Say the Word (29 page)

“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted, holding out a hand to stop his words. “You, Sebastian Michael Covington, were a
waiter
?” I contorted my expression into a mask of horror. “The same boy who didn’t know the difference between an omelet and a frittata? Who’d never even been inside a kitchen unless it was to sneak cookies from the pantry? Who’d never eaten a waffle until he was eighteen?” I stared at him in disbelief. “How on earth did you manage to deliver orders?”

Bash dropped his forehead into his palm. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he muttered, groaning at the memory. “Though you’re right — the first few weeks were pretty brutal. It’s actually amazing they didn’t fire me after my first shift. I spilled an entire pot of coffee, accidentally gave an order of huevos rancheros to a vegan, and mistakenly charged someone’s credit card for another table’s order.”

“Oh my god.” I snorted. “And they chose
not
to fire you because…?”

“I begged the owner for another shot. She was a great lady. Plus, it’s hard to say no to this face,” he joked, winking at me.

I laughed and rolled my eyes.

“After graduation, I got lucky. National Geographic had an opening doing some foreign correspondence stuff overseas. They needed someone young without any attachments back at home — someone who’d be willing to drop into dangerous places to shoot photos, with the knowledge that they might never come back. Frankly, at the time, it sounded perfect,” he told me, some of the light fading from his eyes as he thought back. “And for a while it was. I saw pretty much all of the Middle East, and a lot of Asia. Some of Africa, a few cities in Europe. I didn’t come back to the States for almost three years.”

“Sounds amazing,” I murmured.
Sounds lonely
, I added in my thoughts.

“It was.” He looked over at me. “Though if I never eat rice or see sand again, I’ll die a happy man.”

I laughed again and this time, though he seemed almost uncertain how, he joined in with me. His deep chuckle resonated through the room in perfect harmony with my own giggles, and filled me with an unrelenting joy. I watched his face alight. Unbeknownst to him, his expression revealed his own surprise at the sound of years of shored up laughter spilling out into the air around us. It was clear he’d not laughed like this for a long time — perhaps so long he’d become convinced it was no longer possible.

I’d forgotten how wonderful it was to laugh with Sebastian. I savored the moment, memorizing the sound of his rumbling laughter, the warm look in his eyes, the faint smell of his aftershave. I bottled up the memory and tucked it away in a far corner of my mind so that one day, when he was once again just a thread in the fabric of my past, I could replay it, relive it, as many times as I wanted.

When our breaths grew short, we finally fell silent, staring at one another across the sofa. We’d ended up in identical poses, with our bodies turned inward toward the unoccupied cushion between us, our sides pressed against the couch back, and our heads leaning against the fabric. 

He reached over slowly, his hand moving to my shoulder blade where the thin strap of my silk tank had fallen down over my left shoulder. His entire body moved toward mine, and I held my breath as he entered my space. I pressed my eyes closed when I felt his light touch on the skin of my upper arm, and shivered lightly when he dragged the strap back into
place. The graze of his finger was featherlight as it traveled down the length of the strap to the space below my left collarbone, where it stilled abruptly and pressed into the skin with more pressure than before.

“A tattoo?” His voice was husky.

My eyes flew open.
Shit
. He could not see my tattoo.

With my inhibitions dulled by the wine and — fine, I admit it — the pull of his presence, I hadn’t realized that the small line of script was visible near the edge of my tank top. Only a portion of the last word, but still — enough to make him curious about the phrase I’d inscribed in ink over my heart.

My hand came up to cover his, shielding the tattoo from his eyes.

“It’s, uh, it’s nothing really.” My mind searched desperately for an excuse to keep him from seeing the mark, and when my eyes landed on the small door to my bathroom, I blurted the first words that popped into my head. “I have to pee!”

I jumped to my feet as Sebastian laughed, my abrupt admission clearly a case of over-sharing. God, I was such a dork. I averted my eyes from him and hurried for the door. “Be right back!” I called.

He was still laughing when the door closed behind me. I leaned against it and sank slowly down to the floor, the cool tiles chilling me through the thin fabric of my pants. I curled my knees to my chest and proceeded to smack my forehead repeatedly with the open face of my right palm, hoping it might knock some sense back into me.

Seriously, what the hell was wrong with me?

Where was my
self-control? My common sense? My ability to ignore the fact that the most beautiful man in the world was sitting in my living room?

Ah yes, that’s right. They’d fled somewhere around the time I’d poured that third glass of wine.

Crap.

I had to go back out there and regain control of the situation. I could totally do this — be his friend, without letting him see how much I still loved him. Pretend I felt nothing more than mutual respect. Restrain myself from staring at him like I’d given up ice cream for Lent and he was a large, delicious cone of mint chocolate chip, begging to be consumed.

