Burn 2 (4 page)

“Oh, Abby,” he whispers as he
deepens his kiss.

She rolls her tongue over his, and then she sucks at his tongue as though it is a lifeline.
He licks the insides of her mouth. Her hands come up to his waist, his chest. She fumbles at the hem of his T-shirt and prizes it away from the waistband of his jeans. The motion goes right to his dick, and he feels his sap rising.

She makes it so easy . . . so very easy.

He groans against her lips. She raises his shirt and yanks it off his arms. He can feel his libido ascending. She places her palms on his bare chest and strokes his pecs in wonder.

“Oh Devon,” she whispers. He can see the tear stains on her cheeks. “There’s something I have to tell you
, but you’ll hate me if I do.”

He stiffens.

“I won’t hate you,” he says quietly. He thinks he knows what she is going to tell him.

“No, you will hate me. But I have to tell you anyway.
I need to get it off my chest.”

His hands are at her waist. She is still fully dressed. He does not take his hands away when he says, “OK. Tell me.”

He braces himself.

Yes, I know. You are an heiress.
You posted bail for me to the tune of one hundred thousand dollars. You employed Patricia Chalmers to defend me at the cost of five hundred dollars a billable hour.

I know all these things.

Abby
says, “I know Rachel Krieg.”

He is stunned. He isn’t expecting this revelation.
It is a blow to his gut.

“How?” he asks.

She tells him, the tears falling freely down her cheeks.

He listens, his face impassive.
He lets her entire tale unravel – her jealousy of what he had with Rachel Krieg, her following Rachel Krieg to the store which sells unique vases, meeting the creepy Richard Krieg, befriending and liking Rachel Krieg, getting the salesgirl job with Rachel Krieg. And throughout it all, his emotions whirl like snowflakes in the dark bowl of his mind.

She says with a choke,
“I did it because I
needed
– ”

Needed? He raises his eyebrows.

“ – to see what she’s like. And one thing led to another . . . and I needed a job anyway . . . and she was so nice to me.”

She stops when she sees his face.

Normally, he would be more understanding. So yes – she wanted to see what Rachel Krieg was to him. She wanted to soak in the essence of the woman who paid him to spank him and have sex with him. He could live with that.

But he is not himself right now.

He is sickened by this whole thing and confused and tired to his bones. His brain is mush and threatening to engulf him with a maelstrom of disordered thoughts that do not seem to have coherence anymore.

He abruptly gets up.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” he says truthfully. “There are just too many lies.”

Her face turns ashen.

“They weren’t lies. I-I just didn’t tell you everything I should have. Please, Devon, I know it was wrong to spy on you, but I did it because I didn’t  . . . didn’t – ”

She falters.

Does she really even know why she did it? Because she had a possessive streak? Because she wanted to get in deeper and deeper into his game?

And there is that thing about keeping
from him the little fact that she is the Holt heiress. What did she think he was? A summer fling? A roll in the hay on the wild side? She is not so different from the rest of them if she thinks so then, only she is paying for his body to the tune of over one hundred thousand dollars.

He suddenly feels cheap and tawdry and betrayed.

He says, more harshly than he intended, “It’s not just Rachel Krieg, OK? It’s everything else. Funny how I learned more about you from your lawyer in ten minutes than I did living with you for a month.”

“I meant to tell you . . . only it wasn’t the right time. I was running.” Her eyes are brimming over. “I just couldn’t tell you until I had time to sort things out.”

He sucks in a deep breath. His lungs hurt.

He says, “I
have to take a walk.”

A long walk.

He turns away from her, grabs his jacket and strides to the door. He has the sudden urge to be alone. He opens the front door of the apartment and vaults out.

Abby doesn’t
attempt to call after him or stop him.

None of this is over. Not by a long shot.

Abby stares at the closed apartment door. Her mind is in turmoil. She knows that Devon needs to be alone for a while, and she has to suppress the urge to fling herself out of that door and run after him.

He is right, of course. She has been keeping things from him.
She has omitted to tell him the truth about almost everything.

Even in how I feel about him.

And now she might never get the chance to come clean with him. He is obviously mad at her, whether or not he needed her money. And his anger at her might implode upon himself. He might do something rash, like refusing her help or going with a lawyer from Billy Dee’s arsenal instead of a super-expensive but highly successful retainer like Pat Chalmers.

She wonders if he will come back and ask her to leave.

She wonders if this is
it
.

The
break-up.

Of course,
every hotel in the city – yes, even the Ritz – would be laying out the red carpet for her arrival. At her current finances, she can afford any suite in the city. But there is nowhere she would rather be than right here. With Devon present, of course. Not this empty, ache-inducing apartment with its forlorn easels and palettes and half-finished canvasses, bereft of their owner’s loving touch.

She doesn’t dare get out of the couch. Her limbs seem paralyzed with indecision. When she draws a breath, it doesn’t fully settle in her lungs
but spreads throughout her chest like a toxic vapor.

She realizes she has
stopped crying, but there is such a hollow pit in the center of her body that all her blood seems to be congealed in it. Her veins feel sluggish, and her extremities are cold. But still she doesn’t get up. Doesn’t want to get up. She would be willing to sit here on the couch and wait for him to come back, if need be. Wait all night with her eyes glued to the closed door and her ears peeled for any footsteps outside.

