Amy Bensen 01 Escaping Reality (5 page)

starts to hand it to me, but pulls back. “I don’t normally show my work to

anyone until it’s complete.”

“But you’re going to show me?”

“Yes, Amy. I’m going to show you.”

He offers me the pad and I accept it, but my attention remains on

him. “Why would you show me what you show no one else?”

“Because I want to.”

I do not know what to say. “I…thank you.” Touched and confused, my

gaze lowers to

look at the drawing and shock radiates through me, trapping air in

my lungs. I blink, certain I am not seeing what I am seeing, but the image

remains the same. He showed me what he shows no one else, and what he

has shown me is a piece of my past. Adrenaline courses through me. That

can mean only one thing. I shove the pad beside me and reach for his right

arm and turn his wrist face up, searching for the tattoo that would tell me if

he’s my handler.

Chapter Four

His wrist is bare and I grab the other one, afraid my memory of which

arm the tattoo was on was wrong. But there is nothing. No tattoo. No proof

he is a part of my past or my future. My eyes lift to his and he arches a

brow. “Problem?”

“You don’t have a tattoo?”

His lips quirk and his eyes light with mischief and heat. “Not that I can

show you while we’re still on the plane.”

I ignore the inference that he will show me later and focus on

searching for what lies beneath his amusement, but I find nothing. No

secrets. No hidden agenda. But then, if he expected my reaction to the

drawing, why would he react any other way? Then again, I could simply be

losing my mind. I drop his hand that I am boldly holding and grab the

sketchpad again, staring at the drawing of a high rise framed by a pyramid.

It’s
just a
pyramid. There’s not a code in the center. It’s not tall and narrow

like the one on my note. It really doesn’t resemble the tattoo at all. Maybe

it really is just a building design. Maybe it has nothing to do with me or my

father at all.

Liam leans in close to me, his arm brushing mine and sending a jolt of

awareness through me. “My design inspiration came from the two years I

spent in Egypt, working with a team of experts that studied the Great

Pyramid.”

Impossibly, my skeletons have jumped out of the closet and attacked

me and him in the process, and he’s not even questioning what must have

seemed to be my bizarre actions.

Confused, I turn to look at him. “You aren’t going to ask why I

just…did what I did?”

“No. I’m not going to ask.”

“Why?” Why would he not ask if he didn’t know why I freaked out?

“You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

“I’m not going to be ready before this plane lands.”

“That’s fine.” He lifts a chin at the sketchpad. “You still haven’t said

what you think of my vision.”

He’s confusing me. Okay, everything is confusing me, but his

question is an escape from explaining myself and I take it. “The design is

what you said you wanted it to be. It’s magnificent.”

“You aren’t even looking at it.”

“No. I’m looking at you. The man who created it.” The man who

wanted me to see what he wouldn’t show anyone else.

“And what do you see looking at me, Amy?”

“What you let me see.”

He looks intrigued by that answer, maybe even pleased. “Ask me

what I see when I look at you.”

More than I want him to. “No. I don’t want to know what you see.” I

turn away from him, sinking low in my seat and pulling the blanket to my

chin, and I am clear on only one thing.

I don’t like who I’ve become.

***

“Wake up, Amy.” I blink at the feel of a hand on my shoulder and

turn quickly to find

Liam leaning over me, his mouth impossibly close to mine.

“I was asleep again?”

“Like a rock.”

“Please tell me I didn’t scream.”

“No. Nothing like that. We’re about to—” The wheels hit the runway

with a hard bump and I am shocked to realize that I’ve not only slept a

second time, but so deeply that I had no idea we were even hearing the

landing announcements. It’s like my mind had just shut down.

“I didn’t want the landing to scare you,” Liam explains, settling back

in his seat.

“Thank you. It would have.” I sit up, adjusting my skirt and folding the

blanket.

“What’s your plan from here?”

“Plan?”

“Do you have a ride to wherever you’re going?”

“A friend is picking me up,” I croak out, and the lie is like wet cotton

in my throat. He wants this…this whatever we started to continue and so

do I, but I can’t know his real motivation any more than I can risk his safety

by being seen with him.

“Male or female?”

I blink, snapping back to the present. “What? Male or female?”

“Your friend picking you up. Male or female?”

I know the safe answer is “male”. I know that if his motivation for the

question is simple male interest, it will discourage him, and still I hear

myself say, “Female.”

His eyes darken, heat, and I think he’s pleased with my answer. “I’ll

help you with your bags.”

“No, I—”

“I’m helping you with your bags, Amy.”

There is command in his voice, and I am instantly, unbelievably

aroused, and pleased at his insistence, when I should be running for the

hills. I
will
run for the hills when the doors open.

“Thank you,” I murmur and turn away from him, afraid he will read

my intentions to flee.

Quickly, I make sure my folder and bag are intact, sliding the leather

strap over my shoulder, and I am ready for action.

The plane parks at the gate, and Liam stretches his long, perfect body

to retrieve my bag from the overhead compartment. Once he hands it to

me, I lift the handle and tell myself to make my escape, but for a moment I

am frozen in regret over leaving him. Too soon, he jerks his bag free, and I

am out of time. A man moves between myself and Liam and I take the

opportunity to dart for the exit. I don’t look back. I
want
to look back.

A few minutes later, I am outside in a cab line that stretches a good

fifteen cab lengths long, with no actual cars in sight. Thanks to several

conventions and some Hollywood event, it appears I have plenty of time to

savor my regret over leaving Liam behind. And I do. I savor it like I would

water in a desert.

I’m busying contemplating how good
he
might have tasted when a

black Town Car stops directly beside me. The door opens and to my shock

Liam steps out and grabs my bag. “Come with me,” he orders, and he

doesn’t give me time to argue.

