I kept lying. “You must have been mistaken.”
He shook his head. “Mamita, I walked right up to the door and watched you do your thing and for some crazy reason you did it while you kept your father’s office door wide open.”
“That was so I could hear if someone was coming!”
Oh no!
How stupid could I be? I’d given it away.
Blooming heck!
He pulled me closer and the dangerous current slid out of the room and he looked like he was fighting a grin again.
I stared at him. I mean, really, it was hard to keep up with his mood swings.
“Your plan didn’t work. You didn’t hear me coming.”
Oh darn.
I watched his face and realized, indeed, he did see me do it.
Now what did I do?
I put my other hand to his shoulder, this time to try to push away. It didn’t work.
I gave up and my eyes slid to the side. “Oh well, then, you knew.” I tried to act like it was nothing.
“Helluva risk you took,” he said.
I shrugged.
“Anyone could have seen you do it. You were lucky it was me.”
He certainly wasn’t wrong about that.
He went on, “You could have got yourself killed.”
I bit my lip because he wasn’t wrong about that either.
“Why did you do it?” he asked softly.
I pulled in both my lips, bit them, let them go and answered simply, “He was not a nice man.”
“No,” Hector agreed and my heart lurched.
I ignored the lurch and looked at him.
With his easy agreement, he’d given me my opening. My father always said you should never waste an opportunity. So I didn’t.
“There you go. That’s why this, you and me and everyone else and your Mom and all of it, everything, isn’t going to work,” I told him.
His chin jerked back after I finished talking then his face went dark in another mercurial mood swing. “You wanna explain how you came to that conclusion?”
“Yes,” I told him truthfully, my back going straight. “I’m not like you and your people. I’m Sadie Townsend. My father is Seth Townsend. I don’t belong with your people, I never will.”
His arms got tight again, the scary current came back into the room and his face got close. “Mamita, I think you’re a little crazy.”
I shook my head. “Not crazy. I just know who I am, what I am and where I belong. All your family and friends are very sweet and nice and everything but you know, they know as well as I know, I don’t belong. I think it’s best for all concerned if this just ended here.”
There. I did it. It was hard but I kept my cool. I made sense. I didn’t get emotional.
I wanted to get emotional. Actually, truth be told, I wanted him to kiss me again. I wanted him to hold me in his lap and feel snug and secure and feel his heat hit me. I wanted to have dinner at his mother’s house again. I wanted to do the dishes and laugh in the kitchen with Jet and Indy again. I wanted Lee to tease me again.
But I knew I couldn’t have those things.
I could accept genuine friendship from Buddy and Ralphie because, well… I didn’t know why. Maybe because, when something happened (and it would) and I lost them, I would just lose two people and I’d lost more than that in my life. I’d come to love them enough and feel strong enough to ride that wave… until it ended.
If I accepted whatever it was that Hector was offering me, there was a whole gaggle of people I would lose.
Really, there was only so much a girl could take.
And my father always told me to play to your strengths but more importantly, know your limitations. And I knew my limitations.
“Is that what you reserved the right to say?” Hector asked, breaking into my thoughts.
I nodded and pulled away.
However, it must be noted, I didn’t actually get away. He leaned into me and one of his arms wrapped around my waist, the other hand slid up my back, along my neck and went into my hair.
I was getting the distinct impression that I should start girding again.
“All right, now I’ll say what I gotta say,” Hector announced.
Oh my.
I should have girded.
Again, I didn’t expect him to have a response. I thought he’d just agree, leave and then well… that would be that.
He didn’t agree. And before I could stop him, he started talking. And what he said robbed me of the ability to do anything but stand, pressed against him and stare.
“You got cameras in your gallery, the front and back entrances, your back office and the store. You got more cameras on this brownstone, front and back entrances. Your car has a tracking device. So does your purse. Your alarm has been rewired to send a simultaneous alert to the control room if someone breaches the system. All that shit is monitored in the control room at Nightingale Investigations offices.”
See what I mean? Nothing to do but stare.