Beyond Possession (Beyond #5.5) (15 page)

None of her pain was clean. None of it was easy. Her sister was alive. Her sister felt
safe
. That should be all that mattered. It had to be all Tatiana thought about. Not how much she'd lost, not how lost she felt when Catalina curled up trustingly in the bed Lex had provided, never wondering how much that bed would cost.

Catalina would do well with the O'Kanes. She'd never question the price of safety. She'd never had to pay it herself. And she wouldn't pay it now.

Tatiana would. And the price would be so, so high. It would be her heart.

She turned the corner toward the market and shoved her hands deeper into the pockets of her borrowed jacket, shoulders hunched against the late-afternoon chill. Everything she had was borrowed now, except her boots. She felt off-balance dressed in Trix's too-fancy clothing, like she was already someone else. A kept woman.

An
ungrateful
kept woman. Her life had gone up in flames, but she was alive. Her sister was alive. She wouldn't have to wonder where her next meal would come from. No one would corner her on the street with leering offers to lend her a bed if she'd bend over it first.

Zan would give her everything, and the fear would set in. It was a survival instinct ingrained too deeply to dig out. Make yourself smaller than the people who held power over you. Duck your head. Try to please them.

She would try. For him, and for herself, she'd try. But for all his grand promises, how many times could he watch her flinch away or bite her tongue before the lack of trust hurt him more than a rejection ever could have? They'd rot from the inside out, and it would be her fault.

And even seeing the cliff coming, she still wanted to crawl back into his bed, into his arms, and hide for as long as she could.

There was no hiding once she reached the market square. Staring across it tore fresh wounds in her heart. Worse was enduring the stares. No one spoke to her as she walked toward the sad pile of rubble that had been her home and her life. But she could feel the weight of their stares, and their whispers were a buzz at the edge of her senses.

Maybe they were afraid to approach her. Gossip was probably running wild by now, but gossip had a way of twisting. Until they knew where she stood—and where the O'Kanes stood—she'd be poison.

But one man stood on the edge of the wreckage. He wore no jacket, just a pristine white shirt and vest tailored to fit his broad shoulders and dress slacks that must have come straight out of Eden, because no man in Sector Four was paying that much for pants that weren't made of leather.

Of course, most men in Sector Four didn't have an ass rumored to have inspired poetry. An ass the rich ladies in Eden paid a month's worth of Tatiana's profits to spend an hour touching.

Tatiana knew
who
Jared was. She just didn't know why he was staring at her shop.

He turned—not as if he was looking for someone, but as if he felt her gaze on him. He smiled politely and inclined his head. "Miss Stone."

She didn't even know his last name, but she supposed most people didn't. "Jared."

"I'd ask how you are, but it seems rather self-evident, doesn't it?"

His speech was formal, his words crisply enunciated. It reminded Tatiana of her mother's lessons, and getting her fingers slapped for using slang. She searched the crumpled walls for the spot where her office had been and felt a fresh surge of pain. The portrait of her mother had been so close to her workroom with all of its highly flammable oils. There was no hope it had survived.

"I've been better," she admitted, quietly enough that maybe she could hide the pain. "But I've been worse, too. We're all alive."

"That's no small thing," he agreed. "Businesses can be rebuilt."

Businesses could be rebuilt. She'd done it once, after all. But even money couldn't build some things faster. The tools she'd had to make, because there was no place in a post-flare world to buy them. The precise recipes that had taken months of experimentation and would have to be recreated from memory. The supplies that had come from far away, that were rare or hard to find.

But what else could she do? Give up and stare at Zan's ceiling until the hole in her chest swallowed them both? "I may have to set my sights smaller this time."

"That would be a shame. Especially since I had something of a proposition for you."

She turned slowly, away from the rubble of her past. Jared was watching her with no discernable expression beyond polite interest, but it wouldn't be smart to forget that the same man who had trained Gia in all the tricks that made her powerful had trained this man as well.

Jared might look like the most harmless man in the market, but that only made him the most dangerous.

Wetting her lips, she tilted her head. "What sort of proposition?"

