You're seeing what you want to see.
Pain skewered her, tearing the last tatters of her sanity.
"What is it?" she rasped. "Is your ego smarting? You want me to go but still want me to beg to stay? Or maybe you want another payment for Todd's freedom? On board your jet? I can give you one last go if you want to cross another fantasy off your list, with a reluctant woman this time."
For an eternity, it seemed, horror froze his features. Then his phone rang. He lurched, looked down as if not understanding where the sound was coming from, or its significance.
She broke away from his now loose hold, ran up the stairs. She wanted to keep running, out of her very skin.
Then she had to stop, heaped on the farthest seat in the jet. She begged the first person who came offering her services to please, leave her alone. She wanted nothing.
She only wanted to let the pain eat her up.
And for the duration of the flight toward a home she'd forgotten, a home no longer for now she'd remain forever homeless, she let it.
"Talia! You did it!"
Talia slumped against the door she'd just closed.
Todd.
She swung around, and there he was zooming toward her, his eyes filled with tears as he pounced on her and snatched her into a crushing embrace.
She shook, her battered mind unable to grasp the reality of his presence, here, so soon. How … ?
She must have voiced her shock. He pulled back, held her at arm's length, his eyes, so much like hers, unsteady and avid over her face. "How did you do it? Mark told me you were trying to get me out, but I didn't dare hope that you would actually do it."
She almost told him, I sold my soul to the devil for your freedom. But that wouldn't be accurate. She'd given her soul of her own free will to said devil. And she'd asked for nothing in return. Todd's freedom hadn't been the price of her soul, just another strand in a convoluted, undetectable web of manipulation.
Yet to see him, free, here, was worth anything.
Not that she could bear more turmoil now, or contact, with even the brother who'd always felt like a physical part of her. Every nerve in her body felt exposed.
She pushed away, shrugged. "It doesn't matter what I did. What's important is that you're free and exonerated."
"How can you say that? I need to know if you got yourself in trouble for me."
"What's important is you're out and can resume your life."
"Oh, God, you did do something terrible, didn't you?" He caught her by the shoulders, his agitation mounting, shaking his whole slight frame. "Whatever you did, undo it. I'll go back to prison, serve the rest of my sentence."
"Don't worry, Todd. I'll deal."
But the lie must have been blatant on her face. Todd's tears flowed down his shuddering, flushed face. "Please, Talia, take it back. I'm not worth it."
"Of course you are. You're my brother, my twin. And the most important thing is that you're innocent."
"But I'm not."
She'd thought she'd depleted her reserves for shock, that all that was left in her was oceans of grief and agony.
She stared at Todd, denial still fighting to ward off comprehension. His next words ended its struggle.
"I-I committed all the crimes I was convicted for. I hacked into accounts I found out about when Ghada once let me fix her computer. She was just a good friend, and I made up the whole thing about us to give you a story you'd believe and sympathize with. I embezzled millions, sold dozens of vital secrets. I did far more than what they found out. But I couldn't admit it to you. It was part shame, part needing you to stand by me, to help me get out of this nightmare. I feared that if you knew I deserved what I got and worse, even with loving me, your sense of honor would stop you from trying. But I no longer care. I'll go back so you can stop paying the price for the freedom I don't deserve. I only hope you can one day forgive me."
She stared at him. This was too much.
It was all a lie.
The two men she loved more than life had both used her and exploited her unconditional love for them.
She tore herself away from Todd's pleading hands.
He sobbed as she staggered away. Before she stumbled into her room, to hide from the world and never exit again, she turned numbly. "Just don't get yourself in trouble again. I don't have any more in me to pay. And what I paid is for ever gone."
The heart, the soul, the faith, the will to live.
All gone.
Seemed she was more resilient than she thought.
At the crack of dawn she was up, crackling with an unstoppable need. To confront Harres.
She'd thought she'd die rather than do it. But when she'd slept, her dreams had crowded with faithful replays of their time together. The contradiction between what she'd lived firsthand and the words she'd heard him say was so staggering, she knew something didn't add up. She hadn't been in any condition to realize that yesterday, too worn-out in every way, too shocked, too ready for bad news, too insecure, too you-name-it, that her mind hadn't functioned properly.
Now she was back to her scientific, logical, gotta-have-answers-that-fit self. More or less. And she would settle this, would ask the question she'd been too raw to ask before.
Why had he said those things?
She'd take any chance that he'd have a perfect explanation and remain the man she loved with all her soul, the memory of whom would enrich her life even if she could never see him again. Far better than believing he had no reason but the obvious one, and was the monster she couldn't bear living believing he was.
So she called him. For six hours straight. His phone was turned off.
Going crazy with frustration, she went back to work. Might as well do something with all this energy that others would benefit from.
She headed to the doctors' room, running on auto. But as she approached, she felt … something.
She shook her head. Stop daydreaming, T.J. What would that "something" be doing here?
She squared her shoulders, readying herself for the storm of interrogation over her sudden month-long leave of absence when she'd never missed a day of work.
The … premonition expanded with every step. The pull became irresistible. She knew she'd feel like the stupidest person in the galaxy in seconds when it turned out to be all in her mind, but she didn't care. She ran.
She burst into the room.
And there he was.
Harres.
She hadn't been imagining it. She had felt him.
Which meant she had an infallible sense where he was concerned.
Which meant she might have the man she loved back after all.
He'd been leaning against the table that acted as the doctors' meeting/dining/sleeping surface, pushing his tailored jacket out of the way to dip his hands deep into the pockets of molded-on-him pants, his feet crossed in deceptive relaxation at the ankles.
He'd always looked incredible. But here, among mundane surroundings and everyday people, he looked unequivocally godly. The potency of the ancient pride and the birthright of power emanating from him swept over her.
He waited until she entered and got a load of him dominating the place, being gaped at by all present, before he pushed to his feet, oh, so slowly, his eyes lashing out solar flares.
She imagined herself breaking into a sprint, charging him, pushing him flat on that table and losing her mind all over him. A mind that flooded with images and sensations, of tearing his clothes off as his magical hands rid her of hers, before raising her as she straddled him, then lowering her on his …
She swayed with the power of the fantasy. She felt as if he was transmitting it directly into her brain, generating it, sharing it.
But it was his eyes that snared her in a chokehold. A tiger's. Crackling with scorching … rage? Pain? Both?
One thing was unmistakable. Searing challenge.
He straightened fully, cocked his head at her. "You called?"
"Saw my missed calls, huh?" She turned to her colleagues, who were watching her and Harres like they would their favorite soap. She wouldn't be surprised if someone ran out for popcorn. She twisted her lips at their audacious interest, poked sarcasm at all present, starting with herself. "I accumulated over two hundred. Must be why Prince Harres found a transatlantic visit to be the only suitable way to see what the hell was so pressing."
Taking her cue, showing her that he was embarrassment-proof, he walked up to her with seeming indolence. When he was within arm's length, he lashed out like a cobra, caught her to him, his gaze snaring hers in a fiercer grip.
"So, Dr. T. J. Burke … are you congratulating yourself how I, who could always smell the slightest trace of fraud, ate up your lies and am still back for more?"