Chapter 5

I should’ve walked away before I ever kissed her.

I didn’t.

I should’ve walked away before we set the painting on fire.

I didn’t.

I should’ve walked away before I fucked her, or during, or after, or at any point in the moments that have followed.

But I didn’t. I can’t bring myself to do it.

Even now, as Daphne chews on a French fry and gazes thoughtfully out of the diner window, I find myself lingering, though the hours keep ticking past like someone’s playing tricks on me with the clock hands.

“So tell me about that painting,” I say, if only to stop the reckless thoughts from spiraling out of control.

Daphne snorts. “You mean the five-million dollar masterpiece we just burned?”

“That’s the one I was referring to, yes.”

She sighs and stirs her raspberry iced tea for a moment. “The original sketch was mine. Of me, I mean. I was his model, his muse, his grande belle. He’d just started laying down the first layers when…”

“When they started fucking around.”

Daphne casts a panicked glance around the diner. “Shh! Yeah!”

I laugh. “It’s practically midnight. Anyone here is either too tired to hear us or too drunk to care.”

“Still.”

I have to secretly confess an admiration for her sense of propriety. Even after tasting her pussy and making her scream my name—real music to my ears—she carries herself with grace and dignity.

“Is that what tipped you off to the affair?”

She squirms in her seat. I know I’m inviting myself into her personal life, but I’m curious to know what exactly I walked my way into. I went to the gallery expo for a painting, for fuck’s sake. And instead of leaving with one, I burned five million dollars into ashes and then pounded my release into the artist’s ex.

Who is now looking at me like she expects me to backhand her into the booth seat if she speaks so much as one syllable out of place.

The fuck kind of number did Ewing do to her?

“No.” Daphne takes a tentative sip of her tea. “I did notice some alterations at first, but… artists, you know? Especially the abstract ones. No, it was the, ah, photo she sent him that popped up while he was taking a shower.”

Something ugly boils up inside me at the mental image of Daphne, naked and in Ewing’s bed, while he’s in the shower washing off whatever pathetic attempt at sex he’d just done to her body.

I shake it off. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Not my woman.

Immediately, every fiber of my instinct challenges that last thought with a resounding, Yes, the fuck she is.

“Photo.” I force myself to keep my voice calm. It’s not her fault I’m feeling a very misplaced sense of possessiveness over her.

“Yeah. One she took while they were… Ah, I suppose ‘doing it’ is the technical term.”

I snort a laugh. I can’t help it. Stereotypical idiots playing stereotypically idiotic games.

But when I see the crestfallen expression on her face, I regret it. “Do they know just how stupid they really are?”

“No. Not at all.”

“But you’re smart.”

Daphne flashes those magnetic blue eyes at me. “Am I? Because this sure doesn’t feel smart.”

“What doesn’t?” I cock my head to one side. “You left him. You left both of them to burn their world down together. You showed them, both of them, what happens to people who fuck you over. And then you took the most gorgeous man at the event and rode him until you were done with him. That sounds pretty damn smart to me.”

She stares at me like I’ve lost my ever-loving mind. What the fuck do I know? Maybe I have.

What I do know is that for some inexplicable reason, I need to see her smile—and when it breaks across her face and she laughs, it’s almost as good as feeling her fingers digging into my back.

“Wow.” Daphne shakes her head and tries to stifle her laughter. “When you put it like that… I am so messed up.”

“Yeah, well, you’re in good company.”

She steadies her gaze on me. The smile stays where it is, thankfully. “So what about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s got you so messed up? I mean, no sane man just literally blows away five million. You must have some skeletons in the closet.”

If only she knew. It’s cute that she thinks she has nothing to do with my insanity. To be fair, there’s more than enough to answer that question long before meeting her tonight.

I’m just not at liberty to talk about any of it.

I roll my shoulder in a half-shrug. “Family, mostly. Growing up with expectations no one is ever able to fill no matter how perfect they are.”

Daphne scoffs. “Tell me about it.”

“Rough upbringing?”

“Oh, no. Don’t try to turn it around. This is about you now.”

I feign surprise and point to my chest; she grins and nods. In mock surrender, I sigh and slump back in my seat. “I swear, I’m really not that interesting.”

“Says the man with five million to quite literally burn.”

“Trust fund kid.”

“Bullshit.”

Damn. I really like her. She meets me eye-to-eye and doesn’t fawn over me like every other woman who sees my black American Express card and instantly wants to become a sugar baby.

