The girl and I meet for a drink in a cheap bar. She talks a lot, and I let her. Personally, I find it wild that a woman talks about all her ex-girlfriends on a first date, including an experience with a man,but then, I don’t really want to date her. Yet, I pretend to understand and hear her; I feel like a therapist at this point. But it keeps the cover, because the real me would never be that nice—Ella, however, would.
Suddenly, someone walks up to our table from behind me. I feel it first and then see it in my date’s eyes.
“Hi,” says Lilian as her hand brushes over my shoulder. I have to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep the grin of my success from showing on my face.
“Excuse me,” Lilian says to my date. “But she’s taken. Now hush.”
My date looks at me, horrified.
“You see that bodyguard there?” asks Lilian, her voice dangerously. “I’d leave fast before I tell him to remove you.”
The poor girl jumps up and flees the bar.
Lilian can be very intimidating, not that I didn’t expect it. In any other setting, I would’ve already made her bend for me, just for the sake of showing her her place.
Lilian sits down opposite me, in a navy female suit and an ascot, perfectly fitted—a mix of old money and main character. I stare at her with my hand in front of my mouth because I am caught speechless in a limbo of containing myself from saying all the things I shouldn’t say and being robbed of my words because that move, plus the way she looks, is damn hot.
“Hi, I’m Lilian,” she says and holds out her hand.
Between hating her and being somehow intrigued by her, I bite my lips as a grin spreads over my face, because damn, she really has balls. And style.
Lilian very well notices my reaction. I close my eyes and shake my head slightly. I can’t believe she’s really doing that.
“I thought you didn’t do romance,” I say. “So why are you here?”
“Saving you from a boring date with a woman who is mentally unstable,” Lilian says carelessly.
She’s so overstepping and calculating.
“And you are?” I ask, eyebrow drawn up.
“Very.”
“Mhm,” I say. “Overconfidence, boundary-crossing, cold-hearted, don’t ever fall in love with me rich girl. Sounds like something between childhood trauma and a diagnosis with a -pathy in the end to me.”
Lilian laughs. One of the rich laughs that only very wealthy people have.
“Sounds about right,” says Lilian.
Don’t, don’t, don’t,I tell myself, before I do it.
“I wonder what made you stay in the hotel under a false name.”
Lilian’s face falls for the tiniest fraction of a second before she rearranges her masks.
“I’m sure you have heard about what happened with my colleague and co-founder if you went so far as searching for me.”
“I have. That’s how I knew who you really are. So, you were scared.”
“Why is it so important?” asks Lilian.
“Just checking if you are a person or if I need to get into protective custody after saying no to you,” I say in a sardonic tone and a small chuckle. I notice my cover fading. I can’t keep Ella present enough with Lilian.
Lilian eyes me. I can feel it. I said one thing too much. There is no way around it. I have to kill her today.
That talk she had with her father…Maybe she’s getting the girls for him. She has said all the indicative things. There is no way she is not guilty. She admitted being guilty of something, for heaven’s sake. She makes me slip. And I can’t have anything slip further.
“What drives you?” she asks me out of the blue, and I am utterly taken aback.
