have never contemplated having. Firmly ensconced in her new life with a wealth of good friends and coworkers—the very best kind of people—she’d relaxed, become complacent and allowed herself the luxury of thinking that maybe, just maybe, she could leave Thomas and everything associated with him in the past, get the fuck over it, move forward and finally step into the sun.
How stupid and naïve she continued to be when those were the very things she’d sworn never to be a victim of again. What was the saying? You could never outrun your past because it inevitably caught up to you when you least expected it. And there was no such thing as absolution. Not for the wrongs she’d committed, had been complicit in. There was always a price to pay for the mistakes you made. She could delay them but never escape them.
Oh well, one more night to get through and then tomorrow . . . A wave of grief consumed her. Tomorrow was the big staff meeting at DSS. Her plans were completed. Arrangements made. Everything she needed, weapons and intel she’d meticulously gathered, careful to ensure no one, especially Dane, ever discovered all the things she’d so carefully collected starting the morning she’d received the call from the DA.
At least she’d get to see Ari, Ramie and Tori—provided Tori hadn’t opted out of the evening—say goodbye, even if she didn’t voice that farewell. She’d see them, commit their faces, their love, loyalty and friendship to memory. Pain surged as she crossed the street, drawing closer to the gallery. Except Gracie. She had to avoid Gracie at all costs. Simply seeing her from afar would have to suffice. Later. When she had made her escape, she would send Gracie a letter and say goodbye.
Then tomorrow morning, she’d see everyone she’d worked with the past several years, including being introduced to the new recruits, proof of DSS’s—and Caleb, Beau and Dane’s—commitment to hiring only the best and as many of the best as they could pull into the expanding security system.
She paused at the gallery door, noticing that it was already a packed house. Deciding to be “fashionably late” had been a good idea after all. Less chance of being cornered by too many friends all giving her the stare down she’d grown accustomed to over the past week. Her nerves were so frayed that there was no way she’d be able to withstand a full-scale assault from all the people who mattered to her. Just like she mattered to them.
She eased inside, not wanting to draw any undue attention to her entrance.
No such luck.
As she did a quick survey of the room, her gaze unerringly settled on Sterling and she froze when she saw his eyes solidly fixed on her. He’d evidently clocked her the moment she’d walked in the door as if he’d been waiting for her—had he? And he stared at her with those piercing dark eyes that never missed a damn thing and when she thought things couldn’t get worse than the fact he’d obviously been keeping an eye out for her arrival, he began shoving through the crowd not even caring that he was being rude and pushing people out of his way. And he was making a beeline for her.
Damn his arrogant, smug ass straight to hell. She was here. So why was he so intent on making a scene when he’d been the one so adamant that things be perfect for Gracie’s debut, had been pissed that Gracie’s feelings would be hurt if all her friends weren’t here.
She glanced left and right looking for an escape route, any escape route so she could melt into the crowd and not be there when Sterling shoved into her space. Or maybe she could fake a sudden onset of the flu or some wicked stomach virus. Food poisoning! But then she hadn’t eaten her forgotten takeout in her car because the damn man had forced a confrontation on her turf and well, after that, her appetite had fled.
A waiter bearing a tray full of champagne glasses brushed by her and she lunged for one of the glasses and then on impulse grabbed another one. If this wasn’t a double-fisted drinking occasion she didn’t know what was. She gulped down the contents before the waiter had time to move on and she plunked the empty down with a thud and quickly nabbed another two. The waiter gave her a wary glance and hastily went on to the next patron.
Too bad they were serving smaltzy alcohol and not something more fitting. Like vodka or tequila. Preferably in a solo cup instead of a tiny-ass shot glass. She needed all the liquid courage she could muster for what she could only describe as the night from hell.
Avoiding one person was difficult enough, though God knew she’d had plenty of practice avoiding Sterling. Hell, she’d become an expert. But having to avoid not only a knuckles-dragging-the-ground Neanderthal but also a woman she considered a friend, who just happened to have the ability to read minds, stretched even Eliza’s impressive set of skills.
