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AURORA
I’m exhausted. Weirdly satiated. And I really wanted to fall asleep next to Knox.
I practiced my deep breathing, even going so far as to leave my mouth open and drooling a little on my pillow to drive home that I wassleeping. He stroked my hair and looped his arm over me.
Once he falls asleep, though, andstaysasleep, I slip out of bed.
It’s just after one in the morning. He probably has an early alarm set to get me to the airport, but that’s not going to happen. I’m not running from this fight. I should consider myself lucky he didn’t leave me handcuffed beside him.
Luke Abernathy sent me the ring that Joel proposed with. So now… I need to see Joel and give it back. And to question him, because what thefuck?
Funny how things come full circle.
I pack a very different bag to the one Knox packed me. The last thing I add is the ring to my pocket on my way out the door.
First stop: the lobby bathroom. Not the best place to do what I have in mind, but I can’t risk making a noise in the condo. I take the pliers from my bag and find the tooth that had beenknocked out in the assault. The one Knox apparently paid to have a tracker implanted when the dentist put on the crown.
I dry the area, hold my breath, and open my mouth wide. I grip the tooth with the pliers and… three, two, one,pull.
The pain is almost worse than getting punched in the face. It’s localized to that one spot, and I groan loudly as the crown comes loose. I examine it, confirming that it’s a tracker, and wrap it in toilet paper. I drop it into the trash.
The broken piece of my tooth is still intact, at the very least.
Anyway.
I bite down on the gauze, pack the pliers away, and continue on.
On the way to Joel’s, I examine the ring Abernathy returned to me. It feels strange now. Heavy, almost. A thousand pounds packed into one diamond. It didn’t feel that way when I wore it every day.
There’s no doorman at his place, just a key to get in through the front door that Joel never bothered to take back from me. And suddenly, I’m at his door.
I knock.
And knock some more.
The taste of blood is still on my tongue.
Finally, the door is yanked open, and a sleepy Joel stares at me.
How different we are now. How differently I see him. Before, I saw him as a means of escaping my old life and a way to get closer to Beth. After all, he lived inDenver, a shiny new city where my best friend lived.
It was kismet, in a way.
But what if it wasn’t?
What if he was just another piece being slid across the chessboard?
“Rory,” he says, his eyebrows lifting. “What are you doing here?”
I hold up the ring.
He tilts his head, eyeing it. Then me. Whatever he sees in my expression has him faltering. He steps aside and waves me in, and I take the invitation with no small amount of trepidation.
“Joel Haverhill. They call you Hammerhead, don’t they?” I turn in a small circle in the center of his living room.
“It’s the middle of the night, Aurora.”
I’m Aurora now. Not Rory. Not a fiancée, or a girl he loved, or…
