She eases off, finishes the odd job I’ve assigned her, and when Alec comes back, leaves me with little reluctance. Alec watches me rise, clearly annoyed, then follows me back out to the car where Adrian is waiting. For the record, he also thinks this is a terrible idea. None of them understand. They don’t understand that even if I try to force my way inside Mia, if I don’t do something to hurt her first, she’ll just let me. I can’t explain that to them. That’s only for me to know. They can just think I’m an asshole and mind their own business.
I drink from the flask the whole way home. Throw in a little bit of drunken “honesty” for good measure. I’ll obliterate all the progress I made today, every last bit of it, but that’s the point. I can repair the damage once she talks to the cops—or, doesn’t talk to the cops, rather.
Hopefully this isn’t too effective. It would be rotten fucking luck to go to all this trouble to make her hate me and have her decide to talk.
It would be best to know that now, though. I can only keep her if she passes the test—that’s always gone without saying. I could only keep someone whose trustworthiness is beyond reproach. Mia’s is right now. Hopefully, that remains the case after tonight.
Adrian doesn’t speak to me once on the ride home. I expect him to join Alec’s cause, to warn me that I’m fucking up and I shouldn’t do this. It’s not too late. I could go home and shower, and pretend none of this ever happened.
I can’t get the right reaction out of her, though. I thought about the easier ways. I thought about just being cruel to her, turning off all the affection. Only thing is, just a couple days ago I listened to her tell me she knew I was only behaving in the awful way I was toward her because she got too close, and I was trying to push her away.
I shouldn’t have told her the goddamn dog story. I shouldn’t have told her any stories. Now she’s nursing this idea of me as a wounded man instead of an evil one—which works in a few days, when I want to turn this into an actual courtship, but not so much when I need her to be so furious and thirsty for my blood that she’ll spill all my secrets and try to get me sent to prison.
I should’ve sent the men earlier. I’ve kept her too long.
It doesn’t matter now. I’ve made some mistakes, I’m going to fuck up a little bit more, then I’m going to fix it. Then we’re not going to live in this gray area where she’s not sure if she’s being forced or seduce, where she doesn’t know how she should feel about me.
Adrian pulls up outside the house, kills the engine and walks inside without me. He’s so mad at me. He’ll get over it. Everyone will be just fine next week.
I make my way up to the bedroom and let myself inside. Mia must have been bored because it’s not late, but the lights are out and she’s curled up in bed.
“Hey, you,” she greets, her tone warm as I step inside. I don’t bother turning on the light. To be honest, I don’t want to see any more of tonight than I have to. The foggier the memories of this night in the great scheme of things, the better.
“Tired?” I ask, tugging my jacket off and dropping it on the chair. I probably should have taken the jacket off before the redhead rubbed her scent all over it. Now it’s probably going to infuse my fucking chair, and the whole point is I need the scent on my body.
Oh well. I can’t smell it on myself, but I’m sure Mia will. I’ll make sure she does.
On second thought, I reach into the jacket and pull the flask out, taking another swig of it in front of her. I push the door shut behind me and cross the room, emptying my pockets and leaving the flask on the end table.
“Rough night?” she asks, sympathetically. Of course she’s in sympathetic mode. I ran out of here this afternoon after sharing a personal story, and she wants to lick my wounds.
Instead of letting her, I’m going to give her new ones.
As tempted as I am to enjoy these last couple moments she likes me, I can’t. I’ve already gone so far off plan and I can’t afford to do it again. Not only will my performance lack the ability to convince her, it will also be harder to recover the positive feelings she has for me later. It will be harder for her to trust me, and I’m making it hard enough as it is.