Page 62 of His Every Move

I knew one way I could put this to bed. I grabbed my phone and sent Eli a text.

NightOwl really is me. I’m sorry for just telling you now.

I watched Eli reach for his phone and read the text message. He dropped the phone and looked directly into the camera.

“Benji… what the fuck? Come to my house right now. We need to talk.”

The screen switched to black as Eli slammed his laptop shut.

Chapter22

Elijah Grant

Benji satacross from me at my dining table.

No, not Benji.NightOwl.

I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t know what to feel. Whiplash, mostly. There was no denying the fact that I was developing some strong feelings for this man, yet I didn’t even know who he really was. He betrayed my trust. Infiltrated my life before I even knew who he was, and then he kept that a secret.

“Fucking hell,” I let out with a whoosh of air. “Really, Benji?”

He dropped his head, looked down at his hands. Such sexy fucking hands. Damn it. Why did he have to turn out to be a liar? We could be having some of the best sex of my damn life right now, and instead, I was just focused on wrapping my head around this.

“I couldn’t keep it from you any longer.” He sounded remorseful, but my guard was about ten miles high right now. He’d need averytall ladder to scale over it. “I should have told you right from the start. I’m sorry.”

I dropped my head in my hands, rubbed at the bridge of my nose. “With everything going on in my life, Ireallyneeded someone who I could fully trust. I thought that was you.”

“It is me,” he said. “I never lied to you. I just…”

“Lying by omission is still lying.”

He shut his eyes. His beard was growing in, scruffy and dark around his jaw. I was always such a sucker for the rugged look.

Not today. No. I had to stay strong. Benji betrayed my trust. I had to let him know how much that hurt me. “With everything going on, you still led me to believe that we had no previous connections before I went to Stonewall looking for help. But you manipulated me into meeting you. Instead of just saying it outright—‘hey, I’m a detective, I can help out.’ Why?”

Benji shook his head and managed to meet my gaze. I tried not to crack under the sad stare he gave me. “I wasn’t thinking. I was just… just not thinking.” He sighed, and I was instantly hit with the sharp scent of tequila. I knew Benji drank occasionally—he was never shy about offering me a shot or a glass of wine—but had he gotten drunk before meeting with me?

“Are you drunk right now?”

His eyebrows pulled together as he vigorously shook his head. “No, no. Absolutely not. No, I had a drink just to kill the nerves, but that’s it.”

I searched his face, looking over the landmarks and features I had found so entertaining trying to memorize only a day before. Now, I was searching for clues, hunting down more signs that he was lying to me. I didn’t want to believe it, but I had to keep my eyes open and make sure I wasn’t making any naive mistakes. “It smells like you had more than just one drink.”

“It was two.”

An unreasonably hot burst of anger flared through my chest.

“Two drinks? You had two drinks just to talk to me? Am I that fucking intimidating, or are you just always drunk when you’re confessing your lies?” The venom was out before I could reel it back in. I’d always been a hothead, but that side of me had never come out around Benji.

First time for everything.

“Eli, come on, it wasn’t?—”

“Wasn’t what? Wasn’t planned? Wasn’t intentional? Because from where I’m at, Benji, it looks pretty fucking intentional.” I stood abruptly, my chair scraping harshly against the wooden floor. My heart pounded, pulsing an angry rhythm in my chest. The walls of my apartment started to feel tight, like they were slowly inching toward me.

He exhaled slowly, eyes shadowed with a guilt I desperately wished I could ignore. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean for it to happen this way. I was just… lost. I saw you, and I wanted to protect you.”

“Protect me?” My voice rose, edged with disbelief and sarcasm. “By stalking me online, chatting me up anonymously, pretending we’d never interacted before? By manipulating the situation until I landed right on your doorstep needing help?”

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