Hazard and Somerset, Gregory Ashe [ebook reader with internet browser TXT] 📗

bandages right after he got it.” Scooping up the photographs, Magnus flipped them one by one onto the desk. “No tattoo. No tattoo. No tattoo.”

“I saw you two at dinner. I saw you laughing. I saw you touch his cheek.”

Dumping the rest of the photographs, Magnus said, “I knew it. I knew it, that first night, when I let you lure me back here. I knew it. I knew you were an asshole. I knew I should have punched you in the face. I never should have let you lie to me, use me, play with me. I knew you were going to break my heart. Goodbye, Nickolas. I never want to see you again.”

At the end of the speech, Hazard threw down another envelope, this one marked The Grand Gesture, and Somers snatched it up, jogging around the desk to follow him out of the office.

“This is amazing,” Somers breathed as he opened the next set of instructions. “You have no idea how amazing this is.”

“Maybe you could, uh, not be so convincing. Especially in the fights. It’s a little disconcerting.”

“You get what you get,” Somers said, shrugging as he read. “And you can thank Mrs. Crackenberger for molding my raw talent in her Acting II class.”

V

FEBRUARY 23

SATURDAY

11:16 PM

THE REGIONAL AIRPORT was a small building of corrugated metal; Magnus had been inside once when it was raining, and the pinging of the drops hitting the roof was so loud that it had drowned out the announcements. Fortunately, there were only two gates, and it wasn’t hard to tell when the boarding began.

Now, he slumped forward on the hard, plastic seat, hands between his knees, playing with the micro-perforations in his boarding pass. His whole time in this podunk town had been a dream. A silly dream. He’d thought he’d had a second chance, another try, he could get things right with himself, with life. Maybe with somebody else in his life. He’d even been stupid enough to believe, for a while, that it could be Nickolas. The universe had delivered a solid kick to the balls, though. Again. Page Turner Books was literally going to be bulldozed in half. Magnus would never be able to recover from the losses, not with the debts and crazy accounting his aunt had left. And, of course, Knight hated him now. Why hadn’t Magnus been reasonable? Why hadn’t he just explained that the pictures were old, that someone was trying to drive a wedge between them?

Why? Magnus snorted. Because Knight had been such an asshole.

That was what he wanted to believe, anyway. Until he got on the plane. Until he couldn’t change his mind.

Overhead, a voice announced that boarding for the flight to St. Louis, Missouri would begin in five minutes. An elderly couple across from Magnus swept up their spread of crossword puzzles; down the row of seats, a woman with a mop of Clairol red going gray let out a sigh of relief and wiggled a stroller, as though checking that the occupant was still alive; in the airport’s only amenity, a bleak, hundred-square-foot shop with an ominous ripple in the linoleum, a man shouted, “Just get the damn Skittles already. I don’t care if they’re five dollars.”

This was it, time to go. Time to never look back. Never think about afternoons when Knight insisted on going horseback riding together—work be damned. Never think about nights out by the fire pit, drinking buttered rum and watching Knight make a face and pretend to gag and only drink it because Magnus had said how much he liked it. Never think about waking up next to him, the whole house quiet, and see Nickolas Knight, the ferocious cowboy tycoon, vulnerable, his face transparent in sleep. To know, in those moments, how much Knight needed him.

Well, Magnus thought, he should have thought about that before ripping out my heart.

Looping the strap of his bag over his shoulder, Magnus got to his feet. He shuffled a few steps down the row, spotted Clairol Red turning the stroller into an impromptu roadblock, and shuffled back the other way. He thought, one last time, about calling it quits. He could go back to his apartment over the bookstore. He could sleep. Twenty hours ought to do it. And then he could go back and talk to Knight, try to figure this out.

Maybe. Maybe if Knight hadn’t set the demolition plans in motion. Maybe if Page Turner Books wasn’t going to be gutted to satisfy Knight’s greed. Over time, Magnus had come to think Knight was a better man than that, but it turned out his first impression had been right.

“Wait!”

The shout rang through the airport. It boomed against the corrugated walls, echoed back. People stopped, turned, looked.

“Mag, wait!”

Nickolas Knight was running through the airport like a man on fire. Or, for that matter, like a man about to miss his flight. His blond hair was even more of a mess than usual, and in one hand, streaming petals behind him, he clutched a bedraggled bouquet.

Staring down the terminal, Magnus froze. His heart kicked into gear, beating so hard that he could feel himself shaking, the sound as loud as a hailstorm on that corrugated roof. His stomach turned over, queasy and slick, and Magnus couldn’t talk, couldn’t move. He just stood and stared as Knight and his bouquet did a spur-of-the-moment flower-girl act in the middle of the airport.

The rubber on Knight’s soles actually squeaked as he came to a stop in front of Magnus. He wasn’t wearing boots—a rare change. Instead, he had on the designer sneakers Magnus had bought for him, the ones he had suggested Knight wear to a meeting with a tech startup. The ones Knight had grinned and nodded and then, when he thought Magnus wouldn’t notice, dumped at the back of the closet.

“Don’t get on that plane.”

“Nickolas—”

“I’m serious, Mag. Don’t get on that plane. I messed up. I made a huge mistake. I never should have believed that you’d