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So Tess simply picked up another plate. “Figgs was so… weird. All jumpy and sweaty.”
“He didn’t want to help… I persuaded him.”
The slow drawl held enough warning to erase any doubt over what he meant.
“He was scared,” she said, putting the plate down. “He was scared of you…” Recalling that day, she exhaled a breath of disbelief. “My God, what was breakfast about? Why follow me? What if I wanted you to come in with me?”
“He wouldn’t have said a word. I’m good at my job.”
In a state of disbelief, she couldn’t remember what it was like not to be stunned by new revelations every twenty seconds.
Something tickled the back of her knee. A warmth. Light pressure. Someone was touching her. Oh, the… Sitting there, his elbows on his thighs, the tip of his fingers glided up an inch before she backed off.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked, grabbing for the edge of the counter at her back.
He sat up, burning the ferocity of his gaze into her. “I hated you for years.”
“Hated me?”
“None of it was your fault,” he said. “But I didn’t get that, not when I was a kid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He left, after you were born. He was gone until…”
“Until what?”
When he surged to his feet, shaking his head, Tess gasped and pushed back against the counter. He’d been so much closer to her in the past. Yet the new presence that hung in the air around him gave his proximity a much more oppressive edge.
“It’s not my place.”
How he conveyed words in such a growl without his lips moving more than a millimeter was impressive. How could one man undergo such a transformation in such a short space of time?
“You didn’t care about that a few days ago. It wasn’t your place to lie your way into my bed, but you did it anyway. You lied to me for sex.”
“Not for sex.”
“For what? Shits and giggles? You wanted me to humiliate myself? To bare my soul to you so you could feel superior? Or is it exploiting women’s weaknesses that gets you off?”
Without waiting for an answer, Tess turned, intending to leave, but he dropped a hand to the counter, blocking her way.
“I hated you for years.”
“Guess I have some catching up to do. I didn’t know who you were until yesterday… I still don’t know who you are.”
“I’m trying to tell you,” he said, his volume low. “Harry was all I knew, and he left because of you and your mother. That’s why I hated you.”
“You did want him to kill me,” she said, searching his fathomless expression. “You took me to that place because you wanted him to—”
“I put myself in your path to punish him. I was angry. He ripped my home away from me. I needed a mission to focus; you were the only way to hurt him.”
“Me and my mom. Who you just happened to be with when she died.”
Unapologetic, his scowl was determined. “I own what I do. If I’d killed her, I wouldn’t lie. If I’d done it, I wouldn’t have needed you.”
“You were following her.”
“Yes.”
