Revealing Us (Inside Out #3)(50)

“Get back, Sara!” Chris shouts at me, and I cringe as my distracting him results in him getting a knee in the gut. Chris punches the guy again.

“Your hand!” I scream, closing the distance between us, and latching on to his elbow. “You’re going to hurt your hand!”

Chris curses and holds of a kick from the other man.

“Damn it, Sara, back away!” He punches the guy again, and this time the man slumps.

Chris leans in close to the other man and says something I can’t hear, let alone understand. The man’s reply is muled, a near growl. Chris knees him in the gut and the man starts talking. When he stops, Chris releases him, grabbing me and pulling me behind him.

The stranger darts of through the gates and Chris whirls on me, his ingers digging into my shoulders, rain plastering his hair onto his face. “Wait means wait, damn it!”

Blood rushes in my ears. “Your hand. Let me see your hand.”

His expression is pure fury unleashed, and instead of showing me his hand, he grabs mine and pulls me back onto the sidewalk and into a mad dash. Two briskly covered blocks later, we rush into a bar, rain dripping of our clothes and forming puddles on the hardwood loors. Chris doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t have to. Anger crackles of him, and I have the distinct impression he’s barely contained.

He asks the big guy at the door, “Toilette?”

We receive a inger point and a one-word reply, and we’re on the move again, my hand still irmly in Chris’s. The adrenaline readying me for our soon-to-come confrontation is all that keeps my aching feet and chilled body in motion down a light of stairs to a tiny hallway with one door at the end.

Chris shoves open the bathroom door, and drags me inside with him. A second later I’m in a space barely big enough for one, and Chris is locking the door. Another second later, and I’m pressed against the wall. For once, his big body is pressed against me and I’m not wet from arousal.

“What part of ‘wait’ did you not understand?” he growls at me.

“Someone had to call for help if you got into trouble.”



“I said wait, Sara, and I damn well meant wait. You have to listen.”

“Chris, I—”

“Don’t push me, baby,” he warns, water tracking the angry lines of his face. “You won’t like the results. And if you think you’ve heard that one before, think again. This is all new territory.”

I’m shaking inside and out, and not from the chill of my wet skin. “Don’t threaten me.”

“Then don’t f*cking give me a reason to be this damn pissed. Nothing is worth risking your safety.”

“You are!”

His lips thin. “I’m not giving you the chance to repeat today. This ends now. We’re going back to the States.”

“What?” The one word is all I can manage, all that can cut through the clawing pain of my heart being ripped from my chest.

“Stephen said a week in the States, and we can end the Ava iasco.”

We. He’s saying “we,” and for a moment I cling to the meaning, but only a moment. If I go back now, he’ll shut me out. He knows it and so do I. “Did Stephen say I have to come back?”

“He said it’s a good idea. He’ll work out the passport situation.”

He’s shutting me out before I can hurt him. “Did he say I have to return?” I ask again, unable to control the tremble in my voice.

He presses his hand to the wall, his body lifting away from mine. His silence is damning, and my mind slides down a water-fall into the icy waters of nevermore. I’m sinking, and I have to escape before I drown. I try to duck under Chris’s arm.

His leg shackles mine, holding me in place. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“Don’t even go there, Chris. I’m sick of that excuse. If you want out, then say you want out. Let me by.”

He’s a solid, unmovable wall, his expression infuriatingly indiscernible. “That man back there was hired to follow you in hopes of inding Ella.”

My lips part in surprise. “What? Why? By who?”

“Ella has found her way onto the wrong radar screen.”

“Whose radar?”

“Garner Neuville, a very rich, very powerful man who’s nothing but trouble. The kind I want you nowhere near.”

“Why would he be looking for Ella?”

“Exactly. Whatever she’s into is bigger than marrying some small-time American doctor. I want you out of Paris.”

Icy ingers crawl up my spine. I’m no better of than the night I sat on Ella’s bed, willing her home, and wishing for Chris. They’re both a million miles from my reach and I haven’t a clue how to ind them.

“But sending me back to the States isn’t about Ella, is it? It’s about your fear that I’m going to go of and die on you.” He jerks away from me and it’s as if a door slams shut, and I almost linch with the impact.

But I keep going, I keep pushing. I’m worried about Ella.

I’m angry at Chris. I’m hurt. “Well, you know what I fear? This is my fear. This moment when, once again, you shut me out 195



and I’m alone. If you were going to leave me alone, you should have walked away before now, when I still knew how to breathe without you.”