"Not until you talk to me." His eyes narrowed and darkened. "Ten years, Blue. I deserve an answer."

I looked back at the carousel and spied my seafoam green luggage. It was pretty, light-colored, and made traveling more fun. I took a step forward and reached for it when his hand covered mine. Before I could protest, Tyson grabbed the largest bag, yanking it up easily. I went slack-jawed, watching how even through his suit coat, I could see his biceps flex before he set it down.

I was too stunned stupid to thank him.

"That the only one you have?"

I shook my head. "One more." I wanted to kick my own a.s.s. Why was I engaging him? Letting him help me? Nothing good would come from this, I knew it. I didn't even understand why he was bothering.

He turned his back to me, and we waited among the throng of tired travelers. He quickly grabbed his own two bags before he nestled my last two suitcases quite nicely next to his.

"Thank you," I finally muttered, my manners returning while I reached to stack my cases. "It was good seeing you."

Another lie.

My Catholic guilt was building every moment around him. l.u.s.t. Lies. Jealousy. My mother's priest would have been so proud.

Without giving me time to argue or get away, Tyson reached for the handle of my largest suitcase. He had a duffel bag thrown across his chest, my suitcase in one hand, and his in another. He started walking away from me, out toward the line of taxis, and by the time I realized what he was doing, I had to run to catch up to him, pulling the rest of my bags behind me.

"What are you doing?" I asked when I reached him.

He let go of his suitcase and lifted his hand.

"Tyson!" I snapped.

His eyes darted to me before he looked back at the line of taxis coming our way. He didn't even look at me like he recognized me, and I couldn't quite place why that stung so much.

It took thirty seconds of him ignoring me, while I stood there gaping at him, before a taxi stopped in front of us. As soon as the trunk popped open, Tyson moved to the back of the car, and tossed my luggage inside.

"Where are you going, Blue?" he asked, an arrogant grin on his face as he pa.s.sed me on the curb and grabbed his own suitcase.

"Not anywhere with you." I crossed my arms over my chest and tapped my foot repeatedly on the pavement. Had he always been a bossy a.s.shole? I couldn't remember. Maybe I was too young to know any different.

"Get in the cab."

My nose twitched, my foot tapped harder. "No."

His lips curved at the ends right as the taxi driver asked, "Where to?"

Horns honked in the background, the sounds of annoyed drivers who were p.i.s.sed we were not getting in the car. We were holding up the line, but I didn't care.

This was asinine. Stupid.

"Not getting in the car without you," Tyson said, a wicked gleam in his dark blue eyes. He crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring my stance, except his smile told me he found this funny.

There was nothing funny about this.

"Lady, I gotta get moving," the cab driver shouted in his thickly accented, Middle Eastern voice.

I had lost. I knew it. Besides, it wasn't this man's fault that I happened to know the most conceited man in Detroit, possibly all of the state. Or world.

"Fine," I huffed and pushed past Tyson. Sliding into the backseat of the car, I quickly told the driver the hotel where I was staying and the address.

Tyson slid in next to me, victory plastered all over his c.o.c.ky face.

As the taxi pulled away from the curb, I felt the burn of tears in my eyes, and I looked out the window.

I would never let him see how much he affected me. There was too much at stake with my family right now for me to have anything to do with Tyson.

Not that I wanted something to happen, anyway.

Lie.

Argh. I pressed my head against the window, closed my eyes, and spent the next thirty minutes ignoring the man next to me.

- "You're kidding me."

Tyson grinned. "Nope."

I stared at him in the lobby of the Apollonio Hotel and felt my eyes cross. "You are not staying here."

He shrugged. It was full of nonchalance and c.o.c.ky swagger. My fingers itched to smack him. To grab him by the lapels of his suit and shove my lips against his just to wipe the smirk off his face.

Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea.

I needed a drink. Or twelve.

"Told you before...I'm not leaving you alone until you tell me what happened. And, what that tantrum on the plane was about."

I ran my fingers across my forehead and sighed. "Can't we just...I don't know...not talk about that? Or just pretend we don't know each other?"

