Serenity

Chapter 9

Julian

Tami's eyes captured mine with her steady gaze. Her eyes held a silent plea for me to trust her. My gut twisted itself in knots as my mind went over what I read in her notes. Instinct told me she held something back. Experience told me she wouldn't say anything until she was ready.

"Okay. But I want to be told the second you have the proof. You're asking me to trust you. I will. But that goes both ways. You need to trust me as well. We're in this together. Don't put the entire team in jeopardy by keeping something from us we need to know."

Her eyes blazed, and she crossed her arms "Fine."

Ouch. There it was. The one word men around the world hate hearing from women. Tami may have agreed to keep me informed, but she wasn't comfortable with her decision. She had good reasons not to trust me, but I had better reasons not to let her hang on to that distrust.

"Up to the roof. Now."

Tami stood and stared at me, mouth open in disbelief. "Excuse me?"

I was not in the mood to be argued with. "You heard me. Up on the roof. Now. I have something I want to say to you, and it's not something I want Phil and Marie to hear." She looked like she wanted to argue. I held up a gloved hand to stop her. "I don't think you do either. My guess is you've been wanting to yell the crap out of me. So I'm giving you the chance."

I pushed past her and climbed the stairs to the roof garden. The moment I set my foot on the grass covered roof, I walked over to lean against the railing. Even though the gloves would block a mating bond forming, the urge to touch her had been strong. I had felt nothing that powerful before. It was hard to resist. The time when Tami would allow me to hold her had long since disappeared, and it was my fault.

Behind me, the door gave a loud thud as it bounced off the wall beside it, then slammed shut with another loud bang. Angry strides headed towards me and stopped several feet away. I turned to see Tami glaring at me. A light breeze picked up and toyed with her hair, blowing its strands back from her face. Combined with the light from the stars, the effect was startling. I'd met a lot of attractive women in my travels, women skilled in using makeup to enhance their good looks. Tami had a natural beauty that outshone their artifice.

"Don't think for a second that I'm interested in what you have to say. Because nothing you can say will ever erase the pain that you caused me. I'm just up here because it's a chance to yell at you without upsetting the others."

"So go ahead." I stood there watching the emotions flit across her expressive face as she fought an internal battle with her reason. Her brows arched, then furrowed. She nibbled at her bottom lip, pursed her lips, and tapped her chin. For several moments, her mouth would open as she thought of something to say, then close again as she changed her mind.

I took a deep breath and gave voice to what had gnawed at me the whole day. "Tami. We both know that you would be happier if I weren't here. But I can't walk away. Not when you're going up against one of the deadliest enemies that you will ever face. And not without at least trying to make amends for the hurt I caused you."

"It's a little too late for that."

"I have to try. I was an idiot eight years ago. But I would be an even bigger idiot if I didn't take advantage of the opportunity to make things right again."

"The only way you'll ever make things right is to go back in time and change the past so that you turn up for my eighteenth birthday." Her eyes blazed as she turned and stomped away from me, running down the stairs in her haste to get away.

"I wasn't ready for a mate." Even if her heard me, her feet didn't slow until she reached the bottom of the stairs.

"That went well." Phil stood in the doorway to the roof, facing the stairs as he watched his sister flee the rooftop garden.