Knowing that Sterling was the lesser of the two evils because he could think what he wanted, she resigned herself to having to grind her teeth and somehow get through the next hour without getting close enough to Gracie to be busted. At least he couldn’t see into her head and know everything she was thinking.
The damn bastard’s eyes were full of laughter though his lips and expression reflected none of the humor in his gaze.
“You came,” he drawled.
She sent him an acid look that normally withered the recipient but Sterling didn’t even flinch.
“Wow, your powers of observation are astounding,” she mocked sweetly, giving him her most saccharine smile. “And you stating the obvious is ever so intelligent. I find smart men soooo attractive. Too bad you’re lacking in the IQ department.”
“I must be stupid,” he said, his words laced with sarcasm and a bite she’d become all too acquainted with.
She lifted an eyebrow, shocked to hear those words coming out of his mouth. If he was nothing else, he was decidedly sure of himself. Confident. Arrogant. Cocky. No one could ever call him humble.
“If I had half a brain, then I’d stay the hell away from you,” he growled.
Only because she lifted one of the two champagne glasses she held to her lips was she able to prevent her mouth from falling open. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“Then use the other half and do what the missing half would if it were present,” she said sweetly. “Because apparently common sense left with the missing half as well. Stay the hell away from me, Sterling, and make us both happy.”
And then it happened again. He smiled, teeth flashing, and he threw back his head and issued a throaty laugh that gave her actual goose bumps. His smile and that laugh were so devastatingly sexy they should be outlawed. Jesus, no wonder he had a veritable parade of women in and out of his bedroom.
His gaze drifted down to the two champagne flutes she had a death grip on and his eyes continued to twinkle with silent laughter. Even forced to be in his company for a short time was worth hearing him laugh and seeing that breathtaking smile. Twice she’d seen it now. In the same day. Surely the world was ending.
Or at least hers was.
Her thoughts quickly sobered because once again, for just a few seconds, she forgot herself. Forgot that this was her last night to see Ramie and Ari. Grief overwhelmed her because she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to Gracie. And in the morning she’d say a silent farewell, a permanent farewell to the people she worked with. Her family. And, God, Dane.
Sterling’s eyes narrowed, losing the amusement so prevalent just seconds before. His lips became a thin line and his jaw bulged, his cheekbones more defined as he stared piercingly at her.
“What the hell is going on with you, Eliza?” he asked quietly.
She lifted her glass and drained the contents, glancing frantically around for one of the servers, though she still had one full glass left. Seeing no one, she raised her last glass to her lips, or rather was in the process when Sterling intercepted it, wresting it from her grasp.
“What are you doing?” Eliza demanded. “That was my drink!”
“Your third,” he said dryly. “Is this the only way you can work up the courage to face me? By getting shit-faced as soon as you walk through the door?”
She fought the heat and betraying flush that cr
ept slowly up her neck. She never blushed. Nothing embarrassed her. Pissed her off? Yeah. And she tended to get red in the face then, so she would have no problem passing off her embarrassment as rage.
“Sorry to have offended your prudish sensibilities,” she said snidely. “Or maybe there is a drink limit I wasn’t aware of? You getting cheap, Sterling? Can’t afford free booze so you expect everyone to limit their intake?”
He shook his head, the half grin, half grimace back in place. Well, at least he was no longer prying or trying to pry into her thoughts.
“You are so full of shit, Eliza,” he said in what sounded like an exasperated tone but nothing seemed to fluster the man. Not that she’d ever witnessed. “Now, what were you thinking about a minute ago? Care to share?”
So much for him no longer being nosy.
“No, I don’t care to share,” she said in a frosty voice. “I don’t care to share anything with you, Sterling. Not your company, not your presence. I don’t want to share the same space or even the same air you do so get out of my way and leave me alone.”
He didn’t respond, instead turning as if to walk away. Oh God, please let her prayer be answered. Just when she thought her fervent prayer had been granted, Sterling snagged her elbow and deftly escorted her through the crowd.
Apparently God was occupied with far more important things than indulging in her cowardice. She could hardly blame him. After all, she’d rather save her prayers for when she really needed them, and she would need them soon.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed.
