Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(58)
And there she’d gone again. Basically telling him he was pretty…
But this time he didn’t call her on it. His Adam’s apple bobbed in the column of his throat as he sat there, watching her with hooded eyes. When he finally did speak, his voice barely audible above the rumble of thunder overhead, his words bewildered her. “It shows how different we are.”
Wha? “What do you mean?” Different how? Besides the obvious, of course. Because he was strong and brave and beautiful. And she was weak and cowardly and…well…on a good day she could maybe pass for cute.
“You’re the well-to-do politician’s daughter who went to private schools and summer camps. And I’m the son of immigrants who barely had two pennies to rub together. I bet the men you date aren’t covered in tattoos.”
She frowned, shaking her head. “First of all, I rarely date. Being the president’s daughter tends to draw out the crazies or the power-hungry. And I could do without either in my life, thank you very much. And secondly, what’s this all about, Carlos?”
“It’s about the day of Rosa’s funeral when I came to your hotel room,” he ground out, quickly glancing down at the mat beneath them. She’d seen something that was heartrendingly close to pain in his eyes in that split second before he turned away. “It’s about me needing you, and you rejecting me and sending me packing.”
The silence that followed that announcement was so loud it was almost deafening. And Abby’s throat was instantly sore, thick with unshed tears.
He’d needed her? Big, tough, beautiful Carlos Soto had needed her?
The memory of that soul-sucking day flashed through her mind…
“Abby!”
The sound of her name and the pounding of a heavy fist on the hotel door had her scampering from atop the bed where she’d been sprawled for the last hour, crying her eyes out until all her mascara had run onto the pristine white pillowcase. Wiping one hand under her nose and the other beneath her leaking eyes, she straightened the lines of her black dress—which she planned to burn at the first opportunity—and glanced around the room looking for…what? Escape? Did she think it was possible to grow a set of wings and fly from the tenth floor window?
She stilled, her breath sawing from her lungs as she looked past the balcony doors and into the bright, unwavering sun of the Miami afternoon. The thought held a speck, the tiniest, smallest, oh-so-infinitesimal kernel of temptation. If she jumped, it would all be over. She wouldn’t have to live with the terrible knowledge that a woman she’d grown to love like a sister was dead. If she jumped, she wouldn’t have to open that door and lie straight to the hurting, anguished face of the man she’d come to adore with all her broken, shattered heart. If she jumped—
“Abby! Dios! Tell them it’s okay to let me in!” Carlos’s voice thundered again, making her flinch, making her realize how scary and how cowardly her thoughts had become. Of course she couldn’t jump. Jumping solved nothing. Jumping didn’t turn back time or lift Rosa from the grave. It didn’t change the fact that the coffin they’d lowered into the cold, dark ground beside the final resting places of Rosa’s parents had been mostly empty; a symbolic gesture more than an actual vessel for Rosa’s scant earthly remains. Holy hell, it was all so horrific. So horrific and so unbearable. But maybe if she opened that door and told Carlos the truth—
You can’t tell him the truth. Her father’s voice rang inside her pounding skull. It won’t do anybody any good, and it could possibly do my chances of election a whole lot of bad.
“Come on, Mitchell,” she could hear Carlos cajole. “You know me. You know I—”
“Miss Thompson,” Agent Mitchell called through the door, his low voice booming like a bass drum and abrading her already frayed nerves. In that moment, she couldn’t help but wish all of this, the agents, the stupid election, the awful destruction a nineteen-year-old college student could cause with one ill-timed text, would just go away. “I can have him escorted from the premises if you—”
“No!” she screamed, racing across the room. “Don’t do that!” She threw open the door.
And then, there he was. Carlos. So smart. So sweet. So handsome in his suit and undone tie. So…everything a young girl dreamed about.
For months she’d hoped he would see her as more than the slightly troublesome, sometimes funny teenager who hung on his sister’s every word. For months she’d wished he would see her as the kind of full-grown woman she’d been desperately trying to become. The kind of woman worthy of the attention of someone like him.
But now she thanked her lucky stars he’d never come to think of her as anything more than a kid, his twin sister’s sarcastic little protégé. Because if he felt for her even half of what she felt for him, it would make the lie she’d agreed to tell just that much more terrible.
“Abby.” He pushed passed the two men in black suits and shoulder holsters positioned on either side of her hotel door. Years… If her father won the election, she would have to suffer years more—at least four and possibly eight—of this complete and utter lack of privacy.
For a moment, she considered throwing it all away. If she confessed to Carlos, if she confessed to the world, perhaps her father wouldn’t win and then everything, her life, could go back to normal. She’d never wanted any of this anyway…