Page 148 of Vicious Temptation

A few minutes later, we’re settled on my couch with cake batter ice cream drowning beneath an unreasonable amount of chocolate sprinkles.

Remi sits with her legs folded beneath her and her body angled toward mine. Normally, she’d be talking, teasing me, or giving me shit about something, but tonight, she’s unusually quiet.

“What happened?” I ask, setting my bowl on the coffee table and turning toward her.

She pauses, the dessert halfway to her mouth. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

She gives me the faintest hint of a smile before it disappears just as quickly. I don’t push her. I simply wait until she finally sighs and sets her spoon down.

“I needed some company tonight, and with Val gone, AJ overseas, my brother busy, and Henry, the bellman at my condo, off for the night, well, you were what was left.”

I laugh and scoot closer. “Dead last, huh? I guess I’m just happy I made the list.”

She chuckles and looks down at her bowl, but there’s nothing behind the sound. I slip a finger beneath her chin and tilt her face toward mine.

“Okay. Now tell me why you’re really here.”

She holds my gaze for a moment before answering. “I put on music. I tried to watch a movie. I even took apart my AR and started stress cleaning it.”

“But?”

“It was too loud,” she whispers.

My brow furrows. “I thought you liked noise.”

“No.” Her eyes drop to her bowl. “I was too loud. I couldn’t stop thinking or overthinking everything, and eventually, I got tired of listening to myself.”

Her words take me back to the terrace and to what she told me about needing the city around her. All that sound gives her brain something else to focus on when the noise inside her head becomes too much.

“So you came here,” I say. “To me.”

She looks at me again and nods. “I did.”

“Why?”

Her lips part, and for a second, I think she’s going to tell me. Then the vulnerability leaves her expression, and I watch her retreat behind the same walls she always builds when we get too close.

“Aren’t you full of questions tonight, Braga?”

I laugh, but it doesn’t quite mask my disappointment. I could’ve sworn she was about to give me the answer I wanted, one I didn’t even realize I needed until now.

“You like me, don’t you?” I tease, breaking the tension.

She laughs, then dips her spoon into my bowl. Before I can protest, she brings the ice cream to my lips. Our eyes meet as I open my mouth and take the bite, then hook an arm around her waist and lift her onto my lap.

Her laughter softens, and mine fades with it.

There’s no rush to turn this into sex or to strip away the clothes between us. She came here because she didn’t want to be alone, and for now, having her curled against me feels like enough.

I wrap an arm around her as she keeps stealing bites of my ice cream as if it were hers. Guilt churns in my stomach when I think about the envelope now hidden in the kitchen, but I shove it aside. I’ve already let Helios take enough from me tonight, and I refuse to give them this as well.

Remi rests her head against my shoulder. “What was he like?”

The question catches me off guard.

I follow her gaze to the photograph on the bookshelf, taken the day my father was made detective. Emotions I usually keep buried begin to surface.