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  Hearing the tears trembling in her voice hit me harder than I expected. I should have run when I had the chance. I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her shoulders. “I don’t mean to push you away. I’m…I’m sorry.”

  Holly ducked under my arms and flopped down on the bed, her blond hair spilling around her. She groaned loudly. “I hate that I can’t stay mad at you.”

  I released the breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding and lay down next to her, burying my face in her neck. “I thought you said you weren’t mad.”

  She slapped her hands over her eyes and pressed down hard. “I was mad. Past tense.”

  “Does this mean we get to have make-up sex?”

  She cracked a smile, then her mouth formed a thin line again. “Only if you promise no more secrets…ever.”

  Not possible. No way.

  I slipped my fingers inside her robe and glided them up and down her back. “You’ll cave either way.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  “Liar.” She laughed and pulled my shirt off, tossing it over the lamp. “Lydia’s going to be such a bitch tomorrow.”

  I loosened the tie on her robe. “She’s at least two hundred dollars richer, so there’s nothing to bitch about. And when is she not angry?”

  “Never. But thank you for one night free of feminist lectures.”

  I leaned over and whispered, “Consider it your make-up gift.”

  She wiggled out of her robe. “Do I get anything else?”

  “Like a new car?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “A pound of that really expensive nondairy chocolate?”

  She kissed the length of my neck. “You know what I want.”

  I groaned loudly. “Not a chance.”

  “Please.”

  “You’re turning me into a complete freak. Or worse—a chick.” I made the mistake of turning my head. One glimpse of the tears still drying on her cheeks and I caved. “If you tell anyone, I will kick your little ass. Got it?”

  She mimed zipping her lips, then snuggled up to me. “Do you think you can manage a British accent this time?”

  I laughed and kissed her forehead. “I’ll try.”

  “Okay, on with it.”

  I rolled my eyes, then took a deep breath. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness…”

  My ninth-grade English teacher always made us recite Dickens while standing in front of the class. I hated it. For Holly, I didn’t mind too much, but I’d never tell her that.

  “Do you think he did the right thing?” Holly asked after I’d recited the first few pages.

  “You mean Sydney? Getting his head chopped off so the woman he loves can be with another man?”

  Holly laughed and her lips vibrated against my chest. “Yeah.”

  “No, I think he’s a complete moron.” I kissed the corner of her mouth and she grinned at me.

  “You’re lying.”

  I pulled her closer and kissed her again, ending the discussion that would inevitably lead to spilling out more secrets than I cared to share.

  “You weren’t aiming those shoes at anyone earlier, were you?” I asked in between kisses.

  She leaned over me, her hair forming a yellow curtain around us. “I didn’t even know you were in here.”

  “Okay, good, because that red shoe had a really pointy heal. You could take someone’s eye out with that.”

  She laughed really hard and then kissed me again before whispering in my ear, “I’ll save it for all my other boyfriends.”

  I woke up early the next morning to Holly’s alarm buzzing loudly in my ear. Blond hair tickled my nose and a big chunk fell right in my mouth. She slammed her fist into the snooze button before mumbling, “I set it so you wouldn’t miss your eight o’clock lab.”

  “I can skip it today.” I pushed her hair from my face and kissed the back of her neck. “Go back to sleep.”

  She pulled my arm tighter around her, then muttered something nearly incoherent, but it sounded like, “Tell me a secret.”

  This was Holly’s favorite game. I usually responded with a random and stupid remark like, “I used to have a crush on Hilary Duff.” But after last night’s argument, I owed her a little better than that.

  I touched my lips to her ear and whispered, “I’m crazy about you.”

  I could practically hear her smile right before we both drifted back to sleep.

  My eyes opened again two hours later. This time to the sound of someone knocking on the door. I reached for my jeans and yanked a T-shirt over my head before shaking Holly. “I think Lydia’s back.”

  She groaned and grabbed her robe from the floor, and then opened the door. Two men pushed past her and strode into the room.

  “What…?” Holly said, grabbing the sides of her robe and tying them tight.

