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Overview
Once, Ginny was the only human contact Alex had. Now, she’s the only chance he has to be free of his past. Ginny wants to cure Alex’s fears. There’s only one way to do that. Take him back to Max Sec Hell...and make him love it. Alex is the most powerful talent she knows. He’s deadly, unstable – and sexy.
Description
“What do you think of it?” she asked.
It looks like Max-Sec hell! “You have good taste in designers,” he offered diplomatically, wincing at the bars over the windows. What would a tenth-floor apartment overlooking a cliff need bars for? A chill ran down his spine at the sight of them.
Just like old times.
“And you don’t lie very well,” she noted in amusement.
Alex grinned. “No. I guess I don’t. I hate it, if you want to know the truth. It gives me the willies.”
Ginny breezed past him to a bar--beige stained wood with a Navy-veined marble top. “That’s better. Would you care for one?”
“Sure. Make it a double.” Maybe I can forget my surroundings if I have a few. “Rum. Thanks.”
“Will do.” She poured the drink then a matching one for herself, offering him one of the glasses. “Aren’t you going to ask?”
He swallowed a mouthful of the alcohol, thankful for the burn that helped fight off the chill of his memories. “Do I have to?”
“Ahhh... I see. It still bothers you that much.”
He grimaced, taking another mouthful down. “Is there any reason it shouldn’t?” A defensive note crept into his voice at that. The academies were hell on earth, a hell he fought very hard to ensure no more innocents had to endure.
“Is there any reason it has to run your life?” she countered.
Alex stared at her in disbelief. “Seems to me that it runs yours just fine.”
He expected her to be angry at the observation, but she laughed heartily. “Do you have any beige or Navy in your home, Alex? Any at all?”
He tried to refute that, wracked his brain to come up with something that was, to no avail.
“You don’t,” she stated with confidence. “If someone buys you something that is, you exchange it, don’t you? But, people know not to buy you things that are beige and Navy.”
Alex drained the rest of his glass. It wasn’t helping; the bars over the windows seemed too close, the feeling of people watching him too real. “So, I went to one extreme, and you went to the other,” he dismissed her.
“Actually, this isn’t where I live--not on a regular basis.”
“Then why did you bring me here?” he demanded, his temper rising.
Ginny’s hand covered his, the warmth strangely disconcerting. “You saved my life once. I’ve never forgotten that.”
“This is a hell of a way to repay it!”
“Alex--”
“What’s your game, Ginny? Why did you bring me to this...” He waved his hand uncertainly.
“Mock-up. My father had it built for me. It took him two years to break me of my fears, and this mock-up was the first step in that rehabilitation process.” She hesitated, her expression abruptly uncertain. “His approach was a bit different, of course. He was dealing with a child and--”
Alex’s heart pounded double time. “Is that what this is? You want to--cure me?” |
