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“No, stop.” I lurch forward and press her back until she’s sitting and her eyes widen. Our noses are mere inches apart. Her breath whistles, her nose is blocked with clotting blood and tissues. “I offered her a job with lots of money.” I pause, because I know the rest is going to hurt. “I also implied a type of sexual gratification if she accepted.”
Libby’s lips firm with anger. “You were gonna fuck her? You enjoy offering yourself to every set of legs that walk by?”
“No.” I sit again, making her head and shoulders taller than me, but I pull my chair forward and stop between her legs, resting my elbows on the desk on each side. “You’re the only person I made an offer to and meant it. And technically, your legs are kinda short and stocky, so…”
“You’re a fucking asshole.” She tries to push me back. If she was well, she’d be able to move me, but as she tries now, her burning cheeks turn green. “I’m not short. And not everyone has a ballerina’s body.”
“I like your body.” I pull my chair in closer and rest my hands on her hips. “The thing with Sophia was business. Sometimes people react to money, so I offered her a well-paying job at Griffin Plaza. I mentioned how I live in the penthouse, and how there’s a spare apartment…” I grit my teeth. “Well, close by.”
“And if she’d accepted, you’d happily fuck her in your spare time?”
“No. I was never gonna fuck her, Lib. It was purely business, and I suspect her coming dressed that way was business for her too. She’s either insanely smart or insanely dumb.”
“She’s smart,” Lib whispers. “Word on the street is she’s basically a computer genius.”
I sit back a little with a humorless chuckle, though I keep my hands on her hips and knead. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. She’s Checkmate’s computer genius, isn’t she? She’s so fucking smart, she knows to make herself seem like a brainless bimbo if it suits her purposes.” Our eyes meet. “Right?”
She swallows as Libby-the-woman fights against Libby-the-cop. But of course, the cop wins. “I have no clue. She’s not my business to discuss. If you need to speak about Checkmate, then you need to speaktoCheckmate. I won’t help you gain some kind of business advantage over them or anyone else.”
I glance down and study the denim pattern of Libby’s jeans while I think through my next move. And between those thoughts, I think about my next move with her. And between all of that, I think through the wordJericho. Why did Sophia say that today, and why did it instantly calm Jay? What does it mean? And why the fuck does it bother me that she has a safe word?
“Why are you here, Griffin?” Lib drags my face up with a hand under my chin. “Tell me why you’re in this town. Why are you popping up everywhere I am? Why are you so interested in the Bishops? Why the secrecy?” Her open eye mists. “And why does this right now,” she points between us, “Why does this feel like déjà vu? Why do you constantly make me think impossible things?”
“What things?” My eyes flicker between hers as I move closer. “What impossible things do you think when you see me?”
She shakes her head, as though to deny what she already knows. It’s too close to the surface, and if she were to blab, my whole reason for being here could be blown. I need to leave this office, I need to stop letting her see into my soul, but I can’t look away. I’ve never been able to look away.
“I dream about your eyes,” she whispers. “I dream every single night. You make me think of things I don’t want to think about, of people I don’t want to remember. You make me remember one particular person Idowant to remember. But it’s impossible.”
“What’s impossible, Lib?” I slide my hand along her thigh and stop to circle her knee with my finger. “Is it impossible that you forgot to have that growth spurt?”
Fat tears explode from her eyes when I say the very thing she’s been hoping and dreading.
“Is it impossible that your dimpled knees are no more? I’ve looked. I looked at the gym, but your knees aren’t fat anymore.”
“It’s impossible,” she cries. “It’s… I don’t know how… I just…”
“It’s impossible that you’ve literally not grown more than three inches since you were nine.”
She shakes her head. She denies me. But those dirty green eyes stay on me.
“It’s impossible that you’ve been holding on to a little boy’s red sweater for two decades.”
“Oh my God.”
I stand and push into her space so our noses touch and she has no choice but to stare into my eyes. “Why do you have that sweater, Elizabeth? How isthatpossible?”
“I stole it,” she whimpers. “My friend once told me that it feels good to steal. He told me that when it hurts bad people, but doesn’t hurt good people, it’s okay to steal.”
“Do you sleep with that sweater?” I slide my hand along her thigh and brush the tip of my nose along hers. Her breath hitches, and her hands come up to my shoulders –an embrace?Or to push me away? “Does it bring you comfort to smell that boy in your bed?”
“Not anymore,” she cries. “It doesn’t smell like him anymore.”
I brush my lips over hers and swallow her startled breath. “No. It smells like you.”
“It’s gone now.” Her gaze flickers between mine. “I lost it, and now I sleep with a stomach ache.”
I reach up and swipe the tears from beneath her eyes. “It’s okay. I found it. I’ll give it back to you.”