  One of the men, the shorter one with red hair, slammed the door shut. “That’s him,” he said to the other man.

  “What’s going on?” I asked

  The shorter one looked right at me. “Are you Kevin Meyer’s son?”

  My heart rate sped. Something had happened…When was the last time I’d seen my dad…? Two days ago, I remembered. He’d been out of the country since.

  “Is he…okay?”

  Holly drew in a breath and moved closer to me, squeezing my hand. I could guess the theories spinning through her head: company plane crashed into a mountain somewhere, leaving the CEO’s only child without a single living family member. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

  The taller of the two men reached into his jacket and flashed a badge, too fast to read it. “You need to come with us.”

  Cops…maybe FBI? Investigative reporters? Or maybe my dad’s pharmaceutical company was being charged with money-laundering or some other scandal. My dad and his clan of business advisers had drilled into me, on many occasions, the lengths reporters will go to get information for a story. And the quick flash of the badge, not letting me really see what it said…

  I shook my head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Jackson, maybe you should—“

  I held my hand up to silence Holly before turning my eyes back on the men. “What paper are you with?”

  The two men looked at each other and the taller one shrugged before uncertainly saying, “Newspaper?”

  I raised my arm and pointed at the door behind them. “Get out. Both of you.”

  Holly slowly sidestepped behind me from her place next to the door, without turning her back on the intruders.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Holly inching backward toward her dresser, reaching for something. A cell phone? Pepper spray?

  “Are you currently involved with any government agencies?” the short one asked. “Have they approached you with information?”

  These dudes are seriously pissing me off. I quickly scanned the room for a makeshift weapon, and slowly reached for a tall floor lamp.

  Before I could open my mouth to speak, one of Holly’s shoes flew across the room and hit the man on the side of the face. His head snapped in her direction. I could see a heel print burning bright red above his eye. I felt the blood rush to my face as my heart threatened to beat out of my chest. Channeling Carlos Beltrán, I swung for the fences. The lamp’s glass shade connected squarely with Holly’s shoe print. He crashed backward, his body slamming against the door. A shard of glass had opened a good-sized gash above his left eye.

  Crouching low, with his arms spread wide, he dove for my legs. Instantly my feet went out from under me, smashing me facedown into the tile floor.

  The other man stepped over our tangled bodies as he advanced toward Holly. Holly inched backward with her right hand behind her back.

  “Just cooperate, and no one will hurt you,” the advancing man said to Holly.

  Before he could complete the sentence, she revealed her right
hand. Her clenched fist erupted in a well-aimed stream of pepper spray. “Get out of my room!”

  “Fuck!” he shouted, leaning over and rubbing his eyes.

  Holly darted around him and ran toward the door.

  The tall man and I both scrambled to our feet. While he was distracted by his partner’s screams, I followed Holly to the door.

  From behind me, I heard, “Freeze! Don’t move!”

  I turned in time to see the tall man’s hand plunge into his half-unzipped jacket. His hand emerged, tightly gripping a semiautomatic pistol. He aimed directly at my head with only one eye, his vision obscured by the flow of blood.

  I sucked in a breath, knowing I was in over my head. Defeated. Holly’s hands froze on the knob, her back now pressed against the door.

  The short guy held up one hand and kept the other one over his eyes. “No…not yet. Only if he jumps.”

  Jumps where? Now my heart was really thudding. They couldn’t possibly know about…could they?

  I took a large step backward, but tripped on the lamp now lying on the floor, and felt something catch around my ankle. Once again, my feet went out from under me.

  A booming sound rang in my ears, followed by Holly’s scream. Then everything seemed to stop—my heart, my breath…time.

  Holly fell to the ground and I wanted to shout, to drop down beside her, but the second the seeping red blood started to show through her robe, I jumped. This time I couldn’t seem to control it.

  But right before everything turned black, I saw it. Her chest rose and then fell again. She was alive and I just left her there.

  Copyright © 2011

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  Tempest

  Available January 2012 wherever books are sold

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  About the Author

  Julie Cross lives outside Chicago, where she works at the local YMCA. Tempest is her first novel.