He laughed. “I’ll be back in the ring with you in no time.”
I leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Looking forward to it.”
I walked out the door, blinking back my tears.
*****
The next morning was the first moment I’d had alone with Killian since that night in my bedroom. Three days since everything had happened. It was time for normalcy. Or whatever passed for normalcy in my crazy world. So I did what I usually did, got up at 6:00 a.m. and did an hour of yoga. I alternated between yoga and running in the mornings, but I had an appointment with my trainer this afternoon, so relaxing yoga it was. Or attempting to relax. It was a struggle at the best of times to empty my mind and follow the poses. But this morning? Impossible.
I persevered and had a quick shower before throwing on high-waisted black jeans, some Converse, and a cropped tee. I was heading to a photo shoot first thing, which meant there was no need to dress up or put on a lick of makeup. Mario and Shayla would take care of me out.
I paused, rubbing the foggy mirror to reveal my face. I didn’t think much had changed. My face had gotten less chubby and more angular, thanks to me dropping weight. Constant touring, a busy schedule, and little time to eat were the culprits of that. It wasn’t like I was obsessed with being a size zero like many others in the industry; it just happened to be a side effect. My face was pale and there were dark smudges underneath my eyes betraying how little sleep I’d had the past few days. This made my face seem more pale and the sprinkling of freckles across my nose more prominent.
Freckles.
Shit. Don’t do it. Don’t go there.
I hadn’t expected anyone to be awake. We’d been up until the early hours playing, writing, and Sam and Wyatt had been drinking. All of the boys were still staying at the beach house, Sam and Wyatt flat out refusing to go back to their respective houses. I knew part of it had to do with my safety, another part that they wouldn’t leave me alone with Killian. I hadn’t been alone in his presence since that terrible first night. Even those few seconds in each other’s company haunted me.
They’d made it more than clear where he stood.
Sam had made a “bed” for him by dumping blankets outside on one of the sun loungers. When it was pouring down with rain, Hannah, my assistant, moved him to one of the guest rooms as far from mine as possible. She knew the short version of me and Killian. She was polite to him, but the coldness in her voice could not be mistaken.
None of them even spoke to him in the entire time he was here, apart from glaring and muttering curses.
I’d tried my best to follow their lead, but I couldn’t help but get lost in his stares at the moments when those blue eyes paralyzed me. Luckily, before I could do anything that would cost me my pride, we were interrupted.
*****
“You’re not having breakfast,” a flat voice observed.
I didn’t turn. I was actually getting really good at not outwardly showing my bleeding heart when he spoke to me, which was thankfully not often.
I jumped when he spoke, not expecting him to be awake. I had planned on slipping out to the photo shoot without him. I wasn’t being stupid and messing with my safety, I knew Keltan had assigned someone else to me, someone I was going to meet at the shoot. I thought the chances of something happening to me on the drive were slim to none. Obviously Killian didn’t sleep late.
My plan was foiled.
He didn’t bother to apologize for making me jump out of my skin. This was yet another reminder that this wasn’t the Killian I knew.
I took a deep breath and braced myself before turning. Even though I was prepared, the vision of him hit me like a physical blow. He was dressed in all black, like usual, though his cut was missing, as per Jenna’s request. I’d thought he would have protested about this, considering how much that piece of leather meant to him, but he’d shrugged it off without a word, eyes on me as he did so. I tried to pretend that didn’t hit me somewhere deep down, that the moment wasn’t pivotal, important somehow. That’s all I was doing since he arrived, pretending. Pretending he didn’t hurt me just by being in my presence. That I didn’t hate him with every part of me but love him at the same time. I had a feeling my act wasn’t going to last.
“I don’t have time,” I informed him curtly. I was going for cold and distant. The result was bitchy, which I was happy with.
“You haven’t eaten breakfast since the day at the hospital. Shit, you’ve barely eaten anything. You’re too fuckin’ skinny. You need to eat,” his voice was hard, but the concern was evident.
