Mine to Steal (Mine to Love) (40 page)

That event a year ago doubled my clientele and introduced me to businesses across the country, business
es like Cave Camo and Outdoor. Cavette called me because one of my newer clients was so pleased with our work they referred him to us. It wasn’t easy landing the contract, and I had to jump through hoops to get the half I did but jumping through those hoops is how I met Faith.

Three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick the woman out of a lineup. Today, she’s permanently etched in my
memory, and she’s probably never leaving. As much as I want her to be with me, there’s nothing more I can do. It’s a choice she has to make, one that she’s already made by agreeing to marry Brad.

Some runners ahead of me are slowing, a few turning around as I reach the same location. I slow my strides until I can see what’s happening,
but there are emergency vehicles everywhere. Another jogger passes me and speaks through labored breaths.

“
Car went over the bridge, landed on the path.” He keeps looks over his shoulder at the scene and someone else is nearing.

“Anyone hurt?”
I stop her and nod in the direction of the commotion.

“Yeah,
pretty bad. I saw them pull the woman out of the car she was covered in blood. They had her on a stretcher and were working on her.”

The runners head back in the opposite direction of the accident, but my curiosity is getting to me. I take a few steps closer and
my eyes continue to scan the scene playing out in front of me. There are several emergency vehicles on the bridge above, but the two near the accident site prevent me from seeing the severity of the accident.

I can only see a part of the car behind the ambulance, so I mo
ve to get a better look. When I do, I see the dark grey car upside down, severely damaged and my spine pricks. There are two paramedics bringing a stretcher around with a person strapped to it and I struggle to keep feeling in my legs.

It can’t be her.

I walk a few steps closer until the police officers that have the area roped off stop me. I strain to get a better view, but all I see is her bloodied brown hair and her black coat that’s been cut. I can’t make out her features because the oxygen mask over her face shields her.

“Please, I think I know her,” I plead with them to let me through.
“Faith!”

“We can’t let you through.”

“Are they taking her to St. John’s?”

“Sir, you need to turn around and go back home. There’s nothing you can do here.”

I glance at my watch and realize I’ve only been gone for fifteen minutes, so I turn around and haul ass home to get my car and meet the ambulance at the hospital.

As I make my way up the complex entrance,
I try to figure out the quickest route to the hospital. I might need Jett to drive me because my head is all over the place.

I’m running on pure adrenaline when I get to the door and find it unlocked. Thank God he’s still home.

“Jett.” I call in the direction of his room. “Where are you?”

“He’s not here,” a voice says
from the couch causing me to whip around.

“Faith?”

“Jett
told me that you weren’t going to be back for an hour.” She smiles, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.

I rush to her side and pull her to her feet and hug her body to mine.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you,” she says
with a frown on her face. “Is everything okay?”

“It is now
.” I pull away from her and step back. “I thought something happened to you. How long have you been here?”

I take a seat on one of the barstools behind the couch and watch her run her palms over the top of her dark jeans.

“About thirty minutes, I guess. Your brother said I barely missed you.” She stands up from the couch and walks to the kitchen on the opposite side of the counter. “I would have been here sooner, but there was an accident, and they had the road shut down.”

“Yeah, I had to turn a
round because of it,” I mutter. Relief floods my body to know that she’s safe, but realize that I have no idea what she’s doing here.

I walk to the refrigerator and grab a water bottle and offer her one. She refuses, so I open mine and chug half the bottle in o
ne gulp. My breathing is heavy as I try to catch my breath.

Her back is to me, but I can read her body language
, and she’s nervous. I’m still trying to figure out why she’s here.
Did she read the file already?

I use my view of her to my advantage and
chastise myself for missing the huge coat laying on the chair that I’m sitting in. She’s sitting on my couch comfortably, but I can tell she’s less at ease the longer I keep my guard up. I have to admit, my curiosity is getting to me.

All I’ve wanted is the chance to talk to Faith, but she’s already hit me in the gut when she sent me away. And after the park, when all we did was argue, I’m not sure what the result of this meeting will be. My tone is void of any emotion as she trie
s to carry on an uneasy conversation with me.

“You okay?”
she asks timidly.

“Why are you here, Faith?” I walk to the screen door across the room and look outside to have something else to focus on.

“You never called me back yesterday,” she says pointedly.

I
peer over my shoulder and scoff, “I didn’t realize it was an order.”

“Trey,” she breathes out in annoyance, rolling her eyes. “I came here to talk. I wanted to talk to you after you left the park yesterday, but you never called me back. Then you send me what I decided were drunk texts for about an hour last night.”

“What?” I ask in confusion. Em informed me that I texted her last night, which is why she came to the bar, but why Faith, too?

“Yeah
.” She nods at my phone on the counter as she juts her hip against it. “Check it.”

The message icon shows there
is a few texts I haven’t read, but I bypass those and go to the past conversation I’ve had with Faith. There are half a dozen texts from me that I apparently sent last night and it makes me come off a little psycho. To her credit, she never responded.

8:24 PM: Good luck with Emerson

8:47 PM: You two deserve each other

8:50 PM: You should change your name to
Tekilla

9:04 PM: Or Doubt. Because you do

9:13 PM: Are you kidding me? You’re going to believe a brown-nosing asshole like Emerson over me?

9:19 PM: Screw it. I don’t care.

