Under My Skin (Stark International Trilogy 3)

“I didn’t mean—” Trent begins.

“No.” The word bursts out of me, red and ripe with panic.

“Syl.” Jackson’s voice is soft and firm. “Tell him it’s time to get off the phone. We’ll be back in LA soon. You are not losing this resort. Don’t even think it.”

Over the headset, I hear Trent clear his throat. “Syl?”

“I should go,” I say robotically.

“Yeah, well, there’s one more thing. It’s not only the Round-Up that’s got this. They were just the first.”

“I know. You said.”

“Yeah, but what I mean is that they’re not just repeating that he’s a suspect. They’re speculating about motive and all that shit.”

My stomach twists and I immediately reach for Jackson’s hand. “Motive?” I fight the urge to bite my lower lip.

“The movie. The assault. Pretty much what you’d expect,” he says, and I can practically hear him cringing. Honestly, I feel like cringing, too. Beside me, Jackson uses his left hand to fumble my tablet out of the seat pocket. He taps it, then curses when a signal doesn’t magically appear.

“Listen, you can read it yourself as soon as you hit the ground, and Damien said to tell you that your meeting tonight will cover everything.”

“Right. Fine. Sure.”

“Are you okay?”

No. Not by a long shot. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Thanks. Thanks for watching my back.”

There is a pause, and then he says softly, his voice full of rough emotion, “What did you think, Sylvia? That I’d throw you to the wolves?”

“I, no—” I begin, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already hung up.

“Tell me,” Jackson says, and I sum up the Round-Up article and tell him about Dallas.

“Fuck.” The curse is heartfelt, and I silently second it. “And the rest? You said there was talk about motive.”

“That’s all I know. The movie. The assault. That’s all Trent said. That, and the story’s spreading.” I press my palm gently against his leg. “We’ll get through this,” I say. “The resort. The trial. All of it.”

I want him to repeat the words back to me. To press his hand over mine and gently squeeze my fingers. I want him to put his arm around me and pull me close and tell me that no matter what, we are in this together. I want to feel closer to him, but what I want apparently doesn’t matter, because when Jackson lifts his head and faces me, it suddenly seems as if I’m looking through the wrong end of a telescope and things that should be close are suddenly very, very far away.

“Jackson?” His name is a whisper, but also a plea. And for a moment it goes unanswered. He sits there, stiff and distant, his expression hard, his eyes like arctic ice. A riffle of panic rises through me, and I actually clutch the armrests tight in defense against it. He’s said nothing—done nothing—and yet I know with absolute certainty that Jackson is moving inexorably away from me. And I neither understand it nor know how to stop it.

I am about to cry out his name again, but then his shoulders sag and his posture relaxes. He glances at me, and I go weak with relief when I see that the ice in his eyes has melted.

He raises his hands, then drags his fingers through his hair as he bends forward so that his elbows are on his knees and his hands are on his head. “Christ, Syl, I’ve screwed everything up.”

I freeze, just a little, as one possible meaning of his words slaps me hard across the face. Does he mean that he killed Reed?

And if so, where does that leave us?

I reach to press my hand against his shoulder, needing that physical contact almost as much as I need oxygen.

I don’t make it.

Instead, in the next second, I’m screaming and clutching at the armrest as the tin can we are flying in bounces as if we are on a trampoline. My tote, which had been on the floor by my feet, goes airborne, smashes against the ceiling, then falls to the floor, its acrobatics punctuated by my own shrill screams.

The sound of my voice is broken by a harsh crackling. It’s the intercom, and Grayson is speaking. “Sorry about that,” he says as the plane levels out. “We hit one hell of an air pocket on descent, but everything’s fine and we’ll be on the ground in about fifteen minutes.”

When he’s finished, I gasp, then realize that I’ve been holding my breath. I try to let go of the armrest, but my hand is stuck fast. I’m still so flustered by our near-death experience, that for a moment I’m genuinely confused. Then rational thought returns, along with the realization that Jackson is holding tight to my hand. His thumb is gently stroking the back of my wrist, and he’s murmuring softly to me. “It’s okay, Syl. It’s okay.”