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A tear dropped on the phone’s screen before Summer tossed it to the mat
tress and returned to staring at the wall, slowly dampening the pillow beneath her cheek with her tears.
It was so much easier to fool Alyssa by text than it was by voice. Thank God her friend hadn’t actually called. Had she done so then Summer would have never hid the tears, the pain she couldn’t stop.
“You look like a fucking Barbie doll, bitch,” Gia muttered as Summer arrived at Falcone’s home for a pre-assignment briefing.
“Why sugah, that was the point behind it all,” Summer laughed, believing the other woman was teasing.
The pretty sundress bared her shoulders and the upper mounds of her tanned breasts. It hugged her body like a lover from breast to scant inches below indecent along her thighs. She looked good. She knew she did.
Left loose but for the small amount pinned back from her face, her hair hung down her back in rich, black curls, falling to her waist with a healthy, silken sheen.
“Take the tobacco out of your mouth,” Gia sounded irritated, but she would always flash Summer a smile to show she was teasing. That was her way. Or so Summer thought.
Her brothers hadn’t liked Gia. Especially her older brother, Caleb. She and Caleb had gotten into a horrible fight when he called Gia a trashy little tramp.
Margot never said anything nasty about Gia, but she rarely gave any notice to Gia when she was around either.
“You should cut that stringy hair,” Gia snarled as she watched Falcone help Summer braid the long strands. “It’s a fucking hazard…”
“I would spank you, little one,” Falcone laughed, tying off the braid. “Your hair is lovely.”
“I would have let her die…” Hatred filled Gia’s voice.
“She always sounds like her mouth is filled with chewing tobacco…”
How stupid she had been. So stupid. She should have known how Gia was lying to them all these years. It was her fault Alyssa had lost her lovers, her fault that sweet little baby had died. Oh God, how had Alyssa ever forgiven her?
Perhaps she hadn’t really forgiven her. Alyssa was so sweet she would never deliberately hurt anyone. Especially someone with the history they shared.
They had saved each other so many times. Now, there was no one there to save Summer, though. No one to take away the agony resonating inside her. And it hurt. Oh God, it hurt so bad she couldn’t stand it.
The tears fell harder again, and though she didn’t sob, still, the ones she tried to contain had her breathing with harsh, ragged sounds. It was just hard enough, just enough to cover the sound of the intruder sneaking into the room.
“My God! What have you done to yourself?” Falcone’s enraged exclamation had her coming up in the bed, her weapon clearing the pillows before she could halt the action.
Before she could actually aim the gun at him, she dropped it to the bed instead and just stared back at him, her shoulders jerking with a contained sob as she met his gaze.
She knew what he saw.
Tears poured from her eyes as she looked around at the long strands of her hair thrown haphazardly on the comforter. The scissors lay somewhere on the floor where she’d thrown them.
“Summer. All your beautiful hair,” he whispered, sounding grief-stricken. “Baby, what have you done to yourself?”
The long midnight black curls were gone. Her hair was a slick, black cap that ended at her nape in a shaggy cut that testified to the haphazard snips she’d made with the scissors.
“Leave, Falcone.” There wasn’t a hint of the accent everyone found so distasteful.
She’d taken voice classes at Margot’s insistence. She’d learned how to not sound as though her mouth was full of chewing tobacco. But Margot had heard it the first time and declared she wasn’t Summer without her unique drawl. But only Margot had liked it.
Rising from the bed and quickly drying her tears she turned back, hating that look of icy emotionlessness on his face. She’d always hated it. She would flirt, joke, become completely outrageous until it cracked.
His pale blue eyes moved over her nearly naked body, taking in the black boy shorts and black sports bra she wore. The only tattoo she had was thankfully covered. God wouldn’t it be a mess if he saw it. He would be so regretful of course, but probably so amused.
“You have let her destroy you,” he said coolly. “I did not think anyone could do that to you.”
She snorted at the statement. “She didn’t break me, Falcone,” she assured him. “She merely drove home the fact that a few changes needed to be made, nothing more.”
