The Other Man(59)

Something happened to his face, something scary.

He stood, tucking himself back into his jeans and zipping them up, his eyes never leaving me.

A ruthlessness I’d never seen before had overtaken his expression.  “I don’t know,” he bit out.  “Explain it to me.”

“That woman you have spying on me.  She told you, didn’t she?”

His whole face clenched up, and I knew something bad was happening.

He’d gone so still, but something volatile was writhing in agony under the surface of that stillness.

“How do you know about the woman spying on you?” he asked me.

I wanted to curse at him in five languages for the question, but I managed to answer civilly enough.  At least he knew now that I was aware of her.  It was something I’d needed to address, needed to have out in the open.  “She came to see me.  Didn’t you know?”

His face didn’t so much as twitch, but his shoulders started shaking.

He looked like he was about to snap, to lose it completely.

I was afraid of him, that’s how much he was losing his ever-present composure.

I’d always known he was dangerous.  But my instincts, which I’d trusted before Heath, had always told me that, while he was dangerous, he was not at all dangerous to me.

I did not feel that way now.

Something dark and vile had overtaken him.  He’d barely moved, but I still knew, deep in my gut, that he was incensed to a degree that I’d never seen before.

To the point of violence.

I was shaking.  This was not Heath and his usual combination of mean and magnificent.  This was not Heath angry = Me turned on.

This was something unmanageable.  I knew it.

“She contacted you directly?” His face was fraudulently collected, but his voice hid nothing.  He sounded murderous.

“She came to my house.  She had all kinds of interesting things she wanted to tell me about you.”

I couldn’t speak of her without revealing my feelings, though I tried to hide it.

My jealousy was very thinly veiled, but as I studied him I realized that that didn’t matter.  He’d never notice it, because he simply wasn’t looking for it.

He was much too wrapped up in his own volatile emotions then to notice mine.

“She came here?  To your house?”

I didn’t answer, didn’t bother to repeat myself, just staring at him.

He cursed, fluently and savagely.  “Did she lay a hand on you?  Hurt you?”

I couldn’t manage an answer for several pounding heartbeats, because the way he asked it made me realize something.

This fury, this unadulterated rage he was going through was not directed at me.

It was for her.  I was both relieved and as baffled as ever.

“No,” I finally got out.

That seemed to take some of the steam out of him, which was good.  I could breathe again when he didn’t look so close to the brink.

“She just came here . . . to talk?” he finally managed to get out.

“Yes.  She told me everything, Heath.  I know everything.”

His brows drew together menacingly.  “She told you everything?  I don’t f*cking think so.  She doesn’t know everything, and I’ve worked with her for a long time, so I can guess what she did tell you.  A convincing combination of lies and truth.  But I see it got to you.”

“Are you saying you’ve never lied to me?”

“Not like you seem to think.  Have I been completely upfront with you?  No.  Have I lied?  Yes.  But not more than I had to.”

“I know that you only approached me because of whatever was going on with your sister and Dair.”

He cursed, and it was as good as an admission of guilt.  “Yes, that’s why I approached you then.  But it has f*ck all to do with me being here now.”

I recoiled.  It was an awful thing to hear, because it made me think that— “So you only slept with me because of—”

“No!  Fucking no.  Stop it.  I checked you out for my sister.  I searched your house.  I got a feel for your patterns, trying to figure out if you were seeing Dair.  But, like I said, that had f*ck all to do with us having sex.”

“Then why—”

“I f*cked you because I couldn’t f*cking help myself, okay?  It was never part of the plan.  It was always against the goddamn plan, okay?  I’ll admit that I invaded your privacy way more than was fair.  I, shit, Lourdes, I started watching you and I liked what I saw.  More than liked.”

He took a very deep breath.  “Listen, to understand why I became so obsessed with you so quickly, you need some background on me.  I’ve done a lot of things.  Terrible things.  Things a man can’t come back from.  You never come back.  Instead, you end up owning those things, and they just become a part of who you are.

“For better or worse, I own a lot of bloody baggage that I can’t ever walk away from.  I’ve survived a lot of things I can’t come back from, and hell, I know there are some still to come.”

He studied me for a moment, trying to gage my reaction, then continued, “I carry all of my burdens as best I can, but I know better than anyone that I can never lead a normal life.  Even if all of my problems were solved, and my sister was safe, my life will never be peaceful.