Resistance (Replica) Page 9

  He finally released her from his embrace. Nadia would have regretted the loss, if he hadn’t cupped her wet cheeks in his hands and stared intently into her eyes.

  “We’ll find a way, Nadia,” he said, with such certainty that she could almost believe him. “Nate and I don’t like each other, but we both like you. A lot. We can work together to help you.”

  “Help me how?” It wasn’t like she was in some kind of physical danger they could save her from.

  “Help you escape, if it comes to that.”

  “Escape.” Somehow, the thought had never occurred to her. Maybe because it was so wildly impractical. “Where would I go? How would I live?” She would have no money, and no way of getting access to money if her family didn’t want her to. It wasn’t like she could just get a job somewhere. Jobs went to Employees, not Executives, and it wasn’t as if she could hide her identity. Especially once the latest scandal broke. Her picture would be plastered over news feeds and gossip columns everywhere.

  Dante made a face. “I don’t have the answers, at least not now. But we’ll figure something out. It might take time, but if you get sent upstate, we’ll find a way to get you out. I promise.”

  Nadia fervently wished she could believe him. Maybe someday, when Nate became Chairman, he would have the power to free her, but not before. Not when the only place she could flee to was the Basement, where she could have food and shelter for free, if she didn’t mind living among drug dealers, prostitutes, and gangs who would see her as fresh meat.

  “Thank you,” she said, because she really did appreciate his kindness and his intentions, even if she didn’t believe he could succeed.

  Dante nodded gravely, then put his arm around her, snugging her close against his side. Her tears were drying—for now—so she didn’t technically need his shoulder to cry on anymore, but she leaned easily against him anyway. His body felt warm and solid and safe against hers, and right now she needed warm, solid, and safe.

  There was a long, companionable silence, until Dante suddenly broke it.

  “Do you love him?”

  She’d been asked that question by reporters dozens of times, and she’d always refused to answer on the grounds that it was private. However, her refusals had always been phrased in such a way as to make the interviewer believe the answer was yes. It was on the tip of her tongue to answer Dante the same way, but he wasn’t a reporter. He was a friend and a confidant—the only one she had left to her—and he deserved honesty from her, at least when she could afford to give it.

  “He’s my best friend,” she said, “and I love him like a brother.” Even as she said it, Nadia wasn’t sure she was being entirely honest after all. There had never been any hope of a romance between her and Nate, but sometimes she suspected she was at least a little in love with him anyway. “But if we were Employees and could marry whom we chose, we never would have ended up with each other.” And that part was entirely true. “Does that answer your question?”

  “Yeah. And sorry if that was too personal.”

  “If it’d been too personal, I wouldn’t have answered.” She angled her head so she could see his face. Moonlight limned one side of it while leaving the other cloaked in shadows. The freckles over his nose had faded since he’d started working for the Lake family and spent most of his time indoors, but they were still faintly visible, even in the moonlight. They would be considered an unsightly blemish on an Executive, but Nadia found herself fighting the urge to reach out and touch them.

  She licked her lips, aware of how close she was to Dante’s sensual mouth. She and Nate had kissed many times, but they had always been sham kisses, meant to help strengthen the illusion that he was into girls. Nadia had no idea what a real kiss felt like, and she suddenly wanted to find out in the worst way. She looked into his eyes and saw the answering spark there, but he didn’t take her up on what she felt certain was a blatant invitation. He smiled at her and stroked one hand lightly over her hair.

  “You’ve just had some bad news and are in an altered state of mind,” he said gently. “I’m not the kind of asshole who’d take advantage of that.”

  “Oh, now you’re going to turn all gentlemanly on me?” she asked, her cheeks heating at the rejection. He’d worded it nicely enough, but why should she expect a guy who thought Executive girls were akin to pampered poodles to want to kiss someone like her? Sure, he seemed to like her just fine now that he’d decided she wasn’t cut from the same cloth as most of her peers, but that didn’t mean he’d forgotten what she was. What she would always be, even though she would live the rest of her life in disgrace.

