Page 40 of Vicious Betrayal

Who else has ever made an effort for me? Tried to give me something I haven't even had to ask for? Who else, other than this man, who is fighting his sense of decency every step of the way because I make him want to break every rule he set for himself?

He told himself he shouldn't have me, but he has, again and again. He's lost control, made himself change, bent his rules for me.

And I'm going to destroy him. But not tonight.

Tonight… I just let myself enjoy this, even if it's selfish and cruel to us both. I can't do anything else. Not when this moment is everything I've ever wanted, and didn't even know that I did.

I tighten my hand around his. "I'm glad you let something unexpected happen," I whisper.

He doesn't say anything, just squeezes my hand a little tighter, too. And we stand there, watching the moonlight over the water, and I'm not even a little bit cold.

One day, I'm going to owe him so much, too, I know. And I'll have no way to ever repay that debt, or all the things I'm going to do to him that I feel more and more he'll never actually deserve.

—

Nearly two months into our sort-of relationship, I still have nothing.

Cormac is very, very good at keeping the two parts of his life separate. I always thought he would be—I don't imagine someone becomes a mafia boss's right hand by being bad at keeping information to themselves—but it makes what I need to do all but impossible. And the FBI is getting more and more impatient with every passing day. My dreams are filled with Reyes's voice on a loop, repeating words like paperwork trail and ledgers and documentation and something that is actual evidence we can use.

I've told her again and again all the things that I've tried that haven't worked. He doesn't have phone conversations near me. He keeps work mostly separate from his time with me, which in any other relationship I would appreciate deeply. In this one, it's a source of never-ending frustration, which I realize is deeply ironic—I have a not-quite-boyfriend who still gives me his undivided attention when we're together, and I'm upset about it.

Complicating matters further is the fact that deep down, I know I'm falling for him. I try to tell myself I'm not, but every evening we spend curled up on the couch watching movies after insane sex and before more sex, every time he takes me into that room and unlocks some new desire I didn't know I had, every motorcycle ride and visit to the diner, I can feel the emotions I have for him deepening. And although I don't think he'd ever admit it, from the way he looks at me, I think he's feeling very much the same.

But I don't have anything for the FBI, and I need to. So, desperate for some way to show them that I'm trying a new avenue, I ask him the one thing that I know I'm supposed to stay away from, and that I told him in the beginning I have no interest in.

I try to pick a neutral time, on a weekend afternoon when we're both lazily sprawled out on the couch. I've been scrolling on my phone, and he's reading, both of us sleepy post-sex and lunch, the rain outside only adding to the atmosphere.

I glance over at him, feeling my heartbeat pick up. If he says no to this, I truly don't know where to go from here.

"I want to come with you sometime," I say slowly, trying not to sound like I've been practicing it in my head. "To something. A party, an event. I don't know what you have coming up." She pauses. "My dad doesn't run in the same circles as your boss does, I think. So he won't find out."

He looks at me over the top of the book. "What kind of event?"

"Just… I don't know, something you have to go to where other people you know will be. I know you have those sorts of things. You mentioned last week you had a gala event to go to."

I see him tense slightly, immediately. My nerves go up a notch.

"That's not a thing you come to."

I feel a stab of rejection, and shove it down. This isn't about my feelings; it's about the fact that the FBI is going to run out of patience any day now. I'm not really his girlfriend, and I shouldn't really care whether he might or might not take me somewhere. "Why not?"

He sets the book down. "Because it's not that kind of evening."

"I'm not asking to sit in on a meeting, Cormac. I'm asking to be your date." I push myself up a little on the couch. "I've been seeing you for almost two months. I know when we started it was one thing, but it feels like it's becoming something else. And I've never met anyone else in your life. I feel like there's something you're hiding, and I don't like how that feels."

He goes very quiet, and I can see him mulling over whether what I'm asking for is reasonable, or if I'm pushing for something I shouldn't have. Usually when he looks like that, I give him time to come around to reasonable. Tonight I don't. I don't have time anymore not to push and find out what happens.

"I'm not going to tell anyone about your business or insert myself into anything. I know how this works. You know who my father is; I'm not ignorant of all of this. I just want to stop feeling like I don't exist except in this house or in very specific places you choose." I pause. "If you didn't know who I was, Declan won't know. You can tell anyone who asks that I'm someone you've been seeing off and on a few times. Arm candy." I shrug. "I don't even mind if you say that."

"It's not about what it looks like. Or… at least not entirely," he admits after a moment.

I refuse to let him see that it stings, that he still worries about what others might think about my age. I focus on the topic at hand, difficult as that is. "Then what is it about?"

He rubs a hand over his jaw. I can see the part of him that wants to say no because it's the right call. He's already made a hundred concessions he didn't intend to make. But I need him to make another, and I see the moment when he realizes how difficult it is to tell me no to anything I want.

I file that away. It might come in handy, one of these days.

"One night," he says finally. "You stay with me, you don't wander, and if I tell you it's time to go, we go."