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“Isaiah has set up a secure connection, so you can video chat with your family.”
Evie’s mouth falls open, and her eyes light up. “Really?”
I shrug. “That’s what they told me.”
After hours of listening to their arguing and Isaiah insisting that she can’t have contact in order to make the governor squirm, he is finally budging and allowing her to talk to them. Instead of the pictures and videos that had been sent sporadically since her capture, things are finally changing.
She has no idea how lucky she is.
Other than Cory, I don’t have anyone else who cares.
Not even my board of directors has noticed my absence.
I take a step back, my hands curling into fists. “They’re going to let me walk down with you.”
“I’m not going to talk to them here?”
“No, apparently you’re going to be talking to them in one of the rooms downstairs. There’s a better connection there.”
I have no idea how or why Isaiah is trusting me with this information.
Only that he’s trying to get on my good side and minimize the damage.
Fat fucking chance of that happening.
As soon as I get out of here, I’m cutting off ties with Isaiah, consequences be damned.
Evie nods. “Okay. I’ll see you in a few minutes then.”
With that, I spin on my heels and leave her standing there, looking uncertain and sad. Half of me wants to run back into the room and make sure she is okay, but the other half, the stronger one, keeps walking until I am at the top of the stairs. I notice the tight knots in my stomach have unfurled.
You haven’t done anything wrong. She already knows what this is.
Becoming friendly hasn’t changed anything about our dynamic. If anything, it makes things more complicated on my end, with my guilt often rearing its ugly head when I least expect it. However, I have a tight handle on things. Or at least I try to, given how many lives are at stake…
Once we’ve all played our parts here, Evie can go back to a life in the classroom, grading assignments and enjoying her books while I focus my attention elsewhere and work on expanding the company and finding a new business partner. The idea of taking Evie back and walking away from her for good doesn’t settle well with me.
And it makes me want to punch my fist through a wall.
Something about her eats me up on the inside.
As far as I can tell, there is nothing physically wrong with me, except for the fact that I can’t get Evie out of my head.
Damn it.
I need to get away from here, to drink until I can forget and purge myself of her and everything here once and for all. Neither our friendship nor my blossoming attraction toward her is going to do either of us any good.
Not when we both have a role to play.
The last thing I want to do is to throw sex into the mix only to have it complicate things further.
It’s already bad enough that we are friendly.
Later, after Evie and I are escorted to a quiet wing of the house and Riley and Felix are left to keep an eye on her, I signal to Hayes to march me straight to the gym. I try not to think of her face or the twinkle in her eyes when she smiles, but it was hard.
Again and again, I repeat all of the reasons to myself as I throw one hit after the next until the punching bag creaks, and I am covered in sweat. By then, the outside world has turned to gray, and there is nothing but silence all around me. Using my teeth, I rip off the gloves and throw them into another corner of the room. When I am done, I am going to find Isaiah and demand to be released, promising my silence in return. I want to put as much distance between myself, this disaster, and Evie as possible.
“You’ve been working out a lot lately.”
