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I was sure he knew that. Exploited it like he’d exploited so much else.
The corner of his mouth curved. “Of course.”
A knock sounded on the door behind me and I jumped, colliding with his impossibly hard chest. He caught me and turned me toward the door, opening it without missing a beat.
My sister waited on the other side, her mouth pursed. “You need help getting that bandage on, Costas?”
“Nope, Daffy’s all set.” I held up my hand as proof, amazed it didn’t shake.
I’d only just found out the guy I’d slept with three times—four if I counted the club—was practically a murderer.
Eight
Dinner was hell.
With the way the evening had started, it wasn’t as if I’d expected much. I’d walked in to blood, then Carly fainted and awakened pissed and shaky.
I never did well with shaky women. They made me react in one of two ways. Either I hovered too much, or I goaded them into being so annoyed at me that they forgot to be unsteady.
Carly usually seemed to bring out the second reaction.
I had no right to talk to her the way I had. Her boyfriend—or whatever he was—wasn’t my business. She wasn’t my girlfriend, and after what she’d been through the other night, I never should’ve stooped so low as to taunt her about being aroused by me.
So what if she was? I didn’t want that. The timing was horrible, and I wanted her safe. Even if I was jealous as hell about that other fucker, and even if I couldn’t stop thinking about being inside her, her well-being had to be my first priority.
No matter what.
Instead of ensuring she was doing okay after the trauma she’d suffered, I’d only ended up inflicting more by throwing out that attempted murder bullshit. It was all true, but context was important, and I’d deliberately left that part out. I’d hoped she would think the worst so she would steer clear of me, not look at me with challenge in her eyes as if she was even more intrigued.
Damn inexplicable woman.
Then we’d sat down to her delicious casserole and the salad Mia had massacred. Carly had been right to worry about her tomatoes. Mia had just halved a bunch and thrown them in the bowl.
Carly spent the entire meal whispering and giggling with Jenna, who was supposedly slightly older but seemed ridiculously young. Even worse than Carly.
I felt like I was tainting them by sitting at the same table. Carly, I wanted to taint, in spite of how hard I fought against my urges in that direction. Jenna, I wanted to lock up in a convent before some dickhead came along and killed that youthful joy in her big green eyes.
It was hard to focus on the rest of the dinner conversation when I was so busy trying to overhear what they were up to. They were plotting something, I just knew it. Girls that age were nothing but trouble.
Girls of all ages, but that one especially.
“I guess now’s as good a time as any to spill the beans.” Fox shot me a glance. “I’m going to fight again. One night only. Against that fuckwit at the other end of the table.”
Silence reigned.
Predictably, Mia broke it first. “Say the fuck what?”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin. “It’s no big deal. Just like Fox said, one night rematch for our fight in January. Then he’ll go back into retirement with his pockets a little fuller and his chest a little more pumped up—if he kicks my ass as he claims he can.” Out of the side of my mouth, I added, “Doubtful.”
Mia glanced at Fox. “Since when do you want to fight again?”
He leaned back in his chair and hooked an arm around the back of it. We were all crowded around their small kitchen table, though luckily, Mrs. Knox was out so there was one less person there than usual. But Jenna had taken up that room and how with her incessant laughter with Carly.
Times like this I realized how very young she was. Not just chronologically, but in other ways too. I didn’t doubt she’d seen difficult things, some more difficult than even I could guess, but she was still a young girl in so many ways. And I wanted her to stay that way, not become a hardened shell of a person like me.
“I don’t want to fight again,” Fox said finally, catching my eye. “You could say I was persuaded by very effective means.”
“What means?” Mia narrowed her eyes in my direction. “I knew you were up to something the last few months. Trying to make us think we were all buddies now, ingratiating yourself, dragging Tray into dangerous situations.”