I ignored this.
“I’ve got a photo shoot.” I hitched my bag up on my shoulder. “So I’ll take the ‘too fucking skinny’ comment as a compliment, considering I’m going to be surrounded by size-zero models.”
That was it. The longest sentence I’d said to him since he got here. Yes, I’d been taking note. And it was about me being “too skinny.” It was true, I’d always been petite but not skin and bones. I ate healthy and exercised because it was some of the ways I quieted my mind. But the thought of food had made me sick every time I thought of Duke in that pool of blood. Something hit me about Killian’s comment, about the way his lip curled up slightly at me. He wasn’t attracted to me. It hurt more than it should have. Hurt so much that I was surprised I stayed standing. I was getting good at keeping my feet when my shoulders were weighed down with memories.
Killian raised a brow and his jaw went hard. “And you were going to go. On your own?” His voice was flat, but there was no missing the anger lurking in his eyes.
I met his stare, thankful he was across the room. “I’ve been driving myself to and from photo shoots for years, Killian. I don’t see a problem.”
His façade cracked and his jaw went granite. “You didn’t have a fuckin’ stalker waiting for moments like this, Lexie,” he exploded. “You really stupid enough to fuck with your safety like that, just because you don’t want to be near me?”
I did my best not to flinch at the anger and, more importantly, the way his tone was cold even in the face of that anger. “I don’t appreciate you questioning my intelligence,” I snapped.
“I don’t appreciate you doing stupid shit that could get you killed,” he bit back.
Another reminder this wasn’t years ago; this wasn’t the boy who loved me. He would never have talked to me the way this stranger was talking to me now.
I glanced at my phone. I couldn’t be late to this shoot. I was never late. It was rude. No matter how “famous” I was, it didn’t give me the excuse to think my time was more important than anyone else’s. “Fine,” I bit out. “We have to go now.”
Something changed in his face. I didn’t know what, but the anger drained away as did that horrible blankness. A glimpse of the boy I used to know peeked through.
“I need you to realize how serious this is,” he said, eyes never leaving mine.
My heart stuttered. “I held my bleeding friend in my arms while preparing to shoot the person who did it,” I replied coldly. “I’m aware of how serious it is.”
Killian’s jaw ticked at my words. “Fuck, Lexie. You sound like a goddamn robot. It’s me. Talk to me.”
I stared at him across the room, hating the distance between us. Hating it because he was too close. I needed oceans between us. Galaxies. Hating it because across the room, five feet, was too damn far.
“I don’t know you,” I hissed, running my eyes over the man in front of me.
Man.
Before I’d always known he was a man. Even at seventeen he seemed to command more attention, more authority than every teacher at our school. He easily measured up to the men in the Sons of Templar. It had been apparent he’d grow into it and become more.
The person in front of me was more.
And somehow… less.
The hair. It was the hair that I loved that was what got me. The inky silk I used to run my hands through, that I
had clutched on the night I wasn’t allowed to think of, it was gone. His head was shaved to almost a buzz cut, making his features more pronounced, making his beauty that much more exquisite, the pain and harshness of his expression stark and almost uncomfortable. Every part of his face was sharp, as if carved out of marble. His cheekbones. His jaw. His lips even seemed to be hard. It was his eyes. Those ice blue eyes that used to be hard to everyone else and liquid for me. It was like they were sheet rock. Like nothing hid behind them. The person I used to know was gone.
His body was almost unrecognizable. He’d always had muscles, but lean teenage muscles. These were not lean, and these were the muscles of a man. He seemed to take up half of the open room. Those beautiful arms that I used to run my hands along, that would encircle me in safety, were covered with tattoos. More than Sam and Noah combined.
At my words, something flickered in those emotionless eyes and his huge body surged forward.
I ached to run, to flee the room or at least retreat a few paces. That seemed impossible as I stood paralyzed as he came to a stop in front of me. Like right in front of me. His presence enveloped me, and I could smell his scent that I dreamed of every night. That had long left the tee I clutched to when I was sleeping. At least that hadn’t changed.
