Page 13 of Sin of Love
“You do know most people work for a living, right?” asks Nate, glancing at me with a frown. “And that not everyone is nine to five?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter. “I still don’t know why I’m not driving. You drive like my grandma.”
“You literally smell like the floor of a bar, Gideon. How much have you been drinking a day?”
I shake my head, unwilling to answer. I’m not sure I can nail down an actual amount. A lot—too much. Belatedly, I wonder if I’m going to have withdrawals. In the chaos of packing a bag and pulling stacks of cash from my safe, it didn’t occur to me to grab a few bottles of booze.
I finish my coffee in silence, then ask, “Do you have any ibuprofen?”
He rolls his eyes. “Just because I like dick sometimes doesn’t mean I carry a purse.”
Laughter barks from me. “Whoa. I don’t give two shits how you get your rocks off. I’ve got a hangover the size of your ego coming for me, and I need some fucking ibuprofen.”
For long seconds, Nate stares straight ahead like he didn’t hear me. Then his lips twitch and twist.
My brows lift. “Are you laughing at me?”
He glances my way, blue eyes brimming with mirth and a hollow kind of grief. I recognize it. It’s the feeling of not knowing whether someone you love is dead or alive.
“I’m starting to see why she fell for you,” he says finally, gaze back to the road.
Weight settles on my chest. Rotating my head, I stare out the passenger window at the slowly brightening sky over eastern mountains.
Deirdre’s words to me from months ago rise in the same way, slow and steady, as inescapable as the dawn.
“You and I—we’re not friends. I don’t trust you. I hate being near you. You’re annoying. Self-serving and pompous. A brute. You mistakenly believe there’s some sick intimacy between us. Some… attraction? Devotion? Fuck that. You’re nuts.”
Harsh, hurtful words. Not the first she’d spoken to me, and not the last. But none of them mattered, really. While I respected her need to say them, I knew they were merely a story she was telling herself.
Even then, I’d known this beautiful, fierce, damaged woman was just as surprised as I was by what was happening between us. That she felt every ounce of attraction I did and was pushing me away to protect herself. And, as I found out later, to protect me.
But I’m a patient man, and not put off by the idea of waiting for what I want. In fact, I rather enjoy the mild torture of anticipation and longing.
I’d waited for her to surrender to the feelings that were so much bigger than either of us. And each small victory of love over fear unveiled another facet of her, and the more that was revealed, the more I wanted.
I waited for her then, and it paid off. So when she disappeared, I waited again. For two hellish weeks I waited for her to come home.
I shouldn’t have waited at all.
“What if we’re too late?” I murmur.
“We can’t be.”
“That photograph—”
“I know. She didn’t look good. He’s probably drugging her. No way Deirdre would go down without a fight.”
My next words taste cold and empty. “Why hasn’t he killed her? Especially if you’re right, and she tried to kill him?”
I can barely comprehend my own voice or the truth of what I’m saying. Deirdre told me she’d already killed the man responsible for her and Nate’s kidnapping as teens. That whoever was stalking her, it was someone else from her past.
I’d believed her—she hadn’t given me any reason not to.
Who the fuck lies about murdering someone?
Deirdre does, apparently.
I’m sure it was for a good reason, but I can’t help feeling like I’m still missing some big pieces of this demented puzzle.
