Page 176 of Misrule
“Shewants to be happy. You both deserve it.”
“I love her.”
“That isn’t enough. You have to respect her. Protect her. Confide in her. Make her first in your life. Kendall needs a strong man. Someone she can lean on. Someone to hold her up during her dark days. Someone to set her straight. You can be that man. Youarethat man. When I first met you, the only thing that distinguished you from Christopher, was your lightheartedness. You’re both beautiful. You’re both dangerous. And you’re both charming and loyal. I chose him because I fell in love with him not long after I met him. Not because you were less. Not because you were lacking. I chose him because he had my heart and soul.”
For so many years, he’d wondered exactlywhyshe’d chosen Christopher over him. He’d asked her on several occasions, but the answers must not have registered. Today, though, her words touched something in him.
“Do you think there’s a chance for Kendall and me to reconcile?”
“I can’t answer that. All I know is the past few weeks have been so rough on relationships. You and Kendall seem to have irreconcilable differences and now Knox and Roxy…” She paused and looked away. “It’s just been hard,” she mumbled.
He recalled her earlier morbidity. “It seems so. With you thinking about death. Where did that come from?”
“I’ve been thinking about another baby,” she confessed. Another glance at the ground alerted him to her second lie of the day. “I want to have it. For some reason, I’m scared something is going to happen to me this time.” She looked at her watch. “I have to get home to start dinner, Johnnie.” As she walked away, she paused and hesitated, before turning to him and standing on her tiptoes.
He bent and she kissed his cheek. “You have hard decisions to make, but I have every faith in you that you will choose the correct path. You’re a strong, honorable man and we all love you.”
She gave him a last smile, then continued on her way, not realizing, with her words, a burden lifted from Johnnie’s shoulders.
Chapter Forty-Three
Slouching back on her torn leather couch, Emily sipped her morning coffee as she took in her favorite program on the new, big screen TV she’d purchased with some of the money Outlaw had given her. Shopping for, and dressing in, the type of designer clothes she’d once worn had been a balm to her soul.
Now her expensive wardrobe brightened up her rundown apartment, located in a dangerous part of town that saw its fair share of crime. Sometimes, she worried about some asshole breaking in and stealing her high-end stuff before she used everything. So far, she’d only gotten to dress up in her new duds one time, since they’d been purchased, the day she met Johnnie. Though they talked every day, he still hadn’t asked her out.
She frowned at the screen, not liking the turn in the program’s plot.
“No!” she yelled. One of her favorite characters was almost taken out by an invading alien. She straightened and growled in frustration at a particularly ignorant decision. “How fucking stupid!”
At a critical moment of a character’s decision, her thin door vibrated with a loud knock. Resentful at the interruption, she cut her eyes away from the TV. Fifteen seconds hadn’t passed before the knock came again.
“What?” she screeched. “What?”If it was Miller coming for a dick suck, she’d give him one or two bites to the nuts.
Jumping up from the sofa as the show cut to a commercial, Emily stomped to the door and threw it open. And froze.
“What are you—”
Johnnie brushed passed her before she got the words out.
She almost threw an army of profanities at him, until she remembered Knox Harrington and Outlaw’s instructions. Johnnie needed a “demure” woman to get him away from Kendall. Breathing in deep and cursing to herself, she just managed not to slam the door shut.
Pasting a smile on her face, she turned to him. “What brings you to my place?” she asked his back, since he stood in her living room/bedroom, facing away from her. His rockers stared at her. The grim reaper in the center of his cut, scythe dripping blood, chilled her.
She shoved aside her reservations, tossed her hair, and marched to her prey. She touched his bicep, tense and taut beneath her fingertips.
“Hey,” she said softly, part of the old Emily—the rich girl she had once been—surfacing. “Would you like a refreshment?”
He shifted and glared down at her. The cold edge to his silver eyes made them seem pale and frozen. Dropping her hand, Emily stepped back.
A twisted grin gathered at his mouth. “Aren’t you curious about how I got your address?” he purred.
He seemed a little…off. Off his rocker. Off kilter. Offsomethingthat Emily neither liked nor trusted. Grabbing her remote and flicking her TV off, she threw it aside and started away, her intentions to put the sofa between them.
He was quick, though. In an instant, he grabbed her shoulder and pressed a gun between her eyes.
“You’re her,” he snarled.
“Her who?” she squeaked, shocked and afraid. He seemed ready to pull the trigger.
