Chapter 12 Rory'sPov
1073 Words
The lock felt heavier than it should have.
It was ridiculous, really. A small piece of metal. A simple turn of the wrist. People opened doors every day without feeling like they were volunteering to be split open on the other side.
But my hand hovered over the deadbolt as if the door was not wood and steel, but the thin line between the woman I had been and the woman every secret in the room was trying to make me become.
Behind me, Jaxon’s medical file lay open on the coffee table.
His name stared up from the first page.
The ten-million-dollar envelope sat beside it like an insult in expensive paper.
My stomach turned.
Not now, I thought.
He could not see that. Not yet. Not before I understood it. Not before I knew whether Evelyn Kane had handed me a truth, a weapon or another lie dressed in clinical language.
“Rory,” Jaxon said again from the hallway.
His voice was lower now. Less command. More wound.
That was dangerous. Jaxon Kane angry was easy to resist. Jaxon Kane desperate was much harder because some foolish part of me still remembered him in the cabin, quiet and ruined, looking at me like I was the only honest thing he had ever touched.
I hated that part of me.
I moved quickly, grabbing the file first. The papers slipped in my shaking hands and scattered across the table.
“Damn it,” I whispered.
The knock came again.
“Open the door.”
“Stop ordering me around,” I snapped automatically without thinking about it. I was going crazy and he was talking to me like that.
Silence followed at first.
Then, softer, he said, “Please.”
Please. The word did what his order could not. It stopped me.
For one second, I simply stood there with his medical records clutched against my chest and ten million dollars on the table, while the man who had either destroyed me or loved me badly waited outside the door.
Maybe both were true.
Maybe that was the problem.
I shoved the medical file beneath a stack of old game notes on the side table. It was not a good hiding place. It was barely a hiding place at all. But my hands were shaking too much to do better.
Then I turned the lock and the door opened.
Jaxon Kane stood in the hallway looking like he had not slept since the night I left.
That should not have mattered to me. Oh, it really shouldn't have mattered but it did.
His dark blond hair was messier than I had ever seen it outside of a game. His jaw was shadowed. His eyes, those cold blue eyes that could turn a rink into a battlefield, were bloodshot and fixed on me with an intensity that nearly made me step back.
He was still too beautiful.
That felt unfair.
After everything, his face should have changed. Guilt should have left bruises. Betrayal should have made him ugly. Instead, he stood there in a black coat and dark jeans, broad shoulders tense, mouth tight, looking like a man who had walked through hell and somehow brought the smoke with him.
His eyes moved over me. Slowly. Too carefully.
And it made me feel as hot as an oven.
“You’re pale,” he said.
I almost laughed.
Apparently, that was everyone’s favorite observation now.
“You came all the way here to assess my complexion?”
His jaw tightened. “I came because you stopped answering my calls.”
“I thought silence was clear enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.”
His hand flexed once at his side. “Can I come in?”
“No.”
He looked past me into the apartment. His gaze landed on the coffee table before I could shift enough to block it.
The envelope. Of course. His expression changed.
Not by much. Jaxon Kane had built a lifetime out of controlling what his face gave away but I had learned him too well. I knew the flicker now. The narrowing of his eyes. The stillness that came before danger.
“What is that?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
“So people keep telling me.”
“Rory.”
I hated my name in his mouth. No. That was not true. I hated that I did not hate it enough.
I stepped into the hallway and pulled the door half-closed behind me.
His eyes dropped to my hand on the door.
“You don’t want me inside.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
He flinched. It was quick. Almost nothing. But I saw it, and some stupid, traitorous place inside me hurt in response.
Good, I told myself. Let it hurt. Let something finally touch him too.
He swallowed. “I know you found the contract.”
The hallway became smaller just then.
There were sounds from somewhere below us. An elevator humming. A distant door closing. Someone laughing in another apartment as if this building did not know that my entire life had just turned into an execution chamber.
I leaned against the doorframe and folded my arms.
“Which part gave me away?”
His face tightened. “Rory—”
“The leaving without a note? The ignoring your calls? Or the fact that I stopped looking at you like I was stupid enough to believe you?”
His eyes flashed. “You were never stupid.”
“No. Just useful, isn't it?”
He shook his head quickly. “No, that is not what you were.”
“Really?” I smiled then and it felt sharp enough to draw blood. “Because the paperwork disagrees.”
He looked away for a second. That one second told me too much.
I laughed softly in response.
“There it is.”
His gaze returned to mine. “I was going to tell you.”
“Before or after you collected the five million?”
His face went still.
I had imagined that sentence for days. I had imagined throwing it at him in a hundred different tones. Calm. Furious. Broken. Detached.
But now that it was out, I did not feel victorious.
I felt sick. Really sick as if I wanted to vomit.
- Writer
