Page 27 of Cruel Lies

His smile dims.

His hand on the back of the stool next to me slips off and tucks into his pocket, out of sight.

"That depends," he says slowly, "on your definition."

"Oh, c'mon," I needle, suddenly a little uncomfortable and wishing we could go back to the fun whiplash chatter from a moment ago. "That's a coward's answer."

"No. It's an honest one." He looks at me, and those eyes that don't quite smile are boring right into me now, steady and dark. "I'm certainly not a good man. I want to be very clear about that, so you don't go home thinking you spent your evening talking to one."

A shiver runs down my exposed spine. "Oh?"

"No." He runs a sensual finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. "But I'm not like the man in my office today. Not like your husband, either, whatever he's done."

"How do you know what he's done?"

"I don't. But I know that look on a woman's face. I've seen it before." He takes a slow sip of his drink and lets it linger on his tongue a moment before swallowing. "What I'm telling you is that whatever kind of bad you think I might be, you've got it wrong."

"Alright then, I'll bite. What kind of bad are you?"

He smiles then, but it's a cold smile, ice-cold, freezing cold.

"You couldn't dream me up if you tried,kotyonok," he says. "I'm bad in ways you've never even imagined. Ways that have nothing to do with lying to a woman or breaking her heart. Whatever your husband is, he's a child playing at being a villain. I assure you, I am not."

Something happens in my body that I refuse to dignify with the worddesire.

It's more like a full-system glitch. My stomach drops as if the elevator cable's been cut, and somewhere lower, a traitorous flutter starts up that I haven't felt in years. My instincts can't agree on a plan. Half of me is screamingrun, you absolute lunatic, grab your purse and run.The other half is doing something far more humiliating, something that involves the floor and my knees and a question I am not going to ask myself in a public lounge.

Thank God I'm not interested in men anymore.

Truly. Thank God. It's the only clean way out of what suddenly feels like a very unnerving situation.

"Well," I say through a tight throat, lifting my glass. "At least you're upfront about it."

"It costs me nothing to be honest with you," he says. "I'll never see you again."

"No," I agree. "You won't."

I look away, cheeks flushed. "Thank you for the second drink I didn't have," I tell him.

He nods solemnly. "It was my pleasure," he says. "If we ever do cross paths again, I'll even buy you a third."

"Good thing we won't then." I slide off the stool and grab my purse. I'm done with this evening, though I'm not totally sure if I got what I came for or not. "For the record," I say just before I go, "you're still a piece of shit. You said so yourself."

"I did," he agrees. "And you're still married."

"Technically."

"To technicalities," he echoes, and tips his glass to me one last time.

I walk out of the lounge into the night air, feeling better than I have in weeks. It's freedom surging through my veins. For so long, Todd had me worried that if he didn't love me or desire me, no one would. But that isn't true, is it?

It isn't that no one will ever want me again. That man in there just proved the opposite. It's that, from now on,Iget to decide the who, what, when, where, andifI let anyone take me to bed.

I'm in control of my life now.

Not men.

Me.