Page 77 of Play With Me

“I just wanted to be somewhere familiar, Mellie, with someone I care about,” he murmurs, spinning his glass between his fingers. The condensation from the ice in the tumbler drips onto the polished surface.

“If you cared about me, you would have told me my parents reached out to you. You wouldn’t have kept them from me.” My tone is laced with anger but lacks the bite needed for this conversation. I’m tired.

“I already told you, I did it for your own good. They would have demanded you go home and they would have locked you away. Would you have rathered that, Mellie? To have them dictate your life?”

“Like you have?” I bite back.

He rolls his eyes and continues spinning his tumbler. “I knew if you spoke to your parents, I’d lose you for good.”

“Well that wasn’t your decision to make!”

As angry as I am, suggesting that Mick is the one behind the murders and the letters is absurd. Isn’t it?I study the man I loved for nearly half my life. He may have kept my parents from me, but is he truly capable of murdering someone? Of ordering someone to be so grotesquely slaughtered, like the man on Halloween night?

Is he capable of harming me?

Hurting, yes. Mick is skilled at hurting me. But physically harming me? I can’t even imagine it.

“So, when this all blows over, what do you want to do?” he asks, changing the topic before draining his glass and waving his fingers, a signal to slide the bottle back.

“What do you mean?” I think of Maya. About California and Greta and Roe. My parents.

Everything Anders said last night runs on repeat. WhyamI so quick to believe everything Mick says when he’s let me down over and over again? WhydoI run back to him even after the way he’s treated me all these years? Is Anders right? Am I just comfortable with my lifestyle? Afraid Mick will take it all away if I dare defy him?

He shrugs. “I thought maybe we could take Maya on a vacation. Get away for a few weeks. Go somewhere warm, like New Zealand or Thailand.”

Oh, hell no.I imagine the words flying from Anders’ lips so vividly I can hear them.

“No one was asking you, Brooks,” Mick seethes through clenched teeth, glaring at the spot over my shoulder.

I blink.

Anders.

He’s here. Hedidsay the words out loud.

Gracefully, I slide off my stool, even though I want to run across the room and jump into his arms. I turn to see him walking toward us and force myself to practice restraint so that I don’t look like a fool if he’s here to say goodbye.

“I don’t care if you asked me or not, Mick. The answer is still hell no.” Anders reaches my side and pulls me into him to kiss my temple. Relief rushes through me, and I wrap my arms around him, squeezing tight before he leads me away from the bar to one of the small settees.

Mick’s dark chuckles follow us. “Say your goodbyes, Brooks.”

“Why are you here with him?” Anders demands under his breath.

I don’t answer him because I don’t want to say the words that come to mind.He called, I came, and you weren’t there.

“Carmela…” He runs a hand through his hair.

“Where did you go last night?” I ask.

“A hotel. Do I need to ask again why you’re here with him?” Anders asks with exasperation. Hazel meets black, searching for the truth in the depths of my orbs.

Did I choose Mick? Is that why I’m here?

He looks uneasy—nervous as he waits for my explanation.

It occurs to me that Anders needs just as much assurance as I do. Taking his hand in mine, I rub my thumb over his. “It isn’t…easy…saying no, okay? Sometimes, I get confused by my feelings for him. I think that…that part of what you said last night is true.”

“Which part?” he asks, voice rough yet hoarse simultaneously. He doesn’t look at me, focusing instead on a spot on the wall in front of us. Bracing himself, I think, for me to tell him I chose Mick.

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