Taken With Trouble (CAUGHT IN CHAOS #2)

20. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Liam

Serena wasn’t lying when she said she couldn’t dance. I might have better luck teaching a duck with how stiff she is in my arms. We aren’t even dancing yet. Barely swaying, getting a feel for the music. She’s been watching her feet so diligently to make sure she doesn’t trip that she’s stepped on me at least seven times. Her hands, or rather claws, are squeezing me so hard I’m going to have bruises.

The song changes to a waltz. Not that we’ll be attempting that.

“Let’s try something different.”

“Thank goodness.” She retracts her talons from my skin and places herself halfway across the room, studying the map on the table again. I go to my room and grab a tie—A cheap silk one I won’t mind getting ruined. I walk behind her and wrap it around her face.

Serena grabs the tie with both hands, spins, and has my arms locked up in seconds.

My bad. I forgot I need to warn this woman when I approach her.

“What are you doing?” She scowls. “Trying to choke me?”

I try to wriggle my arms free, but she’s got it held tight. “I was going to use a blindfold to teach you how to dance. ”

“No. I don’t trust you.”

“That’s precisely the problem. You’re trying to lead instead of letting me.” I finally get my arm free and rub the sore spot.

She holds the tie between her hands. “That seems the smartest course of action, considering.”

I sigh. “None of this will work if you don’t trust me, Serena. And I need this to work.”

Something in my tone must get through to her, because her face incrementally softens. But she’s far from convinced.

“I’ll offer you a trade,” I suggest.

“A trade?”

“Wear this blindfold for one dance, and I’ll let you ask me as many questions as you want. I promise, I’ll give you the truth.”

Her eyes dart away from mine. “Maybe I don’t care to know your secrets.”

I lower my voice. “We both know you do.”

“Why would I believe you’ll tell me the truth?”

I scrub a hand over my face, pinching my eyes closed. “I’m tired of lying. I don’t have anyone who knows the real me, and it’s bloody lonely. So, as long as you can’t look up at me with your big brown eyes that both tempt and terrify me, maybe I’ll be able to tell you the secrets I’m so tired of holding alone.”

I open my eyes and clamp my lips together. Absolutely none of that was supposed to come out.

Her eyes have gone softer, and she blinks three times before swallowing. “One dance. That’s it. For your grandfather.”

“One dance.”

She hands the blindfold to me and turns. But as I work the tie around her head, my fingers tremble. With fear, maybe, that she’ll ask something I can’t answer. That she’ll use my secrets against me. That I’ll give away too much, or maybe not enough. Or maybe I don’t trust myself to be fully in control when it comes to her, because I’m not in control of anything right now. Certainly not my wandering eyes that drift down the back of her neck where a small tattoo hides just under the collar of her shirt. I can’t control my racing, desperate thoughts for her.

I finish the knot, but my fingers can’t seem to remove themselves from her hair. It’s so soft and long, nearly to her waist. I drag my hands down the length of it.

A shiver courses through her body as my fingertips skim her lower back. “You used my expensive shampoo, didn’t you?”

“Looked free to me.” She shudders.

If only she knew how everything I have can be free for her.

She turns abruptly. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

I take a deep breath and find the song I’m looking for. The voice of Keane begins serenading of secret places, and I grab her hands, putting one on my shoulder, keeping the other in mine. She immediately stiffens, her nails digging in.

“Ask me a question,” I whisper.

“Okay… um, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever stolen?” Her grip seems to loosen as her lips do, and I take advantage, pressing our bodies closer so we move as one.

“Starting with the easy ones, I see.” I watch her blindfold covered face. She can’t tell me to stop looking at her, so I don’t. I let my eyes devour everything that is Serena Cruz, her full lips, the Cupid’s bow in her upper lip, the small mole to the right corner of them. “Well,” I start, “the most lucrative venture I suppose would have been when I stole a hospital.”

“Excuse me?” She freezes, but I pull her closer, keeping us in motion.

“I mean, I didn’t pick it up and steal the building. I just stole it from the owner.”

“I…” She shakes her head. “Explain.”

I smile. “The CEO was a piece of work. He was going to kick out all the patients on hospice because he knew he wouldn’t get that money back. He regularly took people off lifesaving machines who didn’t have friends or family around, and refused to let anyone go late on payments. He sent a poor mother to jail because she couldn’t pay for her child’s cancer treatments. ”

“What?” Cruz gasps, and when she does, her body relaxes into mine even more. “How was he not caught?”

“Friends in high places.”

“But… how did you steal the hospital?”

I flex my hand on the small of her back, pressing my palm into the delicate dip there. “It was rather fun, I must admit. He was in some personal financial trouble, and I came in as a rich investor—the answer to all his problems. One night, while he was sloppy drunk, he gave me every secret and password I needed. I stole the hospital right out from under him and sent him to prison in one fell swoop.”

“What did you do with the hospital?”

“I still have it. I oversee it from afar, allowing a competent hospital administrator to manage the day-to-day operations, and I add to the cancer treatment funds monthly.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t get it. Why did you do that? And how did no one find out?”

“I did it because I wanted to. Because I could. Because no one else was going to.” I realize my grip on her has tightened, and I intentionally soften my hold. “And you never found out because I’m good at what I do. Anyone who poses a problem can be bribed. I have lots of aliases, as you know.”