  It was embarrassingly hard for her to stop leaning against him and put some distance between them on the log, but she managed it, wishing she could sink through the ground in her humiliation. Dante’s eyes widened, and he took her hands before she could jump to her feet.

  “I’m not saying no,” he told her earnestly. “I’m just saying not now.”

  She appreciated his attempt to spare her feelings, but she knew a rejection when she heard one. And it probably served her right, anyway. Kissing Dante as some kind of secret act of rebellion, or just because he was there, didn’t say much about her strength of character. Even if the yearning in her belly suggested there was more to it than that.

  “I mean it, Nadia. To tell you the honest truth, I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since the first time I met you.”

  She gaped at him. “You thought I was a spoiled, privileged, self-centered Executive bitch, remember?”

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy smile that revealed a dimple on his cheek. “No, that’s what I thought of the others. I knew you were different from the moment you ever-so-politely tore Jewel to shreds with your words.”

  Nadia smiled a little at the memory. She lost almost as many verbal skirmishes with the Terrible Trio as she won, but the victories were sweet. And she remembered how Dante had visibly fought off a smile when Nadia cut Jewel down to size.

  “If you still want to kiss me when I come visit you tomorrow, believe me, I’ll be more than happy to let you.”

  Nadia swallowed hard, realizing he meant it. “You really mean to keep showing up here at midnight every night?”

  “Of course I do. I told you I would.” Once again, he cupped her face in his hands. “No matter what it feels like, you’re not alone in this. Okay?”

  Damn if Nadia’s eyes weren’t stinging again, but for very different reasons. No doubt she should be trying to talk Dante out of coming. There was risk every time they met, and he had to be running himself ragged. But she needed him too much to do the right thing. And besides, she doubted she was capable of talking him out of it anyway.

  Words couldn’t express how grateful she felt, so she recklessly threw her arms around him and hugged him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Nate buried his head in his pillow and willed himself to fall asleep. It didn’t work this time any better than it had worked the last fifty he’d tried. He flopped over onto his side and glared at his clock, which told him it was almost four A.M. His body felt sluggish and heavy with exhaustion, desperately in need of sleep, but his mind had other ideas, circling endlessly around his fears for Nadia and for his own bleak future with Agnes. He had to find his way out of the engagement.

  But even if he did, his father could easily find another would-be bride for him, one with as few redeeming features as Agnes. And Nadia’s reputation would still be destroyed.

  It was all so unfair he wanted to scream.

  Nate forced his eyes closed and took a deep breath, searching for a sense of calm or peace, but there was none to be found.

  If his nerves hadn’t been so taut and his mind so hyperactive, he probably never would have heard the very soft creak of his bedroom door opening, or the even softer sound of footsteps on the carpet as someone entered the room.

  Adrenaline jolted through his already-wired system, and he sat up with a startled yelp, suddenly convinced his father
had decided to dispose of him once and for all instead of forcing him into marriage.

  “Easy,” the intruder said, holding up his hands in a calming gesture. “It’s just me.”

  At the sound of Kurt’s voice, Nate let out a shuddering breath. His heart was still galloping, and he wondered if maybe he’d been closer to sleep than he’d realized, his mind right on the edge of a nightmare that Kurt had interrupted.

  “Sorry to scare you,” Kurt said as he approached the bed.

  Nate would have liked to pretend he hadn’t been scared, but Kurt would never buy the act. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he responded instead, making room so that Kurt could sit on the bed beside him.

  Kurt snorted. “It’s like this or not at all. Which would you rather?”

  “Don’t be a bastard.”

  “But I am a bastard.”

  Nate sat up and rubbed his bleary eyes. His mind was too slow and his heart too heavy for banter. He turned on the light beside his bed, though he quickly dimmed it to its lowest setting, to keep his eyeballs from searing.

