Page 122 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
Inconveniently, it was also the best.
I didn’t trust it from the get-go.
What I didn’t realize is that love isn’t like Tinker Bell. Love exists whether you believe in it or not.
And whether you believe in love or not, it believes in you.
* * *
He finds me on the third day. Three long days, three unending nights, and then I look up from my mint tea and he’s there.
Standing across the medina, his gaze fixed on me, a bare glint of yearning bright in his eyes, he’s there.
He looks terrible.
Like he’s been sleeping on park benches and dining on scraps from trash cans to survive. Like all he’s ever known is heartbreak and brutality. That I’m the cause of the pain he’s wearing like a second skin makes all the broken parts inside me grind together and bleed.
I rise from my table, shaking and breathless, my nerves channeling fire. Between us, the square is a riot of color and noise, food stalls, trilling laughter, dancers and dusty barefoot children. Freshly dyed silks flutter indigo and saffron in the breeze. I turn and make my way through the winding alleyways, draped in carpets and thick with people, until I reach an azure door.
I push through the door into a quiet courtyard, Ryan’s presence behind me so vivid, it’s almost like touch.
Past a splashing fountain, up a winding staircase to a quiet room at the top with a view of distant mountains and walls painted the same blue as the door. By the window, I turn and wait, holding my breath.
He eases into view in the open doorway, moving carefully, silently, as if approaching a wild animal trapped against a wall. When he sees me, his eyes flare. He inhales through parted lips and stands staring at me for a long, silent moment, drinking me in, his hands trembling at his sides.
“How?” he asks in a low, hoarse voice.
“There was a submarine on the yacht. A little two-seater. That got me as far as Tunisia. From there, I took the train to Casablanca, then a bus here.”
His
brow creases in confusion.
“I had the captain take me. He knew how to operate the sub…and how dangerous a gas leak on a yacht loaded with munitions would be. He knew what to do to make it look accidental.”
He processes that, then slowly takes a step forward over the threshold. His gaze darts around the room, questioning, cataloging the furniture, the high, timbered ceiling, the colorful pillows on the bed. Then it snaps back to me again, as if magnetized.
When he doesn’t speak, I do. “The crew on the yacht were prisoners. Forced to work for free, their silence guaranteed because their tongues were cut out. When I explained to him what I wanted to do, the captain was more than willing to help me. He wanted to disappear, too. Become someone else. Live a different life. We parted ways in Tunisia.”
Ryan takes another few halting steps toward me, then stops, the tremor in his hands getting worse. He’s focused on me with an extraordinary intensity, his eyes burning with questions and need. He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. There’s a pulse of heat like a heartbeat between us.
With a break in his voice, he says, “Why?” and I know what he’s really asking.
Why did you make me believe you were dead?
“I went a little mad,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “When I found out Reynard was Vincent’s father—”
Ryan’s sharp intake of breath makes me open my eyes. I nod at his expression of disbelief.
“Yes. And I loved him. My whole life, I loved him, and he’d been lying to me about everything. It was all a test.”
I have to stop and breathe around the vise winching closed in my chest. “He was grooming me to take over as his heir,” I say when the pain eases and I can speak again. “He said it in front of his men, so I knew that if they didn’t think I was dead, I would be hounded. Hunted. Cosa Nostra doesn’t let people go. So I died. Only I didn’t. And now I’m here…”
I trail off into silence, suddenly miserable with the strain of this moment, with everything so raw and aching between us, with so much left to be said.
“Well,” he murmurs after a moment. “the FBI thinks you’re dead, too. I mean, the Dragonfly. Case closed. You’re free now. You can go anywhere, do anything you want.”
He swallows hard, so clearly struggling. I’m forced to bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood so I don’t run to him and fling my arms around his shoulders.
