Hearts On Fire (Heart's Revenge Book 2) Read online

  I spend the day in bed. I drink tea. I try to read. I take a shower, and then I get back in bed. I lie there, my body clean and smooth, and I do everything I can not to think about Aidan. Not to wonder where he is, what he’s doing. I hold my cell phone in both hands, staring at the screen, wondering if he’s even thought about texting me.

  Has he replayed the events of the other night? Has he laid there and stared at the ceiling, asking himself why it feels like his whole world is ending? I doubt it. I doubt it very much. I can’t believe how fucked up things have gotten.

  I’ve always been so single-minded in my purpose. I’ve never strayed from the original plan, and I’ve never lost sight of why I’m doing what I am doing. Everything has always been for my brother. Vaughn dedicated his whole life to making sure that I made it through my own. On so many different occasions, it would have been oh-so-easy for him to bail on me. There are plenty of guys out there who would have done exactly that. Who would have felt too tied down or freaked out by the task of shepherding a girl, and then a young woman, through the early parts of her life.

  I have been so intent on repaying Vaughn for his kindness, and yet here I am, so close to my end goal, and I’m fighting to keep the image of Aidan Callahan out of my damn head. It’s practically an impossible task. I slide my hand between my legs, imagining that my fingers are his as I rub my clit. I’m on top of my sheets, naked, the air light and cool on my body, and my imagination is in overdrive. I’m thinking about him in this room with me, miraculously, as if he’s just appeared out of thin air.

  His hands are warm, running up the inside of my thigh, lightly brushing over my pussy, teasing me, resting at the ticklish spot just above my pelvis. He kisses my breasts, throat, and in a flash he’s out of his clothes, lowering the weight of his body on top of mine. “Essie, I’m going to punish you now. You’ve been misbehaving, I know you have. You’re going to take my cock as deep inside you as you can, and you’re going to ride me until I come. Do you hear me?” Our gazes lock as he slides his hand back down between my legs and slips one finger, then another, inside of me. I arch my back against it, roll my hips in a circular motion. He fucks me harder, groaning as his fingers shove deeper. “Fuck, yes,” he growls. “You’re so fucking tight.” With one hand I’m bracing myself on the headboard, lost to the pressure building between my thighs, and suddenly he’s gone, rising to his knees and pulling my legs around his waist. I can feel him hard, throbbing at my center. I’m so wet his cock slides—

  What the hell am I doing?

  I open my eyes, jerking myself out of the fantasy. I’m so close to coming, but I pull my hand away and the rising pleasure vanishes like smoke. I don’t need him to make me come. God, I don’t need him at all. I need to get my shit dialed, because this…this is only going to lead to trouble.

  ***

  I call in sick the next day. The day after that, too. I don’t do much of anything except mope around the house, trying to keep my head clear of all unwanted Aidan Callahan-related thoughts. On the fourth day, there’s a knock at the door.

  As I open my apartment door, I catch sight of myself in the gild-framed mirror in my entranceway and realize I am a fucking hot mess. My hair looks like birds have been nesting in it, and yesterday’s mascara is making it’s way gradually down my cheeks. Fuck it. I open the door anyway.

  It’s Julia. Her eyes widen when she sees me. “Essie! Jesus, what the hell, girl? You haven’t returned any of my texts. You didn’t meet me for lunch.”

  I take a step back so she can come in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t even hear my phone. I might’ve turned the ringer off.”

  “Are you sick? You look really pale. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head because there’s no way that I can explain this to her, no way that she’ll be able to understand. I don’t even understand, so how I am going to be able to articulate it to anybody else? “Maybe it’s the stomach flu.”

  “Have you been able to eat anything?”

  “I haven’t had much of an appetite.”

  She waves a hand. “Fuck that. You have to eat! Have you been hydrating at least?”

  “A little.” That’s a lie, though. I rinsed my mouth out with water this morning, leaning over the bathroom sink and letting the stream run straight into my mouth, but I didn’t swallow. I just swished the water around and then spit it out. I’m not hungry. I’m not thirsty. I’m just fucking mad at myself.

