Page 46 of When He Defends
“Do I think some people are born evil? Hell, yes.”
– Gray Stone
Emerson’s breathsawed in and out. She couldn’t believe that Nathaniel had come to see Gray and then showed up on her doorstep. The bastard was trying to discredit her with Gray.
But Gray isn’t falling for Nathaniel’s tricks.
Nathaniel. Smart. Deviously so. Driven. Driven to steal other people’s work. Manipulative. He’d sure tricked her into thinking that he might actually care about her, only for her to find out that he’d been using her all along.
Her mother had been furious when Emerson had broken things off with Nathaniel. Emerson, on the other hand, had just been relieved.
Only now he’s showing up at my door.Nathaniel could just stop that crap. They were not working together. She hurried through the condo. Darted in her bedroom and rushed straight through to her attached bathroom. She wanted to splash somewater on her face and get her control back before Gray arrived back at her place.
He’s giving me the chance to work undercover with him. I will not screw this up. I will not?—
Her heart seemed to stop. Emerson had just looked into her bathroom mirror. A mirror that reflected her fractured image back to her. Fractured and distorted because the mirror had been smashed. Cracks ran across its surface like hundreds of tiny spiderwebs. Her hand lifted, as if she’d touch one of the cracks. But she stopped before making contact. Fisted her hand.
Then she was running out of her bathroom and back into her bedroom. Rushing toward her dresser and the mirror connected to it. She hadn’t even glanced at the dresser before. Or its mirror. But now her focus was on it completely.
Fractured. Smashed. A dozen broken images of me.
Her head shook. One mirror being smashed…okay…maybe some random accident had happened.
Uh, exactly how did a random accident happen, Emerson? When you weren’t even here?So the accident theory was weak, granted, and when you added the fact that it wasn’t just one mirror that had been shattered, buttwo…
She backed away from the dresser and its mirror. Her steps were much, much slower now. Her heart thudded in her chest. This had…happened before.
Her hand rose to her neck. Slid around to the lower right side. A small scar. Barely an inch. Usually hidden by her hair. An old scar.
I got away.
She backed up more, then she turned and lunged.One more mirror in my place.In the small, half bath off her den. Her heels tapped over the flooring as she raced for that bathroom. She threw the door open.
Broken. Twisted. Spiderwebs across the surface.Except a big chunk of the mirror was missing. Right in the center. A big chunk, maybe six inches long and two inches wide, was missing. And she thought of another time. Another place.
When a chunk of a broken mirror had been used like a knife.
She retreated from the bathroom. The drumming of her heartbeat was far too loud, and her right hand touched the scar on her throat.
That long ago night, the broken piece of mirror had been placed against her throat. It had cut into her, deep enough to make her bleed. To leave a scar.
A hand touched her shoulder. “Emerson?—”
She screamed and grabbed for that hand. She twisted and heaved, and her foot went beneath her attacker’s ankle. She was going to take him down and get out. He wasn’t going to hurt her again. She would not let him hurt her.
But her attacker remained upright. He shifted his position, dodged her attack, and suddenly, Emerson was up against the wall. He’d moved lightning-fast, and he had her hands pinned on either side of her head.
“Emerson,”Gray snapped.
She blinked. Her breath heaved.
Worry had a faint line slanting between Gray’s brows. “No way did you just get the sudden, random urge to spar me.”
Her heart was about to shoot out of her chest.
“What’s happening?” he demanded.
“L-look at the mirrors.”
