Fallen (8 page)

A dead weight settles in my stomach. “You’re crazy. I can’t come to New Mexico.”

“Why not? Let me guess. You’re headed back to work, right? The people at the hospital need you?”

I had been about to say that, but now I suck my bottom lip into my mouth. Mostly to stop myself from swearing very loudly.

“You’re gonna choose work over your sister? When she needs you? Again?” The tone in Rebel’s voice is mocking now. I am a strong person, but it almost takes more strength than I possess to stop myself from screaming into the phone.

“You know what she told you isn’t true. You know I never made that choice. Alexis never even gave me the opportunity.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But still…you’re getting the opportunity now. She needs you. She’s too proud and too humiliated to tell you that herself, so I’m telling you. You. Need. To. Come.”

The line goes dead. I lower the thing to make sure my ears aren’t deceiving me, and one look at the screen confirms that he just hung up. He actually just hung up.

What the—

“By the look on your face, someone just pissed you off. And it can’t be me for once. I only just got here.”

My breath catches in my throat. That voice.
His
voice. How the hell did he find me? I slowly raise my head and there he is, standing in front of me, hands in his pockets, looking…looking completely and utterly blank.

“I thought you’d call,” he says simply.

“Yeah. I know you did. Hence me
not
calling. Hence the note. Hence me
not
wanting to see you right now.” I may be telling him that I don’t want to see him, but I’m lying. When I’m away from him, I sometimes think it might be for the best. My thoughts up in Pippa’s apartment only five minutes ago are testimony to that. And yet, with him right in front of me, I don’t ever want him anywhere else. Not because I need him. Not because he makes me feel safe or that I need him to protect me. I’m strong and I’m capable, and if I really felt the need I’d just go to the police. I want him in close proximity because every time I look at the bastard now I feel his arms wrapped around me, and his chin resting on top of my head. I feel the slow in and out of his chest expanding as he breathes, holding me tight to him. I’ve done my absolute best not to think about it, but everything changed when Zeth held me back at Julio’s.

I’ve been drawn to him for the sex. I’ve been drawn to him for the power he exudes. Hell, I’ve been drawn to him for his arrogance and his sheer cockiness, which is infuriatingly attractive. I know in my heart I could easily have walked away from all of those things, though. It would have sucked, but I could have done it. But the weaker side to this man, who seems so indestructible, is the reason why I’ve felt myself tumbling, falling, sliding down some frightening, unnameable slope. And yes, I’m the ultimate coward because that slope does have a name; I’m just too terrified to acknowledge my descent. If it were an easier journey, felt more like I was floating gently, wonderfully, drunkenly through the whole thing like most other people get to, and I thought I might get a cushioned landing at the bottom, then I might be less worried. But this kind of falling involves bumps and scrapes, and wounds too raw to comprehend. And if I’m honest with myself, probably a bruised if not altogether broken heart.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

He gives me a stern glare, but I know him now. I know by the slight flicker in his eyes that he’s not one hundred percent sure he should be here. “Yeah. About that,” he growls. “We’re gonna have a conversation, you and I.”

“Oh, really?” I feel like throwing my damn phone at him. I know he sees the thought forming, because he eyes the cell phone I’m still clasping hold of with interest. Like he expects me to actually do it—he’s just waiting on it flying toward his head—and he’s curious how the whole thing will play out.

“Mind if I sit down?”

I pull the collar of my jacket up, shuffling along the bench, pressing my body into the far end of it. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll go away if I say no, is there?”

Zeth smirks at this; he sits down beside me, parking himself way closer than I’d intended, given all the room I just made for him. “If you really want me to go away, Sloane, I’ll go away. I’m not a creepy stalker. And I do have some pride. There are plenty of things I could be doing right now instead of trying to make nice with you.”

Yeah, right. Zeth must have plenty of other women he ‘could be doing right now.’ The thought makes me feel like throwing up. “Then I’d hate to keep you from them.”

“So you
would
like me to leave?” He angles himself toward me, his closest shoulder dipping down so that his body presses in against mine. He feels warm through my jacket; having him so close makes my palms tingle with anticipation. I want to reach out for him. I want to feel the pressure of his skin under mine, but after what happened when we were having sex, him telling me not to touch—I don’t want to go through that again. It hurt more than I care to admit. I clench my hands tighter around my phone.

“Sloane? All you have to do is say the word.” His voice has always been low, but now it dips into some octave I’ve never heard before. It almost melts my bones. He speaks slowly, and I see that he actually means it—his eyes are unblinking, focused solely on me, and there’s a tension in them that sends a shiver through my whole body.

“I—I don’t—” How do I do this? How can I tell him? Even thinking about making myself so vulnerable has my heart pounding in my chest.

“They’re just words, Sloane. They’ve never killed anybody. It’s
actions
that are solely responsible for that. And right now, we’re just talking.”

God. Can it really be that simple? With
him?
I take a deep breath. “Okay, fine. I don’t want you to go.” I keep talking before he can even open his mouth to respond. “But can you please not be an unbearably smug asshole about it? I’ve had a really shitty morning already. I don’t need that on top of everything else.”

To his credit, Zeth doesn’t even bat an eyelid. “I’m giving up on trying to work you out,” he announces. The statement really knocks the wind out of my sails. I’d been expecting something scathing or imperious, not an admission of defeat. And he’s been trying to work me out? I’d have thought it was entirely the other way around.

“Too complex for you, am I?” I try to keep my eyes steady, but the way he’s looking at me, straight into me, has me breaking out in a nervous sweat. Zeth lifts one shoulder, still leveling me with those deep brown eyes. Eyes made for trapping a person indefinitely within their violence, but also in their brutal truth.

“Pretty much,” he says. “I keep thinking I have you all figured out, think I can anticipate what’s coming next with you, but then you prove me wrong. And I’m hardly ever wrong about people.”

