Blood Type (Blood Type 1)

“By the look in your eyes, I guess I’ll find out.”

“For your sake, I hope you never do.”

Chapter 24

Reyna had no patience the next morning. She had barely gotten any sleep. She had tossed and turned in her bed, replaying everything that had happened between her and Beckham until she thought she was going to scream.

Why couldn’t she get him out of her head?

She was beyond pissed at him, and still she couldn’t stop thinking about their evening. He had been so…real. Sincere even. He had been himself with her. He had let his guard down and they’d had one beautiful moment, then poof!

Gone.

Slide the wall back between them. Two steps forward, fifty steps back. It was maddening, and she wasn’t going to put up with it anymore. Tonight had solidified that in her mind. Beckham wanted Penny. If he was an asshole who cheated on his girlfriend, then she didn’t want him.

Not that she had any right to him anyway.

That thought propelled her out of bed. She threw on her street clothes and pulled her hair into a slicked-back ponytail. After she grabbed her camera, she left her room, and without even a glance around the penthouse, she walked to the elevator.

Once she reached the bottom floor, she exited through the front doors. Everett smiled as she approached the valet station.

“Your car?” he asked.

“No, thanks. I’m just going for a walk. If anyone comes looking for me…will you tell them I needed some air and will be back later?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you expect someone to come looking for you?”

“No,” she said immediately. Her eyes flitted to the lobby in irritation.

“Just be safe.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“I know, but you’re kind of prone to danger,” he said only half joking.

“Yeah,” she acknowledged. “True. Well, I’ll stay out of the shadows.”

“Good.”

“Hey,” she said, stepping a little closer. “Did you ever find out anything more about that place we went?”

She couldn’t believe it had only been a couple days ago that she had found an underground blood bank. She still didn’t know what it meant, but wasn’t sure how to go about investigating it. Part of her wanted to post the images on her site in the hopes that someone else would look into the issue, but Beckham had been freaked out enough about her images. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to go public with them.

“No.” He looked around to make sure that they were truly alone. “I think we should probably leave it alone. There’s no way we could get back into there undetected. It was a fluke.”

She nodded, but she still felt like they should be able to do something. “You’re probably right. But…maybe we could give it a try,” she said with a wink.

He laughed. “You really do like danger. You didn’t think it was bad enough the first time that we almost got caught?”

“But this time we know what we’re looking for.”

“I don’t know,” he said uncertainly. “Maybe.”

She smiled brightly. “That sounds like a yes.”

“That’s a maybe.”

“All right. I’ll find a time to get away and contact you about it.”

“I haven’t agreed yet, Reyna,” he said as she backed away.

“Oh, but you will.”

He sighed. “You’re right. Anything for you.”

Reyna ignored the look he was giving her. She liked Everett, but not like that. Her already fucked-up love triangle wasn’t going to suddenly become a love square. She wanted to get rid of one of the sides, not add another one.

“I’ll see you around.” She waved and then trotted around the corner.

There was a park across the street from their building. She had only been there once, because it wasn’t exactly the kind of place she liked to shoot. Since they lived in the wealthy end of town, the park was clear and uncluttered. The homeless were ushered off of park benches by policemen who walked the perimeter at regular intervals. All around, it was just a sunny, cheery, safe place.

At the moment, she didn’t feel like any of those things at all.

But it didn’t matter. She couldn’t sit in Beckham’s apartment all day. The feel of his lips all over her body was still too fresh in her mind. If she stayed behind, she was pretty sure she would have stormed into his side of the penthouse to demand to know what the hell his problem was. She wouldn’t care that she wasn’t even allowed back there or that attacking Beckham would likely accomplish nothing.

“Ugh,” she grumbled. She couldn’t keep thinking about him. That was why she had left in the first place.

Grabbing her camera out of her purse, she started snapping images. Flowers in bloom, a couple on a park bench, the lake where small boats with wooden paddles were docked. She let out a deep breath and tried to enjoy her work. It wasn’t as emotional as the other things she captured, but calmed her nerves nonetheless.