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I dragged myself out of the bathroom, away from her, her phone still in my hand. It was a funny looking old thing, with a keyboard you could pull out. It beeped again.
I wanted to check it to see if it was her mother.
You want to check it to see if it’s a guy, I thought. She hadn’t mentioned any sort of a relationship, but then, why would she? It beeped again. I could still hear her in the shower.
I hit a button and the screen lit up.
It was a message from someone named Reina. Your mother came in this morning and withdrew money, it said. The manager had to ok it. I’m so sorry.
The fact that it wasn’t a guy was where the good news ended. Was this from a manager at Audrey’s bank? Or something else? I put her phone down and paced for a minute. Audrey had given her mother money last night. But maybe it wasn’t enough, or maybe something had happened that wasn’t to her mother’s liking.
I remembered what Audrey’s face looked like yesterday afternoon when she’d been on the phone in front of the museum. Pale, cold, and furious.
Furious. Audrey was gentle, but something had made her beyond angry.
I immediately called Kai. “What’s the name of the place Audrey had you take her the other morning? Where her brother lives?”
“New Horizons, sir. In South Boston.”
“I’ll be down in five minutes. Have the car waiting.”
Audrey
“Audrey,” James called.
“Huh?” I asked. There was soap in my ears. I was using his Argan oil body wash on every available surface of my body. It smelled like him and literally made my mouth water.
“I have to run out.” I thought that’s what he said, anyway.
Maybe I shouldn’t have used so much in my ears. “Okay,” I responded.
“Okay,” he called. “I’ll be back in an hour. Have some coffee.”
“Okay,” I said. I wanted to add babe. Or honey. Or I love you, please don’t leave me. But common sense told me that would be very stupid, so I just kept rinsing.
“Audrey.” He opened the shower door a little and I was careful not to splash him. “Did you hear me? I wish I could come in there, but I have to run out. I’ll be back soon.” He leaned in and gave me a quick, hot kiss that melted my insides. His hair got sprayed with water, and he gave me a devilish smile, closing the door behind him and leaving me.
Thinking about that smile, and what he’d done to me earlier that morning with his mouth, made me pant. Which made me get water from the shower in my mouth. Which made me cough.
Which was the only thing that made me glad he was gone. I hacked and spluttered, getting out of the shower and wrapping an enormous, incredibly soft towel around myself. I dried my hair, combing it out carefully as I went. Then I searched for my phone in James’s room, but he must have stuck it somewhere. I’d just ask him when he got back. I grabbed the Wharton T-shirt he’d been wearing yesterday off the floor and put it on, inhaling the smell of him. Then I padded out to the kitchen, in search of coffee, wishing that I lived here with him and that this was my real life.
My real life. I’d never met my father. My mother told me that he was her boyfriend, and that he’d stuck around at first after Tommy was born. Then she’d gotten pregnant with me, and then he was gone. I always hoped he’d come back but he never did… and he never sent a child support check. He was probably not a great guy.
But when I was a girl, I’d pretended that he was a king. That he’d sent Tommy and me to live with my mother to hide us, because we were important, and he was protecting us. In my fantasy, he came back—and I discovered that I’d been a princess all along. He took us to live the lives we were always supposed to have: our real lives, which were orderly and beautiful and perfect.
I looked out across the sunny kitchen. James’s apartment was sparkling and immaculate. It was orderly and beautiful and perfect. James was perfect. This was that royal life I’d always imagined and was never meant to have.
Yes, it was true that I loved James. I did. There was nothing I could do about that now.
But it was now truer than ever that I had to protect my heart.
* * *
“You made breakfast?” he asked an hour later. He threw some things on the counter and swept me into his arms. He was so much bigger than me, I felt protected with him wrapped around me. “That was nice of you.”
He kissed me deeply, and I got shaky from it. The raw energy between us was almost overwhelming. I ran my hands down his chest, feeling the muscles underneath his shirt. It should be criminal to be so gorgeous, with all those muscles and that wavy, steel-colored hair; it wasn’t fair. He ran his hands down me, too, kissing me hungrily.