"I need gifts for my clients. Nothing extravagant, and nothing permanent. Bath products seem a logical choice." His elegant smile took on a wickedly amused edge. "And if the scents don't give me a headache, all the better."

Pity. That's what it felt like for the first few seconds—maybe even at Gia's behest, because Gia wasn't a monster, and she never really let go of the people she'd claimed as hers.

But the word
clients
loomed larger in the next moment. Jared's clients weren't only from Eden. They were women so rich they could pay the right bribes for sector passes and so bored they took the risk just for the thrill of doing something illicit.

Wealthy idiots. She could charge them
so much
.

Jared laughed softly. "Yes, darling. I can almost hear those wheels turning in your head. But don't worry—I don't think less of you." He leaned closer. "From one entrepreneur to another? If it pleases me, they'll buy everything you can make."

In spite of everything, Tatiana found herself laughing, too. Because she could see it so easily. Refined products. Faux-rustic packaging. That would be part of the thrill—the idea that it was exclusive, something you couldn't buy in the shops in Eden. The fact that they'd associate it with Jared wouldn't hurt.

The margins would be ridiculous. She could make more in a few months than she used to in a few years, and she wouldn't even need a full shop to do it. "So what's your cut?"

He covered his surprise with a quiet cough. "Let's just consider it a mutually beneficial arrangement, shall we?"

Maybe he was so damn rich that he wouldn't miss a few thousand credits. Or maybe whatever perfume those ladies were buying in Eden was really that damn bad. But he could have come around to buy stuff from her before. If the timing wasn't pity, it was...

"Zan," she whispered.

"Hmm?"

A twisted sort of hope lurched to life. "Was it Zan? Please, Jared. I need to know."

"Yes." He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "He mentioned you were trying to expand your sales inside the city, and he thought I might have some ideas."

It was a tiny thing. But it was
everything
. It was Zan, not merely seeing her, but knowing her. The broken parts of her heart and the wounded parts of her soul. A different sort of man could have resented not feeling like enough—and maybe Zan did. But not so much that he stopped trying to give her everything she needed.

Even the power to walk away from him.

And she could, with Jared opening up the Eden market for her. She wouldn't even need him forever. Long enough to build up a demand, and then she could go back to those fancy Eden boutiques and strike a far more favorable deal. They'd fight each other just to be the one store luring Jared's fancy clients through their doors, and she'd pick whoever offered her the best terms.

Less overhead. Less work. A softer sort of life, for her
and
Catalina. And Zan hadn't whispered a word of it to her, because making her feel like it came from him would have been another way to tie her down.

Zan had showed her he wouldn't do that. She'd have to show him he wouldn't have to.

"Fucking hell, Zan. Who were you trying to punch that time?"

"Sorry, Dallas." He swung again and missed just as spectacularly as before. "Fuck."

Dallas shook his head. "Sparring like this isn't sparring at all. You might as well be swinging at a wall. At least you might hit that."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Zan yanked off his gloves and dropped them at the edge of the cage.
Don't ask, man. Don't.
"How are they? Tatiana and Catalina?"

"They're...okay." Dallas stripped off his own gloves. "Catalina's convinced Lex is gonna kiss all her boo-boos better. She's not about to give Lex the same backtalk she's been giving Tatiana."

The damn man was going to make him ask. "Catalina's the easy one. What about Tatiana?"

Dallas tilted his head, and Zan knew that look. He was picking his words, deciding just how much truth he was going to drop. "Has she talked to you?" he asked finally.

Not once. Not a single word since the night of the blackout. The night her shop burned to the ground.

At first, he figured she needed some time, maybe even some distance, just to get her feet solidly beneath her again. But as the hours stretched into days, he slowly began to realize that the time and distance might not be enough. He'd half-expected it—but it still hurt. It hurt like hell.

He had to answer, so he shrugged. "No. I guess she's been busy."

"Yeah, she has." With that cryptic remark, Dallas squeezed Zan's good shoulder. "It's not my secret to tell. But if you want her, you need to find her. And ask her."

