“Why were you angry at your father?”
“He was always gone, and when he was around, he wasn’t the father I remembered in my younger years. He was a hard person, even mean, and ultimately he ended up getting my mother killed. He almost got us all killed.”
“He’d been undercover for years inside a notorious motorcycle club,” Kyle says. “I’m sure it affected him. And you were young. I’m sure that made it harder to deal with his transition back to the real world.”
“Yes,” I say. “And logically as an adult, I believe that to be true, but at the time, it had a lot to do with how I responded to the murders, and my future. And to Kara. I mean, he brought those criminals to us, and she wanted to join the same agency, and do it all over again.”
“She wanted the control, not them,” he supplies.
“Staying off their radar was the control I wanted, and she refused,” I say, trying not to think about how stupid I sound considering I’m in Michael Alvarez’s bed.
“Because of your father, the agency brought down a big portion of their criminal operations. He saved a lot of lives, Myla, and I’ve looked at your sister’s record. She has as well.”
“I know and it might seem like I’m not proud of them, but I am. Actually, very proud of them.”
“You don’t seem like you know or that you are.” He lifts his hands. “You’re here.”
“This wasn’t planned. It’s complicated.”
“In what way?”
“My sister was an FBI agent when I met Michael.”
“And you shut her out because she wouldn’t accept you being with him.”
“No,” I say firmly. “That isn’t how this happened at all. Not at all. I wouldn’t do that, and-” I inhale with the realization that I’ve raised my voice, and let real emotion into my voice. “She thinks I was killed in a helicopter crash, and I chose to leave it that way.”
“You shut Kara out,” he repeats.
“Stop saying that. I love my sister. I was mad when she took the FBI job, but that was years ago. We got over it and never, ever did we lose each other in the process.”
“Until Michael Alvarez.”
“It’s not how it seems.”
“You let Kara hurt over you.”
“Stop pushing me.”
“I need to understand. You let her grieve your death. You let Kara hurt. You let her-”
“I know what I did,” I hiss, my chest tightening. “I know and-” I stop speaking, my brows furrow with a realization that has me studying him just as hard as he is me. “Wait.” I tilt my head to study him. “You called my sister by her name. You called her Kara.”
There is a flicker of something in his eyes that is there and gone in a blink, before he asks, “Isn’t that her name?”
“Of course it is,” I say, “but it was the way you said it, like it was second nature. Like you know her.” I turn a bit more toward him, my hand going to the coffee table. “What do you know about my sister?”
He rotates even further, his eyes, those green eyes, looking right at me, not a blink in sight. “I could recite the contents of her file just like yours, but that doesn’t tell me anything more about her, any more than it does about you. I need to hear things directly from you. I need to know you, Myla.”
Still no blink. Still no hint of him making a confession that perhaps doesn’t exist. But he wants more from me. He wants too much, I think again. And maybe me looking for Kara in him, and the way he said her name, is me wanting too much as well. “The bottom line,” I say, “is that Kara and I are not estranged. Not even close. She will come after me if she gets the chance and she won’t believe I chose Michael Alvarez to be the man in my bed, by choice.”
“Did you?”
“I’m here,” I say, shutting the pizza box, fighting a wave of anger at too many things to name that have nothing to do with him. “That should answer that question.”
“It doesn’t,” he says, and I start to stand, afraid he will see something in my eyes that will motivate him to play hero or monster, whichever he might be, but he catches my arm, heat radiating all the way to my shoulder. “But I’m here now, too,” he says, his voice soft, but no less absolute.
“I’m not sure if that should make me feel better or scare the shit out me.”
“It should scare the shit out of anyone who wants to hurt you. Not out of you.”
I have no idea why, but my stomach flutters like I’ve just had Prince Charming tell me that I’m his princess, which makes me angry at me, not him. I don’t do the whole fairytale fantasy thing. Ever. And I sure don’t do it now. “I know too little about you to accept that I’m safe with you, and no one else is.”