He didn’t touch me, by some small miracle. The gods might have been using my heart as a soccer ball right now, but at least they weren’t putting it through the juicer again.
Ice blue eyes seared into mine. “Don’t,” he rasped, his voice rough and low, that one word full of pain. I almost flinched. “Don’t you say that. Act like I’m some stranger. As much as it hurts me, as much as it sears through every bone in my body to see the hurt in those eyes, I think indifference would kill me, freckles,” he continued, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it seemed to echo in the room.
It was on the last word that I flinched.
Freckles.
I found my feet, my motor skills, and I scuttled back as far as I could, my hand running along the sofa so I could put it between us. A suede shield.
“You do not call me that,” I commanded in a broken voice. I chose to ignore his visible jerk. “Never. Never will I hear that name come from your mouth again.” I sucked in a strangled breath and somehow found the strength to stand upright instead of crumbling to the ground. My eyes met his. I strove for that indifference. Some evil, sick part of me yearned to cause him as much pain as I could. To do everything in my power to give him a glimpse of my agony. As much as I wanted to, as damaged and broken as I was inside, I couldn’t. I settled for an empty tone. “Your job, as much as I would love for it to be otherwise, is to protect me, is it not?” I asked curtly.
His eyes flared. “My job always has and always will be to protect you,” he declared, promised.
Ignore.
“Since that is your job, I think you should refrain from calling me something that will indeed cause me a great amount of pain and suffering. I am Alexis or Miss Williams to you, since you are here in a business capacity,” I informed him. It didn’t matter that no one called me Miss Williams except Clyde and no one who wanted to live called me Alexis, but I’d take anything that could put distance between us, even a name.
Killian flinched again, as if I’d struck him.
Ignore.
“You are only here because I love my mother and my father and I don’t want to cause them unnecessary worry or hurt,” I continued. “As soon as I find a way to get rid of you without causing that, I hope to never see you again. For now, you’re an employee and I hope to not have any occasion to speak to you unless it’s life or death. Clear?” I asked. I didn’t wait for a reply, just jutted my head up and turned and left the room. I congratulated myself on my measured, unhurried steps, on somehow not collapsing at his feet after seeing what lay behind his eyes.
I heard the boom of his motorcycle boots against the floor as he followed me. I couldn’t even storm away to lick my wounds. No, not when he was my bodyguard and I had obligations.
Fuck.
The only sound in the morning silence was our footfalls as we made it to the attached garage of the house. Killian hadn’t run after me, tried to speak, nothing. He just followed me silently, like he hadn’t just said those things. Like he hadn’t opened up wounds that were barely healed. Like he didn’t care.
I swallowed the stab of pain while I was opening the driver’s door to my Jeep. Of course he didn’t care. He’d made that clear four years ago. And every day since. He hadn’t called me to tell me what a big mistake he’d made, or he still loved me and I was his world. That didn’t happen in real life, but only in books that once had been my escape and now taunted me with the fantastical romance between their pages.
A hand pushed the driver’s door closed and my body erupted in tingles when a huge form took up the space behind me.
“I’m drivin’,” Killian declared.
I didn’t glance up. Didn’t argue, though I itched to. Of course he would demand to drive. Stupid, pushy alpha male. It took every part of me not to hiss something at him and refuse to let him drive. Instead, I moved quickly out of his space and stomped to the passenger’s side without a word. The easiest way to protect what was left of my heart was to ignore him, speak to him only when there was no other choice, and most importantly, stay out of touching distance. Because when he got in my space like that, when I could feel his heat, smell his scent, almost taste him, that’s when I was really in danger. Of falling apart. Of begging him to put me back together.
