Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) (7 page)

His fingers closed around my wrist, drawing my hand away from his face. The look in his eyes silenced the humor in my chest. A deep vee pushed between his brows and he glanced at my hand, the left one I’d squeezed him with. He turned it over and brushed the two rings on my finger with his thumb. The bittersweet part of the disguise.

My heartbeat overwhelmed the whoosh and bump of the train.

“One day, I’ll give you new rings and they’ll be real.”

I took my bottom lip between my teeth, clamping down on it to keep my emotions on the inside of my head. I didn’t need him to make me a promise of proposal. We were already so far beyond that. The idea though, the image that flashed through my mind of what it’d be like to have something normal with him, a proper life together...I never knew it were possible to long so deeply for a dream.

I stared at the rings. “There’s two carats on this one, I’d say it’s fairly real.”

He brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them, then drew me into his arms. “You’re right, Angel. This is real.”

I turned my face into his neck and closed my eyes.

One day though...

Chapter Seven

We pulled in to the “safe house.” An old plantation home in the middle of rolling hills with wide sweeping verandas. A kind of paradise I’d only seen in movies. It could’ve been a hole in the ground for all the difference it made to me.

He parked the car right up close to the house, and lifted the hand brake.

I
can’t do this.

How could I wait safely in this little haven while Haithem strode into danger alone?

He unbuckled his seatbelt.

I turned to him, clamping a hand over his wrist. “I’m going with you.”

“You can’t.” He slipped free of my grasp.

My heart clunked and rattled like a faulty clockwork. It didn’t seem to matter what I knew he had to do. Didn’t matter about his gift of energy to humanity or what he might achieve, because right then everything felt pretty damn uncomplicated. I loved Haithem. He was my future. I’d given up my life and my family for him. So if he had to take this risk, then I had earned the right to share the risk with him.

I watched Haithem in the expanding silence of the car.

He ran a hand down his face, but did not look at me back.
He couldn’t
. This man, who I’d once thought dauntless, couldn’t even look me in the eye.

“Why didn’t you just dump me on that island if you weren’t prepared to have me to do this with you?”

He tugged the keys from the ignition, but simply held them in his lap, glaring out the windshield. “You are doing this with me.”

“No, I’m not.” He might not have the guts to look at me but I’d stare at him until he caught fire. “You’re chickening out and leaving me behind.”

“Do you think this has been easy?” He turned to me, finally, his nostrils flaring, jaw bristling the way it did. “Haven’t I trusted you? Didn’t I tell you everything?”

My teeth snapped together. My mind flashed with all the “facts” I knew. The way the prototype worked. How it was being made in parts. How there was almost no one working in his various secure factories who understood what was actually being created. How fucking fanatically Haithem and Avner had planned this entire freaking thing out.

“I’ve put my life—other people’s lives, in your hands.” His voice was grating, yet his eyes weren’t burning as they were supposed to with the hard set of his jaw line—no his eyes were shining. “What more do you want from me, Angelina?”

I breathed deeply—
everything
. More. It all.

“I want your respect. Partnership isn’t coddling the other person, it’s trusting them to bear the burden, and face the risk with you.”

His chin lowered and he turned away, gaze falling to the keys he jostled in his lap. “I respected my parents, when what I should have done was protect them.” His features went tight, locking me out, but not before his pain struck me a winding blow.

My lungs burned. Deep down I’d known he blamed himself for what happened to them. But hearing—seeing him say so...

I rubbed my aching throat. Nothing more could emerge. We sat in the car. The silence grated, excruciating.

He touched my leg softly.

I looked at him—Haithem, back to himself. What he’d shared with me flung back wherever he suppressed it.

He smiled. My chest panged. For once I wished his smile could be less devastating. That there was some defense against his ability to turn me to butter.

“Come see the views from the bedroom.” He rubbed my knee. “They’ll change you.”

I hit the button on my seatbelt. “I think it’s safe to say, I’ve already had as much personal renovation as I can take.”

Haithem stiffened, then opened his door and stepped outside. The door slammed shut behind him. He went to the boot and took out our bags, then stalked to the house.

I stayed in my seat.

So, I’d pissed him off—well this pissed me off too.

I couldn’t pretend everything we’d been through hadn’t left its mark on me. That as much as I’d been healed by him, I’d also been damaged. Damaged by choices that plagued us both.

