a breath that heaved her chest, and then she breathed fire. “You really don’t feel anything, do you? He said you were cold and heartless, but I didn’t really believe it until just now. You don’t care about anything but yourself, do you? You’re a robot, just like he said. And a terrible lay. That,” she said, hatefully looking down my body, “I believed.”
“Takes one to know one,” I answered, forcing a smile. “It’s almost time for your cake.”
She glared, shoulders square, blocking my path.
“If you don’t let me go, we won’t be able to start,” I reasoned with a single desire—to get as far away from her as I could.
“Stay away from him,” she said through her teeth.
“My pleasure.”
I clipped away on shaky legs, making my way through the crowd and backstage. The crew didn’t need anything from me but a point to my watch, and in seconds, the music stopped so the DJ could announce her birthday. The cake would roll onto the dance floor, one of Katy Perry’s dancers would pop out, “Happy Birthday” would be sung, and the balloons would drop.
On autopilot, I watched the cake come out, finding my intern up on the catwalk with a crew member holding the rope to the balloons. The happenings went on around me, and I observed with clinical detachment, my mind somehow both present and a thousand miles away.
You really don’t feel anything, do you?
How I wished she were right. The sting of her salt burned to my bones. But it wasn’t just the words she’d spoken. It was the truth in them. Maybe this was all my fault. Maybe I’d pushed him away, or maybe I’d been too bold. Maybe I was cold. Heartless. Unlovable and unable to love.
Maybe it had been me all along.
I felt Kash near with a gathering of my senses, of my nerves, as if they were reaching for him. When I turned, I found worry written all over him—in the line between his brows, in the flattening of his lips, in the draw of his shoulders and the tightness of his fists at his sides.
And I cracked under the pressure, the scaffolding crumbling just because he was here, and he was safe, and he was strong enough to carry my burden with me.
He said nothing, just wrapped me up in his arms, slipped a hand into my hair to cup my head, holding me to his chest like a precious thing. And I breathed him in, the scent of earth and soap and musk.
They started singing when he leaned back to inspect my face as if for wounds. “Who do I need to kill?”
My laughter surprised me. “They’re not worth a felony.”
A flicker of a smile. “Tell me.”
“Brock caught me upstairs.”
Kash tensed.
“It was fine. He wanted me to make him feel better about this whole thing, and I refused.”
“Attagirl,” he said, that corner of his lips ticking up again.
“But Natasha saw and cornered me. Or blockaded me. She threatened my job, pressed my bruises. She wants to hurt me. In fact, I think she’s planning to make a career out of it.”
“Can’t imagine there’d be much money in it.”
I wished I could laugh.
“Do you think she’s just doing it for the cameras?”
“Maybe.”
He paused, seeming unnerved by my silence. “What did she say?”
“That … that I didn’t care about anyone but myself. That Brock was right—I’m emotionless, heartless. Passionless. Maybe they’re right.” Anything else I might have said jammed in my throat, squeezed tight with emotion.
“They’re not.” Kash cupped my face, held it delicately in his wide palm, tilted it up to his. “Do you hear me? They’re wrong. You care more than anyone I’ve ever known, and I’m a Bennet.”
The smallest of laughs eased my heart.
“I mean it,” he insisted with quiet demand. “I have seen your passion, and it has left me changed.”
I stared up at him, at the fervency in his face and the honesty of his words. “Kash …”
“They want to hurt you, Natasha strictly for sport. Don’t let them. Don’t give them that. Because they are wrong about you. Trust me when I promise you that.”
“I do,” I said, believing him with my whole heart.
A soft, sweet smile brushed his lips. “I also promised I’d make you forget him, and I don’t break my promises.”
“It worked,” I admitted with reckless courage. “It worked too well.”
He stilled.
For a protracted moment, we hung in that limbo, watching each other as we stood at the edge I’d been so afraid of