Suspicious Minds (Fate #3) (23 page)

Lorenzo waited, but when she didn’t go on, he pulled his face away
to scrutinize her. “Who else did?”

“Jay.”

It was all she offered as Lorenzo stared at her, knowing full
well that no amount of effort would keep him from blowing up if she did the
pausing thing and didn’t say more soon. Jay was the issue she’d been dealing
with all this time? Without thought, his hands were off her instantly, but she
reached for one of them with her free hand, slipped her fingers through his,
and squeezed.

“Margie’s missing,” she blurted out as scorching thoughts of Liv
hanging out with her fucking ex all this time still ricocheted in his head. “Well,
technically.
I
think she’s hiding from him. He doesn’t know this because
I called her parents after he left to see if I could get any clues. They said
she was at a church retreat for a week: some uber spiritual thing that required
her to give up all technology so she’d have very little contact with the
outside world the whole time she’s there. It’s not the first time she’d be
attending such a retreat. So it’s a smart move to cover herself on both ends.
Her parents won’t be sending out search parties, and she has the perfect excuse
to not respond to Jay’s calls or texts. I just don’t understand why she wouldn’t
have called or told me if this was what she was planning. Ever since we started
talking again, things were back to the way they used to be. She told me
everything, even stuff I thought for sure might be unbearably uncomfortable . .
. like listening to her go on and on about her feelings for Jay. Surprisingly,
it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it might be.”

Liv shook her head as Lorenzo too tried to shake off the burn he
felt from hearing her say she thought it might be
unbearably uncomfortable
to listen to her friend talk about her feelings for Jay. A guy she was supposed
to be long over.

“She supposedly left for her retreat two days ago. Jay’s been searching
everywhere for her. He thought maybe she’d come here. And since he couldn’t get
a hold of me any other way . . .”

Lorenzo listened, trying to focus on the real issue here: where
Margie could be. But his mind kept going back to one thing. It really took them
nearly three hours to discuss this?

He continued to listen silently and as patiently as he could as
Liv went on about her theories. She was certain Margie had yet to tell her
parents about the pregnancy, and if she, in fact, was just hiding out, she was
likely doing it to buy time until it was too late for an abortion to be
considered.

“Why wouldn’t she just tell him she wasn’t having it and that’s
that?” Lorenzo asked as the unrelenting annoyance continued to mount. “He
couldn’t have forced her to.”

The expression on Liv’s face was troubling. He hated to even
think it, but it was as if she was already hiding something from him about this
guy.

“Jay can be very . . . persuasive. He has a way about—”

“Are you kidding me?” Lorenzo’s patience had finally broken and
with it his temper. “Are you telling me you think this asshole has that much
control over people? Should I be worried, Liv? He did persuade you to give him
three fucking hours of your life tonight just so he could ask if you knew where
Margie was. What else did you discuss after you told him you had no idea?”

“It’s
all
we discussed,” she said, raising her own voice
along with an angry little brow.

“Really?” He forced himself to lower his voice because he was
getting way too loud. “For three hours?”

“It wasn’t three hours,” she practically hissed. “I’ve been
sitting here waiting for you for over a half hour, and before that, I stopped
at the pet store to buy dog food and a doggie bed. My last stop did take longer
than usual too. I told you it might.”

“So why didn’t you call or text me?”

“Because I knew you’d be home soon and”—she glanced away,
unnerving Lorenzo further—“I needed time to think.”

King flinched in her arms, and Liv’s hand slipped out of his as
she used both hands to put him down. A good thing because hearing her say she
needed time to think after just one reunion with her ex—a guy she’d admitted to
being obsessed with once upon a time—had Lorenzo’s insides on fire. He didn’t
much feel like holding her hand anymore.

Liv reached into the van and grabbed a leash, hooking it onto the
collar around King’s neck. By the time she straightened out and looked up at
Lorenzo, he thought he might lose it, but he managed to remain composed—for
now. Instead, he asked what he needed to know in the calmest voice he could
conjure. “What did you need time to think about?”

