She turned back to the original memo. It was written by Sean Moore, but it was clear that the plan had been Caleb’s.
Both of them had been in on it. All three of them had been in on it.
And Caleb was just as guilty as the other two. It was his idea, so he was even guiltier.
She checked the date of the memo.
A couple of days later, her father had been shot dead in the woods in a professional hit.
Kelly made a strange choking sound and jerked away from the table. Stumbled a few steps toward the corner of the room and stared at the blank wall in front of her, trying to process everything.
Caleb had murdered her father. As coldly and surely as if he’d pulled the trigger. Despite the fact that he had a soft, tender side to his heart. Despite the way he sometimes seemed so naked and needy with her. Despite the way he was deeply human. Despite the fact that he loved her.
He had killed her father, and she had let him make her believe that he didn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t do something so horrible.
It felt like everything was breaking inside her, shattering so completely it could never be put back together. He had done it after all. And she had fallen for him anyway. And even now, if she were to see him again, maybe a little part of her wouldn’t even care, since she was so undeniably drawn to him, despite everything.
And that made her a weak, despicable person. Just as despicable as Caleb himself.
“Kelly?” Jack asked from behind her. She’d completely forgotten he was in the room. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she replied, her voice not cracking or wavering despite the broken agony of her heart. “I’m fine.”
Jack must have taken a step closer to her. She had her back toward him, but it sounded like he had moved nearer. “It doesn’t look like you’re fine.”
Kelly was still staring at the blank wall. Seeing Caleb’s face. His handsome, haunted, intelligent face.
And she hated it all over again.
She might hate herself for how foolish and spineless she’d been in falling for him, but nothing she’d done equaled his guilt. He’d come up with the plan for killing her father. He might as well have pulled the trigger. He was that ruthlessly ambitious, that heartless at the core, no matter how he was playing at relationships right now.
Kelly should have known it all along. She shouldn’t have let herself be deceived. But she wasn’t going to be weak anymore.
Fuck Caleb and all of his lies. She would do what she’d come here to do from the very beginning, before everything had gotten so infinitely fucked up. She would make sure his sins came to light—everyone would know who he really was—and she would seek whatever kind of justice was still available.
She turned around on her heel, her heartbreak suddenly, unnaturally hardening into a cold kind of anger. “I’m fine,” she said again.
Jack’s face was twisted now with what looked like concern and confusion. “I’m really sorry. I know you were hoping for a different outcome. But this seems to be pretty clear. Earnest was definitely involved, and it looks like he kept this memo to protect himself, in case one of the other two turned on him. Whoever cleaned out his files must not have known the context, so it got stuck in a drawer with the other paperwork. But Marshall was definitely in on the murder. Your father was going to pull the plug on the project, and they’d invested too much to let it go down the drain. So they silenced him.”
And that was it. The answer to everything. The whole mystery of her life, unraveled in a few simple sentences, sketched out in stark black and white.
“Yes,” she said, her voice so hard it was almost unrecognizable. “That’s what happened.”
Jack pushed his hand through his hair again with a kind of restless energy. He wasn’t cool and controlled like Caleb was. And he wasn’t calculating or brilliant or sophisticated or deceptive or ruthless or untouchable.
And suddenly Kelly knew what she was going to do. She wasn’t going to want a man like Caleb in any way. She wasn’t going to let herself have fallen for the man who’d murdered her father. She wasn’t going to let it be true.
She took a step closer to Jack. “So that’s done.”
Jack’s dark eyes narrowed, and he tugged in agitation on his sleeve. “Is it? Kelly, you look strange. What’s going on?”
Kelly took another step, so that she was directly in front of him. So close she could reach out and touch him.
Fuck Caleb. Kelly didn’t—wouldn’t—let herself want him anymore.
Dropping her eyelids slowly, she gazed up at Jack through her eyelashes. “I’m reconsidering a few things.”
Despite the shift in her energy, Jack still clearly didn’t know what to expect. His mouth was slightly open, and his forehead had wrinkled into lines of confusion.
She liked that Jack was confused. Liked that he was off stride. Liked that he wasn’t prepared for every possibility the way Caleb was. And liked that he didn’t always think twenty steps ahead.
She couldn’t let herself be the kind of person who fell in love with Caleb, and there was only one way to prove that to the world—and to herself.
Kelly took one more step, pressing her body up against Jack’s. “In fact, I’m reconsidering everything.”
Then she slid her hands up his chest until they were spanning the back of his neck. She could both feel and hear him suck in a sharp breath. Then she combed the fingers of one hand up and through his hair until she could ease his head down toward hers.
“Including you,” she breathed, using her free hand to pull the clip out of her hair, letting the long waves tumble down her back.
Jack made a guttural sound in his throat, an instinctive heat igniting to life in his eyes. But he was still surprised, his body stiff and unmoving against hers.
So Kelly pulled his head down all the way, capturing his lips in a kiss.
The kiss was slow at first, since Jack was obviously unprepared for it. But Kelly slid her tongue along his lips, faintly tasting a mingling of coffee and toothpaste. One hand came up and held his face, feeling the rough texture of his skin against her palm. Then she dipped her tongue into his mouth, slid it along the inside of his lips.
