I looked down at my wrist, the red marks from his fingers quickly fading. He’d never used force on me before, at least not in a non-sexual way, and to tell you the truth, it was sobering. For the first time since I’d gotten in the car, I was actually afraid.
What had I gotten myself into?
“So, tell me about this Camden McQueen.”
My heart rattled in my chest. “I’m sure you know more about him than I do.”
“I found out a lot, yes. But you … you seemed to be intimate.”
Acid burned along his words, seeping through his smooth façade. I really didn’t want to discuss my relationship with Camden though I felt like doing so out of spite. It bothered him, somehow, after all this time, that I had been with another man. And I guess somewhere, somehow, I still held a grudge.
“I f**ked him, if that’s what you mean,” I said bluntly. I told Camden I loved him too, I thought to myself, playing with the sentence like a hand grenade but deciding it was safer keeping it inside.
Javier stiffened beside me for an instant. “So crude.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “It is what it is.”
“Nothing more?”
I glared at him against my better judgement. “What is it that you want, Javier? I’m sure it can’t be whether I got nailed by Camden or not, because you have your answer.”
“I want,” he said slowly, drawing it out. He licked his lips. “I want you and I to work together.”
I nearly laughed. In fact a small snort escaped from my lips.
He raised one perfect brow and tilted his head toward me. “You find this funny?”
My fingers were splayed against my collarbone. “I find this horrifying.”
“Eden,” he said, then squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. “Ellie. You don’t think you’re here just for the sake of being here, do you?”
“You tell me. You f**king kidnapped a mother and child in order to get me. You paid I don’t know how much money. You have me now. For whatever you want. And you’re telling me, after all these years, you found me because you want us to work together?”
His eyes were on me, growing more golden in the light. Steady. Not blinking. Unnerving if I wasn’t so sure this was a test. He who looks away first, loses. I wasn’t losing yet, not when I was unaware of the prize.
I stared right back.
“Yes,” he said after a few beats. He licked his lips again and it made me realize how thirsty I was. “I could have found you long ago, if I really wanted to. I would have let you go. The car, the money, the lack of answers—”
“The lack of answers?” I repeated.
“You just left. No note, no phone call. No answers.” He slowly broke into a grin and then turned his attention to the window where a truck was thundering down the highway, dirty exhaust in its wake. “You know I love my answers, angel. You left me as high and dry as my mother’s bed sheets.”
My mouth gaped, tongue fumbling for something concrete. “What the f**k are you talking about? I left you high and dry …”
He shrugged. “No matter, it’s the past.”
It was the past. The past he was totally wrong about.
“You cheated on me!” I spat out, instantly ashamed at how much passion there was in my voice.
“Right,” he said. He raised his hand in the air as if to shut me up. “I did. I forget that sometimes, that what I did was wrong on some accounts. But that’s nothing.”
It wasn’t nothing. What he did, me finding him in bed with some ginger-haired bitch, it shaped who I was. It ruined my heart, my ability to love, to trust, to … live. He scarred me just as much as Travis did. It wasn’t nothing. Maybe, maybe it should have been.
I took in a deep breath, knowing he probably loved the fact that I was getting so riled up. “Okay, so it was nothing. You could have found me years ago, so you say. Why now? You’re lonely, is that it? Having a lot of money not getting your dick up enough?”
His eyes fastened into slits. “I’m not the person I was six years ago, my dear. And, I can see, neither are you.”
He was right about that. Javier had obviously changed for the worst. Had I?
Stupid question.
“I can understand why you think I’d pursue you for, uh, delicate reasons,” he continued. “But that’s not the case. We both want the same thing. And for once, I think you have the upper hand in getting it.”
My forehead scrunched. “Don’t tell me you need lessons in being a con artist.”
I saw the first genuine smile yet stretched briefly across his face. “You’re a lot better at other things, Ellie. You have something that I don’t. You have access, contacts, and in some cases … womanly charms. Jesus knows how I fell for them once.”
His eyes glide up my body from my jean-clad legs to my bare arms. To where the tattoo, his tattoo, wrapped around my bicep like an anaconda, squeezing the life out of me.
“And what if I won’t help you?” I said, rubbing at my parched throat. I was thirsty and the more I thought about what Javier might do if I ever refused him dried me out even more.
“I don’t think you’ll refuse,” he said with total confidence. He leaned forward and tapped on the tinted glass that separated the driver from us. “Agua, dos,” he said and the bald-headed driver leaned down and brought out two water bottles. Javier handed one to me and the window went back up.
I quickly unscrewed the cap and took a large swig. It was cool and strangely sweet and took a lot to quench my thirst.
“And if I refuse?” I repeated, wiping my mouth.
He slowly sipped his water, his eyes on me, far too intimate, far too observant. “I have ways of making you see the bigger picture. Now, drink up.”
At that, I immediately brought the bottle away from my lips.
“So suspicious, Ellie,” he crooned. I felt the bottle slipping out of my hands as I tried to grasp it. He plucked it from me and pressed down on my shoulder so I was back against the seat. His fingers were rougher than I remembered but hot, like they were fueled by a radiator. Everything was starting to go loose and numb. The interior of the car swirled.
“Naturally,” he went on, leaning forward and peering into my eyes. “You have a right to be so. Eden White was far too trusting.”