She slides out of the backseat and offers me her hand. I don’t really need it to climb out, but the motion is a demand, even if it’s a nonverbal one. I slip my hand into hers, trying not to notice how soft her skin is, and allow her to assist me out of the car.
We walk through the front door, and the hostess practically falls all over herself to usher us back to a private dining room. She’s a thin white woman with brunette hair and the kind of near-alien beauty found on the runway, and she’s looking at Malone like she’d love nothing more than to kneel before her.
Something pricks me, an uncomfortable sensation beneath my skin. This woman looks at Malone like she knows her taste. It’s there in the way she can’t quite take her eyes off Malone, in the way she lingers in the private room for several beats too long before disappointment bows her frail shoulders and she leaves, closing the door behind her.
I take my hand from Malone’s arm and eye her. “Is she an ex?”
Malone’s mouth tightens. “She’s an indiscretion. I usually have better taste than to blur the lines between business and pleasure, but I didn’t realize she worked here when we met.”
Met. She means fucked.
The pricking sensation inside me gets worse. “So why not fire her?”
“Fire her because of my mistake?” She gives me a look like she’s disappointed in me. “Maybe that’s how Hades operates, but it’s not how I do things.”
I start to defend Hades, but the truth is that I’m speaking without thinking, and Hades isn’t who I want to discuss. “Did you even talk to her? Or do you just ice her out like you ice everyone out?”
Malone blinks. “There’s nothing to say. It was only for one night, and she knew that going into it.”
I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. I have no right to the jealousy—yes, jealousy—I’m feeling, but I can empathize with the woman despite that. “So you fucked her, and now you come to her place of work and ignore her instead of talking? You are such an unbelievable asshole.”13MaloneI stare at Aurora, trying to figure out where she’s going with this. She looks…furious. A different kind of anger than she’s brought to scenes in the past, but no less authentic. “Why do you care so much about some woman you’ve never met?”
“Because it’s not right. You move through life, taking what you want and not caring about the consequences. It’s cruel.”
Now, I’m truly confused, but I manage to keep my cold expression in place. “Aurora.”
But she’s not listening. “Just because you’re the most powerful one in the room doesn’t give you the right to stomp on people weaker than you. Doing so doesn’t make you strong. It makes you a monster.”
A monster.
Is that really what she thinks of me? She’s not exactly wrong, but it stings nonetheless. “You seem to think you know a lot about me. Please, do continue to tell me more about myself.”
She opens her mouth and seems to sense the trap before she manages to blunder right into it. I give her a moment to sit in that knowledge and lean in. “I would never dream of policing you about how you interact with your exes and fuck buddies and clients. And you say I’m the cruel one.”
“That’s not fair.” She drops her gaze and clasps her hands in front of her. “This is a two-week assignation.”
“Yes, it is. Which also falls under my point.”
Aurora wrings her fingers in a way that makes me want to grab her hands before she does herself harm. I manage to resist the impulse, but only for a moment. I take her hands and extract them from each other. “Use your words instead of doing this.”
“I hate you.”
“Yes, you keep saying that.” It might even be true. She certainly looks at me with loathing from time to time. I’m more than aware of how a person can hold two feelings simultaneously. It’s complicated and messy, but that’s humanity. “That’s not why you’re doing this to your hands.”
Aurora keeps staring down, as if she can divine meaning from the wood floor beneath our feet. I study her, trying to understand what the hell is going on. She’s never had a problem speaking her mind to this point. I go back over the last few minutes since arriving at the restaurant, how Aurora tensed up, her harsh words… It all started around Genevieve. I blink. “Are you jealous?”
“No, of course not. Don’t be absurd.” The words rush out of her, tumbling over each other. Lying to me.
She’s jealous.
I don’t know why that knowledge shocks me. Aurora is a free spirit in every sense of the word. I’m nearly one hundred percent certain that even if she ends up in a relationship, she’ll remain polyamorous. Trying to confine her to a monogamous relationship would be like trying to box in the wind. Impossible.