The Blonde Identity: A Novel

How many times did she start to get up? To call for him? She lost count. And before she knew it, she was sleeping. Right up until the moment when she wasn’t.

At what point does a person become immune to the sound of screaming? Zoe wondered an instant before she bolted awake to the sound of, “No!”

“Sawyer,” she said as she threw the covers off. He’d found an old T-shirt for her to sleep in, but the air was cold on her bare legs as she ran from the toasty loft to the man who was lying on the sofa, sweat pouring off him even though it was colder there closer to the fire.

“Sawyer?” She expected him to bolt awake and act like nothing had happened, but he was drenched in sweat and had turned the color of paper.

“Run!” he shouted, but Zoe only moved closer. He’d kicked off a blanket and the gash in his side was angry and red but it wasn’t bleeding—yet. He tossed again. His leg kicked the vodka bottle and it fell to the floor but didn’t shatter.

“Sawyer . . .”

“Zoe!” he shouted, still fighting ghosts in the darkness. He was going to open his wound again. No glue was that super.

“Sawyer!” She tried to pin his arms down, but even injured—even asleep—his body knew what to do and in the next moment she was flying through the air and landing on the soft rug in front of the fire. Sawyer was on top of her. His hands were on her throat.

“Saw . . .” All Zoe could think was that she was getting really tired of almost being strangled. But this time Sawyer wasn’t going to show up to save her.

“Saw—”

She tried to pry his fingers free, but he was too strong. She tried to do The Move—the one that had flipped a Russian assassin on his butt—but Sawyer was too heavy.

She tried to say his name, but the word wouldn’t come. Maybe it was the late hour and dying fire but Zoe was pretty sure the room wasn’t supposed to be that dark—the stars weren’t supposed to be inside, swirling and growing at the edges of her vision.

So she let go of his arms and reached out, searching, looking for the vodka bottle. For something. Anything. When her fingers found the pillow, she didn’t think twice. She just grabbed it and swung.

She couldn’t have hit him very hard, but still, it jarred him. He stumbled back, even though, technically, he was sitting down, legs on either side of her hips as he leaned over, looking . . . stunned. Blinking slowly. Eyes coming into focus as he took in her ragged hair and old T-shirt, wild eyes and . . .

She knew the moment he saw the red rings around her neck because his gaze turned dark and vicious, but the person he wanted to hurt was himself. Hands that had been like steel around her throat were soft as they cupped her face. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so . . .”

He tried to push away, but Zoe wrapped her hands around his wrists, holding him there. “I’m okay.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m—”

“I’m okay.” She made him look at her. “Sawyer, I’m fine.”

Suddenly, his body went slack, like a wire that had just been cut, and he slumped against her. “You were dead.” He pulled her closer, held her tighter—like he needed to feel her heart to know it was still beating. “You were dead. You were . . .”

He looked like he wanted to get up, to leave—to run—so Zoe moved, rolling on top of him, her legs straddling his this time, settling more and more of her weight atop him. “I’m okay,” she said, but his hands were still touching her face as if trying to memorize every pore and eyelash and freckle.

“You died. You were dead. I couldn’t save you,” he said so low she almost didn’t hear it over the pounding of her heart.

“You did save me.” She couldn’t hold back her laugh. “You saved me plenty.”

“I can never save Helena. But this time . . .” He screwed his eyes closed and pulled her tight against his chest, arms around her like a vise. And Zoe understood.

“It was me? This time? In your dream?”

She felt his nod, but he didn’t even try to speak.

It was too hot, all of a sudden, with the heat from his body radiating through her too-thin shirt.

“I couldn’t save you.”

“Shh.” She ran her fingers through his thick hair and the subtle scrape of nails against scalp made him shiver. “You save me. And I save you. We’re a mutual saving society,” she told him, but he didn’t say a thing.

They lay there for a long time in the flickering light, breathing in time like a dance. Had it really just been three days since he’d found her—since he’d been a stranger? She felt like she knew all his smirks and his huffs—what it meant when his jaw ticked or his hands flexed. She felt like she knew him. She just didn’t know . . .

“Who was she? Who was Helena?”

“I told you. She’s no one.” He tried to push her away again, but Zoe had the leverage and the willpower and she wasn’t going to let it go that easily.

“Tell me. Please.”

He stared up at her, waiting, thinking. Then he pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I was new and young and cocky. I thought I had to make a name for myself, so when we learned that Kozlov was moving large sums of money through a German bank . . . Well . . . That was my first big mission. Find someone with access—someone who could help us trace the money. That’s who Helena was, Zoe. Just a nice woman who had access to a server and was willing to stretch the rules to stop the bad guys. She was . . . expendable.”

His gaze found hers in the darkness. “The moment I heard she was compromised, I drove like hell, but . . . I didn’t get there in time.” He turned to face the fire. “I never get there in time.”

It was like the key piece of a puzzle falling into place, a quiet, satisfying click that only she could hear. “That’s the dream? The reason you can’t sleep?”

He bit his lip and nodded slowly, but when he turned back to her it felt like the whole world got very slow and very still and even the flames in the fireplace stopped dancing. “It used to be.”

She swallowed hard. And knew—“Now it’s me?”

“And now it’s a million times worse.”