At this point Jack moaned into her mouth, and then his arms were suddenly around her, holding her tightly against him.
By the time her tongue slid all the way into his mouth, his tongue was ready to meet it, teasing and tangling with hers.
Jack’s kiss wasn’t anything like Caleb’s—less subtle, less nuanced, more direct and traditional. But it was effective and enthusiastic, and Kelly had no trouble getting into it.
Their mouths were wide open now, and Kelly’s eyes were shut. She could hear herself making little noises as her lips and tongue moved urgently against Jack’s.
His hand slid up, tangling in her loose hair. Then he pivoted their bodies, and they moved backward until the edge of the table was poking into her butt. He heaved her up, propping her on the side of the table.
She parted her legs and pulled up her skirt enough to let his body fit between her thighs. Their mouths had disconnected, both of them gasping for breath, and now his mouth started trailing along her face and down her throat, the stubble on his jaw scraping her sensitive skin.
She liked how concrete and natural it felt. Normal. Like the rest of the world. Not like her and Caleb.
“Kelly,” he muttered, still mouthing the pulsing in her throat. “Kelly, what’s going on? I thought you didn’t…”
Her head had fallen backward, giving him better access to her neck. “I changed my mind,” she murmured, her arms twining once more around his broad shoulders. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Hell, no,” he huffed out, one of his hands sliding up to cup one of her breasts over her top. “Just…surprised.”
Kelly arched into his touch. Her body was responding just a little, but something else was driving her on, was compelling her to do this. Something hard and brutal and blinding.
>
Fuck Caleb, anyway. He wasn’t the only man who could turn her on, who could make her body feel good.
Tweaking her tightening nipple, Jack raised his head to stare down at her. “Damn, Kelly. You’re gorgeous.” His other hand was holding the back of her head, keeping her from falling backward on the table. “Breathtaking.”
She wished he wouldn’t talk. Wished he wouldn’t look at her that way. All she wanted to do was fuck him senseless.
She pulled him down to kiss him again, mostly just to keep him from talking. But after he pulled his mouth away once more, he buried his face in her hair. “You’re blazing,” he said in a thick mutter, “like…like…”
He either couldn’t think of a good analogy or had distracted himself by sliding a hand up her bare thigh.
Kelly adjusted herself on the table until her thighs were settled snugly around him. “Like what?” she demanded, her hands stroking over the hard, solid planes of his body.
He didn’t feel like Caleb. He was broader. Warm and strong, but not as intensely hot.
Jack gave a gruff exhale and pushed his pelvis into her. There was a hard bulge at the front of his pants, and Kelly could feel the substance of it pressing into her. Gathering her more tightly into his arms, Jack finally was able to finish his comparison. “Like a diamond,” he concluded hoarsely.
Kelly’s head had fallen back again, and now she shifted until Jack’s arousal was rubbing against her own, nothing between them but a few layers of fabric. Squirming to get some friction against her flesh, she whispered, “How fitting.”
It was. The perfect analogy. She was hard and glittering and cutting. Like a diamond.
Jack was rubbing his rough cheek against hers, the scraping an erotic kind of discomfort. And he was making little thrusts with his hips, pushing his clothed erection into her center. “No,” he muttered. “That’s not right. Diamonds are hard and cold.”
Kelly was only half listening. She was growing aroused now and was still driven by that desperate need to prove to herself that she hadn’t really fallen for Caleb.
If Caleb could fuck her and be such a ruthless, merciless bastard, then she could fuck him without feeling anything. She could fuck Jack if she wanted. Or even if she didn’t.
Jack must have been fully erect now, to judge by the tight bulge in his pants. His body was tense, and he couldn’t seem to stop pushing into her. But he pulled his head back. Stared at her, his gaze smoldering in a way she’d never seen before. He pressed a few surprisingly gentle kisses into the side of her mouth. “Blazing like…”
Kelly was panting a little, and she fisted one of her hands in his thick hair. “It’s usually fires that blaze.”
He released a stifled moan and rubbed his arousal against hers with more purpose.
Gasping in astonished pleasure, Kelly arched back again. Managed to murmur, only slightly bitterly, “Also appropriate. Fires destroy everything in their path.”
Jack actually scowled, his hands tightening on her hips. “Stop it,” he grumbled in a voice still thick with desire. “You’re not like that.”
He seemed to genuinely believe it, which surprised and unnerved Kelly so much that she lost some of her angry momentum.
In fact, she was starting to feel kind of dizzy and overwhelmed. Starting to see herself, in the study room of a university library, propped on a table with her skirt bunched up around her waist, with a man between her legs.
A man who didn’t deserve this.
Jack didn’t deserve to be fucked because she was trying to fuck away someone else.
He lowered his face to her neck again and mouthed her skin with ardent heat. Murmured, his voice almost like gravel, “You’re blazing, like…”
Then his hand slipped between her legs. Cupped her groin, over the damp lace of her panties. His touch was hungry but at the same time strangely…intimate.
