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“God, no, Evelyn—”
“Then explain it to me in words I can understand!”
“I just wanted to find you,” Lucian said, pleadingly. “It was just before I found you at the tracks in the blizzard. You would have frozen out there. Pearl would have died. I swear to God my only intention was getting you home.”
“So you could eventually give me away?”
“I never would have agreed to his conditions if I wasn’t desperate.”
“What exactly were your conditions, Parker? I’d like to know what price my friend puts on my survival.”
Parker’s face twisted with a multitude of emotion. “You weren’t supposed to find out this way. We should still have two weeks together.”
“You tricked me.” Her fingers went to her lips. “All of this was to get me to go to bed with you.”
Lucian stiffened and Parker’s head jerked up. His green eyes pleaded as his head shook in denial. “No, I just wanted to show you what it was like to be loved.”
“I was loved! At least I thought I was. Now I don’t know anything!”
“Evelyn, get dressed. I’m taking you home.”
Lucian reached for her, and she snatched her arm back. “Don’t touch me.” Tears rushed to her eyes. “How could you do this to me? To us? To everything we had?” Her chest tightened and she fought to get the words out. “I loved you.”
All the blood rushed from Lucian’s face. He stepped forward, but she stepped out of his reach. “Evelyn, please, come home with me and I’ll fix everything.”
She wiped her eyes and stared at their surroundings. “I don’t have a home.”
“Yes, you do, with me. Please, baby. I’ve been miserable since you left. I love you. We can fix this—”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. There is no fixing this. The two of you are perverted.”
She glanced at Parker, but he wouldn’t look at her. “And you, pretending you live by some code of honor. Your moral compass must have been broken that day.” Turning back to Lucian, she analyzed her path of escape. She needed pants.
She spun on her heel and went to the room where her clothes were already put away in drawers. Yanking down her bag from the closet, she tossed it on the bed and began filling it with whatever she could find. When she found jeans, she slid them onto her legs. Her limbs convulsed with uncontainable emotion.
Both men crammed in the bedroom doorway, staring at her as she laced up her sneakers.
“Stay here, Scout, I’ll go,” Parker said quietly.
She stilled. “No.”
“Where will you go?” he asked.
She didn’t know. She wouldn’t go back to her apartment. She’d go where no one could find her.
“Evelyn, come to the hotel. I’ll give you a separate room. You can’t just walk away like this.”
She knotted her laces and stood. Her bag zipped with an obnoxious final zing. She turned and they backed up.
Parker stood aside, but Lucian blocked her exit like an immovable oak. “Get out of my way.”
“No,” he rasped. “I can’t let you go. I can’t lose you again.”
Shaking her head, she looked up at him, tears running down her face. “You already lost me.”
When he didn’t budge, she said, “Please, move.”
He was an anchor. She tried to shove past him and his strong hands caught her arms.
“Don’t touch her!” Parker snapped, closing in on him.
Lucian turned and snarled, “You stay out of this.” Turning back to her, he pleaded. “I can’t let you leave.”
Wasn’t this a pretty picture? Lucian, the king, backed into the corner as the black knight stood poised and ready to attack from the left. She was prepared to do anything to knock them down.
The queen has more power than any other piece. She is the most coveted player of the game and can move any way she pleases.
Swallowing hard, she looked up at the man she had stupidly trusted with her heart and said the only word she hoped would get through to him.
“Checkmate.”
His eyes closed and his face crumbled. Social intercourse. It was all a game. He’d taught her how to play, by rules she never chose, and he lost. He stepped aside.
She crossed the threshold and swung the front door wide.
“Scout!”
Lucian held Parker back. She never expected to lose him twice. She was free now. She finally understood she’d been manipulated, and while she was still standing, she was barely breathing. All her questions suddenly had answers, and she realized her unwanted ignorance had actually been a blessing in light of her reality. She’d lost the only two people she could ever count on.
As she stepped into the elevator, she turned and faced them. What a haggard pair they made. Good. As bad as they looked on the outside, she was a hundred times worse on the inside.
Lucian’s dark, onyx eyes met hers. Those were the eyes that could make grown men crumble, with enough determination to dominate a city the size of Folsom. He set those eyes on her, his mouth a hard line, drawn with challenge. “You get a five-minute head start, Evelyn, while I settle some things with your friend here. And then I’m coming for you. I’m done playing games.”