Time passes. Out here, there is no clock to evince the ticking of the seconds, but she knows they are bleeding away.

Devon still isn’t home yet.

She wonders where he is.
Wonders if he is OK. Is he walking around blindly, hands in the pockets of his jacket, oblivious to the window displays of stores and the casual glances of pedestrians around him? She knows how people around him view him – like a lovely piece of art to admire. She knows how impervious he is to other people’s stares.

Is he that way now? Unfeeling and uncaring? Just walking along to the beat of his own drum
, the thoughts dark and stormy in his brain?

I’m sorry, Devon. I’m sorry. Please come back . . . come back.

The ringing of the doorbell jars her out of her reverie.

Devon!
she thinks, her heart beating fast. But he would have the key, right? She doesn’t remember him grabbing the keys when he left. Maybe it’s him now, come home to sheepishly admit he has locked himself out, and would it be OK for him to come in because he behaved like an ass and he’s really sorry and ready to kiss and make up now?

Still, she leaps out of the couch as though her
flesh is on fire. She almost trips over her own feet as she races towards the door.

Hold it. Steady now.
Slow down.
You don’t want to seem too eager.

How should she play it? Apologetic and grateful?
Frosty and distant?

Magnanimously forgiving?

Devon, I want to apologize for just now . . . and for, well, everything. I should have told you about Rachel Krieg. I should have told you about my trust fund. But I didn’t know you then, you see, and I’m so used to people being friends with me for one thing – and you know what that thing is because it sure ain’t my devastating looks and kill-me-gently personality.

She opens the door before
she can stop herself.

“Devon, I – ”

The person who stands on the other side of the doorway is not Devon. Far from it.

He is
dressed in a simple plaid shirt and brown slacks. His dark eyes regard hers.

“Hello, Abby,” her father
says casually.

Devon
walks and walks toward Battery Park.

It’s a long way down the other side of Manhattan, but he figures he will get there in four hours or so. He has done this walk before – walked through the boroughs and the districts and the different
, ever changing kaleidoscopes of New York City.

He has walked
with all senses on full blast, soaking in the sights and sounds and smells and being attuned to everything and everyone around him. He has walked with his head down and his shoulders slumped, trying to creep about unnoticed. These streets have been privy to the best of him and the worst of him.

And now he
treads in their familiar paths again, his head bowed. He is contemplating. Thinking about how wrong his life has gone.

And yet, he does not regret a moment of it.

He does not regret getting out of his toxic home and away from his uncaring, self-absorbed mother, who was too occupied with her own life to spare a thought about her son – whom she never wanted in the first place.

He does not regret having bartered his body
for money. He does not regret being an artist, and the things he had to do to ply his art.

He does not regret having Rachel Krieg as a client.

And he certainly does not regret having met Abby.

That is, if she is still speaking to him after the abominable way he
had treated her. But it was too much for him to handle, and he just had to be alone for a while. Walking in this familiar path – a stranger in a sea of strangers – has made him see that.

He fully expects to go back to his apartment
(their apartment) and find her gone. Why would she want to be saddled with someone who is potentially going to be wasted, right? She is spending her precious time and money to bail him out of this, and what sane heiress would do that . . . right?

No, it’s better for her to be gone out of his life.
That way, she would be saving herself a lot of grief and angst and heartbreak.

This is for the best.

He clutches his jacket around his body. He is feeling cold. Funny, he is not usually the type to feel the cold, but there is a chill in his bones.

“Devon?”

He whips his head round.

Claire is standing a few feet away from him on the sidewalk. They are somewhere in the financial district.
Her diminutive frame is clad in a cream and tan Burberry overcoat. She looks snug and warm and extremely surprised to see him.

“Claire?” he says, tentatively taking a step back from her.

“What’re you doing here?” she says.

“I’m taking a walk.”

“I mean . . . I thought you would be . . . ” She bites her lower lip.

He is chagrined. “You thought I would be in jail?”

“Yes.”

He thinks for a moment. “Because you didn’t think I would have the money to put up bail for a murder charge?”

She doesn’t say anything, but he knows that is exactly what she is thinking.

He pauses, expecting her to turn heel and walk away from him. When she doesn’t,
he says, with a trace of bitterness, “I’m still the same person I was five days ago. I didn’t kill her, you know.”

“Yes,” she says, a little breathlessly. She is staring at him, and causin
g a few other people to whip their heads around to stare as well.

“
So you have seen me.” He nods. “Now I’ll go, OK?”

He starts to walk away, his heart thudding. He almost expects her to shout after him, “Murderer! You should be behind bars!”

But she calls after him, “Devon, wait!”

He stops despite his better instincts. He half-turns and waits for her shorter legs to catch up with him.

“Let’s grab a cup of coffee,” she says, linking her arm through his.

Now it’s his turn to be surprised.

“You want to be seen with me? A suspect in the murder of your best friend?” His voice comes out a little harsh.

“Let me the judge of that,” she says, motioning to
a Starbucks at the corner of a block.