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We’re interrupted by the waiter again when he comes to take our orders. I’ve barely had time to look at the menu, which feels like a shame in a restaurant like this, so I quickly choose something that sounds good.
Sloan orders with practiced ease, like he’s used to this kind of dining all the time, and where that would usually piss me off about him, now it just adds to his appeal.
I don’t know what it is about tonight, but he seems almost like an entirely different person.
I can’t tell whether this is the mask or the other version of Sloan is, but something about the way he’s acting right now draws me in like nothing else.
He’s actually surprisingly easy to talk to when he’s not being a dick, and his steel-gray eyes are bright and open. I find myself leaning across the table to be closer to him, following the scent of his cologne and his natural musk, devouring every word he says.
The food arrives, and we barely notice, so wrapped up in each other that we take distracted bites and then get back to… whatever it is we’re doing. The conversation flows naturally, and we tease each other, trading quips and flirtatious comments as easily as breathing.
And then, all of a sudden, it’s too much.
Somewhere in the middle of dinner, the reality of the situation hits me in a rush, reminding me where I am and who I’m talking to. I jerk a little, snapping myself out of the moment as I lean back in my seat, nostrils flared and heart pumping like I just ran a marathon.
I glance down at the table, noticing that my food is still mostly untouched and growing cold—all because I was so engrossed in conversation with fucking Sloan of all people.
A sick feeling tightens my stomach, giving the back of my tongue a metallic taste.
“Um… I’ll be right back,” I say, giving him a shaky smile before quickly getting up and heading to the back of the restaurant.
There’s no line for the bathroom, and of course it’s just as fancy as the rest of this damn place. At the beginning of the night, that felt exciting, now it’s just as sour as everything else. After peeing quickly, I step up to the elaborate row of sinks and look at my face in the mirror. My cheeks are still a little flushed, and I wonder if that’s how I looked out there, hanging on to everything Sloan said.
“Fuck,” I mutter, turning on the sink and splashing some water on my face to cool it down and help get my head back on straight.
It’s so fucking stupid. I came here with a plan, and I was on track even, and then I got sucked in. Whatever fucking act Sloan has been putting on worked to get me to listen to him, to believe him.
All of it is bullshit. He’s not some charming guy who misses his mom and deals with pressure from his dad, and he certainly doesn’t give a shit about me and my feelings.
He’s a murderer, plain and simple, and I have to remember that. I can’t let myself get duped.
I stare hard at my reflection, trying to drill that simple truth into my head with just a glare, and when another woman enters the bathroom, I pull myself together and slip back out.
&nbs
p; The little hall that separates the dining area from the bathrooms is narrow, and I nearly walk right into someone coming from the opposite direction.
I step back quickly, an apology on my lips, but when I look up into the face of the person I nearly collided with, I stop dead.
It’s a man, tall and broad, and for a second…
He looks just like my dad.
My heart leaps, and I stare up at him with wide eyes, but then the differences come trickling into my awareness. This man seems older than my dad, and the face is different. The resemblance was so striking at first that it caught me off guard, but now I’m just a weirdo staring at a stranger in a hallway by the bathrooms.
“Sorry,” I mutter, wrenching my gaze from his face.
I quickly step out of his way and keep my head down as I walk back to the table. Tears burn my eyes, and I’m suddenly glad I didn’t eat much, because my stomach is churning.
For a wild second, I believed my dad was still alive. It was just a second, but that’s enough to bring all that grief and anger crashing back down. Every bit of it comes flooding back, and I remember all over again why I’m doing this. Why I’m out on this “date” right now in the first place.
It’s not to have fun or to eat a nice meal. I’m not trying to actually get to know Sloan—not any more than I need to in order to take him down, anyway. He’s the one who took my dad away from me. He’s the one who caused this, and he and the rest of his gang have to pay.
Whatever spell was hovering over the table before I got up to pee is well and truly broken by the time I get back. I was sort of having a good time, getting drawn in by the lie I’m living, pretending this is a real date. But that’s all over.
I can’t capture any of that easy lightness and banter I had before, and when Sloan glances up at me, I realize that the old version of him is back. Maybe I blew it by leaping up to run to the ladies room like that, severing the growing connection between us. Or maybe he’s just physically incapable of acting like a human being for more than a couple hours at a time.
Either way, the light is gone from those gray eyes, and he’s back to being cold and distant, as if someone pulled the shutters over the vibrancy he had before.
