“That isn’t what I asked, Lila.”
“Do you still yell ‘cows!’ when you see one?”
He cricks his head to the side, darkening his eyes at me. “Where. Is. She?”
I turn my foot outward and park my fists on my hips. “I don’t make it my business to track her every move.”
“How long has she been gone?”
“How’s your toe fungus? Get that cleared up yet?”
He rolls his head around. “Lila, quit it with the random distraction shit. Answer my questions. Where is Kenzie, and how long has she been gone?”
Raising my chin, I narrow my eyes at him. “I don’t have to answer you. I’m not under arrest, am I?”
“Should you be?”
Andthat’sanother question I won’t be attempting to answer for fear he’ll see the truth. “What is your problem with me,Reed? Why are you really here? For that matter, why have you been hanging around my table all week?”
I cut myself off before I ask why he’s been watching me for months before that. I’d rather not know the answer.
My coworker Katrina told me I had afanwho was hanging out at her bar for hours, staring at me half the time. I told her we had a harmless history and left it at that.
Maybe I should have told her it was a nasty history so she could have had him escorted out or banned.
Why am I so nice to someone who’s been such a jerk to me?
He doesn’t answer my questions, not that I expected him to. “Who was the guy watching you last week? What does he want?”
Heat flares through my chest. This time, it’s from anger rather than arousal. “The one you had me hauled into my manager’s office to question me about with the head of freaking security? At my farking job, Reed. I was humiliated. Isthatthe man you’re talking about?”
“Who is he, Lila? Why was he watching you? Be honest this time. I know you lied about not knowing him when we questioned you. That’s why I’ve been hanging around all week.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” I insist, clinging to the strands of honesty I weaved together that night to sell my story. “I honestly don’t know his name.”
He clicks his tongue. “There it is again. Same act as the night we questioned you.”
“There’swhatact again?”
“You’re answering an adjacent question instead of the one actually asked. Because you’re hiding something.”
“I didn’t lie.”
Uncrossing his ankles, he presses off the counter and gets right back up in my face. The heat of his body mingles with mine. “I didn’t ask his name. I asked if you knew who he was or what he wanted. How about you try answering honestly?”
“I don’t owe you a thing.”
He whispers his response. “No, you don’t.”
Languidly, he swipes a thick bunch of my hair over my right shoulder. He lets his gaze linger on the now-exposed spaghetti strap of my tank top.
After gently biting his lower lip, he slowly returns his focus to my face. “Lila, you know I’m eventually gonna figure out what you’re hiding. If you’re honest with me now, I can help keep you out of trouble.”
My voice quavers as I ask, “Who says I’m in trouble?”
“I know when I’m being lied to, Lila. Especially by you.”
“I asked you to leave.”