He shot her a pissed off look—a look she was intimately acquainted with, having been the recipient of it every time their paths crossed.
“Taking you to your posse,” he said in a tone that matched his expression.
That brightened her considerably until she looked to the group they were approaching and saw that Gracie was in the middle of them looking stunning. Shy and overwhelmed but drop-dead gorgeous and deliriously happy. Her heart ached just to see the group of people she worked with, called friends, people she loved and people who had one hundred and ten percent of her loyalty.
Inwardly she cringed because her thought had been in the present tense. She had been loyal to them. Until now. She’d never lied to them. Until now. And she’d never deceived them. Until fucking now.
“Gracie will be thrilled you’re here,” Sterling murmured.
Thank God Gracie hadn’t looked away from her husband to see Eliza yet. Eliza stopped in her tracks, nearly tripping because Sterling was still in the process of his long-legged stride and well, her legs were considerably shorter.
He frowned, rounding on her, purposely positioning himself between her and the DSS group, something she was grateful for even though she knew he hadn’t done it for her. He’d done it so Gracie wouldn’t see Eliza and realize that Eliza had no intention of speaking to her.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Sterling snapped, his eyes blazing with anger and judgment. Oh yeah, he’d judged her and found her lacking all right. He thought her the worst sort of person and an even worse friend.
Eliza closed her eyes, so miserable she wanted to do something that appalled her. She wanted to cry.
“It’s not what you think,” she choked out, her mind churning to come up with a plausible excuse.
“What I think is that you’re being a selfish bitch and shitting all over someone who risked her life to save you. Someone who took a fucking knife and was slashed because she was trying to get to you, to do whatever she could to protect you when you were helpless.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” she yelled, thanking the heavens that the music and the huge group of people mingling and conversing drowned out her passionate outburst. “Don’t you think I relive that moment every fucking night? Every goddamn day for that matter. Do you think I would have ever wanted Gracie, Ramie or Ari to risk themselves the way they did to help me? I would give my life for them. All of them,” she raged, gesturing to where the rest of the DSS group was standing.
Sterling looked genuinely perplexed as he studied her. Almost as if he had some built-in “Eliza truth detector” able to ferret out what was truth and what was lie. Then sudden realization dawned on his features. She could practically see the “aha” moment in his eyes and on his face. His eyes became sharp and piercing, examining every inch of her face as if he could see behind her outer mask.
Fuck this. Only one man had been able to do that and she’d spent years finding ways of mentally strengthening her natural shields and barriers. She’d taken every class on psychic abilities available. She’d read countless books on the subject matter. Dug through thousands of articles. She would love the chance to try her blocking abilities with Gracie, but she hadn’t thought she’d ever need that ability until that damn phone call and now she couldn’t take the chance. She couldn’t risk not being able to block Gracie from her mind and, besides, if she couldn’t block Gracie she would be defenseless against Thomas. And right now, all she had was hope that she would be successful. If she knew she would fail, then her already flagging confidence and courage would vanish and she’d be spilling the entire story to Dane, begging for his help or running in the opposite direction as Thomas instead of straight to him. As far from his reach as she possibly could, even if it meant landing halfway across the world. But even there, he’d find her. She knew he would and that made her feel even more helpless.
“What is it you don’t want Gracie knowing, Eliza?” Sterling asked so softly that she almost didn’t hear him above the surrounding noise.
Eliza froze. She had to act fast. She’d always been good on her feet and quick-witted—when she had her wits about her. In other circumstances she would be smug and triumphant at how easily she thought of a way to throw Sterling off her trail, but right now she just felt desperate and scared to death he’d see right through her lie. Well part of it was a lie. Part of it was truth. Just the details were muggy.
Her face fell, a carefully orchestrated act as if she’d been caught out and wasn’t happy about it. She even managed a convincing glare from underneath her eyelashes, one that told him what she thought of his intrusion into her privacy.
