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“Speaking of cards, Lillian Pasternak knew my birthday was in the summer when we used to come here as a family. Every year since I was eight she gave me a birthday card. Every summer she,” I bit off the words, willing the rising hysteria in my voice to settle, eyes focused on one of the buttons of his henley as he shuffled through the cards he was forced to take from me. “They were family to me too. And they were killed for living near me?” My last words were little more than a whisper as I wrapped my arms around myself in an attempt to hold myself together. I let my head fall to my chest as the world seemed to implode around me.
Decker’s shoes were all important to my focus, and I resisted slightly when he hooked his index finger under my chin and made me look back up at him. As I blinked up at him, the wall of tears that had been building in my eyes finally spilled over and my vision cleared enough to see raw compassion in his eyes. And something akin to guilt as well.
“Lake, I’m so sorry for giving you news that way. I had no idea you were close with them.” He swallowed hard, and I could have sworn I’d felt his thumb graze my jaw before his hand fell back to his side. “I’m just trying to keep you safe, and I keep hitting every roadblock to find out who is doing this.”
“I don’t know who’s doing this!” My frantic yell bounced off the walls, cutting through the relative silence around us. “I don’t even know how to start. How do I pluck information out of the air when I don’t know the context?” My voice had dropped with every word, sounding defeated to my own ears.
Decker took me by the shoulders and walked me back toward the chairs, setting me down in the one I’d been sitting in earlier, before life had gone even more crazy and murderous. His hands lingered on my shoulders a moment longer before he pulled away leaving me feeling bereft of his touch immediately. My skin had come to life at his touch, grounding me amidst a tempest of emotional turmoil. He sat in the chair that Aiden had been parked in earlier and turned the intensity of his gaze on me. But where usually there were flashes of annoyance in his eyes, now there was only compassion.
“Talk to me, Lake. Tell me all the secrets you’ve been hiding away.” His tone was gentle, imploring even.
“They don’t matter. My secrets have nothing to do with any of this.”
Decker gave a small twitch of a smile. “How about you tell me, and I’ll figure out if there’s a connection or reason for you to be on anyone’s radar.”
I wanted to resist, knowing that once the information was out there, I wouldn’t be able to live behind a mask of indifference anymore. Scout had been my longest confidant when it came to the real Lake Harrington, and I didn’t want to let go of that last bit of control, the last thing that was reallymine. I wanted to resist more than anything, but that damn lip twitch from him was the same as a radiant grin on anyone else, and I felt myself slipping into comfort with him.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and tried to figure out how to tell this man the entirety of my own story. “Well,” I sighed, “you already know I went to college secretly.”
“You say it like you got a few credits instead of a Master’s of Finance.” He had a look of incredulity on his face as if he couldn’t believe I wasn’t shoving it in everyone’s face, but he was also right. I didn’t acknowledge my academic accomplishment for one simple reason. If I got excited about it, I’d be so disappointed if my father found out and only expressed disinterest.
Instead of commenting on his assessment, I shrugged a shoulder and continued. “So, I started doing my own work on the side since working was more of a hobby than necessity. And it turned out I was pretty good with stocks.” I couldn’t bring myself to sound all that committed since I didn’t want to reveal any of this in the first place. I was starting to feel stripped as I spoke, like he was seeing far too much of me.
“I invested what I made at the beginning because I still had my trust, and I was pretty sure I could live off the interest of those investments after a while. But I wanted to do a bit more, and every time my father held money over my head like I needed him or his wallet to survive the world, well, I kind of lost it there for a bit.” My mind wandered to my mild breakdown when I was 21.
Robert had been riding me hard about my “lifestyle” of clubbing almost every night. I’d needed the escape of the dance floor constantly back then, and I hadn’t mastered the art of pretending to drink, so I’d been a little bit of a mess, I could admit. But he’d made me feel so small and insignificant that I’d broken, turned to alcohol-fueled sex to bury the emotions I couldn’t sweat out on the dance floor. I hadn’t come out of my spiral until Scout had locked me away to dry out and catch a bit of reality. I’d been locked away right here that frigid winter. The sand that used to burn my feet, now covered in snow. The landscape was bleak, but the isolation had been what I’d needed to climb out of my own attempted self sabotage.
Instead of voicing my humiliating breakdown to Decker, I shook it off and turned my gaze to him, wondering how he would take my next revelation. The one part of my life I was most proud of. “After I crawled out of my pity party,” I said, trying to play it off as something small and worth joking about, but Decker cut me off.