“Does that annoy you?”

“You’re afraid of me getting bored of you.” He just says it. Like he reaches inside my mind and plucks out the most irrational, yet most
real
fear that’s bouncing around in there. And then he just says it, like him laying it out there in the stark light of day doesn’t make me incredibly vulnerable.

“No! No, I don’t—”

“Lies aren’t a part of this conversation, Sloane. They’ll never be a part of any conversation we have again. Do you understand?”

He doesn’t ask me if I understand in a way that might make me fear for my life. He asks me plainly. He asks me as though it’s a genuine question, and he needs me to agree to it. Any pretence there might have been between us dissolves like smoke.

“Okay. Fine. So this is it, huh? This is the part where we lay our cards on the table?”

Zeth shrugs. “Only if you understand. Only if you can stop fucking pretending for five minutes and be honest with me.”

I let that sink in. This isn’t a challenge like so many of our interactions have been. Nearly all of them, in fact. No, this…this is something entirely different. This is either the beginning or the end. Of what, I’m not completely sure. I guess I’m about to find out. “Okay. I promise. I promise I’ll never lie to you again.”

Zeth nods, still unsmiling, still not displaying any of his usual arrogance. “Good. So admit it. You’re afraid of me getting bored of you.”

I hold my breath. I’m teetering on the brink; it seems as though this is a trap of some sort, and I guess in a way it is. Giving him this kind of information feels like giving him the upper hand. But fuck it. I’m so tired of dancing around things with him, not knowing what the hell is going on. This is all past due. “Yes.” My voice doesn’t shake. “I’m afraid of you getting bored of me. Before you brought Lacey to the hospital, you were clearly living a very different life to the one you’ve been living over the past few weeks. How long until screwing one chick isn’t enough for you? It’s basically a surprise every time I see you now. I suppose one day you’ll just stop coming, and that will be when.
That
will be when you’ve had enough. I’m assuming it’ll be soon.”

Zeth watches me as I say this. He doesn’t react. Doesn’t move an inch. When I’m finished, he sits up straight and turns away from me, looking out over the park before us. The thick silence that follows makes me feel like throwing up. But then he says, “I’ve never been looking for
enough
, Sloane. I’ve always been looking for
less.
And I’m tempted to walk away from this situation about fifty times a day because you’re more than that. You’re too much.”

My heart feels like it’s exploding in my chest. Too much? I feel absolutely ridiculous when my breath makes an audible choking sound in my throat. I’ve known it all along, but to hear him say it? It feels like I can’t breathe. “I’m not a psycho stalker, either, Zeth. I don’t want anything from you. I’m not gonna sit in my car outside your place in the pouring rain, listening to Depeche Mode, plotting ways of winning you over or something.” I get angry toward the end, feeling stupid, and my voice rises. I hate that he can make me feel like this. So worthless.

He lowers his head, tucking his chin into the collar of his jacket. He still doesn’t look at me. “That’s not what I meant, Sloane,” he says softly. “You’re not
asking
too much of me. You’re just too
good
for me.”

If I’d have been hit with a sledgehammer, I’d feel less surprised. He thinks…he seriously thinks that? “Zeth—”

Zeth doesn’t give me chance to question that. He stands abruptly, narrowing his eyes, though still not looking at me. “I’m going to wait for Lacey. I’ll swing by your place tonight. Gather some stuff together and be ready by eight.”

I don’t go straight back to the shrink’s apartment. I walk through the park and make a point of dragging my feet on the way back, not wanting to step foot in the building. There’s no way I’m risking running into that Newan woman. Not today. I’m in a foul mood after Sloane’s confession; I half wanted her to tell me to go fuck myself and never bother her again. That would have solved this precarious, alien situation I find myself in. But now I realize my situation, and it’s freaking me the fuck out.

She didn’t send me away. So now I’m with her. There’s no room for any other option. There won’t be any leaving her. There won’t be any going back, or changing my mind or getting bored. It’s kind of hilarious that Sloane thinks I’ll tire of her and kick her to the curb as soon as something more fascinating comes along. For me, there has never been nor ever will be anything more fascinating than her. I knew that back in that hotel room when I slept with her for the first time. That’s why I ran as fast and as far as I could. I wasn’t ready for this back then. I’m not ready for it now, but I’m just gonna have to get fucking ready. And fast. She
did
want me to go and get her last night, but I fell prey to stupid game playing that I’ve always said I wouldn’t partake in. I hate admitting it, but this whole fucking thing is making me behave in a way I swore I never would. I need to get my fucking shit together.

“Zeth! Hey!” Lacey jogs down the steps outside Newan’s ritzy building, grinning from ear to ear. She has a red A4 folder clutched to her chest, her hair a shock of golden curls blowing about her face as she runs toward me. My god. Sometimes…sometimes she looks just like—

“I have homework.” She slaps the folder into my chest, laughing, and the moment of half-remembered pain vanishes. “It’s just like fucking high school,” she tells me, whispering.

“Sweet. Twenty-six and still doing assignments. Why are you whispering?” I almost immediately regret asking. The reason becomes very clear, as Newan appears in the doorway.

“I thought you might be a little reticent to join us, Mr. Mayfair. I came down to have a quick chat with you about our last conversation.”

Yeah, I’ll bet you did, bitch.
I really don’t like this woman. I like that she’s helping Lace, but apart from that I could quite happily never set eyes on her again. Ever. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She raises one eyebrow at me, dragging her gaze over me as though she can’t really stand what’s she’s seeing either. “We had an agreement, didn’t we? And as far as I’m aware, you’re still seeing my friend. So therefore…”

“Therefore you think I should be coming to you for therapy,” I growl. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve decided to seek help elsewhere. No offense.”