A Deal with Demakis(15)

                Struggling not to show how much it pained her, she tucked her hands in her lap. “Maybe it wasn’t Faith,” she offered, just to get him off her back.

                “She has a tattoo of a red rose on her left buttock and a dragon on her right shoulder. When it was clear no one would answer, I opened the door and went right in. Your friend, by the way, is also a screamer, which was how I knew there was someone inside that bedroom.”

                Flushing, Lexi turned her gaze away from him. Even if she didn’t know about the tattoos, which she did, the last bit was enough to confirm that he was talking about Faith. “All right, so she lied to me,” she said, unable to fight the tidal wave of exhaustion that was coming at her fast. As long as she had felt that she was helping Faith, she’d been able to keep going. She pulled up her legs, uncaring of the expensive leather. “What I don’t get is why you felt the need in the first place to barge into our apartment and confront her.”

                “You left that bar at five in the morning, and two hours later, you weren’t at your apartment in Brooklyn. I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to not get yourself killed all these years.”

                Her breath lodged in her throat, painfully. Hugging her knees tight, she stared at him. Shock pulsed through the exhaustion. She lived in the liveliest city on the planet, and even with Tyler around, she’d felt the loneliness like a second skin most of her life. Nikos’s matter-of-fact statement only rammed the hurtful truth closer.

                “You don’t have to worry about me. I take my safety very seriously.” His anger was misplaced and misdirected. Yet it also held a dangerous allure.

                His nostrils flared, his jaw tight as a concrete slab. “My sister’s welfare depends on you,” he said, enunciating every word as though he was talking to someone dimwitted. “I need you alive and kicking right now, not dead in some Dumpster.”

                “You don’t like it that you felt a minute’s concern for me? At least it makes you human.”

                “As opposed to what? Are you also a part-time shrink?”

                The caustic comment was enough to cure her stupid thinking.

                “As opposed to an alien with no heart. Why is this even relevant to you? Are you keeping tabs on all my friends so that you can manipulate me a little more?”

                “She took advantage of you.” He looked at her as though he was studying a curious insect, something that had crawled under his polished, handmade shoes. “Aren’t you the least bit angry with her?”

                “She doesn’t mean to—”

                “Hurt you? And yet it seems she has accomplished that very well.”

                Was she imagining the compassion in those brown depths? Or was her sleep-deprived mind playing tricks on her again? She scrunched back into the seat, feeling as stupid as he was calling her. “Faith’s had a rough life.”

                “And you haven’t?”

                “It’s not about who had the roughest life or who deserves kindness more, Nikos. Faith, for all her lies and manipulation, has no one. No one who cares about her, who would worry about her. And I know what that loneliness feels like. I don’t expect you to—”

                “I know enough,” he said with a cutting edge to his words. “You haven’t signed the contract yet. Now you have forced me to fly back to New York for the express purpose of accompanying you to Greece.”