A little smile curled at the edge of her lips and I wanted to gut him for inspiring it.
“He tried to kill me, actually.” I renewed my mental death list with Taylor’s name.
“And that switched to loyalty after…?”
She shrugged. “After I tied him to a chair and forced him to watch John Hughes movies on repeat until he talked. He appreciated my style, and stuck with me ever since.”
I sipped my wine to give myself time too think. Who was I bullshitting? Not myself. I purposefully sat the glass on the table and met her eyes. “Why did you take over your family business when everyone went to jail?”
It wasn’t nearly the question I wanted answered, but we were circling.
She shifted, and I felt her poised to bolt. Not letting her get away, I reached across the table and caged her hand in mine. She danced her gaze over my knuckles toward my face, taking the scenic route.
I wanted the answer, but I also wanted to wipe the expression off her face. A scared rabbit look as she sat frozen under my hand. “Why don’t you try a question first?”
I slowly retracted my hand.
She shifted side to side in the chair as if shaking off the moment before. “What did you go to prison for?”
I could have hedged, lied, done a million things not to answer, but I wanted to see something in her eyes, anything at all. “Involuntary manslaughter and possession with intent to sell.”
The little lines on her forehead puckered together while she considered. “How long were you in?”
“Twenty years.”
She sucked in a breath but quickly cleared the surprise from her features. “That must have been difficult.”
Now it was my turn to draw the line. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
She didn’t press, instead took another drink. She chased the droplets of wine across her lips with her tongue and all the need and anger and frustration bound itself together in my chest.
I shoved away from the table and held out my hand to her. “Shall we?”
Hoping to see a reaction flicker across her face, I monitored her carefully, but she gave me nothing except the hard set of her jaw as she took my hand.
I wanted to lay her out across my bed, strip her bare, and relieve every ache. But taking her into my room felt personal, like I’d be sacrificing something if I did. So I let her back into my office.
“You bring all your conquests to your office instead of your bed?” She asked, letting go of my fingers when we stopped.
I closed the door and let her wander around the space, her bare feet created little slapping sounds on the hardwood.
There were still very few things for her to see here. I wasn’t sure what she searched for, but I couldn’t take my eyes away. The bunch of her shoulders drew me as she explored a bookshelf. All bought for decoration by the designer before I moved in. My personal collection making a home beside my bed.
She trailed a finger down a spine and I shivered imagining that finger over my lips. The memory of her touch threatened to drag me into the past.
“Do you like to read?” she asked.
“I do, but I don’t have much time for it anymore.”
She nodded as she turned to hunt for something else to focus her attention on. Anything but me. I was content to stand and watch her in her efforts to ignore me.
She made it back to my desk and took her time inspected the grain of the stone.
“If you need more to look at I’m sure I can drag out my sock drawer for you to dive into.“
Her tucked chin chided me. I sat on the edge of the desk and held my hands.
She surveyed them for a long moment and then stepped between them. “I’m supposed to hate you.”
