Page 93 of Vows In Corruption

Hearing the sounds makes the champagne slightly better, but not much.

“It’s fine,” I say trying to not burb up the taste. “I’ve never,” why the fuck is this so hard? “Spent a night in jail.”

I came close once, for arguing with an officer after getting pulled over, which is a stupid fucking reason. Connections where on my side though when a police Lieutenant drove by and had the police officers release me. I didn’t know until after that the Lieutenant was the same individual that came to the house the night my parents died and notified us.

I kick the memory out of my head when I see Ella scoop up some ice cream and bring it up to her mouth.

“No fucking way.”

Dante’s report on her had nothing about an arrest.

Her face gets all red. “I was sixteen and it was only for one night. It wasn’t even my fault.”

Her grumbles are cute.

“Whose fault was it?” I try to hold in a laugh at how she is reacting, but it’s becoming hard.

With her face still very much red, she lets out a sigh. “Teenage hormones. There was this guy in the group home that I was in that I had a crush on, he was like a wannabe rebel.”

I let out a snort. “Wannabe rebel?”

“Like he wanted to be a bad boy but the dude was too much of a goodie-two- shoes to actually pull it off.

I place a hand over my mouth to hold in my laugh. “Sounds like an awesome dude.”

“Whatever. Do you want to hear the story or not?” There’s a bite to her tone that is sexy as fuck.

I hold up my hands. “I’m listening.”

A eye roll comes my direction. “Anyway, it was after dinner and we wanted some snacks so we went to the corner store to get some. When we were in there, my crush had the bright idea to just walk out without paying for anything, and since I wanted to impress him, I was all for it. Little did I know, the store owner had cameras everywhere and caught us. And since this asshole was a wannabe, he dropped all the snacks on the floor and told the owner that it was my idea to steal. The owner called the cops, we both spent a night at the police station and in the morning the head of the group home came to pick us up. The charges were dropped and that’s it. The end. My turn.”

As much as I appreciate her wanting to drop the subject, she is not getting off that easy. I need more details.

“Did anything ever happen between you and the guy?”

Ella shrugs. “Nothing. A few weeks later he aged out and moved out of the group home into his own apartment. I saw him a few years ago when he came into the restaurant I was working at, but that’s it.”

“No rekindled crush?”

I’m not going to lie, Ella with narrowed eyes is also sexy as fuck. “No. The crush disappeared the second he put the blame on me. It was his stupid idea.”

I let out a small laugh which makes Ella relax a little bit and laughs with me.

“Well it was his loss anyway. I doubt he would be able to handle you giving him the death glare every time you remembered what he did.”

Another chuckle leaves her. “No, he wouldn’t. Is it my turn now?” I give her a nod. “I’ve never been to a strip club.”

“Never?” I ask bringing the bottle up to my lips. This second drink is worse than the last.

Ella shakes her head. “I’ve never been curious enough to step foot into one.”

Right away an idea springs into my head.

“We may have to use one of our weekly dates to take you to one.”

“You want to take me to a club where naked women are going to grind all over you?”

She sounds jealous with tinge of anger in her voice and I can’t but to admit that I like. But she has no reason to be jealous. This marriage may have an end date, and we may not be in a relationship, but that doesn’t mean that I would do anything to embarrass her. I’ll be fucking damned if I even let another woman touch me while I’m married. I wouldn’t do that to Ella. There are plenty of reason why I didn’t want to get married, but commitment and monogamy were not some of those reason.

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