  Julia gives me her you’re lying and I hate you for it, look. “You look like you’ve been walking through the Mojave Desert for three days, asshole. How long have you been sick?” Storming into the apartment, she throws her bag down on my sofa and then points at the cushion with her index finger. I sit obediently.

  “I don’t know. A few days now.”

  “And you’ve been resting?”

  “I’ve called in sick every day this week.”

  “Good, but you should’ve called me. I would’ve brought you something. I would’ve made you soup. And tea. I’ve got a few tinctures that really work wonders when your immune system is down like this.”

  “It’s okay, Julia. I’m sure I’ll be fine in a few days.”

  The way she’s looking at me, tells me I must look far worse than I thought. In fact, she’s looking at me the same way you might look at someone who’s well and truly gone off the deep end. I try to smile, to reassure her that I’m totally fine, but my face feels like it’s going to crack.

  “Stay right here. I’m going to get you something to drink,” she says. Julia disappears and I hear her rummaging around in the kitchen. She comes back just a few short moments later, an exasperated expression on her face. “Essie! You’ve got practically nothing of any substance here! There’s a box of crackers and an opened bag of pretzel sticks in your cupboard. You have a jar of pickles and some wilted celery in your refrigerator. What the hell have you been eating?”

  “Take out.”

  She folds her arms across her chest. “Is everything all right? I get the feeling that this is more than you just having the flu. Because you don’t actually seem like you have the flu.” She sits next to me and presses her palm against my forehead. “See. You’re not even warm at all. You just look like shit.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Just calling it how I see it.”

  “Maybe it’s just PMS then. I don’t know.”

  “I’m gonna head to the store and grab some smoothie ingredients. That’ll help. I’ll get some tea, too. And give me your mail key. I’ll bring up your mail on the way back. I’m sure you haven’t checked that recently either.”

  “You don’t have to do that. It’ll just be bills anyway.”

  She holds out her hand. “Hand it over, Ess.”

  Jesus. For a Buddhist, the girl sure is fiery. “Okay, okay.” I find the key and hand it over. She’s gone for a while. So long that I start to suspect she’s not coming back. That wouldn’t surprise me. If I were her, I’d probably do the same thing. Being around me must be poisoning her chakras.

  It doesn’t happen, though. Forty-five minutes later, the door opens and Julia’s bustling back in, her arms full. She drops some stuff off in the kitchen and then appears, holding a square, paper-wrapped box out to me.

  “You had a package sitting on top of your mailbox,” she says, handing it to me a parcel. “God knows how long it’s been there. Anyone could have taken it, Ess. I left your letters on the kitchen counter. You can deal with those later.”

  The package is small and light, and my address has been written on the front in blocky, black ink letters. There’s no return address on the bottom. I have no family. Other than Jules, I don’t have many friends. None that would be mailing parcels to me, anyway. I open the parcel slowly and unwrap the tissue paper inside the plain cardboard box to reveal an intricately carved wooden horse. A subtle smell floats up out of the box, fragrant and sweet, like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. The small horse is beautiful, stunningly
detailed, and when I pick it up and lift it out of the tissue, the wood feels warm and exceptionally pleasing to the touch.

  “Oh, wow, Ess. That’s amazing,” Julia says softly.

  My legs are pushing me up off the couch and are carrying me into the kitchen without my permission. In the same heartbeat, I’m dumping the horse in the trashcan before I can stop myself. Julia follows me. When I turn around, her arms are folded across her chest and she has a seriously confused expression on her face. “Should I even bother to ask why you just threw that beautiful wooden horse into the trash?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Seriously, girl, come on! Why would you do that? Explain. A guy sent it to you, right? Only a guy could provoke that kind of reaction.”

  “No.”

  “Bullshit! Who is he?” She looks at the trashcan and then back to me, like she’s about to dive in there and fish the thing back out.

  “It’s just an unwelcome gift that I don’t want to talk about, Jules. Can we please leave it at that? Please?”

