I watch him, reaching deep for my emotional response, which is still hate. I hate that man. A security guard approaches him and my father looks flustered before leaving. Adam steps to my side. “Someone slashed his tires. Not really, but he won’t know that until he’s already in the parking lot.”
I cast him an amused look. “I might just give you a cookie for that one.”
“I’ll take a new bottle of Johnnie Walker. Blue label. Expensive as fuck, but considering the death wish jobs you took when you started at Walker, you can afford it. And that’s my drink.”
I tune him out as Gabriel steps onto the stage and greets the crowd. Thank you, Lord, he doesn’t take Candace with him. She’s at the side of the stage, and her gaze scans the audience and then lifts to find me. Our eyes lock and hold. She doesn’t look away. I’m so fucking stupid for walking away from her. I told her not to beg anyone for anything, but I’ll beg for another chance. On my fucking knees. I will so fucking beg.
An older woman steps to her side and murmurs in her ear, the very action demanding her attention, as does Gabriel on the stage. He begins to speak, blowing smoke up the audience’s asses with bullshit political promises. He also shouts, “Don’t mess with Texas!” four freaking times.
I eye Adam, lift my jacket and motion to my gun, which I moved through security far too easily. “Shoot me. Just do it. Put me out of my fucked-up misery.”
“Tempting,” he says. “But no. You earned this torture by losing a woman that damn perfect.”
She is perfect, and I pretty much want to poke his eyes out just for noticing, but I also want to share that Johnnie Walker with him, so I don’t. Sooner than later, considering Gabriel is jabbering like a teenage boy who just saw his first set of nipples. Finally, he wraps things the fuck up.
Adam’s phone buzzes and he checks his message. “Now,” he says, lifting his chin toward the stage as a man rushes to Gabriel’s side and whispers in his ear. A good ten people in the room receive text messages at the same time and scramble to read them. All of which will instruct them to immediately travel to Austin for a meeting with the governor. It’s all planned, a crisis manufactured by Blake Walker’s expert hacking skills.
Gabriel departs the stage and walks to Candace’s side. He leans in too damn close to her, his fucking hand on her waist and murmurs close to her ear. There’s a short exchange and he departs, leaving her behind. Her eyes cut through the crowd and lift to mine again. She knows now. He’s leaving. I’m not.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Candace
I slide into the backseat of the town car set to take me to Gabriel’s mansion to grab my car and do so with only one thing on my mind: Rick. That look on his face when I told him his father was at the event. He’s supposed to be a killer, a hired killer, cold and hard, and yet one mention of his father and he froze. He was relieved that I saved him that confrontation.
My fingers press to my lips, remembering the brutally wonderful touch of his mouth to mine. That kiss. His touch. His woodsy wonderful smell. The sea of torment that’s always been there in the depths of those blue eyes even before I’d warned him about his father. I have always felt like he would drown in that torment, but I’d always sworn I’d go down with him. But he didn’t let me. He left. He left and he never came back. And he’ll leave again.
The car pulls to the front of the mansion, and I direct the driver to my spot under a willow tree. Just that quickly, I’m outside, nerves blasting my belly before I climb into my car. My empty car. Rick isn’t here. I’m not sure why I believed he would be. Of course, he wouldn’t have had time to make it here. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he won’t come at all. His father has a way of driving him away. Maybe his father was all it took to repeat history.
Once I’m on the road, I mentally have a self-preservation conversation with myself.
He’s not the man for me.
He’s not the man I loved.
He’s the man who will hurt me.
Again.
I knew that about him that first night we met at the coffee bar. I know that about him now. That’s who he is. He’s pain and torment. Those things live inside him and they bleed into his life. They bled into mine and when he left, I never stopped bleeding.
Turning onto my street, our street when he lived with me, I am one big adrenaline rush of anticipation. Approaching the house, I find no other cars. He’s not here. The realization guts me. Proof that I’m a fool asking to be hurt again. God. He’s not here. Maybe his father really did drive him away. Maybe he had to go to Austin like Gabriel. Maybe he won’t be here until later. Maybe he won’t be here at all. Maybe he’s here for a job that demanded his attention and so, we’re cut short. Again. It hurts already. He hurt me again already and all of this is made up in my head.