“Investments.” I smirk at her incredulous look. “That’s the honest answer. I watch trends, hunt for opportunities. Every now and then, I see something new and promising that turns out to be the next big thing.”

Her dark brow arches. “Like Conrad?”

“Fuck no.” We share a laugh and my God, I could drown myself in her voice. “His ‘art,’ if it can even be called that, is a plague upon mankind. I’m honored to have been the one to personally eradicate the worst offender.”

“There you go again.” Daphne sips her drink as she studies me. “One minute, you’re this laidback, kinda crude dudebro. The next, it’s like you just gave a cultural aesthetics lecture at Yale.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I’m literate. I do read a lot.”

“War general biographies and porn magazines, I’m guessing.”

I chuckle. “Among other things.”

“Don’t tell me you’re picking up art history textbooks in your free time,” she replies. “I’d say you look like you should be the one on display, not the one studying it.”

“I’ll take the compliment.”

“Don’t act like I’m the first one to ever tell you you’re attractive, either,” she accuses. Then, straightening up: “So where did you go to college?”

I sigh. That’s a part of my life I try to pretend never happened. Though it did and was a few of the more precious years of my existence. I was far the fuck away from my family, from those responsibilities, from the never-ending shitshow that comes with being in a Family with a capital “F.”

“Yale.”

Daphne balks. “You’re kidding. I was joking when I said that, you know.”

“I’m not. Spent three years there. Never got to graduate, though.”

“How come?”

“Father died. Had to go back and help take care of the family.”

She nods like she knows exactly what I mean. Which is fair, if incorrect. I’m not exactly blasting through a megaphone that I’m in charge of a Russian mob family and my father, the former pakhan, was murdered by the people he fucked over.

I eye her again. Her face in the fluorescent diner lights, half-shadow, half-glowing. The curve of her jaw. Highlights gleaming in her hair from the red neon sign over the door.

It’s tempting to take her back to my place. There’s a part of me that wants to protect her from the world and give her sanctuary in my home, in my bed… but I have to shake it off. I remind myself of what I am—and, more importantly, what I am not.

I’m not her saving grace or her valiant prince riding in to save the day.

For all she knows, I’m just some guy who fucked her brains out, fed her.

In a few moments, I’ll be the guy who drives her home and then disappears, never to be seen again.

It’s better that way.

So as we pay and leave, I take advantage of the car ride to memorize this feeling. I linger where I shouldn’t. A few extra minutes to smell her vanilla perfume filling up my car. An unnecessary breath, just to hear her sigh with contentment as she settles into the leather passenger seat like she’s meant to be here, next to me, all along.

For a scant few minutes, we can pretend like there’s more to this than there really is. It’ll all be over soon enough. Might as well enjoy her while it lasts.

“That’s me,” Daphne says eventually, pointing through a window to a looming apartment building, a tall block of shadow in the night.

I nod and park. Kill the engine. The silence feels like a third person in the car with us.

Daphne stares out, fingers on the handle, though she doesn’t open the door yet. She turns and looks at me. “Thank you.”

“You gonna be okay?”

The question flies out of my mouth before I have a chance to even think it over. What do I care?

That stupid nagging sensation in my chest says, A whole fucking lot.

She sighs. “Yeah. Hazel’s good people. I’m safe here.”

I can tell she doesn’t want to leave. I don’t want her to leave, either. We both know it has to happen. We both know that once that car door closes behind her, this is it. Forever.

Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Daphne pulls out her phone and checks her messages. “Ugh. She’s probably wondering what the hell happened to me—hey! What the hell?!”

Something possesses me and before either of us can blink, I’ve got her phone in my hand. I tap in my phone number, send myself a text, then hand it back to her. “There.”

“What’s this?”

“My number. And now, I have yours.”

“Yeah, but… why?”

Again, something alien to my nature possesses me. I pull her close and take the longest, sweetest moment to taste her lips, to caress her tongue, to just feel her.

Because, even with that lifeline tossed, I’m not sure I’ll ever see her again.

If I choose what’s best for both of us, I won’t.

“Goodnight, moya plamya.”

Daphne blushes. Nibbles her bottom lip. If she doesn’t stop, if she doesn’t leave, I’m dangerously close to driving her away and showing her just how large my bed is and how much time we can spend in it.

In the end, she makes the right choice.

“Goodnight, Pasha.”

Then she’s gone.