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Everywhere.
Everywhere.
Everywhere.
With six blocks to go my body overrides my will and I turn on my heel. Fuck it. I’m going back to her. I take care of all my acquisitions, and this isn’t taking care of her. This is being a goddamn coward, no matter how hard she begged.
And Daphne did beg, sweet and eloquent to the last. Her pulse beat at the side of her neck. She didn’t want me shot or arrested.
She was right. I know that. If I’m going to be gunned down or taken to my death in jail, it can’t happen before her eyes. Daphne explained her flinch at the beach, but on the whole she was too sheltered, too protected, to be able to withstand that scene. It would break her.
I know.
I turn toward Will’s again.
Four blocks.
The street beside me has expanded to the size of an eight-lane highway. Vehicles blur into one another as they go past. Every so often, one of them bursts out of the background and forces its shape to become the subject. Paint shines through the snow. The ground tries its damndest to cooperate, tilting me toward the metal and tires. Slick asphalt decreases the effectiveness of a car’s brakes. It would only be one moment of terror, a few at most, lights bearing down, blinding, erasing the car’s form, and then it would be dark it would be safe it would be over it would be over it would be—
“—worth flying her in,” a voice says, somewhere in the far distance. “Her expertise in infant brain development is—yes, that’s what I’m saying. Specializing in sensory processing. The earlier the intervention, the better. I know I don’t have to tell you that.”
He laughs and the image of a sprawling cocktail party springs to mind. Chandelier lights on the rim of a glass. A woman’s jewel-toned dress following the curve of her body. Daphne’s dark hair spilling over her shoulders as she turns her head, smiling.
“It’s a mindset issue, really. You are indeed an obstinate fuck, but you could pretend for a minute. I’m trying to—”
I run into something.
A man.
“Christ,” he says.
My depth perception is completely fucking shot, because I heard him before but I didn’t see him appear out of the background. He presses his phone to his ear, his other hand on my shoulder. Deep gray coat. Golden man. My mind absently supplies the descriptor, though his hair is not gold. His eyes are not gold. They look gold. A golden sheen.
I hear a muffled question through his phone’s speaker.
“A guy just walked into me. He didn’t notice I was here.” Because my brain is shutting down. There is no way to miss a person who’s at least as tall as I am, probably taller, though it’s hard to judge when the perspective of the painting is out of balance. Golden eyes search mine, as though he’s looking for something specific. “Are you all right?”
“Chambers street.” Terror opens its mouth into a yawning pit. “How many blocks?”
I lost count. I lost my bearings.
“Two.” He points behind him. “That way. Do you need a ride?”
I step around him and keep going.
“No, I have no fucking idea,” he says from behind me, relegated to the distance again. “I’m flying her in tomorrow, like it or not. This was a courtesy call.”
One block.
Half a block.
Brushstrokes grow like ivy across the front of Will’s building. The door handle is a block of ice, biting into my palm. It’s a fucking miracle I make it inside. I turn around and watch it close, wishing fervently for a lock.
It’s better than nothing.
Inside the lobby, warm air floats over polished tile and an equally polished desk, behind which is a doorman in a dark suit. Three security guards wait by the opposite wall. Taking out my phone and calling Will feels as impossible as explaining myself to these people, but I’ll fucking do it.
One of the guards approaches the doorman at the same time I do. “This is one of Mr. Leblanc’s brothers,” the guard says, before I can speak. “No records. Immediate access.”
