Little Black Book(64)

Her words penetrated me and I flew off the handle. Slamming my hands into the desk, I stood.

“I’ve picked up the slack for you for years,” I yelled. “I covered your ass a million times, including the time you blew two people away. Don’t you dare come in my office with your shit or I swear to God…”

She stood there staring back at me, her face softening. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

I wanted to keep yelling at her. I wanted to scream and throw things, but I couldn’t. The truth was, I didn’t trust Vick since the night I watched her murder two innocent people.

I’d sat in my apartment for week thinking about all the shit I wanted to say to her when I saw her again, but now none of it felt good enough. Instead I stared at her, willing her to tell me everything she knew.

“Did you know?” I asked, my voice steady and hard as steel.

“Do I know what?” she asked.

“Don’t fucking play games with me, Victoria.” My voice echoed off the walls of my office. “Did. You. Know?”

It took a moment, as she gleaned my meaning, and then her face cleared of all confusion. Stunned surprise took its place, and I knew. I fucking knew my answer.

“And you let me fuck her? You knew who she was and you let me proposition her anyway?”

“How did you find out her name? She told you?”

“What the hell does it matter how I know her name? I fucking know her name.”

She fell back a step and it was her turn to read the answer on my face.

“You asked her?” She couldn’t control her shock and somewhere underneath was a little bit of anger. “You’ve never asked for a name.”

“She’s different,” I growled and sighed, running my fingers through my hair. “Well, she was fucking different. You should have told me, Vick. You know very fucking well you should have told me.”

“You’re the one who went and got a conscious on me. You’re the one who went digging for their names. I never asked you to tell me their names… never. This is your fault. You should’ve left well enough alone. You should’ve—”

I cut her off. “How long have you known? Since the police station? When did you find out who she was? Was it before or after I fucked her?”

Her face went hard, nostrils flaring, making her pretty face look unappealing.

“I knew who she was the minute she walked in the club, before I even hired her. I figured it wouldn’t hurt if you spent some money on her—showed her a good time. We owed her that much.”

Her words were like a punch to the gut. I couldn’t believe the woman standing in front of me was someone I associated with—someone I’d taken under my wing. She was a figment of the girl I met in foster care. That little girl was gone, and in her stead was a monster. Someone I wasn’t sure I could be around anymore.

“Did you tell her the truth, Sebastian? Does she know?”

She was only worried about herself.

“No.”

Relief flooded her face, and she had the audacity to smile. “Good. You’ve always got my back.”

“Get out,” my words were quiet, but lethal.

“Sebastian, this is nothing. We’ll get past it, like we’ve always done before.”

“I said, get out.”

She walked backward to the door, as if she was waiting for me to tell her to stay, and then turned and left.





Twenty-Four

Rosslyn





“What the hell is wrong with you, Roz? You’re like Night of the Living Dead over there.” Trish said, licking banana frozen yogurt from her spoon.

I stared down at my cup and dug my spoon into it over and over again, turning my yogurt into mush, but never taking a bite. “I’m just tired.”

Tired was an understatement. Since the moment Sebastian asked me to leave his apartment, I’d been a nervous wreck. There was no telling when I’d be kicked to the curb, but more than anything, I missed him. If I could go back and change the moment when things shifted between us, I would have never left his bed.

I could have stayed Jessica forever. I was willing to do that for him. I didn’t care what that said about me. From the second I left the club, I knew I was in love with him.

After trying to have a semi-normal day at the mall with Trish, I called Mr. Martin and had him pick me up and take me back to my condo. Seeing as though he still answered my calls, things couldn’t have been that bad, right? If Sebastian was really done with me, would his driver still be driving me around?

I moped around the condo for the past week, eating way too much junk food, and waiting for the sound of my phone to buzz or the elevator doors to beep. And still, there was nothing.