“You should stay until it’s done.” His embrace is so warm. His scent is delicious, and I can’t help but press my nose to his shoulder, inhaling him. “Until I’ve talked to the lawyers, signed the papers, and found a safe way to pay that debt hanging over your head. Then…”

I shiver and burrow closer to him. The thought of leaving him hurts like a rusty blade twisting in my heart. “Then?”

“Then you should run away as fast as you can, and not look back.”

I swallow hard. Maybe that would be for the best. It’s not like we have a future together. Covered that already. I should be grateful, let him save me and go.

Maybe I will. After I make sure he’s okay. After that wicked piece of glass is out of his back, and he’s not bleeding on the covers and shaking against me.

Where the hell is that doctor?

“Hey, you never told me.” I close my eyes, comfortable leaning against his muscled shoulder. I lift my hand up to rest on his chest. “How did you uncle die?”

See? Important stuff.

“You want my conspiracy theories?” His heart starts to race under my palm. “You sure?”

“I want the facts.”

“He overdosed on one of his heart medicines. Now he’s dead. Those are the facts.”

His voice pulses with anger and something else. Pain, I think, and it echoes inside me. “Okay. And what do you think happened?”

“I think someone forced him to swallow a whole jar-full of pills and held him down until he died. My uncle wasn’t a confused old man. He was fifty-five and the least likely person to overdose. Fuck.” Storm’s shaking again, and I rub a circle over his chest with my hand. “He was cold and calculating. Being the head of an empire, that was his element. Finding a way to keep my inheritance for himself, that I could see, but killing himself, accidentally or not? No fucking way.”

Like every time he talks to me about this, I’m torn between sadness, doubt and fear. He’s fighting it, hiding it—the pain, the confusion, the panic—but I feel it in the frantic beat of his heart, his shallow breathing, the sweat rolling down his corded neck.

Then why didn’t I guess he lied to me about who he is?

Because he didn’t lie. He’s right. He’s still Storm. No matter whether what he fears is true or not—and why wouldn’t it be? God knows my story is even more incredible—he only says things he believes.

That’s a good thing, right? It means those things he said, that he trusts me, that he needs me, that he thinks I’m beautiful… they were true.

Storm Jordan. His ink goes deeper than the fancy clothes he had on today, and although he barely knows me, he wants to help me when my own family set me up. He’s sexy, bossy and yet kind, just as he was when I met him. Just as gorgeous and hurting inside.

This is so bad. The way I feel about him… How am I supposed to walk away when this is over?

Chapter Fourteen

STORM

“Ray.” I tighten my arm around her slender shoulders, my skin crawling. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

She lifts her head from my bare shoulder, leaving cold behind. Her mouth opens, closes. She sighs.

Back at the beach I thought she believed me, but not anymore. She thinks I’ve lost my marbles. That I’m imagining it all. Like Hawk and Rook and everyone else in the damn world thinks.

“Say something,” I whisper.

She shakes her head, and my heart sinks, and just when I think she will answer, she jerks back.

That pushes my arm up. A sharp pain shoots between my shoulder blades.

Jesus. Ow. Dammit.

And Rook strides into the room before I even have time to catch my breath.

“Storm. Come out here a sec.”

I raise a hand in a universal gesture of “wait.”

He grabs it and hauls me up. A strangled cry catches between my teeth. Not so universal, after all.

“What are you doing?” Raylin steps between us and pushes Rook back a step with a hand to his plexus. “He’s hurt. Be careful, or don’t touch him at all.”

Rook blinks, then looks at me, brows raised. “A wildcat,” he says, and she shoves him again. “Storm will be fine. It will take a lot worse than a piece of ceramic in his back to bring him down. I want him to take a look at the stove.”

“Bullshit. You just want to bully him around because he obviously left you out of the loop for a while. Well, tough, big guy.” She’s really in his face and the way his eyes go round is goddamn funny. “You’re gonna have to suck it up and lay off him.”

Christ. I’d shrug, or laugh, but either option will hurt like a bitch, so I settle for a hand on her waist. She’s a wildcat all right, small and fierce.

Mine, a voice in the back of my mind whispers. Mine.

Yeah, right. After this last fuck-up, knowing Rook thinks I’m batshit crazy, I bet she can’t wait to get away from me for good.

***

Turns out the doctor is in the living room, waiting for me to get dressed so he could examine me. Doc’s been around since I was a kid, his blond goatee gone silver. Rook’s parents pay him, but he’s been doing the rounds in all three families for years.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” he says, probing at the piece of ceramic stuck in my back.

“He disappeared for months,” Rook says, because he’s so fucking helpful. “Just came back today.”

The sprinklers have been turned off, leaving puddles of water everywhere. A technician is going through the shards of the stove, while a bodyguard stands at the apartment door. A cleaning crew is unpacking equipment to clear up the mess of the kitchen and living room.

Shit. So many people in this apartment I haven’t visited since the car accident, it’s unreal. The cupboards are smashed, there’s food and sauce dripping off every surface and the stench of burnt plastic fills the air.

At least we got dressed. Raylin helped me pull on my pants and she borrowed one of the shirts I couldn’t remember I had hanging in my closet.

Holy shit. I lived here for months, and I can hardly remember the place or the things in it. Like the tray with the scotch and glasses on the low corner table, or the cigar box by the sixty-inch flat TV. All I can see in my mind’s eye is the beach house, and Raylin on the king-size bed, naked and—

“Something’s odd here,” the technician says, rubbing at the dark stubble on his chin. “This thing shouldn’t have exploded like that.” He pokes between the shards. “Damn weird.”

“See?” I snarl at Rook, but my voice cracks on a groan when the doctor starts pulling on the shard. Damn, that stings. “Told you. Have you called the police?”

“Christ, Storm, relax. It’s not a bomb or anything. Why would the police care?”

“No, not a bomb,” the technician says. “I’m only saying it shouldn’t have exploded like this, but the wiring is a mess. Or was, before it melted. You’re lucky. If you were still in the kitchen when this happened, not sure you’d have made it out alive.”

“Awesome,” I mutter. The shard slides out of me all the way, and then the doc sprays the wound with something that burns like fire. I bite the inside of my cheek not to yelp. You’d think I’d be used to pain by now, wouldn’t you?

Fuck. Used to the pain and the near-death situations.

“Will he be okay?” Raylin asks and takes my hand. I wrap my fingers around her slim fingers.

“He’ll live.” The old doc is way too cheerful, in my opinion. What he’s doing now feels like he’s cutting me up, which probably means stitches. Far from the first time he’s had to do this. He then slaps some gauze on the wound and tapes it to my back. “He’s lucky it didn’t hit his spine, or he’d be in a world of trouble.”

Yeah, that’s me. So lucky.

But Raylin shudders and her eyes well.

“Hey.” I give her what I hope is a reassuring wink, while all I want is to grab her and run away. “I’m okay.”