from the car. Charlotte jerked away, her gaze darting anywhere but to him.
King glared at his teammate. Saint gave him an innocent smile.
Asshole.
The trip back was interrupted only by Charlotte’s questions about Violet and this nurse, Jessica, and the ball. None of which he or Saint could answer. He could sense her rising frustration, could certainly sympathize—waiting was the hardest part of any op. But the team had to come together to hash out ideas, and only when they’d determined their best possible options would they present them to Charlotte, Ben, and Kim.
Speaking of Kim… They’d pulled up to the stairs leading to the front of the mansion when Charlotte’s mother appeared at the door, arms crossed over her chest, that stern mom face he remembered from his teenage years staring down at them. Charlotte cursed under her breath, words King repeated in the privacy of his mind. He’d hoped to get out of discussing what had happened between him and Charlotte last night, but if he had to bet, he’d say Kim wanted her say before another minute passed.
He wasn’t wrong.
She led them both toward the empty library off the main foyer. Saint threw him a sympathetic glance as Kim closed the doors behind them. She paused for a moment with her hands on the doorknobs, then turned to face them, eyes narrowed on him. King fell automatically into parade rest, hands locked at the small of his back.
“Tell me that nothing is going on between the two of you.”
The words were an arrow shooting straight through his heart, but he didn’t dare show a reaction. He was only now beginning to understand what was stirring in his chest when it came to Charlotte. Baring his soul to this woman who had meant so much to him during his adolescence and growing into adulthood, a woman who now seemed to hate him, was impossible. He’d fought futility with his own family until it had finally ripped them apart—he didn’t owe Kim and Ben, or even Charlotte, that fight.
Why bother? Charlotte wouldn’t choose him anyway. Her body might be susceptible to him, but not her heart, not under normal circumstances. Their history had taught him that.
From the corner of his eye he caught Charlotte starting to speak, pausing. Searching for a diplomatic way to assure her mother she wasn’t foolish? Her mother might not agree, but she would accept the answer.
“Mom…” She didn’t move closer, didn’t glance his way. “I don’t know what’s going on. Nothing. Something. There’s too much else—”
Kim had tensed with the first word. “No, there isn’t.”
King had no more than a moment to cover his surprise before Kim squared off with him. “We might need your help right now, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to open our arms and welcome you right back into this family.”
As if Charlotte’s emotions were his to control. Or maybe she really did think he was working some kind of voodoo on her daughter—he comes back, and all of a sudden they’re kissing. On the one hand, he could see her point, but on the other…
For fuck’s sake, she’d known him better than his own family once upon a time.
“Why do you hate me so much, you and Ben both?” he asked. “I understand you love Charlotte, and I guess I can understand the lack of warmth for a guy who chose to walk away from the life you wanted for her. But we used to be family. It’s beenten years. This”—he waved a hand between them—“this is overkill. Why?”
A choked-off sound came from Charlotte’s direction—a denial.
Kim didn’t even blink. Venom filled her voice. “You have no idea the devastation you left in your wake.”
“Mom!”
“Obviously not,” King agreed, ignoring Charlotte’s protest. He was turning Kim’s words over in his mind, and fear begin a slow creep up his spine.
This wasn’t about him leaving. It couldn’t be. So what had happened afterward?