  Kurt was dressed in his full Basement regalia, black leather pants hugging every curve of his ass and thighs, a red mesh shirt displaying the tattoos that covered his chest and abdomen. A silver bar pierced his eyebrow, and Nate could tell by the slight lisp that Kurt was wearing the little silver ball in his tongue. His eyes were lined with kohl, and his head was covered in a dark fuzz that suggested he was letting his hair grow back. He looked wild, and sexy, and mouth-wateringly tempting. And yet …

  “You’re wearing this getup for me, right?” Nate asked with narrowed eyes. “Not because you’re living in the Basement and have to blend in. Right?”

  Kurt’s smile looked almost sheepish, which was a rare expression for him. “I’m not gonna lie to you.”

  Nate resisted the urge to point out how many times he already had. “I thought we had a deal. I give you dollars, you don’t go back to Debasement.”

  Kurt reached out and brushed a caress over Nate’s cheek. “I love that you think you’re a man of the world and that you’re really so naive under it all.”

  Nate felt the color burning in his cheeks, but the affection in Kurt’s voice took a lot of the sting out of his words. “I’m not as naive as you think,” he said, because he couldn’t resist trying to defend himself.

  Kurt raised his pierced eyebrow. “And you thought an unemployed Basement-dweller could find a place to live somewhere other than in the Basement? They check ID if you try to rent or buy Employee housing, you know. Even if I showed up in the system as employed, you wanted me to keep my head down. If I rent a legitimate place, then I’m out there for anyone to find.”

  Nate felt like an idiot. He’d never in his life had to fend for himself, and it had never occurred to him that a Basement-dweller like Kurt couldn’t rent himself an apartment just because he had dollars.

  Kurt stroked his cheek again. “It’s okay, Nate. I lived most of my life in Debasement. I know how to stay safe there.”

  Nate swallowed hard. “At least tell me you’re not working.”

  Kurt showed no sign of being offended. “I’m not working. That’s what your dollars are for.”

  Of course. If those dollars weren’t going into rent, as Nate had originally intended, then they were buying Kurt some modicum of safety and security in Debasement. Allowing him to pay off whatever drug lords or gang leaders demanded as “rent” or “dues” or protection money. Food and shelter might be free in Debasement, but that didn’t mean a Basement-dweller didn’t need cash. There was a reason Kurt had sold himself before Nate met him, and it wasn’t because he enjoyed the work.

  Kurt’s lips lifted in a sudden, wicked smile. “’Course, not working means I’m not getting any.” He raised his hand to the V of Nate’s pajama top, fingers brushing over the exposed skin there.

  The touch peppered Nate’s skin with goose bumps and awakened an instant ache. One he had no right to be feeling under the dismal circumstances.

  “We shouldn’t—” he started to protest, but Kurt silenced him with a finger on his lips while his other hand slipped the first button of his pajamas free.

  “Forget that shit for a moment,” Kurt murmured. “You look like you could use some serious stress relief. Let me give it to you. We’ll talk after.”

  Nate found he didn’t have the strength of character to resist.

  * * *

  One thing Nate could say about Kurt: he knew how to deliver stress relief.

  Nate stretched languorously and wished they could stay in bed like this forever, never inviting the outside world back in. A little voice in the back of his head whispered that it was disloyal of him to be experiencing pleasure when, thanks to him, Nadia’s life had been ruined. He cuddled closer into Kurt’s arms in hopes of drowning that voice out, but as the sweat cooled on his skin and real life insisted on intruding, the afterglow dimmed.

  “Do you know about the engagement?” he asked, wondering if it was a coincidence that Kurt had made an appearance tonight, when Nate was reeling from his father’s cruelty.

  “Yeah.” Kurt gave him one more rib-crushing squeeze, then put a little distance between them on the bed and propped his head on his hand. “Dante overheard her folks fighting about it.”

  Nate frowned in puzzlement. Dante and Kurt obviously knew each other from their mutual resistance activities, but Nate was a little surprised that Dante found the engagement news so vital that he had to report it to Kurt on the very day he overheard the argument about it.

