Shooting Scars (The Artists Trilogy #2)

He appraised me before saying, “Apparently. But I find your lack of censorship amusing. Care to entertain someone that you hate by having another drink with me?”


“Are you drugging me again? Because if I have another drink I’ll probably pass out anyway and you’ll have to get one of your little crew boys to drag me back to my room.”

His face became instantly stern. “No one touches you on this boat.”

“Not even you?” I asked wryly, testing him, pushing him.

He shook his head. “No. Not even me. You are not mine to touch.”

“Oh, of course not. I’m just yours to use as a pawn.”

“Ellie,” he said. Then he got up and held out his hand. “Come join me and I’ll explain.”

“Explain what?” I asked, eyeing his hand like it had some disease.

“Explain what’s going to happen. I don’t know what you heard from Raul but I want to make some things clear.”

I didn’t understand what the point of that was. What did it matter what he told me? I probably wasn’t going to like it, which didn’t matter if it meant keeping Camden alive. I was in a shitty situation and I was tired of trying to wrap my head around it.

Finally I put my hand in Javier’s and he helped me to my feet. His hands were warm and rough. Familiar and strange.

As soon as I was up though, he dropped my hand like it was a hot coal. I’d found that to be the strangest thing about this whole thing with him. He really did see me as a pawn, not as his ex-lover or ex-girlfriend. Of course I still saw his eyes on me from time to time and that hopeful expression on his face. But for the most part, whatever feelings, mentally, physically, whatever, he had for me in the past, they weren’t the same anymore. He was detached, unpassionate, and utterly focused on this task at hand, the one my brain kept skirting. Part of me found his distance admirable. I couldn’t have wanted him to keep playing the part of the creepy, obsessive ex-lover. The one who kept all my clothes yet took six years to come chasing after me.

I just didn’t understand this Javier. And maybe that’s the reason why I let him pour me a stiff drink and why I followed him down the stairs to the main deck and to the back of the ship where his private cockpit was. I wanted to understand him, whether it would do me any good or not. Understanding the enemy was to my advantage, wasn’t it?

I hadn’t spent any time at his cockpit before, a round depression that led down to his office and quarters below, two curved couches on either side, plus a bar that popped up with the touch of a button.

I sat down on one couch, spreading my legs out, hoping that would deter him from sitting near me. It worked though I had a feeling he was going to sit opposite from me anyway.

“I think this is the best part of the ship,” I said. I put my head back and looked up at the stars. I still felt the weight of the universe on my shoulders.

“It’s my favorite too. It reminds me of the old boat.”

My mind jumped back to the first time I stepped foot on his old boat. The first time we made love on it. He wanted to stain me. And he did, just not in the way he had hoped.

I knew I shouldn’t have been thinking of it – it was the booze, plus Raul’s words that had implanted the seeds there. But I was thinking it and before I knew it, I was saying it.

“Why did you cheat on me?” I kept my eyes on the stars, feeling the dark bruise-colored sky lift a bit.

Javier was silent. Stunned or formulating an excuse. Maybe preparing to tell the truth. I didn’t know what I hoped to gain out of this aside from having a weight lifted. Unanswered questions can stay with you a long time, riding on your shoulders, wearing you down.

I heard him take a sip of his drink and place it on the side table. The sounds were all louder now, the drone of the engine since we weren’t under sail, the water as it crashed behind the stern of the boat.

“I cheated on you more than once,” he said cautiously, as if he was waiting for me to spring up and kill him. I didn’t. It hurt my pride just a tad but the anger was on the way out.

I cleared my throat, feeling stupid despite the circumstances. “I see. It figures.”

“Why?”

“That I would be the one with the wool pulled over my eyes. The whole time I thought I was keeping a secret from you and you were the one keeping it from me.”

“Ellie, it wasn’t exactly like-”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. Forget I asked.”

“I can’t forget you asked. What if I asked why you lied to me all that time?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I repeated.

“It does matter,” he said loud enough to make me jerk to attention. He was gripping his glass, eyes blazing. “I was a different man then, just a boy, but I did love you and I never would have done anything to intentionally hurt you.”

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