No More Masquerade by Angel Payne

Author:Angel Payne [Payne, Angel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance
ISBN: 9780990413738
Publisher: Fin Mint Publishing
Published: 2014-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Claire

I was curled in my old recliner in the living room, gawking like an idiot at the screen saver on my phone.

The picture was one of my favorites. In it, he was laughing, his head thrown back and his eyes closed. His hair, thick and inky and oh-so-touchable¸ was a little too long. I’d teased him about it right before I took the shot, saying that if it got much longer, Kim would start calling him Jenny instead of Jamie. My joke was the instigation for his laughter. I loved it when he let his guard down like that, especially when I had the treat of being the source, so I’d eagerly captured the moment. One of so many…all so treasured.

Why hadn’t I taken pictures of all of them?

I gripped the phone harder. Hated the tear that spilled onto the screen, dashing it away in fear it would ruin one of the only things I had left of him.

Is this really it, Killian?

The words tumbled off my lips after they consumed my heart, bleak rasps that matched the screen saver on my spirit. Tomorrow, they’d likely be screams again. If the sadness wasn’t tearing at me, then the outrage was—until I begged Cupid to just rip the arrow out of my ass and let me bleed out into unconsciousness. But the little brat wasn’t listening, likely because he was laughing too hard in my face.

The conclusion swung me all the way back to anger. A lot of it.

“You’ve left me,” I rasped at the picture. “Haven’t you?”

Kil only silently laughed in return.

“How dare you.” I let my grief climb into a sob. “How dare you, Killian.”

I surged to my feet, struggling to root my thoughts in reality again. But the “reality” he’d left behind was fucked-up and tangled, a bizarre mess made worse by the Stone family, version 2.0: capricious, confused, selfish.

Trey had instantly fired everyone at SGC’s executive level, even Kim Xu. Though the company was contractually obligated to retain Asher and Associates for another year and a half, we were told to stay away due to conflict of interest—that “interest” undoubtedly focused on Andrea and me. Lance, temporarily relocated to Chicago to help shore up the cracks left behind by Trey’s siege, looked miserable in every picture I saw of him. Willa was doing what she did best: playing the Stone queen mum by attending every last social function she’d been scheduled for—outfitted to regal perfection, of course.

Shockingly, Margaux was the only one who managed to completely avoid the spotlight. She’d gone underground with impressive hermit skills, disappearing almost as thoroughly as Killian had.

Almost…but not quite.

He was gone. Despite all the tears I’d shed, calls I’d tried, dishes I’d shattered, and small electronics I’d ruined, he was gone. And I was here, clinging to my phone, mooning at his picture, turning into a lame sixteen year-old.

And still beyond desperate to find him.

What if he hadn’t left on purpose? What if he was hurt—or even captured? What if

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