“It wasn’t a pity party, Lake. I know you pretty much raised yourself, and I know you’ve drawn a line in the sand with your father. I don’t pretend to understand the relationship there since father relationships were rarely something I was around, but I understand wanting to make the only person you have left want you in their life as much as you want them in yours.” The flash of hurt in his eyes made me think he was telling me the truth, expressing a secret of his own in a way that gave nothing away but let me in just a little. It was that knowledge that made me feel comfortable enough to tell him the rest.
“Thank you,” I said softly before clearing my throat and moving on. “So after I cleaned up my act, I wanted to do something for myself that made me feel like… I don’t know, like I was doing something significant. My father was always bringing up the money I relied on for everything and how it was all his, so I made my own and used his in other ways.” I chewed on my bottom lip for a few moments, still wanting to cling to my truths. “I started donatinghismoney to places that needed it more than I did. Homeless shelters, programs that fed the underprivileged, little things here and there. I did it originally to have my own version of dumping money in the streets, so to speak, but to see the changes made in lives because of something I had more than enough of. It made me feel whole for the first time since,” my voice cracked on the last word and I looked down at my knees trying to pull myself together.
I felt Decker place his hand over mine and my gaze shot up to his. The expression he wore was of sympathy and something I didn’t understand. But whatever it was, it was soft and made my heart beat rapidly in my chest. Without the harsh lines of irritation and judgment, Decker Mullins was god-like in his beauty. And he understood what I’d been trying to say. Since my mother died and took a piece of her daughter with her.
Inhaling long and deep, I continued. “So, yeah, I liked who I was when I was helping, so I dove into it. I worked in kitchens at shelters. I helped get land together for an animal shelter. I started a foundation to help get teens off the streets and educated and trained in fields they wanted without the weight of money and a place to sleep on their shoulders.” I looked down as I felt my face flushing with embarrassment. “Can I move on from this? I’m still not used to someone besides Scout knowing the full extent of my work.” It was easy to get carried away talking about what she loved, but it also made nerves hit harder when they finally caught up.
Decker was silent for a long time, making me wonder if he’d tuned me out or worse, fell asleep listening to me go on and on about myself. I chanced a look back at him and a gasp lodged in my throat. The raw intensity in his eyes had my heart rate rising, an animal instinct that warned me he was too big of a presence for me. I almost cowered back in my chair until I watched him slowly but surely bank the intensity of that look until the stoicism he used like a crutch was back in place.
“So you’re a trader by day, a very involved philanthropist by afternoon, and a party girl heiress by night?” He leaned back and rubbed his hand down his mouth, blinking in obvious wonder at me. “That’s a pretty packed dance card.”
“I do have a reputation to uphold,” I said wryly. I needed to stick to the facts here and stop noticing the way he was looking at me, wonder or not.
“Do you? Is it so bad that people see your accomplishments?” He looked genuinely curious, so it was hard to bristle with offense at his blunt question. Not to mention, the logical part of my brain knew it was an easy enough question for anyone that wasn’t me.
“The people worth sharing myself with already know.” I had meant Scout and the fact that she was the closest thing to a sister I had, but the spark of heat that passed through Decker’s features had my body humming with awareness. “I don’t need awards and praise for trying to make the world better in my own way. Besides I spent enough time cultivating the perfect public persona to piss off my dad, so why fix it if it ain’t broke.” My last words sounded almost southern in accent as I spoke them half-heartedly.
“So, all the tabloid articles, the partying, the string of men, they’re all just to piss off your father?” He sounded almost sullen.
“I’m a therapist’s wet dream when it comes to my daddy issues. I know it logically, but when I’m around him…” I shook my head with frustration. “There’s just something about him that has me stuck in defense, always reacting to him.”
“I know the feeling,” Decker mumbled. I was about to ask him to share a bit of his life since I was feeling bared to the world, but he moved on as I opened my mouth. “None of this would account for someone out to harm you though.”
“Yeah, I’m aware! I don’t know who would be targeting me, since I honestly lead a pretty boring life despite what the papers print. I don’t even drink that much when I’m at a club.” I narrowed my eyes on him. “I’m pretty sure this has everything to do with my father and the work he does, though what that work is I couldn’t tell you.”
“Anything else you’ve been holding close to the chest that you need to share?”
I shook my head and Decker sighed, leaning back and setting his ankle on his opposite knee in an attempt to look comfortable. “Well, I’ve never been good at sugar coating truths, so I’ll be my usual ‘asshole self’ as Kasey likes to call it. There's a man known to many agencies world wide as The Wraith. He’s a killer for hire with one calling card to let those around the target know that it was him. Today we found that calling card on the roof of the house next door.” He paused and watched me, probably waiting for me to lose it.
