I laugh, but it’s full of despair. “I don’t know. This is all new to me too.”
Lacey twists her lips. “I’ll do tea just in case. Chamomile tea,” she says with a slight nod of her head.
I force a fake smile onto my face, grateful she’s taking my pregnancy in stride. “None for me. I’m going to jump into bed. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Her bottom lip drops into a pout. She looks like she wants to plead with me, but thankfully, she just nods. “One step at a time, Blaire. It will slowly get better.”
After kicking off my shoes, I press a kiss to her cheek and pace down the hallway to my room. Even though I’ve spent the past four weeks in bed, mine is still calling me. I don’t know if it is my pregnancy making me sleepy, or the heavy grief sitting on the middle of my chest. Either way, I’m exhausted.
I stop halfway down the hall when my answering machine announces the timestamp of a message, one recorded within hours of Rico’s death.
“Blaire, it’s Katie. . .” I hear her swallow before she continues, “Thank you. I know what happened, and I’m sorry, but I just wanted to say thank you for never giving up on me.”
Pain twists through my chest. I’ve talked to Katie a few times the past four weeks, but our conversations were very brief. Understandably, we both have a lot of issues to work through. But, hopefully, one day, we’ll both be strong enough to arrange a face-to-face meeting.
I run my hand across my cheeks, removing the tears tracking down my face before continuing with my mission. My steps are slow and sluggish. Although I faked a chipper personality throughout the hospital mandatory counseling for victims of violent crimes, I'm fairly certain I'm sitting on the cusp of depression. I’ve lost weight; I constantly feel restless even doing nothing but sleeping, and no matter how hard I try to ignore it, I feel dead on the inside.
After flicking on the light in my room, I lower the dimmer so it's dark but not completely black. I can’t stand the thought of sleeping in a completely darkened room.
My sluggish steps to my bed stop—closely followed by the beat of my heart—when I detect I'm being watched. I blink several times to clear my blurry vision when my eyes lock in on a dark shadow standing at the side of my bed. My lips twitch, dying to spill the screams running through my brain, but my mouth fails to cooperate. I'm once again rendered mute by fear.
Even frightened, my naturally engrained fighter instincts kick in. It’s not just me I’m protecting anymore; it’s also my baby. I'll protect him until I take my very last breath.
Any chance of leaving my room with my heart intact flies out the window when the shadowed figure steps out of the darkness and mutters, “Hello, Kitten.”
Goosebumps rush over my skin as a dash of disbelief taints my blood. I shake my head, certain my eyes are playing tricks on me.
When the brisk shake of my head fails to clear the image in front of me, I take a step closer to the denim-clad man. With my composure balancing precariously between insanity and lucidity, my eyes scan every inch of Rico’s body, seeking any type of morbid injury.
I fail to find any. Other than his hair being clipped close to his scalp, and his dark eyes concealed by a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, he looks the same he always has—dark and dangerous rolled into one unbelievably handsome package.
“How?” I want to say more, but I’ve been rendered speechless. I can barely grasp what is and isn’t reality, let alone speak.
Rico removes his glasses and places them on my dresser. Tears fill my eyes when his beautifully tormented gaze locks with mine. “There was only one way I could leave my family, Kitten.”
“Not breathing,” we quote at the same time.
“But. . . it can’t. . . you’re. . .” Nothing I'm saying makes any sense. It can’t be helped, though. I'm staring at a ghost.
When Rico moves closer to me, his spicy scent engulfs my senses, adding further confirmation that my imagination isn’t playing tricks on me. Rico is standing before me—alive and well.
You’d think my first reaction would be to throw my arms around his neck and never let him go. It isn’t. My palm sets on fire when I strike him hard across the face.
“How could you do that to me?” I snivel through a sob.
Unable to hold back the desires of my heart any longer, I throw my arms around his neck. I seek deeper contact, needing more, always wanting more when it comes to him. I bury my face in his neck and breathe in his scent, my mind spiraling, my heart shut down.
He scoops me into his arms and moves us to sit on my bed. I cling to his plain white shirt, certain he’ll vanish at any moment. Holding my jaw in his shaking hands, his riddled-with-remorse eyes dance between mine, relaying his sympathies for the horror I’ve been living the past four weeks without a word needing to trickle from his lips.
“You broke my heart,” I whimper with heartache in my brittle tone.
The pain in his beautiful eyes grows. “I know, Kitten, but we needed it to look real. We knew they’d be watching you. Your grief added to the belief of our story.”
I frown in confusion. “Our?” My mind is still reeling.
He brushes a tear off my cheek. “Erik and me. Erik isn’t a lawyer. He works for the FBI.” My confusion skyrockets when he adds on, “So do I.”
“What?” It’s hard to get my words out with how tight my throat is.
