Page 109 of Remy

Warmth blasts my cheeks, and it’s not just from the heating system.

Sympathy no longer lingers in his expression. What stares back at me is something else. Something that feels a lot like wrath.

“I guess I was desperate.”

His gaze snaps to the idle cars in front of us. “Why?”

The reasons seem pathetic now.

Because I’m tired.

Because I can’t sleep.

“I need some amendments to the agreement,” I whisper. “My father might be capable of letting you run unchecked through our business, but I don’t know how. I need to be informed of what you’re doing and when you’re doing it so I can make sure there are no loose ends.”

“There are no loose ends.”

“But there was. Twice. Hugo had to take the fall both times.”

His jaw ticks. Then the traffic light turns green and he takes off again, this time not as erratically.

“Look, I understand you don’t want a witness to your handiwork, but I haven’t slept for a week and?—”

“I’m well aware of your nocturnal habits,” he growls.

I raise my chin, defensive and unsure how I feel about the confirmation that someone has been spying on me. “Why are you angry at me?”

He slams on the brakes, the Bentley screeching to a stop in the middle of a suburban street. “Because you could’ve fucking died.” He glares wild eyes at me. “Do you not understand that? Do you think he was going to let you walk away after he was done violently fucking you?”

I shrink at the image.

“If I would’ve shown up two minutes later or not checked my phone, how I found you would’ve been entirely different. You get that, right? You get that he was about to pull his dick from his pants and?—”

“I get it.” I raise my voice yet shrink farther into myself.

I’ve never felt more shame.

More remorse.

Twice, Remy has saved me. Twice, I’ve owed him my life.

Finally, he sighs. “You heard my uncle, Ollie. We’re not supposed to have anything to do with each other.” He returns to driving, his temper mellowing if his smooth corners and slowed acceleration are anything to go by. “You need to figure out a way through this.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried?” I beg. “It’s been a week, and I’m exhausted. The only thing I’ve achieved is heightened paranoia and potential psychosis.”

“Don’t forget the hours of intensive online research. You realize half of what you read online isn’t real, right?”

“That’s funny.” I turn toward him, the passing streetlights casting his face in bursts of shadowed light. “Because most of what I found has been about a fashion heir whose favorite pastime is attending expensive publicity events. Yet here I sit before a mafia criminal who lives to increase his serial killer stats.”

His nostrils flare, but he doesn’t look at me.

He turns suburban corner after suburban corner before pulling into my drive and cutting the engine. The internal vehicle lights gradually illuminate the Bentley’s interior as he stares at my tiny house, the dark of night seeming a mile away from our world inside his car.

“Remy, I’m destructively inquisitive. A perfectionist. I can be neurotic and overbearing and sickeningly hyper-focused. It’s one of the reasons why I took the mortuary path instead of the funeral director role. I can’t be the way I am with grieving people. I can’t micromanage the way they mourn. But I can recreate someone’s skull so it looks exactly the same way it did before they fell twenty feet down a mountain. Or reconstruct someone’s facial features after massive trauma even though other morticians say it’s impossible.”

He keeps staring at the house. Keeps his mouth shut.

“I’ve been asked to speak at conferences because I’m a leader in my field on how to maintain the integrity of my decedents without always relying on embalming,” I add.

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