Chapter 3

For the next few days, I stopped answering Adrian.

Calling it a fight would have suggested two participants. He continued as if we were following an old routine: he rejected me, I felt embarrassed, he coaxed me out of my mood, and neither of us named what had happened.

Evie, don't ignore me.

I miss you, baby.

Are you still angry?

Then came a transfer of money, because Adrian had been raised in a family where gifts stood in for conversations no one knew how to have.

I sent the money back.

My thoughts were too tangled for a confrontation. Part of me still remembered the boy whose ears turned red when I kissed his cheek. Another part heard his calm voice saying, I know, after Chloe told him to lie to me.

One night, without thinking, I drove to a private club Adrian owned.

I kept a bottle of wine there, a gift from a client. I told myself I had come to open it and drink until I stopped hearing that conversation in the corridor.

The staff knew me and waved me through.

As I crossed the high-limit lounge, the door to the innermost room opened. That room was normally reserved for Adrian, me, and a small circle of friends. He never used it when I wasn't with him.

I walked toward it.

Music and laughter slipped through the door before it swung shut. I placed my hand against the wood and pushed it open no more than an inch.

Men and women crowded the room under shifting blue light. Bottles covered the table. Adrian sat in the center of the long couch, one woman on each side.

He looked bored. His legs were crossed, his shoulders loose, his face as unreadable as ever. Chloe's friend—the woman from the hotel lounge—was telling a story that made everyone else laugh.

Adrian didn't.

For one second, I hated the relief that gave me.

Then the woman turned toward him and caught his collar in her fist.

He didn't move away.

She said something I couldn't hear.

Adrian lifted his hand and wiped a drop of wine from the corner of her mouth.

The gesture was slow. Deliberate. Intimate enough that everyone around them noticed.

I stepped back.

A hand landed on my shoulder.

I turned and found Chloe watching me with bright, delighted eyes.

"Don't look at me like I'm your enemy, Evie."

I said nothing.

"Are you mad?"

"You arranged this." I kept my voice low. "Don't insult both of us by pretending otherwise."

Surprise crossed her face, then disappeared under a smile. "What does it have to do with me? Do you honestly think I can control Adrian Shaw?"

She stepped closer. Her perfume was the same scent I had noticed on him.

"Go tell him you won't judge him no matter what," she whispered. "Beg him to sleep with you before he touches anyone else. Problem solved."

I turned away.

Chloe caught my arm. "Did I hit a nerve? Aren't you embarrassed, Evie? Having to beg your own boyfriend to want you?"

I pulled free. She grabbed again, and I shoved her back.

The door opened behind us.

Adrian stood there, broad-shouldered and visibly annoyed. Curious faces filled the gap behind him.

Then he saw me.

"Evie?"

The edge left his eyes.

He didn't ask why Chloe and I were fighting. He took my hand and led me upstairs to a private suite.

As soon as the door closed, he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against his chest.

Then he kissed the corner of my mouth.

When I didn't respond, he touched his tongue lightly to my lower lip, testing the technique he had learned downstairs.

I stayed still.

My eyes fixed on the crease in his collar where Chloe's friend had gripped it.

Was this the result of his practice?

He had denied me for years, then offered me gestures rehearsed on someone else's body.

I touched his ear. It wasn't hot. No nervous flush. No trembling breath.

He had trained that out of himself too.

My touch seemed to encourage him. His hand slipped beneath the hem of my shirt, cool fingertips brushing my skin.

My phone chimed.

I stepped away and looked down.

The man my parents wanted me to meet had finally answered the message I had sent half an hour earlier.

You're very direct.

I'm clean, if that's what you're asking.

Dinner tomorrow?

Adrian caught my wrist. "Who is that?"

He leaned toward the screen. I locked it before he could read more.

"No one important."

His face tightened. "Evie."

"I have somewhere to be."

His grip loosened, but he didn't let go at once. "Did I do something wrong just now?"

For the first time, uncertainty cracked his controlled expression.

I looked at him—at the same dark eyes that had once made me feel like the only person in any room. They were still focused entirely on me.

That no longer felt like proof of anything.

I smoothed the crease in his collar, the one another woman had made.

Then I left without answering.