Page 9 of Reckless Devotion

“Wait!” Moisture springs into my eyes and I’m all but ready to drop to my knees and beg. “Where are you going?”

“To hire you the best lawyer in town,” he throws back without looking, the door slamming shut a moment after he disappears from sight.

I silently drop to my knees in response and splay my hands on the rough fibrous carpet tile as the first tear falls, a riptide of relief dragging me under.

Chapter 5

Chase:Call me.

Pepper:I can’t call right now because I lost all my fingers to frostbite last winter and I was born with inverted thumbs. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Chase:You think this is a joke?

Pepper:Note to self: obnoxious nepo babies do not recognize good humor. Inverted thumbs? Hilarious and also not a thing. Deserves more laughter.

Chase:Ha ha. Now, will you call me?

Pepper:No.

CHASE

The automated voicemail plays again in my ear and I grit my teeth. It’s been two days since Pepper Quinn stormed into my life and demanded I bend to her terms, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of her since.

More than anything, I feel like a fool. She all but clicked her fingers and I went running. She talked me into gettingher out of a bind and then she has the gall to ghost me. It’s infuriating and reminiscent of the months on end that we spent playing cat and mouse before I knew who she was. And now that I do know, I’m utterly perplexed by her.

The little information my private investigator has been able to unearth is the polar opposite to the image I manufactured in my head. From all outward appearances, she’s a respectable, law-abiding citizen working a digital marketing job for a non-profit charity which aids vulnerable women and children.

No previous arrests and a spotless credit report—not even a parking fine.

I call again and sigh, tapping a finger on the arm of my leather ergonomic chair. I’m beginning to suspect that I made a mistake in taking her deal. Giving up when the voicemail kicks in, I hang up and fling my phone onto my shiny walnut desktop.

A soft rap draws my attention to the open office door, laptop screensaver on and responsibilities for the afternoon wholly forgotten. The face I see there stuns me. Long raven hair, icy blue eyes that are the spitting image of our mother’s, and a wry grin that accompanied many a childhood mischief.

“What the hell?” I’m up and around the desk in a heartbeat, my face splitting almost painfully from a grin.

“Surprise!” My sister twirls, hair fanning out and a hand poised elegantly in the air. I scoop her up, lifting her into a bear hug that pulls her small stature off the floor. “Eugh, gerrof me you weirdo.”

“You’re back.” I laugh, dropping her down and stepping away. I keep my hands planted on her shoulders.

“Well, I heard you were the only hopeless bachelor left in the group and that felt like an emergency situation worth coming home for.” Emily breezes in, breaking herself away from me, but I don’t miss the flash of emotion across her face.

Lashes lowering for a split second, the slight downturn twitch of her mouth. Sadness. Sliding my hands into my pockets, I turn to watch her while she trails through my office, tracing her hands over my desk, fingering a paper or two back into formation on its top. Anyone else would miss the way she taps gently six times on the corner before she moves on. But I don’t, because I’ve watched her my whole life.

It’s always six. Six pens neatly lined up on her desk as a kid. Six hurried steps on a slab of pavement before she could step onto the next. Six laps around the old willowy oak tree in our garden. As an adult, she’s done the work to suppress the compulsion, but it’s still there.

“What’s really going on, kid?”

She smiles. She knew I would see right through her. Sighing, she parks her butt on the edge of my desk and stares out at the city. I wander over to her and do the same, folding my arms across my chest.

A plane tracks across the clear sky, so brilliant and blue it’s almost like a giant goldfish bowl of aquamarine corralling us. The skyscrapers are so high and sharp they threaten to pierce the edges and send the whole thing crashing down. My gaze falls to the rat run below, smog-stained grey on grey, with tiny vibrant bursts of color from billboards and cars.

“I was with someone these last few months, but it…fell apart.” Emily waves a hand as if the details don’t really matter and then seems to think twice of it. “I found him screwing the makeup artist on one of our shoots.”

My brows rise, not only because it pisses me off to hear some asshole treated her like that, but that she managed to go a steady few months with someone. Emily is a free spirit who doesn’t like to be tied down with commitment, which means she must have really liked the guy.

“Want me to fly over there and kick his ass?” I bump her shoulder and she snorts, shaking her head.

“No, but I do want you to humor me by pretending I didn’t just get shit on from a great height.”