Page 20 of Never Tell Secrets

Apparently this really was my show, so I decided to test it. I decided to ask a question I’d wanted to know the answer to for a very long time.

“Was Riley ever a member of the Never Tell Club?” He didn’t need to know my real reasons for asking this. I wanted to know how deep Riley had been involved because no doubt it could impact my sister and nephew. Riley’s son. Ryan was Riley’s son. The idea was still surreal to me. Was I going to tell Alfie? Absolutely fucking not. I just hoped he didn’t already know.

“Yes. Riley’s family was bankrupt by the time the club was an official company so I covered his membership and other costs. He travelled with me sometimes but he was never one of my Tellers, he was just a member. Oh, and he designed the gardens at the clubhouse,” Alfie answered smoothly, without hesitation, and I tried not to stare in shock. Alfie wastalking. What had gotten into him?

“I also had him design a botanical suite for me when I was twenty two. It was a deeply humid, dome-shaped glass house, filled with tropical plants and a vine rope swing. I had one girl in there when it was finally finished. I was high and her sweat rivulets fascinated me. I spent hours practising my bondage skills on her…” He trailed off, lost in a memory that had me hot with jealousy,

“Your bondage skills?”

“You really did only ever scratch the surface of my interests, O’Connell.” His voice slid over me like silk and I shivered.Fuck.

“Why did Riley leave?” I asked, desperate to move on. He gave me a knowing smile. He knew I was jealous of the girl, knew I was hot now, and I knew that had been a calculated move.

“He can answer that better than I can, but I think it was the debauchery that bothered him. He’s a steady person, a wife-and-kids kind of person. The drugs, the rampant fuckery, he didn’t like it.” He shrugged. I stared at him.

“What’s going on with you, Alfie? I spent months trying to pry the most basic details out of you and now all of a sudden you’re Mr Chatty?”

“As I said, people change. I haven’t been idle since we last saw each other.”

“I know. I saw you on the cover of Forbes again.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” He shifted again. I could see how badly he wanted to get out of his seat, cross the room, and put his hands on me, bend me the way he used to, but again, he forced himself to keep his distance, to use his words instead. “Did you really think I was going to play this the same way I did the last time?”

“Still treating me like a game, Alfie,” I said. He flinched, realising his mistake but I moved on before he could reply. “Do you wish I’d gotten pregnant?”

“No.” Again his answer was immediate. “I was terrified when I saw that negative test because I knew what it meant, but a part of me was relieved. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hurt you anymore.”

I sat in silence, soaking in the vinegar of his words. I didn’t know how to feel about them so I just saved them for me to marinate in later when I was in bed, turning over every single second of this conversation.

“How did you get that scar?”

“That isn’t a story I can tell you here,” he said, his voice low. I tried not to roll my eyes at how quickly we were back to his evasiveness. The honesty had been nice while it lasted. “I’m not playing you, Lola. I have to be very careful and there are too many ears here, even if they are filled with Vivaldi.” His gaze flickered to his security team. “With your permission, I’m going to have a package sent to your house that will give you all the answers you need.”

“What package?”

“I can’t tell you here.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, on the urge to push it further. I felt like I was being brushed off. “What if I don’t wantthe package?” I said and Alfie snorted. He gave me a look. A look that said‘you know damn well you want that package.’

“Alfie, I don’t want to continue this beyond tonight. I agreed to dinner so that you could get closure, remember?”

“If you say closure one more time…” He trailed off, once more correcting himself.

“I want you to move on, Alfie. I want this to be over.”

“We will never be over, Lola,” he said with a laugh, as if the very idea was amusing to him. “And seeing as you’re so fond of the word, the package is closure for you, not for me. To help you understand me so you can know why I acted the way I did. Not to justify what I did, I know it was wrong, just to help you understand.”

“I don’t need closure, Alfie. I’ve been doing fine in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t believe that it was Keira turning up on your doorstep begging you to see me again because I was jumping on the self-destruct button. No, that wasyourbest friend onmydoorstep. I’m doing great. I love my life, I’m happy, and I’ve moved on.”

Alfie gave me a long, assessing look. His steel greys glinted as he tilted his head slightly in that way that always made me feel so fucking naked.

“I’m going to send you the package. If you don’t want it, you can call Elliot anytime and have him collect it.” His tone was even, calm. I sat there, confused. No retaliation? I’d just delivered a major blow to his ego and he wasn’t going to respond?

“Fine,” I muttered, wondering what could possibly be in a package that could explain the dark complexities of Alfie Tell's psyche.

Seven

We stewed in our silence. I found myself wishing I’d ordered dinner just so I would have something to do with my hands. I kept my expression cool and my gaze on him. Looking away felt like a sign of weakness and I couldn’t afford to show any cracks in my armour. He gazed right back at me, his expression warm and tired.