Ten Thousand Words (44 page)

Oliver was already walking down the street. A pain so sharp knifed through my chest, making me gasp and my eyes water.

“Oliver?” I called out.

He lifted his hand in a noncommittal sort of way, not bothering to look back. In that one second, my heart shattered.

Oliver Fairfax had the power to wound me, and he’d just used it.

Ollie

Storming into the studio, I bypassed the front desk without even acknowledging our receptionist. I was so irate that I was seeing red. Slamming my office door behind me, I wrenched off my coat and scarf and threw them at the sofa.

What the fuck is wrong with Xanthe? Does she
want
to endanger herself? Does she have some sort of freakish death wish?

I wanted to scream at her, shake some fucking sense into her—which was why I couldn’t trust myself to even touch her. I was close to violence, and she had already suffered that at the hands of that fucking monster. I was better than that, and so was she.

Throwing myself into my chair, I switched on my computer. The screen saver blasted my eyes with one of my favorite photos of Xanthe.

“What are you thinking?” I had asked her.

“That, in this very minute, I’m not sure of who I am.”

Lowering my camera, I’d asked, “What do you mean?”

She had turned her face toward me, and her gaze had been like a swift kick to the gut. The rawness in her expression had been exposed and vulnerable.

“Take your shot,” she had said softly.

That was how she was feeling now. She was hurting. I’d heard it in her voice as she had called out to me. Asshole that I was, I’d given her a lame salute to make her feel small and unworthy of my attention.

Fuck.

She’d only wanted to see her friends. She hadn’t asked to be home alone. Rex had the night off, and if Ricki was off doing God knew what, then Jaime was likely to stay at their house.

Shit. I had done it
again
—just up and left her in a rage. Granted, it wasn’t like last time, but I’d heard it in her voice that she needed me.

“God
damn
it!” I swore.

I got up, ready to throw on my coat and run back to the bookstore when Trey walked in.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Your clients are here. Family portraits. Studio is ready to go. Whatever you need to fix can wait.”

“Damn it!” I swore again. “All right. I’ll be right down.”

Trey left, and I grabbed my phone out of my pocket. Speed-dialing my love, I shouldn’t have been surprised when it went straight to voice mail. After my third attempt, I sent her a text message.

Me: I never should have walked away from you. I’m so sorry. I love you.

Leaving my phone in my office, I didn’t need the temptation to constantly check it while working.

It was a long day. I had several shoots in the studio, a ton of emails to work through, and several appointments to schedule with Timeless and The Sophisticated Caveman. A new London-based men’s clothing line wanted to use Rex and me as models, which Trey wouldn’t shut up about.

I just wanted to get to Xanthe.

“Look, you want to go out for dinner tonight?” I asked him, antsy to leave. “I’ll listen to all this crap, but I just need to go see her before they close.”

Trey rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah. Get out of here.”

Xanthe had replied to my message from earlier.

Xanthe: It’s okay.

It wasn’t, but it would be after I saw her. Flight of Fancy closed in about an hour, so I stopped and picked up some hot cocoa for us from Helmersen’s.

When I made it to the store, I stood outside the window, just watching her for a few heartbeats. She was at her laptop behind the counter while Aunt Ellen did a spot of tidying. Seeing Xanthe made my whole damn day. I’d been so miserable. She looked morose herself, resting her face on her hand as she used the other to click away at the keyboard.

When I pulled the door open, the bells jingled merrily, and Xanthe’s gaze darted toward me. Behind her glasses, her eyes looked red-rimmed and puffy.

“Oh, love…” I murmured. I was the one who had put that look in her eyes. Walking behind the counter, I placed the tray of cocoas down and pulled her into my arms. Breathing in her scent filled me with a sweet languidness that had me melting into her. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” she murmured against my chest.

“I know you need to see your friends. I can’t help it if I’m scared and jealous on top of it.”

“Why would you be jealous?”

Kissing the top of her head, I then leaned back to look into her eyes. “Because…I want to spend every waking moment with you, and I hate it that you love other people enough to want to share your time with them.”

She sighed. “I spend most of my time with you. Doesn’t that say something?”

“Yes, it does. It says that I’m a jackass and that I have no clue how to treat my woman. What time are you heading out?”

“Jaime and Rex should be here when we close. We’re going out for dinner and a few drinks.”

“Will you do me a favor even though it might be a pain in the arse?”

“What’s that?”

“Just…let me know when you get to where you’re going and when you leave. For my peace of mind?”

“I can do that.”

Sighing, I kissed her brow. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

I wanted to beg her to meet me afterward and come home with me. I needed to wake up with her in the morning, feel her hair wrapped around me, and listen to her sighs as I kissed her awake. But I wouldn’t simply because she felt she needed this evening with her friends.

She still needed to be herself.

Xanthe

“And Oliver just walked off—no good-bye, no kiss, nothing,” I told Rex at dinner.

