Mockingbird (A Stepbrother Romance #2)(22)

"Which job?"

"I don't remember."

A little pang of anger twists in my stomach.

"They all blur together," he adds, quickly. "When I was young, it was all about the excitement. The riches, the women, and most of all the thrill of the chase, the threat of being caught, the exultation of success. Every time I'd swear this time I'm going to settle down, this time I'm going to retire, I've made enough, done enough, and I never did. I just kept going. I want to tell you the night you were conceived was magical, special, but I don't even remember it. We hooked up a few times. I felt something for her I've never felt for any of the others. After her the carousing became boring. It felt like there was no real point anymore, but I couldn't stay. A man in my line of work makes enemies, and if I settled down they would, in time, find me and strike at me through people I cared about. The best thing I could do was move on."

"Move on and keep stealing. Very convenient."

"You're going to hurt yourself with this girl. I can see it in your eyes. Worse, you're going to hurt her. We have to do this job. She's smart. She's going to figure out what we've done, and the more of a thing you make it with her, the more it's going to hurt her. If you like her, spare her that pain, not yourself. For her sake…"

"For her sake, what? Manipulate her emotions and f*ck her so I can rob her mother's employer?"

"I don't think you'll have to."

"Dad, I'm starting to think we need to back out of this one. You keep telling me you have reserves and savings and resources. Let's back out of it now. You're telling me not to hurt Diana but her mother is falling for you. I'd have to be blind not to see it. I'm sure my old man can get the job done, but she's not looking at you the way they look at…" Me, I'm about to say, but I trail off.

"I want to," he says, and his voice breaks in a way that twists in my chest like a blade. "I'm an old man."

"Oh, you are not."

"Yes, I am. Passing fifty soon enough. When you get old enough, the diamonds start to lose their sparkle, the gold loses its lustre and all you're left with is a life to look back on and ask, what have I done? The only thing I've done that will last in this world is you, and look how that's turned out."

He stands up from the rail. "You've got nothing on your plate tomorrow. I have work to do. Take the car, go somewhere and get your mind off the girl. Keep your head in the game. This will be my last rodeo, I'm done after this. After that you can do as you like, but settle somewhere, for my sake. The longer you run the more and more the ghosts chase you until you can't outrun them anymore."

As he walks into the house he stops.

"I was wrong. I should have made that job the last one and stayed with you. I've never been more wrong about anything in my life."

Then he disappears inside and leaves me to the darkness, out here.

By the time I fall into bed, it's four-thirty. I should be exhausted but all I can do is toss and turn. The strangeness of this bedroom, another unfamiliar ceiling, presses on me. The sheets feel like sandpaper, the chill from the air conditioner in the window like an arctic blast, and I can't stop thinking about Diana.

I'm too smart for this. There is no such thing as love at first sight, I'm too smart, too practical for that. Sex is biological, it's a drive, like sleeping or eating, and I've never been shy about fulfilling that drive, in abundance. I can recall faces more easily than names.

It all blurs together.

I sit up and wait for the sun. When it slices between the blinds I'm sitting on the bed in the lotus position, in a haze, tired but unable to sleep. I find myself wondering what Diana is doing right now. I can imagine her mother chewing her out over what she saw. I don't even know how it happened. It's not like I've never met a woman that came on strong before, but there was something different about it this time. Something about her. The way she feels, the way she smells, even, that look in her eyes, so bright and full of spark and intelligence.

Finally, after sunup, I fall into a light sleep, curled away from the windows. When I wake up I feel worse than I did when I went to sleep. You'd think I'd been drinking, not that girl.

The whole day is mine, or what's left of it, since it's past one. I shower, I shave, I scrub my fingers through my hair.

You know, he's right. I need to get my head in the game. So I take the car while he's out doing whatever he does, and I drive.

It's a half an hour ride into the city. Philadelphia. I grabbed some cash from my drawer and have it stuffed in my pockets, and I have a very convincing fake ID that says I'm twenty one years old. At no point as I walk into the casino does anyone bother to check. It's social engineering, all about the swagger, looking like you belong there. I'm not dressed like a scrub, either, which certainly helps. There's a moment of nerves, a little twitch of excitement, when I drop a sheaf of hundreds on the table and look up at the dealer at the craps table.

"Change."

The dealer nods, and the moment has passed, but I'm still scanning the exits, mentally planning my escape, which way to run, which railings to vault over so they can't take me in.

I could play blackjack, but it's too much like work and there's a good chance they'd catch me counting cards, even with a shoe of eight decks. Roulette is too random.