I slammed the door shut and shoved my headphones in my ears without looking in his direction. Leaning forward, I tapped the location of my photo shoot into the GPS mounted on the dash, thanking the Lord I had a poor sense of direction. That thing was the only reason I didn’t get lost every time I hopped in the car. I was now going to marry the inanimate object, which stopped me from having to speak to Killian. I relaxed only slightly when the music in my ears reached a deafening level. That was the only way I’d survive a car ride with him, if I didn’t focus on the silence between us, the beauty and the pain of it. Instead, I looked down at my phone and tapped away, sending e-mails and basically pretending the person next to me wasn’t the man who still held my heart in his callused hands.
Gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, Killian glanced over at Lexie for the hundredth time. He could hear the low thump of the bass emanating from her headphones from across the cab. She’d shoved them in her ears the moment the doors had enclosed them in this space together.
“Turn right in one hundred feet. You will shortly be arriving at your destination.”
The fucking automated GPS meant she hadn’t even had to give him directions. Her blonde head was turned away from him, the mass of curls cascading down her back. They were long, much longer than when he’d last touched them. He ached to run his hands through the golden locks. To taste that rosebud mouth that was currently pursed with what Killian recognized as anger. She was still beautiful. Beyond beautiful. She had more freckles sprinkled across her lightly tanned face and he ached to run his lips across them. Her jawbones were more angular, with age and with her diminishing weight. Her little body in those fuckin’ jeans still got him hard. Shit, the sliver of flat stomach peeking from below her tee had him granite. She’d never be anything but beautiful to him, but her diminishing frame worried him, gnawed at him.
But it was her eyes that got to him most. That fueled the burn that had been present in the back of his throat for four years. The hurt behind them. He knew she’d been trying to hide it from everyone. Problem was, she couldn’t hide it from him. Fuck, he almost wished she could. Seeing how deep that shit ran, how raw it was after four years, it almost brought him to his fuckin’ knees.
It also gave him hope, a glimmer of it in the dark recesses of his mind, but enough to grasp onto. If the hurt was still that fresh, still that real, maybe he could heal it. Maybe he had a chance to get his girl back.
>
Maybe that was a fuckin’ pipe dream and he’d be sentenced to being haunted by that look of despair he’d created on the most beautiful girl in the world’s face.
That would not happen if he had anything to do with it. His girl would be happy again. With him, if something in this world gave him a break. Without him, if that’s what it took. First, he had to make her safe. It wasn’t lost on him that there was someone out there waiting, watching.
That had been what his days had been made up of since he’d arrived at the mansion in Malibu. He hadn’t expected anything less from rock stars, but it still jarred him to see how far they’d come in four short years. The place was sprawling, offering million-dollar views of the ocean. It was everything she deserved and far away from what he could have given her.
That hit him somewhere deep. He didn’t think there would be a new kind of hurt. He’d been living with pain for years. Had sought it out in the ring. But seeing the life she’d built without him was something else. Seeing her turn into a beautiful woman with pain behind her eyes and the world at her feet nearly killed him.
Staying in the same house as her was torture. He said staying because precious little sleeping was done. He spent most of his time outside, chain smoking and watching the ocean, searching the darkness for shadows.
In the daylight, the shadows were still there, the shadows of the love they’d had. He saw it behind her eyes, even when she tried her best to ignore him. In a room full of people, it was only still him and her.
The men in the band had made it their mission to make sure Killian and Lexie were never within five feet of each other, as had Mia when she was there. She had not forgiven him for hurting her firstborn and only grudgingly accepted his presence, not knowing the seriousness of the situation.
Wyatt, Sam, and Noah, however, did.
“The only reason I’m not going and buying myself a gun and getting creative is because you could make yourself useful in making sure that sick fuck doesn’t come near Lexie,” Sam had hissed at him on the first day. “But you go anywhere near her, you try and use this as an opportunity to fuck with her head again, I swear to God I’ll kill you and dump your body in the ocean.” Sam paused, glancing to Lexie, who had been bent over a table with Noah, frowning at a sheet of music. Her hair was tumbling around her face. Killian got lost in that for a second before Sam had spoken again.