Chapter 1
‡
Mal stood by the bed and looked down at the woman he’d just fucked.
She was drop-dead gorgeous, lithe and strong with alabaster skin and hair as dark as his own. She was smart and funny, had good taste in wine, and had sucked his cock with rare skill.
Not a bad resume, when you got right down to it, and if Mal had even an ounce of sense he’d slide back into bed, sink deep inside her, and try once more to forget how goddamn lonely he was.
Shit.
She didn’t deserve that. Hell, none of the women he fucked deserved that. Which was why he had a strict one-time only policy. Shared lust and pounding sex to work out some of life’s kinks was one thing. But Mal didn’t do serious or personal. Not anymore.
He’d had serious. He’d had personal.
Hell, he’d had love. Epic, forever, everyone-else-can-just-melt-away love.
And not only love, but respect and humor and passion so intense that he felt alive only when he touched her.
He’d had all that.
Now, all he had was a nightmare.
On the bed, the woman shifted, then smiled up at him, soft and sultry. “Mal? What’s wrong?”
He said nothing, and she sat up, letting the sheet fall to her waist to expose her bare breasts as she held out a hand to him. “Come back to bed and let me make it better.”
If only it was that easy.
“I have to go.”
“Go?” She glanced at the clock and then pulled up the sheet to cover her nakedness. “It’s not even midnight.” Her voice was indignant.
“It can’t be helped.”
“You son-of-a-bitch.”
He didn’t wince, didn’t try to defend himself. What defense was there against the truth?
Instead, he moved to her side, then brushed his fingers lightly over her forehead. “Sleep,” he said, then stepped away as the woman fell back against the pillows, lost once again to the world of dreams.
He pulled the sheet up to cover her, then glanced around the room in search of his clothes. He’d brought her to the penthouse suite at the stunning Gardiner Hotel, a relatively new Fifth Avenue boutique in which he held a significant financial position. Now he moved through the bedroom and parlor, gathering discarded garments as he walked.
He pulled on his jeans, then slipped his arms into the white button-down that he’d worn that evening before going out in search of a woman to take the edge off. He let it hang open as he stepped out onto the patio, then moved to the stone half-wall that separated him from the concrete and asphalt of Fifth Avenue twelve stories below.
It would be easy enough to jump. To end his pain, even if only for a few moments.
And a few moments were all that he would get before the phoenix fire would surround and gather him, reducing him to ashes before once again regenerating him.
Immortality.
Had he truly once believed it was a gift? To have an eternity in this body that could touch and feel and experience such profound pleasure?
Three thousand years ago, it had been a gift, but that was when she’d been beside him, and it was Christina he’d been touching. Caressing.
Christina he’d held in his arms. Whose lips brushed gently over his skin. Who whispered soft words so close to his ear that even her breath aroused him.
But then everything had gone to shit and he’d realized that immortality wasn’t a gift. It was a curse.
He was immortal. He was alone. And every goddamn day was torture.
He closed his eyes and clutched the railing, his hands clenched so tight that the rough-hewn edges of the stone cut into his palms.
Christina…
He reached out with his mind, searching for her as he did every night with equal parts dread and longing.
Sometimes centuries would pass before he felt her presence resonate through him, sometimes only decades.
It had been two hundred and sixty years since the last time he’d found her, her energy reaching out to him even from across the Atlantic, even though she never had a conscious memory of him, or even of herself.
He’d gone to her—and once more, he’d done what he had to do.
Since then, he’d grown complacent, expecting—no, hoping—that he would not feel her. That he would not find her out there in the world.
That he would not have to go to her yet again.
Christina…
Nothing. Not even the slightest tingle of awareness.
Thank god.
He breathed deep, relieved, and slowly let his body relax. He turned to go back inside, but the moment he did, everything shifted. The force of her essence lashed out, catching him unaware.
It surrounded him. Burned through him.
Hot. Powerful. Desperate.
And close.
This time, she was close. So close that it wasn’t just her essence that filled his mind, but her. The memory of her scent enveloped him, the sensation of her skin against his, the taste of her lips, of her flesh.
Oh, god. Oh, Christ.
He sank to his knees, wanting to run. Wanting to retch.
But he could do neither. And slowly—so painfully slowly—he stood.
He would do what he had to do, the same as he had done over and over again for millennia.
He would find her.
He would allow himself one moment to look at her.
And then, goddamn him, he would kill her.
Chapter 2
‡
“We should have stayed in tonight.”
I shoot Brayden an irritated look. “On my first night in New York? No way.”
“Dammit, Jaynie, you fainted on the airplane.”
“One,” I say, counting out on my fingers for effect, “now that I’m in New York, I’m Christina, not Jaynie.” I’ve joined the ranks of walking cliches everywhere and have moved to Manhattan to live with my rich best friend while I struggle to become an actress. Christina is the name my mom called me when she was in her gray mood. And even though it twists me up inside every time I think about my mother, I still want that stage name. But whether that’s because I’m honoring my mother or punishing myself, I really don’t know.
I flash him a winning smile. “Of course that’s just for my adoring fans. You can stick with Jaynie.”
He rolls his eyes. “Like I said, Jaynie, you fainted on the plane.”
I ignore him and hold up another finger. “Two, I was completely checked out by the paramedics.” I bite back a frown, because despite the perky no-problem attitude I’m displaying for Brayden, the whole thing really was freaky.
“Look, if you really fainted, that’s one thing. I mean, it’s not a great thing, but at least it’s not—you know.”
