I laugh at her easygoing reference to my reprimand. “Very good choice.”
She grins and then immediately answers another line and I waste no time darting for the door, and as far away from another encounter with Derek as possible. I start to dash for the door, and then force myself to go slow and easy. I am not going to cower before that man. What will that solve? In fact, if anything, he will be a wolf that smells blood. I am not prey. I am not a coward. I hold my head up high and I step on the elevator with my calm restored. I might not be Reagan anymore, but I am still me, and I am a survivor.
I exit into the parking garage and dig out the Bentley’s key, unlocking the doors, and round the trunk to open the passenger’s side door, where I set my purse and coat in the backseat, but I don’t get in. Control is something I value and own too little of right now. I won’t cower from anyone again, but I do think it’s time I take every step I can to see what’s coming my way, rather than hiding and hoping nothing finds me.
I’ve just reached the tail end of the car when the elevator doors open, revealing Shane as they part. He steps forward, his coat missing, his briefcase slung over his shoulder, his stride long and confident, and I am spellbound.
He is power. He is confidence. He is sex. He is everything that my history tells me is wrong for me, and yet, never before has anyone been those things and still managed to be comfort, pride, and friendship.
Suddenly, he is in front of me, and I haven’t looked away, or even tried to hide how I’ve tracked his every step. “What are you thinking?” he asks, a lean away from touching me, but he does not.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” I confess.
“Anywhere you like,” he says, “and only when you’re ready.”
It is exactly what I need and want him to say, though I didn’t know it until now.
He motions to the car. “But preferably anywhere but here.”
“I like that idea.”
He walks me to the passenger door and opens it for me, and I’m about to get in when a memory flashes in my mind of the first time we’d met and he’d done the same. The urge to turn and face him hits me, but so do words I don’t want to say with a potential audience. Instead, I sink into the soft tan leather seats and Shane seals me inside, and like that night, my gaze lands on the Bentley emblem; the spread wings with the “B” in the center. I reach out and touch it, years of goal-setting and studies replaying in my mind. My dream car, and I drove it today, on my own.
“Why do you love this car so much?”
I glance up in surprise to find Shane has joined me and I never heard the door open or shut. “My stepfather, of all people, made us keep dream boards. He even took us shopping to see fancy houses and cars. In hindsight, he was just luring us into the Geminis’ web.”
“But it didn’t work on you.”
“No,” I say, letting my fingers fall from the emblem. “My father was a law professor. I think I told you that, I’m not sure. Actually, I didn’t. I just wanted to tell you.” I don’t give him time to reply. “He made me love the law.”
“We have that in common.”
“And somehow neither one of us are practicing.” I shift in the seat to face him. “Do you miss it?”
“I did.”
My brows knit. “Did?”
“I had to let it go to really be here and do this right.”
Let it go. Those words speak to me, stirring memories of how I finally coped with my father’s suicide and the loss of my mother. Now, it’s the loss of a dream. “Do you remember the first night I rode in this car?”
“The night we met,” he supplies.
“Yes. Do you remember what I asked you?”
His gray eyes darken, memory in their depths. “You told me I was driving your dream car after attending your dream school, therefore you weren’t sure if I was your kiss good-bye to your dreams or your promise they aren’t over.”
“And you told me not to let the universe decide what those things meant. Not to let it have that power. But the universe didn’t take my dream. My brother did, and we both know that means I can never go back to law school without the fear the Geminis will find me and consider me a risk.”
“Emily—”
“Please don’t try to make me feel better. You just said yourself that you had to accept the change you faced to really move forward. That’s about claiming control, and I admire that in you. I want to admire that in me too.”
“Acceptance is a bumpy journey.”
“Maybe,” I say, “but thanks to you I have a chance to ensure the Geminis never find me. I’m not going to screw that up by foolishly heading back to law school, even five years from now; I can’t risk the Geminis finding me and considering me a liability they want to eliminate.”
“I want to tell you that risk doesn’t exist,” he says. “But it does.”
“Thank you for not giving me the candy-and-chocolate answer. I still want my Bentley, though. Not yours that I drive here and there. One I earn on my own and deserve.”
“I know you well enough to know that if that’s what you want, you’ll get it.” He leans closer, his arm on the console between us. “Do you remember what else I told you that night?”
“I remember everything from that night. Which part do you mean?”
“The part where I told you I wanted to fuck you so right and well you’d never forget me.”