Chapter 18 #2
Yes, you have. I thought. “It’s okay,” I said, because customer service was still part of the job.
He reached for his jacket, slid his hand into the inside pocket, and pulled out a thick stack of money and just then my whole spirit lifted.
He placed it in my hand, and I tried not to squeeze it too eagerly.
The weight told me it was right, but I still planned on counting every dollar the second he left.
Men could tell you about mergers and broken families all night, then somehow forget how numbers worked when it was time to pay.
“Twenty-five hundred,” he said. “And something extra for listening.”
Now that was how you healed. I smiled for real this time. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you.” He raised my hand and pressed a brief kiss to my knuckles before letting it go. “I needed this.”
Apparently, so did I. I slid off his lap and reached for my small rhinestone pouch. Before I could tuck the envelope inside, three firm knocks hit the door.
The man looked toward it. “Come in.”
The door opened, and the first thing I saw was one of the security guards standing in the hallway.
The second thing I saw made every relaxed feeling the tequila had given me disappear.
Lev stepped around him. He didn’t rush into the room or announce himself because he didn’t have to, his presence did enough.
His dark jeans sat low on his waist, and the gold watch on his wrist caught the soft lighting when he reached back and pushed the door wider. His expression gave nothing away and truthfully it never really did. The corporate man stood and reached for his jacket.
Lev’s eyes moved over him before landing on his eyes. “Your time up.” His voice was calm, but it carried the kind of weight that made arguing with him felt like it might be a bad decision.
The man checked his watch and chuckled. “Looks like it is.”
I stayed where I was, suddenly too aware of the money in my hand, the costume on my body, and the fact that Lev had walked in another night where I didn’t expect to see him.
My body always remembered what my mind tried to push away.
I owed his ass money and a lot of it. The only reason I was standing in that club at all was because of the debt hanging over my head.
No matter how calm he seemed, I never forgot who he was or what could happen if I failed to pay him back.
The man slipped on his jacket, gave me one last smile, and passed Lev on his way out.
Lev stepped aside just enough to let him through.
The guard pulled the door shut behind him, leaving the two of us alone.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
I tucked the money into my pouch, but my fingers felt clumsy as hell right now.
The quietness lingered while Lev crossed the room and reached for the unopened bottle at the bar.
He twisted the cap off, lifted it to his mouth, and took a slow drink straight from it.
I watched him over my shoulder and he looked too comfortable, like walking into my VIP room was normal and he had every right to be here.
My stomach flipped when he sat onto the couch, stretching one arm across the back cushion. He leaned into the leather and looked at me with that same steady gaze that always made me feel like he could see past whatever I was trying to hide.
I licked my lips before speaking. “Are you stalking me now?”
His lifted his brow. “It look like a man like me gotta stalk somebody?”
I shook my head right away. “No.”
There was no attitude in my voice and none of that sassy shit I might have used with anybody else. I was too aware of the debt between us for that and too aware that he could ask for his money whenever he wanted, and I still didn’t have enough to give him.
He took another sip and studied me. “Then why you ask?”
“Because you keep showing up.” The words slipped out before I could soften them, and my heartbeat jumped. I quickly added, “I mean, I just didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I know.” That was all he said with no further explanation or reason for why he was here. He set the bottle down on the table, then patted his thigh once. “Come here.”
My eyes moved from his face to his lap, then back again.
The room suddenly felt too warm while he waited.
There was no impatience in his expression, but there was an expectation I didn’t know how to refuse.
I reached for the bottle first, more so to give my hands something to do than because I needed another drink.
I took a small sip, placed it back down, and crossed the short distance between us.
My steps were slower than usual. When I reached him, I eased onto his lap sideways, careful and stiff at first. The silver chains around my hips shifted as I settled on him.
His hand came to rest on my waist. He wasn’t gripping me, and wasn’t pulling me closer, just holding me there with a calmness that made me more nervous than his aggression would have.
My eyes stayed lowered as he picked up the bottle again, took another drink, then offered it to me. I accepted it. “Tell me more,” he said.
I frowned and looked up at him. “About what?”
“Your life.” The words landed came out so easy like it was nothing.
I furrowed by brows. “What about it?”
His gaze stayed on mine. “Start with the real reason you wanted me to pull over behind your apartment.”
My fingers tightened around the neck the bottle. Of all the things he could have asked me, I had not expected that. I looked away, focusing on the gold light beneath the shelves. “It’s just extremely complicated.”
“You hiding from somebody?” He questioned giving me a stone look.
My throat felt like it was getting tighter now. He hadn’t said it accusingly way, he said it like a fact. I swallowed and forced myself to look back at him. “I just didn’t want to be seen.”
“Why?”
I stared down at the bottle in my hand and thought about lying. I could have told him I had been drunk, overwhelmed, confused. Anything would have been easier than telling the truth, but the way he waited made me feel like he already knew.
“Well, my estranged husband thinks he still owns me, so he pops up sometimes and I never know when he watching me, so I use the back instead of the front and that’s the truth.
” I explained noticing how Lev didn’t move and the hand at my waist stayed where it was.
I took another deep breath. “I never knew what kind of mood he was going to be in.”
His eyes sharpened slightly, but he still said nothing.
He was a listener, so he let me finish. “Before I moved, he watched everything,” I said.
“How long it took me to get home. Who called, who texted, or if I stopped somewhere after work, he wanted to know why. If I took too long in the shower, he wanted to know what I was doing.”
Lev flexed his jaws, but he didn’t interrupt.
I kept talking because stopping would have been worse.
“The garage was the only place I could breathe for a few minutes without him standing over me. Sometimes I would park, turn the car off, and just sit there in the dark.” I confessed.
“I knew the minute I opened that door; I had to become whatever version of me that kept him calm.” I blinked hard. “I hated going home.”
For the first time all night, I wasn’t smiling for money, and I wasn’t pretending like I had everything under control.
I was not Navy from the club, dressed in crystals and performing like nothing in the world could touch me.
I was just a woman admitting that the place she was supposed to feel safest had become the place she feared most and that’s why I was in the situation I was in.
Lev leaned back slightly, but his eyes never left mine.
“What he do to you?” he quizzed. I hesitated and then my mouth opened, but nothing came out.
He pressed his hand a little more firmly against my waist, in not in a way that hurts, but just enough to let me know he was there. “Tell me,” he said again.
For some reason, sitting in that dim VIP room on the lap of the man I owed more money than I could afford to lose, I believed he actually wanted the truth. The words sat in on the tip of my tongue a second before they finally found their way out. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Lev didn’t rush me. He sat there with that same unreadable expression he’d worn since the day I’d met him, giving nothing away while somehow making it feel like he expected the truth. I lowered my eyes to the bottle turning slowly between my hands before taking a swig.
“Rome wasn’t always…” I paused, searching for the right word.
“He wasn’t always the man he became. When we first got together, he made me feel protected.
I thought having somebody who wanted to know where I was all the time meant he cared.
” I let out a quiet laugh at my own ignorance.
“I didn’t know the difference between somebody protecting you and somebody trying to own you.
It started off little, asking where I was, or who I was with.
Shit like why it took me fifteen minutes to get somewhere instead of ten.
” I swallowed. “Then it became checking my phone, questioning every conversation, accusing me of things I wasn’t even doing all because he was doing it all. ”
I could still remember trying to defend myself.
Trying to prove things that never happened.
Trying to satisfy a man who had already decided I was guilty.
“It got to the point where I was explaining why I stopped for gas.” I chuckled in a low, nervous tone.
“Imagine having to explain why your tank was on E.”