Ask her what? If she could handle belonging to him? He didn't need to ask, because she had told him—over and over—that she couldn't. Even more damning, she'd shown him.

But maybe Dallas was right. He wouldn't like her answer, Zan knew that much already, but he couldn't move on until he'd heard her say it.

He cleared his throat. "Is fight night still on for this weekend?"

"You know it." Dallas grinned. "Gotta make the usual show, remind everyone why they don't fuck with us. You think you're up to it?"

His shoulder hadn't hurt in days. It was the rest of him that ached. "Yeah, I'm up for it."

"Good. And, Zan?"

He paused with his hand on the open cage door.

"It wasn't my idea."

"What wasn't?"

"You'll know. Go find her."

Cryptic as hell, and more than a little maddening. "You get more like Lex every day, you know that?"

He walked out of the warehouse with Dallas's laughter echoing behind him.

Zan headed for his room to clean up. Talking to Tatiana wasn't enough, not after days of silence. He needed to make a good impression, needed to let her know that he wasn't coming to her casually. He had a purpose, and he was determined to see it through.

He opened his door and stopped short at the sight of Tatiana in his bed.

Naked.

She clutched the sheet to her chest as he stared at her, her cheeks flushed. "This would have worked better without the blanket, but I was afraid someone else might open the door."

Her words barely penetrated the buzzing in his ears. Because she wasn't just naked in his bed, under the covers. She had ink—around her wrists, no less—the O'Kane emblem in all its glory, with everything that meant.

It wasn't my idea.
Dallas's words suddenly made perfect fucking sense.

Her gaze followed his, and she held up her wrist. "I made a new deal. Dallas jumped pretty fast when he realized he could ink me
and
Catalina and wave us under everyone's noses at the crafter meeting tomorrow. Stones wearing O'Kane ink."

The confession jarred him out of his shock. "Is that all it is?" he asked her quietly. "A show to let everyone know how in control Dallas is?"

"No, that's why Dallas agreed." She touched her wrist, tracing the top of the skull. "I agreed because of you."

"So you can wind up hating me?" It was the only thing that had a chance of hurting worse than losing her now.

"I talked to Jared."

Zan managed not to wince. Maybe she
was
pissed, and she just had a weird way of showing it, because he couldn't imagine she was happy about him interfering in her business. "Yeah?"

Tatiana reached out a hand. "Come here, Zan."

If he did it—if he took that step— "Just say it, Tatiana. Tell me why you're here."

"I have a deal with Dallas O'Kane. I'm going to have my own shop again, and access to Jared's customer list. Give me a year and I'll have enough money to do any damn thing I want." She sat up slowly, letting the sheet slip to her waist, leaving her bare except for her wild hair and that bright, fresh ink. "I don't have to be here. I
want
to be here."

She was beautiful, and just looking at her like this made his throat go tight. "Because you don't need me."

"I need you." Her voice wavered. "Not to survive. But for everything else. For this..." She touched the ink again. "I still don't know how to believe in Dallas. But you do, and that's enough for me. You're too good of a man to be loyal to a bad one."

The words sparked a guilt that rushed through him, obliterating everything else. "I'm not good, Tatiana. I wanted you. I have for a long time, I didn't lie about that. But I wouldn't have come to you if Dallas hadn't needed your support."

Pain flashed through her eyes, twisting the knife of guilt deeper. She clutched at the sheet, hauling it up, as if she felt
too
naked. "Why?"

The truth. Would it fix everything, or be the last break between them? "Because you might need me...but you don't want to."

She closed her eyes. "It's not that simple. I needed Gia.
Needed
her. I might not have survived without her. And I felt it every day, even though she never held it over my head. It made me afraid to be myself, and the person Gia wanted, that person I was trying to be...she never existed."

His chest throbbed with pain as he eased closer and sat on the end of the mattress. "I wouldn't change you, sweetheart. Not a single goddamn thing."

Her breathing hitched. "I thought that's why you did it. Talked to Jared without talking to me. I thought it meant...that you wanted me to be able to support myself, if it mattered to me."