Cruel Paradise (Beautifully Cruel Book 2)

When I wake, it’s to the distant, melancholy call of a fog horn. The room is dark, but brightening around the edges. It’s close to morning, and the world outside the windows is quiet and still.

I’m alone.

That hurts for a sharp, cold second, until I push my ego aside and sit up in bed.

The first thing I notice is the white-and-green Starbucks coffee cup on the dresser. Beneath it is a folded piece of paper. My heartbeat ticking up, I swing my legs over the edge of the mattress and cross the room.

When I pick up the coffee and remove the lid, it’s steaming hot. He must’ve only been gone for minutes.

I unfold the note and read.

You make me want to live a different kind of life. You make me want to be a different kind of man. Juliet. Juliet. You are why every love song was ever written.

The paper trembling in my hand, I stand there rereading it over and over again until the coffee has grown cold.

I spend the day pacing the motel room, my mind a snarl of tangled thoughts. I don’t eat anything or go anywhere. I don’t trust myself to venture outside. I doubt I have the presence of mind not to stumble into oncoming traffic.

When the sun is setting, I decide to go back to the same restaurant I went to last night.

It’s an unconscious decision. My feet take me in that direction of their own will. I look up from my day-long daze to find myself standing in front of the restaurant’s door with no recollection of how I got there.

I go inside. Take a seat at the bar. Order a white wine from Harley.

He takes one look at my face and whistles, shaking his head.

“Sweetheart, I think you need something stronger.” He pushes a shot of tequila in front of me and leaves me alone.

I close my eyes and shoot the tequila, savoring the burn as it works its way down my windpipe because it distracts from the burn a few inches lower inside my chest.

To my right, a low voice says, “I only left because you said ‘once.’ If I’d stayed until you woke in my arms, I wouldn’t have been able to honor that.”

My heart. Oh, my poor heart. It’s never had to deal with anything like this. It doesn’t know whether to explode or stop beating altogether.

I turn and look at Killian, seated on the stool beside me.

He’s dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt again, but this time he’s missing the Western boots and cowboy hat. All the masculine beauty and scorching sexuality are still there though, in spades. The woman on the stool on his other side stares at him with an unfurled tongue and heaving bosom.

I say, “I got your note.” That’s all I can get out before my throat closes.

Eyes burning, he watches me swallow. Watches as I struggle to pull myself together, turning away to blow out a hard breath.

My heart pounds so hard it could be fatal. Having him this close to me after everything that happened last night is causing nerves I didn’t even know I owned to bolt upright and start screaming.

He reaches out, slides his big hand under my hair, and gently squeezes the back of my neck. Then he leans over and presses a soft kiss against my temple. Into my ear, he murmurs, “I know, lass. Me too.”

How can he see me so clearly? How does he always know what I’m feeling without me speaking a word?

I whisper, “This can’t happen.”

“It already has.”

Anger forms a hot, sour ball in my stomach, but only because I know he’s right.

“Look at me.”

It takes me a moment to gather the courage to do as he commanded. When I do, I find him staring back at me with searing intensity.

His voice low, he says, “But what happens next is up to you. I won’t pressure you. I’ll disappear if that’s what you really want. I only ask that you’re honest with me. Let’s not play any games.”

His expression is dead serious. His eyes search mine. His thumb gently strokes the nape of my neck, raising goosebumps all along my spine.

Fighting the emotion clawing its way up my throat, I say, “I forgot to thank you for the necklace.”

“You’re welcome. Tell me when I can kiss you. I need your mouth.”

I break eye contact, trying not to hyperventilate but failing. Looking at the chalkboard menu on the wall behind the bar, I stammer, “And—and the roses. Thank you for those, too.”

“I can’t stop thinking about how you taste. How you sound. How you claw my back when you come. I want more of all of it. I want more of you.”

Closing my eyes, I whisper, “Killian. Please.”

He drags me off my barstool, onto his lap, and into his arms.

Squeezing me tight, he inhales deeply against my throat. His voice comes out husky. “Let me in. Let me take care of you. Give me your trust, and I’ll give you the world. I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

“This is insane.”

“Aye. Who cares? It’s real, and that’s what matters.”

The sweetness of his words, the gentleness of his voice, the tender way he’s holding me…the man is breaking my heart.

My face hidden in his neck, I whisper, “Can you understand how hard this is for me? How this seems like it could be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done?”

“I’m not your father, Juliet.”

When I groan and try to pull away, he takes my jaw in his hand and forces me to look at him.

“I’m not your fucking father.”

His tone is rough. His eyes blaze with anger. He’s upset, and insulted, and some small, pathetic part of me clasps her hands to her chest and sighs.

I choke that dumb bitch unconscious.

“I know you’re not him,” I say, staring him in the eye as my heart throbs wildly. “But what I don’t know is who—or what—you really are. Because from where I’m standing, the view is quite confusing.”

“How so?”

“You hack satellites. You run background checks. Your business cards have advanced geo-location technology. You quote Shakespeare and give lavish gifts and live in a skyscraper all alone, with only miles of black marble for company. Everyone in the world knows you by one name, yet you ask me to call you by another. You have a reputation as a brutal killer, yet with me, you’re a complete gentleman.” My cheeks color. “Except in bed.”

He growls, “You don’t need a gentleman in bed, woman.”

“No, I don’t! That you know that is exactly my point! What am I supposed to do with all this contradictory information? You keep your word and make thoughtful gestures and write beautiful love notes and literally sweep me off my feet, but you also kill men in a shootout in the middle of the street!

“How can you seem like the perfect guy—except you’re a gangster? What the hell does it all mean?”

After a moment, he says, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

I groan in exasperation, trying to pull out of his arms again. And again, he doesn’t allow it, pulling me closer instead.

