Page 20 of Blacklist

Pausing at the mirror, I take a moment to collect myself. But it’s my mother’s face staring back at me. We have the same wide forehead dusted with freckles no makeup will cover up. My light copper hair might be the same color, but it’s not nearly as well-behaved as hers. I had to shove it into a ponytail this morning when it wouldn’t cooperate. I got my green eyes from her. It hurts to look at myself. Because no matter how much I might see my mom looking at me from the reflection, I can see the truth. My cheeks are too round to be her high-angled, regal cheekbones. I’ve never gotten the hang of eyeliner. I’m a half-baked version of her at best. And now there’s no one around to help me finish growing up.

It takes effort to force myself out of the room, but as soon as I’m in the hall, I walk straight into someone snooping around.

“What are you doing up here?” My heart pounds against my rib cage like a bird trying to escape a snare. Inhaling deeply, I will it to calm, but before I can even hope to catch my breath, I realize I’ve made the same mistake twice. Why do I keep finding Sterling Ford where he doesn’t belong?

His eyes go wide, as if I’ve yanked him back in time to the moment we met, too. They’re no longer full of the casual arrogance that had burned in them the first time we met. He is still infuriatingly hot, though, even dressed in a borrowed black suit and tie. I can tell they aren’t his by the way the cut hugs his torso. His muscles strain the fabric a bit too much. The pants are a smidge too short. It’s far too expensive a suit to be poorly tailored. No, it doesn’t fit him any more than he fits in with the people downstairs. I like him better in jeans with a chip on his shoulder.

He has potential, though, beneath that hostile frown. Even full of poorly suppressed disdain, his eyes are brilliant blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer day. He’s tamed the black mop on his head into obedience, smoothing it behind his ears, so I can actually see his face. The transformation reveals the chiseled curve of his jawline, a long, straight nose, and a pair of full lips drawn into a cupid’s bow at the top. The night we met is a blur, but I realize my memories of him didn’t do him justice. He’d smirked at the party. Smiled at the hospital. He’d tempted me before. Now as he stands before me scowling, he’s irresistible.

He’s also the last person I want to see. I don’t want him to be part of this world. But he’s mixed up with that night and I don’t know who he is any better than I understand why any of this is happening.

“Looking for the bathroom.” It’s a reasonable excuse.

I’m just not feeling terribly reasonable. “Look at this place. There are bathrooms downstairs.”

I emphasize the plural.

“So sorry to intrude, Lucky.” I feel the hate in his words, and it’s both strange and good.

I’m sick of my body being one dull ache of nothing. Hate isn’t nothing. It seethes and twists and squeezes. It whispers all the secrets I try to hide. I want more. I want every bit of loathing he can feed me.

His mouth—that annoyingly perfect mouth—opens, but nothing comes out. There’s a battle raging in his eyes, turning the sky blue orbs into stormy seas. I don’t expect it when he says, “I’m sorry about your mom.”

He has leashed the hatred he displayed moments ago. It’s still there, tugging at its bonds, wanting to be freed. Instead of feeding my darkness, he’s offering me pity. I didn’t want it the last time I saw him. I don’t want it now.

“Why are you here?” I demand.

“I came with Cyrus.”

I forgot they’re roommates. Of course, Cyrus told him what happened. I wonder how many details Cyrus shared about the car crash that killed my mother and put my dad in a wheelchair. I know what my friends think. I heard them talking when they thought I was tuned out. Whispered rumors practically shout at you when you’re the source of the gossip.

“I’ve known Cyrus Eaton since we were in diapers,” I say, “but I can’t believe he brought a stranger to my mother’s funeral.”

A muscle ticks in his jaw when he finally speaks, his words are strained. “I asked to come.”

“Why?” I don’t know how I hope he’ll answer this question.

“Because I missed your perverted strain of bitchiness and thought I’d get a fix.” He spits the words at me.

I plant my hands on my hips, glad I’d worn my soon to be sister-in-law’s dress and my mother’s sweater because I don’t feel like some girl at a party being laughed at or some girl in a hospital begging to be coddled. Maybe it’s a borrowed sense of power, but it’s one that I’m not giving back. “Do you get off on funerals? Or just death? Is that why you stuck around the hospital?”

His eyes close for a second and he takes a deep breath. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Really? You don’t say.” I have no idea why he feels the need to make amends. Doesn’t he feel alive letting this out? “I don’t really care. Just don’t sneak around my house.”

There’s a flash of something different across his features. I don’t have the word for it, but I know it. I’ve felt it. Before my anger-hungry glee can morph to embarrassment, it vanishes from him and the restraint I’d sensed in him evaporates, freeing the brute under the surface. His beautiful mouth curls into a mocking sneer and his words drip with cruelty. “Afraid I’m going to steal your shit? What’s that painting worth?”

“More than you.” I’ll push every button until I find the right one.

“I can’t be bought.” I hear it in the final word as his raging ocean eyes sweep past me and down the hall. The hate is back. It’s contempt, really. Not aimed at me exactly but rather at all of it. The thick Persian rugs beneath our feet, the sparkling crystal lights overhead, my mother’s beloved paintings hanging on the wall. “Did you think I came for you? Maybe I was just going to rifle through your mom’s drawers. It’s not like she’ll be needing any of this.”

The truth knocks the air out of me and I gasp no longer fueled by venom. He’s right. She won’t.

Mom could have hung those paintings anywhere in the house. She could have shown them off to guests. Bragged about how much she paid for them. I’d seen enough of my friends’ parents engage in artistic pissing contests to know that’s how it was supposed to work. But art wasn’t about status to her. She hung them there because she loved them and wanted to start and end her day with beauty.

And all that was gone now. In its place is a void, and Sterling Ford just knocked me right back into it.

“Screw you.” I can’t get my voice to rise louder than a whisper. It’s physically painful to speak. How dare he come in here and judge her? All he sees is money, but I know the truth.