“Ellie Watt,” he said smoothly. “It didn’t take me long to figure out your real name. In fact, it was almost like your name came floating in my window one day. So, you must realize that when you’re on the run and using your real name, well, any fucking idiot can track you down.”
I blinked hard and ripped my head to the window again. I’d been so careful with Camden’s name, going through all the steps to make sure he could never be found as Connor Malloy. I barely did the same for myself. The minute we knew that Javier and his men were after me in Palm Valley, the minute we headed for Nevada, I should have been more careful, more cautious. I should have concentrated more on myself than on Camden. Javier had tracked me to the resort in Laughlin and after that I thought I was playing it smart by taking on an old persona.
I wasn’t smart enough.
“I had people waiting in Las Vegas, you know,” he said and I could sense him examining his fingernails. “It wasn’t hard to figure out that’s where you’d be going next, that you needed to keep laundering your money. You were cocky enough to stay on the Strip. One of my men saw your car – my car – driving through. Followed you to your hotel, where you went through a half-hearted attempt to hide it.”
I swallowed hard. Disgust was beating out defeat at the moment.
“I realize now, Angel, that I didn’t know you very well at all. I don’t know who I knew. But I do know you’re not an idiot. You wanted me to find you. Perhaps you’ve been asking for it since you ran away.”
“Where are we going?” I said, trying to keep my breath from shaking.
He sighed. “I told you. To the past.”
“I have many pasts. Pick one.”
He leaned back in his seat, his legs splayed open, the tip of his knee touching my leg for a brief second. Just a tap. His way of reminding me where I was. I eyed the rocky landscape flying past and wondered when it became too reckless to jump out of a moving vehicle.
“Child safety locks,” he whispered and I wished he’d get the fuck out of my head. “And our past. Do you remember it?”
“No.” Although it wasn’t that much of a lie. I’d had so many pasts, that it was easy to bury them all with each other. When I left Javier all those years ago, I only remembered the pain he brought me, the humiliation and deceit for as long as I needed to. For as long as I needed to become someone else, to never make the same mistakes again. Then I let it go.
“Now you’re just trying to hurt me.” His couldn’t have sounded less sincere.
I cleared my throat. “I’m thirsty. Do you have any water?”
“Later. First we have something to discuss.”
I turned my head and shot him a deadly look. “We have nothing to discuss.”
The corner of his wide mouth twitched up into a smile. I wondered how I ever found this man charming. I must have been out of my mind.
My phone rang, jarring me. I reached for my jean pocket but Javier was quicker. His fingers wrapped around my wrist twisting it painfully away from me while he deftly got the phone out with his other hand. He held my arms down, pinning me against my door, and checked the screen. His eyes blazed for an instant before he punched the button for the window to go down and then chucked my cell out of it.
In a second, the window was back up and he was sitting in his seat like he never moved and my wrists were left aching in my lap. He smoothed his hair back behind his ears and grinned to himself. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you a new phone.”
I looked down at my wrist, the red marks from his fingers quickly fading. He’d never used force on me before, at least not in a non-sexual way, and to tell you the truth, it was sobering. For the first time since I’d gotten in the car, I was actually afraid.
What had I gotten myself into?
“So, tell me about this Camden McQueen.”
My heart rattled in my chest. “I’m sure you know more about him than I do.”
“I found out a lot, yes. But you … you seemed to be intimate.”
Acid burned along his words, seeping through his smooth fa?ade. I really didn’t want to discuss my relationship with Camden though I felt like doing so out of spite. It bothered him, somehow, after all this time, that I had been with another man. And I guess somewhere, somehow, I still held a grudge.
“I fucked him, if that’s what you mean,” I said bluntly. I told Camden I loved him too, I thought to myself, playing with the sentence like a hand grenade but deciding it was safer keeping it inside.
Javier stiffened beside me for an instant. “So crude.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “It is what it is.”
“Nothing more?”
I glared at him against my better judgement. “What is it that you want, Javier? I’m sure it can’t be whether I got nailed by Camden or not, because you have your answer.”
“I want,” he said slowly, drawing it out. He licked his lips. “I want you and I to work together.”
I nearly laughed. In fact a small snort escaped from my lips.
He raised one perfect brow and tilted his head toward me. “You find this funny?”