Page 123 of A Dirty Business
We hung up, and I checked in with a new security detail specifically for her. They were hired the same day we’d had her tracker taken off. It was at their request, stating the tracker would be found before they were spotted. They were specialized enough and trained specifically to handle law enforcement agencies, so we’d removed her tracker.
When it came to Jess, I wasn’t messing around, whether she knew it or not. She could hate me, as long as she was alive to hate me.
Me:Where is she?
Team Leader 1:At a studio.
His second text was the coordinates.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
JESS
The lights were off except for one lamp in the corner. I had dark folksy music going, and I was drinking. Fine. I needed a break from my life, so here I was. Painting again. Feeling shit. Bring on the feels.
No rules, regulations here. No suppressed emotions. No box I’d have to be stuffed into.
No roommate. No thoughts about Trace or our last times together.
Me and paint and vodka and my feelings.
Fuck my feelings, but I needed this shit out of me. This was always the best way. Who needed therapy? Talk therapy my ass. This was quicker, cheaper, and way more cathartic.
And as I stepped back, black paint dripping from my hands, I stared up at the canvas.
Apparently fuck me, too, because it was a huge stormscape. But at least I had painted Trace’s images out of me. Now all I wanted to paint were storms, over and over again, because they were coming. I couldfeel them. They were just on the horizon, and I wasn’t talking about weather storms. I was talking life storms.
I shouldn’t have been feeling this. My life was boring. It was so fucking clean that there was no drama. Squeaky clean. Maybe I was missing the storms. Maybe that’s what I was feeling ... or hell.
I missed Trace.
God.
I hated him. I missed him. I wanted him here, but I hated him too.
“That’s beautiful.”
Oh, hell to the no.
I turned, my whole body seizing because it was Trace. He was here, looking damn good too. “Get out.”
Damn my voice. That came out as a rasp.
Dressed in a suit. His wide shoulders. Trim waist. Those cheekbones. His chiseled jawline. He looked tired, with mussed hair, but it always made him look better.
Goddamnhim.
“Jess,” he murmured, his voice low. Also raspy.
My heart squeezed, and damn even that.
“Get out.”
“Jess.”
“It’s been three months and nothing. You asked for time, and I get it. Family stuff. Your family stuff isn’t typical, but there were no calls. Your numbers were gone. I’ve moved on.” I was lying, through my freaking teeth. Even seeing him had every nerve ending on high alert.
“I know you’re lying.”
