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Gracie walks around and sits on the edge of the table, close enough that I can smell her fruity-candy perfume.
We lock eyes and something shifts in her demeanor, softens.
She leans toward me, showing much more cleavage than seems accidental.
I push up from the chair and stand to create some distance between us.
She eases off the table and follows me.
I step back.
She takes two steps forward.
Justice has some messed-up family. If I didn’t worry she’d bring out her gun, I’d put out my arm to keep her at a distance She takes another step forward, too close. She’s practically pressed to my front.
“What are you doing?”
She grins. “Come on. I saw you checking out my backside when I picked you up at the airport.”
I can’t help but laugh. Backside? Maybe the most unsexy word in the English language. She’s joking, right? “I want to speak to your mother. The sooner the better, and, like you, I look at a lot of people, even evaluate them. It’s a reflex.”
Tilting her head, she stares at me. “Guess Momma was right. You are a good man.”
Seriously? “So, you’re using your looks to try to manipulate me into revealing what a dog I am?”
She shrugs.
No. Not good enough. “First, my actions aren’t that involuntary. I don’t knee-jerk fuck women. Second, and this I really don’t get, how can a group of women dedicated to female empowerment use their own sexuality to gain position? Isn’t that what you’re fighting against?”
Gracie slaps an angry hand to my chest. “If you’re stupid enough to fall for those things, if you can’t overcome your own programming, please don’t think that I’m dumb enough not to use that to my advantage.”
Damn, she’s scary as hell.
* * *
Gracie leadsme inside the brightly decorated office of Mukta Parish. My heart jumps at the site of the dark-haired woman who last left me with a smile on my face. Justice.
She stands up, turns, and those eyes—a deep darkness that captures pinpricks of light and turns them to stars—open wide for me, welcome me, greet me like I carry something she’d been desperately waiting for, something she desperately needs.
Dammit. I wish I could be angry at her or, close down what I feel. But I can’t forget that she’d told me her nightmare as a way to offer comfort, forget that she’d risked herself for Amal, forget the intent in her seamless nighttime eyes as she’d launched the grenade that saved us, or forget the lilt in her voice as she’d serenaded me with that damn song. And I won’t ignore now the lost and broken parts of her that call to me, this woman who once threaded her hand through mine, her body around mine, and herself around my heart.
I give up trying to scowl at her. Anger won’t take root right now, not when I’m so grateful to see her here and okay. I understand her too well and realize after my time with Gracie that Justice leaving me was her way of protecting me.
Not that I need protecting—and that’s something she has to understand.
As I walk across the room with her singularly in my focus, I notice she looks shaken and worried. Two states I’m not used to seeing on her.
What happened?
I risk a glance at Leland and Mukta and find them exchanging a silent and telling look. I don’t give a shit. If they want my cooperation, they’ll have to put up with me being here for Justice. A woman I care for so deeply that looking at her without touching her causes a pain in my throat that blocks me from speaking.
She lowers her eyelashes. “You looked so peaceful sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
The corners of my mouth twitch, but I hold back the smile. Not because I want her to feel worse, but because I don’t want to give any leverage to Mukta Parish. “I appreciate you leaving my passport at the airport. That was kind of you.”
I’m so close now that we are inches apart. Warmth and a subtle odor of lavender radiate from her. There’s true regret in her eyes when she dips her head and whispers, “You don’t have to join my family. Or this mission.”
Oh hell, bye-bye leverage. I wrap my arms around her and nearly groan with relief as I pull her close. “It’s done, Justice, so let’s not discuss it anymore because I’m in it with you.”
