Page 22 of At Your Mercy

“Don’t I?” I leaned in, voice pitched low, just for him. “Andreas?”

His name landed heavily. His eyes widened, his breath stuttered, and even though it was only for a second, I could seethe lost boy he was inside peeking through. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of his napkin, shredding the linen into threads before he noticed and forced them flat again.

“You think you’ve got me figured out?” he asked, tone sharp, but quieter now. “You knownothing.”

“I’m fifty,” I said, watching him closely. “I know a lot more than someone twenty years my junior.”

For a moment, he just stared at me, the fight in him warring with something else he didn’t want to name. “Shut up,” he whispered harshly.

“Did Elias take you that night, or did someone else? Or maybe you ran on your own?”

“Shutup.”

“You really need to work on keeping a poker face,” I chuckled.

Ro’s bottom lip quivered, going still so quickly that I half-wondered if I’d imagined it. “It’s not—I’m not—”

“Is it just me, doll? Do I throw you off? I wonder why that is.”

His knuckles whitened around the knife. “Stop it. Stop calling me cutesy nicknames like we mean something to each other. Stop pushing me.”

I tilted my head, unhurried. “Would you rather me call you by your real name?”

The silence between us thickened, swallowing the restaurant’s gentle clatter of forks and murmured conversation. Ro’s pale throat worked as he swallowed hard, his gaze darting briefly to the side—as though the exit had suddenly grown very far away.

“Elias didn’t prepare you for this, did he?” I asked, voice smooth as the wine.

“Shut the fuck up.” It was shaky, nothing like the sharpness he’d walked in with.

I smiled and cut into my steak, savoring another bite before replying. “I could, but then you’d miss out on the truth. And despite all that pretty bravado, I think you crave the truth more than anything.”

His lips parted, a protest forming—then dying. He shoved another bite into his mouth just to fill the silence.

“Good boy,” I murmured again.

The fork nearly clattered from his hand. He slammed it down instead, glaring daggers at me, but his face betrayed the tremor at the edges.

“You keep saying shit like that, and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” I asked softly, leaning forward just enough to feel him pull in closer, despite himself. “Prove me right? Run back to Elias and tell him you couldn’t even sit through a meal with me without shaking?”

His chest heaved, breath uneven. “Fuck you.”

“No, not yet.” The words landed with the weight of inevitability, and I watched him freeze, pupils blown wide, anger mixing with raw heat in his gaze. “Finish your steak, Ro. You’ve done well so far. Would you like to order dessert?”

“Fuck off. I’m done,” he muttered angrily, slipping out of the booth and throwing one last seething glare my way. His teeth clenched, and he turned, striding out of view without a backward glance.

7

Ronan

The cool air hit me the second I shoved through the restaurant doors, and I gulped it down like I’d been drowning in there. My skin felt hot, clammy, crawling with the weight of his voice still echoing in my ears.

Good boy.

Goodfuckingboy.

Christ. I hated him. My hands shook as I fumbled my phone out of my pocket before I even realized what I was doing.