Hot in the City by Jules Court

Author:Jules Court [Court, Jules]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2017-03-14T18:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

It was finally out. Priya had spit the words from her mouth like poisonous bile and now nothing would ever be the same. But for this moment, sitting in the evening heat on the front stoop, her family inside reeling from what she’d dropped on them, she only felt empty. Maybe it was the shock speaking—she was in shock, wasn’t she? she had to be—but it was as if the poison had scrubbed her insides raw. When she looked down at her hands, she was surprised to see them shaking. She placed them firmly on her knees.

Brian loomed over her, silhouetted by the setting sun. He was talking quickly on his phone, probably to his partner, but his words were only noise washing over her. She couldn’t register any meaning. It wasn’t until he gently touched her face that she realized he’d ended his phone call and had been talking to her.

“C’mon. I’ll drive you home,” he said.

His voice was like a lifeline reaching down into the vast hollow pit into which she’d descended. She shook her head. “Sara is still out there,” she said.

“And we’ll find her,” he said. “But not tonight.”

His hand came into her field of vision. Pale skin, long fingers, broad palm—a strong hand. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll set your car on fire?” she asked.

“It’s a crappy 4-cylinder, dismal gray slug. I’ll hand you the match. Now let’s go. My partner’s on his way over and he’s not too happy with me. I’d like to avoid the lecture. Although maybe you can set him on fire.”

“That’s not funny,” she said, pulling the corners of her mouth back down.

“Let’s go, Firestarter.”

She put her hand in his and let him haul her up. “I’m not going to answer to that,” she said. “What if I came up with terrible nicknames for you?”

“So many places to start,” he said. “You could go for the obvious—my profession. There’s the classic Pig, or Bacon. But if you want to get a little more personal, my hair makes a good target. Firecrotch, Gingersnap—”

“I think I’d be a little more creative.”

He shook his head sadly and gave an exaggerated sigh. “No one ever is,” he said.

How could he still tease her? Try to make her feel better? “You now know I’m crazy. And a terrible person. A crazy, terrible person.”

He’d parked right in front of her aunt’s house. It took but two steps and he was holding his car’s passenger door open. He waved her forward.

She paused, rooted to the sidewalk. Going with him, taking the comfort he offered—it was nothing but selfish desire. Look at where that had gotten her. She tried to move, to turn around and walk back into her aunt’s house, to face her family and what she’d done to them. But still her feet remained where they were.

“Maybe you should let them process everything,” Brian said gently. “That was a pretty big bomb you dropped.”

Somehow she managed to move forward. He closed the car door gently behind her.

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