Page 48 of Vicious Games

“Not yet.” I hustled her across the street and into the nearest café.

Eleanor turned toward the counter, but I pulled her back. Without saying a word, I steered her past the tables to the back hallway that led to the restrooms. I waited until the hallway was clear and then pushed through the back entrance into an alley.

“Where are we going?”

I didn’t respond as I pulled her down the alley and then turned left onto the next street. I glanced behind us several times to make sure they did not follow us. After several more blocks and two more turns, I stopped outside the entrance to a pawnbroker’s shop.

“Oh, my God! You’re running!”

“Keep your voice down.”

“What happened?”

I shook my head. “He made love to me last night.”

She gasped, “The monster!”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t understand. Roman doesn’t make love. He fucks. Something’s up. He’s planning something.”

“You make him sound like some kind of Moriarty mastermind.”

I marveled at her naïve innocence. Was I this innocent once? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

“Just trust me on this. He was acting really weird last night. All loving and caring.”

Last night had been wonderful.

Amazing.

And deeply unsettling.

At first, I thought the drama of my refusing his proposal had miraculously passed and somehow brought us closer, that maybe we had entered a new phase of our relationship with a deeper understanding of one another. Then I realized how preposterous that notion was. Men like Roman didn’t change. In the end, I couldn’t take his caring, gentle hand any longer. I had clasped him to me and said the dirtiest thing I could think of to make him snap out of it and fuck me hard like he usually did. Taboo, fucked-up, dirty sex was our thing. It was us. We weren’t the soft and loving type.

He was planning something. I could feel it in my bones. Something had shifted between us, and not for the better. I needed to leave. Now.

I huddled close to her to block the view of any passersby and dug into my purse. I palmed the diamond necklace I had stashed there and lifted it just high enough for her to see.

Her eyes widened. “Holy shit!”

“He gave this to me ages ago. I don’t think he’ll notice it’s gone.”

She blinked. “The man’s given you enough jewelry that looks like that, that he won’t notice it’s missing?”

I grimaced. “Kind of, sort of… yes.”

She felt my forehead with her hand.

I backed away. “What are you doing?”

“Checking to see if you have a fever; you’re clearly delusional.”

“This is serious!”

She grabbed me by the shoulders. “I am being serious. Aurora, this man is crazy in love with you. He gives you everything you want. You don’t just leave a man like that!”

I shook my head. “He’s incapable of love.”

It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Okay, fine. He’s crazy in lust with you. My argument remains the same. Why on Earth are you running from him?”

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