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So maybe not that much has changed after all.
“I…I finished early,” she lies, brushing her flyaways out of her face and trying to collect herself. “Bruce, Mabel wants you in there.”
The chef looks hesitantly between the two of us, starting to realize that he’s caught smack in the middle of something he doesn’t want to be caught in the middle of. “Uh, sure. You…you gonna be good out here?”
I can see the sigh work through her throat. “Good enough.”
He shrugs and ambles inside the diner with one anxious backward glance. When we hear the door close, the forced smile evaporates from Taylor’s face.
She storms right up to me, all fire and ferocity. My body instantly heats up when she’s close enough to touch. “Isn’t it enough to know that he’s happy and healthy and safe?” she hisses in my face.
“You’d think,” I agree. “You would certainly think.”
She’s as much of an open book as ever. I can practically read out the thoughts racing through her mind.Run or fight? Fight or run?
“There’s no point in running anymore, Taylor,” I inform her, nipping that route in the bud. “Wherever you go, I’ll find you. And next time, I won’t be so kind.”
“Is this you being kind? It doesn’t suit you.”
I reach out and finger the thin silver chain draped around her neck. The pendant is a small oval with the letter “A” inscribed on the front.
“Why did you name him Adam?” I ask abruptly.
She blinks, jarred by the subject change. “I, um…” Sighing, she gives up whatever half-baked lie she was starting to spew and offers something more vulnerable instead. “I wanted him to be like the first person born into a new world. A fresh start. I thought…” She suddenly brushes it off with a slight shake of her head. “Never mind what I thought. Now, you know his name.”
“How thoughtful of you.” I sneer. “Considering you weren’t planning on letting me be a part of his life at all.”
“I’m still not planning on it.”
I grind my teeth. It’s been less than an hour and I’m being repeatedly slapped in the face with reminder after reminder of how easily she pushes all my buttons. The badandthe good ones. “Yet another terrible decision you have no reason to make.”
“You know why I had to go,” she spits. “You know why I have to do this.”
“No, I don’t. So why don’t you explain it?”
She jerks her chin up haughtily. “Answer me honestly: you were planning on killing my father, weren’t you?”
The question ignites a skewed sense ofdéjà vu. Except that Celine never asked me a question at all; she just stood in front of me and pleaded for his life.
Please,she’d begged.Let him live. Stop looking for him. Let him go.
“Your father’s betrayal cost me several men,” I tell her. “Are you trying to tell me his life is worth more than all theirs put together?”
Taylor hesitates. “I didn’t know any of those men.”
“What makes you think you know your father?”
She hesitates again. Her cheek dimples in as she gnaws at it uncertainly. She may be pleading his case now, but all is not right between Archie Theron and his younger daughter.
Strangely, it’s not as satisfying as I expected it to be.
“What do you want, Ilarion?” she asks softly.
It’s a question I’ve been asking myself since Zane materialized in my living room. What the fuckdoI want?
I’m about to answer her when Taylor’s eyes move past me.
“Tay? Everything okay?”
