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“What is it?” Tristan barked into my ear, and I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. “What is it, hey?” he asked again, but the figure was gone.
I struggled to keep sight of him, but the crowd was too dark. I could feel Tristan staring, too.
“What the hell are you looking at, Lainey? What is it?” he asked, and I took a deep breath before I turned to face him.
“It was Lucian Morelli. Lucian Morelli is here.”
His eyes widened, his mouth dropping to match, and then he shook his head and fixed me in a gaze that said I was crazy.
Yep, he was joining the Elaine-is-crazy club. He’d better get in line.
“Lucian Morelli isn’t in this place,” he told me. “No fucking way.”
I shrugged, knowing full well my eyes weren’t deceiving me. I pointed into the crowd. “He was over there, and before that he was right behind me, grabbing hold of my waist.”
My words had to be shouts above the music, but that didn’t matter. He heard me loud and clear.
His eyebrows were pitted as he shook his head again, then leaned in close. “You have to stop this. Whatever this damn fucking obsession with Lucian Morelli is, you have to damn well stop it.”
“It’s not an obsession!” I snapped. “He was right here!”
I nodded in contrast to his shaking head.
“I mean it, Tristan, He was HERE.”
“And I mean it, Lainey. He wasn’t.”
My head was swirling from the coke, but it wasn’t a hallucination. There was no way it was a hallucination. He’d been wearing glasses, and some weird dumbed-down outfit, but I knew his touch, and I knew his stare, and I knew his breath – all of him seared into my soul in a few short minutes just days before.
Tristan leaned in close again. “Did you tell anyone about this? About you coming here tonight?” I heard him groan. “Please tell me you didn’t…”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t. I didn’t tell anyone.”
“So, how did it happen, then?” he asked. “How the fuck would Lucian Morelli know to come here if nobody in the world knew you were coming? I sure as hell didn’t tell anyone you’d be here. Not anyone except Blue Hawk.”
“Maybe he told someone.”
He sighed. “I didn’t tell him your name, Lainey. There’s no way he could have told anyone, even if he’d wanted to.”
He had a point. Even though my heart was racing, I knew he had a point.
He squeezed my arm. “I guess it was someone who looked like him. Must’ve been hard to see.”
“Maybe,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. My heart wouldn’t let me.
“Maybe you’re crapping yourself about seeing him again. Maybe that’s what this is. Some crazy freak-out.”
Crazy me, yeah. I wished I believed that, but no. There was no way I was imagining him out of fear. My heart was still thumping as my mind churned. No. There was also no way it was some lookalike. Not with that touch, not with that scent, not with that look in his eyes.
I was still scanning the room with my breath catching in my throat when Blue Hawk let out a goodnight and lifted his arms to the sky.
Tristan grabbed hold of my shoulders as the crowd began to bustle, and I jumped, hard enough that he sighed at me.
“Like I said, maybe you’re crapping yourself.”
I forced myself into some kind of rationality. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
I could hear the relief in his voice. “Good. Like I said, maybe you could go back to Dr. Karlin. Surely, it would have to help now, more than ever.”
My tummy flipped at the thought. No. It wouldn’t help me. Nobody digging into the pits of my soul would help me. It was untouchable. It needed to be untouchable.
Secrets. Scary, dirty secrets.
As usual, I forced a smile and changed the subject.
“Let’s get to your conquest backstage, then. Don’t want to miss out on his dick, do you?”
Tristan rolled his eyes. “His dick isn’t worth watching you fuck yourself up over the biggest asshole on the planet.”
I felt the rage burning up in my ribs. “I wouldn’t. I told you, I won’t go near him!”
He didn’t believe me. I could feel it. I could see it.
“I mean it!” I insisted. “I won’t go near him. I damn well promised you I wouldn’t.”
The crowd bustled around us, people heading to either the bar or the main entrance. Tristan took hold of me again, to stop me getting caught up in the movement.
“Damn well promise me that a damn promise to me isn’t the only thing holding you back from that monster.”
I laughed in his face. “Even you can’t think I’m that insane. Even I can’t believe I’m that insane.”
He seemed to take my assurance as solid enough to laugh back. “Thank fuck for that.”
With that, he grabbed my hand and started making his move towards the door at the side of the stage, and I tried to believe my certainty as much as he had. I mean, I had to be slightly rational, even through the madness of my mind. Because he was right. He had to be right. There was no way Lucian Morelli could possibly be in the place, no way, no chance. Plus, there was no way I could ever want him, not with any part of me. Not ever.
