Page 119 of No Longer Mine

“Interesting?” I couldn’t even bear a glance at my menu now. I needed to know every last detail.

“Well,” She wouldn’t look at me again, and I knew it was bad. “They asked how we met.”

My stomach bottomed out. “You lied, right?”

Her smile was big and uncomfortable. “Oh yeah.”

“Oh no.” I groaned.

She shrugged. “They were all over me like flies. I had to tell them something interesting or they would have never left.”

“So you told them the truth?”

“I couldn’t think of an interesting lie,” she squeaked. It was then that I realized I had my commanding voice on.

My shoulders relaxed, and I let out a breath. “Nothing can prepare you for those four, I’m just happy you made it out alive.”

Her cheeks colored under my gaze as she finally looked back up at me. “Don’t worry, I left out the part where I broke back into your apartment and you hate fingered me.”

The waiter appeared at our table, cutting the conversation short, and I ordered a bottle of wine without looking at the menu. I already knew what I wanted; it had nothing to do with food. Now that she mentioned my fingers inside of her, it was all I could think about. I thought about excusing myself to the bathroom to hopefully adjust myself, but I didn’t want to be too obvious. She was killing me.

The waiter left, and I felt Scarlett level me with a stare. Like she hadn’t just dropped an entire bomb. She was about to drop another.

“So now that you know all of my secrets, I think it’s high time I learn a few of yours.”

The color drained from my face. First, the grannies and my sisters, and now she wanted to rummage in my past? This was not at all what I had planned for a second date.

Chapter Fifty

Scarlett

Dimitri shiftedin his chair as we waited for our food. He didn’t look happy at all that his family paid me a visit, and now here I was, trying to meddle in his past. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t want this date to end up like the last one.

So I decided to pivot. “I’m curious,” I took a sip out of my wine glass. “Why did you ask me out?”

His brows bounced on his forehead. “Isn’t it obvious?”

I tilted my head as I watched him. Then I let my gaze roam the empty room we’d been brought to. It was quiet and intimate, nothing like the last date. “Why did you ask me out if you brought me to this small room at the back of the restaurant?”

There was nothing small about it. It was cozy and comfortable, but also held grandeur that the rest of the building didn’t have. He’d paid a lot of money for this experience, so why did I feel like I was as much of a secret as the stripper before me? Was that what this was? I didn’t mind secrecy; my entire life depended upon it, but I would’ve been lying to say I wasn’t disappointed by being hidden. We could be secretive while still showing others we were off limits, right? Was that even what this was, or was I simply getting ahead of myself?

“Does this have something to do with the grannies and my sisters?” He said it so casually, but I could see the annoyance under the surface; he didn’t like that they had visited me. They were unpredictable, and he was worried about what they said.

I shrugged, playing is cool and calm. I didn’t want him to feel as nervous as I had when he’d dropped the Vanewood bomb. None of that was what tonight was about. But I did want open and healthy communication. There was no point in secrets now that he knew everything and he didn’t think differently of me. I would extend the grace he’d shown me, it was only fair. “Kind of. I guess I thought you’d be the type to show me off or any woman you’re interested in. You have the… possessive vibe.” I chose all of my words carefully.

He let out a breath as he swirled the wine around his glass. His eyes looked at anything but me. “You know what my father is capable of…” His eyes got a faraway look in them before he blinked out of the trance. “He took a lot from me in my childhood, but also my love life. I do not want that to happen again. I would like to protect what’s mine.”

And there it was, the possessive vibe the girls mentioned the night before. To anyone else it would probably scare them, but to me? It was refreshing to be wanted.

“I get it,” I murmured, setting my glass down. “But I don’t want to be hidden, Dimitri.”

His head snapped up, those sharp blue eyes locking onto mine.

I didn’t back down. “I understand secrecy. I understand safety. But I also know what it’s like to be someone’s secret for all the wrong reasons.” I tilted my chin, meeting his gaze head-on. “And if you want me, really want me, you can’t make me feel like I’m something to be tucked away.”

His fingers tightened around his glass, his jaw ticking. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

I arched a brow. “Then what are you doing?”