She bites her bottom lip. “Yeah, but I just figured you… I don’t know… steal because you’re selfish.”

This makes me curious. “What do you know about me?”

“I know you were born in London to Ella and Richard Hawthorne.”

I grimace at the names of the two people who stopped caring about me long ago. Stopped being parental figures. If they ever started.

“You went to one of the most expensive boarding schools in France, but barely graduated. I suspected your slacking off in school was because you were trying to gain the attention of your parents, who seemed to care more about their lavish trips and lifestyle than they cared for you.”

“Ouch. Right to the heart, Cruz. Feel free to spare a few punches.”

Her lips twitch. “You had a love of art and were pretty talented. ”

My feet root to the spot. But she continues.

“When you were a teenager you started stealing things—nothing big enough for your parents to notice. Or if they noticed, they didn’t care. When you turned twenty-one, you stole three different paintings from three different museums in two different countries in one day.”

I smile, and the tension in my body releases, allowing me to dance again. Finally, a good memory. That felt like another lifetime. And that specific incident had been a youthful display of my superiority, a misguided declaration of my maturity.

How little I knew about the world back then.

My hold relaxes as Cruz begins to follow my lead.

“Then it was a Lamborghini and about twelve other things after that.”

“The Lambo was stolen from me. I stole it back,” I say, just to clarify.

“Sure.” She smiles, and I’m drawn to those lips of hers.

“What were the last two items I stole?” I ask.

She purses her lips, and it takes her almost ten seconds to answer this time. “A painting in Italy, and one in Phoenix.”

“Do you remember how long between those two?”

“Four and a half years.”

“People change, Cruz. I was an ignorant kid who loved a challenge and valuable possessions. And then everything changed.”

“Scarlett?” she whispers, her body growing stiff and awkward in my arms.

“Yes.” I bring my face beside hers; her presence emboldens me. “Scarlett’s death woke me up. I spent four years atoning for my sins. I used my skill set to help people who’d been wronged. I set things right. I know none of those things can change the past, but…” I swallow. “Can a person be redeemed?”

In the background, I realize the song has changed and moved on to something new, but I’m not ready to let her go.

It’s quiet for so long I expect her to push me away. But she doesn’t.

“It depends,” she says.

“Do you think I can be?” I whisper, suddenly wanting to know what she thinks of me .

“I…” She swallows. “I don’t know.”

It’s not an outright no, so for now, I’ll accept it. “What does it require?” I whisper, my voice nearly a plea. I want to know what it takes to get this weight off my chest. I want to know what it takes to be worthy of her, worthy of more than a life condemned to solitude.

Her hand tightens around mine, but no words escape her mouth.

“Ask me another question,” I whisper.

“I don’t… have anymore,” she lies.

“Yes, you do. Ask me the one you’ve wanted to ask since I kidnapped you and dragged you to Europe. Ask me if I have another plan, if I’m going to leave you high and dry. Ask me what you’re dying to know,” I plead, my voice rising. I’m ready to tell her everything. I want to tell her everything and ask her everything in return. If only she’ll ask. Then I’ll know if maybe, just maybe, she’s falling for me too.

“Why did you date Scarlett?” she whispers.

This is not the question I anticipated, and my chest deflates. The last person I want to think about right now is Scarlett. “She was fun.”

“That’s it? Because she was fun?”

“She was wild, and at the time, so was I.” I sigh, debating whether to continue. “Our relationship was not so much of a romance as it was a cover.”

“What do you mean?”

“She stole half the things on that list in your little black book. The other half, she convinced me to steal. We were both thieves and it was adventurous. We dated for years, and I can honestly say she loved the thrill of the game more than she loved me.”

“But you loved her,” Serena says.

I catch my breath. “Yeah.” Or at least I thought I did.

“And… do you still?”

This question hits me in the stomach. For a long time after Scarlett passed, I felt I had to atone for her sins as well as my own. When she was no longer there, the pieces of my past self seemed to unravel. I may be a decent thief, but she was an expert con. She had me convinced that she loved me, but I was simply twisted around in her game so much I think I only loved the idea of her and all we accomplished. I was never actually in love with her.

“No,” I say firmly. That love died a long time ago, but the guilt over Scarlett’s death has been gripping my heart like a vise for so long. Am I ready to let that go, to be free? I look at the woman in my arms, and the answer is as clear as day. “You know I don’t love her anymore.” I can’t say more than that. I can’t admit more than that. Not unless she asks. Not unless she brings up this thing between us and opens the door for the conversation I long to have.

But she says nothing.

I take Serena’s hand and spin her out, once then twice, then pull her into my arms and dip her. Her hair drags across the carpet, and I watch the surprise light her face. I want to drop a kiss to her lips, to her neck. I pull her up, intent on doing just that, but she slips out of my arms and takes off the blindfold.

“Well, I think I’m a pro dancer now. I’m ready to take on the gala.” She tosses the tie at me and leaves me standing there, mute and confused like the last ten minutes didn’t happen. Like those admissions no longer count because the dance is over. They will remain in a bubble we created, and we will simply go back to our normal lives of annoying each other.

I want nothing to do with that life.