"Nope. You have it with roast beef—properly rare roast beef, just the kind you'd like—and it's technically like pancake batter, only—"
"You eat beef with pancakes? What kind of fuck-ups are you all over there, anyway?"
She laughs. Slaps at me. "Let me finish! It's baked instead of fried, and it ends up like this puffy ball. All soft and lardy and awesome."
"You're not really selling it to me."
"It's delicious, I promise. You'll like it. I want to make it for you." She pauses. Pushes her face into my shoulder. "You could bring your brother."
I don't mean to stiffen—normally, I'm not that obvious—but I just came inside her, and I'm disarmed. "Ash is busy."
"Busy? All the time? Isn't he, like, eight years old?"
"I don't share him, Leo." I find myself avoiding her eyes. "We're not going to be like that."
"I see."
Leo and I have had many awkward silences, especially in the beginning of our relationship. This one, however, feels like the worst of all.
Eventually, I stretch over to grab the remote and begin flicking through the TV channels, settling on a football game. The shouts and cheers do nothing to drown out my suddenly erratic heartbeat, nor do they distract from the way Leo has begun to shake in my arms.
"Rachel's mom called me this morning," she croaks.
I sit up, searching her eyes out. "Wait. What?"
"She just wanted to tell me not to come to Rach's funeral." Her voice cracks. "Because—because I'm not welcome."
"I fucking hate Rachel's parents," I spit, clutching her tightly.
"Why?" She's full on sobbing now. "Because they took your money? Is that what it is?"
"Because they're full of shit! You think people who really cared about their daughter would have taken a couple mil over giving Rach what she needed?" I'm not an idiot—I know I hurt Rachel. I know she spent years in therapy because of me, repairing her self-esteem and feeling anxious for closure. And I guess, ultimately, she failed. "Let me tell you, sweetheart. We're not the reason she shot herself. They are. The fucking know it. They're passing the buck. If somebody hurt you, I'd cut them up myself, Leo. And if they offered me a payoff, I'd shove their bank notes so far down their throats, they'd be spitting up dollars for weeks. That's if I let them live."
"That's fucked up."
"It's the truth. Yeah, you know what? I'm not a nice boy." I snort. "But they're a pair of twisted assholes more interested in their own bank balance. They can jump off a cliff."
Like I always say: human nature is nails on a chalkboard, no matter what your diagnosis is.
Leo weeps quietly into my shirt, absorbing all this.
"I'm making it all go away," I tell her. "You want to see?" Without waiting for an answer, I scroll through the channels to NN24...where they're breaking the story on Montgomery.
Fucking yes.
Can't get in with your gagging order now, can you? You fat shit.
Leo crawls upward, using fistfuls of my shirt for leverage. "What the hell?"
"It's perfect," I whisper. "You just watch, baby—in a couple days, nobody will remember who Rachel is. We're home clean."
"Where did you get this?"
"I have ways and means." I tip her chin up, find her mouth for a kiss. "I told you I'd take care of you, and I meant it. I wasn't just talking about...things."
"You're taking care of yourself," she mutters, looking away.
"Both of us, Leo." Doesn't she get how strange this is for me? How can I explain it without telling her what I am? It makes my pulse roil with frustration. "Or you want me to halt my little damage control operation, huh? Have your face plastered over GNS some more?"
She says nothing. Just lies there, breathing slowly, her fingers still digging through my shirt.
I'm not just doing this for myself. It pisses me off that she'd even think it.
Later, when she falls asleep, I load up her laptop. Its neon screen turns my skin cyan blue in the dark. Out of habit, I go through her internet history; it's just tech news sites and Facebook (which I can't log into), email and some fashion blogs. My Forbes interview comes up though. So does my biography on the Lore Corp site. Huh. So she thinks about me when I'm not around, searches out pieces of me, anything she can get.
I know how she feels. Is that empathy? What the fuck is empathy, anyway, aside from avoiding your own crap and hiding in someone else's?
I have to know. So I search.
Then I type my other question into Google. Can sociopaths fall in love?
The words float there. Just pixels. I don't know why I'm so nervous—I'm not a fucking pansy.
I hit enter.
The search spews up articles, and I begin to read.
***
Tuija is late for work again.
Screw paparazzi. Screw the cops and forensics assholes who are still taking up half my lobby. I'm done with being inconvenienced by them. I swear, if Tuij is face down in a pool of her own vomit, I'm finally going to fire her ass.
Leo insisted on coming into work with me, despite the fact she's dosed herself up on Xanax. It's half nine; I predict she'll be out cold on my sofa by eleven, tops.
Still...I did kinda tire her out last night. Late into the dark hours, when she woke again, something else woke with her. It was hungry and it wanted me. It spilled fresh blood from her healing wounds.
"Tuija had some budget files for me," Leo says as she straightens my tie. I watch her ass move in the opposite mirrored wall, and give her curves a light spank of appreciation. "You think you could get them for me, if she's not here? I promised I'd go through them with Finn."
"You sure you should be at work today?"
She shrugs. Bites her lip. "I don't know what else to do with myself."
"Then you go get the files. Tuij is pretty organised, and her office isn't locked. I've got some stuff to take care of."
I need to sift through the entire contents of the internet and bask in the downfall of Dietrich Montgomery. I wonder what his stock's looking like? Is this what happiness really is, the slow curdle of success and adrenaline until you feel drunk and delirious?
Fucking hell, grasshoppers. Someone should bottle this shit.
"You're in a good mood today," Leo says quietly.
"We had a good night." Good probably isn't the best way to describe it; many people would say it was very, very bad. She's limping. Intense is a better word; I think she bruised my hips. "And trust me, today is going to be a very good day."
She eyes the news screens over my shoulder. "Maybe."
I give Leo a slow kiss and then watch her heart shaped ass sway as she leaves the room, thinking back to my research last night.
Sociopaths cannot love in the same way as others...but they can and do still fall.
Sociopaths love with an all-consuming, dangerous passion.
The sociopath, who seeks to manipulate all things, may only retain interest in a woman who disturbs the power balance he is used to, rather than one who continues to submit. If she challenges him adequately, he becomes addicted. His attachment to her deepens until he believes himself to be in love.
When should I tell her the good news...?
And where the hell is Tuija, anyway? She's hardly ever this late unless I've sent her out on some errand. I'm about to call her on my cell...until I realise it's still smashed up on the carpet. Fucking brilliant.
I left my temporary cell...I don't even remember. I'll call through to Fliss and get a spare.
My hand is hovering over the office phone when it begins to ring. Harvey's cell number flashes up on the call ID.
"Harvey." I find myself grinning. "Your photos have gone down very well."
"Sir." His voice is unusually subdued. "Are you alone?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Is...is there something we need to talk about? For last night."
"What?"
"Were you at my house?" His emphasis is unusual, and it takes me a second to realise what he's talking about.
No, I do not need an alibi.
My stomach lurches.
What? What the fuck would I need an alibi for?
"I was at Leo's all night," I say quickly. "What's happened?"