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“What happened tonight?” I shouldn’t care, but the words slip past my lips anyway. I’ve seen Hale furious before, seen him tower with rage. But I’ve never seen him look so… broken.
He seems almost as startled by my question as I am. His eyebrows jerk upward slightly, then he narrows his eyes again, forcing his bleary gaze to focus. “A man died. A good man. One who should’ve lived.”
“I’m sorry.”
He makes a noise low in his throat, but I can’t tell what it means. He lifts the bottle again, but sets it down without drinking. Then he jerks his chin at me. “Come here.”
This time, my feet move against my will, responding to the undeniable command in his voice. Or maybe they’re just responding to the powerful force that seems to constantly be dragging me and this man closer and closer together like two magnets.
I stop a short distance away from him, and he inclines his head toward the bottle as if offering me a drink. When I shake my head, he reaches out and catches my wrist again, pulling me closer to him. His skin feels like it’s on fire, like the alcohol in his system is literally burning him up from the inside out.
“Tell me what you know, Grace,” he whispers.
Jesus. This again?
“I don’t know anything.” Irritation bubbles up in my chest, but even more powerful is the feeling of exhaustion. Will we go round and round forever, refusing to trust each other? Refusing to believe each other? “I’ve already told you that.”
“Then why are you here?”
He repeats the question, but I don’t really think it’s meant for me this time. I’m not sure who he’s asking. The universe? Himself?
We’re standing so close together that I can see the shadow of stubble on his jaw, the splotch of red on his neck—dried blood, maybe?—and the way his pupils seem to expand as he watches me.
“I’m here because you brought me here,” I say. “Because you stole me.”
In a flash, Hale moves. He spins us around so quickly I barely register what’s going on until my ass hits the solid desk behind me, almost hard enough to bruise. He steps between my legs, pressing into me with his solid body, stroking the smoldering flame inside of me. My body reacts in fear-filled pleasure, no longer sure what the fuck it wants.
No longer sure who it belongs to.
Me? Or Hale?
“Why aren’t you running, Grace?” he growls, his face inches away from mine. “Why aren’t you fighting? Why aren’t you pushing me away?”
“I don’t know.”
They’re the truest words I’ve ever spoken, and they burn as they slip past my lips.
He grins. It’s the reckless grin of a feral animal, and it makes him look sexy as fuck. Dangerous. Wild.
He’s never liked the answer I don’t know from me before, but maybe this time he knows exactly what it means.
Maybe he hears the words I can’t say. The ones I won’t say.
“Then fight me, Grace.” His breath fans over my mouth, and there’s a dare in his words. “Fuck me over like you always do.”
A sudden wave of sadness washes over me, taking me by surprise. Hale might truly never believe me when I tell him this, but I’m beginning to realize I didn’t know my father at all.
“I didn’t fuck you over, Hale.” I shake my head, meeting his cobalt gaze. “My father did. He betrayed the syndicate. He betrayed me.”
Hale blinks, drawing back a little to take in my face as his eyes track over my features. I know he can see the heartbreak in them, if he didn’t already hear it in my words.
His expression softens, an answering pain flickering over his own face, and I can’t tell if it’s pain for me or because of me—or maybe both.
Then he does something he’s never done in the entire time I’ve known him, not in this life or the one from my past.
He kisses me.
His head dips as his lips find mine, sweet and almost chaste. I can taste the alcohol on his breath, and I wonder fleetingly if that’s what brought about this unexpected softness, what broke through the barrier around his heart. Not me, but a half-bottle of expensive whiskey.
