Actual Stop (Agent O’Connor #1)(40)

“I don’t know how you can even say that to me after everything we’ve shared.” Normally, I’d have grimaced at the naked emotion in my tone, but at the moment, I didn’t care. I wanted her to know she’d upset me. That’d obviously been her goal. I should at least reward her efforts. “And I think if you reflect on our relationship, you’ll see you’re mistaken.”

My voice was deliberately low and even, and it took a considerable effort to keep it that way, as well as to not utter more severe words to her. I didn’t feel I deserved her anger or her successful attempts to wound me, but she didn’t deserve for me to retaliate. However, my control was slipping, and if this didn’t end soon, I might lash out at her, regardless. And I didn’t have room in my already overcrowded head or heart for any more guilt or remorse.

Lucia stared at me for a long time with the oddest expression. I couldn’t even begin to put a name to the emotion flickering in her eyes, though I tried.

“What do you want from me, Luce? Do you want me to lie? Pretend there was nothing and no one before I met you? That’s unrealistic, and I won’t do it. I can’t feel exactly what you want me to feel, exactly the way you want me to feel it. No one can because everyone is different, and it’s unfair of you to hold your yardstick up to my emotions. All I can do is feel what I feel and treat you the best I know how. I was always under the impression that I’d done that, but clearly I was wrong. So tell me what you want from me. Just say the word, and it’s yours.”

Lucia snatched her cell phone off the table and stood, staring down at me. An eternity lapsed before she finally spoke, and when she did, the jumble of emotions in her tone brought me to tears.

“Nothing, Ryan. Absolutely nothing.”





Chapter Twelve


“Whoa. What the hell happened to you?” Allison said when I arrived at her hotel room bright and early the next morning to pick her up for breakfast.

“Well, good morning to you, too, sunshine.”

“You look like shit, Ryan.”

I rolled my eyes. But how could I argue with her? Okay, perhaps she could’ve been a bit less direct, but I couldn’t begrudge her the opinion. Not when she was right.

Needless to say, I’d gotten zero sleep the night before, which, by my calculations, brought my grand sleep total for the past forty-eight hours somewhere close to negative three hours. Of course, I was using the new math. And boy did it show. The sleep thing, not the math. The makeup I’d so painstakingly applied that morning had done little to conceal the dark circles under my eyes, my hair had been less cooperative than usual, and I had a defeated, lackluster air about me that made my reflection virtually unrecognizable.

Allison, naturally, looked stunning. Breathtakingly, mouthwateringly gorgeous. Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle or a smudge anywhere to be seen. She was flawless, as usual. I sort of hated her for that.

“Aw, thanks, Allison. You always say the sweetest things.”

She eyed me curiously as she motioned for me to follow her inside. “Do me a favor and tell your girl to let you get some shut-eye tonight, okay? I mean, I know how totally sexy you are, and I can’t blame the woman for not being able to keep her hands off you, but you can’t show up on game day looking like this. You’re a mess.”

When I was a teenager, I’d taken a soccer ball to the gut once during a pickup game. It’d been kicked hard by one of the older boys and had hit me squarely. I’d saved the point since my body had stopped the goal, but it’d knocked the wind out of me, and I’d spent several long minutes on my hands and knees on the field, trying to force my lungs to inhale and being unable to make my body comply. Allison’s words had a similar effect.

A heavy silence hung in the space between us, and I turned my back on her, blinking furiously, trying to keep the tears from my eyes. She’d only been joking. I knew that. But the jest hit a tad closer to home than my already-raw nerves were prepared to handle. I took a deep, shuddering breath and rested my forehead and one palm against the glass of the window, relishing its cool, smooth texture. I closed my eyes, grateful that Allison was otherwise occupied at the moment.

A hand on my shoulder startled me, but I didn’t turn around. Instead, I silently cursed my own distraction and tried to scrape together the last vestiges of my game face and slap it on before she was any wiser.

“Hey.” Allison’s voice was soft in my ear, the tone so tender I wanted to sob. Like I needed another reason at this point. “You okay?”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and swallowed with effort. The lump that’d taken up permanent residence in my throat a few hours earlier felt as though it might actually be growing. It went nicely with the huge weight that’d settled in my chest where my heart used to be and the churning nausea that was making me regret my earlier demand for chocolate-chip pancakes.

Allison’s hand pushed lightly in an effort to turn me around, and I resisted, but only for a bit. I may’ve been stubborn, but in Allison I’d met my match. She just kept nudging until I finally relented. I faced her with my chin to my chest and my eyes downcast, which I’d thought was a great plan. Right up until she cupped my chin in her other hand and tilted it up so she could meet my gaze.

“What’s wrong?”

The concern and worry marring her perfect features tore at me, and I nearly collapsed under the onslaught of a completely new stab of guilt. The tears threatened to come again, and I bit my lower lip. Lucia had been wrong. I wasn’t heartless. I couldn’t possibly be in this much pain if I was. Too bad she wasn’t here to see it.