Damn, Des had been right. I really was hungry. Even my mental metaphors had devolved to become food-oriented.

I scrambled to my feet and stared at my reflection in the mirror over the sink, trying to collect my thoughts. I reached up and pressed my fingertips against the still-swollen bags beneath each of my eyes. Staring into their cloudy grayish depths, I prayed for composure, straightened my shoulders, and shook my fingers through my hair from root to tip, as though I could somehow shake out my nerves.

When I stepped back into the studio, I saw immediately that Sebastian was no longer sitting on the couch. He was standing by the far wall with his back to me, examining my mosaic of research. I was silent as I approached him, coming to a stop by his side with a few feet left between us.

“What is this?” he asked, all laughter gone from his voice.

“It’s for a story,” I explained, my serious tone matching his. “It’s nothing.”

“This isn’t for
Luster
.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”

His eyes caught on the photo of Vera and me — our matching smiles stretching our cheeks so wide they’d ached with happiness, our arms looped around each other’s waists in an embrace, my silver bangle gleaming in the summer sunshine. Sebastian’s slow gaze migrated from the pinned photograph on the wall, down to where my wrist hung at my side. Its only adornment was the same beautiful thin bracelet I wore in the picture and, when his eyes came up to meet mine, I knew he’d figured out that my involvement in this story was more than that of a simple reporter.

“Why haven’t you gone to the police with this?” he asked.

My eyes moved up to examine the photo of Santos. “It’s complicated.”

“So un-complicate it.”

“I don’t want you to get involved,” I deflected, crossing my arms over my chest. “It’s none of your business.”

“Jesus, I forgot how goddamn stubborn you are.” His tone was exasperated, and I’m sure if I’d looked, I’d find his expression matched it. “If this is dangerous, you shouldn’t be doing it alone.”

“Who says I’m doing it alone?” I countered maturely, using avoidance tactics a seven-year-old wouldn’t deign to. I stopped short of sticking out my tongue at him or taunting
nah-nah-nah-nah-poo-poo
. How totally adult of me.

I suppose it was better than the alternative — better than admitting how terrified I’d become of this whole thing. The doubts were there, circling like wolves, ready to take me down. I was in over my head, and I knew it.
I was scared for Vera’s safety and my own. I didn’t know what to do, or where to turn next. But if I let those fears in — if I let them take hold — I’d never be able to finish this investigation or do anything to change those missing girls’ fates.

“Lux, this isn’t a game. If this is what I think it is…” He looked over at me, concern furrowing his brow. “It’s dangerous. These aren’t good people.”

“You think I don’t know that?” I fired back, my eyes flashing as I thought of Vera. “Believe me, I know. But it’s none of your business. We aren’t dating. We aren’t even friends. Until twenty minutes ago, I’m pretty sure we hated one another. So please just leave it alone, Bash.”

He stared at me for a long moment, then held his hands up in surrender. “Fine, if you don’t want my help, I’ll drop it. And you’re right — we aren’t dating and we aren’t friends. But you couldn’t be more wrong about that last part, Lux.”

I felt my eyes widen slightly and my breath caught as I waited for him to explain. He leaned in closer and when he whispered in my ear, his warm breath sent a small tremor through my entire body.

“See, I’m pretty sure you never hated me. In fact, I’m nearly positive of it.” His lips brushed my earlobe and I tried to keep my body completely still, my face clear of the emotions that were raging behind my mask of impassivity. My heart raced faster as he spoke on. “I wasn’t sure at first — I thought I might be imagining it, seeing things that weren’t there because I wished they were true. But now, after watching you for the last week, after sitting here with you, after laughing with you, after seeing the way you react when I do this…”

He pressed his lips against the sensitive hollow beneath my ear, his tongue flicking out to brush the skin in the briefest of caresses, and I couldn’t stop my reaction. It was involuntary — the instinctual arching of my spine, the slight tilting of my head to give his lips better access, the breathy gasp that escaped my mouth.

“Or this…” he breathed, his lips trailing down my neck to the ridge of my collarbone, where he pressed another openmouthed kiss. I whimpered slightly, cursing my wanton reaction internally but powerless to stop it.

“See, Lux, if you hated me, you wouldn’t tremble at the thought of touching my hand to take back your cellphone. You wouldn’t cast your eyes away, as though looking at me caused you acute pain. You wouldn’t smile at my jokes, or breathe in my laughter like you need it to keep on living.”

