Leaning on the railing, I look at the city below.
My thoughts flicker back to the dress.
Why? Why did he get that dress? It had nothing to do with him. He could’ve just let it go. My chest pulls tight.
I press a fist to my sternum, right over the spot where it lives.
Don’t. Don’t do this.
I don’t want to feel this way for anyone. I don’t want to sit and examine what this annoying man makes me feel. It’s easier to ignore it, but when he does things like these, I can’t stop the flutter in my heart.
When was the last time someone looked out for me, tried to protect me? Why is it that when I’m with Grayson and his son, I don’t want to go home? They make me forget my own loneliness and the dark, dismal life that is mine.
I’m convenient. I’m useful. That’s all this is supposed to be.
I don’t know what to do with any of this.
I’m so busy telling myself what not to think about that I don’t hear the door until it’s already open. I straighten, push off the railing, and start crossing toward the other side of the roof.
“Well.” The voice stops me cold. “Now I understand.”
I know that voice. I keep walking.
The dry snap of a lighter. The first exhale of a cigarette.
“I was trying to work it out,” Axel says from behind me. Conversational, like we’re colleagues catching up between rounds. “Why you stood me up the first time. Why you acted like such a stuck-up bitch at dinner last night.” He pauses. “And then I remembered why that man who threw the money on the table looked so familiar.”
I stop. I don’t turn around.
“You’ve been spreading your legs for a hockey player.”
The words land on the back of my neck like ice.
I turn around.
Axel is near the door with a cigarette between two fingers, his white coat open. He’s looking at me with something I recognize now and didn’t name correctly before. Not interest. Possession, or the assumption of it. Colder. More dangerous.
“You want to repeat that?” My voice comes out very steady.
“I didn’t take you for somebody like that.” He tilts his head, and the sneer settles into his face like it’s been waiting there. “A groupie.”
I walk toward him. The wind pulls at my hair. “Grayson is my—” I stop. “My friend.”
“Your friend.” He drags on the cigarette, unhurried. “Grayson Wolfe. Never seen with the same woman twice.” He blows the smoke out slowly. “Funny thing, though. I don’t recall Grayson Wolfe having a son.”
The roof goes quiet.
He means Ethan. I can see it in his eyes, the outline of the knowledge, the pleasure of having it. I don’t know how. I don’t know what he saw or heard or pieced together. But he has something, and he knows I know it.
Petty asshole.
I take three steps toward him. “What do you want?”
“Nothing now.” He drops the cigarette and grinds it under his shoe. His eyes stay on my face, cold and amused. “I don’t like being rejected, Miranda. Not by anyone.” He tilts his head. “Especially not by someone like you.”
“Someone like me?” I narrow my eyes.
“I wonder what the media would say,” he says mockingly. “About a playboy hockey player. With his whore.” The pause is deliberate. “And his bastard son.”