Yes, we loved each other.

But our love might be the most destructive force in our lives. So much love entangled with so much wrong. My hurts—his hurts. The hurts our relationship inflicted on others. There was a strain on us. Until we were done, until we came into the open having achieved a greater good, I’m not sure we’d ever be free of it.

That knowledge added another layer to my concoction of hurts. It sucked that the same fate that brought us together should be the one putting this strain on us. I opened the car door and followed him into the house. I found him in the bedroom, setting out clean clothes to change into.

“There’s a full complement of staff in the quarters out back if you need anything.” He tugged off his shirt. “I told them to give you privacy but they’ll check in on you occasionally.” He undid his belt. It followed his shirt to the floor. “You’ll be safe here.”

“I know,” I said and crawled onto the bed. Ran my gaze over his abs as his pants came down. Warmth curled in my abdomen.

I didn’t launch myself at him the way I normally would. The heavy empty feeling in the pit of my stomach overrode all else. He put on clean pants, and a shirt, then pulled something from his bag and laid it on the edge of the bed for me without a word.

An envelope
.

My pulse quickened. I’d developed an aversion to envelopes—their contents rarely went in my favor.

He fastened the button on his sleeve.

I leaned across the bed and took the envelope, tore open the top, and reached inside. My fingers closed around a small piece of plastic. I slid it out, sitting up on the bed.

“What the hell is this?”

I stared at the license in my hand.
My license
. The one with my actual name on it. The name of the girl half the globe was searching for. I shouldn’t have this thing near me let alone on my person.

I shook out the envelope. A small blue pill tumbled onto the bedspread.

My stomach twisted.

“That’s Plan D.” He looped a solid red tie at his neck, then pulled the end down through the loop.

“We don’t need Plan D. I’ll let you go off now on your own, if that makes it easier for you.” I swung my legs off the bed, then slammed the license and the pill on the bedside table. “But then you’re damn well coming back to get me.”

He didn’t answer, just pulled the knot tight at his throat.

An acrid bitterness stung the back of my mouth. “I won’t do it, Haithem.”

He raised his gaze to mine, and flipped down his collar. “Won’t do what?”

“I won’t give up.” I swallowed, eyes burning. “Plan D is giving up. I won’t do any of it.”

He smoothed the tie and stepped towards me. My heart flipped over. And there he was—the Haithem I’d first met—the shark. The man with no rules other than to win. He advanced on me now, that look in his eye. It seemed like so long since I’d seen this him.

Or maybe I’d thought he’d gone—vanquished by love.

“Yes, you will,” he said.

“No, I won’t.” I spoke between my teeth.

He reached for me, hooked his fingers over my shoulders, and looked deep down into my face. “You will.”

“I can’t,” I said. My eyes stung. “If there’s no me and you, then everything has been for
nothing
.”

“There will always be a me and you.” He gripped the back of my neck. “That’s why if the worst happens you need to leave me behind and protect yourself.”

Wetness rolled down to my lips.

“I won’t.” I grabbed his shirt. “I’ll do anything but not that.”

“You will.” He wiped my cheeks, and he brought his nose to mine. “You know how I know you will?”

I shook my head, the tip of my nose dragging on his.

“Because I know you,” he whispered. “I know how strong you are.” His breath brushed my lips. I breathed the air from his lungs. “I know I can trust you—” his fingers moved up my scalp behind my ears, tilted my face deeper to his “—that when the moment comes you will do whatever must be done—no matter how hard.”

His words melted from his mouth to mine, and I felt my lips, disembodied—
agreeing
. I heard whispered, crying, yeses and I will’s.

“Remember when you told me you were indestructible?”

A moment of pain sharper than the rest cut through the haze of him saying goodbye. I blinked and jerked back. He held me tighter, stiller—stared at me. That ugly memory pounded in the back of my head. Perhaps the worst moment the two of us ever had. When he’d thought I was a spy and sucked my darkest secrets out of my head.

“Yes, I remember.” A familiar salty tightness swelled my tongue, a mix of tears and dread.

His grip went tight behind my ears. “Swear to me that
nothing
will make you forget.”

Whatever shit I had left to lose, attacked the gates of my self control like an arc full of rabid animals. But I choked silently. Didn’t let myself gasp or cry out or fall on the floor.

No
.

