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"I don't believe you're a liar, Mikayla," he sighed. "Any more than I believe Maddix is a killer. What I do believe is that you think you saw Maddix. It was evening. Shadows stretch over the building site at that time of day. That can give anyone, anything, a far different look."
A tear slipped free.
God, he hated that single tear, the proof that she was fighting so hard to hold back the pain he was inflicting.
"Of course, that's all it was." She nodded in agreement. A mocking, ironic agreement. One filled with betrayal. "You figured it out, Nik. Thanks so much for fixing this little problem for me." Her breathing hitched, breaking a heart he didn't know he had.
"Now you can get out of my house and go back to where you came from." Any other woman he knew, or had ever known, would have been cursing a blue streak at this point. Screaming. Throwing things. He could have escaped and thanked his lucky stars she hadn't actually managed to hit him in the head with anything. But not Mikayla. Her shoulders straightened, her chin lifted defiantly, and she fought her tears and her anger with everything inside her.
And it was killing her.
Mikayla stared back at Nik, feeling as though she were going to be sick. Her chest felt tight, her heart straining at the agony resonating through her. Had anything ever hurt this bad?
No, it hadn't. It hadn't even hurt this bad when her uncle had asked her the same question.
It didn't matter that it was a logical question to ask.
"Strange." Her voice sounded strangled. "You never asked me about what happened that night. You never even asked me about the possibility that I could have mistaken someone else for Maddix, did you, Nik?"
If he had asked, she could have told him why she was so certain. She could have told him how the sunlight pierced past the shadows, blazed across Maddix's distinctive face for those few, unforgettable moments.
But Nik hadn't asked her.
"There was no reason to ask, Mikayla," he stated; his expression seemed to be filled with pity. "I talked to Maddix, his family, his alibis, and his neighbors. He was at home, exactly as he said he was."
Mikayla nodded again. Whatever it took to get him out of her house, out of her life. She just wanted to hide and lick the wounds she could feel tearing through her heart. She had known Nik Steele was a very bad idea. She should have followed her instincts. This would teach her to do exactly that.
She couldn't believe her heart had led her astray this way. That she had been poised so close to falling for a man who had been essentially lying to her all along. 69
At least he'd had the decency not to actually seduce her, she told herself. That final humiliation hadn't been delivered.
"Mikayla, you're going to have to accept that Maddix didn't kill Eddie Foreman," Nik told her, his voice harsh. The longer he stood there, the more forbidding his expression became.
"Hey, I'm agreeing with you." She was fighting her tears second by second. God help her, if she didn't get him out of her house then she was going to break down and humiliate herself by losing control of her tears. "You can leave now, Nik. You've explained everything. Why, Maddix should have called you earlier to fix this little problem of his."
She hated Nik. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate everything about him rather than to hurt this way. To feel those sharp talons of agony raking across her soul at the subtle lies he had practiced.
His jaw flexed, the muscles working furiously as he obviously held back whatever he wanted to say instead.
"Why don't you just leave?" she suggested as she walked to the door and jerked it open. "Go, Nik. Pack. Go back where you came from. I didn't need you before you arrived here and I don't need you now."
She didn't need anyone else to remind her that Maddix Nelson had gotten away with murder. It was shoved in her face daily. It was spray painted on her shop window; it was left in messages on her answering machine at home every night. The injustice of it boiled inside her like acid. Eddie Foreman might not have been a nice man, but he hadn't deserved to die like that. And she wasn't strong enough to bring his killer to justice.
The knowledge that there was nothing she could do about it ate at her mind like acid.
Nik stared at the door, then back to Mikayla.
He wanted to do as she ordered. God knew it was the wisest course of action. He should walk right out that door and be finished with this. It was obvious it was over. Instead, the need to touch her was rising within him by the second. It would be his last chance to touch her, to taste her. The last chance to experience that incredible pleasure, that almost peace he found in her touch.
He moved for the door as though to follow the order. His gaze remained locked on hers, every cell of his body honed in on the warmth of her. As he stopped in front of her, his hand gripped the edge of the door, pulled it from her grip, and closed it gently while she watched in shock.
"What now?" she whispered, the anger breaking through for a moment. "Do you still want an answer to that question you asked earlier? A little or a lot?" Her lips tightened, that spark of pain darkening her eyes further. "Guess what, Nik? How about none? Nothing. There's nothing more that I want from you. No, just leave, so I can forget you ever existed."
"Why do you think I'm leaving?" His voice was a harsh growl that surprised both of them.
In that tone, he heard what he watched her sense. A hunger such as he had never known in his life. A need that burned in his gut, in his balls, that tightened and engorged his dick to painful hardness.
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