Page 43 of Kai
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved a dismissive hand in the air. “But not really.”
“The Missy I know is an amazing person and a woman I admire and respect as much as I do Thena,” Kai insisted. “Missy’s my friend, and so is Javier. He fell for Missy head over heels. They’re in love.”
“Sure.” I curled my fingers and drew quotations in the air. “‘In love,’ whatever that means, for however long that fleeting emotion lasts, which won’t be too long once I put this Guzman through the wringer and unmask his greed.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Kai pinched the bridge of his nose and huffed. “Can you dial down your skepticism for one second?”
His disappointment only irritated me more.
“Skepticism is my middle name.” I flashed my best smirk, the one that scared kittens and terrorized academics around the world. “It has spared me a lot of misery in life.”
“Or maybe it’s madeyoumiserable,” Kai returned, his voice calm but his determination to defend his friends intact.
A wince escaped my control. I went from irritation to pain. His words stung near my heart. Was he right?
“Spare me the lecture.” If I kept rolling my eyes at this rate, I was going to develop a severe case of vertigo. “Love is a fallacy. It starts with the biological need to reproduce and becomes a clinical condition of co-dependency.”
“Wow.” He quirked his eyebrows. “That’s like, a lot to unpack right there. Do you think Dash and Thena are delusional?”
“They might be the exception to the rule, and yet, if you’d been there as I was when Thena and Dash broke up, you’d know that her suffering proves my point. And FYI, I’m nothing like Thena and Missy.”
“I know that.”
“You don’t understand.” It was time to squash the tickle of joy that made the cobwebs wrapped around my heart vibrate with a hint of hope. “I don’t accept your so-called ‘precedents,’ and I don’tdorelationships.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!” I snapped. “I’m allergic to love, incapable of it, and unwilling to believe that it’s anything other than an illusion. No man is worth the aggravation. Didn’t my sisters tell you? They call me the no-love sister. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’twantone, and I don’t have time for the drama that comes with it. My work comes first. I’m not in the market for a man. Never been. Never will be.”
“Strong words.” Chewing on the side of his mouth, heseemed to consider me as if I were some sort of oddity, but when he next spoke, I didn’t get any judgment from him. “I get that last part, believe me, I do. Love is a high bar, and yet this special connection your sisters mentioned could fall into a range of possibilities.”
I drew back and frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know.” He slumped back on the bench. “Forget I said anything. I just wanted you to know what I know, that’s all.”
“Oh, no. No. You brought this up. I need to talk to my sisters.”
“We’re in silent protocol at the moment, but if you understand the risks and want to take them on, I can make it happen.”
If I insisted on the call and Kai put me through, and then the mercs found us, we’d be in a lot of trouble. I could endanger my sisters and miss our opportunity to find Affie and defeat the NWO.
“I’m not that desperate.” Security took precedence over curiosity. “I won’t risk my sisters’ safety,”or Kai’s, but I didn’t say this aloud. “We need to figure this out ourselves.” I considered what he’d said. “I guess there could be different types of connections.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” I threw the whole thing back in his lap. “You give it a try.”
“Your sisters can be odd,” he said. “But they have your best interests at heart. What if they saw or sensed something—”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know, Cece, but what ifwe, somehow, at some level—what ifwemake sense? What if we’re meant to be together?”
“Together?”I croaked. “How?”
“I don’t know.” He threw his hands in the air. “It’s yourturn to give this a go.”
“I don’t know either, but when we kissed…”
