12. Chapter 12

twelve

Athena

M argaret Meedes shared the same first name as my mother, but even if she didn’t, it would be hard not to feel for her.

All she wanted was her daughter—safe and sound at home—but judging from the look on Blake’s face Danielle was probably long gone. It wasn’t hard to figure out why Margaret’s plight hit so deep with me when all I wanted was my mom back.

But people don’t come back from the dead.

As much as I despised Blake and the stick shoved up his ass, I couldn’t tease or taunt him about any of this. Moms and daughters were supposed to have a special bond, and losing that unexpectedly was hard to recover from.

I could pity Margaret, but Blake…It was a bit harder to pinpoint what I felt toward him about this mess.

He lost his sister at some point, but it also seemed like he lost a bit of his mom in the process, too. And even though his expression told me he had no hope, he still took careful notes, listened to every detail his mom said. I knew in my bones he’d follow through on her lead, even though he didn’t think it would pan out. What did that say about him?

I spent the remaining time in his mother’s home listening to silly stories about his childhood—it seemed like he wasn’t always a stick in the mud. He used to have fun, bend the rules a little, and have fun if the stories were any indication.

As I helped gather up all the empty breakfast plates, Blake finally had enough. He interrupted Margaret just as she was sharing an embarrassing story about the friendship bracelets he made for him and his sister out of paracord. Because of course he didn’t just stop at learning to escape various situations, but had to go farther and learn survivalist tricks as well.

Blake must’ve been a cute little kid. For about half a second I wondered what happened, but then realized the answer was probably obvious: Danielle’s disappearance.

“I think Athena has heard enough,” he interrupted his mom’s newest story. “We have to get going.”

“Okay, okay. But you come visit me anytime, you hear?” Margaret said, addressing me. It was a little bittersweet. She reminded me so much of my own mother in some ways that I both longed to see her again and felt a pain in my heart from my own fresh loss. Not that it mattered anyway. I had no business coming back here.

“I told you, Mom, she’s not a girlfriend. Hell, she’s the opposite of a girlfriend. She doesn’t need to come back.”

“I’m not even a friend,” I volunteered, but I gave Margaret a small smile to soften my words.

“Exactly. So she won’t be visiting again. ”

The finality in his tone made my heart thump again. While it was true, it still made me sad. Margaret needed more visitors to keep her mind off of Danielle.

Blake held up the bulky bulletproof vest for me to put on, and then I gave Margaret one last wave, feeling another sense of loss as we made our way back to his car. For the first time I noticed the miniature Swiss army knife on his key ring as he unlocked the car.

I wondered if little things like that reminded him of his sister or if old habits just died hard. Maybe it was both.

We were silent in the car for a few minutes before the urge to say something became unbearable.

“Your mom is really sweet.” I didn’t mention how sweet I thought he was for making sure he went right over when she called, listened to her false hopes, and placated her without a hint of a condescending attitude. He went along with it to make her happy and just tried to keep her grounded through it all.

“I feel I need to warn you not to tell anyone else about what you heard and saw there.”

So much for leaving behind the condescension.

“Warn me? Is that some kind of threat?”

His eyes narrowed, but he kept them trained on the road in front of him. “It’s not a threat. But I do promise you that if you give away private information about my family to people who would hurt my mother, you will regret it.”

It was a threat, but I wouldn’t hurt his mother for anything. I fumed in fury.

“And what kind of people would I associate with that would want to hurt you or your family? ”

“You tell me. You’re the one who has been fraternizing with a crime family, not me.”

“I’ve done no such thing,” I said. That word implied I was interacting as a friend, but it was a ruse to get on their good side.

I was very aware of the phone call I was expecting—I looked to the dash to confirm the time—within the next fifteen minutes with an expected second interview invite from Carlo Morelli. Would I be alone by then, or would I have to field that call in front of Lucas?

“How long until we’re back at the house? You got me up so suddenly, and I really want to take a shower.”

His eyes left the road for a moment, taking me in quickly before darting back to the front. I recalled the mess on my head in desperate need of a brush and the pajamas I was still wearing.

“Don’t you dare judge how I look. You’re the one who forced me out of my house looking like this!” I warned him.

“I’m not judging, I’m committing it to memory,” he taunted. “I’m sure in ten years my mom is going to bring up ‘that nice girl you brought to breakfast in jammies’ when she’s lamenting why I’m still unmarried. I want to remember exactly how you looked today so I can smile at how uncomfortable it made you.”

“No surprise you think you’ll still be single in a decade. Does this mean you’re aware that you’re a dick?”

He shook his head. “I’m never really single for long so I think you’re the only person with such a poor opinion of me. But I doubt I’ll be married. If I was with someone long enough for Mom to really get attached and then something happened…It would just be too heartbreaking for her. She’s lost enough people in her life already. ”

The transition into a serious conversation was unexpected, as was the fierce mask on his face. Was he hiding that he wouldn’t be the only heartbroken victim? Was Blake’s serial monogamy the same defense mechanism I used when I dated around?