“Everything Jay laid on me tonight.” She must’ve seen the rage in
Lorenzo’s eyes because she continued quickly, “About Margie, the pregnancy, and
their relationship.”

The telling way she avoided making direct eye contact with him
was only making him more anxious. He hated that her ex still had
any
kind of effect on her. But he reasoned that the guy had been her first
everything—something pretty significant in anyone’s life—and this was the first
time she’d seen him in years. Of course, she was bound to have a reaction to it—be
pensive about it. He should be understanding, but his jealous and possessive
heart was working against him now. Lorenzo tried to shake it off because he
feared he was moments away from saying something he might regret.

“Look at me,” he said suddenly and a little terser than he wanted
to, but he at least had her attention. “Why else did he come all this way to
see you?”

“He’s still claiming to have feelings for me,” she said without
hesitation and sounding as annoyed by that as it made Lorenzo. “He said since
he never got a chance to explain himself completely before I cut him off while
he was here he wanted a chance to do so. It was just for the sake of argument
that I even listened to all his bullshit, Lorenzo, but that was it.”

“Is he gone?” Lorenzo asked through his teeth, despite attempting
to remain collected.

It came as a strange relief that what he felt for her now hadn’t so
much as blurred his stand on this. He’d questioned whether or not his feelings
for her might weaken his resolve when it came to issues of this sort. But the annoyance
he was already feeling that she’d still have such a reaction to seeing her ex
again trounced any thoughts of backing down. In fact, while he didn’t like the
feeling because it was an ugly one, it was irrepressible. Unlike when the utter
disgust he’d felt over Linda’s betrayal had
instantly
sucked any and all
feelings of love for her, the very thought of Liv so much as having enjoyed
seeing Jay again terrified him. Yet that terror only manifested the ugly
feelings further. He’d be damned if he’d consider any leniency just because
walking away from her now felt so
impossible
. He’d sooner walk than ever
go through something like his experience with Linda again even though he
already knew without a doubt having to do that with Liv would be a million
times harder.

“I don’t know,” she said as Lorenzo continued to glare at her. She
reached for his arm, but he flinched.

Already, his self-preservation instincts were kicking in. He’d be
a dick before he got dicked around again. It was the only way he’d be able to
deal with this. He watched her calm expression begin to unravel.

“Don’t do this—”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” he asked before she could go
on.

Her eyes searched his as the realization seemed to sink in.
Lorenzo hadn’t been lying when he said he
would not
tolerate her ex in
her life.

“I mean I told him about you. That on top of the fact that I
wanted nothing more to do with him my boyfriend was dead against it also. Then
he got rude, so I told him to leave.”

“Rude like how?” he asked as his irritation took a turn he
preferred.

He’d rather feel a need to want to rip someone apart than the
unease of wondering what was going on in Liv’s head. What else did she need to
think about?

“What did he say to you?”

Liv shook her head as Lorenzo tried in vain to remain calm. His
insides were already a boiling chaos, and it was only getting worse.

“Stupid stuff,” she said quickly. “Of course, he’d say he didn’t
care what you wanted and insisted that I was lying about being over him. We
started to argue, and then the owner of my last client came out of her house.
He walked away when I got caught up talking to her. By the time I was done with
her, he was gone. So I have no idea if he’s gone back to Dallas or not. But,
Lorenzo . . .” She reached out for his hand again, and this time he didn’t
flinch. She brought his hand to her face, leaning her cheek against his open
palm. “Baby, you can’t hold it against me that he showed up or that he might
possibly still be around. I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I want nothing to
do with him, I swear to you. But I can’t control what he does.”

Lorenzo brought his other hand to the other side of her face,
cradling it as a slow sense of relief began to wash over him. He stared into
her eyes, debating whether or not he should tell her something. He didn’t want
it to sound as if he were demanding she get a restraining order on the guy. It’d
be just a simple suggestion, but the way he was still feeling about all this he
wasn’t sure it’d come out that way. Then he remembered. He did have one big thing
on his side when it came to dealing with this asshole. Her brothers.

“You
are
gonna tell your brothers about this, right?”