I haven’t moved yet and he’s already at the trunk where the driver

lifts my bag to deposit it inside. I consider leaving it behind and running. I

should
leave it and run. I charge toward him and meet him at the back

door.

My chin lifts and he is taller than I realized, and his sleek goatee is

impossibly sexy, nearly distracting me from my anger. “You can’t just take

my bag and demand I come with you.”

“And yet that’s exactly what I did. Get in the car, Amy.”

I bristle at the command. “I don’t know you.”

His piercing blue eyes darken. “I have every intention of remedying

that.”

A thrill shoots through me at the obvious promise that he will be my

lover, and there is no denying that I am seduced by this man, drawn to his

confidence and dark good looks. To the gentle lion I believe will take

control of everything around him, including me. The man who will demand

much of me, and perhaps take more than I should give. And yet, beyond all

reason, I want to experience those things. I want to experience him. It

almost feels…necessary.

A cab honks at our driver and I have nothing to go on but instinct that

tells me I can trust him, but it has never failed me. Not even when I took

the job at the museum that I knew was a mistake. The horn blasts again

and I go with my gut. I get in the car. Liam follows me inside and shuts the

door.

“Where are we going?” the driver calls over his shoulder, pulling

away from the curb.

I quickly slide my bag from my lap to the seat in between Liam and

me, and I’m suddenly too nervous to look at him. He’s experienced in ways

I can’t even pretend to be, in ways the few men I have dared to date have

not been. Worldly in ways I once thought I’d be.

And with the folder I’ve been given by my handler opened, I read out

my new address, trusting him at a time when trust is the last thing I should

be dishing out.

“I approve,” Liam says as I seal the zipper up again.

“Approve?” I ask, daring to look at him, aware of him on every level.

His size. His spicy scent. The burn of his anger in the depth of his stare over

my leaving him behind that hasn’t quite faded.

“The location your new boss picked for you. It’s a safe area.”

I seize the opportunity to know more about this man I am risking so

much, perhaps too much, for. “You know Denver that well?”

“Yes. I know Denver quite well.”

“Did you design another building here?”

“The tallest one downtown.”

“I thought you weren’t into the whole ‘bigger is better’ thing?”

“It was a notch on the proverbial bedpost of a young architect.”

I can’t help but wonder if I’m setting myself up to be a notch on his

proverbial bedpost as well. “You’re still young.”

“I started young, so I seem younger than one would think a seasoned

architect might be.”

“When you say started young that means what?”

“I was an apprentice to a very famous architect from the time I was

thirteen until he died four years ago.”

“Thirteen? You started your career at thirteen?”

“I started my training at thirteen.” He lowers his voice. “You do know

I couldn’t let you run, don’t you?”

“I wasn’t—”

“You were.”

“If you think that, then why’d you come after me?”

“Because you didn’t want to run. You just thought you had to.”

“That’s a little arrogant.”

“It’s honest. I like honesty.”

I like it too, but I can’t give it to him. This ride was a mistake.

“Liam—”

He closes the distance between us, moving my bag out of the way,

his powerful leg pressed to mine, his fingers sliding into my hair. I am

shocked. I am excited and scared, frozen and burning up at the same time.

“Do you know how much I like it when you say my name?” he asks, his

voice a soft, seductive purr.

Nerves and heat collide like fire in my belly. He likes when I say his

name? This man who is overwhelmingly male, a powerful force like none I

have ever experienced? “I don’t know what to say to that.” And it is as

honest an answer as I’ve given anyone in years.

“You don’t have to know, Amy. It’s okay not to know.”

For the second time today, he has spoken words straight to my soul.

Relief that reaches so far beyond this moment in time, and my possible

response to his statement, flows through me.

This is why I’m in this car, why I am drawn to this man. He makes me

feel I don’t have to hold the world up on my own. And as crazy as it is, from

the moment my eyes met his in the terminal, he has had a way of making

me feel I am not alone.

His thumb runs over my bottom lip and a shiver trickles down my

spine. I think he will kiss me. I want him to kiss me. But he doesn’t. “Soon,”

he promises, as if responding to my silent plea, as if he knows how much I

crave his mouth on mine. His cell phone rings, but for a moment he ignores

it to add, “And not soon enough.”

He moves away from me and I want to pull him back. I want to feel

his hands on my body again, his leg pressed to mine. But he is already

answering his call, and too easily dismissing what I cannot. “Yes,” he says to

his caller. “I’m here.”

My fingers curl, nails digging into my palm. I have no one to call and

ask if
I’m
here. I have only me and no matter how drawn I am to Liam, if

today has proven anything to me it’s that there can
always
be only me. But

as I glance at Liam’s strong profile, I pretend he is truly with me. And that I

am truly with him. It is a small dream in the middle of a nightmare.

***

Thirty minutes after we leave the airport, the Town Car pulls to a

stop at a destination.

Liam grabs my bag and exits street side while the driver opens my

door. I step outside, enjoying a cool evening breeze that drives home the

fact that I am no longer in New York. Scanning my surroundings, I appear to

be standing in the center of high-end restaurants and stores where, despite

the late hour of nearly midnight Mountain Time, people are casually

strolling the sidewalks and the city is far from dead.

With my apartment key in my hand, I glance behind me to find more

stores and a hotel, and then forward again where apartment balconies

seem to sit above the retail stores.

“Hang onto my bags,” I hear Liam tell the driver, before he joins me,

my joke of a suitcase and my bag in tow. “What apartment number?”

“222, but I don’t see an entrance.”

“The driver said there’s an elevator entrance beside the kitchen