The look on my face must be telling because she gives me a crooked smile, but I don’t return it.

“Is it true?”
she asks breaking eye contact.

“Is what true?”

She’s watching me scroll through the rest of the texts. “You don’t care?”

“If you believe it, then why are you here?”

She rolls her head as if every bit of tension has her wound tight. She straightens and focuses her attention on me. “Because I wanted to talk. To really talk this time.”

“Go home, Faith. Go back to your fiancé and leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that.”

“And why is that?”

“I can’t go back to my fiancé because he’s only my fiancé if I accepted his proposal.”

I narrow my eyes at her, trying to decipher her words, but it’s not making sense. She
admitted to me yesterday he asked her to marry him. She said yes.

“So you’re not engaged?”

“No.”

“But you let me think so?”

“I wasn’t trying to lie, but I wanted to sort everything out. Either way, I couldn’t say yes, not if I didn’t love him.”

“But you said yesterday that you do.”
Didn’t she?

“No I didn’t,” she utters with a lifeless laugh. “You assumed
, and I didn’t correct you.”

“Who’s playing games now, Faith?”

“When I called you yesterday, I wanted to hear what you had to say. I never gave you the chance when it happened, and I felt I owed you that much.”

“Faith, you’re a smart woman, but you’ve ignored several signs.”

“So tell me what I missed because I did some thinking about what you told me, and I believe you when you say you wouldn’t sabotage my career.”

“So what changed?”

“Despite how pissed I was with you, a part of me thought it was suspicious, but I had to keep my head on straight and get as many details as I could. The night you came to see me, clearly I was in no place to hear you out.”

“Yeah, I’m sure there is
a number of things you forgot.”

She ignores my comment and continues, “The next morning when you
told me that you figured everything out, I wanted to hear it, but I never got the chance when Brad showed up.”

“So why didn’t you call after he left? Hell, why did you make me leave?”

“I needed to diffuse the situation and after you left, we talked. He was telling me about how you went behind my back and got the job. He said Cal fired Rock Solid and there was no way you ever planned on hiring me.”

“And you obviously believe him because I haven’t heard a thing from you since - until yesterday.”

She looks down and fidgets with her hands. “Honestly, I did. I got wrapped up in the story because the one thing we told each other when Cal split the job is that we each wanted the whole thing.”

“Yeah, Faith. We both
may have felt that way, but I never thought you’d screw me over, but it must have been in the back of your head because you were quick to believe Brad.”

“I let you leave yesterday, believing too many lies
, and I had to fix it.” She looks at me, and I can see the truth in her eyes.

“What lies did I believe?”

“That I accepted Brad’s proposal, that I really thought you were capable of hurting me like that.” She turns away and swipes at her eye.

“Are you saying all of this because of the file?”

She looks me with narrowed eyes and furrowed brow. “What file?”

“The one I left at your apartment this morning.”

“You came to see me?” she asks in an almost inaudible whisper.

“Yeah, I left some things under your door mat.”

“What was it?”

“You need to see it for yourself; there’s a lot about Brad you don’t know.” I realize I have more questions that need to be answered. “If you haven’t seen the file yet, why are you here? Why did you turn
Brad down?”

“Because
you listened to my stories about Len. And you reminded me of the advice he gave me all those years ago.”

She walks toward me and raises her hand to my
jawline, but I grab her wrist gently and pull it away. “And Brad?”

“Done,” she answers as her lips turn into a smile.

Without another moment to waste, I yank her to my chest, one arm rests on the small of her back and my hand on her cheek as I look into her eyes. “Done?”

“Yeah
,” she repeats again, this time in a breathy voice. “Done. Are you gonna kiss me or what?”

I lower my face to hers
, and our lips briefly touch, but I stop, needing a moment to see her. Concern etches her features, but I run my thumb over her lips, wanting nothing more than to taste her lips freely.

“Do you have any idea how much I’ve wanted this?” I ask placing a soft kiss to her lips. Faith’s hands are gripping my shoulders, her fingers tensing in anticipation
, and she closes her eyes as she nods in agreement. I lean in again, and she returns the brief kiss, but my grip on her back tightens. Her hands begin a slow, tortuous journey from my shoulders as she snakes her arms around my neck holding my lips to hers.

Our mouths mesh together in perfect synchronization, her hands fisting in my hair. I lift her tiny frame off the floor
, and her legs wrap around my waist holding me like a vice grip.

Her tongue grazes mine and a soft moan escapes her, encouraging me to go on. But I’m suddenly aware that my brother could walk in at any moment
, and I’m not willing to share this with anyone else. I pull away with her still in my arms, her legs still tangled around me and we stare at each other, our breathing erratic. “What’s wrong?”

“Jett.” It’s one word, but it’s enough.

She smiles and mumbles to my lips, “Bedroom.”

It’s one word, but it’s enough.

Neither of us is willing to let go of the other as we continue to kiss our way to the room. I try to shut the door with my foot, but miss so she kicks it with her leg and slams it with impressive force. I laugh against her lips and draw her bottom lip in between mine. I place her on the bed and she scoots back toward the headboard; her eyes remain glued to mine as I begin a slow descent crawling over her.

She wraps her arms around my neck,
securing herself to me and me to her and all defenses I’ve ever had dissipate. “Trey,” she murmurs my name and it takes every bit of strength to stop kissing her. “I want you, but -”