He slowly shook his head back and forth. Determination heated his eyes, and I hated this. Being too close to him was dangerous. Telling him the truth was worse. It took me years to get over Tyson. Being stuck on a farm in the middle-of-nowhere, Colorado, didn't help give me other things to think about. Besides my aunt's goats and chickens, I'd had no one to talk to. No one to help me forget about the boy who had broken my heart.

"Tyson," I started and he cut me off.

"Just a drink, Blue. Let's get caught up then. I wasn't lying when I said I missed you."

He missed me. Something fluttered low in my stomach. A small grin stretched my lips even though I knew this was stupid.

"Then will you leave me alone?"

His lips twitched, as if the question was plain old silly. He also didn't answer. No, the new c.o.c.ky and arrogant Tyson spun on his heels and headed to the check-in counter.

I hustled after him. He could put my luggage in his room and hold it hostage. Based on the way he'd been behaving, I wouldn't put it past him.

When I reached him, he waved me forward, allowing me to get in line before him. The whole time the front clerk was working, Tyson stood next to me, silent and if I wasn't mistaken, a little bit broody. His sudden att.i.tude shift unsettled me, and I found myself nervously tapping a random beat on the marble countertop.

By the time I took my keycard and thanked the woman, I was so lost in thought that I barely registered it when Tyson slid up to the counter and asked, "Do you have a coat check where I can store my bag for a few hours?"

My eyes flew open, my head snapped to his. "You're not staying here."

That flutter in my stomach intensified as Tyson slowly turned his head, dipped his chin, and raked his eyes over every inch of my body. I didn't know what he saw through my wide-legged black dress pants or my teal silk top, which allowed for just a hint of cleavage, but whatever he saw, when he met my gaze again, everything inside me flipped and flopped.

I was unbalanced. Turned on with just a look. I couldn't shake it off and I stood in front of him, my lips parted, completely dumbfounded, when he thanked the clerk and turned to me. His lips curved into a grin that had me wanting to melt into a puddle of mush at his feet.

"Don't sound so disappointed."

"I...I'm not," I stammered and snapped my lips closed.

His grin widened when he leaned closer to me and whispered in my ear. "I just didn't want to say goodbye yet. Give me a drink tonight, or dinner."

My head nodded slowly, moving of its own volition. Surely I was not agreeing to this, but as Tyson reached out and squeezed my hand, zaps of electricity flew to my heart, making it beat faster and pound loudly against my chest. He tugged my hand and pulled me toward the elevator bank after leaving his bag with the front desk and taking a claim ticket. The doors slid open and he let go of my hand to help me with my luggage. Then he stepped back and slid his hands into his pockets.

Something unpleasant darkened his eyes and I frowned. "You're not coming up?"

Why was I asking this? I didn't even want him upstairs with me! I didn't want to see Tyson at all, but with the conflicting emotions I saw in his eyes, I found myself wanting to help him. d.a.m.n it. I was so screwed.

My shoulders slumped when he shook his head. He reached out and pressed his palm against the elevator door when it started to close. "I'll give you thirty minutes to freshen up, but then I want to see you down here for dinner."

I swallowed thickly. "You're awfully bossy and presumptuous."

I got a flash of a smile before he leaned forward and whispered, "I think you like it."

Shivers danced down my body and his smirk told me he noticed. Although, he couldn't have missed it. I'd just convulsed like a seizure patient right in front of him.

I should have hated it. I should have hated him. But as I opened my mouth to tell him I did, the words lodged deep in my throat.

The warning bell signaling that the door had been open too long chimed, and Tyson's hand fell away.

"Okay." I finally nodded and stepped back.

Because I knew...I was going to give him whatever he wanted from me.

I had never been able to stay away from Tyson. And as stupid as it was, I didn't want to do it now, either. I hadn't felt like this in years. So...alive. And the only reason I agreed to move back home was to truly start living again, but this time with complete freedom.

The doors slid shut and Tyson disappeared.

I was left alone in the elevator, trying to figure out what in the h.e.l.l had just happened in the past few hours of my life, and how I could feel it changing so drastically with every second I spent in the small, enclosed s.p.a.ce.

