Chicago.
“What about your other ones?”
She yawned, her eyes closing. “Other what?”
“All your tattoos? Where did you get each one?”
Her lashes fluttered. “What’s the big deal, Nico?”
ThatNicowasn’t a caressing endearment. It was a warning. His stomach churned.
Too bad he’d never been good at heeding warnings. “Did you get a tattoo in every city we met up in?”
She straightened, clutching the sheet to her chest. “Huh?”
“There’s a pattern. Boston, D.C., L.A., New York, Chicago. I flew to all those places over the years. I’m betting you have other cities we met in on you, don’t you? Atlanta? Minneapolis?”
“Uh, I was living in those places, of course I got ink there. And I got tattoos in places we never met up.” She raised her arm and flashed the tiny velociraptor on her inner biceps. “That was in Denver.”
Well used to her wily ways, he rested on his elbow and watched her. “I asked you if you got something in every city we met up in, not if you only got them in those places.”
“So what if I did?”
He tensed. “That’s interesting.”
“Why is it interesting?” She rolled her eyes. “It just is.”
His gaze dropped to the pot of gold on her hip. She’d gotten that one the day after her seventeenth birthday.
He might love patterns, but Livvy loved anniversaries. He had trouble swallowing. “It was the next day, wasn’t it? Each time?”
“Jesus, what does it matter?” She sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed, tugging the sheet so she could wrap it around her body toga-style.
She stood and stalked over to her dress, picking it up and shaking it out, the petticoat flaring.
He ran his hand over his face, suddenly, fiercely tired. “Livvy, I thought you wanted to resolve the stuff between us.”
She dropped the sheet and stepped into her dress, quickly zipping it up before he could be distracted by her body. “That’s what we’re doing.”
“We’re not if you won’t talk to me.”
“This conversation is pointless. You’re digging for something and I don’t understand what.”
“Were you punishing yourself? For sleeping with me?”
She drew back, a sneer on her lips. “No, dumbass. Tattoos are never punishment.”
She’d skipped calling him Nicholas and gone straight to dumbass, but he didn’t have the mental reserves to deal with that.
She smoothed her badly wrinkled skirt. “Why would you even think that?”
“Because I know you... hurt... after we broke up.”
“Yeah, I told you that.”
“I know...” He licked his lips, certain he should shut up, but unable to stop himself. “I know you were depressed. I know you said you wanted to die.”
She went utterly still, every muscle frozen. It was like looking at a statue. Her lips barely moved when she spoke. “Who told you that?”
