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“Whatever you do is my business.” I breathed her in. “I make it my business.”
“Well,” she leaned her head back to look at me, “that’s a you problem, isn’t it?” She tried to slide out of my hold, but I tightened my grip. “Grim,” she rolled her eyes, “yes, I was with Yen Hong in Hong Kong, and yes, he offered me a contract. I haven’t turned him down but haven’t accepted his offer either. I like having options.”
A cold prickle shot down my back. “Why? Don’t I give you enough here?”
Her face fell and her shoulders straightened. I could see a change come over her. “You’ve offered me more than enough here.”
“So?”
“Grim,” she wiggled away and put a hand on her hip, “it’s complicated.”
“I’m listening.”
“All right. One minute I’m a just a hostess for your father’s hotel, and the next I’m trapped under someone I just killed, then you show up and…” She shook her head. “Next I’m being attacked, then I’m being stalked.” Her hands whirled about as she tried to find the words. “Then you and I suddenly become like animals and it’s like we can’t keep our hands off each other.” She stopped and her eyes pierced mine. “Then there’s you and Jenelle.” She sucked in a deep breath. “One moment I think we just might have something, then…” She stopped herself and closed her eyes. “I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a good idea for me to stay at Indulge.”
“It’s not.”
“Really,” she scoffed. “That’s what you’ve decided to say.”
“I have plenty more to say.” She waved for me to keep going. “For starters, what did Sonny Conti talk to you about after Leo’s funeral? Why did you sit in the back with Elio, and why did you leave the reception alone, anyway? You’re a smart woman, Kenna. You know people are watching you. You know who you killed. Why would you leave alone, knowing all that?”
“Seriously?” she yelled.
“I’d likeyouto take this seriously.”
She raised her chin in the way I hated yet loved because I knew we were in for a fight. I felt my pants tighten. “Grim! You flung insult after insult at me, trying to take me down so I’d hurt just as much as you did! You’d let me in then tossed me out just as fast.” She was pissed and hot. “You chose vengeance over me,” she spat.
“I also chose you over my brother, and look where that got me!” I boomed when she hit that nerve.
“I know that!” She pushed my chest with both hands, but I didn’t budge, and that pissed her off further. “You’ve reminded me many times. Like it was my fault or your fault.” Tears suddenly filled her wild eyes. “It wasn’t either of our faults. It was a horrible thing that happened, but blaming me or you isn’t going to help.”
“Why the hell do you think I went after your father?” I shouted in her face, but she didn’t back down.
“No, you don’t!” She stepped closer, and I couldn’t help but glance down at her heaving chest. “What you need to take ownership for is to see that I was only trying to help protect you. I had to stop you from leaving. I was on your side, Grim. I knew we were being watched and that your family had to play it the right way.” She swiped away a tear that had slipped down her cheek, and her mouth opened and closed as though she was about to say something, then changed her mind. “And you knewby walking out that door that if you killed him, we were over, yet you still left.”
“He put a hit on me and got my brother instead,” I hissed and put a hand on her shoulder. “Anyone in my situation would have left.”
She slapped my hand away. “And anyone in my situation,” she poked my chest to drive her words home, “would have left too. So, I did.” She turned away, and I grabbed her hand.
“But I didn’t kill your father.”
Her mouth twisted as she thought. “Would you have if he was in his office that night?”
Fuck yes.
Well, maybe, yeah.
I thought for a moment as I took in her hurt expression, and something nagged at me.Would I have?
“Look,” her shoulders sagged, and she looked exhausted, “Sonny came to let me know the truth is coming. Whatever the hell that means. I can’t tell if he knows, but he made sure to scare the hell out of me.”
I hated that he got to her. “If he knew you killed Matt Mayers, you’d be dead, church or not.”
She nodded. “Then I guess I have my head for another day.”
Her phone rang, and I grabbed it off the bar and fought an internal battle not to look at the screen. I handed it to her and watched her send it to voicemail. She cursed under her breath as I moved closer to breathe in her scent. She was like a mantrap.
“Well, I can tell you, I’m over all of this.” She moved to sit on the couch, and I shut my mouth about how she was in too deep to hide her head in the sand now. “And I’m not going to dinner tomorrow night.”
