Page 20 of Exposed

It is but a moment that we kiss, a single moment.

A fortieth of an hour.

But it is one in which I feel utterly changed, as if some too-loose skin draped over my skeleton is snatched away and my true form is revealed, as if his touch as if his kiss as if his very presence can make me more trulyme.

I want to weep.

I want to sag against him and beg him to keep kissing me until I cannot bear any longer the soft and tender intensity.

He backs away, wiping his wrist across his mouth, chest heaving as if desperately battling some inner demon. “Here.” He hands me the square of folded paper. “It’s your real name.”

I feel struck by lightning, wired, surging with too much of everything, too much heat, too much fear, too much doubt, too much need.

He puts a hand to the half wall, as if supporting himself, as if about to leap over and fly away.

“Logan...” I don’t have anything else I can say.

“You have to decide if you want to know,” he says. “Because once you know... you can’t take it back. Once you start questioning, there’s no stopping it.”

“I have to know now, don’t I?” I ask, almost angry at him. “You posed the question, and now I have to have the answer.”

“True.” He lets out a breath, moves to walk past me, but stops a breath and a touch away. His indigo eyes meet mine. “You can come with me. We can leave New York.” He glances up at the cloud-shrouded sky. “I can take you somewhere far away, and show you the stars.”

Could he have heard that wish? Can he see into my mind, read my thoughts? Sometimes I wonder if he can.

“But... you won’t.” He wipes a thumb across my lips. “Not yet, anyway.”

He almost seems about to kiss me again, and I’m not entirely sure I would survive another stolen kiss, another breathless moment far too close to a man who seems to see far too much of me.

“If you ask the questions, X... you can’t shy away from the answers when you find them.”

I don’t watch him leave. I can’t. I won’t.

I don’t dare.

A long, long, painful silence, stretching like a rubber band about to snap. When I’m sure I’m alone, I finally look away from the skyline, from the dark shapes of skyscrapers and apartment blocks, away from the clouds and the dim distant lights. The rooftop is empty once more, but for me and the ghost of Logan’s kiss.

I unfold the square of paper.

My cigarette smolders on the white rocks beside me, forgotten.

There on the wrinkled, off-white scrap of paper is a scrawl of messy male handwriting, in all slanting capital letters.

The letters form a name.

My name.

If I could prevent myself from reading it, I almost would. But I don’t.

Logan has given me my name.

I both love him for it, and hate him for it.

Chapter

Five

“Isabel Maria de la Vega Navarro.” I whisper, reading. “Isabel.”