Page 366 of Dark Love

Really nice. “I haven’t spent a day like this in far too long. Not since I moved to Urbium.”

“How long ago did you move here?”

“A couple of months ago. I lived in the burbs north of Urbium for my entire life. How about you? How long have you lived here?”

Vex sets his fork down. “I grew up here.”

“And you stayed?”

“Where else would I go?”

Everywhere. “Anywhere.”

“Why? I know Urbium. It’s safe.”

Hardly. No big city is ever completely safe… for a woman.

“Why did you move here?”

“Because it wasn’t safe.” Which sounds even stranger.

“Huh?”

“I’m not crazy.” Mostly. “Have you ever been too safe?”

He stares at me incredulously. “There’s no such thing.”

You’re wrong about that, but there’s no way I can explain my life back home without sounding nutty. “The burbs are quiet, boring almost. There’s nothing to do for a single woman. It’s all families taking their kids to activities and lunching.”

“And you didn’t want that?”

That wasn’t an option for me back home. Everyone knew me. There was no future for me there. “No.Though I did enjoy shopping and going to lunch on occasion.”

“If you want to live on the wild side, why did you show up at my club looking like you did?”

Wild side? Me? “Um… I’m not looking to be wild here. I want to just—I don’t know—live a little. They said we were going out for drinks. I thought my coworkers were taking me to a nice bar. Where we would drink a glass of wine and listen to some guy play the piano for an hour and get to know each other.”

“Then they took you to my club.”

I nod.

“And would you ever want to go to one again?”

After I was drugged and passed out on a bathroom floor? “No.”

“Even if I promised you’d be safe?”

“How could you promise that?” It literally happened at his club.

“Dahl, nothing bad will ‘ever’ get near you again at my club. I can promise you that.”

Vex can’t know that. Bad things happen… and they seem to happen to me more often than most.

“You don’t look convinced.”

I shrug. “Bad things happen. No matter how intimidating you are, you can’t fix the world.”

He opens his mouth to say something and snaps it shut as his gaze moves sharply to a point behind me.

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