Attest (Centrifuge Duet Book 2)(15)
Our gazes meet, then drop when the crowd gets in the way. I seek her out again when it’s clear and watch Amber’s eyes widen first with fear, and then a horrified recognition. Initially, I think she’s recognised me, then I see that she’s staring at the woman standing next to me.
“We have to go.” Harry is striding after us, his hand reaching into his jacket. I decide that B is right. A swift exit is exactly what’s needed right now. Only problem is that everyone else has the same idea. The exit is jampacked with photographers and journalists trying to be the first to break news of the scandal.
“Turn it off.” Amber’s father yells at the man operating the computer. “Turn it off now or my lawyer will have you in court so fast your head will spin.”
Henry Ray and his bodyguard—the one whose fists I know well from my encounter with them at the fundraising ball all those years ago—surround the man. The movie stops and the lights in the room are switched on.
“Come on!” B yanks on my arm, panic making her voice shrill. She pulls me backward through the exit with a dozen or so others.
Every time the doors swing open after letting more attendees leave, I make eye contact with Amber. Jax is standing next to her, and they’re both staring at me and my companion. The good doctor, who’s just had his extensive coverup partially exposed, is seething with rage. He knows exactly who we are and what we’ve done.
Amber, on the other hand, seems upset. Her perfect lips form a questioning circle and she lays a hand on her heart, mouthing one word at me.
“Xander?”
NINE
She is all I can see as I blindly follow behind B’s car. I see her lips moving as she mouths my name—reliving, over and over, the way it forms as a question and not a fact. Tension makes my head hurt as I try to make sense of what I saw.
Two years should not have erased our decade together from her memory.
Is she still under the effects of Centrifuge?
That’s something that I hadn’t considered before now.
I’d spent my time in prison plotting how to rescue her from Jax and their parents, never once believing that he would have the audacity to reinstate the use of the amnesia inducing drug. She was clear of its effects the last time I saw her, and I’d assumed she’d stayed that way.
Assumptions—they make an ass out of you.
The screeching of tires breaks through my reverie. I slam my foot on the brake and narrowly avoid running into the back of B’s car. The lights from the cars coming in the opposite direction illuminate her as she flips me off in her rear vision mirror. Once the vehicle that caused the near pile-up completes its U-Turn, we can continue on our way.
“Head in the game, Barrett,” I chide myself when Amber tries to consume my thoughts again. “The devil is in the details and you’re missing a fuck-tonne of them.”
B pulls up out the front of my house, and I pull into the spot where the BMW was parked earlier. She’s stalking to the front door before I have time to exit my car, snapping her fingers at me when I don’t get the front door unlocked quick enough for her liking.
Flipping the first light switch I find, I blink away black spots as the whole house bursts into fluorescent brightness, and follow B when she pushes past me and heads for the kitchen.
I plant my ass on the closest dining chair and watch her pull down two wine glasses, grab a bottle of white wine from the fridge, and sit opposite me at the table. She fills mine first, sliding it toward me before she drains her glass in one go then refills it and empties it again.
I take a mouthful of mine, cautiously swilling it around my mouth before I swallow.
“Seriously?” B arches an eyebrow at me.
Ignoring her, I take another mouthful before answering.
“You can never be too careful.” I let loose an apologetic chuckle, then lower my voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Truthfully, I’m not a fan of wine.”
She fluffs her hair, then shrugs. “Tonight calls for wine, whether you like it or not. That couldn’t have possibly gone better.”
“You switched the film? That’s what you passed to Harry?”
B smiles wide, a happy glow brightening her face. It erases the usual surgically-enhanced plasticity of her features and shows that, once upon a decade or so ago, she was a very good-looking woman. “It was. We needed to send a warning shot over the bow and that was the perfect way to let them know that the jig is almost up. We want them running scared, turning against each other as they play the blame game. It’s going to make it much easier for you to fulfil your end of our little arrangement.”
She stops and holds out her glass to me. I clink mine against hers, then watch with appraising eyes as she drains her third glass in less than two minutes. The glass hits the table with a sharp tinging sound when she puts it down with more force than necessary and my suspicions are confirmed. I finish my drink while trying to supress a smile.
B wobbles slightly on her heels when she stands. I place my glass next to hers and stand as well. She places her hands on her hips and glares at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I look down at the table, then back at her. “I’m just confused about why you wanted them to know we’re coming.”
A dismissive sniff that telegraphs her thoughts about my lack of intelligence is the sole response I receive. I was hoping that the wine would loosen her lips. Apparently, she can handle it better than it seemed. B heads for the front door, becoming steadier on her feet with each step she takes, and it’s only when her hand is on the front door knob that she graces me with the answers I seek.