Page 78 of Velvet Corruption

I exhaled, stirring what was left of my coffee, watching the swirl of cream mix in with the dark liquid. I always drank coffee differently, depending on my mood. Sugar was for the mornings. That was when I needed it to help me get my day started. "Nothing happened. I just needed somewhere to crash."

But something had happened. We had kissed. I had wanted more. Fuck, I had wanted so much more—but Alek didn’t need to know that. He was already pissed enough.

I didn’t want him to get more angry.

Alek didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Just watched me with that expression he always had when he knew I was full of shit.

I sighed, shifting in my seat. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m just wondering,” he said, voice deceptively casual, “why ‘somewhere to crash’ had to be there.”

I shrugged. “It was late. I was hurt. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Alek hummed, unimpressed. “Right. You, of all people, had no other options.”

My fingers tightened around the coffee mug. The heat bit into my already aching hand, but I held onto it anyway. “I didn’t say that.”

“Just tell me. I won’t freak out. But tell me.”

He was going to freak out. But he was also right. I had to tell him. “He was right outside my house when the thing with the lightbulb happened,” I said. “Julian was in a deposition, Rosie was sick, and you were picking Nat up from the airport.”

“He was right outside your house?” Alek asked, sounding alarmed.

“It sounds worse than it is.”

“It sounds bad because it is bad, Ruby. If I told you some guy was waiting outside your house in the middle of the night, you’d tell me to call the cops.”

“Kieran’s not just some guy,” I muttered.

“No, he’s not—he’s yourmobster ex, which is about a million times worse,” Alek said. “Listen, Nat could have taken a taxi. She could’ve waited. She’s an adult.”

“You already do so much for me. How could I ask you to drive me to the hospital instead of being there for your sister?”

I watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “He took you to the ER? And people saw you?”

I hesitated, just for a second. Not long enough to be obvious. “He was wearing a face mask. No one recognized him.”

“Oh, okay. As long as no one recognized him. Did he wear glasses and pretend to be a reporter too?”

“I don’t think Clark Kent pretended to be a reporter,” I said. “He just also happened to be Superman.”

“Where did Clark Kent get his journalism degree?” Alek asked, looking me up and down.

“I think he went to the University of Who Gives a Fuck?”

“Right. And Callahan graduated from the School of Changed Men?”

I found myself getting irritatingly defensive—irritating to us both, I assumed. “It’s been eight years, Alek.”

His voice was suddenly too quiet, too even. “People don’t just stop being who they are, no matter what kind of clothes they’re wearing. Aren’t you old enough to know that by now?”

I didn’t answer him right away. I just stared into my coffee like the dregs might hold answers I hadn’t found in Kieran’s eyes.

Alek was right. And that was the problem.

“I don’t know who he is anymore,” I said finally. “But I know what he used to be. I know what he did to me.”

“And that should be enough,” Alek said. “For most people, it would be.”