And it was wrong. All of it was wrong.
Jack actually wanted this. Actually thought this was intimate. He actually wanted her. Her. Kelly.
Kelly suddenly started to choke, strangling on the realization that swept over her in a rush of bitter knowledge.
She didn’t want to do this. She liked Jack. Didn’t want to use him.
And she didn’t even want to use herself—her own body—no matter how many countless, empty times she’d used it this way before.
She had no idea how or why the strange, crushing transformation had occurred. But even hatred of Caleb couldn’t drive her into fucking Jack in this way.
She had no idea what was left for her to do now, about Caleb, about her own life. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do.
But she knew she didn’t want to do this.
Jack’s fingertips were rubbing skillfully over the damp spot on her panties. It felt kind of good, but the force of her realization had left her sick.
“No,” she mumbled, her mouth somehow having ended up against Jack’s shoulder. He didn’t smell expensive like Caleb. He smelled faintly fresh, like some kind of laundry detergent. Her body stiffened against him. “Jack, no.”
Jack was pretty far gone, and he didn’t react immediately. Just kind of grunted, as if he didn’t understand what she was saying.
Pulling back and pushing against him gently, Kelly repeated hoarsely, “Jack, no. I don’t want to.”
His whole body froze for an agonizingly long moment.
Then he jerked back a few steps and stared at her, dazed and hot and strangely aching.
Kelly choked on a few random sobs, scrambling off the table and trying to pull her skirt back down over her legs. She felt horrible. Cheap and dirty and guilty and incredibly embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, barely able to even look at his bewildered face. “I’m so sorry, Jack. I should never have…I was just…I wasn’t being fair to you.”
Jack rubbed his hands over his face, as if he were trying to clear his muddled mind. “What just happened?”
Too horrified and shell-shocked even to cry, Kelly finished straightening her clothing and picked her hair clip up from the table, mostly for something to do. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t do this. It’s totally my fault. I’m so sorry, Jack. I don’t know what else to say.”
Jack turned away from her, his back tense and unnaturally stiff. “I should have known it was too good to be true,” he mumbled.
The icy block that had hardened in her chest when she’d learned the truth about Caleb suddenly started to crack. “Jack,” she choked out, “I told you before I’m not worth the trouble. It’s like I said, I destroy everything in my path.” When he didn’t do anything but shake his head, she continued, “I’ll understand if you don’t want to have anything more to do with me. I want to work on a way to make this public, and we need to let my mom know what we found out. But I can do that on my own. You don’t have to—”
“Kelly,” Jack interrupted, “I’m not sure I’m in a fit condition to be discussing all of this right now. You should probably head out before the bodyguard catches up to you. I’ll finish this job. Go on. I’ll be in touch.”
Kelly wondered if he really would. Or if this was just an easy way to get rid of her for good.
She wouldn’t blame Jack if he cut her out of his life after this. But on that thought she realized that it would be a real loss to her if he did.
A loss she more than deserved.
“Okay,” she mumbled, pushing her hair out of her face. “I’m sorry, Jack.” Shaking her head, she added, “I never should have involved you in the disaster of my life.”
She was leaving, she actually had her hand on the doorknob, when Jack stopped her.
He was looking at her over his shoulder with an expression she couldn’t begin to comprehend. “Like the sun,” he said in a low, rough voice.
She had no idea what he was talking about. “What?”
“Blazing,” he explained. “Like the sun.” His mouth turned up just a little at the corner. “It will burn you if you let it.
But it can also just keep you warm.”
—
She left the library and headed back to her apartment. There she just huddled on her couch, too battered to do anything, to make any plans or decide exactly what she should do about this situation.
She lay like that for a long time.
Caleb had killed her father, and she had fallen in love with him anyway.
There was no getting over that truth.
Then, unexpectedly, she heard a loud knock on the door.
She ignored it. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.
But the knocking continued, growing louder, until it was finally too much to ignore.
“Kelly!” The voice was slightly muffled by the door and accompanied by more pounding.
Caleb.
She was so numb and dazed that she didn’t even wonder what he was doing here when they hadn’t arranged to meet up again tonight. She still didn’t move.
She didn’t want to see him. Didn’t even care why he was banging on her door.
“Kelly!” he called out again. He sounded angry—she could hear it even through the door. “Damn it, Kelly! Let me in. I know you’re here. I’m not going to leave.”
He sounded very angry. But his obvious intensity bounced off of her—unable to penetrate through the frozen shield of her numbness.
She let him pound on the door for a while, until he was practically roaring for her to open it.
Finally she stumbled off the couch. Over to the front door. Unlocked it. Then trudged back to the couch and curled up defensively again.
After she’d done so, she wondered why she had. She had just wanted him to stop yelling at her, but now he was going to come in.
Which meant she was going to have to talk to him.
He was inside now. He’d pushed through the door immediately and was right on her heels. Looming over the couch.
He seemed to be simmering with something. Something hot and powerful. But he wasn’t screaming anymore. He seemed to have whatever was boiling inside him reined in—at least for the moment.