Jaime had heard all of this earlier over the phone.

“It was awful. I felt like I had betrayed him by telling him I needed some time with you guys.”

“Pfft,” said Jaime. “At least you got the first one out of the way. Do you know how many more of those are coming? You two are so different—which is why it works. There’s going to be a lot of angry make-up sex between you two.”

“Hmm,” I replied. “That doesn’t seem so bad when you look at it from that perspective.”

Rex cracked up. “Seriously, I’ve missed you guys. Things haven’t been the same since Xanthe took off for New York.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Who knew the world would flip upside down because I left for a couple of weeks?”

“It needed to,” stated Rex. “We’re all living in this static life—same things day in, day out. We needed something to come along and throw us off.”

“Speak for yourself,” Jaime grumbled, putting down her fork and sitting back in her seat. “With Ricki on his work-detail shit, I have more excitement and paranoia than I know what to do with.”

“Do you know what he’s doing?” I whispered, glancing at Rex.

Both of them nodded.

“It’s big,” said Rex. “The Locals asked him to work it.”

Locals
were what we called the organization we worked for. It was headed by the government—several governments, in fact—and extremely secret. The fact that Oliver knew that we were involved with such dealings wasn’t allowed. But I hadn’t given him any sort of specifics, and since Aunt Ellen, Ricki, Ronen, and Rex knew that Ollie knew, I was hoping the Locals would let that slide when they found out that Oliver had been informed.

I didn’t like that I had to keep things from Oliver. It felt wrong in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

“Ricki had to take some of the detail with him,” Rex said quietly. “He wasn’t too happy about it. But with all of us together, there’s no need to have the boys spread out.”

“No one’s watching Ollie then?” I asked.

Rex shook his head. “He’s not much of a target. Plus, he’s a big motherfucker. He looks like he can take care of himself.”

“True,” said Jaime.

With dinner finished up, we paid and headed out. Creatures of habit that we were, we ended up at Wurther’s. It was comforting at the very least, a home away from home. Our usual booth was vacant, so Jaime copped a squat while Rex and I got the pints.

“Did you have any issues with Trey today?” I asked him at the bar.

“Oh, yeah. He can be a right little cunt when he wants to be.”

I grinned. “Oh, good. So, I wasn’t the only bad guy.”

“Ollie’s freaking out for your safety, Xanthe. Trey’s just jealous.”

I rolled my eyes. “What’s with these guys and their jealousy? Oliver told me he hated the fact that I had people I loved enough to want to spend time with them.”

“Honestly? I think they’ve never really felt much for anyone, outside of their immediate family. I know Trey was accepted at home with no problem, but growing up, the two of them were bullied in social circles. The other kids thought they were…weird.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. Oliver’s never said anything along those lines.”

Rex shrugged. “Ollie’s a really open-minded person in a lot of respects, but I think he just loses his shit when it comes to you. He adores you, like flat-out worships the ground you walk on. I don’t think he knows how to handle it. His passion has always been his work. Women were just a diversion. When I first met him, he had no inclination to be in a relationship at all—”

“What the hell, you guys?” Jaime shouted. “The fucking beers are going to be hot by the time you bring ’em over!”

Rex grabbed two pints, leaving me carrying my own. We made our way over to our booth and sat down. Jaime took her beer and gulped down half.

“That bad, huh?” I asked.

“I just need a bit of a buzz going. It’s torture, waiting for Ricki to text me and let me know everything’s okay.”

When Ricki went out on jobs, he and Jaime would use burner cells. If his phone was ever lost or taken, their identities wouldn’t be compromised. Jaime was never to answer the phone if it rang. The two of them communicated only by text and with a code. I didn’t know how she did it.

We sucked down our beers, and Rex got up and ordered another round.

“I need to pee,” Jaime said before heading off to the restroom.

Seeing Jaime hurting and anxious made me feel even guiltier about not being with Oliver. He was in a similar boat as she was, concerned about my welfare. Pulling out my phone, I dialed Oliver’s number.

“Hey, love,” he answered after the first ring.

Grinning like a moron, I replied, “Hey. What are you doing?”

“I’m with Trey at Helmersen’s. What are you doing?”

“Waiting for Rex to come back with more beer. Jaime’s peeing—”

“Nice visual, love. Thanks.”

“I miss you,” I sweetly told him.

“I miss you, too, woman.”

He was saying something else, but someone whom I thought was Rex returning with the pints caught my attention. When I looked up, my stomach bottomed out, and my lungs felt like they were trying to crawl out of my throat.

“Holy shit,” I croaked.

“What?” asked Oliver.

“Hello, Elaine.”

I swallowed hard, fighting the urge to vomit. “George,” I replied.

Ollie

Springing to my feet, I bolted out of the café. I hadn’t even grabbed my coat. In seconds, my feet pounded the sidewalk as I dodged around people.

Oh God! Oh God! I’m coming, love!