I went on a lot of first dates, but hardly any fourth dates. Sometimes companionship was necessary; intimacy was not. I didn’t want to stick around long enough for anyone to get hurt. We were alike in more ways than I thought, but not compatible in the most important ones. I needed to flip the conversation back to something more casual.

“So instead you just lead a girl around for a while until she gets tired of you never fully committing and dumps you?”

His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Not exactly. I’m always honest about my intentions when I date someone. It’s not my fault if a woman expects my intentions to change after a while and gets impatient when they don’t.”

“Passing the buck off to a woman. Just like a man.”

“Always blaming the man. Sounds about right for a maneater.”

“Chomp, chomp, baby,” I smirked. “Better keep your distance or I’ll eat you alive.”

“Believe me, I tried staying away,” he said, voice strained. “Hard to do when you’re not taking the danger seriously.”

“Says the man who made me leave my secure house at dawn this morning to go comfort his mommy.”

I paused, realizing how harsh the words were as I said them. I knew I needed to apologize, but I couldn’t get the words out. Lucas looked like I dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

“Says the woman who thinks I’m the dick. ”

“That’s fair,” I admitted. It was as close to an I’m sorry as I could make myself give him.

We let the awkwardness stew between us for a few more minutes until my phone buzzed in my purse. I looked at the time on the car’s display. 8:57. That was probably Carlo Morelli.

I couldn’t risk the call going to voicemail and missing my last lead to inside information.

I was careful to keep the display facing away from Lucas while I picked up the call, depressing the button to lower the call volume so he couldn’t overhear anything.

“Athena Kane,” I answered.

“Athena, cara mia . How is your morning so far?”

“It’s going really well. Just had a delicious breakfast with a new friend and her son, and now I’m heading back home. How’s yours, sir?”

“Oh, wonderful, just wonderful! I’ve spoken at length with Angelo, and we’ve agreed that we want you to come back into the office to discuss further details.”

“I’d love that.”

“How about tomorrow around 9:30? I know it’s a weekend, but we’d really like to have this sorted before Monday.”

“Half past nine,” I confirmed. That worked all the better for me; on a Saturday there’d be less foot traffic and less of a chance Leo Lombardi might casually see me out and about again.

“Excellent. We’ll see you then, darling.”

“Absolutely.”

I hung up and put the phone back in my purse, careful not to let the flashing display from the end of the call become visible to Blake .

“Who was that?” He was trying to sound casual, but failing.

“Why do you want to know?” I countered, fairly confident he hadn’t heard, nor seen, anything.

“It sounded like you were making plans. If you’re going somewhere, you need to clear it with me first.”

“Hold on. I don’t need to clear shit with you.”

“You really do.”

“I really don’t. I’m going to keep living my life, doing whatever I need to. If you want to follow me around then fine, but you don’t control me or what I do.”

“Fine. It was a poor choice of words. You don’t need my permission, but you do need to communicate it with me.”

“Fine,” I lied. I knew I’d have to find a way to ditch him to make my meeting tomorrow morning, but I’d deal with that when the time came. For now… “I wasn’t talking about meeting anyone. That was my dad. He wanted to know when I’d be back relaxing at home.”

My leg always wanted to jiggle itself off at the knee when I lied, so I did my best to stay still, stiffening my position in the car seat. Would he buy it?

“Why 9:30 then? We’re, like, one minute away, not thirty.”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but he didn’t ask when I’d get home. He asked when I’d be relaxing again. I going to take a calming shower first. You got me up too early this morning. So I’m going to get soaking wet in a long, hot shower and be ready for a chat with family after a full half hour.”

Blake pulled up to my house, putting the car in park before he did that slow perusal thing that confident men do, eyes drifting down and slowly climbing back up my body, taking me in limb by limb when I spoke of getting wet—in the shower, that is—and figured he was distracted enough to let go of my poor improv skills.

“What do women like you do in a shower for so long?”

Wash loads of hair, exfoliate, shave various body parts. “What can I say? If I’m already getting wet, I like to be very thorough and finish off everything when I’m in the shower.”

While he had more self control than to physically drop his jaw, it still took him enough time to recover for me to hop out of the car and make my way up to the front porch.

“Can I come in with you?” he asked, hurrying out after me up to the porch.

“No, I’m going to be naked, you perv.”

“Not into the bathroom with you, but just inside your home. I want to check everything out for you.”

“You want to check me out more. No.” Maybe also check out my home for whatever he deemed was suspicious. I wanted to roll my eyes. I wasn’t the bad guy here, no matter how much he wanted to believe I was.

“It’s for your safety.”

“No, it’s for your peace of mind. My house is just fine.”

“Can I plug in my phone at least?”

“Do it in the backyard. There should be an outlet back there, and you’ll get a change of scenery from staring at my front curtains.”

And with that I slammed the door in his face. Sliding the rickety chain across the door, I felt a devilish glee. Lucas Blake was going to regret his pushiness soon enough.