Page 363 of Faking the Goal

"Wow." I force out a small laugh. "That's... a long time."

"It is."

"What was she like when you first met her?"

The corners of his mouth soften into something almost nostalgic.

"Little."

The word catches me off guard.

He chuckles quietly.

"Scared of everything." His gaze lowers to his plate. "She used to cry a lot."

My pulse stumbles.

"What made you fall for her?"

He looks up.

"I didn't." His smile grows just a little. "I always knew."

A chill creeps up my spine.

"You... always knew?"

"From the moment I met her, I knew she was mine." He keeps going—something about destiny, about recognition, about the way she looked at him that first time—and I stop hearing the words and start hearing only the sound of my own pulse. My palms are damp. I press them flat against my thighs under the table.

He's still talking.

I glance at the clock on the wall. Fifteen minutes. Only fifteen minutes, and the air in here has thickened to something I have to chew through just to breathe.

"Conrad?" I interrupt before he can say another word. I can't listen to him anymore. Every sentence that leaves his mouth makes the room feel a little smaller, a little harder to breathe.

I force a smile, though it comes out more like a tremble.

His blue eyes meet mine.

"Your girlfriend," I say, keeping my voice as light as I can. "It's been almost twenty minutes. Should we text her? Maybe she's stuck in traffic."

His face contorts like a melting mask, warping into a sinister grin. In a low, menacing voice, he says, "She's already here."

For one horrible second, I can't move. My heart starts hammering so violently it feels trapped against my ribs, beating harder and harder as I stare at the man across from me.

This is it.

The moment we've been waiting for.

Except nothing could have prepared me for actually sitting here while the last pieces of his sanity peel away right in front of me. There's something almost demonic in his eyes now, a dark, feverish gleam that makes his stare feel malicious.

"What are you talking about?" I say, and my voice is thin, reedy.

His hand shoots across the table. Fast—faster than I expected, and I was expecting fast—and his fingers close around my wrist with a grip that feels calibrated to the exact pressure required to hold me in place without leaving a mark. Not yet, anyway.

"You asked where my girlfriend is." A quiet chuckle slips from him. "I'm looking at her."

"Conrad..."