She felt his hands on her legs, a slow, steady motion as his palms slid up and down her thighs, over and over, holding her atop him in a gentle rocking sway.

“They didn’t catch me.” Zoe pressed down, wanting him to feel her weight. “I’m here.” She cupped his cheek and he turned to kiss her palm. “I’m real. I’m alive. They haven’t caught me. They haven’t killed me.”

That was supposed to be the end. Period. But she watched him pull back, retreat into whatever shell they hand out at Spy Guy School as he said, “Yet.”

Then he rolled and flipped her onto her back, but didn’t linger. He just stood and walked away.

A moment later, she saw a candle flicker to life; she heard the shower start, and all Zoe could do was lie there, waiting for her heart to stop pounding.

Him

Sawyer stood in the bathroom for a long time, watching steam collect on the mirror, building from the outside in until all that remained was a small speck of clear glass, but even that was too much because Sawyer hated what he saw. He hated how he felt. And, most of all, he hated what he’d almost done.

He’d almost killed her.

And then he’d almost kissed her. Maybe more. And, oh, how he had wanted more.

He remembered the feel of her smooth legs under his palms, the weight of her body as she straddled him. Had she noticed what she did to him or was she too busy almost dying? He hoped like hell she never knew.

He felt the room go cooler—clearer—as the steam escaped, and he turned to see her standing in the open doorway, tentative, like she might be trespassing where she wasn’t wanted; totally, blissfully unaware of the fact that he wanted her way too much.

“It’s not your fault.” She inched toward him.

He studied the last bit of his reflection in the mirror. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said again, like maybe he hadn’t heard her, like those words wouldn’t haunt him for the rest of his life. “I’m here. And I’m okay. See?”

Then she brought his hand to her chest and pressed his palm against the thin cotton of the T-shirt so that he could feel her beating heart.

“See? It’s beating. It’s . . .” But she trailed off and he watched her face change as if that fact surprised even her. “It’s beating. It’s okay.”

But the T-shirt was so old and so worn and the steam was so heavy that the cotton clung to her and he could actually see the outline of the scars he couldn’t stop his fingers from tracing. He felt her start to pull back, but he wouldn’t let her—couldn’t let her go.

“Stay where you are.” He was turning, pressing her against the counter while his finger carried on its path. “I don’t care how you got them. I just know they made you who you are and you’re beautiful. They’re beautiful. You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen . . .” His finger followed the rough line between her breasts, and he felt the moment her breath changed to something deeper.

“I’m not ashamed that I have scars. Or embarrassed—”

“Good.”

“But they scare me.” Her voice was so soft he wasn’t sure if she was admitting something to him or to herself. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what tried to kill me or how I survived it. So they scare me. Because . . . what if it tries again?”

And something about the words—the frailty of her voice and the subtle tremble of her lip made him snap. “Nothing’s going to hurt you. Do you hear me? I won’t let it. Lady, nothing’s going to hurt you ever again. Never. I will die before I let that happen.”

There were tears in her eyes, but she nodded and bit her lip, and it broke him—his will and his resolve. So he gripped her tighter—pulled her closer. Even though he knew he should stop. He had to stop. But no one told his hands that because the left one snaked around her waist and was changing the angle, tilting her hips toward him, while the right followed the lines of her scars.

His feet had found their way between hers as she leaned against the counter, and he was spreading her legs—not much—just enough to feel the moment her body shifted. The shower was still running, the pounding of the water matching the pounding of his blood.

“Do you remember the train?” he asked, and she seemed startled by the question.

“I . . . I remember the train,” she stammered.

“Do you remember the bathroom?”

“Yes.” Her voice was small and yet, somehow, it echoed.

“Do you remember how I sat you on that counter and spread these pretty legs? How I stepped right in between them?”

Her lips parted and, so help him, if she said one of those innocent little comments about knees and sucking he was going to explode.

“I . . . I remember.”

“This won’t be like that. Because I’m betting you’ve got nothing but a pair of skimpy panties on underneath that T-shirt, don’t you? Something made for a honeymoon. Something made to rip right off a woman’s body, and I’ll do it. I’ll drop to my knees and do it right now and I won’t get up until I’m good and ready.”

Her chest rose and fell, and he couldn’t help himself, he let his gaze linger on the sweet little peaks that were protruding out of that damp shirt.

“So I’m going to tell you one thing, Zoe, and I need you to listen to me, baby. Can you do that?”

Numbly, she nodded.

“Good girl.” He put both hands on her hips, the better to either lift her or push her away. He didn’t know which one would haunt him for the rest of his life but he was absolutely certain that one would.

“Now you have two options. I can put you on this counter and do all the things that I just said plus a hell of a lot more. Or you can go back to bed and get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning we can both act—” He couldn’t help himself; he leaned closer and brushed his lips over hers once. Twice. And when her tongue peeked out the third time he almost lost it. It took every bit of his training and every ounce of his will to pull back. “In the morning we’ll both act like this was a dream. Okay?”

His hands were kneading and her hips were moving and neither of them were even really aware of it by that point. Muscle memory. It’s a powerful thing.

“So what do you say, lady?” Hands drifted lower, pulling her tight against the weight of his arousal. “What do you say?”

She closed her eyes and whispered, “Close the door.”