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I take a couple of steps closer, closing what feels like a massive distance but is actually less than ten feet.
“Were you at the warehouse?” I try again with a direct question.
“No.” He takes another sip of his drink.
I smell the sharp burn of vodka, followed by a floral, expensive aroma that isn’t emanating from the glass.
Nick smells like perfume—something heady and expensive.
Betrayal slashes my chest before it slithers inside of me, dark and ugly and consuming.
I’m not jealous, like an outsider seeing someone else with something I want. I’m mad.
He doesn’t owe me anything, least of all loyalty. We’re not a couple, like I argued last night.
But all I feel is betrayal.
“Not a fan of your new cologne.” There’s bitterness and judgment in the words, and I wait for him to call me out on both.
Instead, Nick looks at me with what could most easily be described as indifference. But I know him well enough—or maybe I just want tothinkI know him well enough—to catch the glimpses of other emotions. For a second, his eyes will dart to my breasts or my mouth or my legs and darken with lust. His knuckles will turn white around the glass, or a muscle in his jaw will jump.
Yet he doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything.
I want to shake the indifference like a bottle of champagne until it explodes everywhere.
I step closer and closer until I can feel the heat emanating from his body. I take the glass from his hand and sip from it, forcing myself to keep a straight face as the alcohol sears a trail down my throat and scalds my stomach.
Nick looks out the window, away from me, and that hurts too. Meanwhile, I inhale his closeness. His scent, buried beneath smoke and vodka and perfume.
I feel like my mother, relying on a man for what I should manage myself.
I don’t want Nick for his money or protection though. I just want him.
In some ways, that’s worse.
I’ll get a new job. Carry pepper spray.
But I won’t be able to replace him when I return to my old life.
“Which are you worried about, Lyla?” he asks, looking outside at the bright yard. “Whether I fucked someone or whether I killed someone?”
I swallow. “Both.”
“Neither happened tonight.”
The slew of relief is staggering. And concerning. I shouldn’t care. I should be praying he’ll come home, covered in blood and with a wet dick. It would make leaving easier.
But I think leaving will hurt like hell, no matter what, at this point.
“Get naked and get on the bed.”
I blink at his profile, still staring out the window.
Eventually, he glances at me. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Nick looks away immediately, not expecting an answer. He thinks it is a rhetorical question, and I hate that he’s right. Sex is not the only reason I couldn’t fall asleep until he was home, but it’s the only one I’ll admit to.
I walk over to the four-poster bed. It looks less imposing and more inviting than it used to. The cotton shorts and t-shirt I am wearing fall to the floor, followed by my underwear, before I climb onto the mattress. The luxurious material of the comforter is cold and soft against my bare skin.