I blinked and blinked. He wanted me to promise to be okay if something happened to him. I gripped his shoulders. A blanket of bleakness wrapped around me.

“There’s nothing that can make me forget.” My chin lifted. My nose bumped his. True, nothing would force me back to the dark place I’d been before. But, that didn’t mean I could take losing him.

“Tell me again what you are.” He slid his hand to the back of my skull and squeezed my hair just a little.

No way would I ever let him worry about me when he needed to look out for himself.

“I’m fucking
indestructible
.”

He planted his mouth on mine, smooshing my lips against my teeth. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back. Pulled his hair and plunged my tongue into his mouth. He held my face and kissed the breath out of me. My jaw strained, but my mouth didn’t stop opening, I couldn’t stop breathing off of his exhales. His fingers tightened in my hair. I opened my mouth wider taking more of his tongue.

He tugged on my hair, breaking the kiss.

I panted, but didn’t let go of him.

He ran kisses up my jaw to my temple, then breathed against my hair. “I love you, Angelina.”

“I love you, too,” I said, my voice only wavering at the end.

I hugged him with all the strength in my arms.

He squeezed me back.

“I need to leave now,” he said against my ear.

“I know.” I sucked back the tears, clamped down on that pain and pushed it way down into that box of hurt I used to utilize so very well.

He released me.

I made my fingers let go. Made my hands fall to my sides. He collected his bag, and I followed him out the door. Held his hand and walked with him down the hallway. Went with him onto the veranda.

He pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “I have to go.”

“So you said.” I forced my breaths in evenly.

For the first time since I’d met him, there was something truly youthful in his face. Something so vulnerable it almost tore my chest open. I held in the agony. I’d had so much practice at juggling suffering it should’ve been easier.

“Goodbye, Haithem.” I said. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

His eyes sparkled a vibrant brown.

“I’ll see you in five days.” He stepped forward and planted one last kiss on my forehead.

I watched him walk down the steps. Soaked up the sight of him for every moment I had left with him. He slid into the car. The engine started with a hum. The wheels ground against the gravel and he pulled out of the driveway.

Please come back to me.

I watched until the car passed the bend in the road visible from the veranda. Then I fell forward, gripped a post for support, breathed against my sobs while they rattled my ribs. When I could stand, when I could get air in my lungs to move, I brushed my face with my hands, dried my eyes and went back to our bedroom.

Five days.

What was five days in terms of forever?

Haithem

A car pulled up across the street.

I stared through the crack in the curtain, squinted in the dark at the vehicle. A driver emerged, opened the door. A woman stepped out, cradling a sleeping child in her arms. They walked towards the building across from me. Not that it’d have mattered if it’d been a van full of armed assassins—my own guards patrolled this building. The best guards money could buy. Except for the few I’d employed to watch over Angelina. Those were, in fact, better. The best of the best. I tugged the curtains closed, and turned to the bed.

The empty, still-made bed.

Adrenaline kept my pulse racing. Even in sleep my dreams were wired, more vivid, colorful and excruciating.

No point lying down.

The moment I set my head on the pillow I’d be met with bloody scenes, or awoken by a jolt like when you dream of falling.

I’d see her face in my mind before my eyes opened again. My heart wouldn’t slow until I proved to myself she was okay. That I hadn’t left her unsafe.

I sat in the chair beside the bed, and unlocked my phone. Flicked through saved images. None of her face—I wouldn’t risk carrying around something like that. Her hip while she lay on her side. The back of her neck while she brushed her hair. Pictures I’d dared keep.

My thumb paused over an image.

In the three days since I’d left her, there hadn’t been time to catch a breath, but I’d still had time to think about this—think about her. I tugged the tie free from around my neck and tossed it on the bed. As far as production went, things couldn’t have gone smoother. I’d most likely finish early. A lifetime of work coming to fruition, so why did I feel this tightening around my throat? That same plunging sensation I had just before I hit the ground in my sleep—before the electric jolt.

Someone had followed us on the way to the train station.

Someone had tracked us down.

Like they’d found us on that first yacht, and I still hadn’t figured out
how
. Not even Avner could explain. Losing whoever followed didn’t change the fear crawling under my skin.

Shouldn’t have left her behind.

But, I couldn’t have her here. If something happened this would be where it did. In the heart of it all. At the very center of what I’d created.