Damn. Apparently, he’d been paying pretty close attention — which meant I was royally screwed. I took a step away from him and ran my fingers through my hair, before opening my mouth to formulate a protest. I needed to be a minimum of three feet from him if
I wanted to be at all convincing or coherent — any closer and it seemed my mouth was more likely to produce a torrent of uncontrollable babble. Unfortunately, as I stepped back, he advanced on me, matching each of my strides and maintaining our close distance.

“You’re crazy,” I muttered.

“Yeah?” He arched an eyebrow at me skeptically.

“Delusional,” I confirmed, retreating another step.

“Mhm.”

“Seriously, this is pathetic,” I lashed out, falling back on hostility to dissuade him. It had worked before. “Look, I get it. You’re rewriting the past to make it less painful for yourself. But that doesn’t mean you’re right.”

“Oh, burn,” Bash mocked, grinning as he advanced on me. “You got me.”

Shit.

Abruptly, I felt my back hit the wall. He’d boxed me into a corner. Before I could squirm away, his arms came up on either side to form a cage around me, and he leaned down so we were face to face.

“I didn’t see it seven years ago. I was too hurt, too mad. But I see it now.”

“What?” I bit out, glaring up at him.

“You lied then. Just like you’re lying now.” He leaned closer so our lips aligned perfectly, separated by the smallest sliver of space. “I still don’t kno
w why. But you know what, Freckles?”

My breathing stopped entirely as the endearment left his lips and he moved fractionally closer, closing the gap between us until our mouths brushed in the hint of a kiss. When he spoke again, I felt his words before I heard them.

“I intend to find out.”

His eyes were solemn, his voice more serious than I’d ever heard it. They weren’t just words — it wasn’t just a statement of curiosity or an express
ed desire to solve a seven-year-old mystery.

It was a vow. It was a promise.

He breathed his declaration into my mouth and deep down into my soul, where it fanned the flames of panic and passion raging simultaneously within me. And before I could move, speak, breathe, think — he was gone. Striding to my apartment door and out into the hallway without another word.

I lifted a hand to trace my still-tingling lips with my fingertips, staring at my closed door with disbelief. I simply couldn’t believe it — my mind refused to process that whatever had just happened was real. Because if it was…

Bash knew. Maybe not everything, but certainly enough to send him digging into our past.

Shit.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I asked in a soft voice, praying
Greta spoke English.

The quiet Swedish maid kept mostly to herself, speaking infrequently and making eye contact only when she received a direct order from Mrs. Covington — or “Judith” as she’d told me to call her when I’d arrived, donning her arctic smile and studiously ignoring my presence from that moment on.

Thankfully, Greta smiled and pointed down the hall off the kitchen. “On the left,” she whispered, turning back to the island countertop where she was artfully arranging a spread of hors d’oeuvres on several large silver platters. It was enough food to feed four times the number of guests milling about the mansion — most of it would likely be thrown out with tomorrow’s trash. For a moment I hesitated, looking down at the mini vegetable quiches and bacon-wrapped scallops until I felt my stomach rumble beneath the pale white lace of my dress. But when images of my own empty refrigerator and Jamie’s painfully thin face flashed in my mind, a bitter taste filled my mouth and I forced myself to look away.

“Thanks,
Greta.” I nodded at her, then wandered down the hallway to find the bathroom. I’d purposely sought this one out, knowing most guests would use the main bathroom off the front hall and that I’d be less likely to bump into anyone in this part of the house. I needed a moment alone to collect myself before heading back into the lion’s den of well-moneyed socialites, acquaintances, and associates that “Judith” and the senator had deemed appropriate company at Sebastian’s eighteenth birthday party. Personally, I didn’t care how wealthy or well-bred they were — all I knew was, they were no fun at all.

One of the senator’s friends had just engaged me in a condescending conversation about the difference between our Congress and the British Parliament. When he’d expounded for nearly five minutes without coming up for air, I decided to excuse myself rather than risk falling into an irreversible coma in the middle of the Covington’s foyer. Beelining for the bathroom, I spotted Bash
across the room by the door. He was flanked on either side by his parents, greeting guests as they arrived with a glazed look in his typically animated eyes.

Considering the invitees, I couldn’t blame him.

These people were cold. Dead inside.

For all their fashionable clothing and sophisticated mannerisms, they were lacking that vital spark of life possessed by the truly vivacious. They seemed to walk around half alive, bored to death by the utterly predictable prosperity that defined their ostentatious existence. I watched them gliding through the mansion like elegant zombies, their empty eyes dulled by a lackluster life of overindulgence — perhaps weary of their own wealth, but too afraid to ever let it go.