“It means things aren’t always what they appear on the surface,” he says, his voice urgent now. As urgent as the look in his eyes. “It means you should trust yourself, and you should trust me. If you do—if you can—I swear, I’ll tell you everything. But you have to go first, lass. You have to let go of all that shit in your head and your past and trust your heart.”

I say flatly, “My mother trusted her heart. She ended up blown to pieces.”

He stares at me with a look of such intensity it steals my breath. His voice dropping an octave, he says slowly, “Do you really believe I would ever let anything like that happen to you?”

I open my mouth, but close it again, because the automatic “yes” I was about to blurt isn’t the truth.

The truth—no matter how ridiculous, impossible, or crazy—is that I believe he’d sacrifice his own life without hesitation if it would save mine.

My voice comes out in a faint, shocked whisper. “No. I think you’d always keep me safe.”

“I would,” he insists, his eyes shining with emotion. “I will. I swear it.”

We stare at each other until the woman at the bar stool on his other side says, “If she’s not interested, hot stuff, I sure am.”

We ignore her.

“But I can’t…this lifestyle of yours…it’s…it’s wrong.”

He looks frustrated, like there are things he’s dying to tell me, but can’t.

Or won’t.

Because hello, big secrets. The things on which solid relationships are definitely not built.

This is when my little detour into fantasy land ends with an abrupt screech, like locked tires against asphalt.

I exhale, popping the shiny bubble I’d formed over my head with the visions of me and Killian sharing a happy future together.

God, I’m an idiot. A pretty face and pretty promises and my legs split open like a hot dog bun.

“Oh no,” he says softly, examining my expression. “There you go again.”

With as much dignity as I can muster, I extricate myself from his arms. I stand, smooth a hand over my hair, straighten my shoulders. Then I look at him and say, “I’m here for the rest of the week. I assume you already know that.”

A muscle in his jaw jumping, he nods curtly. Thunderclouds are gathering over his head. He doesn’t like the turn in the conversation.

Too bad. He’s not in charge.

“Okay. So here’s what I propose. This thing we’ve got going—it’s unsustainable. It’s not real life. But for the next five days, it can be…” I search for the right word, but can’t find one. “It can be whatever the hell it is. Here, only. In this town. When I go back home on Sunday, it’s over. For good.”

I stand and wait for his response, pretending I didn’t tell him just last night that it would only be the one time. My mother always said a woman reserves the right to change her mind.

He says through gritted teeth, “So that’s your offer. Five days. Then we go our separate ways forever.”

“Yes.”

Standing to tower over me, he grinds his molars together. Getting a full look at his body and height for the first time, the woman next to him at the bar gasps softly. I wouldn’t be surprised if she toppled unconscious off her stool.

He leans down until we’re eye to eye. He growls, “No deal.”

Then he brushes past me and strides out of the bar, leaving a trail of swooning females in his wake.

I throw my hands into the air and shout, “For heaven’s sake, pull yourselves together!”

Then I storm out in the opposite direction Killian left.

Back in my motel room, I order room service and try to watch TV. After ten minutes, I turn it off impatiently. I try pacing again, but it doesn’t help. I’d tear out my hair, but that seems unnecessarily dramatic and painful. So I wait, sitting on the edge of my bed, until the food arrives.

I shovel it down without tasting a bite. I take a bath in scalding water. I don’t feel the heat until I get out and look at myself in the mirror. Steam rises from my skin. My entire body is red. I look like a freshly cooked lobster.

I leave a message for Fin and Max, then start to pace again. When I check the clock on the wall, I groan out loud when I realize that only an hour has passed since I left the bar.

At this rate, I’ll be in a straightjacket by morning.

I start pacing again, wringing my hands, but some intuition makes me stop in the middle of the room and look at the windows. The gauzy white curtains are drawn. Beyond them, evening has taken the marina.

There’s no reason for me to notice the windows, but I feel a pull I can’t describe. I drift toward them almost unwillingly, my heart in my throat.

I stand to one side and draw back a corner of the curtain, peeking out to the street below.

And there, pacing back and forth like a man possessed, is Killian.

I drop the curtain and flatten myself against the wall.

“Don’t look again, Juliet. Don’t you dare open those curtains and look at him again. Get drunk. Go to sleep. Knit a fucking scarf if you have to. Whatever it is, don’t look at him.”

Closing my eyes, I stand there against the wall, holding my breath and listening to my pulse roar in my ears. Then I exhale in a giant gust and open the curtains again, this time sliding them apart.

Back and forth he goes, from one streetlight to another, flexing his hands open and closed, until he spots me in the window. Then he stops dead in his tracks and stares up at me.

All the longing, frustration, anger, and desire is right there on his face. All of it.

And I’m even more of a fool than I thought I was, because before I know what I’m doing, my fingers are finding the way of the buttons on the front of my dress.

Even from across the street, I see his eyes flare. I feel his attention sharpen. Sense his focus shift the way a predator’s shifts, catching a whiff of his prey on the wind.

He stands perfectly still and watches me as the bodice of the dress parts under my swiftly working fingers, exposing me to my waist. I’m wearing a bra, the outline of which I trace slowly with my fingertips.

He mutters something. An oath, no doubt. His eyes are two burning coals, frighteningly intense and piercing.

I know it’s a dangerous game I’m playing, but there’s a thrill in my blood and the sound of crashing waves in my ears. I’m not sure if I could stop, even if I wanted to.

I slide the dress off my shoulders so it pools around my waist. I reach behind my back and unhook the bra. I slide it down my arms, drop it, then stand with my hands cupped over my bare breasts, gazing down at him.

Then, trembling, I back away from the windows and sit on the edge of the bed.

He doesn’t make me wait long.

In less than sixty seconds, he crashes through the door.