Among the Echoes(40)

"You don’t have to hide from him, Riley." I take a step forward and push a hand into her hair to tilt her head back. "Look, you’re right. This is all new. We are just getting to know each other, and who the hell knows if it will work out. But I will swear on my life that I will make you safe. Whether this works out or not, I will never let anyone hurt you again."

She closes her eyes and her chin begins to quiver. "You have no idea how much I wish I could believe you," she says with a sob and drops her forehead to my chest.

"I swear to you. I’ll get you a good attorney, a restraining order, and a security detail—whatever you need. I want to be with you, but more than that, I want to see you live without fear."

She sucks in a long breath and shakes her head against my chest. "You’re a good man, Slate Andrews."

Sliding her arms up my chest, she wraps them around my neck. The tears steadily fall from her eyes as she stands on her tiptoes and pulls me down for an agonizing kiss. It begins slow and gentle, but it doesn’t take long before it becomes wild. I push her up against the brick just beside her front door. Her hands trace over my body and back up and over my shoulders. I hold her tight against me and she clings to my back, digging in her fingernails in the most positively arousing way possible.

"I’ll fix that part for you. Then we can figure the us part out together," I say, trying to reassure her again.

Suddenly, she steps out of my arms and rubs the heels of her palms over her eyes. "I can’t even begin to tell you how much I wish we could make that happen. It’s just not possible. Goodbye, Adam." Before I even have a chance to react to her words, she opens her door and slides inside, locking it behind her.

"Don’t do this. Don’t let this go because of who I am!" I shout at the closed door.

"I’m not. I’m letting it go because of who I am," she says in a voice so broken that it physically hurts to hear it.

"Damn it! Just talk to me, Riley," I plead, but she never responds.

I wait for at least fifteen minutes, but I never hear another word from her. I try to figure what the hell just happened. I knew she was going to be upset that I hadn’t told her about my life sooner, but her cryptic little messages about why we can’t be together worry me the most. Finally, the cold forces me back to my apartment. But I leave knowing that I’ll be back. This is not a fight I’m willing to lose.





"Did you know?" I ask, storming into Dave’s room. He’s asleep, but after the night I’ve had, he’s going to have to wake the f*ck up. "Did you f*cking know?" I scream at the top of my lungs as he flies out of bed.

"Know what? Jesus, are you all right?" he asks, trying to scrub the sleep from his eyes.

"That I was dating a God damn celebrity!" I yell again, but it catches in my throat.

"Fuck." He sighs.

"Oh, God! You knew." The threatening tears spill over my eyes.

"Yeah, I knew," he admits.

"Wonderful. You encouraged me to put our lives at risk. Both of us could be exposed at any minute and you encouraged me to do it. What the f*ck were you thinking?"

"I was thinking he made you smile and you weren’t afraid of it. You acted like a woman instead of a piece of glass so shattered it would never be able to be pieced back together. So yeah, I took a chance and pushed you towards him. I have watched you smile more over the last week than I have seen in the three years we have been forced together. You acted like a normal person for seven full days, and it was the best moments of my entire f*cking life to watch you do it."

"That’s bullshit. This is not f*cking fair! You shouldn’t have kept something that big from me. All it would take is one f*cking picture and we would both be dead." I stomp my foot in frustration. "When the hell do I get to make some decisions about my own life? You don’t always get to decide what’s best for me, damn it!"

"Well, you need someone to do it!" he growls, sitting back down on the corner of his bed. "You’re doing a shit job at managing all of this. I’ve been stressing since we got word of this move about what to do with you. You’ve regressed back to those first few months after the trial. Then, all of a sudden, Slate f*cking Andrews walked into your life and something changed. It’s like you came alive in a way I have never seen before. So yeah, I pushed you towards him. I also stayed close and had the big boys send in a detail to keep an eye on things while you were with him. You know I would have pulled you out if I thought you were in any danger whatsoever."