  I must sound pathetic, because she stares at me for a second and then shrugs her shoulders. “Sure thing, hon. Whatever you need. It’s none of my business. I only ask because I come over here and find you practically half dead and on the brink of a breakdown, and then you receive a carved wooden horse that makes you flip your shit. It’s kinda weird, and I’m understandably a little worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. I promise I’m fine.”

  “All right. That’s all I need to know. Consider the whole thing forgotten. I’m going to make you a smoothie,” she says. “Maybe after that you’ll feel up to a walk?”

  “Thanks. Yeah, maybe.”

  Julia potters around the kitchen, doing her thing, and I hover on pins and needles, my heart thumping in my chest, because all I can think about is that horse that I just threw away like it was a burning lump of radioactive waste. It’s from him. Has to be. Why would he send me a gift like that? It looks expensive. Like it was handmade or something. He probably paid a small fortune for it. It’s totally unreasonable for him to be spending money on me, and what the hell is he trying to tell me by sending it? He hasn’t been in touch with me at all, and now he’s gone and sent me this?

  I drink the smoothie Julia makes me—strawberry and banana, along with a number of ground up herbal pills she insists will fix me from the inside out—and I do start to feel better. How long has it been since I’ve eaten? It must’ve been a while because I can feel my cells soaking up the nutrients, feel the fog lifting from my mind. When Jules suggests we go for a walk, I agree.

  “Look.” We come to a stop at an intersection, waiting for the light to change, and Julia glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “I’m here, okay. Whenever you need me, whenever you want to talk to me about anything, I’ll be ready and waiting. You know that, right?”

  The light changes, and we cross the intersection. I don’t say anything for a beat, but when we reach the other side of the road I’m suddenly exhausted by keeping my mouth shut. Exhausted by the level of effort it takes to keep Aidan out of my head. I’ve held my tongue thus far because Julia’s known from day one about my Callahan takedown plans, and to say she is not in support of them would be an understatement. Still, she’s my best friend. If anyone can help me with the predicament I find myself in, it’s her.

  “Okay, fine,” I tell her. “It’s him. Aidan .”

  I study her as we walk, waiting for her face to change, but her expression remains the same—stoically serious. “Of course it is, Essie. Who else would it be about?”

  That puts me on the back foot. “Well…anyone. I date guys. Other guys.”

  “No, you don’t. You see someone a couple of times, freak out and tell him never to call you again. There’s a difference.”

  She’s got me there; that’s exactly what I do. I don’t want to let her know she’s right, though. “Hmm,” I grumble.

  “So,” she says. “What’s happened? Last I heard, you hadn’t even spoken to the man properly. Now he’s sending you stuff in the mail?”

  “Yes. Well. I didn’t exactly see a note or anything, but it can’t have been from anyone else.”

  “And you don’t want him to be sending you stuff in the mail?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Because…?”

  “Because. He’s not...he’s not how I imagined he would be.”

  Julia laughs, tipping her head back. “Oh boy. You met with him?”

  “I went to his office.”

  “And how did he treat you? Was he awful?”

  “No. He was…polite. Friendly. Hot.” Ugh. I hate even admitting it.

  “So, you’ve spent the past couple of years telling me how evil this man is, even though you had no real evidence that he was, and now you’ve found out that he’s anything but. That’s a little ironic, you have to admit.”

  I scowl at the sidewalk, not wanting to meet her eyes. “Irony can go fuck itself.”

  “Ha! Well, at least now it’s settled, though. At least now you can let it go. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me, Ess. This obsession with revenge has consumed you, eaten you up for the past five years. It’s not good for the soul.”

  I give her a confused look, arching an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean, now I can let it go?”

  She nudges me with her shoulder, smiling. “You said it yourself. The man is hot. And he’s sending you gifts. I’m assuming there was some sort of connection between the two of you?”

  I’m feeling numb and slightly nauseous as I say, “We went out for dinner.”

  “Ahhh! Oh my god, Essie, that is fantastic.”

  “Why?”

