How flagged had he gotten?
Yeah, okay so he’d started drinking on a stomach filled with nothing but painkillers around lunch, and hadn’t stopped until he must have passed out. Still…
“I don’t remember anything.”
Maris snorted. “I believe it. You were pretty wasted. I haven’t seen you like that in a very long time.”
“How long was I out?”
Maris turned the clock to face him.
Darling cursed as he noted the time. “It’s the middle of the afternoon?”
“You haven’t slept in days, probably weeks,” Maris said simply. “You were exhausted.”
He’d lived his whole life exhausted. Sleep had always been a stranger to him. Peaceful sleep even more so.
Squinting against the faint light in the room that pierced his brain, he grimaced at Maris. “What about you? You look like shit, buddy.”
“You keep sweet talking a girl like that and you’re liable to get lucky.”
Darling didn’t comment on that. “You haven’t slept, have you?”
“No. I kept watch for you while you slept.”
Of course he did. Maris was the only one who fully understood his lunatic idiosyncrasies and paranoia…
And the fact that a sleeping governor was usually a dead one.
“I appreciate it. Thank you.”
Maris inclined his head. “You know, you might want to think about showering at some point today.”
“Why?”
He rolled his eyes. “You really don’t remember anything from last night, do you?”
Darling tried to think through the throbbing haze. He saw images, but he wasn’t sure if they were real or imagined or dreamed. One thing that he did vaguely recall was Maris holding and rocking him… at least he thought he might remember it. “Did you kiss me?”
“Only on the cheek.”
Darling wasn’t so sure about that given the evil light in Maris’s dark eyes. It was a look he knew all too well. Maris had a secret he was hiding from him.
Something that would make him mad when he found out.
Gods, I hope I didn’t respond to any official e-mails…
If he had, he might be on the brink of war today. Better check on that soon. If there was an armada coming, he might want to rally some troops before they arrived.
Then again, in his current mood, a war might not be such a bad thing. Yeah, he wouldn’t mind tearing into a few of his enemies.
His thoughts drifted to the night before when he’d been in his office. Someone had been there dressed in white. It was a color Maris despised on himself for several reasons.
Maris would only wear it if he were dead…
Closing his eyes, Darling wasn’t sure what his mind was trying to tell him. But one thing tugged at his memory…
The smell of a woman’s skin. Something he hadn’t been near in a long time. And then, he saw an image of someone standing behind Maris in his office.
He looked at Maris and scowled. “Did you bring me a woman?”
“I did.” Now his expression and demeanor were completely unreadable.
Suddenly, Darling caught the scent that was still on his clothes from the night before. One that seemed to have permanently attached itself to his very skin. Unforgettable and as individual as the woman who bore it, he knew that scent better than any.
It hit like a kick in the crotch.
Still, he didn’t want to believe it was what he thought. Surely, Maris had more sense than that.
“Zarya. She’s here?”
Maris nodded.
Raw, unmitigated fury exploded through his entire being. Never had he wanted to kill anyone more than he wanted to kill Maris in that instant. “Goddamn you! How could you do that to me!” He winced as the pain in his head sharply intensified, but right now he had more important things that hurt him.
Things that cut a lot deeper.
Maris gave him a droll stare as if he couldn’t care less that he stood one wrong answer away from death. “I’ve been up for more than forty hours, and I’m too tired to fight with you right now. I’m going to bed. You dumped her in the kitchen, and abandoned her there for the others to humiliate. Just so you know.” And with that, he left the room.
Darling lay completely still as his emotions ripped him apart. Rage. Hatred. Revulsion. And an effing headache that rode him with spurs.
But underneath all that was a need so deep and compelling, he wanted to claw it out of his heart.
Zarya was in his home. She was here. Close enough to touch…
Don’t be stupid. She’s a lying whore who slapped you. Twice.
Just like your mother. Throwing you to the wolves to save her own ass. Hauk’s right. All women do is take and forget everything you did for them. Every sacrifice you made. You were never anything to her.
Nothing.
Just a means to an end. A tool to be used. Dirt beneath her feet.
And he kept coming back to the reality that she was in his home. Just down the stairs and one long hallway…
His stomach heaved. Darling rolled from the bed and stumbled to his bathroom. He barely made it to the toilet in time.