Now I wanted to smack him.
But he also radiated hurt. He gently stroked the kitten’s head, and I couldn’t handle the cognitive dissonance of it all. Someone wasn’t telling the truth, because neither Malone nor his actions matched Trista’s description.
“What about you, Stark? Before you tell me about the puzzle piece, what about your relationship? Who did you kick to the curb?”
“Cute how you think I was the one doing the kicking.”
His eyes traveled down my body, then met my gaze again. “What kind of idiot would dump a woman like you?”
His warm words were a balm to my wounded soul. Best I could tell, he meant them.
Unless, of course, he had sociopathic tendencies and was very much the asshole Trista had described. Thing was ... I wanted to believe him.Tears pricked, but I used the stare-at-the-ceiling-and-blink trick to keep them at bay.
“Hey, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said.
I shook away any thoughts that would distract me from focusing on Malone. His reactions to my story would tell me a lot, so why not tell him?
Instead of telling my story, though, I found myself saying, “I don’t even understand what you see in me.”
He poured a little more wine for each of us. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “I’m honestly not.”
“I mean, sure, you’re beautiful with curves for days, but you’re also witty. You’re philanthropic—”
I snorted.
“—very ladylike—”
Which made me snort again.
“—and I’ve always had a thing for brunettes. Beautiful smile, and the first day I met you, you were wearing that leather jacket over a tank top and looked like you’d just walked out of a rock video. Stunningly cool.”
That’s right. Ihadbeen wearing my leather jacket. Technically it had been a bit warm for that, but I’d almost left it at Nana’s house. Wearing it was far easier than packing it by that point.
“Most of all, though,” he said as he pointed to the framed puzzle piece, “you’re intriguing.”
“Now that’s an adjective no one has ever used to describe me.”
He shrugged. “Then they weren’t looking hard enough.”
“Maybe I should keep my story to myself. I’d hate to give up ‘intriguing’ within five minutes of having it used as a descriptor.”
“Oh, I doubt that’ll be a problem.”
I hesitated. If I told him my origin story—i.e., how and why I’d taken that puzzle piece from Aunt Edna—would he catch on to my ultimate plans for him?
I needn’t have worried. Once I got to the part about crawling around on the floor while pretending to look for the missing piece, he laughed out loud, startling the kitten. “Who knew you were such a vigilante for justice?”
Oh, Malone, you have no idea.
Just as I settled in, pleased with myself for making him laugh, he turned serious eyes on me. “But what about the idiot who dumped you?”
That night still felt too raw, an incident I hadn’t fully processed because I didn’t believe in processing anything. Memories and emotions went into the vault. No good ever came of sharing the darkest, most painful things, Nana had taught me that.
Something about Malone’s sympathetic gaze had me mentally undoing the combination to that emotional safe. Maybe it was the contrast between his eyes or how gently he held the kitten. Maybe my emotional vault was full of hurts and threatening to burst. Maybe I was tired from hauling it around.
After a shaky breath, I told him the story I hadn’t yet told anyone except Havisham and Salcedo. Even then, I gave them only snippets. “One night I came home from a stakeout with a bottle of champagne. My ex had bet me I couldn’t serve papers on this guy, but I did. He’d—the ex, that is—been distant as of late, so I thought it would be nice to reconnect with a little celebration.”
