Page 152 of Vicious Temptation

“Thiago, you’re really asking me to be your guest at a charity event for cops? As in, spend an entire evening in a ballroom full of them?”

I stare at her, caught off guard by how ridiculous the idea sounds to her.

I wasn’t just asking her to attend some fucking fundraiser. I was asking her to come with me, to meet the people I work beside every day, and to spend one night as part of my life outside these walls. After everything we’ve shared tonight, I didn’t think that would be such a problem.

Turning toward the record player, I turn off the music. “What’s so wrong about that?”

“You know how I feel about cops.”

“But you and I⁠—”

“Are exactly what we’ve always been.”

I take a step back from her. “Remi⁠—”

“No, Thiago. You know what this is.” She throws her hands up. “We spend time together. We hook up. We have fun. That’s it.”

“That’s it?”

She looks away. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make this into something it isn’t.”

I fall back, trying to reconcile what she’s saying with the woman who showed up at my door tonight because she needed me. The same woman who sat in my lap, listened to me talk about my father, and without hesitation told me she trusted me.

“Right. I’m just a cop.”

Her eyes snap back to mine. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

She exhales sharply and drags a hand through her hair. “Thiago, I can’t be the person you’re asking me to be.”

Maybe I’m a hypocritical bastard. I have no right to feel hurt when I’m lying to her every day, but knowing that doesn’t make hearing her reduce everything between us to sex and fun hurt any less.

After everything that happened tonight with Elena and the assignment, somehow this is what finally gets to me.

“I have an early shift tomorrow.”

The words spill from my mouth before I can stop them.

Remi lets out a cold laugh. “Of course you do.” Her shoulder bumps into mine as she storms past me. “Lose my number, Braga.”

I know I should stop her, tell her I didn’t mean it, and find a way to explain why hearing her say we’re nothing got under my skin without admitting how much I’ve started to want us to be something.

But I stand there and let her leave.

By the time I make it back to the living room, the front door slams behind her, the sound echoing through my apartment.

I drop onto the couch and drag a hand over my face as a headache builds behind my eyes.

I really fucked that up.

Thirty-Eight

Remi