  We pass a small bakery I sometimes stop in at on the way home from work, and the smell of freshly baked bread and sugary confection wafts out onto the cold street. It makes my stomach twist, torn between hunger and sickness. “I know it’s a little weird. You’ve hated this guy for so long, but if you’re going out to dinner with him and he’s sending you things, who am I to say anything. Embrace it, Ess. Move on from the past. You never know what could happen between the two of you. You need this, I think.”

  I don’t breathe a word about the fact that I’ve slept with him. Julia would only start screaming and hugging me; it’s very clear that she’s completely got the wrong idea already as it is. “My plans haven’t changed, Jules,” I say softly. “Nothing has changed.”

  She stops dead in her tracks beside me, so that the disgruntled pedestrians on the street have to go around her. “What?”

  “I can’t…I can’t just change everything on a dime like that. My brother is still dead. His brother still killed Vaughn.”

  Julia places her hands on my shoulders and stares me right in the eye. “Take a deep breath and listen to yourself for one second, you fool. Do you honestly think Aidan is a horrible person who deserves to be punished? For something he didn’t do? For something he had absolutely no control over?”

  I don’t want to look at her. I definitely don’t want to answer her question, because when she words it like that it sounds so unreasonable. So fucking crazy. “It’s not about him personally,” I whisper. “It’s his blood. He’s the only one left to pay for what his family did.”

  Julia just looks at me, like I’ve grown another head or something. I can tell she’s about to blow her top. There have been maybe two occasions when I’ve seen her angry, but I remember the way her cheeks flushed and her eyes seemed to glitter well enough to know I’m about to experience it for a third time. “He is the last Callahan left, Essie. His mother and father died alongside his brother in that crash. The two of you both lost so much because of that one twist of fate. You could both be leaning on each other, comforting each other. Who knows what you’ve gone through better than he does? Think about it. What if Vaughn had been overworked and tired that night? What if Vaughn had crashed through the guardrail and killed Aidan’s brother and his parents? Would it make sense for Aidan to come afte
r you?”

  I wriggle out of her grasp, unable and unwilling to hear any more of this. “Vaughn would never have done that.”

  “You don’t know that. You can’t!”

  “I’m going home, Julia. Please, I think I need to go lie down.” I slide past her, screwing my eyes shut, blinking back tears, but she takes hold of me by the wrist.

  “You’re my friend, Essie. You’ve been through hell and back, but I know you. I know you can’t possibly think this is the right thing to do. You deserve to be happy. Aidan could be that for you. He could be your happiness. All you have to do is let him.”

  God. How can she say that sort of thing to me? She’s known me for years. I met her maybe eighteen months after Vaughn died, but I was still a mess. I was still fighting to get out of bed in the morning. I was still wounded, and lost, and alone. She saw how dysfunctional I was, and now she’s saying Aidan Callahan could be the answer to my suffering. I shake my head, pulling myself free.

  “I can’t. I’ll talk to you soon, Julia. I’ll just…I have to go, okay?”

  ***

  I spend three hours alone and angry before I decide to retrieve the horse from the trashcan. The wood is smooth underneath my fingertips, highly polished and beautiful. I study it closely, the attention to detail, how perfect it all is, knowing somehow that this isn’t something he paid money for. It may have been the first conclusion I jumped to when I saw it initially, but I was wrong. It’s not Aidan’s style. No, he made this. Made it with his own two hands. I wonder how long it took him.

  I sit at the kitchen table, doing my best not to chew off every last fingernail I possess. My phone sits in front of me on the table, and I take turns glaring its screen and then at the horse. Screen. Horse. Screen. Horse. A very large, demanding part of me wants to call Aidan. Wants me to bad enough that I find myself picking the phone up and squeezing the cool metal casing in my hands. I write him an irritated you-shouldn’t-be-sending-me-gifts text, but then I delete it. I start to write again, this time more gracious but still pissed off, and then I delete that, too. I’m sitting there with the empty message screen in front of me when the phone makes a swooping sound that indicates I’ve gotten a new message myself. I nearly drop the damn thing straight out of my hands. It’s from him. Aidan Callahan. The one and only. It’s as though he knew I was thinking about him.