was too risky. For herself, and for Ben. She felt raw, exposed, Kahlil’s proposal peeling off needed protective layers that shielded her heart from the past, and the danger Kahlil still posed.
Something wonderful and awful happened when they were together. She felt more alive, more physical, more aware, but that acute awareness came at a terrible price. Kahlil made her feel emotions and desires that she couldn’t control. It hurt then, it hurt now, and this feeling couldn’t be natural or normal. Emotions shouldn’t run so deep.
“I can’t,” she gasped, dying inside. “There’s just no way.”
His mouth curved, a crooked smile. “You don’t have to give me your answer yet. You might want to think it over a little longer. Take an hour. Take two. After all, it is your future.”
Dinner finished, Kahlil tossed a handful of bills on the table—several hundred dollars, Bryn noted woodenly, chump change to Kahlil and a small fortune to herself. Money like that would pay for new shoes for Ben. A rib roast for Sunday supper. Maybe even a night on the Gulf Coast.
Resentful tears pricked the back of her eyes as Kahlil steered her to his waiting limousine. He had no idea what it was like to struggle and worry about every purchase, every trip to the grocery store, every new month because it meant starting the vicious cycle over again—rent, gas, electric bill, car payment, and on and on until Bryn wanted to scream. It hadn’t helped that Stan was always offering to ease her load, make payments for her, pick up expenses. She’d been sorely tempted but had never accepted his offers, never accepted his frequent marriage proposals, either—not until last Christmas.
She’d finally worn down resisting, reluctantly accepting that bald, bespectacled Stanley would be the right thing. Not for her. But for Ben.
Numbly Bryn slid into the back of the limousine and buckled her seat belt across her lap.
Kahlil directed the driver back to her house.
Bryn’s fog of misery lifted, recognizing the peril of letting Kahlil close to her home. Ben’s toys and bedroom had been packed for the move but there could be knickknacks around the house, photos or artwork she’d overlooked. “Why don’t we go for a drive?”
“A drive?”
She ignored Kahlil’s incredulity. “Or a walk. It’s a beautiful night. Not too humid for the first time in weeks.”
Kahlil viewed her through narrowed lashes, his expression speculative. “Who are we hiding from?”
The fact that he could read her so easily reinforced her fear, as well as her determination to be rid of him as soon as possible. Already she felt as though she was drowning, the water rising, destruction imminent. She had the agonizing suspicion that she might not be able to pull this off. Kahlil was so clever, too clever, and also too angry.
No sooner had she swallowed the sour taste of panic than she pictured Ben as he’d run out of the house earlier, eager to go with Mrs. Taylor. His small white sneakers had slapped the sidewalk, his miniature jeans rolled up at the ankle. She always bought his clothes big, trying to make them last two seasons, maybe even three.
He’d stopped at Mrs. Taylor’s truck, turned around to wave and he blew her an enormous kiss. “I love you, Mommy!”
His zest brought tears to her eyes and laughing, she’d blown him a kiss back. She’d felt a spike of worry then, the kind of worry she felt every time she kissed him good-night, what if something happened? What if there was an accident? What if she lost him? What if…
The what-ifs could drive her crazy.
Fierce love rose up within her, love, determination and conviction. She wouldn’t fail Ben. She’d fight tooth and nail to protect him. He was the one perfect and true thing she’d ever known.
Bryn looked at Kahlil, gaze level, mouth smiling faintly. “Is there something criminal in wanting to walk?”
“You never liked to walk before.”
“Of course not. I was eighteen. I preferred motorbikes and race cars and anything else that jolted my heart.” Like you, she thought cynically. You jolted my heart a thousand times a day.
Kahlil gave the driver directions to a popular downtown park, the night quiet, the streets nearly deserted. The limousine pulled over to the curb and Kahlil and Bryn got out, to stoically circle the square.
The evening, balmy for late September, smelled sweeter than usual, the peculiar ripe fragrance of turning leaves as summer slipped away, fading into fall.
He didn’t speak. She didn’t try, chewing her lower lip, struggling to come up with an alternative to Kahlil’s proposal, one that might meet his need for vengeance without endangering Ben. But no solutions came to mind, immediately dismissing lawsuits and threats, as well as fleeing with Ben. This time Kahlil wouldn’t let her go. He’d find her, and he’d really want blood then.
They passed the fountain and large bronze statue twice with Bryn still overwhelmed with worry.
Kahlil thrust his hands into his trouser pockets. “There’s no way out,” he said mildly, casting a curious side glance her way. “You’re not going to escape without settling the score.”
A flurry of nerves made her prickle from head to toe. How could he know exactly what she was thinking? “Score. Proposition. You’re trying to humiliate me.”
“Clever girl.” He stopped walking, facing her, his dark features mocking. “You humiliated me before my family and my people. You’re fortunate that your humiliation will be much more…private.”
“What makes you think I’d agree to this plan?”
“You were once quite daring. You hungered for adventure, for travel and the unknown. Is the great unknown no longer appealing?”
No. Not since becoming a mother. She worried constantly about Ben. His safety, his security, his future. And since becoming a mother, she wondered how her own parents could have dragged her through the Middle East as a small child, living out of tents and the camper van, sleeping at desolate spots along the road. They’d led a precarious life and it had cost them all. Dearly.
Pain suffused her, time and grief blurring her parents’ faces. She remembered them better by photograph than be special memories. “I prefer things simple now,” she answered faintly. “My relationships uncomplicated.”
“Like Stan?”
Her eyes flashed warning. “Leave him out of this.”
“How can I? He’s the enemy.”
“Stan is not the enemy. You’re the enemy.”
He laughed, the husky sound carrying in the darkness. “Four days. Four days and you’d be free. You could marry Stan. Have a family. Get on with your life.”
Oh, how like Kahlil, how clever, how manipulative. Trust the devil to suggest temptation.
But the devil knew her, she acknowledged weakly. He knew how she’d reached for him, again and again, undone by the pleasure of their bodies, so inexperienced that she couldn’t be satiated, her untutored desires wanting more.
But