There’s a kind of freedom in poverty, I suppose — in the total lack of posturing or pretension. It’s easy to think of the rich as the only ones who are truly free in this life, but it seemed to me that most of the genuinely affluent were held down by more shackles and obligations than I’d ever been, for all my lack of fortune. Money may’ve lent the illusion of freedom, but ultimately it seemed to bind its possessor in enough chains of expectation and apprehension to render spontaneity and self-fulfillment impossible.

It was hard to bear witness to such extreme indulgence, when my family didn’t even have enough to pay for Jamie’s treatments or keep up with the mortgage. We’d gotten a medical hardship extension from the bank, which would keep us out of foreclosure for another few months, but it was just a temporary fix. I knew it was only a matter of time until they took the house — yet that remained the least of my worries.

Weakened by his most recent round of treatments, Jamie was back in the hospital with a severe bout of pneumonia. And, with Christmas a few short weeks away, he’d be there for the remainder of the holidays. Over the past few months, he’d been through more chemotherapy and radiation, with minimal results, and the doctors had ruled against another bone-graft. They were scheduled to amputate his leg as soon as he’d recovered enough strength to endure the operation.

Merry Freaking Christmas.

When I reached the bathroom, I headed for the sink and splashed cool water on my face, careful not to do irreversible damage to my makeup. I contemplated hiding in here for the rest of the night, but knew my disappearance would eventually be noted — if not by the pompous party guests, then certainly by my boyfriend. Bash knew how nervous I’d been to come tonight. He was fully aware that I’d feel out of my element — the impoverished, ugly duckling in the company of swans.

Plus, I was faced with the uncomfortable reality of meeting his father for the first time. I’d managed to avoid him for this long because he spent most of his time in the nation’s capital, flying home only a few days a month to visit his family. But, around the holidays, he made a point to return to Georgia for several weeks, in celebration of his only son’s birth as well as Christmas and New Year’s. If the senator was anything like his wife, I feared I’d have a hard time keeping my polite smile in place when I finally did merit an introduction. 

A soft knock sounded at the door.

“One second!” I called, grabbing one of the white disposable towels from the basket on the marble vanity and dabbing at my face. When I’d wiped away most of the moisture, I smoothed a hand over my errant waves and took a final glance in the mirror.

Three more hours. I could do this.

I steeled my shoulders, took a deep breath, and turned to pull open the door.

“Hi.” He was leaning against the wall directly across from the bathroom, grinning at me with a warm look in his eyes.

“Hi,” I returned, grinning back at him as I moved a step forward into his space.

“You hiding out in here?” he asked. Both of his arms came up to circle my waist and tug me against him.

Pressed close, I propped my chin against his chest and tilted my head up to look at his face. “Only for a minute,” I admitted, my lips twisting in a sheepish expression. He leaned down and kissed the tip of my
freckled nose.

“I know this isn’t your ideal night. It’s not mine, either,” he said, hugging me tighter. “Thanks for helping me endure it. You have no idea how much better it is, having you here with me.”

The warmth in his eyes melted away all of the discomfort I’d felt since stepping through the massive oak front doors in a hand-me-down dress Minnie had scrounged from one of her daughters’ closets.

“It’s your birthday,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Plus, have you tried those mini quiche things? They’re pretty fantas—”

“Lux.” Bash leaned down and brushed his smiling lips against mine. “Shut up.”

“Shutting up,” I promised, grinning as I lifted onto my tiptoes and kissed him back.

The downside of being the guest of honor at an event?

You can’t just disappear to make out with your girlfriend for an hour, or make an early escape if things get boring. So, after a few, too-brief stolen moments, we were eventually forced to tear ourselves apart and head back to the party.

“Come on.” Bash sighed resignedly, linking our hands together as he led me down the hallway to the main room. “My dad wants to meet you.”

His words made my stomach churn with nerves, but I said nothing as we entered the main room and approached his parents. Judith’s clear blue eyes narrowed as soon as she spotted my hand entwined with her son’s, but her Botoxed smile didn’t waver. My eyes skittered away from her to take in the man on her left.

I’d seen him in pictures, of course, but they hadn’t done Senator Covington justice. He was classically handsome in the way that benefitted the most memorable politicians. He could’ve passed for a Kennedy with his broad white smile, boyish charm, and sandy blond hair. His eyes were a startling shade of green, but they were wide and full of welcome — a total contradiction to his wife’s icy stare.

“Lux!” He stepped forward and grabbed my free hand, cupping it within both of his. With a gentle tug, I was pulled away from Bash and into his father’s space. “So nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you and your interesting little family from Sebastian.”

“Dad.” The warning in Sebastian’s tone unmistakable.