She nodded, but the sudden flicker in her eyes and expression she
wore was exactly what he’d expected. During the time she said she’d taken to
think, her brothers’ reaction to this hadn’t been part of that thought process.
She’d likely been too consumed with thoughts of Margie’s disappearance and
explaining Jay’s unexpected visit to Lorenzo, not to mention the furry new
addition to her family.

At least that was one thing he wouldn’t have to worry about: this
guy thinking he could show up at her house. But if he’d already showed up while
she’d been on the job once, what was to stop him from doing it again? And then
it hit him.

“How’d he know where you were?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask him?”

“No.” She shook her head with a strange expression Lorenzo couldn’t
quite make out as she brought her hand to her forehead. “I . . . I didn’t even
think to ask. I was more concerned about what was going on with Margie; then we
started to argue. Once Ms. Upton walked out of her house, we stopped talking.
It was a brief conversation, and then he left.”

Lorenzo forced himself to calm down. “Liv, sweetheart,” he said, kissing
her softly in an attempt to show her he wasn’t mad at
her
. “I’m only
asking because I want to know what to expect. Do you think you’re in any danger
with—?”

“No!” she said way too quickly then seemed to catch herself and
shook her head. “He’s just being stubborn, and he’s always played mind games. I
wouldn’t put it past him to think he can still manipulate me into letting him
back in my life. Maybe he’ll show up again and continue to try and convince me
we’re meant to be, but he’d never hurt me.”

Was she defending the guy?
Swallowing back the anger, Lorenzo
struggled to remain calm. “Why would he show up again?”

“I’m not saying he will. It just felt like we got off track about
whatever he’d come all the way down here to discuss about Margie.”

The pup, which was beginning to whine around her ankles, jumped up
against her legs, and she bent down to pick him up, cuddling him lovingly.
Thoughts of who gave her the damn pooch had long been drowned out by the
galling thoughts of Jay.

“I just think if he came out all this way he probably had more to
say, but we were interrupted.”

That sounded too damn much like an excuse, the kind Linda used to
make for why she had to talk to her ex so often. But Lorenzo took a deep breath,
reminding himself of his vow, the one he’d made that he wouldn’t let this guy
or Linda ruin things for him and Liv.

“Have you tried calling Margie?”

“Yes,” she said, looking up with a frown, “a bunch of times. I
texted her too. I even tried calling a number from two missed calls I had
earlier today. I didn’t recognize the number when I saw I had two missed calls
from it but didn’t think any of it until I found out she’s missing. It’s not a
Dallas number—it’s local—but still I thought
maybe she’s somewhere close by,
but it went to a generic voicemail.” She shook her head, still frowning. “It
worries me because it’s so not like her to just ignore my calls. I’m sure she’s
a mess, and unless she’s told anybody else, I’m the only one she can talk to
about this.”

“Is there any chance she’s actually at the retreat she told her
parents she’d be at?”

She shook her head adamantly then kissed the puppy's head before
looking up again. “She would’ve mentioned it to me. It doesn’t make sense that
she’d just disappear.”

Another thought suddenly came to him, and instantly he felt like
growling. His deployment. He was scheduled to leave tomorrow morning, and he
had no way of knowing if Jay’s visit was a onetime deal or if he’d be sniffing
around for a few more days.

“
Fuck
,” he muttered, bringing his fist to his mouth.

“Lorenzo,” she started to say. “Just because—”

“I leave tomorrow,” he said before she could finish. “I got a deployment
call today, and since it’s only for a couple of days, I took it. I would’ve
waited to talk to you, but—”

“Deployment?” Liv’s wide eyes were suddenly riddled with an altogether
different kind of concern as she searched his eyes. “Where to?”

“Nothing overseas,” he said quickly because she looked ready to
freak out. “Or even anything serious. They need someone to come in and sub for
a helicopter pilot who got sick during a training exercise. There are only a
few days left, so I’d only be gone two maybe three days. This just couldn’t
have happened at a worse time.” He pulled his phone from its holster and
started tapping on the screen. “Maybe I could get someone else to cover—”