“Not long enough,” she muttered. “Jones, who did you pair him with, the local psycho?”
“Shut up,” Joss snapped.
“Touchy, touchy.” She smirked at him.
“Vaughnne,” Jones said, his voice flat. “Back off.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. “Whatever. I’m just here for the ride, right?”
“So I take it Taylor’s filled you in.”
“I didn’t need to.” Jones said when Vaughnne fell silent.
Joss slid him a narrow look.
Taylor lifted a cup of coffee to his lips and took a hefty drink. “She requested time off two months ago. Personal reasons. And she’s been down here ever since. Yesterday, she showed up at my hotel and told me she wanted in on the operation.”
“And how do you know about it?” Joss asked, studying Vaughnne’s profile as she stared at the table.
Her answer was a sly little whisper in the back of his mind, and as she looked at him, a smug little grin tugged at the corners of her mouth.
I’m psychic, genius . . . how do you think?
The problem was . . . she was lying. About something.
She slanted a look up at him and her golden eyes narrowed. He felt a none-too-subtle shove and then her voice, loud as a cannon, echoing in his mind. Stay out of my head, Crawford . . . or I’ll turn your brain into a sieve.
He snorted. “Like you could.”
“You won’t always have that talent inside you, hotshot,” she murmured.
“Thank God for that.” Then he shut up, because the waitress was heading their way, and damn it, he needed some caffeine.
* * *
SHE had a smile on her lips as she stepped out of the shower.
Granted, it had been weird to wake up with dreams of him in her mind, but really . . . was it that bad?
“You look happy, darling.”
At the sound of Patrick’s voice, Dru jerked up the shields in her mind.
At the same time, she fought to keep the smile on her face. “Patrick! Oh, you startled me!”
He sat on the edge of her bed, and nausea churned in her belly as she saw that he’d taken off his suit jacket. It was draped over the chair in the sitting area. And his shoes and socks.
Swallowing, she clutched the towel around her tighter. She couldn’t keep doing this.
“Come here, Ella.”
* * *
“BE ready at four.”
Numb, Dru just lay there.
Once he was gone, she was going to crawl back into the shower. If she thought it might help, she’d soak herself in a vat of bleach.
She wouldn’t be clean, though. She didn’t know if she’d ever feel clean again.
“Ella, did you hear me?”
Swallowing, she made herself answer, “Of course, Patrick. Where are we dining tonight?”
He frowned at her. “You’re rather tiresome today.”
I already realized that, she thought dully. She ached inside. She’d tried to find . . . something . . . to take control so he wasn’t using her the way he had that first time, but she . . . hell. She couldn’t. All she had been able to do was think about Joss. The way he’d felt as he whispered inside her mind. The way she knew he loved her, even though he didn’t really know her.
How can he love me?
And she’d worked on keeping up her shields, solid and thick, so Joss wouldn’t realize what was happening, so he wouldn’t pick up on anything. Not on the pain, not on the shame. None of it.
“I don’t know what is wrong with you, but you need to snap out of it. There’s a party tonight, at my house, for some business acquaintances. You’ll be there, and you’ll be there not looking like death,” Patrick said. He came to stand at her side, and when she didn’t sit up, he bent over her and pushed his hand into her hair, fisting it and pulling until she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. And still he pulled.
Her eyes watered from the pain but she refused to make a sound. He could rip her hair out by the roots before she’d give him that pleasure.
A cold chill raced down her spine and a face flashed through her mind.
Are you such a silly girl that you don’t realize what I could do to you? I could kill you. As easy as that and not a soul would say a word . . .
Cold, cruel eyes. A face not like Patrick’s, but the eyes . . . they were his.