Because I Can (Necklace Trilogy 2)

“Not much,” Dash says. “But you’re right. He’s not happy about it.”

“At some point, you’d think someone would come looking for it.”

“Neil’s going to try to connect the dots between it and the sender.”

A few minutes later, we settle down in the living room, with both our MacBooks open. And I don’t go to Instagram, nor do I reach for the journal in my purse. Because Dash doesn’t seem to understand, that he’s my obsession.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

For the rest of the weekend, Dash and I tune out the rest of the world. I settle into the apartment, our apartment, and refuse to think about how temporary that might be. I claim my space in the bathroom, utilize certain drawers that are now mine, and take over a small share of closet space. How small doesn’t please Dash.

“You don’t have enough clothes.”

“I couldn’t bring my entire apartment to Nashville,” I remind him. “I have another closet in New York City. And when you live in New York City, you learn to mix and match, and use your space wisely.”

He grunts his displeasure but doesn’t push the topic.

We decide that as much as my mother’s waffles appeal, this is a good time for us to settle into us. We make breakfast together, workout together, work side by side, and then take an evening walk together. And we talk. That walk lasts until midnight because we just keep walking and keep talking. When we go to bed that night, I’m thinking about his remarks about not really knowing my past enough to fully understand me, which he’d made back at Tyler’s house. Nothing about that statement rings any less true and the idea that he doesn’t really know me is starting to burn a bit more than expected.

But the past doesn’t matter, I tell myself. No matter how humiliating.

I snuggle under his arm, and on his shoulder, and tell myself it doesn’t matter. But a little voice in my head tells me I’m wrong.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Before sunrise on Monday morning, Dash heads to the boxing studio for a weekly workout with an old FBI pal, while I’ll be heading into my own battle: my meeting with Tyler. “Keep the car,” Dash says, palming me the keys at the door. “I’ll jog to the studio.”

I blanch and recover with instant rejection. “What? No. I’m not driving your brand-new BMW again. It makes me nervous.”

He leans in and kisses me. “Yes,” he says, “you are.” He winks and with that, he heads down the hallway.

I take a step to follow him and halt. I’m still in only his T-shirt that I’d slept in last night. I sigh and give up. It’s a short drive. What can go wrong?

Forty-five minutes later, I’m dressed in my favorite black Chanel skirt, a black blouse, a red belt, and a pair of knee-high boots. I grab my purse to slide my make-up bag in and manage to dump it, just like I did the night I was with Tyler and his father. Jack Hawk had picked up that velvet box, opened the lid, and stared at the necklace.

“It’s beautiful. Why don’t you wear it instead of carrying it around?”

“It’s not mine. It belongs to—a friend. I told her I’d ship it to her and didn’t have time to get to it today.” The lie does not flow easily, but rather, like a lie—awkward and heavy.

He shuts the lid and hands it back to me. “Too bad. It would look lovely on you, Allison.”

I have no idea why that moment interjected itself into my mind right now, but it was strange, almost as if he was flirting with me. But I don’t think it was about me. Somehow that was about him and Tyler though I’m not sure how or why.

My gaze goes to the journal that is now on the floor and sitting open to a page. I stare down at it, determined not to read it. But it’s there, it’s calling me, and I pick it up, the words jumping out at me. I’ve never known a man who can be as powerful and confident in a custom suit as he is naked in his own skin. The thing is that all people see is that cold, hard part of him when I have seen beneath the man he allows them to see. I’ve experienced his touch when it was both punishingly erotic and then when it was a tender caress. I’ve seen that tenderness in his eyes, as well. I’ve seen vulnerability in him, too, that no one would believe he’s capable of ever experiencing. But oh, he has, he does. Why do they think his wall is so wide and high?

I see the gentler side of him and with that perspective, one day I woke up and discovered, he owns me—in every possible way. I can’t change that though Lord knows I’ve tried and failed. I knew he’d hurt me. I knew my feelings for him were a problem. In his defense, he warned me. He told me he wasn’t the guy you take home to mom.