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She wipes her hands on a dish cloth and shrugs. “You tell me.”
I pluck a still-warm muffin from its casing and take a bite. Little clumps of baking soda burst against my tongue, and the undercooked batter sticks to the back of my throat.
Coughing, I reach for her glass of water and down it. Over the rim of the cup, she stares at me, wide-eyed. Hopeful. Brimming with a vulnerability I’ve never seen in her before.
“Well?” she demands, bottom lip sticking out.
“Incredible.”
The lie fights its way past the sour taste on my tongue, and I don’t know why I let it. I also don’t know why I’m trying to protect her feelings over a bit of fucking cake mix. But her face lights up like Times Square at Christmas.
“Really? You think?” She spins and opens the oven door, waving a hand to part the billow of smoke, and pulls out another tray. This time, cookies. Or rolls. Maybe cupcakes? Hard to tell under the layer of charcoal. “I discovered this cooking channel,” she says, jerking her head toward the television in the kitchen. “It’s on twenty-four seven, and the host walks you through two recipes an hour. I mean, she’s an annoying bitch, and if I saw her on the street, I’d probably kick her shins for my own gratification, but it works! It really works!”
She claps her hands together, bouncing up and down like a kid. There’s a silly grin on my face, and it feels foreign to me. I harden my expression and take a step back from the island, like putting physical distance between us will help settle the conflicting feelings in my chest that bounce around like balls in a pinball machine.
It’s not far enough. So I take a trip to the liquor cabinet, pour two plastic glasses of whiskey, and set one on the island for Romy.
She glances up at me in surprise, then looks back down at the liquid. “Is it poisoned?”
Wordlessly, I swap our glasses. This seems to be good enough for her, and she takes a sip, leaning against the counter. She looks girlish with the sleeves of her hoodie pulled up over her palms, cupping the liquor like it’s a cup of hot cocoa. This is the girl on paper. The one on the background check. Not the distressed hooker covered in Danny English’s blood who was one bad decision away from jumping out the window.
Ronan’s words tumble around my head. I have a feeling there’s something more to her.
“Where did you learn to fight?”
Her body flinches in surprise as if I’d just woken her up from a blissful nap on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon.
But she draws in a deep breath and says, “When you sell your body for money, you have to learn to protect yourself.”
“And that’s what you did with Danny English? Protect yourself?”
Her navy eyes turn black. “I already told you. I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her jaw works, no doubt reflecting the chaos in her brain. Eventually, her shoulders sag, and she licks her lips. “When I was younger, there were these men…” She grips her throat as if encouraging her vocal cords to carry on. “Sometimes, they’d visit me while I was sleeping, and they’d…”
For some reason, I can’t bear seeing her so uncomfortable when I’m not the cause of her discomfort. I feel the urge to end it.
“Touch you,” I finished for her.
A jerk of her chin confirms this. It makes white-hot anger pool in my stomach. I slug some liquor in an attempt to extinguish it.
“Give me their names, and I’ll kill them.”
She laughs a bitter laugh.
“What’s funny?” I growl.
Her mouth parts on instinct, ripening for a witty retort. But then she shakes her head and swaps it for another sentence. “I don’t remember who they were.”
“Every man who has ever paid you for sex.”
“What about them?”
“I want their names, too.”
She pins me with a blistering gaze. Those blue eyes swirl like lagoons during a storm. “Are you jealous?” she whispers.
