Page 58 of Reckless Kiss

She laughed again. “Oh, I see.”

Sometimes my brain doesn’t consult with my mouth. Instead it simply says what I’m thinking. These incidents typically take place when I’m excited or aroused. Seeing as I was both excited by Esme’s laugh and aroused by...everything about her...it shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did when I blurted out this next part.

“Your smile is everything and I want to hear you laugh every day. What do I have to do to make Edmund leave you alone?”

She froze, then very carefully placed her fork on her plate, wiped her lips with her napkin, and then folded her hands in her lap.

“Shit. Esme, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Not here.” At dinner. When we were having a great time. Two seconds ago we were flirting and about to rush home for what I was absolutely sure would have been some pretty amazing sex.

Instead she had her eyes trained down on the table and the air between us was as cold as ice.

“No,” she finally said, “you shouldn’t have said that. Not here. Not when you know we’re being watched.”

I grimaced because she was right. I knew exactly where the private investigators were sitting and that the agents didn’t even bother with food. They sat at the bar nursing seltzers and shooting glares our direction. I’d gotten used to their constant presence. Sometimes they even followed me to work instead of Esme. I had fallen into the trap of complacency.

“But that’s not why—” She huffed, ran her hand through her hair, slumped back in the booth. “That’s not why I’m frustrated.”

I leaned forward hoping she’d let me hold her hand. She didn’t. “Why are you frustrated?”

“You have a hero complex, Leo. You think I need to be rescued and that you’re the man to do it. I know this is at least partially my fault. My father gets to me and I crack. You’ve seen me crack and I think it’s given you the impression I’m the victim here, but I’m not. Not really. Yes I’m stuck and no matter what I do I seem to be destined to pay for my mistakes, but I’m fine, Leo. I’m good. I promise.”

“If you’re good then why do you crack? Why do you look so sad everywhere but at work? Why,” I leaned forward, dropped my voice, hoped I wasn’t about to get myself strangled for being the stupidest man who ever lived, “why do you need me?”

Her eyes flared. The fire in them was the other end of the passion I usually loved coming from her. She shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. “You should be in my class. That way I could give you a key.”

“A key to what?” Her secrets? Her past? I’d take anything at this point.

“Me! You stupid man.” She buried her face in her hands for a few moments, then let them drop away, meeting my eyes. “Stop looking at me as the victim. Choose a different point of view.”

If she wasn’t the victim then what did that make her? The villain? I tried to picture Esme as the bad guy (girl) but I couldn’t. Nothing about it added up. Besides, she had little to nothing to do with her father’s business these days.

She leaned forward, the frustration gone from her voice. Instead she sounded...proud. “Just because I don’t enjoy the role I chose doesn’t mean it isn’t exactly where I want to be.”

I tried to follow along. “Where you want to be?”

“We’ve all got biases. We all see the world the way we were trained to see it. We follow patterns we learned as children, we accept limits because we don’t know any different. We expect people to fill the roles we give them.” She ran her index finger back and forth over her lower lip. “I don’t ever want that for us, Leo. I want you to see all of me.”

“I want that too.” This time she let me take her hand.

“So I’m tellingyouI’m not the victim. Just you.”

Just me.

Not her father or brother, or the agents or the investigators. To all of them she was weak, reluctant, uncooperative. When in reality she was the opposite. Their blinders gave her freedom, access to her father’s house and business, information on where things stood with the investigation.

She was playing all of them.

“Information,” she said, answering the question I hadn’t asked yet.

“Why?”

Her gaze dropped to our hands. “I really wish I could’ve stayed away from you.”

“I’m glad you couldn’t.” I tugged her hands, waited for her eyes to meet mine. “I’m not the victim here, either. I might not like everything that happens but there isn’t anywhere else I’d rather be.”

“You think you’ll still feel that way in the end?”

I brought her hand to my lips. “Yes, Esme. Even in the end.”

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