“I’ve been planning a surprise for her,” Eliza said grudgingly, making sure she sounded her normal pissed off self any time she came face-to-face with Sterling, which until yesterday hadn’t been often. Why he suddenly popped up on her radar after so long of mutual avoidance she had no clue. But whatever the reason he could just slink back to whatever rock he lived under and get the hell out of her life.
“A surprise?”
There was no disguising the outright disbelief in his voice or expression. His eyes narrowed dangerously, and it was clear his Eliza-truth radar was beeping nonstop. He looked as though he wanted to wrap his hands around her neck and throttle her. Given his really large hands, she doubted he’d have any difficulty.
“Wade,” she said in a pleading voice, giving him her best big-eyed totally girl plea. It wasn’t a look she could remember using in a very long time. It was rare for her to dip into her feminine arsenal when a snarl, a threat or an ass-kicking would achieve the same results. But she could do none of those things with a roomful of people surrounding her and worse, every single person she worked with was halfway across the room and they’d certainly notice.
He looked shocked, his eyes widening and he stared at her like he didn’t know whether to throttle her, kiss her—oh God!—or take her to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
“That’s the first time you’ve ever said my name,” he said in a low husky voice that made her knees go weak and tremble. A voice and expression that said he liked it. A lot. His eyes were soft, a slight crinkle at the corners as he studied her, and for some reason her gaze was drawn to his lips that weren’t contorted into his usual Eliza scowl of exasperation. In fact, the ends were curled upward slightly, not a smile. Something altogether different. Something she wasn’t about to anal
yze or figure out because his entire body language had changed and, worse, his hold on her had tightened so an air of intimacy shrouded them. Now she realized she should have gone with the snarl, threats and ass-kicking. Fuck!
She nearly groaned out loud and had to physically restrain herself from banging her head on the nearest possible place, which happened to be his shoulder. He was right. She never called him Wade. And what was worse was that it hadn’t been intentional. It hadn’t been part of her trying to worm her way out of a disastrous situation, though so far it seemed to be working. It had just slipped out. If he didn’t have her so rattled and off her game, she would have never called him by his first name. She’d called him plenty of things but never that because, damn it, it was too personal. Friends, family, people she liked, those were the people she was on a first name basis with. Sterling was none of those things.
He stared at her a long moment, something shifting in his gaze. Something dangerous that made a light shiver work up her spine. It was as if something huge had changed in that moment and she did not want to know what that was because she had the distinct feeling it had everything to do with her. Then he shook his head as if dispelling cobwebs and just as quickly that intense scowl was back and the moment was gone. Thank God.
“So this surprise,” he drawled. “Do tell. You avoid a woman who considers you her friend thus making her believe you’re angry with her, which causes her untold grief, and if I had to guess makes her husband and your coworker not very happy with you, and now you’re telling me you’ve been hurting her feelings and making her feel like shit because you have a surprise for her?”
He ended with a snort of pure disbelief. Eliza winced at hearing the words “hurt feelings” and “feel like shit.” Then, mentally, she thought back, trying to remember if Zack had treated her any differently. Truth be told, she hadn’t even considered the consequences. She’d been too focused on her mission. Then she winced again, because yeah, she could remember Zack shooting her searching looks, laced with anger in his eyes and a tight jaw, though he’d never approached her and that surprised her because he and Eliza were tight after all the shit that went down when he and Gracie had their thing.
Eliza didn’t have to pretend agitation or fake regret when she glanced back up at Sterling. She stared at him with stricken eyes, allowing all her regret and sorrow to show, evidenced by his look of surprise. At least she was keeping him as off balance as he was her.
“I was planning it, have been planning it for over a week,” she said quietly. That wasn’t a lie. She had been planning. Sterling would just assume she’d been planning Gracie’s surprise. “I couldn’t be around her when it was all I was thinking about and preparing for,” she continued. “She would have known instantly and then it would no longer be a surprise. But I never meant to make her think I was angry with her. I didn’t think.” She closed her eyes against the sudden sting of tears. No way in hell she’d cry in front of Sterling. Even if it would go a long way in convincing him of her lie.