“Oh relax, son. I’m not going to embarrass you.” The senator pulled me against his side and wrapped an arm around my shoulder, squeezing lightly. His enthusiastic greeting made me feel infinitely more welcome than Judith ever had, but a creeping sense of unease was stirring to life in the recesses of my mind. That unsettled feeling only magnified when I looked at Bash and saw how tense he was — his pulse throbbed in the protruding vein on his neck, his jaw was tightly clenched, and his eyes were locked on his father.

“So tell me, Lux,” the senator said, loosening his hold on my shoulders so he could peer down at my face. “What are your plans for next year?”

I swallowed roughly. “Well, Senator, I—”

“Andrew,” he corrected, beaming at me.

“Okay, Andrew,” I repeated, feeling an uncomfortable blush spread across my cheeks. “Hopefully, I’ll be at UGA.”

“She received a full academic scholarship,” Sebastian offered, still staring at his father. His expression was entirely closed off — nothing I’d ever seen from him before — and though his words were supportive, his voice was defensive.

“How wonderful,” Andrew said in a happy tone, staring back at his son with smiling eyes. When he turned his gaze on me, I barely stopped myself from taking an involuntary a step away from him. It was like looking into two empty glass orbs — up close, I could see that no genuine emotion or affection filled his stare, no warmth or welcome suffused their depths. He was hollow.

“Lux, tell me,” he continued, squeezing my arm tightly. “Has Sebastian given you the good news yet?”

My eyes darted to Sebastian, unsure of what to say and afraid to get in the middle of whatever was happening here.

“Dad.” Bash glared at his father, his reprimand even chillier than before.

“But I’m so proud!” Andrew gushed, his spirited laughter filling the room. “See, Lux, he’s been accepted to Princeton in the fall!”

I stilled, forcing a happy smile onto my face and avoiding Bash’s stare, which I could feel scanning my expression. “That’s fantastic,” I said, my fake enthusiasm discernible even to my own ears. I’d never been a very good actress.

“I don’t know what we’ll do without him around here — Princeton’s in New Jersey. That’s nearly two thousand miles away!” Andrew added, as though I didn’t possess basic, elementary-level geographic knowledge about the location of our states. The moment was beginning to feel less like a conversation and more like a chess game between Sebastian and his father — each careful syllable a rook, each nuanced word a knight, sliding across a board of unspoken meanings and moving in for the kill.

“With you here in Georgia and my boy up north, well, it’d be a miracle if you managed to make something like that work.” The senator smiled happily, his white teeth so perfect I wondered if he’d had them capped with porcelain veneers.

“That’s enough,” Bash growled, reaching a hand across the space and grabbing my hand. With one sharp tug, he pulled me out from his father’s grip and settled me into his side. “We’re leaving.”

“But we’ve barely gotten to know one another!” the Senator protested, grinning at Bash and me with an uncomfortably excited glint in his eyes. “Don’t steal Lux away yet. We’ve so much more to explore.”

I felt the blood drain from my face as I watched Andrew’s eyes travel slowly down the length of my body, perusing my every curve with a blatantly sexual stare. Hoping for some kind of intervention, I turned my horrified gaze toward Judith only to find her staring impassively at the wall, a crystal tumbler of amber liquid clutched in her hand. She appeared completely uninterested in her husband’s actions — either she was well-practiced at looking the other way during his indiscretions, or she was so caught up in her own thoughts of glamorous gatherings and guest lists she failed to even notice his inappropriate leering.

“Come on,” Bash whispered, pulling me away. “Let’s go.”

“So nice to meet you, Lux!” Andrew called after us. I made the mistake of glancing back over my shoulder at him, and felt my stomach flip when he winked lecherously. “See you soon, dear!”

Sebastian led me to the kitchen and outside, walking at a brisk pace. His anger was apparent in each stride he took, his steps pounding against the grass at an unmatchable pace as we made our way down the sloping lawn to the tree line. The sun had set hours ago and there was a chill in the air — I shivered, pulling my thin cardigan tighter around my short dress and trying not to stumble on my flimsy, borrowed pumps. I wasn’t used to walking in heels and, as I stumbled over a stray rock on the path through the woods, I knew I’d never become the sort of woman who wore them every day. They were so impractical.

Guided by the faint glow of Sebastian’s cellphone, we eventually made it to the clearing. Bash pulled
our wool blanket from the tree hollow in the giant oak. He spread the blanket across the grassy bracken and settled in, immediately pulling me down beside him. I lay across the blanket, my long hair spread out in the grass around me and my white dress glowing luminous in the moonlight. Bash rolled onto his side to face me, his head propped against his hand and his eyes on mine.