Heartbreak Me by T.L. Smith Page 0,28

halting me. Turning back to look at him, his eyes are cast down on my thigh before they slowly creep back up to mine.

“Shower all that off of you.” He gestures to the blood, and I can only manage to stare at him as I get out. “Someone will be back for the shirt. Make sure you wrap it in a plastic bag, don’t leave it anywhere it will mark.”

Turning to close the door, I look down at him. “Why did you kiss me?” I ask, wanting to know if he will answer me.

At first, I think he’s going to shut the door and leave me with no explanation, like he does best, but instead he looks at me. “Because you are kissable.” He smirks, then shuts the door.

Kissable? What the ever-loving fuck does that mean.

Walking up the steps, I go to open the door, but before I do, it’s pulled open, and Tina is standing there. She stares down at my legs and back up, her eyes go wide as she looks behind me to Atlas who’s sitting in the car watching us.

“Don’t scream. Don’t say a word,” I tell her.

She listens and steps back, so I follow her. I turn around to angry eyes as the heavens above rain down a torrential storm, then I shut the front door.

“I need to shower,” I say, locking it behind me.

That damn man probably has a key for all I know. He seems to know and have access to things he shouldn’t.

“I’m coming.” I don’t protest, I’m too tired to do so.

Tina follows me in as I turn on the water, stripping off the shirt and placing it in a bag as requested, then get in.

“Just say it,” I call out while washing my hair.

I can feel her staring at me.

“Who is he? And what the fuck are you covered in?” She looks me up and down, and I look at her. “Paint…” She pauses, and I can see her thinking. “Is that… blood?” She shoots her eyebrows up.

“No. He’s involved with Lucy. We went to an art studio, and this is the outcome.” I tell her an utter lie. It hurts to do so because I don’t lie to Tina. Finishing up, I get out, and she hands me a towel. “You would tell me, right. If it was something else?”

“Yes, you know I would.” She nods, but I get the feeling she doesn’t believe me.

“So, he’s with Lucy. I had such high hopes with the way he looks at you.”

“How does he look at me?” I question. To me, he stares as if I’m a nuisance. Which baffles me, because I never asked him to be in my life.

“Like he’s hungry,” she says, turning and walking into my bedroom.

My hand touches my lips from when he kissed me, and I have to try to remember how he looked at me. Anger. Anger is all I seem to remember. How can Tina see that, and all I see is hatred?

“I know you’re thinking about it. But it is hunger. That man wants you as much as he doesn’t,” she calls out to me.

I take a look in the mirror at my bruised lips and shake my head at thoughts of him entering my mind.

He isn’t welcome.

And I hope all thoughts of him go away forever.

Chapter Fourteen

Atlas

Killing her friend is playing on my mind right now. Will Theadora tell her? She had to have noticed she was covered in blood.

Did Theadora tell her?

That bastard deserved to die. And anyone who looks for things that are mine will meet the same fate. This isn’t an option, and he knew this, and still he went looking for her. I can’t fix stupid, and that’s exactly what he was. Stupid.

His body will be found as a suicide, and no trace will come back to me. Luckily for me, the people who he hired to find Theadora work for me. So the first thing they did was tell me.

News articles will read, ‘Beloved Politician Commits Suicide.’ Let’s hope for Theodora’s sake the same thing won’t be said for her friend.

Theadora runs on Sundays like clockwork, but she hasn’t been doing that for quite some time.

I’m waiting out the front of her house where she would normally come out dressed in her sweats because the temperature is dropping, but after thirty minutes tick by and there’s no sign of her, I walk up to her door and knock. At first, she doesn’t answer, but then I