Page 14 of Skinwalker's Bane
His eyes narrowed. “I needed to ask you something.”
“I have no intention of answering any of your questions.”
Adam threw out his hand. “Look, I’m sorry about the other day. In my apartment. I was…well, if you really want to know, I was upset about Lincoln. It made me say things I probably shouldn’t have.”
“No, you should not have,” she agreed flatly.
“There, then.”
“There, what?”
“I had no intention of ever speaking to you again,” he said, just as flatly as her. “Circumstances have forced me back here.”
“Circumstances,” she repeated, hiding how startled she was that he was echoing exactly what she had thought about him. She had decided Adam Wary was the last person she would ever seek out on this ship. Now he was saying it aloud and it sounded very unpleasant. She wasn’t sure she liked it.
“Things have happened,” Adam said. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
“Oh, really? That’s what you’re using?”
His eyes narrowed again. “Wow, lady. Let go the vise, okay? You think I’m lying?”
“I think it was inevitable you end up back at my door.”
Adam stared at her. “What?” he said blankly. He motioned toward his temple. “Too much poly-speak. Do you want to lay it out for me?”
Devin looked down the corridor. There was no one there to witness this conversation. That didn’t mean the corridor would remain empty forever. She gripped his jacket sleeve and pulled him down the corridor toward her office door. “Let’s discuss this inside.”
“Where your assistant will see?”
“She’s not there at the moment. You’re perfectly safe.”
He let her drag him the few steps to the door. She slapped the plate and pulled him inside as the door opened. It was silent and still in the office. Nichola’s small desk was empty.
Nevertheless, she kept a grip on Adam’s jacket and moved around into her section and activated the silence bubble, just in case. The last thing she could afford to have happen would be for the wrong people to overhear this conversation.
Adam pulled his arm out of her grip and straightened his sleeve. “Now you can say exactly what you want. Tell me why you’re so pissed at me.”
“Because you’re here. Iknewyou would come back, once I had told you about Lincoln. I’m going to be stuck with you, aren’t I?”
He tilted his head. “Still not clear,” he said flatly. “Why would telling me about Lincoln make me come back?”
Devin sighed. “Because now you have leverage.”
He stared again. Then he started. “You think I’m going toblackmailyou over Lincoln? Stars and shipyards…” His eyes turned flinty. “That’s what you think of me?”
She crossed her arms. “You’re back here, aren’t you? Tell me you’re here for any other reason than because of what you know about Lincoln and me, and I’ll think more kindly of you.”
He hesitated. “I can’t say that,” he ground out. “Damn it, I’m not here to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“I don’t want to be here talking to you,” she snapped back. “Will you leave, then?”
“I can’t leave.”
“And I rest my argument,” she said bitterly. “You know about me and Lincoln and you’re going to use it. I must comply because you know. It might not be blackmail, yet you’re using your knowledge against me.”
He held up a hand. His eyes were blazing with a hard fury. “You’ve got me wrong. Hear me out, then I’ll get the fuck out of your life and you’ll never have to see me again. Deal?”
Devin considered the offer. She could kick him out now, without hearing him out, and be just as rid of him.
