“Banner? The fighter who competed tonight?”
She nods. “He’s always wanted Whitney and if he wins tonight, he gets to keep her. My father traded his own daughter to pay off his loans. Banner agreed to pay my college tuition, too, if Whitney married him. But I couldn’t let her consider marrying that awful man just so I could be debt free. I won’t let my sister be miserable on my behalf.” She presses her lips together. “That’s why she seduced the Russian. So he would compete harder. You wouldn’t happen to know if he beat Banner tonight, do you?”
“I’ll find out,” I say, kind of dazed by the avalanche of information. “If Banner won, he won’t be paying your tuition, Scout. I know that much.”
“Oh.” She looks puzzled. “Why?”
“Do you think I’d let another man pay your bills?” I nearly shout.
“I didn’t think about it. We’ve only just met.”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” I say with calm I don’t feel. “Consider them paid.”
She sputters for a moment. “No. Really?”
I incline my head.
Still she’s skeptical. “No.”
“Yes.”
Thoughts whir behind her eyes. “How much money do you have?”
Who knows? I don’t even check anymore. I just keep adding to it. “A fuck ton. And it’s just sitting there collecting dust, so you’ll take it and get your physics degree. Are we clear?”
Her brows knit together. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is it just sitting there collecting dust?”
I open my mouth and close it, searching my mind for the answer. “There’s nothing worthwhile to spend it on.” A beat passes. “Usually, anyway.”
Her features soften. “Are you saying I’m the exception?”
My nod is brief. This girl has me admitting things I wasn’t even aware were true. She’s like an honesty magnet and I find myself wanting to drop my worst secrets in her lap. To have her judge me, sentence me, redeem me.
“That’s a pretty romantic thing to say,” she whispers, slowly laying her head against my shoulder. “You’re killing it already, Brawn.”
A laugh rasps out of me. And Jesus, I can’t remember the last time I laughed.
Is honesty romantic? Is that the secret ingredient?
“You spend all your time making money,” she says, tracing the collar of my shirt, lulling me, making me hot all at once. “But if it doesn’t make you happy, what is the point?”
“I don’t know anymore,” I say, meaning it.
“What if you used your money for good?”
I scoff. “What, like charities? They don’t want to be tied to me.”
“It doesn’t have to be something so noble.” Suddenly, she sits up, a breathtaking smile blooming across her mouth. “Not that I don’t want to eat on a rooftop, but do you mind a change of plans?”
She brings me to a dive bar named the Speckled Hen.
I’m against the idea immediately, but she explains that she lives two doors down with her sister, Whitney, and they’ve more or less grown up in the bar.
“When my father didn’t come home on time, the owner let us do our homework in the back room. We ate salted peanuts for dinner a lot.”
I agree to this change of plans for two reasons. One, I want to see where this girl is living and if I need to buy her a penthouse somewhere safer. And two, I’m curious what her goal is by bringing me to the Speckled Hen. Who is this interesting girl? She would rather go to a neighborhood pub than dine on a private rooftop?
Fucking hell. Now I’m even more confused by the concept of romance.
If the bar wasn’t full of men old enough to be her grandfather, we would have been out of there. And thankfully, the dim, ancient space only has one entrance, one exit, and a limited number of windows. I position my security on the street and in the rear, telling them not to let anyone in or out until we leave. This is not as safe as taking Scout to my own restaurant, but I find myself wanting to indulge her—a highly inconvenient urge.
A cheer goes up when she walks into the Speckled Hen, then dissolves into silence when I follow close behind. Oh they recognize me, all right.
Frankly, I’d be a little insulted if they didn’t.
“Hello everyone!” Scout calls, turning and giving me a sly smile. “My friend Easton is buying all of your drinks tonight!”
The cheering is even louder than before.
Suddenly…I’m a hero?
And not a pariah.
Stools are opened up for us at the bar and I’m given good-natured slaps on the back. All the while, Scout beams at me. There’s a burgeoning warmth in my chest that I can’t recall ever experiencing. Definitely not since the loss of my brother and my best friend.
I hold Scout’s hand underneath the bar. Then I decide it isn’t enough and lock her against my side, while the old men tell stories about Scout as a young girl. How she looked like an owl with her big eyes and bigger glasses. How she would watch Jeopardy in the bar and the regulars would take bets on how many answers she would get correct.
After a while, the customers drift back to their usual spots, leaving me with an oddly optimistic feeling—and face to face with the girl who caused it. I pull her into the space between my thighs, appreciating the ripple of black fabric over her braless tits. “You’re actually drinking a Shirley Temple, aren’t you?”
She hums, a flush creeping up her neck. “Alcohol knocks me out. And they taste better.”
“And you’re not of legal age.”
Her wince is adorable. “I didn’t want to remind you.”
“I don’t need reminding.” I slide a palm up her spine, along her shoulders and up into her hair, combing my fingers through the thick wealth of it. “Tell me why you brought me here.”
“Because it’s real. You seem so…isolated.” Her expression is actually concerned. For me. It makes my jugular tie in a knot. “If you come down from your private box more often, you’ll see, Easton. That you’re not just a bad man, like you told me. You’re more. You can’t always stand above and look down at life happening. Sometimes you have to join it.”
“That’s not possible for me,” I say thickly. “Or anyone who gets too close to me.”
“Why do you believe that?”
Do I tell her? Do I ruin this positive impression she somehow has painted of me? Or do I let her think I’m redeemable when I know I’m not? I don’t know what I should do. Only that I can’t seem to hold anything back from this girl. How sweetly and gently she unwinds me. “This wasn’t always a one-man operation, Scout. My brother and best friend were my partners, before the life swallowed them up. They warned me…they warned me our dealings were growing too dangerous, but I was ambitious. I thought if I reached the top, I would finally…”
“What?”
“Feel something.”
“And did you?”
“No.” God, my lungs don’t seem to be working right. “But I feel something…now.”
Her eyes are serious, but her lips are teasing. Flirtatious. I want to devour them. I want to devour her. Trap her inside me so she can never leave. “Maybe you should have been ambitious with romance, instead of crime.”