Page 45 of Cruel Lies

A case for what?

"Maybe," I say with a shrug. "I don't see what it changes."

"You need more," he says firmly. "Before you can draw a real conclusion. So give me more."

"Give you more what?"

"Chances. You needed eight receipts to deem your husband a liar and a cheat. Give me eight chances to show you that I'm anything but that."

The blood goes out of my face and then comes rushing back into it, hot. I'm confused, sort of offended, sort of flattered, and completely out of sorts all at once… and I think, based on Ronan's expression, that that's exactly what he wanted.

"If the picture it paints," he continues, watching me far too closely, "is that I'm the same kind of bad man as your ex—" His jaw tightens around the wordex,and I can't tell if it's distaste for Todd or for the comparison between the two of them. "—then the conclusion is yours to draw. You hand me this, and I'll disappear from your life without another word. No follow-up. No chance encounter at your coffee shop dressed up as fate. Nothing. You'll never see me again."

"Hand you what?"

He takes one hand out of his pocket.

In it is a cocktail napkin.

It's small and neatly folded. There's a logo printed in the corner, plum-colored, a stylized something-or-other I half-remember, and a watermark ring where a glass once sweated through it.

I know that napkin.

I know that napkin because it was mine. A week ago, my martini was dripping condensation into the black paper while a handsome stranger chatted me up with piercing eyes that didn't smile when his mouth did. At some point, I must have set it down on the bar and walked out without ever once looking back.

Turns out he kept it.

And now here he is, offering it back to me like some kind of token, some kind of marker, a Get Out of Jail Free card for a relationship I don't have any interest in starting.

I don't take it.

"Am I supposed to be impressed?" I say, feeling kind of bitchy but mostly just uncertain.

"It's just designed to show you I was paying attention," he says. He presses it into my hand. "Hold onto it. At the end, if the data says what you think it'll say, you give it back. If not… well, it's just a napkin, and you can do with it as you please."

A warm breeze comes up the steps and teases open the flap of my robe. I'm suddenly reminded that I'm standing in my own doorway in my pajamas, while the most dangerous, alluring man I've ever met offers eight dates to prove me wrong.

Didn't I just swear off men forever? I did.

But…

What if Iamwrong?

"I bet you think this whole stunt is really clever."

"No," he says, shaking his head. "I thinkyouare. Because you're willing to reconsider. If you weren't, you'd already have slammed the door in my face, and this story would be over before it started. But you didn't, because you know I'm right. It's bothering you, just enough, and you can't stand to leave a bad dataset alone. It's not in you."

"Don't pretend you know what's in me."

"I don't," he agrees. "That's the whole point. I'm asking for the chance to find out, on the record, with a sample size big enough to mean something. Eight." He folds my fingers around the napkin in my palm. "If I'm what you think I am, you'll know by then."

I look at the napkin, then up at his face. The wind ruffles his hair and his eyes gleam, half gray and half blue.

We both know what I'm thinking.

I want the data.

I don't wanthim,I hurry to remind myself, just like it wasn't desire I felt at the bar when something glitched in my body the first time he called mekotyonok.