I do know. Throughout my entire childhood, I suffered from episodes where I just sort of checked out. My mother’s shrink—who I refuse to call my shrink despite having seen him on and off for over ten years—called the episodes fugues. But I’m not entirely sure he was right. I looked up the word when I was ten, and according to the dictionary at my elementary school, a fugue state involves a loss of identity. And although sometimes I was completely gone, other times it was like I was watching a movie. I was still me—I was just me watching bad shit happen. Bad shit that I could never specifically remember when I came out of it, but that left me feeling edgy and shaky.
I tried to explain that to the shrink once, but all he did was make more notes in my chart.
I tried to explain it to Brayden, too, and it just made him look worried.
After that, I stopped trying to explain it at all. I had enough problems with a suicidal mother who would fall into what she called “gray moods” that would last for weeks, and during which she would repeatedly tell me that I had the devil living inside me and that she should never have had me because I was going to destroy the world.
Honestly, is it any wonder I have self-esteem issues?
When I joined the drama club in high school and started to get cast in plays and musicals regularly, the episodes became less and less frequent. I never got a solid explanation from the shrink, who only said that I was outgrowing them, but I knew that wasn’t the real reason. It was the acting. I became someone else on stage. And I think that I was becoming someone else when I checked out, too. So my theory is that the acting filled some weird your mother is crazy and you want to be someone else need that I’ve never wanted to examine too closely.
Frankly, I don’t care about the reason. I love acting. And if doing something I love keeps me from going to la-la land, then as far as I’m concerned, that’s just one more ticky-mark in the plus column.
Brayden is still looking at me with his concerned I’m-going-to-be-a-doctor-and-must-fix-this expression.
“I told you. I really fainted.” I want him to believe me, both because I don’t want him to worry and because I want him to drop it. But I’m not entirely certain that I’m telling the truth. The incident didn’t feel like one of my fugues. But at the same time, I never completely passed out, so I don’t know that it was technically a faint. Instead, I felt like I was being turned inside out.
When I was eleven, I really did faint once. I’d been standing in line for hours at Six Flags over Texas and it was hot, and I hadn’t drunk any water in hours. The world had turned sort of red, then sort of gray, and then my knees couldn’t seem to hold me up anymore and I just crumpled to the ground. All in all, it had been a rather non-violent experience, which I guess is why they call it passing out.
Today on the plane? That was violent and harsh and rocked through me like an earthquake.
But that’s not something I feel compelled to share.
Since Brayden has said nothing more, I rush to bolster my lie. “It was just the heat from waiting on the tarmac without the air-conditioning and the fact that I hadn’t eaten all day. I swear. And now that you’ve fed me, the risk of further fainting is practically nil.”
In keeping with the wide-eyed new girl in the city cliche, I’d begged Brayden to take me to dinner in Times Square. We ended up at Juniors, where I’d stuffed myself with potato pancakes and followed that up with a huge slice of cheesecake. Only after I was well-fed and had soaked up the carnival atmosphere of Times Square did I tell him about the fainting thing.
Now, I’m regretting that confession, because while I’m happy to move on to drinks at a less touristy location, I do not want that location to be his Upper East Side apartment.
“Manhattan and its many fine drinking establishments will still be here tomorrow,” he says.
“I’m fine. Really.” I hook my arm through his. “And you’ve got to dive back into studying tomorrow, so please, please, pretty please, take me out on the town.” I plaster on a winsome smile, then tilt my head up and bat my eyelashes at him.
For a moment I think he’s going to turn all serious med student on me. But then he snorts out laughter. “You’re insane, you know that right?”
I let go of his arm, even as his expression crumbles. “God, Jay,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I manage a wobbly smile. “It’s just an expression.”
We both know that’s not true, though. Not for me.
As my best friend since second grade, Brayden is one of the few people who knows how bad it was for me as a kid growing up with a certifiably insane mother, and how much worse it got when I was seventeen and she checked out completely by slicing her own throat with a kitchen knife, leaving me numb and my already invisible father a lost shell of himself.
More than that, Brayden is one of the few people who knows that I’m terrified that I’ll go down that dark path just like she did.
He twines his fingers with mine and squeezes. “Of course I’ll buy you a drink.” His voice is gentle, but not overly so, which I appreciate. “Come on. Let’s get a taxi back to my place. There’s a bar just a few doors down, and I’ve got a thing for one of the waitresses. You can use your feminine intuition and tell me if she’s into me.”
“If you can’t tell, that means she’s not into you.”
“Probably,” he says. “But I’m practicing optimism.”
I cock my head. “How’s that going for you?”
“Ask me after we see how I do with the waitress.”
I shoulder butt him, my mood improving by the second. “What are you doing dating, anyway? I thought med students spent all their time hunched over cadavers or textbooks. Except, of course, on the day when their best friend arrives in town.”
“I never said I wanted to date her.” His grin is wicked. “Some people work out by lifting weights. I have other methods.”
“Hound dog,” I say, but with a laugh.
“True that.” He steps into the street and expertly hails a taxi. “And there are aerobic benefits, too. Give it a try. If you can’t find a pilates class you like, you can just pick up a guy.”
He hops into the taxi that has pulled up beside us before I have time to think of a snappy comeback. I follow, remembering how much I’ve missed him. Brayden and I have never frolicked between the sheets, and that’s fine with me. He’s my best friend, and I’m not interested in him joining the ranks of guys I close myself off from.
Because unlike Brayden, who can fuck around and somehow manage to keep all those women on his Christmas card list, I burn bridges. I go out, maybe even go to bed. Maybe even lather, rinse, repeat. But I don’t get involved.
I told Brayden once that I’d gotten my heart broken too many times, but that is one of the few lies I’ve ever told him. The truth is, I’ve never gotten my heart broken because I never let my heart get engaged. My fear isn’t that it’s going to get broken again, but that it’ll get broken in the first place.
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