  Grinning, Kurt reached out and smoothed away the frown line between Nate’s eyebrows. “No, he didn’t rush out to tell me the moment he heard the news.” The grin faded. “He went to visit Nadia earlier tonight.”

  “What?” Nate yelped, sitting up in a hurry.

  Kurt sat up more slowly. “He meets her at the fence line every night. Not anything official—I didn’t know about it until he called me earlier. Says it’s for moral support.”

  Kurt was looking into Nate’s eyes searchingly. Nate tried not to show the irrational anger that spiked through his heart at the thought of Dante having secret nocturnal meetings with Nadia.

  “You have a problem with that?” Kurt asked, that pierced eyebrow of his arching higher than ever.

  “No!” Nate said, a little too sharply to be convincing. He blew out a deep breath. “I’m being stupid,” he admitted. “I don’t like Dante, and I don’t like the idea of Nadia leaning on him.” It should have been Nate she leaned on, Nate who was there when she needed him. For most of his life, they had been each other’s only true friends, their friendship untainted by jealousy or politics or ambition. He hated that Dante had been out to see her, and he had not.

  “You’re jealous.”

  “No, I’m not.” Nate mentally rolled his eyes at himself for the childish—and even less convincing—response.

  “Yes, you are,” Kurt said with a laugh, ruffling Nate’s hair affectionately. Nate batted his hand away, not in the mood for playful gestures. Though at least the playful gesture told him his irrational jealousy wasn’t hurting Kurt’s feelings.

  “Like I said, it’s stupid. I don’t want her like that.”

  “But you don’t want anyone else to want her ‘like that,’ either.”

  The twinkle in Kurt’s eyes said the teasing was still good-natured, but Nate was uncomfortably aware that Kurt didn’t exactly see in him a pinnacle of maturity. Kurt could have been describing a child throwing a tantrum because some other kid was playing with his discarded toy.

  “Maybe there’s a part of me that doesn’t,” he admitted reluctantly. “But I don’t want Nadia to be facing this alone.” Nate wondered if there was some way he could tag along with Dante to one of these secret meetings of his, but quickly dismissed the idea. First of all, they’d probably kill each other before getting to the retreat. Second of all, Nate would probably end up feeling like a third wheel, and a jealous one at that. And third, he had to be e
xtra careful with his movements, sure his father had eyes watching him all the time. If he snuck off to visit Nadia in the dead of night, the Chairman would retaliate by making sure Nadia was moved out of his reach.

  “Well, looks like you don’t have to worry about her facing it alone after all.”

  “You can stop teasing me anytime now.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  Nate couldn’t help smiling. It had only been a couple of weeks since Kurt had been by his side day and night, but it felt like a lifetime ago, and he sorely missed the easy camaraderie between them. Their lives were so different that it was almost impossible to imagine that they could relate to each other in any meaningful way, and yet there had always been a palpable connection between them.

  “I miss you,” Nate said softly, his heart aching with the loss.

  “Then hire me back. You don’t want Nadia to be alone, and I don’t want you to be alone.”

  The temptation to say yes was almost overwhelming. If he had Kurt back in his life, available whenever he needed him, maybe the situation with Agnes would become more bearable. But Nate had just seen a perfect example of how the Chairman could shatter lives, and he didn’t dare put Kurt at risk.

  “The guy I was before would have been selfish enough to do it,” he said. “Maybe something got lost in translation when I was made into a Replica, but I feel like that guy, the original Nate, is a total stranger to me. I can’t put you in danger just because I’m lonely. I won’t.”

  “You’re the same guy,” Kurt countered. “You’re so much the same I keep forgetting you’re a Replica. You were never selfish. You were just … careless, sometimes.”

  “Careless” didn’t sound much better to Nate, but he wasn’t going to argue about word choice.

  “Everything that’s happened … It’s kinda opened your eyes. So you’re different, but you’re still the same guy.”

  Nate allowed himself a little snort of laughter. Maybe Kurt was right. Maybe the changes in him had nothing to do with being a Replica and everything to do with the crap life had thrown at him recently.