Speak of the Devil by Jenna Black Page B

in the kitchen, but didn’t bother to put them away. Brian hadn’t followed, so I went back to the entryway.
    “Would you like me to make some coffee?” I asked, trying to sound normal.
    “No.” Brian’s voice was brusque and curt. No pretense of normalcy here.
    “Then should we sit down?”
    “No,” he said in that same tone of voice.
    I shook my head, starting to get pissed off myself.
    “Enough with the caveman grunts already! Just tell me what’s the matter.”
    He met my eyes, and for the first time ever, I saw genuine coldness in his gaze. It was almost enough to make me take a step backward, but then I decided it was ridiculous to be scared of Brian, no matter how upset he was.
    Still giving me that marrow-freezing look, he reached into the manila envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper. Without another word, he shoved it in my face.
    With a sigh, I took the paper from Brian’s hand. It was a short letter, printed out on plain white copy paper. I started to read.
    Mr. Tyndale, I thought you might be interested to know that your girlfriend has spent the night with Adam White on more than one occasion
.

    I gasped, and the paper jerked in my hand. My jaw dropped open, and I looked at Brian in horror. But the note wasn’t finished yet, and I forced myself to read the rest.
    Lest you think these overnight stays were somehow innocent, I must tell you that I have attained some concrete information about what took place while she was there. I presume Ms. Kingsley has mentioned to you Mr. White’s distasteful proclivity toward sadistic sexual practices. Would you be interested to know that in Mr. White’s house there is a bullwhip that bears traces of Ms. Kingsley’s blood?

    The note was signed “An Interested Observer.”
    My face lost all color, and for a moment, the roomseemed to swim before my eyes. My hands shook hard enough that I dropped the sheet of paper. I couldn’t have looked more guilty if I’d tried. Why, oh why, hadn’t I told Brian the truth when I’d had the chance? I wished he didn’t have to know at all, but at least if he’d gotten it from me, this damn note wouldn’t be so devastating—or hard to explain.
    “It’s not what you think,” I stuttered, then wanted to slap myself upside the head for uttering the most guilty-sounding phrase in the English language.
    “The hell it isn’t,” Brian growled at me. He wasn’t giving me the icy stare anymore. In fact, he couldn’t even bear to look at me. “This is why you were so touchy about Lugh, isn’t it? Because you already had a guilty conscience!”
    I tried to reach out to him, but he jerked away before I made contact. “Don’t touch me!”
    I took a deep, quavering breath. I had vowed to myself never to tell him what Adam had done to me, what I had
let
Adam do to me in exchange for his help rescuing Brian. If I didn’t have Lugh around to keep my dreams under control, I’d have had recurring nightmares about the hell I’d gone through in Adam’s black room. I’d never wanted Brian to find out, and, most of all, never wanted him to feel guilty about the sacrifice I’d made to save him.
    I wasn’t even sure if it would be better for Brian to think I had cheated on him than to know the truth. But I couldn’t bear for him to think that.
    I sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm myself, knowing that my next words were crucial to whether our relationship could survive this blow. “What happened between me and Adam wasn’t in the least bit sexual,” I said carefully.
    Brian laughed bitterly, and he allowed himself to look at me once more. I almost wished he hadn’t,because the combination of pain and fury in his eyes was more than I could bear.
    “Don’t bother lying to me,” he said. “Your face is an open book, remember?”
    “Yes, and I’m telling you the truth. Adam did whip me, but it wasn’t sexual. It was about as far from sexual as it’s possible to get.” For me, at least. I still remembered how