Tag: romantic suspense

He was just standing there staring at her.

Did he think she was lying?

It wouldn’t be the first time she had confessed the hell she had lived in only to have the person tell her she was making it up.

That Jonah would think she was just making it up hurt deeply. That was what happened when you loved someone, you handed them the ability to take your heart right out of your chest and smash it into a million pieces.

“If you don’t believe me then just turn me into the cops,” Katherine said, then rested her head on the coffee table. The smooth wood was cool against her burning skin. Her head ached so badly and blood had dribbled down and over her eye making it sticky and her eyelashes kind of stuck together every time she blinked.

Jonah said nothing and she presumed he had gone to dial 911.

It hurt to know what he thought of her but it was what it was. She couldn’t change it just like she couldn’t change her past.

A hand gently curled around her wrist, beside the cuff, and unlocked it, then lifted her hand and began to massage where the metal cuff had chaffed her skin.

Katherine looked up, surprised. Jonah wouldn’t meet her gaze, but he picked her up and carried her over to the sofa, setting her down and beginning to clean away the blood from her face. When he was done he spread a blanket over her, that’s so soft and fluffy she thought as she snuggled it up to her chin. She didn’t understand what was going on. Did Jonah just want to make sure it didn’t look like he had knocked her unconscious when the cops showed up?

“I’m sorry,” he said at last.

Sorry? “For what?”

“Hitting you, but mostly for believing that you could kill someone in cold blood when I know what kind of person you are. I should have known that if you did that then there had to be a good reason. Forgive me?”

That was not the reaction she had been expecting.

It caught her off guard.

She didn’t deserve Jonah. Not after she had lied to him about who she really was.

Katherine burst into tears, burying her face in her hands.

“Shh, don’t cry, Katie.” Jonah’s arms wrapped around her and she curled her hands into his shirt and held on tight. He was her lifeline. He didn’t know it but he was the only reason she was still alive.

This was the first time she had ever cried about what had happened to her and her tears lasted for a long time. Jonah held her, stroking her hair, rubbing her back, whispering words she couldn’t understand but the sound of his voice soothed her nonetheless.

“What happened to you, Katie?” Jonah asked when she finally fell silent.

She didn’t want to answer that.

She wanted to block out her entire life before she met him.

“Katie,” Jonah’s hands curled around her shoulders and he sat her up, holding her at arms length. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

She didn’t want his help.

Accepting it would be putting him in danger, and she could never risk her family hurting him.

“You can trust me, Katie,” he said as he brushed the back of his knuckles across her wet cheeks, collecting the tears that still lingered there.

It wasn’t about trust.

It was about protecting him.

“Please, Katie, tell me, let me help you.”

“I can’t.”

Hurt flashed through his deep blue eyes but he didn’t let it touch his voice. “Why not?”

“Because my step-brother isn’t the only one looking for me.”

He’d hit her.

If it wasn’t for the blinding headache, Katherine wouldn’t have believed it.

Her worst fears had come true.

He knew.

Jonah knew.

How was she going to talk her way out of this without telling him anything he didn’t already know?

“You’re awake.”

Katherine squinted up at Jonah. At least she assumed it was her fiancee but her head was throbbing, and the light suddenly seemed too bright.

Did he want her to say something? Did he want an explanation? Did he want denials? What did he want? She wasn’t sure how much he had seen but enough to know that she was a killer.

“I know what . . . I saw . . . You’re a . . .” Jonah broke off and tore out of the room like it was on fire.

She had to get out of here before she said something she’d regret. Katherine tried to stand but her body wasn’t ready quite yet and she couldn’t make it past her hands and knees. She really hoped she didn’t have a concussion, how was she going to run with a concussion.

Run.

That was what she was going to have to do.

Again.

It was all she ever did.

Jonah stormed back into the room, the sound of his feet on the floorboards seemed to echo inside her head. As quickly as he cam in, he left the room in a panic, only to come back and scan the form like he expected to find her gone.

“I think its better to be safe than sorry, considering the circumstances.” Jonah picked up her wrist and snapped one end of a handcuff on it, then secured it to the coffee table.

Katherine felt her blood pressure begin to rise.

She hated being restrained.

It always made her panic.