He studied her a long moment, and she got the distinct impression he didn’t miss the shine of tears, gone almost before they’d even appeared. His scrutiny was unbearable and it made her squirm. Her palms itched and she had to control the urge to curl her fingers into tight fists because that would betray her supreme agitation and Sterling was someone who picked up on subtle clues. He never missed a goddamn thing.
“And just what is this surprise,” Sterling asked, eyes narrowed, suspicion still heavy in his voice.
“I can’t tell you! Are you crazy? You’re around Gracie all the time. If you knew, then she’d know too.”
“Then give me a goddamn clue,” he bit out impatiently.
It was clear he still wasn’t buying it. Damn it!
“All I can say is that it has to do with her school,” Eliza said softly, referring to Gracie’s plan to open her own place to teach free art classes to promising students who couldn’t afford lessons otherwise.
Until recently Gracie had used a small building—owned by Sterling of course—but now there were too many students and it broke Gracie’s tender heart to have to turn anyone away because there wasn’t enough space.
Her dream was to find a bigger place, which Sterling of course would provide, but Gracie needed donations to pay for supplies and at least one full-time assistant. Volunteers couldn’t always be counted on to be available and that many children needed more supervision and attention than Gracie could give them alone. Not to mention Zack was heavily opposed to anything that took too much of his new wife’s time. They’d been separated for twelve years by horrific circumstances and Zack was making the most of every single day now that they’d found one another again.
“And so help me, Sterling, if you even think about Gracie’s school and or me at the same time when you’re around Gracie, swear to God, I’ll have your nuts.”
His expression became sly and a look entered his eyes she did not like. It made her want to tuck tail and run like the coward he accused her of being.
“I don’t even want to know,” she muttered. “Can I leave now?”
Noticing that Sterling had loosened his grip on her arm, she took swift advantage and turned to stalk away but he was faster, reasserting his hold on her.
“I’ll gladly give you my balls, Eliza. Just say the word. But you’ll get a whole hell of a lot more than my nuts. That I can guarantee.”
Horrified by the heat that instantly flared to life, curling in her groin and licking up her spine, she tried to jerk away from him again.
“Make you a deal,” Sterling said in a silky, bone-shivering, sexy voice. “Give me one dance and I’ll make your excuses to Gracie and you can leave with your secret intact. She’ll just be happy you came. I doubt she’s noticed much more than her new husband anyway,” he added wryly.
“No one is dancing!” she protested. “You don’t think Gracie”—not to mention every single one of her coworkers—“and the others wouldn’t see us and know I was here, never said hi or made my presence known and then, oh gee, I had to leave. You’re out of your damn mind.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. Come on. I’ll take you to Gracie then, so you can offer your hellos to your team and congratulations to Gracie.”
She went rigid. “You little blackmailing bastard.”
He shrugged again, making her want to scream. Did nothing ever ruffle him? What did it take to really piss off a man who rarely looked anything beyond mildly annoyed or more commonly like he didn’t give a fuck?
“I gave you options,” he pointed out. “That’s hardly blackmail. The choice is yours. I thought I was doing you a favor but since you don’t seem inclined to accept my offer then we’ll carry on and you can remain until the bitter end. But fair warning, word is after the showing your posse is having a post exhibit celebratory dinner and if you’re here you’ll be expected to attend.”
She couldn’t control the panicked, deer-in-the-headlights look she knew flashed on her face and it only served to further annoy the fuck out of her that he could always get a rise out of her when her emotions and reactions were always tightly under control. They had to be in her line of work.
“I’m taking that as a yes to the dance,” Sterling said with smug satisfaction.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
In a show of unexpected—and rare—consideration, he propelled her to the far end of the room where the band was playing and there she found she was incorrect about no one else dancing. Why that relieved her she wasn’t sure but then she hardly wanted all eyes on her and Sterling if they were the only ones dancing.
Wordlessly he pulled her into his arms and though she attempted to keep him at arm’s length so their dance was entirely casual, he ignored that just like he ignored everything else about her unless it suited his purposes.
She found herself locked against a very hard, very aggressive, aroused male.
Ignoring that particular fact, although that was kind of difficult when she