“I want to stay,” he answers before I even finish, making me laugh again. “Please. I want to fucking stay.” He laughs as he pulls his body from mine and brings me to my feet and turns me around to face him.
His laugh fades to a breathtaking smile as smoky-quartz eyes sear into my soul.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Then his lips are on mine again. Kissing me. Scrambling my thoughts. The only one I can still decipher is…
I want to stay, too.
“Here they are!” Stuart pipes up as we slip back into the party. His eyes flit to mine and he gives me a knowing smile, summoning a flush of heat to my cheeks.
“I’m going to grab a drink. Do you want one?” I ask Reed, gesturing to the table the makeshift bar has been set up on.
“Sure, whatever you like, Angel,” he says as he’s pulled into a back-slapping hug by someone.
I smile at him to let him know I’m all right and then make my way over to the drinks. Reed was right. Today has been crazy busy. I look around at the sea of elated people, dancing and drinking. It doesn’t look like the night is anywhere near over, either.
My cell buzzes in my small clutch that I kept in Reed’s office for the day. I only picked it up now as it has a mini packet of wipes for me to clean up with in it.
I place my purse on the table and take out my cell with one hand as I pick up a glass of water and chug a long, cool drink with the other. The message is from an unknown number and has a video attached.
Unknown: Blast from the past.
I click play, my eyes widening as the grainy image comes into view. My fingers lose their grip on the glass of water, and it crashes to the floor, splintering into pieces.
No.
Sickness ravages my body in one merciless strike. Like a guillotine, cutting off all light until only darkness remains. Goosebumps claw their way over my skin as I struggle not to retch. Not to retch and then crumble into bloodied pieces across the floor.
“Are you all right?” someone asks.
But their voice sounds far away.
Phone clutched to my chest, I snap my head side to side, frantically searching for Reed.
“I… I’m fine, thank you,” I mutter.
I spot him. He’s right over the other side of the room, deep in conversation with somebody. As if sensing me, he looks up and I give him my best ‘everything is fine’ smile as he looks at me, puzzled.
“Are you sure?” the same someone asks.
I nod apologetically in her direction. “I’m just a little dizzy. I’m going to get some air.”
My feet weave their way through the room as if on autopilot as my blood pounds in my ears. When I push through the doors and down the lobby steps into the Manhattan night, I gasp. I bend over and gasp, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. Each one reduces the pounding in my ears by a trace amount. But the sickness remains. A suffocating toxin that’s threatening to take over my entire body and mind if I let it.
I raise my cell phone. I’m gripping it so tightly that my knuckles have turned white.
Then I click play to watch the video again.
It can’t be what I think it is.
The image is grainy, but the man… the brown wavy hair...
My stomach heaves and I lean one palm against the side of the building and gag, bringing up the glass of water, tinged with acid.
It can’t be.
Please, God. It can’t be.