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The scar tissue on my palm pulses, suddenly making itself known. I rub my thumb over the jagged skin, recounting my talk with London and what she revealed about the bodies—Mary’s victims.
A peculiar calm settles over me, similar to the moment when I’d figure out the perfect scheme for a client’s revenge, like when the puzzle pieces suddenly all come together.
37
SHEAR PASSION
ALEX
Iwatch Blakely enter the garden room through the glass slider.
All beautiful, restrained fury, she says, “You went too fucking far.”
Maybe.
But she should realize by now there are no lengths I won’t go to in order to protect her, to keep her mine.
I finish shaving off the thorns on the stem, then hold out the red rose to her. “I like your mother,” I say, decidedly skipping over the part where we argue a moot point. “I don’t know why you don’t spend more time with her. She’s fascinating.” I glance around the opulent garden room. “I can see you in a place like this, raised with wealth and the finer things in life. It suits you.”
“Yeah. Cold, unfeeling, shallow.” She snatches the rose from my hand and tosses it to the Carrara marble floor. “The personality I used to have.”
“I’d reason you still do,” I say, setting aside the shears, “seeing as you stone-cold left me this morning without even a Dear John letter.”
“This isn’t a game, Alex. You involved my mother.”
I wipe my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t planned to involve her to this extent, but turns out Vanessa Vaughn knows more about her daughter than Blakely realizes. Once the call was made on the spoofed number, Vanessa couldn’t be placated by simply having Blakely diverted for one day.
She legitimately seemed to care about her daughter’s welfare, a detail Blakely led me to believe was the opposite. Truthfully, I wasn’t prepared for the authority Mrs. Vaughn commanded over the situation. But, seeing as Blakely’s plan has been effectively thwarted, and her mother has entrusted her into my care, it seems to be working out for the best.
“I told you, turning yourself in wasn’t an option.” At her incensed silence, I assure her, “She’ll be safe. The sooner we resolve the issue, the sooner your mother’s worries will be assuaged, and her involvement won’t have to go any further.”
Her features draw together as she steps toward me. “Are you threatening her?”
The insult smarts. “I know trust is difficult, but after last night, you shouldn’t question my motivation. I would never intentionally hurt you, Blakely.”
“Trust?” She narrows those sea-green eyes on me. “You put spyware on my phone. How’s that for trust?”
A desperate measure I had to take. I sensed her uncertainty last night. With her volatile emotions, I couldn’t risk losing her again. And I couldn’t risk she’d do exactly what she attempted to do this morning, not with a deranged serial killer threatening us.
“I will do whatever it takes to protect you,” I say. “Even from yourself.”
She closes her eyes and shakes her head, aptly displaying her frustration. “What are you wearing?”
Her segue throws me, and I look over my dark-gray Versace suit. “Dress for the job you want, or the job you want others to believe you have. Something to that vein. I’m your lawyer now.”
“You’re so delusional, you don’t even know who you are anymore.”
I step around the bench, reaching her before she can recoil. I cup her face between my palms, ensnaring her eyes with mine. “I’m the man who burned his life down for you. I’m the man who will take a life without question if it means keeping you safe, and I will have no measure of guilt or regret, because I’ll stop at nothing to keep us together.”
Her gaze flits over my face searchingly, a flicker of panic present in the depths of her eyes. “And you’re still just as insane.”
My mouth tips into a crooked smile. “Love is madness, baby.”
I was crazy for her the moment she stole my breath at the bar, and every action since has been a battle within myself to accept that she owns me.
Why else do we take and steal and covet, if not to possess the person who torments us?
I took. I stole. I coveted her.