I headed to my room on legs that felt heavy and weighted, walking as if I was pushing myself through a heavy fog. It was how I had felt ever since I got knocked over on the plane. Drugged, foggy, and like I was living a dream.

- Thirty minutes flew by when you were on the verge of having a heart attack alone in your hotel room. It was a beautiful room, with cream furnishings and rich mahogany wood. The Apollonio Hotel spared no expense, and was one of the most luxurious hotels in Detroit. My small onebedroom suite was elegant, and had just enough s.p.a.ce for me until I could find a place of my own.

It was the one concession my father allowed when I agreed to move back to Detroit. I refused to move back home, to be under guard twenty-four hours a day, and treated like a teenager instead of an adult.

Being the daughter of the Detroit crime family's boss, I could understand why he'd want to keep me guarded, but I refused to allow him to put a man on me at all times like he'd originally wanted. After many arguments, he'd reluctantly acquiesced.

I was not blind to the fact that he was the king and ruler of various illegal activities, but until I was a teenager, I had been pretty ignorant of most of the work my father and his partners did.

I was only raised with everything I wanted...everything except my freedom.

Now that I had spent ten years living with full freedom, I still planned to live that same way, regardless of how much my father hated the idea.

If I was honest with myself, part of that freedom involved Tyson. I couldn't lie and say I didn't follow his football career at Central U after I was shipped away, in a very black-ops action movie sort of way, complete with bulletproof-windowed black SUVs in the middle of the night. I even watched Central U play on television whenever I could, and cried for Tyson when I saw his career-ending injury during his senior year. I knew how much football meant to him, how much he wanted to join the NFL. I had read reports saying he was one of the top five drafts picks. Everything ended in one missed tackle that left him unguarded and then sacked right before his team could win their last game of the year.

It was shortly after that my aunt refused to allow me to search for any mention of him online. After four years of wallowing, four years of missing him, wondering if he missed me, wondering if he really only dated me because his father wanted him close to my family...it was time to finally give him up.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried to banish the memories of us, in the quiet of night, once the sun had set, my thoughts always drifted back to Tyson Blackwell.

The only man I had ever loved.

The only man I had ever wanted.

Now that I was home, and he was here, I had my own set of questions for him. He might have wanted to know why I disappeared, why I lied to him on our last night together...but I needed to know if everything before that night was a lie.

While I was washing my face and reapplying makeup, I remembered the look of shock on his face on the plane. The abhorrent look he gave me when I asked him if he'd tricked me like I'd always been told. Something about that night, the way I felt about him, wasn't adding up in my head.

Brushing out my hair, I closed my eyes and sighed.

I had been a nave teenager, a girl who always felt out of place in school because everyone knew who I was...who my family was and what my father did. If they didn't, they certainly had their a.s.sumptions, and those were enough to force everyone to give me a wide berth. Everyone but Tyson, who somehow wormed his way into my life, and then my heart, when he asked me to be his date for homecoming.

Those memories that I had never been able to erase still hurt in a place deep inside of me, but if I was truly going to move on from Tyson once and for all, I needed the answers to my questions, just as I a.s.sumed he wanted one to his.

It was that fortifying thought that made me set down my brush and turn off the bathroom light. I changed my clothes, slipped into a pair of basic black ballet flats, and grabbed my purse before heading out the door and back down to the hotel's lobby.

"You're early."

I jumped at the voice that came from behind me, and my hand flew to my chest. I gasped and turned around. "You scared me."

Gone was the suit and professional look. In its place were casual jeans and a simple black T-shirt. The sleeves around Tyson's biceps looked like they were fighting to stay st.i.tched at the seams. When he crossed his arms over his chest and gave my body a languid perusal, I fought not to squirm in front of him.

"Sorry." One side of his lips twitched.

I frowned. "You're not sorry."

"Nope." He grinned.

"How'd you change?"

"Got my stuff out of coat check. I had to get out of the suit. You ready to eat?"

About as ready as I was to jump off the top of the hotel's thirty-five-story building.

I gulped, nerves threatening to spill over. "Yup."

Tyson lifted an arm and nodded toward the dining room. I took a step forward, flinching as Tyson's hand landed on my lower back.

"Have I told you yet that it's really good to see you?"