When she panicked she said things she shouldn’t.

“You killed someone, Katherine,” Jonah crouched before her. “Were you going to kill me too?”

“What? No!” She could never kill Jonah. She loved him.

“No you didn’t kill someone or no you weren’t going to kill me?” Jonah asked.

“I would never do anything to hurt you,” she said, although she knew it wasn’t true. She would hurt him. From the moment they got involved it had been inevitable.

“Until I do something to make you angry right, and then you’ll kill me. Or maybe you just do it for fun.”

For fun?

How could he think that?

He didn’t know her at all.

Which she reluctantly admitted was mostly her fault. But still how could he think that? Didn’t he love her? He said he did but she’d heard those words before from people who only wanted to use her.

“I didn’t kill him for fun,” she said quietly. If he knew then he may as well know why. Then he could just turn her into the cops and be done with it. “He was my step-brother and if I didn’t do what I did he would have taken me back.”

“Taken you back? Taken you back where?” Jonah sounded confused now.

“To hell on earth.”

What was the secret they were both hiding?

He was pretending he didn’t know Katherine was a killer, and she was pretending she wasn’t one.

How long would this charade last?

Jonah didn’t think he could go on like this for very long. He wasn’t good at pretending, he had always been too blunt for his own good. And this wasn’t something small. Katherine had killed someone. Murdered them. He should have turned her into the cops already.

Why hadn’t he?

Because he loved her.

He stupidly loved a woman who could take the life of another human being then come over to go out to dessert like nothing had happened.

Did she know that he knew?

That thought had been running around inside his head the entire time they were at the restaurant. Did she know? What would she do if she knew that he knew? Would she kill him to? How was he supposed to function when all he could do was think about this? He couldn’t remember a single thing that they had talked about, he didn’t know what he said, or what she had said, or what he had eaten, or she had eaten, or how much it cost.

All he knew was the woman he was going to marry was a killer.

“Jonah? Is something wrong?” Katherine was looking up at him with those glowing golden eyes, looking all sweet and innocent, he wondered what went on behind those stunning eyes of hers.

Was she planning something?

Katherine was tiny, not quite five feet tall, he was well over six feet, and he had lost count of the number of people who had told them how odd they looked together. He had always thought of her as his little fairy, she was so small and delicate, she was whimsical at heart, and had this way of sort of flitting about when she moved almost like she was flying.

He had always thought she was perfect. She was sweet and kind and amazingly empathetic. She never argued, she was always looking for things to do for him, she never complained, she didn’t cry or manipulate to get her way.

She was too good to be true.

And obviously she was.

“Jonah?” Katherine took a tentative step towards him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking about and intended to do something about it.

He wasn’t going to let her kill him.

Before he even thought about what he was doing he had swung his fist. It connected with the side of her head with a kind of cracking sound, and she dropped, unconscious, to the floor.

Katherine still couldn’t believe she had done it.

She had wanted to for such a long time, thought about it, dreamed about it, and now it was done.

She couldn’t get the look in his eyes out of her mind.

Shock.

Horror.

Fear.

He had been afraid to face death.

She didn’t think she was ever going to forget that look.

Suddenly, a shot broke the quiet. Katherine jumped a mile and spun around. Wait, that hadn’t been a shot it was just the door closing. She was going to have to get a grip, if she didn’t she was going to give herself away.

Pasting on a smile, she tried to make her voice as bright as possible, “Hi, Jonah.”

“What are you doing here?” Jonah looked surprised to see her. Surprised and wary. Why was he wary?

“Oh, uh, you gave me a key. Said to come over any time. Since, we, uh, missed dinner, I thought I’d stop by. Maybe we could go out for dessert?” Katherine felt so nervous she was sure it must be written all over her face.

“Sure,” Jonah said slowly. “We could do that.”

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she said quickly. Jonah had never turned her down before when she’d asked him out, what was different now?

“No, its fine. Lets go.” Abruptly he turned and headed back out the door he’d just come through.

Katherine trailed along behind him. He was acting odd.

Did he know something?

Was this her life now? Constantly wondering about getting caught?

Katherine didn’t think she was cut out for this.

Too bad she didn’t have a choice. She had done what she’d done and now she had to accept the consequences.