Page 83 of Bought

His hand freezes for a moment. Then, he gathers me up into his arms, so that I’m sitting on his lap, facing him. He’s holding me close, brushing my tangled hair back from my face, and kissing me.

“I don’t want to have this conversation this way.”

“Okay.”

I cup his face in my hands, kissing him deeply before pulling away. “Thank you for understanding.” Tears shine in my eyes, but I’m sure he’d dismiss them as sensory overload.

But they aren’t. The tears come from knowing something awful.

This, all this, feeling alive every moment I’m with him, feeling worshiped, like the most beautiful woman in the world…

And my time being the only woman in his world with that privilege…

It’s over.

“This is why I don’t do this,” he says, talking more to himself than to me. “Because things get complicated.”

“I know.” I stroke my fingers over his face, whispering, “Let me tell you tomorrow,” pleading for him to believe me, “Everything. I promise.”

“Okay.” He squeezes my thigh. “But until then, you and Cass and Ryan should stay here.”

“No,” I shake my head, “I’m going to take them home. I need to decompress.”

“I get it.”

A heavy silence falls between us, neither of us knowing what the future holds.

He cocks his head to the side. “Come back to my place after?”

“I can’t.”

“Fine.” He slips his hand into his pants, pocket, wriggling under me, fishing for something, then draws his hand back out in a closed fist. “In case you change your mind.”

His fingers slowly peel back to reveal something astounding. Something I’d given up on finding.

Apparently, the security at the Village once rivaled that of the military. They had thumbprint, eye, and facial recognition systems. The Morettis hacked into all that. The Bachmans had to return to basics here. A door unlocking system from the 90s that can’t be hacked. A simple mechanism not connected to a computer.

My vision closes in until all I see is the thing he holds in his hand.

It’s a plastic key fob. You hold it up to the black box above the door handle, and when you see the green light, the door opens.

He holds out the black circle to me, dangling from the silver key ring that hangs around his finger. I stare at the key as if it’s a live grenade hovering between us.

A little black key fob, the gold Bachman Brotherhood emblem sparkling on its flat front.

Something the Morettis told me I would have to steal.

Because there was no way he would ever hand one to me.

That’s what they said.

I take it. It’s light and cool in my hands. Almost insignificant.

The power it possesses is immense.

This small plastic circle symbolizes the potential for destruction.

Either his. Or ours.