“I appreciate your honesty. At least you have that going for you.”

I smirked. It wasn’t a compliment.

“What else do you want to know, Bill?” Might as well get it over with.

“There isn’t much else I don’t know about you. I have a file as thick as the one you have of me sitting on my desk.” His charming smile didn’t reach his eyes. They were cold and calculating, judging me.

I wasn’t really surprised. The man did his homework, exactly as I’d expect from someone in his position.

“There is one thing about you that really puts me off.”

I narrowed my eyes, bracing myself.

“Yeah?”

“The way you have no regard for life. It’s unhealthy, and I don’t want a man like you near my daughter.”

Say what you really mean, Billy Boy.

“If you’re talking about what happened with Jade—”

He cut me short. “That’s a tragedy, but I also can see that it was an accident. No. The thing that worries me is how you go into the most dangerous missions . . . expecting to get killed. What kind of man has a death wish so severe he has no regard for his own life?”

How in fuck did Bill know this?

Throwing a good portion of the drink left in my glass down my throat, I met Bill’s gaze. “That would be a man who has nothing to live for. A man who had his future ripped out from under him by criminal scum. Not only did those bikers kill Amy and our unborn child, they stole my future and my life.”

“You’re a twisted bastard, Summers. I don’t want the likes of you anywhere near Eva. She deserves a man who can promise her the best future possible.” His intense gaze burned into me. “Not somebody who is essentially already dead. I never believed in zombies, but fuck me, if you aren’t already the living dead.”

My back stiffened.

“It’s what makes me the best of the best at what I do. We can’t fight a powerful enemy if we fear him. Fearlessness is what makes them afraid of us.” I crashed my glass down on the granite top. How the fuck dare he? “I risk my fucking life so that everyone else can sleep safely at night. Ever thought of that, Bill?”

“Yeah, I understand.” His eyes hardened. “Still, I don’t want you around Eva. You’re going to break her heart, and she doesn’t need that shit. She’s had that done to her before . . . by Nolan and by me. I just don’t want to see her go through that again.” He clamped down on his jaw, gritting his teeth. “Do what you need to do but stay out of Eva’s life. If you don’t love her . . . and I don’t think you’re capable of that emotion, then let her go. Let her find someone who is worthy of her love, someone who can give her everything she deserves.”

Nausea pushed up into my gut. Bill was right. Eva deserved so much better than me. I could never give a woman like her what she needed, and she sure as hell didn’t need my demons or my brokenness or my darkness.

“I’ll think about it.” I emptied my glass and slammed it on the table. “Thanks for the talk and the drinks, Bill. I’ll see myself out.”

I rose to my feet, the whole world spinning on its axis. I grabbed my car keys off the counter and made my way to the door.

Stopping in my tracks, I turned toward the man who had just shattered my world.

“Tell me something. Was Eva coming here tonight?”

Without hesitation, Bill answered. “No. I called her this afternoon and cancelled. She’s out for drinks with a friend from work. Hopefully she meets someone nice. Someone who can take care of her in all the right ways.”

He fucking lied to me. Smooth, slick bastard.

“Thank you, Bill. And fuck you too.”

Normally I wouldn’t get behind the wheel of a car if I were over the limit. This wasn’t a normal day. My life was fucked. I had to let Eva go and let her find the happiness she deserved with a man who could give her everything I never could.

If I wrapped my drunken ass around a pole it was perhaps the smartest thing I could do. Maybe Bill knew that and had planned it all along by plying me with expensive booze.

Death would be a blessing. I was so fucking tired of my life. So fucking tired of being stuck in my head.

So fucking tired.

Chapter 23 — Eva

Every damn call I’d made to Harrison’s phone had gone unanswered. Maybe he’d lost his phone. Or maybe he’d been sent on a sudden assignment. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d decided he was tired of me and I just wasn’t worth calling back.

I had no illusions when it came to Harrison. I already knew I wasn’t the love of his life. Some seventeen-year-old girl who had been immortalized in his mind and heart held firmly onto that position.

Try as I might, I couldn’t compete with a dead girl. She held all the cards. Every single Ace and every single Joker. She won, hands down. And the fact that she’d been pregnant with Harrison’s baby when she was tragically mowed down was like a double whammy.

Turning back to the task at hand, I packed the last of the boxes and taped them up. It was the second-last night I’d spend in that apartment. All that was left were the very basics: one plate, one set of flatware, one glass and a mug. The sheets on my bed and my toiletries. Two sets of clean clothes in the closet. The picture in the silver frame of my mother on the nightstand.

Other than that, the last five years of my life had been packed into cardboard boxes, waiting to be moved to my new home.

I checked my phone every few minutes, and even called one of my girlfriends I hadn’t spoken to in a while just to make sure the damn thing was still working and that there wasn’t a network problem. I hated feeling this damn vulnerable when a man didn’t call back, and hated that I had to make up stories in my head, looking for excuses for him.

My back hurt from shifting boxes all the way to the front hallway, so I finally decided to get an early night. I hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Dad had cancelled dinner, when Harrison hadn’t called me back after I’d left a message about meeting him in the city for dinner instead.

Fool.

Damn.

There I was thinking he’d be relieved not to meet my dad and spend the night with me instead. I’d even cut short my drinks with Emma and worn sexy underwear.

Brushing the hair back off my forehead, I wiped the sweat from my brow and ran a shower. I was damn exhausted, and suddenly my bed seemed like the only place on earth I wanted to be. Slipping out of my yoga pants and top, I stepped under the showerhead, welcoming the stream of pulsating water as it pummeled the surface of my skin.

While I was still busy soaping up my body, my phone rang on the counter. Yeah, I knew steam was bad for electronic devices, but I didn’t want to miss the call when Harrison finally got back to me.

I quickly dried one hand on a towel and grabbed the phone. The man was going to pay for putting me through all this anxiety.

“Hello, Mister,” I said in a low voice, trying to sound sexy yet serious.

A pause.

“Hey, sexy. God, I missed that voice. Did I ever tell you how much it turns me on?”

I held the phone a few feet from my face and through narrowed eyes I read the name on the screen. Yep. Nolan.

“How did you get my new number, Nolan?” I barked, my voice going to shrill and freaked out in seconds.

“You underestimate me, darling. You forget who I am.”

Pompous ass.

“That’s impossible. You keep reminding me, Senator. And no, I don’t want to donate to your campaign, or whatever else you are calling about, so leave me the fuck alone.”

“Eva, that’s not the way to talk to me.”

“Listen, I’m tired and I have a headache. I’m not in the mood for bullshit.” I turned the tap off with one hand and stepped out of the shower.

A low chuckle followed. “Still my fiery girl. God, I miss you. I’m sorry I fucked up. Really, I am. Let’s put it down to temporary insanity—”