Page 15 of The Kiss of Deception

I nod once. Of course he wouldn’t jeopardize his career. He doesn’t hate me that much, not to the point of self-sabotage.

Considering this impromptu meeting as finished, I start to leave, pausing at the island to set down my glass right next to his.

One half full, the other half empty.

“Zoe?”

Something in my name beckons me to look back at him.

Standing shadowed in the starless night, Miles is quite the painting. A fallen angel holding on his hunched shoulders the weight of the world that stretches behind him.

“I’m sorry.”

It’s barely a rasp, a voice I don’t recognize. I almost want to spin and look around to see if another person has been in the room this whole time when I thought it was the two of us.

“For touching you without your consent. I—You—” It’s him. I see the words leaving his lips as they purse and stretch to form them, but I don’t think I see him. “I hope you know why I did it. I need you to know I never meant to force myself on you or anything like that.”

Miles pins me with a serious gaze, his face devoid of all the things that make him Miles Blackstein. The shine that makes his gray eyes silver, the mischief that tickles his cheeks, the mask he wears for the world.

“I should never have touched you without your consent. It wasn’t right—circumstances or not, there is no justification for what I did. I’m sorry,” he blows out again, another sharp breath.

For all his many, many faults, being a predator or a pervert is absolutely not one of them.

I scramble for something, but sentences are hard to derive from the mess of my thoughts. One thing is clear, though. “Yes, you shouldn’t have. I appreciate you acknowledging that.”

Then, I leave him alone to be swallowed by Boston’s beauty beyond.

I’m fucked, for more reasons than the hundreds I can list in my head.

Chapter Five

Zoe

“Hot date, love?”

I startle, keychain flying from my hand, nosediving to the floor. A long sigh drags out of my chest, and even that seems to take a lot more effort, a lot more than usual.

After one long day at work that stretched into two days after an all-nighter, I arrived home hungry, cranky, exhausted, only to find the fridge empty. And the pantry. Due to my limited patience—even more limited cooking skills—I settled for a quick run to the grocery store instead of, like any sane person, resorting to takeout.

Takeout would be a band-aid solution to a stitch-needing cut—I’ll be hungry again tomorrow and will, again, face an empty fridge. So instead of doing what any sane person would do, focusing on filling my belly tonight and worrying about the rest tomorrow, I had to address the issue at its root without further delays.

I set my tote bags on the floor, rotating my left arm, numb from the weight of groceries that had better last at least until next month.

“Oh right!” Miles snaps his fingers as though a light bulb lit up in his head. “They belong to me, now.”

Determined to shoo him away, I spin slowly to scowl at him until he squirms a little. Instead, he loses some of his perpetual mischief—not all, never entirely—and becomes more assessing as he gazes at me with such thoroughness that I suspect his intentions are the same as mine.

I bend down—not to avoid him—to pick up the keys. Miles gets there quicker, grabbing the bags in the same movement, somehow unlocking and opening the door before I stretch to my full height.

“Love the outfit, by the way.”

Old pajamas, untamable curls all messy in a ponytail, one-day-old makeup caked around my eyes. In my haste, I had still taken the time to change working clothes to my much comfier pajamas before I willingly drove to the grocery store wearing cotton bees and a puffer jacket. Like normal people do.

His gaze drops slowly, sucking all the air molecules until the baggy clothes feel skin-tight and suffocating.

I’m opening my mouth to point him to a shorter way to hell when he tips his head, ordering me to get inside without words.

So arrogant, so commanding, the slight tip of his head and those dimples, that I want to dig my heels and scream like a toddler even though it’s my own damn home.

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