Page 33 of Dukes of Peril

To my surprise, Lavinia looks up at the waiter and says, “Vodka tonic, please.”

“You don’t usually drink,” I say, once he leaves. Remy’s been trying to pump her full of illicit substances for weeks now, and Nick’s always down to offer her a beer, but I’ve never seen her take either of them up on it. Looking at the menu, I mutter, “Is the date going that badly?”

“God, no.” Her shoulders relax. I’m momentarily fixated on the way her eyelashes look until she ducks her head. “It’s been a long time since I didn’t need to have my wits about me to survive.”

Nodding, I say, “I know the feeling.”

“No, you don’t.” When she glances up, there’s a bitter heat in her eyes. “When you’re a prisoner being shuffled between shady men who could overpower you with a flick of their wrist, you learn that your only weapon is your mind. You have to keep it sharp at all times, because you never know when…” Her words trail off, but I see it. The same numbness I see in her eyes when she’s having a paralysis episode.

My chest feels as heavy as lead.

I drop the menu.

“Because you never know when some guy is going to break into your room and rough you up, right?” I remember that night in the Hideaway’s basement with such vivid clarity that sometimes I have to force myself not to call up the memory of being between her thighs. Only these days, it’s not her thighs I remember. It’s her wet eyelashes as I backhanded her cheek. The scorching fire of hatred in her eyes. The way she looked in that bed, like a wild, caged animal.

She tries to hide her wince, but I still see it. “That, or… something worse.”

Grimly, I say, “I doubt anything was worse than what we did to you.” I freeze, muscles tensing. “Unless someone else–”

“No,” she bursts, eyes wide. “No one ever–” A quick shake of her head. “But there was always the threat.”

An uncomfortable stillness settles over us, but I’m too lost in the twist of my thoughts to pay it much mind. Why didn’t I ever think to ask her that before? “I did it for Nick, you know.” I force myself to look her in the eye. “To become a Duke with him. To be his brother again. To watch his back. I didn’t know–”

I stop, knowing that any way I finish that sentence will sound selfish and callous.

I didn’t know I’d end up falling for you?As if that’d make it any better.

“I didn’t think about you at all, really.” My shrug is heavy, defeated. “You were just a Lucia back then. You were the enemy. You were a job.” Abruptly, I add, “I shouldn’t have hit you like that,” and it strikes me as the most ridiculous fucking thing, because really? Out of everything we did to her that night?

“I know.” She pulls her hands into her lap, suddenly looking very small.

“Christ,” I mutter. And then, “This date really is going that badly.”

She offers a strained smile. “Liquor is coming.”

“It’s just…” When I duck in closer to speak, she reaches out to move the candle, eyes fixed on the flame, even though her head is tilted to hear me. “I was thinking I’d bring you here and tell you I was wrong that night, at the party.” Beneath the table, my knee bumps hers and she flinches. Just barely, but enough to notice. I don't let that stop me. Not yet. “And then that shit happened today with Bruce, and I was going to say… things have changed since I did that to you. For me, they have.” I wait a beat for a reaction, any semblance of understanding. When none comes, her eyes tracking off to the side, I sigh. “And now, I remember just how much I have to make up for, and it’s…” I take a long, bracing inhale. “It’s a lot.”

She fidgets with the candle, mouth twisting unhappily. “Too much work, huh?”

It’s a risk–I’ve stayed inside my lane so far–but I touch her. Resting my palm over her knuckles, I still the absentminded twirl of the candle. “I’d put in the work, Lavinia.” Waiting until she meets my gaze, I add, “Hell, I’d put in twice the work if it meant you’d look at me the way you used to. Remember, that day? When we were on the floor?”

“When you asked me to be your girlfriend?”

“Yes.” I was so high on it that I had to go for another run afterward just to wear my nerves back down. There’s a reason I pull my hand away, though, dragging my fingertips until the connection breaks. “But I don't actually deserve you. Do I?”

Lavinia watches me closely, carefully, and when her lips part on the crest of an inhale, I just know she’s going to agree.

And then the goddamn waiter comes.

We break apart like two criminals being caught in the middle of some heinous act.

Nonplussed, he sets a glass down in front of us both. “Vodka tonic for the lady, and a whiskey for her gentleman.”

Lavinia sighs. “I’m not a Lady. But thank you.”

The whisky is dark amber, absurdly expensive, the kind of thing one might imagine was aged in the bosom of some luxurious villa, covered in silks, distilled with diamonds, tended to faithfully by generations of virgins, and blessed hourly with smudges of sacred ash on its barrel.

I down that shit in one tasteless gulp.

---