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978 Words
“Yes. And you see how well that ended. Aside from those two and the new one, there hasn’t been a Queen in millennia. But you’d probably recognize a few others of our kind who’ve successfully lived among you.”
Jacqueline waited, unblinking, attuned to his every word. Hawk began to tick a list off his fingers.
“Sir Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni—”
“No!” Jacqueline exclaimed, louder.
He sent her a sardonic smile. “Yes. Michelangelo. One of your lauded examples of humanity in that lovely article you wrote.”
In a voice so hollow it sounded as if it emanated from the depths of a well, Jacqueline asked, “Michelangelo wasn’t human?”
“That doesn’t devalue his accomplishments. In fact, considering he lived with all the pressures and complications of successfully managing a secret life, I think it makes him even more impressive, don’t you?”
Jack looked at him for several long moments, examining his face. Her expression wavered somewhere between defeat and despair. “You’re telling me the truth.”
“The truth stings, doesn’t it?”
The sorrow in her eyes welled up again as if his words had summoned it. “Almost always.” In a haunted whisper, she added, “You’d think I’d know that by now.” She stared off into the trees, lost in thought, and Hawk felt again that odd compulsion to know what she was thinking. The compulsion that seemed to be quickly turning into need.
He knew himself well enough to understand that this dangerous desire to get inside her head went hand in hand with the equally dangerous desire to protect her. He didn’t like either, but he wouldn’t deny these urges existed . . . nor would he pretend both these urges weren’t linked to an intense physical attraction he felt for her. An attraction that grew stronger the more time he spent by her side.
He just didn’t know what, if anything, to do about any of it.
She confused him, which made him feel helpless and off balance, feelings to which he was unaccustomed, and ill-equipped to handle.
She turned her head and pierced him with a look. She blurted, “Was it your idea—the setup? The blackmail?”
Something in her eyes told him this was important to her. So when he answered, it was with a twinge of pride that he could deny it. “No.”
Hawk sensed her relief, which flooded him with guilt, and the terrible compulsion to tell her the complete truth.
“But . . .”
She looked at him sharply.
“The pictures.” He cleared his throat, willing himself not to look away. “Using your camera was a little . . . improvisation on my part. I had a small camera of my own available, but when I saw your camera on the nightstand . . . I knew you’d be more likely to play because it would seem so much more natural. And using your own camera against you would make our revenge all the sweeter . . .”
He couldn’t take her fraught look any longer. He glanced away, ashamed.
In a small, horrified voice, she asked, “Where we’re going . . . your colony . . . have they all seen the pictures? Has everyone seen me . . . us?”
Self-serving bastard that he was, Hawk saw an opportunity, and pounced on it.
“I’ve already told you more than I should. So if I answer your question truthfully, I get an answer of my own. Even if you don’t like mine.”
Panic flickered across her face. She began to twist a strand of her hair between her fingers, over and over, chewing the inside of her lip as she debated. After a moment of silence, she dropped her head and threaded her hands into her hair, staring at her feet.
Then she stood and faced him. “Agreed.”
Courage, he thought. How much courage did it take to walk into this situation, to go where she knew she wasn’t safe or particularly welcome, to entrust a man who’d already betrayed her, to get an answer that may or may not be devastating, and in return answer a question she probably already knew the content of, and would be loath to respond truthfully to, if her last reaction was an indication.
As if from a distance, Hawk heard himself say, “I know this isn’t easy for you. And if it’s any consolation . . . I admire your courage.”
Her throat worked. She looked at him, her eyes fierce. “I’m not courageous, Hawk. I’m a coward. I’ve been afraid every single day of my life. I’m afraid right now. Most likely, I’ll be afraid until the day I die.”
Had she told him she was in love with him, he wouldn’t have been more astonished. Her honesty felt like a sucker punch to the gut.
As if pulled by an invisible lure, Hawk took a step toward her. “That’s exactly why you are courageous. That’s what courage is: moving forward in spite of your fear. Not letting fear make the decisions for you, no matter how hard it tries. Walking toward danger when everything inside you is screaming at you to run away.”
He took another step toward her, then another. She didn’t move as he approached, she just watched his progress with vivid blue eyes.
He stopped a foot away. Rain glimmered in her hair, a fairy crown of shimmering drops atop the sunglow red, and he had to resist the violent urge to plunge his hands into all that beautiful hair, tug her against his body, and cover her mouth with his.
- Writer
