Page 28 of Ruthless Riches

“You mean with Henrik?”

“Yeah. I mean, he was really laying into you. A lot of guys would be super pissed and storm away if someone was throwing that sort of shade at them. But you stayed cool.”

I shrugged. “He wasn’t exactly wrong, was he?”

“I still think you handled it well.” She stroked my left hand on the table and lowered her voice. “I knew I loved you before today. But now I know I like you too.”

“Isn’t liking a person implied when you love them?” I asked, lifting a brow.

She snorted. “No. Haven’t you ever read a romance book?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“Well, trust me. You can fall in love with someone and dislike them at the same time if they’re a shitty person. The heart wants what it wants, and so on.”

“Right. I guess that makes sense.”

She leaned forward. “So… I know you love me, but do you like me as a person too?”

I cocked a brow and pretended to think about it. “You’re okay.”

Alexis playfully slapped me on the arm. “Asshole.”

I smirked. “Come on. You walked right into that one.”

She started laughing. I sat back and watched her, taking deep, savoring breaths. After all the dark shit that had gone down over the last few months, it felt good to finally laugh and smile, even if it was just for a few minutes in a sidewalk café.

These little moments of happiness tasted sweeter than ever before because of the pain it took to get to them. I knew they wouldn’t last, though. At some point, the ice beneath our feet would crack, and the cold, oily darkness would pour back into our lives. All we could do then was try to find the tiny cracks of light in that darkness, like we saw in the old buildings on Tenth, and use them to find our way through the murky blackness.

If we didn’t… we would be lost forever.