Page 99 of Sweet Ruin

Kane frowns. “Was someone rude to you?”

“No, no,” I hurry to say, feeling guilty for even accidentally getting someone in trouble. “They were fine, just… distant. Don’t, like, cut off their pinkies as punishment or anything.”

He relaxes. “As long as they were not disrespectful.”

“Nothing like that, I promise.” I fidget in place as I look around at the rest of the office. One side is all glass, framed with black steel, showcasing nothing but a wall of rough-hewn black concrete on the far side. “You have a lot of guys standing around your house not doing anything, though. Isn’t that expensive?”

He chuckles. “They’re doing plenty.”

“Are you preparing to be invaded or something? Are you, like, New York’s answer to Attila the Hun?”

“Someone is in a quippy mood this afternoon,” he remarks. He tips his head at the chair on my side of the desk. “Sit.”

“I’d rather not.”

He lifts an eyebrow.

“It’s not a defiant thing,” I explain. “I’ve been on my feet since four, so if I sit down in a nice chair, I might not get back up.”

He looks at me strangely. Then he shoves his chair back and stands.

“What are you doing?” I ask in alarm.

Instead of answering, he storms around the desk and comes charging up to me, eating up the ground between us in his huge strides. I’d probably have run if my feet were a little more responsive, but since I fall more on the Bambi end of the fight-or-flight-or-freeze spectrum, all I do is stand in place.

He stops one step away and holds out his hand, palm up.

I stare at it and don’t move.

“Give me your hand, Lilah. I won’t hurt you.”

I do it. Couldn’t tell you why. His fingers close around mine and his other hand settles at my elbow. He guides me around and lowers me into the chair like I’m a precious little china doll. Slow. Careful. He waits until I’m all the way down before he lets go.

The skin-to-skin contact is electric. Rings cold against my knuckles, his palm hot.

But that’s not the part that gets me.

The part that gets me is the rest of it. Men don’t hold chairs for me. Men don’t put a hand under my elbow. Not since I was a kid, and even then it was only my dad who ever cared enough to bother.

“Better?” he says.

“I… think so? Sure. Let’s just go with yes.”

“Good.” He nods, then retreats back to his side of the desk. It’s only once he’s seated, too, that I can breathe again.

“So,” he says. “How are you?”

I blink at him. “What?”

“Kak ty?”

“I’m lost.”

“Comment ça va? Wie geht es dir? Tudo bem? Nǐ hǎo ma?”

“Are you having a stroke?”

That mysterious smile spreads across his face. “Pick your language, sladkaya. I just asked how you are.”